HSMP Application Sent.

Scared.

Things I have re-discovered…

Endless sunshine
The Australian accent and just how very wierd it is
Quiet… the sound of silence
Shopping trolleys the size of small row-boats
The absence of dog doo
Belonging to a cat
Family
Magpies & Lorikeets – they are so very loud
Top loading washing machines that take less than 30 minutes to do a wash
Clean air
Mosquitoes
Arnotts biscuits
Good, fresh and soft water… no more lime scale!
Knowing where everything is in a supermarket
The stars
Quilting
Driving a car
Inflation
Smiling, helpful shop assistants (admittedly, I am in a country town!)
What it means to be supported
Ali’s library
As much Irish Breakfast Tea as I could ever want
The smell of the bush
Nothing to do, nowhere to go and no one to please

Anzac Day.

A very Australian thing to celebrate. I've been to many dawn services over the years, starting when I was about 7 and a brownie I think. It always makes me a shiver to hear the Last Post and to recite the ode to the fallen.

Least we forget.

From the Australian Government's History of Anzac Day web page.

The Ode recited at ANZAC Day commemorations, is the fourth stanza of Laurence Binyon's "For the Fallen", first published in the London Times in 1914.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
"Lest we forget"

In 1934, Kemal Ataturk delivered the following words to the first Australians, New Zealanders and British to visit the Gallipoli battlefields, which was after inscribed on a monolith at Ari Burnu Cemetery ( ANZAC Beach ):

Those heroes that shed their blood
And lost their lives.
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies
And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side
Here in this country of ours.
You, the mothers,
Who sent their sons from far away countries
Wipe away your tears,
Your sons are now lying in our bosom
And are in peace
After having lost their lives on this land they have
Become our sons as well.

The above monolith was unveiled in 1985 when the Turkish Government officially renamed the area "Anzac Koyu". Mehmetchik is a common term for a Turkish soldier similar to "Johnnies", "Tommy" or "Digger".

So and So.

The feeling of being home.

Nothing beats having your own stuff around you to make you feel at home. I don’t really have one but I now have my own stuff strewn all across the lounge room and have made ‘my’ bedroom mine. Starting to relax maybe.

The Dispossessed...

I am, for the first time since I started working, officially without job or home. I am living out of a suitcase. Bits of my life are strewn across the UK and all over Australia. Very odd, very scary feeling. Not sure I like this place.

On the up side, I keep discovering stuff I’ve left at Ali’s which I had forgotten I owned. Ugg boots, three pairs of sunnies, books, a full set of working rig and a weeks supply of casual cloths… luxury!

Will be going up to Canberra on Monday for a flying visit to pick up my degree certificate so I can apply for the damn HSMP. Will probably not have time to say hello though, so sorry about that, but my brother deserves as much time as I can give him. It was his 30th this year and I weren’t around. Gotta make up for that at least.

A year without sunnies...

It has taken me two days to even begin to recover from jet lag. I’m still waking up three and four times a night but at least my plan – the one where I stay up as long as possible on Monday (having arrived at 0450 in Melbourne airport) to counteract the sleepless night syndrome – has left me so exhausted that when I wake up I can’t think at all and generally roll over and go back to sleep.

The one thing I do know, I have just put on my sunnies for the first time this year, for definite, and for probably only the second or third time since I left this country. If you know me, you know that I would in the past, habitually have a pair of sunnies on my head, holding my hair back. In fact so often did I wear them I usually forgot they were there. But in England there was no need, cause there was no sunshine, so I sort of got out of the habit.

Well, eat your heart out Londoners… I need sunnies every time I step out of the house at the moment!!! Of course, that does mean we’re still in drought here and the farmers are none too happy but to me it is heaven incarnate. I’ve been sunning myself on the veranda the last couple of days and intend to continue with my daily roasting until I look less like a ghost and more like a human being.

So, brainless from jet lag but alive and enjoying the sunshine.

The End Approaches

I’m doing my usual job of panicking whilst packing but I really don’t want to go so that makes it all the harder. I now have stuff at four people’s houses and so am relying on their good will to make sure it doesn’t get lost, and on my own perseverance to ensure I’ll be around again to collect it; there’s some stuff there I’d rather not part with. I just plain don’t want to leave. I am not enjoying this one little bit but I don’t… I was about to say, I don’t have a choice, but it was my decision to do it this way, so in fact, that would be a fallacy.

There are no wrong decisions; there are just life choices. So, I’ve made a choice and now I have to live with it. Grrr.

See you on the other side…

Year-ish Round-up

It hasn't quite been a year since I first left Australia, but I think I've managed to cram quite a lot into the last 11 months.

I've visited many countries and investigated their cities in depth: These included Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Berlin (Germany), Brussels (Belgium), Cologne (Germany), Edinburgh (Scotland), Hong Kong (China), Krakow (Poland), Lisbon (Portugal), London (England), Paris (France) and Stockholm (Sweden).

It's also been a year of firsts: I moved overseas, I lived in hostels, I got a contract job, I participated in NaNoWriMo, I had a white Christmas, I went snowboarding in Austria, I went to Portugal to go to a concert, I visited the Louvre and many other amazing museums, I had Belgium chocolate and Belgium beer in Belgium, I saw a castle which began life at the beginning of the first millennium, I participated in the last night of the Proms, I saw a Proms concert in the Royal Albert Hall, I went to a talk given by Neil Gaiman, I saw a play with Patrick Stewart in the lead, I went to a LitCon... the list goes on.

So all-in-all, I think I did manage to explore a lot in this last year. Now it's time for the next chapter. The universe bit me, so I now have to heal up and then I'll plan my revenge!! :)

It should be fun.

What The...?? Hang On!

Friday was the first day this year I'd been able to walk around comfortably in just a T-shirt. It was a lovely sunny day of about 18 Celsius. It would have been lovely to have spent the day in a park somewhere if I hadn't had to work.

Today... it is snowing. Snowing! I've had to bring out the winter hat, gloves and coat again, and it's bloody freezing! It's supposed to be Spring... you know, mild weather, bouncing lambs and flowers appearing. Instead, we have a covering of white stuff.

Mind you, it is pretty!

Last Day of Work

I have finished out my contract and have handed over to my replacement who is a lovely girl whom I'm sure will do well. So my time at the ** is now officially over. So yeah...

It feels wierd. I'm at a bit of a lose end and not just because I don't have a job to go to. I don't feel as if I am as upset as I somehow should be. Being a contractor, it was a lot easier to leave this position than any of my previous jobs, so maybe that was it. Somewhere, my brain is telling me it should have been harder or more emotionally difficult to lose a job, so it's currently a little non pulsed that it wasn't. But if this is the way of contracting, then I'm not that unhappy. Easy gets my vote. But still... it just doesn't feel right yet.

Ah well. So, now it's packing and then... Home James.

Pure Escapism...

Saw the film '27 Dresses' this evening. It was a lovely bit of fluff and a good laugh. I really liked Katherine Heigl as the female lead. She actually added dimension to her character which is rare in a fluff. Great bit of escapism which I really needed. 3.5/5 stars from me.