Shirt-sleaves at last!

Finally, at long last, this morning I was able to take off my coat on my walk in to work and the wind didn't bite me or give me goose bumps.

I have been unknowingly longing for this moment for months. You Northerners think your winter is hard enough - try two winters in a row. It's very bleak I can tell you.

Admittedly I'm not at all really looking forward to a coastal Australian summer with the typical 40 degree heatwaves. Especially since I haven't experienced one at all in the last two years and only Canberra's Indian version for the five years before that.

But this morning, walking along in a warm breeze laden with the distinctive scent of wattle and feeling the sun warming my face and gently heating my clothes... it was utterly glorious.

I'm the colour of milk I'm so pale, so I'll have to be ultra careful about sun burn this year, but oh! The ability to get burnt! Having a sun to burn under! I almost feel like crying, it is so VERY good!

Yay!!!

Happy 25th Tim!

Kiddo has reached the quarter century. I hope you had a marvelous day, Brother Dearest!

The End of an Era

I am desolated. The comic strip For Better or for Worse has come to an end!

Or rather, it's re-starting from the beginning, so it's not quite an end, but after 29 years in print the current storyline has been wrapped up and the current cast of characters have left the stage, so it's worthy of crying over anyway.

I know, this may mean very little to most of you, but it is a huge thing for me I can tell you! You see, I'm the same age as the oldest child in the strip 'Michael', and unlike every other comic strip around, the characters in the FBOFW universe aged over the years, so in effect I 'grew-up' with Michael - literally. I was at high school at the same time as him and at uni too, and he was having girl troubles when I met my first boyfriend. Michale had an annoying kid sister, I had an annoying kid brother. His mum went back to work at the same time as mind did too.

I wasn't aware of the strip when I was very young of course - after all, it started when I was 3! But I remember reading it when I was pre-teen and I started collecting the yearly books when I was 12 or 13 I think. For years Pat collected the strips for me as my family didn't get the daily newspaper, so now I have piles of carefully hoarded pieces of newspaper, in order of publication, hidden away from the light so they don't go yellow with age.

And I have always had a very strong connection to the characters. Their trials and tribulations, their ups and downs, their lives and loves were all very real to me. Even though they were only ever on paper, they were part of a story that grew as I grew and I could always find parallels with my life in that daily strip.

Now, as I said, it hasn't exactly ended - the writer / drawer Lynn Johnson is starting from the beginning again - sort of. She is re-drawing some strips, and going back to her older style of drawing for all, but she's also expanding the story from its simple beginnings and elaborating on some things that happened when the kids were kids. So I'll still be able to get by daily dose of FBOFW, but the characters won't be my age anymore.

I will miss the older characters. I will miss seeing 'Michael' - who became a writer! - during his daily life. He published a book and had a family - things I aspire to one day. I will miss Elizabeth and her new marriage, I will miss April growing up, I will miss Elly and John, who were lovely parents and lovely people. I will miss them all.

But it did have a good run. 29 years of a continuing story. Who could ask for more really? I applaud Lynn and her team for a fantastic effort over the years and wish them all very well for the future.

So, sad, satisfied, melancholy and hopeful all at the same time. Life must go on - For Better or For Worse!

Veer Exhaustion

Ich Ach Och

I dislike driving in Melbourne. Dislike may be too mild a word actually. How about detest? Better.

There are no direct turns in Melbourne it would seem. Every intersection is either a veer left or a veer right or a veer to the second left or a veer to the second right! Where did all the turns go??

And of course there's the trams, and the way your tires get stuck in the tracks and the way you get stuck behind the tram 'cause there just isn't enough room to get around them. And the hook turns they engender...

And then there's the bloody Islands! Ok, so a normal dividing island, between two lanes of traffic going in opposite directions, is perfectly acceptable. But here they have three - one in the middle and one each dividing lanes oftraffic going in the SAME direction. And if you're not in the right part of the road, the right 'right' or 'left' road, you can't veer in the direction you need to go.

So, no. I really don't like driving in Melbourne.

Oh, and yes, there's peak three and a half hours here too. Very like Sydney in that respect. Really Not Fun.

I drove yesterday by accident (my train got cancelled) and today by design (going to Bendigo this evening). Yesterday, it took me 1.5 hrs to get in and 2 hrs to get home. Today, as I left half and hour earlier (6.40), it only took 1hr 10m, but I was still in 'Peak'. I wonder how long it would take me to drive with no traffic - and if I actually want to know. I'm sure I don't actually. It'd just be too frustrating.

So, although I thought it was a drag taking public transport on my 2hr - 1 way transit, now I don't mind so much. And the math is really simple too: 1 tank of petrol a week @ $90 versus 1 monthly train ticket @ $40 / wk. A no brain-er. Especially considering the wear and tear on my nerves that driving inflicts, the fact that I can read or write on the train if I wish, as well as the fact that the time difference is negligible.

Now I'm positively looking forward to my training time next week.

There's hope for Humanity yet...

I saw something lovely today. I arrived early at Southern Cross stn for once and so had no real need to race over the concourse to catch my connection, but was doing so out of habit, when the fire alarms went off... very loudly. I'm not actually sure they were fire alarms as I didn't see any fireies or any other EM units around and everyone ignored the sounds as far as I could tell... so, there was some very loud whooping sounds of unknown purpose echoing throughout the station deafening everyone.

In my no-need-to-hurry-hurry, I got stuck on the escalators behind a school kid by his bag - always annoying - but I decided not to push the issue so I just hopped from foot to foot behind him hoping he would notice I was there. There are literally hundreds of school kids on the route I take, wearing a variety of uniforms, with only one uniform characteristic that I can tell - they're all more formal than my school uniform ever was. Blazers and ties for the main part - toff schools in other words. I've made a bit of a game of the uniforms - I keep trying to guess where they're from. So far I only recognise Xavier, MLC and Kew Grammar on sight. I've not discovered who the olive and yellow nor the blue on blue uniforms belong to. And I'd love to know the boys' school that sports the very garish blue, green and yellow stripped jersey - it's so very colourful it's an eyesore!

Anyway, halfway down the escalator and I'm thinking of pushing past this particular school kid, and trying to work out what school he came from at the same time, when he decides to take a flying leap from dead stationary to a full out run down to the platform like his pants were on fire. Well, that vaguely caught my attention, so I watched him, and what do you know? The boy was rushing onto the platform to help a blind man, who looked awfully confused, whilst his dog was hunched up at his feet with an expression of pain clearly not liking the deafening whooping. Because of the noise the poor man couldn't hear the train announcements you see. The kid assured this guy that he hadn't missed his train and stayed by him until the right train came along - missing his own connection I believe as all the other uniforms like his got onto an earlier train - and then made sure the guy and his dog got on safely.

It made me feel very proud of the kid and very happy with humanity in general. Very nicely done!

Four methods of transportation in one day

I am working in Melbourne. I have a two month contract so I've got no idea what happens after, but I do have work. However, in order to do this comfortably, I'm living at Dad & Carols... which means I have a two-hour, one-way commute.

Yep, that's right, I'm spending 4 hours a day going to and from work.

It takes me ~10 mins to drive to the Vline train station, then it's a 40 min trip to Southern Cross stn, then I transfer to a Met train, which takes ~15min to get to Glenferrie stn, then I have a 15 min tram trip, and then a 15 min walk. With time for transfers in between each leg, excepting the walk, it makes for a mighty lot of time staring out the window.

Melbourne reminds me a lot of London though, so I'm feeling less disoriented than I'd thought. And Melbourne's transport systems is no where near as polluted so that is definitely a plus. Just think of spending four hours a day on the tube!! Fawrrr!

The down side is that when it rains here, you don't get damp, you get drenched, as happened to me last night. Mind you, walking through the rain doesn't bother me as much any more. I used to be almost phobic of getting wet when living in Adelaide, but since I was drizzled on so often in London, I have become inured.

Interestingly, there seem to be communities on the train. I catch the same VLine service every morning, so I'm slowly becoming more familiar with the habitual passengers. There are groups of students as you'd expect, but several groups of professionals for various offices meet on the platform and talk animatedly to each other all the way in, and also a gaggle of between ten and fifteen well-dressed Philippineo women also gather and chat. There are a couple of guys who take their bikes to the luggage section, and a lovely plump tranny and her friend who get on mid-route and sit next to me and who have the most amazing fingernails I've ever seen.

The passengers are all pretty friendly in the main too. Melton is on the edge of Melbourne, and I don't know if it's the relative near-by location to country areas or it's socio-economic composition, but I've had many people say hello to me - which is extremely weird coming as I recently have from London - but without the generally very annoying attempts at follow up conversation afterwards.

Strange, but kind of nice. Still. FOUR HOURS. I hope I get used to it quickly.

A job finally...

I've got a temp position in Melbourne as a contractor again. Still no word on the visa. But at least I'll be earning above subsistance now. I'd never realised just how little money someone on the doll gets. It's scary. I'm not sure I'd be able to survive on it for long. Glad I don't have to now.

Wet Castlemaine

My dearest younger brother Tim was over for the weekend visiting mother and I and so I took him for a drive so he could catch up with Dad and Carol at the same time.

We went to Castlemaine, pronounced Caasellmain not Carselmain, and it was raining of course. It is a bit of country Victoria I've driven through many times but never stopped at so nice to be able to have a look around. We had a lovely brunch at a very cozy cafe. We visited a barn full of amazing miscellanea including a seat made out of the front end of a cadillac and a chandelier made out of oil lamps and which bosted a room full of porcilain plates - it was antique heaven and a good one at that. Carol and I spent an hour drooling in a patchwork shop whilst Dad took Tim somewhere else. And then we all visitied Book Heaven, "where good books go", a lovely second hand book store of the maze variety where you can get lost five meters from the door. It's not quiet as good as the secondhand bookstores in Bendigo as far as sci-fi and fantasy go but well worth visiting.

It was lovely to see and hug kiddo and I am very much looking forward to Mum's 60th when the whole crew will get together again.

Melbourne Craft Fair

Holy Guacamole!!! This thing was HUGE! It topped the London craft fair by a good three wearhouses. Carol and I spent something like four hours there and we were wizzing by a lot of stores.

But the quilting... Oh. My. God.

I have seen quilt shows before but not since I started quilting myself and so have previously had no understanding of the amount of work involved. I was litterally speachless. I ... gosh. A photograph just doesn't do any of the quilts justice, but I'll put some up anyway when I find room. I certainly won't be in the league of these ladies in my lifetime I can guarentee. Which is what I love about quilting really - there is so much to learn, and so many new skills to acquire that you can go on acquiring and honeing new techniques for years and years.

So, yeah. A good, a VERY good day.

One more day.

Sorry I haven't written anything lately but there's nothing really to tell. I finished my part-time work at the end of last month and I've been bumming around ever since.

The only piece of news I do have is that I'm 400 pounds poorer. Which means that this time my application has gone through the wringer of the BIA payment centre and been sucked of all it's nutrients. Now to see if it makes it to the BIA itself when I will either I get an acknowledgement that they have my application and will hence be looking at it, or a return of the app itself as I don't qualify.

Thumbs twirling in boredom.