Where did she go?

Investigative reporters have been forced to go on a search around Melbourne for that ever elusive blogger known simply as ‘Daniela’, after questions concerning her whereabouts grew to an all-time high last week. (Well, to some she’s ‘Daniela’. To others, she’s ‘the strange Aussie one with a fascination for cuckoo clocks’.) We pocketed the following clues about her recent habits. 

First stop, her favourite café.

‘Oh!’ the owner said. ‘I know who you mean! The one who likes her cappuccino skinny with no sugar or chocolate. Of course I’ve seen her!’

‘Yes, but recently?’

‘Yes, she’s in here almost every morning at that table. That one there, in the darkest corner. As far back as possible. She sits there with her laptop and doesn’t stop typing for at least an hour!’

Her voice lowers, excitedly.

‘I think she’s writing a novel. Do you think I’ll be in it?’

We’re doubtful. Hope she settles for a blog appearance.

Next stop, her piano teacher, who looks at us suspiciously.

‘Yes of course I still see her … every Tuesday night.’

Strange. Only Tuesday evenings. Where could she be every other evening?

‘Practising the third movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, most likely,’ she reassured us confidently. ‘That’s going to keep her occupied every night for a long time.’

With both her evening and early morning activity solved, we set about trying to guess where else her time was going. Got to be mapping sessions, right?

So the next stop was the Eye and Ear Hospital.

'Yes, she had her three-month evaluation last week!' said the audiologist happily. 'She scored in the 90s on almost all those tests for both ears! Pretty good given one was totally deaf and the other profoundly deaf … and a very far cry from her pre-surgery scores of 6% and all the rest. I’m sure she’d tell you the scores herself if she could just remember them! I bet she’ll report the proper numbers once she gets a copy of this letter I’m sending out.’

Ah. But was she going to see her again soon?

‘Not for another three months,’ she said chirpily. ‘If you’re looking for her, maybe try the Cochlear research lab down the road.’

Were we getting closer?

Unfortunately, the staff at Cochlear's research and development facility would not confirm any sightings of Daniela.

'She may or may not be helping us. It's confidential.'

But she'd been there?

'She may or may not have been here. It's confidential.'

But you know who she is?

'We may or may not know who she is. It's confidential. Maybe our PR department can help you – try calling the head office.'

Aha! The PR department did indeed confirm a consultant had interviewed Daniela a week or two earlier.

'Yes, she has submitted a case study which we may or may not use during Hearing Awareness Week in August. It's confidential. But you know, she mentioned something about the Bionic Ear Institute – why don't you try them?'

A quick check of the guestbook at the BEI confirms several sign-ins by Daniela herself. Yes, the messy calligraphic scrawl of one who is from a generation that learnt how to type first, write second. Was she there at that moment?

No. But staff did confirm that Daniela was on the verge of becoming a volunteer ambassador, pending paperwork.

'She's often here. She helped us out with some sound booth testing for the music and pitch project a couple of weeks ago. Oh and she was here last week for the interview with The Age! She'll be here again next week for the Triple J interview. And then back again for further music research a couple of weeks after that. Maybe even in between. Do we know where she is now? No. Maybe she’s writing about us?'

Perhaps. ;-)

Maybe we weren’t approaching this the right way. What about her hairdresser?

‘Daniela hasn’t been here in months!’ she exclaimed. ‘Not since before her surgery. I think she thinks I'm what you'd call “scissor-friendly”, and she just won’t let those surgical wounds anywhere near me! Sorry. Can’t help you.’

We step out of the way of her bawling six-year-old client who went from mushroom to mohawk in the time it took us to ask her one question, and desperately think of another place to try.

Well there are all the other days of the week left. So she’d have to be at the office, right?

‘Well she did miss some time last week,' said a colleague. 'Some sort of flu-type thing … oh and she said something about a doctor’s appointment one afternoon …?’

But her local GP just frowned at us and said she was not going to share any information about her patient and could we please bugger off and let her deal with the hypochondriac in Room 2?

Last stop. Her husband. Surely this was it!

We stopped him as he was rushing to his car. Could he quickly tell us about her mysterious doctor’s appointment at least?

He rolled his eyes and smirked.

'She finally got the Pneumovax vaccine … only four months after her surgery. Don’t ask. No seriously, don’t ask her. Not unless you want to hear a long-winded rant about how the pain in her arm is worse than the pain from her surgery. I mean, they drilled through her head for goodness* sake. Is she serious? A little arm pain? And they say men whine too much.'

‘Wait … don’t rush off yet! Give us some scoop ….’

We drop our voices to a hush.

‘Is it true she’s just a teensy tinsy bit fed up with that cuckoo clock?’

He grins.

‘Oh if you could just see that fake smile plastered to her face every time the clock goes off and she’s missed the dialogue off her favourite TV show because she can’t hear anything but the cuckoo.’ He laughs the raucous laugh of one who is having the last laugh, and gets into his car before we can ask anything else.

But that’s OK. We did it. We may not have worked out where she was, but we certainly knew what she was doing.

Conclusion?

We are pretty sure Daniela is busily trying to figure out how to cram more hours into the day. (Who needs sleep?)

But wherever she is, she is absolutely fine. And truly grateful for everyone’s concern.

* husband’s expletive removed