Huge great big THANK YOU

I just have to tell the whole world how great my friend Katie is. Having rung her last week in a tizzy (men as usual) and had a bit of a homesick bawl down the phone at her I got back from work the other day to find a parcel waiting for me. Inside was 2 packets of prawn cocktail crisps (you can't get them here so they are definately crisps, not chips), 2 packets of Jaffa Cakes and a BIG block of Bourneville chocolate. Aren't friends great? :)

Put to shame

I read a few other blogs rather religeously at the moment (it is almost the only contact I have with my sister and my friend Amy which is rather shameful really) and each time I read them they seem to have made new improvements and stuff to their blogs. I've just read Pomgirl's blog and I love the way she's got all sorts of things like books she reads, and the weather back in Leeds and all sorts of stuff like that (I'm also jealous that she seems to have no problem putting photos up, I'm supposed to be computer literate for crying out loud, why is this so hard for me?! How is it done?? Someone please put me out of my misery...). I know that generally I don't update things as often as I should because working 6/7 days a week, 5am until 7pm tends to put a dampner on out of work activities but still, when I have the chance, I know I should but there always seems to be other stuff to do (update my insurance for one, get all this bleach out of my hair before it burns for another...). Will I today? Probably not.

Pictures, or not, as the case may be...

I realised that I havn't had the chance recently to post some photos so I'm going to bombard you with a few (hopefully, I still havn't quite got the hang of this!). Hopefully you should get a good look at a tomato picking machine, a planting tractor and trailer, me and a koala and a couple of girls I work with relaxing in the only shade around during smoko in the planting paddock. Men are currently the bane of my life (what's new!). TAB is actually being very quiet and unobtrusive. We text occasionally but apart from that no other real contact is made. He's making a new life back in Adelaide and I'm not part of it. The CTG (Cute Tongan Guy for those who can't be bothered to look back for the reference) is really a pain in the proverbial. Unable to actually grasp the fact that if I'm interested in ANYONE, which I'm not really, it would be him, he keeps trying to set me up with every man he meets! This recently met in disaster as one guy turned out to be a maniac, con artist and an all round bastard who told all my friends at the pub that I'd slept with him (Robin came round the next morning to take us to work and thumped me for being so daft, I think my look of horror when she explained what she'd been told went a long way to convincing her of my innocence in this particular matter) and he was so persistant that I actually had to get people to walk me home from the pub a couple of times because I didn't trust him. I was actually scared in the hostel one day because he grabbed my wrist and wouldn't let me go and kept on telling me how great we were together. When I escaped to my room I jumped when the door opened to let in a room-mate because I was afraid he'd followed me. Anyway, he's gone and good riddance, we chased him out of town with the police :) The second guy he's trying to set me up with goes by the name of Wombat. And from what I've seen it's richly deserved. He's a nice guy but a bit dozy. Last night was awful because they kept on trying to get us to sit next to each other and were teasing all the time. To make things worse Wombat actually admitted that he does like me which just makes things embarressing. Seriously, I don't know how I get myself into situations like this! It's a knack :) Aargh! I seriously don't know what I'm doing wrong! I uploaded the pictures but they're not here on the blog. Am going to go and cry because I haven't got the time or energy to reupload them. I'll try again another time, I promise. Anyway, I have to go sleep (I had 3 hours sleep before getting up for work at 5am today because of a bbq for a birthday, a leaving party and an arrival party of a girl who worked here a year ago all rolled into one) so I'm going to nap and hopefully the heat will have died down to only moderate stifflying hot by the time I wake up.

Random musings

It struck me today that, had everything actually gone to plan in this last year, that I would be today at some point (or at the very very latest tomorrow) be flying back into a very cold, wet, wintery Britain having spent the last couple of months lazing around in Malaysia and Thailand. Obviously this is not even remotely like what is actually happening in my life at the moment. Anyway, I got to thinking of all the things that I would be able to do if I was at home that I simply can't do here. 1. Read all my books (I'm suffering huge Terry Pratchett withdrawal symptoms and can't find second hand copies to buy) 2. Spend hours and hours playing the Jak and Daxter trilogy on my ps2. 3. Spend hours and hours watching all my dvds (I really really wanted to watch Pirates of the Carribbean, Steel Magnolias, lots of Buffy, Angel, Firefly, all my Disney DVDs, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and pretty much anything else I own at random points in the last week) 4. Curl up on the sofa in the living room at home infront of a crackling fire dressed in my long black skirt, thick black tights, and a big snuggly jumper 5. Eat Jaffa Cakes by the dozen 6. Eat prawn cocktail crisps (DEFINATELY crisps, not chips, no matter what they say over here) 7. Sit in the conservatory and curl up in the comfy wicker chairs in there and watch the bad weather outside 8. Take pleasure in snuggling under my big double feather duvet in my attic bedroom nice and warm with that lovely feeling that the room is bloody freezing but you're still really toasty (but with that cold spot you can move your feet too if you happen to get a bit too hot). 9. Visit all my family (and meet my nephew, yay!) 10. Go to Leeds and visit all my other friends still there. 11. Go to the Cardy Arms for a few pints of Black Sheep or whatever else nice proper beer they have there at the moment 12. Spend time just wandering round the shopping centres in Leeds (I had a really wierd dream that I was in the St John Centre and when I woke it took me ages to work out that it wasn't in Melbourne) 13. Listen to MY music at full blast in the living room with no one else at home and no one complaining that my taste in music is crap 14. Wear all the nice clothes that I had to leave behind (for some reason I miss my long black coat, velvet hat, Winnie the Pooh gloves and my bright colourful scarfs, probably because it's winter back home and that was what I almost always wore when leaving the house) 15. There are lots of other things too numerous to mention (and some are slightly wierd, for instance I had an urge to walk through Llandeilo earlier today, just enjoy walking up the main street and go to Dinefwr castle and stuff. See, weird.) Anyway, I have spent enough time musing and it's time to go and catch my train back to Murchison (I'm in Shepparton today, annoying the bank and buying second hand books, yay). Rach, Happy Birthday, I hope that you have a good one!

Note the date...

As you all are probably aware, today is that most unlucky of days, the day when you should probably never leave the safety and comfort of your bed (although in this heat snuggling under the doona (oops, slipping into Aussie there, I mean duvet) can be a bit of a bad idea unless you like your own home-made sauna) so it was with grave misgivings that I left my nice bed at 5am this morning to go to work. I'm still rather amazed at the work I'm doing given how accident prone I really am added to the amount of moving machinery and forklifts and slippery rotten tomatoes on the floor of the packing shed. All in all a complete recipe for disaster so I don't think I was being totally paranoid when setting off for work this morning. Anyway, as it turned out I had no reason at all the be worried. We finished early because one of the trucks (eek, more Aussieness, I mean lorry) broke down so no more tomatoes for us, woohoo! I possibly may have lost part of my 'favoured worker' status with the boss of the shed though as he asked if I wanted to work longer and my immediate response was 'no, I want to go home!'. Ah well, in my defence I am recovering from a mild bout of food poisoning which had me pretty much immobile for much of yesterday added to the nasty cold I've had for the last week (which has it's good points in that it's making my voice all husky and sexy...until it disappears in a squeak which rather ruins the effect but never mind, hey?) Anyway, with only a few more hours left to go of this day, what else can go wrong? Ooh, and before I forget, the most amazing thing has happened, despite playing pool for years and never ever improving, I'm actually becoming good at the game! I even entered a pool competition earlier this week and got through to the second round (and it was a very close second game as well) so am really really chuffed. I am however still annoyed at my first opponent who upon losing threw his pool cue down onto the table where it slid at speed straight off the other side and into my stomach. Git. Anyway, I hope that all of you out there with most of the day left to go have a hassle and accident free Friday 13th... :D

I have been 'tagged' by Amy to do this so here goes... 1. What did you do in 2005 that you hadn't done before? Came to Australia (this will be a recurring theme, you have been warned...) 2. Did anyone close to you give birth? My sister-in-law to my lovely nephew James who I have only seen in photos so far and am eagerly awaiting a DVD 3. Did anyone close to you die? A couple of people who were well on the way to becoming close friends have died this year sadly 4. Did you travel? Where did you go? Best holiday memory? Yes, to NZ and Australia, best memory so far is learning to skydive 5. Best thing you bought? my skydives (another recurring theme) 6. Where did most of your money go? Skydiving! 7. What do you wish you had done more of? travelling around Australia rather than staying in Victoria 8. What do you wish you had done less of? arguing with TAB 9. What kept you sane? TAB, skydiving 10. What drove you mad? TAB... :D Running out of money, the Department of Immigration and their stupid rules 11. What made you celebrate? My nephew being born 12. What made you sad? Losing TAB, my friends dying 13. How was your birthday this year? Really nice, had a bbq and got a couple of pressies (well, beer) from the hostel I'm living in 14. What political issue stirred you the most this year? The execution of Van Nguyen (I think that's how you spell it) 15. Were you in love in 2005? Yes, very much so 16. What would you like to have in 2006 that you didn't have this year? A relationship that works for once! 17. What date from 2005 will be etched in your memory and why? November 3rd, my nephew's birthday 18. What song will remind you of 2005? Oooh, there are so many! One at random is Catch My Disease by Ben Lee 19. Compared to this time last year are you happier? Right now? No, this time last year I was really excited about leaving and now I'm a bit cut up about losing TAB but on the whole I'm happier now than I was. 20. Biggest achievement this year? learning to skydive! 21. Biggest disappointment this year? Losing TAB 22. What is the one thing that would have made you more satisfied? Keeping TAB! (sorry everyone) 23. Best new person you met this year? There have been so many new people! I'm going to say Don at Skydive Nagambie, one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. 24. A valuable life lesson you learnt this year? I need to believe in myself before others will believe in me 25. A question you made up yourself? hmmm...I'm not so good at this sort of thing! I'm on a time limit so may skip this one, sorry... There, I think that I will tag that sister of mine to do this (sorry Rach) :D Oh, Amy? Hannah still hasn't emailed me, have you seen her yet?

So long and thanks for all the fish

Before you all start to panic, don't worry, this remarkably facinating blog is not shutting up shop (despite the lack of writing from me in the last couple of weeks) so you can all breathe easy. I am in fact waving goodbye to an era, the era of TAB. I think this time the sparkle has definately fizzled out for good from our relationship. We were talking just before Christmas and I mentioned moving to Adelaide once my 3 months here is up, a move discussed before this. When queried why I said because I havn't seen SA and would quite like to and for us. The response? 'But there isn't really an 'us' is there?'. I'm glad that he decided to inform me of the definate end of our relationship at some point seen as it has quite obviously been dead for him for a while. Hey ho. Life goes on. As a consequence I have actually had a fantastic couple of weeks, Christmas Eve was very very alcoholic as people kept buying me drinks and it's very rude to turn them down once they've bought them. Unfortunately this did mean that sometime in the last 24 hours my dear mother has listened to an answering machine message from a rather drunk Aussie saying that he's married me... New Years Eve was a great night! I stayed here in Murchison and went to the local do at the pub, I could almost have been at the Rugby Club in Llandovery so familiar was it! Once again, copious amounts of alcohol and a very good mood ended with the terrible sight of me dancing. Badly. Much to the horror of a new girl at the hostel who tried in vain to teach me to dance. I did try, honest I did, but I've spent the last 26 years dancing on and off and I figure that if I was going to be any good at it it would have happened by now. In the end I just told her that I knew I was bad at dancing, have ALWAYS been bad at dancing, but I wouldn't do it unless I was having fun and that's what counts really. I just keep telling myself the old saying, they're not laughing WITH me... Work has been rather good if knackering recently. I've just, thankfully, had half a day as the last 2 days have been 13/14 hours long which doesn't leave much time to do anything else but sleep once you get home (we also start at the horrible hour of 5.30am, I must be mad). The 2 girls I work with at the hostel and I are really happy at the moment as Sandy, who owns the hostel and sorts out our work, told us that our boss at the paddocks and the planting sheds is really happy with our work and has us on his 'best workers' list and wants us to stay working for him for as long as we want to. :D Anyway, I hope that you are all looking forward to a fantastic 2006, I know I am. Have a great year, keep reading, and have fun. Now, I'm off to eye up the Cute Tongan Guy (hereby known as the CTG) who lives at the hostel with us ;)