Where the wild things are

THURSDAY is my day with Ollie.He's 3 years old and likes wandering off.We usually go bushwalking in the hills of Perth, and he'll be happily doing his own thing, chatting away to himself, and then I will notice that he has quietly disappeared.If I call out to him, he'll amble back holding a bunch of sticks for a 'fire' or more rocks than he can comfortably handle.My own parents worked full time, and so my own 'day with dad' would have been a Sunday afternoon when he would take me fossicking at our town's enviable free-range rubbish tip, my mother having given us a shopping list of desirable items in exchange for a few hours of peace and quiet.Mining towns -with their long hours and short-term contracts -made for a lot of high-value pickings, after all.It also meant, however, that if someone at school specifically mentioned that they had a set day with dad, it was invariably code for their parents being divorced.I have the beauty of being in a different time and in a job that allows me to have these days.I get to be a GP, and I get to have my Thursdays.I also often expand on the fatherhood front, as these bushwalking adventures are usually accompanied by my father-in-law, Wence.I bring Ollie and our recalcitrant labrador; Wence brings his hiking pole and amiable cavoodle.With the colder months comes the quiet emergence of wild orchids, many of which only grow in their own particular geography or flower for a few weeks before completely disappearing until the following year.If you miss that narrow window in time, or don't go when the sun is out, or don't scramble through hills and scratching branches -you won't have the chance to see them bloom.As such, stories from those who have seen them recently or the memory of previous years tell us where to go for that day.There's something about being in the bush watching a grandfather be completely at peace in the presence of his grandson.Even when we can't walk further because Ollie has decided to meticulously turn over rock after rock, delighted when he finds a different kind of ant, there is a great deal of joy in the old man's face.Wence is also a career GP, as was his father.My wife became the apple that rolled away from the tree when she became an emergency physician, but she did have the wherewithal to at least marry into the GP world.Wence was the youngest in his medical school and then was working full time as a GP from the age of 24 years.He was on call day