New things learnt

Today I have learnt that if at all possible, when flying with Singapore Airlines, USE the internet check in facility that means you can check in from the comfort of your own home and when you get to the airport all you have to do is wander up to the desk allocated for internet check in and give them your bags and pick up your boarding pass. This enables you to bypass the stupid sods doing it the old way and queueing for over an hour in order to check in in an area where the air con doesn't work. Great. I was hot and sweaty BEFORE spending 11 hours on a plane. And all the window seats were taken. Grrr. On to Sydney...

Comparing things

I can't help but think 'what was I doing 2 days before I left last January?', it's only natural after all. I can safely say that I still havn't managed to sort out all my music so the pile of CD's waiting to go onto my mp3 player is still the same. It's better than last time, it's more organised on the player and I've put a lot of stuff on but still, I really wanted my music to be sorted so how I've managed to get to this point again is beyond me. Actually, I do know how I managed it, I was hunting through all my boxes for bits of my computer and I found an entire box of CD's that I'd hidden months ago and hadn't been able to find in my earlier hunts. I'll get there eventually. Mostly things are the same in actual fact, the one main difference is in how I feel. Last time I was heading off to pastures new, the undiscovered (well, by me and I'm the only one who counts, naturally...) country. I'd left my job and though I really got on (still do) with my boss, the job itself was getting me down. I was fulfilling my dream, going and actually living my life as I've always wanted to rather than getting bogged down with stuff I wasn't ready for (house, car etc). I was happy and not looking back. Now, well, it's different. The circumstances that brought me home are completely different. This is the longest period I've spent at home since I left to go to Uni and I've really enjoyed it. I've made friends, and got to know a lot of people a lot better than I ever did before. I had a wonderful time on Sunday at the Symphonica Tywi concert in the National Botanic Gardens of Wales and in the pub afterwards. It was really quite a wrench when at the end of the evening I had to say goodbye to a lot of people. Quite a few of whom were actually trying to make me feel even more torn than I already do! I'm going back to a country that I do love, a people who I think are fantastic, a culture and cities that made me feel at home, a place I've wanted to be a part of for years. Lets face it, it's got kangaroos! This time I also know that I'm leaving a country that I love, people I care a lot about, my family, and a good way of life. I know that if I don't leave now, then I simply won't. It's going to be a close run thing as to who eventually wins. Am I allowed to announce a tie?

Cowardy cowardy custard

I am, completely and utterly, a coward. Tonight was the deciding game between Australia and Croatia. Australia needed to draw at least (and Japan lose I believe) to get through to the next round in the World Cup. Given that this is a team from a country where football (that is, not Aussie rules but 'soccer') is not exactly a major sport and the cricket is likely to get more viewers and this is the first time in 32 years that Australia have even made it to this stage having been knocked out way before this before it was rather tense viewing. So tense, in fact, that I didn't watch it at all. I watched House instead. I did, however, keep flicking back to see how things were going so you can imagine my consternation when I noticed that Croatia had scored within the first 10 minutes. I also managed to catch the 'second' yellow card that a Croatian player had that should have resulted in him being sent off - that is, if the referee (unfortunately English) hadn't forgotten he'd given him one already - and I saw the last goal that didn't count because the final whistle blew. A pity because I would have liked to see Australia win. Not to worry though because with the draw they have enough points to come second behind Brazil and get through. Not a bad effort I thought and am quite looking forward to the game against Italy. House was good too.

New Tricks

I've learnt something new today! I can now say that I can use a heat paint stripper thingy! I'm very proud of myself :) I'm not saying I'm an expert, or that I'm actually very good at it, but the paint has come off the kitchen door (well, most of it) so I can probably pass as competent. I can add it to the list of DIY things I can do, like put the paint on in the first place. In other exciting news...no, actually, there isn't much. I've got a couple more things to sort out before next Wednesday's flight and then it's just a case of sitting round counting the days. And stripping paint off doors.

Nice weekend

I did have a lovely weekend. A trip to St Davids with mum and her choir, although I must admit that I chickened out at actually going and listening to the service that they were singing at, I'm really not cut out to be religeous I think. I sat outside and listened to them sing and read my book instead. I think the sunburn can probably be taken as punishment for that ;) St Davids really is lovely, I've never been there before so had a lovely wander round the cathedral and the grounds. Sunday was pretty much all rehearsal for the concert next Sunday. We had loads of people turn up which was lovely and we sounded pretty good! I am going to miss playing again when I leave. I'd just got back into the swing of playing in an orchestra regularly when I left Leeds the first time last January, and now I'm doing exactly the same thing. I can't take my clarinets with me though, the insurance would be horrific and I really don't want to think of the worries that carting them round hostels would pose! If I do manage to emigrate though, my clarinets are going to be at the top of the list of things to get across the world asap. It's also been a bit hard listening to everyone make plans for things to do over the summer, groups that I've been involved in in the last 3 1/2 months since I fled Murchison (yes it really has been that long!) but then I think 'Hey, I'm going back to a country that I love and can't wait to see more of' so I'm sure I'll survive :) Only 9 days to go...

Dr Who

I just realised yesterday that I'm going to miss the last 2 episodes of this season's Dr Who. This is not good, I've got pre-withdrawal symptoms already! I need my David Tennant fix! What am I going to do?!

The best laid plans and all that

So much for my careful planning of where I'm going to go and all that! After going to all that effort to work out the best place for me to go, can I find a flight there at a decent time and date? Nope. So I'm going to Sydney instead. This isn't really a bad thing as I've never been to Sydney and a couple of days there to recover from jetlag and work out the best way of getting somewhere useful will be fairly cool. I'll get to see the opera house and harbour bridge and everything. Expect lots of photos... I just couldn't believe it when the only flight to Brisbane that wasn't going to cost me £1500 was at 0940 on the 26th June. Not so bad you might think but I've got a concert on the 25th June and there's simply no way I can get to Heathrow for 7.30am in order to check in. On the other hand, finding a flight to Sydney was really easy, quite cheap and with a decent enough airline (Singapore Airlines) so I'm quite happy. I leave on the 28th June. Very excited! Now I've got 2 weeks to sort out my clothes, insurance, all my music (today has been an ongoing battle with my mp3 player, it's not in my good books at the moment) and other stuff. Why do I get the feeling the next 14 days are going to go very, very quickly?

Help!

I am currently attempting to work out where I should fly to in Australia when I return. In order to help me make this decision I am, unwisely perhaps, relying on the information I can gather off the Harvest Trail website. I know that this is a slightly risky business given that I managed to find work in Murchison in Victoria when it said there shouldn't be any and the hostel I stayed at was not listed on their website. Still, I have not got much choice. My options are to go to Perth, but all the information I can gather about the towns around is that they're all 100's of k's away and you need your own transport so WA can be safely crossed off the list for now I think. The same goes for SA, even though it's a smaller state. Victoria I have spent a lot of time in and although I know and love the area well, I can't go back yet to where I really want to be and I do want to see more of Australia. I don't think that I want to go to the Northern Territories to work (1 in 10 people can be allergic to the juice of mangoes and I don't want to go back to banana sorting again) which leaves NSW and Queensland. The information given on towns for the potential harvest worker in New South Wales is ridiculous. In fact, for a lot of them, it just gives you information for Mildura, in Victora. I know that it's right on the border but it's not helpful when you want to look up several different towns and see if they have working hostels so you don't have to provide your own transport. I think the only reason they didn't manage to pull that trick so much with the information for Queensland is that most of the towns are so far apart! I did mention the fact that I was probably going to go to Brisbane to a couple of people and the overwhelming response I've had is that Queensland is really hot and muggy in the summer. Firstly I know this, I have been there before. Secondly I'm going in July, I know that I can be a bit dense at times but surely, in Australia, that counts as winter? I know it's summer here, trust me, the last week or 2 has proved that but there? I don't intend to work for the entire time I'm back there, just long enough to earn some money so I can visit Perth, and Darwin, and Adelaide, and Sydney... And now for something completely different... Those of you who know me will know that as far as football goes, I'm not it's greatest fan. I don't go out of my way to watch it and mostly it just seems a bit dull. Every 4 years though, I become completely addicted, I get glued to the tv and can generally give you information on groups and teams and even comment on the games. Today, I think, has been the best day yet!! I couldn't believe it! I was sitting on the sofa, screaming at the tv when Japan scored that dubious goal against Australia and was on the edge of my seat for most of the game. The last 10 minutes were the best football I think I've ever seen! Go Cahill! First ever World Cup goal scored for Australia! Closely followed by a second. Then Aloisi got in there with a third. It was as if after close calls all through the match someone had finally thought 'oh, the ball's supposed to go IN the net' and then there was no stopping them. Brilliant! I just wish that England could have put on such a captivating performance in their first game.

Good news!

I havn't been able to post in the last couple of days as whenever I've tried to log on, blogger has had a problem. Still, no worries! I do have good news to impart, in the last couple of days I have been granted my visa to return until next March (excellent!) and so am ecstatic :) I now just have the rather difficult decision of where to return to. I've spent a lot of time in Victoria so won't go back there immediately (Australia is, after all, a bloody big country) and am thinking of either Queensland, NSW or WA. Probably Queensland as I did rather rush it last time I was there (I went from Cardwell, just south of Cairns, to Brisbane in one go on a coach, 26 hours of travel, 2000 odd k's. It all looked very nice, at speed) so maybe Bowen? Or Townsville? (I need to be able to get a harvest job for a month or so so somewhere on the harvest trail is preferable). Any suggestions welcome...

Just like buses

Builders are just like buses. Really they are. You know the old saying? 'You wait for ages and then 3 turn up at once'? Our Friday was remarkably like that. All week we've been waiting for the local handyman to come and fit a bit more of our kitchen, the plasterer to turn up having finished his outside job that had to be postponed until the weather was good enough (which at the moment it obviously is, it's lovely out there! I could almost be back in Australia! Well, an Aussie summer, I'm fairly certain Melbourne hasn't got weather this good right now) and mum has, of course, been sans kitchen window since August '05. What has been there instead has been a bit of board blocking out most of the light but -and this is a big but- unfortunately not the wind, or dampness or anything like that. Anyway, on Friday they all turned up within 10 minutes of each other, wonderful! A couple of minor hiccups later - the handyman thought the kitchen had been measured incorrectly but it turned out that because of pipes and sockets they'd taken all the measurements from the righthand wall, not the left so that was all fine... - the window seat was supposed to be oiled oak but on inspection turned out to be primed pine...that didn't fit anyway - the chrome carosel turned out to be something completely different, sold to mum under false pretences as not only was it not what they said it was but it couldn't even fit in the kitchen designed by them even if it had been what we wanted!* - but there is now a window, and more cupboards and some plastering done which is fantastic. More building next week, woohoo! *but this wasn't too bad as I got to argue with MFI for being idiots. I put up such a fight that I got a full discount on a mattress for mum :)

Apologies

Once again I owe an apology. It has been pointed out to me, in no uncertain terms, that TAB was not as bad as sometimes I make him out to be. I had severe PMT when I replied to his rather insensitively (well it was!) phrased email and so may have been a bit blunt. I was also in a really bad mood when I posted the previous post. For all the things that went wrong in our relationship, there were a lot of things that he did for me that I can't repay him for. I lived with him practically rent free (i.e. I bought all the food and kept the place tidy and did stuff like that, he paid the rent). He also let me drive his car (although I did buy petrol for it when I could afford to). Things did go wrong, yes. That is not all his fault, I'm definately in the wrong for some of the problems. Shit happens. As for the posting things to each other issue, yes I did say I would post some stuff to him from his caravan in Nagambie. Unfortunately Australia Post told me in no uncertain terms that I couldn't send what I wanted to send. They simply told me 'no'. It wasn't that I didn't try. I did mean to send the key to the caravan (which I couldn't leave behind as there was nowhere I felt I could leave it) to a friend of mine near Nagambie but that would have meant asking him to fork out the cash to send the stuff to Adelaide. I just couldn't do that. So, I think we may be at a stalemate here. I know that I shouldn't get as irritated as I do with TAB but he just has this knack of putting my back up so we now tend to start every conversation off on the wrong foot. I think this may be a sort of 'you hurt me so I'm going to hurt you back' knee jerk reaction. This also may be down to me but I just can't help it. Sometimes I feel like I only take one foot out of my mouth to see what the other one tastes like. If anyone has a cure for this, I'd really like to know.

Grrrr

TAB emailed....grrr...saying he's going to chuck my stuff out that I asked him to send me 6 months ago when he moved to Adelaide and then dumped me whilst I was living in Murchison grrrr why can't he just send me the bloody stuff and I'll transfer the money??! What makes it worse is that if he'd sent it when I asked him to 6 months ago I would have been able to pay him myself, no worries, rather than rely on mum and my credit card because I don't want ALL my photos nice and neatly on a CD and the only copy there is for most of the time I was travelling to be thrown away grrrr! And I know I've got a few nice clothes in that box too that I didn't want to take to Murchison and there was no need because we were STILL TOGETHER at the time I left! He KNEW that he was leaving me and still didn't warn me to take all my stuff. He's such a PAIN! He's the only person on this planet who can possibly irriate me this much!!! Why bother to email me to tell me he's going to chuck the stuff out unless I do something? What can I do?? I'm in WALES for crying out loud! He knows that the answer is going to be 'send it to me' so why bother? Why not do what I ASKED in the first place and send it to me?! Are all men this irritating or did he have special lessons at it do you think? p.s Apologies for the incoherence of this post, he has this effect on me. Still. Grrrrrrrr