The world of TAB

Things are not going well in the world of TAB. He got sacked today as the company he only started working for at the beginning of the month have been 'restructuring' and who best to get rid of but the new guy still on probation. All in all TAB is not a happy bunny. The army also decided that he couldn't be part of the reserve force because they judged him by his old eyesight test score things which, since he's had laser surgery, don't really mean much anymore. To make things even stupider, the army actually give FREE laser eye surgery to all their recruits that need it! So, suffice it to say, my other half is feeling quite low at the moment and, to be honest I don't blame him. In brief (because I know you've all had enough of pumpkins, lord knows I have!) we picked 10 trailers today, 50 tonnes of the damn stuff but we should be finished by tomorrow at which point I'll need to find a new job as he doesn't want anyone who can't work the weekend to pick the watermelon crop (I've just started this whole physical work thing, I need a break of some sorts!) and, quite frankly, picking is not my thing given I fell over once today and very nearly several other times, nearly fainted from the heat and bending over and standing up so often and general crap. You know it's bad when you get tunnel vision. No new interesting facts about pumpkins today. They are quite boring, really.

Yet more pumpkins

A trailer holds 5 tonnes of pumpkins. In the crew there are 5 people picking from the ground and putting the pumpkins on a conveyor belt. On the trailer are 2 people packing what 5 people pick. So, each person on the ground picks on average 1 tonne per trailer. And the people packing handle 2.5 tonnes per trailer each. I today did 4 turns packing and 3 picking. On average, 13 tonnes of pumpkins passed through my hands today. Is it any wonder that I hurt? Having said that, I was dying and could not have picked up another pumpkin yesterday and we didn't quite manage 5 trailers. Today we did 7 so I must be improving! I'm hungry but too tired to cook. Hmmm.

More pumpkins

My god do I hurt. Muscles that didn't even know that THEY existed let alone me are complaining this evening. I've bruised my ankle something chronic and my legs are scratched. However, I do feel oddly satisfied. We managed to pick a number of tonnes of pumpkins (I'm too scared to try and work it out as I know it's quite large and I know how much of the field is left to pick, eek) and despite the pain the knowledge of a job well done is, well, nice. I don't advise anyone out there however to use an abrasive dishcloth to get the mud stuck on with pumpkin sap off hands/legs, especially when underneath the mud are lots and lots of mozzie bites. Now that was NOT satisfying. It's 8pm and I really really need to go to sleep. Up again at 5am, that is, if my muscles don't rebel completely.

Pumpkins

I wrote a little prematurely this morning, I've had an afternoon's worth of work clearing a path down a pumpkin field for the tractor to go down tomorrow when we will be chucking said pumpkins (and others) onto a trailor. Fun fun fun. I really need to contact the Department of Immigration and see what they have to say as what consitutes 3 months. Is it 90 days of work? or 12 weeks worth? or 3 calendar months (though how that would work I have no idea) and if I do only a couple of days work a week does that count as a week? You see, I'm hoping that it's the 12 weeks thing and even if I only work a day of one week that would count because it would mean I could get finished by Christmas rather than have to spend 2 weeks after it working. Oh, my lesson learnt for today? Pumpkin stems have tiny little sharp hairs all along them. When picking, wear gloves.

Unemployed and confused

I really should have given into temptation and curled up under TAB's doona (sorry, duvet) and never left Melbourne. I don't have a job, the place we were supposed to be working at thought that the other English girl who came through the agency and I were men so the jobs they have aren't suitable for us. Great. Having cheered up a bit in Cairns I'm back to being constantly on the verge of tears. I hate this, I hate this place, I don't want to go and work in the already almost unbearable heat (and it's only 9.30am...). I'm being miserable I know but it's difficult when all my concentration is focused on not bursting into tears because that would just be embarressing. I talked to TAB yesterday. He was really tired but was still going to go to the pub with Zoe when she rang. Not back 24 hours and already out with her. That of course made me feel better. He's irritated with me at the moment, he says that I'm too clingy which, I must candidly admit, I am. I'm alone, I'm miserable, I itch, I don't have a job, I miss him so much it hurts and he's out with another girl of course I'm bloody clingy!!! I had a bit of a rant at him about it, I don't think he realises how hard this is and his claims that it's his life that's difficult and how can I expect him to wait for me when he's not certain I'm coming back. I've tried to say that I need his support in order to get through this and come back to him but he doesn't get it. Because he can't make Sydney I won't see him until Christmas now which makes things even worse. To be honest, as time goes by, I think it less and less likely that he'll be waiting for me when I get back which makes it more and more difficult to actually carry on. I'll try and be less clingy and send less messages but I feel like I'm drowning and he's the liferaft that is gradually floating further and further out of reach.

Heat

I'm in Cardwell, thankfully I have a bed for tonight because they've overbooked but they don't have a job for me tomorrow which I was told I would have. It shouldn't be more than a day or 2 though without work so we shall see. TAB can't make it to Sydney next month before I go to Bali so am feeling a bit stressed at the moment as well. He said he's too busy which is fair enough but I was kind of counting on seeing him then as a sort of pick me up to keep me going. Would it seriously hurt him to tell me when he misses me rather than just telling me when he's irritated because I've texted him when he's busy? Apparently so. On a completely different note had a really scary experience last night when I realised that a lad I was talking to was the spitting image of an old friend of mine, Tristan. Even down to mannerisms. I had to take a photo of him to prove to people that he does look like him and he posed EXACTLY like Tris would have done. Freaked out does not even begin to cover it. God it's hot here, and Cardwell is even nearer the sea than I was at Cairns so sandflies ahoy I think.

Rainforests

Rainforests are full of mozzies. 'Nuff said.

Jobs

Yet again in an effort not to spend money I am hiding at the internet cafe again today trying to work out how to make this site look better. I've actually had a really nice couple of days, wandering round Cairns and resisting the temptation to buy stuff and gazing in longing at the yaughts in the harbour. My partners in crime for these activities have been Jan and Susan, two German backpackers, they've been great :) We're having another bbq tonight (more shrimps!) as it's Jan's last night before he moves on so I expect to be slightly the worse for wear tomorrow! I finally heard from my agency! They think I have a job but just have to wait for the Department of Immigration to confirm my visa and tax details, they were supposed to ring me yesterday but as yet havn't so I'll give them until mid-afternoon and then call to see what on earth is going on as I'll have to move on Saturday if I do start on Monday and I would quite like to know if I've got somewhere to live when I get there... :/ I'm going to go to Kuranda 'the village in the rainforest' tomorrow, you can get the skyrail (a cable car) up over the roof of the rainforest and the scenic train on the way back which should be nice. My friend from NZ is also arriving in Cairns tomorrow so it will be nice to see her again. Anyway, food is calling, hope you're all having a nice day :)

Smug marrieds and singletons

Due to a lack of available dorm space last night I had to have a double room. It was heaven! My own room, my own huge bed and no one else there, luxury! Anyway, I retired early (I paid for the room, I was going to make the most of it!) and spent a nice evening with a couple of glasses of wine, my book and talking to my friend Libby back home. It was whilst talking to her that we realised that, having been a singleton for most of my life apart from the odd affair here and there, I am very quickly becoming that most hated of things, a smug married. I may moan about TAB quite a bit and we've had our problems but the fact remains that when I'm not with him I'm almost always thinking of him. Getting a phone call or a message from him inevitably brings a stupid grin to my face and when we were together in the flat I was ridiculously content when cooking for us or even when doing the washing up (TAB once commented that I should go on Australian Idol but I'd have to make sure I had a sink full of washing up in front of me when I did it). It was when relating the incident of the 20c ring that TAB won't throw away because it belongs to me when she turned round and said 'He's totally gone on you...and you love it don't you?'. Far from fighting the fall into smug marriedom every step of the way, I have given into it with barely a struggle, weloming it with open arms and generally having a fantastic time being as domesticated as I can be. In short, yes, I love it :D

Loss

I have, as you may, or may not, have noticed, been posting quite a lot recently and have even managed to figure out how to alter headings and stuff on this blog. This is for the ultimately simple reason that in a town geared towards tourism, diving and snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef and other such expensive activities, spending $1 an hour on the internet is the best time consuming cheap activity that I can think of (and before you even think 'Why doesn't she go sunbathing' I'll tell you that I don't because it's a) insufferably hot out there, b) very very sunny with very very little ozone layer and c) I didn't have the good fortune like my Big Sister to inherit skin that tans oooh no, I go red. Then white again. So, sunbathing, or sunbaking as they call it out here is definately out). Anyway, as per usual, I've used my Big Sister's blog as a starting point and gone on to read the blogs she recommends because in these, as in most things, my sister has impecably good taste. Today however I have also been reading her past posts and in a moment of slight depression read her entry for the 11th May 2005. All this made me recall a conversation with TAB my last night in Melbourne. We were a bit tipsy having spent the afternoon drinking beer and then moving on to a rather nice (his third best) bottle of red wine from his laid down collection of expensive wines. Unfortunately the wine was from 1999 and, when already tipsy and depressed from the fact I had to leave the next day, I commented that that was not a good year as it was then that my dad died. This did not impress TAB. He told me in no uncertain terms that I had to stop comparing everything that happens to me to this most unfortunate event in my life. He understood that it was terrible and everything but I had to stop referring to it all the time, it wasn't good for me. In my defence, firstly I'm a lot better than I used to be. I can actually mention my father without feeling the need to burst into tears. I'm getting to grips with the fact that he's not coming back and I can dwell on the happier memories of my childhood and him. Secondly I don't mention him THAT much, or at least, his death, I can't, it still really hurts but recently things have brought it to the front of my mind again. Fathers day for one, the fact that a few of my friends at Skydive Nagambie had thought that my friend John was my father when we first started skydiving and the fact that he has since died. Third and finally, I was drunk. I can understand why he may get a little bit annoyed at me being maudlin, I did bring down the afternoon a little and he has never lost someone that close. Until you've been through it yourself, you can never understand the impact something like that will have. I can see his point though, I must try and remember all the good things about my father without it inevitably coming to the point that it does, a vision of him lying there in that bloody awful duck egg blue satin covering. Good god but he would have hated that damn cloth. So, I think I'm going to go and lounge by the pool at Gecko's and think happy thoughts of a time gone by and hopeful thoughts of the future; of my little niece or nephew soon to come; of, in the scheme of things, how lucky I've been to have the presence and support of my family even when I do something as damn silly as throw myself out of perfectly good planes, and the certain knowledge that as long as my brother, my sister and I follow our dreams our mum is proud of us, as dad would have been.

Hooray for tea tree oil!

I wrote a post yesterday and blogger insisted that it didn't publish it and then I lost it. I swear it wasn't on there today and when I wrote a shortened version on this post, I look and there it is! So I've taken it out again, cos my life's not so interesting that you want to read about it twice! Anyway, I've come late to a particular book and I know others rave about it but I havn't been so engrossed since I read 'The Time Traveller's Wife' and I urge everyone to go out and read 'The Lovely Bones' because it's a fantastic story, terribly tragic (it's narrated from heaven by a murdered girl) and by god did I weep but it's an incredibly good read. I'm also in love with tea tree oil. It's my new best friend. I attempted to become a true blue aussie last night as a few friends and I threw some prawns on a barbie down at the Esplanade whilst drinking beer. Unfortunately the sandflies decided to drink me, despite the large quantities of insect repellant I had sprayed on. I woke up this morning and scratched my arm without thinking, looked down and thought 'bugger'. Bites all up my forearms, and as I'd just scratched them, they were starting to all come out with a vengence. The hairdresser who cut my hair the other day had suggested lavender oil or tea tree oil instead of synthetic gels or creams and in desperation I had gone out and got some. Five minutes after application, not only did I smell lovely and cleared my sinuses quite effectively but there is not a single sign of bites on my arms. Not one. They don't even itch anymore. Given my usual reaction to sandfly bites (swell up, itch a lot, turn a nasty shade of red that makes people think I've got a horrible disease) this is incredible! I'm never going anywhere without it again!

Fruit picking it is then

Right, one argument on msn, two teary phone calls to Mama and one phone call to TAB later, we are, sort of, sorted. He loves me, he misses me, he wants me to be there. He's not going to find anyone else, he doesn't want to find anyone else but he doesn't want a long distance thing because he can't bring himself to hope that I'm coming back. He doesn't fancy Z (our friend from the pub) and there's nothing going on and won't be in the future, he just wants me. I told him I had 2 choices. Either I can - 1. come home now, forget the fruit picking and, apart from the 2 weeks in Bali with Mama he can have me until March and then we'll just have to see what the situation is then. Or 2. try the fruit picking, fight for us and for more time together, we'll be apart for a couple of months but together for more time in the long run. We've not been together long enough to get a de facto visa. I actually discussed this with Mama first and told him option 1 was what was going to happen. He was horrified at the thought that I'd have to leave in March and thought that fruit picking was the best way. So I told him not to make it so damn difficult for me to stay up here then. He's being so daft at the minute it's untrue, he doesn't want a long distance relationship so has been distancing himself from me as much as he can but he won't throw out a plastic lovehearts ring from a vending machine worth 20c because it's mine and he doesn't want to throw anything of mine out. I told him this morning that I'm staying. I'm going to give the fruit picking the best shot I can and I'm doing it for us. Keep your fingers crossed for me, I think I'm going to need all the luck I can get.

Uh-oh

I think I've done it again. After narrowly avoiding an argument on MSN this morning with TAB regarding whether he misses me or not, I composed a long email telling him everything I feel. I will not be surprised if he runs away screaming after that. But I in it promised that I would keep to an earlier promise and I'm not contacting him again. If he wants to talk to me then he has to do it. He knows how I feel. I'm letting him go. He said, not that long ago, that he doesn't believe that I'm coming back. He thinks I mean to but thinks the situation will change and that if he meets someone else then he meets someone else, slim as the chances of that are. I told him fair enough, but if he thinks there is a possibility of meeting someone else (the name of a certain girl who has been hanging round him constantly since I left is remaining unmentioned...) then what does he really think of me? I'm not going to be gone for that long, in the grand scheme of things. I promised that I would prove him wrong, that I would turn up on his doorstep and I still intend to, but only if he isn't with anyone else, I don't think I could cope if that happened. Aargh! How do I manage to get myself into these sorts of situations? At least it's all going to make money when they release the soap opera version of my life...

Fruit picking

Someone nearly gave me a heart attack earlier, they said that in order to get my visa extention I needed to do 3 months CONTINUOUS fruit picking. Screw that for a lark! Luckily they were wrong and it's not specified on the website as to how long you take to get the 3 months together. Phew!

*sigh* (again)

My message to TAB - 'It was nice to talk to you yesterday' His response - 'Thank you'

When in doubt

When in doubt, go to the cinema. I think I'm allergic to the heat. Everytime I tried to move in the heat yesterday I came out in red blotches. Very attractive. I feel slightly better today but then I havn't stepped outside the hostel yet... In an effort to find somewhere very airconditioned that I could sit for the hottest part of the day yesterday without being a pub as I'd just get disgustingly drunk, I wound up at the cinema watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Apart from the fact that they've americanised it (they keep calling chocolate 'candy' and trousers 'pants') and little things like that, I quite liked it. I don't think it will be a film I'd like to watch again too much (not like Wallace and Gromit 'the curse of the were-rabbit, sheer genius once again and also with Helena Bonham Carter) but it was a pleasant (and very cool) way to pass the afternoon. I stopped being childish yesterday and asked TAB to call me. He's in Warnambool at the moment, work sent him there. He said that he'd been thinking about next week and I was right, much as he didn't want to admit it. He wouldn't have much time at all during the day so I'd only see him at night and I'd be complaining that I could work and he'd be too drunk to remember me being there anyway (this is probably true, his memory is shockingly bad). We had a really nice conversation though and he started sending me messages a little later saying that there was no point in being in a french restaurant with wine by yourself, there was no romance there so why was I 100s of km's away?. I will find work, I will manage 3 months of hard slog in the heat and humidity (may any god who's listening take pity on me and arrange for it to be unseasonably cool) without collapsing and I will stay here for longer. I will.

What to do...

It's day 2 in Cairns and I'm at a complete loss as to what to do. I can't really go near the seafront as I'll get eaten alive by sandflies (my ankles are in agony anyway from yesterday afternoons dash to be the first to suck my blood, the antihistamines havn't kicked in yet) and it's a bit too hot to be lounging by the pool. I've got to ring those harvest employment guys but apart from that am free as a bird. Am resisting the temptation to txt or email TAB as I don't think he's really happy with me for not coming to the Gold Coast and I know constant txts irritate him (and bankrupt me). All I'd like is a message or a phone call telling me he misses me or something, that's not too much is it? Just for once I'd like to be told that he loves me when he's not drunk. I'm not going to pressure him into it, I'm just going to sit here and wait to see if he even notices that he's not talked to me today. He may not. In fact, being male, he probably won't. I'm being daft and I know it but I can't help myself. I got irrationally jealous the other day when he told me that our friend is officially gorgeous and had been round his place until 3am and then came round for breakfast. I didn't tell him that of course, I was all cool, calm and collected (it's very easy to do by msn messenger). He did feel the need to inform me randomly in the middle of the conversation that he didn't sleep with her. Nice to know. Aargh! I just want to go running down to the Gold Coast to spend the week with him but I know I can't. I know I won't let go again if I do that and that would be disastrous for all concerned given that if that happened, a few months later I'd be chucked out of the country. Oops, didn't mean to go on so much. Cairns is lovely, but very humid. I met some nice guys last night and stayed up chatting with them until 3am. They've gone skydiving today, the tandems here land on the beach, nice! I'm going to go and explore somemore, maybe find something to do. That doesn't involve lots of money. Or snorkelling. Or diving (actually quite difficult round here given how close we are to the Great Barrier Reef). Hmmm...

Another day, another time zone

Well, technically I'm back in the same time zone as I was in Melbourne but it sounded cool... I'm here in Cairns and yup, it's definately the tropics. You can tell by the way sweat starts to pour off you the moment you step out of the plane, and it's only spring... I've found a website that I hope will help me find a job for the next 4 weeks somewhere in North Queensland which will be good (and will mean only 8 weeks of hard toil left to do after that!) This means unfortunately that I simply can't meet TAB in the Gold Coast, it's the wrong end of the state and I can't afford to fly there nor can I afford to not work on extending my visa during that time. I'll never get a job if I do go and I seriously need to work. I've just told him this and am awaiting his reply which I think will not make me feel any better about this. I want to see him just as much as he wants me there but I have to work or I can't stay. Grr Right, am going to go and explore Cairns (there's not that much of it though!) it's getting cooler now it's towards the evening but it's quite humid out there so had better take some water with me or I'll expire pretty quickly! Oh, I'm doing quite well though, I've been in Cairns for all of 2 hours and I think I've already been bitten. Twice. Yay.

Bikers

There are thousands of them! There's a Harley Davidson rally on here and there are nearly 2000 bikers here with more arriving every minute, the resort is echoing to the sound of engines revving, it's music to the ears! One nice chap even let me sit on his bike while he took a photo of me :) Anyway, nearly time to go to Cairns. TAB's trying to persuade me to go and see him on the Gold Coast next week, it's proving really difficult to say no! I told him that no, I don't have to be working, but if I don't work now I'll have to be away from him for longer in the long run. He says that he just wants to see me. He knows how to make things difficult!

The Ashes

WE WON THE CRICKET!! *Celebrates, but quietly so as not to get beaten up by Aussies...*

Amazing

Last night I watched the sunset on Ularu. It was amazing but very surreal. It was almost as if the rock was painted onto the sky, it had a slightly unreal quality about it. When the sun hit the desert it glowed with life, it was like looking at a movie scene with a painted backdrop, if that makes any sense. There were about 10 of us sitting up at the lookout behind the resort and the atmosphere was incredible, it was like being in a cathedral, everyone was talking in hushed tones and rarely at that, we just sat, and watched. I'm just lounging around the resort today, you have to pay for a pass into the National Park and more tours once you get there. Also it is warmer here than it was in Melbourne so going for a walk of a few k's probably isn't a good idea right now. Besides, am still sulking ;) It's a pity really because there are some cave paintings and things you can see on the walks round the base. It amazes me actually, there are several tours which take you to climb the rock which is a sacred site for the Aborigines of the area. They don't want you to climb it and ask you not to yet people blatantly do and with no regard or respect for the feelings of the Aborigines. It's like running shouting and screaming into Westminster Cathedral and climbing up and over everything with muddy shoes on. You wouldn't do it there so why do it here?

:(

Well, I didn't hide under the duvet, I'm here in Yulara, 20km from Ularu and am utterly miserable :( Leaving at the airport was incredibly difficult, I almost didn't make it as I didn't realise that if you have baggage on domestic flights you have to be there half an hour before hand, I got there 20 minutes before the flight but thankfully they got my backpack on and rushed me through to the gate where letting go of TAB was not an experience I want to repeat again in a hurry. I think I may go and lounge by the pool with a drink in order to cheer me up...

Sod the world

Urgh. I rue the day that TAB and I discovered that we like port. Hungover doesn't even begin to describe it. I'm supposed to be packing. TAB's at a meeting for another 20 minutes then he's dashing back here to take me to the airport, isn't he a darling? I don't want to pack though. I've changed my mind since the last blog, sod the world, I want to stay here! I want to hide from the nasty immigration people under the duvet until they give up and let me stay anyway. TAB last night realised that the 3 months fruit picking I have to do doesn't include my trip to Bali to see mum so I'll be gone for at least 4 months which upset him a little. I told him that I could, if he wanted, cancel my flight and stay here until March at which point I would have to leave the country permanently. I then had to spend a rather upsetting 15 minutes explaining why this was not going to happen and that the best plan is the one I'm currently working on. I wish it could though, I want to hide my backpack and forget that I'm not an Aussie and just stay here. The temptation is overwhelming. I really had better check I've got everything :(

Confused

It's a lovely and warm (if just a teeny bit windy) day here in Melbourne. Its on days like this when I'm completely torn. I have to leave on Monday to go fruit picking. It's a bit ironic really, in order to stay here, I have to leave. Ah well! The problem lies in that I was wondering along today in my own little world as I am wont to do when I realised that I DO want to move on, the same urge that struck me years ago when I first started looking at travelling suddenly hit me. I WANT to go and see new places, I want to visit Cairns, I want to see Bali and Singapore. It's going to be difficult leaving my friends behind, especially those I've made at Nagambie but it's do-able. What I REALLY don't want to do is leave TAB behind. Life would be perfect if he could come too. I know that I've settled here quite a bit (am even turning into a bit of a domestic goddess, the laundry is on whilst I'm typing this and I've tidied the flat a couple of times this week as well) and part of me would be very happy to see this continue, to settle down, etc but the rest of me is dragging me off my feet and telling me to get out there and see the world before doing so. All of me is in agreement however that whatever I do, I would quite like TAB to do it with me. This unfortunately, is not going to happen. He can't leave his job, and to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure he wants to see the world (apart from 14,000ft and falling that is) and that's his choice. I can't ask him to come with me and I'm not going to ask him to wait for me either. He's been let down before and although I'm going to do my damndest to come back, things may change, things that I can't foresee which will throw everything into disarray. So, come Monday, I'm going to be excited and looking ahead as I get on the plane but a very large part of me will be looking back over my shoulder desperate to stay.