A world full of sky

I was just thinking about the title of my blog and why I chose it and thought that I'd better maybe explain a couple of things. Firstly, I was hugely into skydiving at the time - still would be if only I can afford it but it's a hobby that has had to go on hold for the next decade or so while I pay off my debts to my mother (an society of course). When you're skydiving the sky is your playground, you have up to a minute of freefall, high speed fun and games*, and then several minutes of playing around with your parachute unless you're in a hurry to get to the ground. From 14,000ft to about 50oft the ground is largely inconsequential. It's there, and you're heading for a specific bit of it but what you notice most is the huge amount of sky that there is around you, the world is full of it. The feeling is amazing and as soon as I can afford to actually jump again trust me, I will be there, in that plane, waiting to take that leap into the wild blue yonder. Secondly I'm in Australia. The sky here is utterly amazing and I am constantly transfixed by the range of colours and simple amount of sky that they have here. In Britain there just isn't so much of it as there is here. I have seen more brilliant sunsets/sunrises in the last 18 months than in my entire life previously. On a clear day (and trust me, they have lots of them in this part of the world) the sky can be anything from a near baby blue to a hard steely colour and I'm utterly captivated by the intensity of it all. And, cloudy or clear, there will be something to just sit and watch. I'm not really very good at putting into words quite how wonderful the sky is here so you'll just have to trust me when I say that it is. One thing I do know for certain, this country has an entire world full of sky, all to itself, and a more beautiful sight you would be hardpressed to find anywhere else. *the only advice I have here is don't try and kiss someone when falling at terminal velocity, not unless you liked chipped teeth one hell of a lot

The 'Message'

What is it that makes me, at some point, txt/email a ridiculously soppy message to the object of my affection? Thankfully (and, knowing me, actually rather incredibly) I managed to refrain from sending 'the Message' to the Toy Boy telling him that I miss him. Even though I do. I do not know what it is that makes me do this. I did it with TAB, telling him that I loved him, I've done it in the past to other people. Sometimes I just need to say things to people that I can't always say face to face for various reasons which usually results in them running off completely scared* although I think most of the time they were poised to flee anyway... Anyway 'the Message' is relationship suicide, I know this, I just rarely have the ability not to send it. Does anyone else have this problem? *and they are completely and utterly justified in this reaction, I've been told several times that I'm just a very scary person

Bloody backpackers

Thieving bastards the lot of them (well, the lot that I don't like and not me, because I'm not like that). My olive oil, bread, knife and - worst of all - my WINE have all gone missing in the last few days. Now, it's not really been a problem before, maybe the odd bit of cutlery would go missing (usually taken by people leaving who wanted their bond back) but this is beyond a joke. So much food and alcohol (not only my wine but a friend's beer, all 15 cans of it) has been taken recently. Loads of people have left and we've got new people in and some one, some SCUM, can't be trusted. It really gets me because we're all in the same boat, we're all here to work to earn money to travel a bit more, not to support thieving gits who can't be arsed to go to the shop down the road. Bastards.

A little bit stupid

It's actually quite unusual for me to be as daft as I was yesterday. I'm sunburnt. It's actually quite painful. No, I wasn't at work (though that is resulting in the interesting fact that my knees and all the bare skin above said joints is getting a tan whilst my shins remain pale and my feet are bright white up to the top of my socks). I wasn't at the beach. I wasn't even attempting to get a suntan by lying out in the yard trying to bake myself as so many people seem to like doing. No. I was playing cards whilst attempting to keep in the shade, an exercise which, after half an hour, it became rather apparent hadn't worked. My shoulders are a whole world of pain and rather an unbecoming shade of red with white (for which read 'incandescent and blinding') bra strap marks. Very sexy I can assure you.

Luxuries

As I may have hinted in my previous post, the weather here at the moment is attrocious. I've spent this afternoon updating things on the blog and emailing people and generally faffing around on the internet. And when I wasn't doing that I was wandering aimlessly around the hostel at a complete loose end. In my faffing around and aimless wandering I found myself wondering what I would do if I was at home and I realised that what I wanted, what I truly, utterly wanted, was to lie in complete and utter bliss in a big, hot bath. The kind where you take a good book and a glass - sorry, bottle - of wine and candles and maybe some nice classical music and use up a good dose of your favourite bubble bath and hide from the world for a couple of hours, occasionally topping up the bath with more hot water. Unfortunately given that this seems to be a country of showers* this is not going to happen. The nearest place I know that I could definitely have a private bath is in Victoria. Still, a girl's allowed to dream so I'm going to go back to wandering around aimlessly and dreaming of long, hot baths. Mmmmm.... *and quite frankly I wouldn't take a bath in a hostel anyway, the showers are bad enough, who knows what people would get up to in the bath. Shudder.

I'm singing in the rain...

Come along, join in, you all know the words. I'm siiiinging in the rain, just siiinging in the rain. What a glorious feeeeling I'm haaapy again... Well, actually, I was cold and wet and huddled in the middle of a field full of chilli plants in a bright yellow plastic poncho. Fashion icon I am not. I wish I had a picture of a sodden, yellow me just so I could refuse to show it to all of you on the grounds that you'd never let me forget it. I am, however, happy to have done at least some work in the last couple of days, a lot of people at the hostel have either been sent home early or just not gone to work at all because of the rain (amazingly enough for the tropics, it's actually almost British rain - the type that gets you soaking and freezing really quickly without actually looking like it's raining that hard or being that cold outside) in the last couple of days. In other news, I love this new template, don't you just love this new template? Once again it's thanks to Welshy for her wonderful work... :D

BLOGOVER IN PROGRESS

Watch this space. (And do try not to panic too much whilst you're watching...) Lots of love Welshy xx

Sun tan

I made an interesting discovery today. Did you know (and I'll bet that you didn't) that if you spend all morning engaged in an activity that involved bending over and showing your back to the sun a lot - say, chilli picking, for example - that, despite the fact that you diligently wear a long sleeved shirt with a collar and a hat and put suncream on all those exposed areas that you can't cover up, you can still get a tan*? No, neither did I. I especially wasn't expecting the tan to be on my back. The area diligently covered by said shirt. I may need a new, slightly thicker one. My only wish the sun had ignored my bra too, then it wouldn't look quite so damn daft. *And for those of you who know me and my skin colour i.e. white, it is actually a tan. Not burn or anything but proper colour. I was impressed.

Sleep oh lovely sleep

I've had 2 days of not having to get up at 5am and it's been bliss. I now feel human and nice and concentrating is no longer all that difficult. It's back to work tomorrow but it makes it all the better knowing that at the end of the week, I have yet another day where I don't have to get up. This alone is enough to make me smile. Lots.

New look

Much as I would love to take credit for the lovely new look that my blog has taken on I really can't. As I have posted before, I really don't have the know-how, the time, or the money to sit for hours experimenting with changing templates beyond adding things to the sidebar (and I don't even know how to make that change sides). Back in July last time I moaned about this I did have lots of very helpful suggestions from people for which I was very grateful but the changes I tried to make went really horribly wrong leading me to believe that it was probably me being an idiot that was the problem. Anyway, in complete desperation I threw myself on the lovely Welshy's kindness and gave her my password and username and the licence to do anything she wanted and you must admit, she's come up trumps. I love it! It's much better than the black, and I love the photos at the top and the clock :) Thank you Welshy, whatever would I do without you?

Strange calls

It's smoko at my old shed and the ringing of a phone breaks through the companiable chat going on. RINGGGG RINGGGG Sighing I pick up my phone and look to see who's calling. I don't recognise the number. 'Hello?' 'Hello, it's me' Ah, helpful. 'I'm sorry, I don't know who this is' 'It's me. You rang me last night' 'I didn't ring anyone last night' 'You rang me at 11.30pm. Your number came up on my phone' I'm sorry, but given how exhausted I've been lately, this was an unlikely scenario. 'I was fast asleep at 11.30pm, not only that but my phone was off because it was charging and I didn't want it ringing in the middle of the night when I couldn't reach it' 'You rang me' 'No, I didn't' (repeat ad nauseum) 'I want to know why you rang me' 'I didn't and I still don't know who you are' Silence. They've hung up. Some people are just strange. And I still don't know who it was. By the way, what's with the lack of comments lately? I know my life isn't that exciting but surely there must be someone out there?

Chilli peppers (of the red hot variety of course)

No, I havn't suddenly rocketed to stardom and am mingling with the Red Hot Chillis unfortunately (though that would be quite nice for a little while, don't you think), I have new job. I am now a chilli picker. It's actually not that bad, we only work until 12.30pm because it gets too hot otherwise and when I get a little better at picking I should earn $100 a day, so I get $600 a week and I get afternoons and Sundays off - bargain! One thing though, did you know that the Redback spider likes to lay its eggs among the shady leaves of the chilli plant? Did you? Did you really? Neither did I until I picked up a chilli this morning and saw all these little ball bearing things laid in rows on it and a few started to move because I'd knocked them. On closer inspection (though not too close, I'm not that stupid) I could see the little red backs on the tiny wee things. I've never thrown anything away so hard. Or the other 3 I found during the morning.

Footloose and fancy free

I did it. I finally spat the dummy. I had another huge row with my forklift driver who I've given up trying to please because everything I did he found something new to complain about. Anyway, after he stormed off home at lunchtime leaving me huddled in a corner in tears with my boss shouting at me and telling me to be professional I had a serious think about the job. In a professional businesslike manner, of course. So, I'm not getting any more money for a whole heap more shit. I'm spending $50 a week nearly of my own money on my phone. I have a forklift driver who scares the life out of me, especially with stories of how he's strangled people nearly to death and when he throws bins around etc. I have a boss who doesn't communicate. At all. Until he's really ready to fire you then you get a bollocking but still no real explanation. Anyway, I told all of this to my supervisor who did say I could stay on at the shed and just do something else but I said that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to stay there as I thought the situation had gone too far to just let me fade into the background and I can't go to the other shed because I refuse to work with the 'friend' who bitched about me as she would make my life intolerable again. She was lovely and understanding and a bit disappointed I think but she understood my reasons. So soon it may be bye-bye Bowen for me, but I've been here long enough now and saved a bit so I'll see what's happening further north.

It's all fun at work

Wandering through the shed yesterday I noticed that not just one, but both of my forklift drivers were out of sight, which is slightly unusual. As I started to have a look around to see where they were I noticed my truck of boxes had arrived. I watched in bemusement as the driver, instead of heading to see me to find the forklift, headed at an angle to behind the stacks of pallets. Slight intruiged I decided to investigate. I wish that I had a camera to record the scene that I found because it was the highlight of my day. One of my forklift drivers had managed to bury his machine in the soft ground round the back of our empty pallet pile. It took 20 minutes, 2 ropes (they snapped the first one) and 5 (another driver turned up half way through) of us standing round giving advice before we finally got it out. I've still not let Ludo live it down, I'm evil I know. In other news, I have had another email from my Toy Boy so am grinning again :) It's amazing how good a little row of 'xxx's can make you feel.