Friday 2 July 2010

Nostalgia.

Yesterday was Territory Day. It's the only day of the year that fireworks are legally allowed to be bought and let off in the Northern Territory. Reason being, because it's so hot and dry - if a spark reaches the ground you get fire (unlike England when a cinder simply demolishes if it reaches the cold damp ground). So essentially, it's Guy Fawkes night without the bonfire.

People would buy fireworks in the day and at night randomly let them off. There is only one big public display, and that's at Mindil Beach which is the other side of the city of Darwin. Quite far away from here. We didn't go because it would be really busy. In fact, we didn't buy any fireworks at all.

We did, though, go for a drive. In every person's backyard there were fireworks being let off. In Palmerston on the main drag from our house up to the shops is raised at the top of a hill. So you looked right and there was a wonderful collection of different colours and different types of fireworks all being let off. It was quite an awesome sight.

We got Hungry Jacks (otherwise known as Burger King) and drove back through one of the suburbs where we saw a tree ablaze!

However, it didn't feel like fireworks night. I remember when I was a kid my mum would get out the gloves and scarves and hats when it was fireworks night. We would wrap up warm and go down to the Pangbourne College grounds and have to leave halfway through because my sister and brother would be scared. Even up to the last fireworks night I actually went out to a public display on Midsummer Common. I met my friends there and there are pictures of us all in our winter jackets and hats.

Maybe it's just nostalgia coming through. Or the fact that I still can't get used to the fact that I can't wear jumpers and jeans all the time. I mean, how am I meant to hide my muffin top?!

Anyway, on another note. Today is my father's fifty-first birthday. So now he's an official grumpy old man. Happy birthday, Dad!

Love from Australia!

:)

Sunday 6 June 2010

Nine Weeks.

Okay. So no posting for a while. I do apoligise. I don't know why really - just haven't really felt like there is anything going on to post about. But then I stop and think that there are many things happening which I'm you might like to know.

Firstly I passed my 'L's test. Which means I'm on a learner's license and learning to drive. Lionel is teaching me - which is a good thing and a bad thing. We save a bit of the old spondoolies but get a little stressed with my bad driving. But I'm getting better, I think. Today, when I drove, Lionel didn't have to take over. I'm learning in Lionel's car which is a 1992 Toyota Hilux which I lovingly called a teabag because the tray is one big bit of rust. Hopefully soon we'll get a second car (though I have to have my learners for at least six months before I can get 'P' plates) once we can afford it. But it'll be awesome to drive. I'll be the first Martin to get a license and hold onto it for at least a year. XD

Also, I was madea supervisor at work. Ballentyne's Fish and Chips. Though it's been rocky at the start (as in they tell you a very basic outline and then throw you in the deep end) it's getting easier. After I talked to the Assistant Manager, Cheryl, she kind of made my feelings known that I was getting stressed with it all to the point that I was dreading my shift every time I went to work. Now, it's 'you've actually got to tell me things if you want me to do them' because before they were expecting me to do things (such as ordering stock and customer complaints) which they didn't tell me how to. It got bloody annoying and stress filled.

For example, yesterday was a very busy saturday morning for the shop. I was working in the burger bit (yes, a fish and chip shop that sells burgers... I find it weird too - bloody aussies) and at one point at eleven in the morning, NINE HAMBURGERS on the grill. At eleven o'clock! To say I was a tiny bit panicing would be a blatant lie. (Just so you know, the most burgers I usually make in an entire morning shift is about ten total. And yeah, I'm not what you would call a natural chef. Just ask anyone whose eaten my cooking) But, the manager, also called Nic just to add confusion, came in and made me a cup of tea and told me that there was no need to rush and even stood there and did all the prep I was behind on because it got ridiculously busy on her day off.

So yeah - work has been up and down.

In other news - me and Lionel bought ourselves a new TV. A pretty full high definition fifty inch LED tv. Believe me, if I could love an inanimate object as much as I love Lionel, this would be my choice. A couple of weeks prior, I bought Lionel the new Final Fantasy game as a very belated birthday present. Now, I thought the HD-ness was amazing on the little TV that Lionel bought when I was probably around eight years old. But when he's playing it on our lovely new TV - it is jaw droppingly amazing. Plus - I've kind of gotten into the game - it's got a good stoyline behind it!

I can only assume that you've all assumed that I'm going to be out here a lot longer than a year. And if not - well, now you know. I think I made that decision when I first landed here more than nine weeks ago. I don't really know exactly how long. But all I can say to explain it is that I love this man more than anything else in the world, and I'm happy. The other visas are complicated and there are plenty of requirements which we are trying our best to make.

What else could I say? Er... my appetite for steak has returned! We have it for dinner often, and today we had steak and caeser salad. I eat mine faster than Lionel eat his. Two days ago when we went to the pub and we had steak and a beer, it also happened. I'm now, again, in love with beef. Can't wait for a time when I can get some good meat like I had at the Cattle Station last year.

Anyway - I think that's enough about me. Doctor Who is on in four minutes. So I better post this and leave.

Just one final note though. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BESTEST BUD/SISTER ABI! I love you and I miss you and I can't wait to see you again. :D

Wednesday 5 May 2010

Birthday.

Today is my twentieth birthday. I know, I'm old.

So, I thought I should do a celebratory blog. Wahey! I am going to write down a memory from each year of my life thus far of my life, and here it goes.

1 - [insert memory here]

2 - [insert memory here]

3 - I remember, faintly, sitting down to dinner or lunch or whatever in the house at Pangbourne and my mum saying she was thirty-one years old. Evidently I must've been three at the time and one of the older siblings must've asked her how old she was. That's the whole memory. Apart from my mum's jam-jar glasses.

4 - Playdays. When I was four I was chosen from my nursery to go on a children's television programme. It was called Playdays, and was my favourite television programme at the time. The bit I remember clearly during filming was that me, a boy who was also chosen (called Joseph) and the presenter had to stomp across a really old bridge across a river, and it was filmed at a bread mill.

5 - Being really annoyed with my best friend, Bethany. She was technically a school year younger then me, but we moved from the nursery into the school at the same time. We sat at the same table, and one afternoon she was put in charge of the table's crayons and not me when I was older! That's not really fair is it?

6 - My headteacher, Miss Richardson, noticing my new haircut and saying it was really nice one day at school. I also had new shoes that day. But no one noticed them.

7 - On my seventh birthday I got my frist ever nose bleed. I remember before this day that I was jealous because my brother got nosebleeds all the time and I had never had one. The only thing was, the way I got it was that I tripped on my shoelaces and my face skidded along some rough tarmac. I had a large scab on my face for days. I've only had two nosebleeds since, but they were both in the last year when I've been knocked on the face in a ruck in rugby.

8 - Watching Titanic on video and being scared.

9 - New Years Eve 1999. My uncle Tim getting horrendously drunk and dancing with two pints of beer in his hands.

10 - Getting new kittens as a surprise from our to-be step-dad. There were so small and liked to hide down the back of the couch. If you sat down you had to be cautious because you'd get claws up your bum.

11 - My eleventh birthday I got two goldfish. One called Anty. The other Decky. I named them after two characters on a skit on SM:TV.

12 - Holding my baby sister for the first time in South Mimms Service Station on the M25. She was so tiny and sleeping. Now she's not so tiny and awake a lot of the time!

13 - Made another best friend for life, Abi. I think this was the year that I first went round her house. I was a bit shocked at first, because I didn't really think we were good enough friends for me to go round her house (because that's a big deal when you're thirteen) but I did anyway and it was awesome. Now, I'm so comfortable around her house, I walk in and make myself a cup of tea before even saying hello.

14 - My first proper-ish boyfriend, Alex. I think it lasted about three months. I have no idea what he's up to now. Oh well. The only problem was he got a lot hotter after I dumped him.

15 - My knee! My school was doing a production of The Tempest for a competition in a nearby town. It was after a summer of doing no exercise whatsoever. I was cast as one of the many Spirits. Unfortunatley, during a workshop in preparation, my knee dislocated and ever since it has been dodgy. I think I spent a month of crutches and a year and a half in physiotherapy. I decided not to have an operation - thank god, I would have never been able to play rugby. The ambulance on the day was funny. They gave me a lot of laughing gas because the paramedic had to pop the knee cap back out by straightening my leg and then told me 'Stop laughing! The Doctors won't take you seriously!' Also that I was determined not to go to the hospital alone, so I got my brother out of his lesson and he was driven behind me in the deputy head's car. Furthermore, this was the beginning of when I began to speak to Jenny more often. I remember talking on MSN explaining that I didn't know whether to have the operation or not etc etc and she was really good at weighing the options and talking things through. From then on I've always gone to her when life changing things happen, especially if I need to make a decision!

16 - Falling completely and utterly in love with a man called Fuad. He was an upper sixth and was taking an AS-level in Classics. He sat next to me and cor blimey, he was lovely. We worked together that whole year and I think I melted each time he said something. Unfortunatley my affections went unnoticed and he went off to university. Though, he did go to Cambridge University, so I saw him once or twice. Once he spoke to me and I again, melted, despite fancying someone else at the time. He never knew. Fuad, if you're reading this now, you missed your chance. Haha.

17 - For my seventeenth birthday all me and my friends went to see Spiderman 3 at the cinema across the road from our college. I loved the first two. I think they were really good. Maybe not as good as the Batman movies, but that's another story. But anyway, I remember vividly when Peter Parker went all emo with a fringe and everything and looking across at my friends. All of them couldn't contain their laughter.

18 - Leaving the country for the first time on my own. It was completely and utterly libarating. I believe that everyone should go travelling on their own. You find yourself maturing and completely responsible for your own actions. It was something that I had never done and an experience that I will never forget. I did things I never thought I would do. I learned to drive. Not just a car but a grader and a truck and a front end loader and a horse. I used a chainsaw. Got calf-deep in cow poop. I was hospitalised. I jumped off a platform fifty foot in the air with a piece of elastic strapped to my feet twice. I got drunk on a box of goon and fell asleep on the table in a hostel. I jumped out of a plane at fourteen thousand feet. I fell in love.

19 - Getting home from five months away. I'm telling you the best feeling in the world is that hug from your family. Especially your little sister. She made my life that day when I went to pick her up from school after not seeing her for so long. Seeing old friends again. Meeting new ones at university. Dropping out of university to go another way in life.

20 - Being completely and utterly happy.

Tuesday 27 April 2010

That's life.

Ok, so not much and yet a lot has happened...

Firstly I missed two celebrations that I wished to celebrate by a short blog. One was St George's Day (is it still the 23rd April...?) because, woohoo ENGERLAND! And second, a month of me being in Australia! A MONTH!

This was on the 21st April. Crazy times. A month has gone by. It zipped by unnoticed by myself, and only afterwards I realised that the celebratory day of a month into the new found and lovely relationship that I have with the boyfriend we spent a total of fifteen minutes together in the day. Go us!

There is a good reason, and it comes down to the root of all evil - money. We were both working. He left at six in the morning, and I came home at nine at night. Damn those evening shifts at work.

Oh well. That's life.

So, a month and a few days have gone by, and strangely, I feel now like I'm getting the jist of it all. It now feels routinely and good. I'm working and getting better (I hope) at my job. It's got to be said it wasn't all easy. Suddenly going from a relationship where you lead very seperate lives to one where you share everything materially as well as emotionally can definitley throw you. As you all know, this is my first proper relationship - so it's all a big learning curve.

I love it though. Every night we watch a new movie. Lionel has introduced me to the Alien series. Bloody amazing. We're halfway through Alien:Resurrection and I now know what is meant by 'the John Hurt moment' XD

Anyway, I've got work in the morning. So I'd best be off.

Night night.

P.S. By reading this blog you now have to make a donation of a minimum of five pounds to my sister for running the marathon. --CLICK HERE--

Sunday 18 April 2010

Marathon


Ok - so this blog post isn't going to be about me. Sorry for all those who want to read about me, I know, it's going to be a strain hearing about something else. But I would wish to turn the eyes off Australia and back home for a bit.

My amazing big sister is running the epic 26 miles in the London Marathon on the 25th April - just one week away.

She's running for a very good charity called Sense, and I emplore anyone who reads this blog to do the following:-

1. Read the interview about the upcoming race by clicking HERE.

2. Go to her sponser page online HERE.

3. Maybe go down to London next Saturday and cheer everyone on!

What she is doing is just simply, in one word, amazing. Even the girl who had the courage to move halfway round the world cannot believe that she is going to run - yes run - 26 miles. I mean, I wouldn't even cycle that in a week!

All I can say is good luck George! I love you and hope everything goes smoothly.

Saturday 17 April 2010

Cold.

Yesterday, at work, I was asked what I miss most about England. Now, I miss so much about England it is getting ridiculous, but I answered honestly by not saying the obvious answer being 'my family and friends' (though I miss you guys a lot, no doubt about that) but I answered...

...being cold.

I know. RIDICULOUS. But honestly, I most miss the sensation of being cold. The strange complex idea that if one was cold one would automatically think, 'oh I should put a jumper on' Anyone who knows me would most definitley know that I am not one of these fashion girls, who buy everything there is to buy in Cosmo, but I am a girl with a standard uniform of a hooded jumper and a comfy pair of jeans. I brought three hoodies with me in my twenty-six kilos of luggage. All personalised and loved to pieces by myself, and yet they are hanging up in the wardrobe crying out to me to be worn.

But I can't.

Because I'd melt.

Gah. Why the tropics? Why take an ordinary english lass out of her comfortable surroundings and through her in this hot, sticky, sweaty, humid environment? Why Darwin?

I ponder this, sitting with the pedestal fan blowing in my face as my skin peels from the sunburn I got last week, watching every single episode of Scrubs to distract myself from the fact that I haven't yet seen Matt Smith's debut as The Doctor in The Eleventh Hour...

...and then Lionel walks by, and everything is fine again.

:D

Even though I'm planning on someway to make a move down to Tasmania feasible for the both of us.

Mwahahaha. Little does he know.

On other news, the job hunt came to an end when I was offered one in a fish and chip shop over the road. So now I'm getting burnt and battered (not literally) by deep fat fryers for a living - and I come home smelling of chicken salt. Fun fun fun.

Tuesday 6 April 2010

Happy.

I've not wanted to write here for the past week or so. There is a very good reason for this and that is that I've just felt so ...unsettled.

For a few days, before Easter weekend, I couldn't help but feel so out of place. It was hot. I got sunburnt badly (so much so there was burn still there after I peeled) I just wasn't feeling at home which is something I so badly wanted to feel.

Maybe it was to be expected. Maybe it was simply hormones. But nothing I could do got me motivated to do something about it. Lionel would leave for work in the morning and I would do nothing but be on the internet or watch movies all day. I did little things, things which made me feel like I wasn't slacking, but I didn't accomplish much.

All of this just got me down. And why would I want to share that with the world?

However, and that's a big flipping however, everything over Easter just got better. Lionel had four days off work. Good Friday straight through to Easter Monday. We unpacked more or less everything on the Friday and set up the TV with the many games consoles that Lionel owns. I am now addicted to Balders Gate: Dark alliance on the PS2, if anyone knows of that one. On Saturday we managed to pick up a sofa for $500 out of the paper. So, now, we're set up. We have somewhere to sit, somewhere to cook meals, somewhere to relax.

Infact I was so pleased that I cooked roast chicken and man, it was lovely.

On Saturday night we headed to Lionel's mums place for a BBQ, which wasn't a BBQ because there was no sausages and burgers but steaks. Which of course, being the carnivore that I am, didn't mind at all. On Sunday morning we went round again for reheated leftovers for breakfast, yummy.

Now, I'm on the hunt for a job. I'm printing off CVs and handing them round the shops. I really hope something comes through.

Anywho, this is not that interesting of a blog, but I felt that I should for all those people back home.

But I'm very happy now. So that's a good thing. Despite it being so bloody hot.

Thursday 25 March 2010

Curveball.

Life is funny, isn't it?

You think you have your life all planned out, for the time being, and then it throws you a curveball which you have to handle. For me it was take a gap year after A-levels, travel, see a little bit more of the world and then settle back in dreary England for a degree. However, on the gap year I met a man. Corny as it sounds. This man was gorgeous, Australian and ten years older then me.

Naturally, this romance, at first, was to be not much at all. But after I left Buchanan Downs Station (more details can be found on my previous travel blog here)we kept in contact through email and texting. I then met him in Darwin when he had a week off and met his family, and still was talking to him when I got back home to England and started university. This led to Lionel coming across to England just before Christmas and I think made us both realise that this was something we both still wanted to work on. Thus, the decision was made for me to move across to the land downunder for the forseeable future.

My visa lasts a year, so I'll be coming home next March no matter what.

But now, for the moment, I am currently residing in Lionel's mums old house until Saturday when we move into our own place. I don't have a job, but will begin to look when we've settled into the house.

It's so bizarre, as I think about it. I'm in Australia. I'm in Australia. I still have to pinch myself. Even when I'm sitting outside with my book and a bottle of water. Even when I have to turn on the air-conditioning. Even when Lionel is driving us round these wide and frankly oddly straight roads in his ute (aka, the teabag)

England, for me, is like a huge, comfy, battered leather armchair. With cups of tea and rain and cushions with the union jack. It's safe. It's secure. It's comforting. I love the batter armchair. Who doesn't?

But it has to be said that when I came out here the first time, away from England's comfort, it was exhilarting, liberating and completely and utterly terrifying. I have the same gut feeling now. I'm scared of what this might turn into. The possibility of actually becoming a resident in Aus ...too big for my brain to tolerate - but all the same, the thought that this will all be a bust? God, please no.

So, life threw me this curveball - one of excitement, one of terror, one of oppotunity. And I made a decision, to whack it straight back.

Now, whether I hit it or not is another question...

What I have learned from my few days in Australia so far is that if you are on the pursuit of happiness in your life - follow your heart, not your head.

It worked for me. :)