Late Night Packing

I'm leaving for Sydney in less than 5 hours, so I figured it was about time to pack. I keep telling myself on the bright side, I started to consider my packing list at the start of the week...

With nothing left to pack but my laptop I really should just bundle it into the bag and get some shut eye. Instead I'm sitting here tapping away. It's largely because I've actually gotten out of the house a bit in the last couple of days.

A trip with some friends to a rather cool beach for a brisk swim, via a winery with a dog named Bingo, capped off with an evening at Moonlight Cinema yesterday added to what has already been a fairly pleasant start to the year. Couple that with falling asleep before 02:00 yesterday and I'm doing rather better than I expected.

Today was good for other reasons. Another load of laundry done means I'm 70% on the way to a tidy room, with the remaining 30% more to do with finding storage (or even better getting rid of stuff). I've also got a few more days work lined up for early February which is great. Still many emails to write but at least there's something to look forward to!

Anyhow, I really must close my eyes as I'm exhausted. A day of domesticity combined with the Grand Designs marathon have rather taken it out of me...

A Quiet Start to the New Year

Three days into the New Year and I'm desperately clinging to my resolution for a better 2008. My weeks of scattered work are all culminating with an incredible impatience for my next contract. My mind is going a little spare without work. After all, she's my mistress.

New Year's Eve was one of the less painful of the 24 that I've experienced, although I can hardly count the earlier years as difficult as I was blissfully not thinking much at that point. I was lucky enough to spend brief amounts of time with quite a few friends, I'm sorry to say, achieving more quantity than quality in terms of time spent compared with number of friends seen. Still it was wonderful to see the Monash kids, who I seem to see annually, as well as a few of the Ceremonies crew. It was the first NYE that I've actually gone into the Melbourne CBD (or any city's CBD for that matter) to watch the fireworks. They were pretty and shiny as fireworks are want to be. There was champagne, singing and the odd reveler throwing sparklers from their balcony to mark yet another year passing.

The city was a ghost town the next day until mid-afternoon. Apparently I was up a little "early" for the New Year. I followed up my social evening with more social catch ups before I inevitably disappear from the social scene and drown myself in work. Well, that's sort of the plan any how...

When I finally made it home last night I curled up in bed and read for awhile before falling asleep at a far more respectable 00:30. This allowed me to wake up, for the first time in weeks, in the morning! So I spent much of that time in bed anyway, finishing Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I liked it a lot although it did make me feel a little sad.

One load of laundry later and I feel like the day has been reasonably productive!

Now, I'm waiting for the birds to start their morning song, triggering that part of my brain that allows me to fall asleep. Not long now...

A Toast

Five, possibly six years ago, in a small theatre in Melbourne I met Nick. As we trimmed trees during the church service next door, hauled dentist chairs and squeezed puppets that barely fit through the doors into the theatre, we didn't really talk much. That was must of the season until we had our final two shows, a matinee and an evening show. We had a couple of hours to kill so we headed to the pub and played a whole lot of pool and from that moment a friendship started to grow.

Over the years Nick's been an amazing friend. He seems to have a sixth sense about when I'm feeling under the weather no matter where I am. A text message will appear or my phone will ring just at the right moment. Just as I'm thinking I need to talk to someone. Most importantly he's honest with me. He's not afraid to tell me I'm being an idiot or that I'm doing okay.

Well, it's Nick's birthday today and I wish I could be there to give him a hug and a beer but there's a festival to close tonight so the beer will have to wait. Well, his beer anyway!

So happy birthday darlin'. To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due.

Bound for the bush

I haven't fallen off the face of the planet, I've just been trying to be sociable for the last few days!

One of the many people I met in Doha, Adam, is over in Oz on holiday and is likely to one of the very few visitors I get due to the incredible airfares that are required to get to Darwin from most Australian capital cities.

So it's been a week of trying different food options ranging from seafood platters at Lewinsky's (named after Ms Monica) and a delicious selection of Thai curries at Hanuman, it's been a truly delicious week.

Having promised myself I wasn't going to repeat Doha where I managed to not make it out to explore the desert (while virtually living in it), this weekend will see my first trip in a long time out to the bush.

Kakadu's only 250km from Darwin and while we won't see all of the park there are definite highlights that I've been given from my work mates. So I'm looking forward to sitting in a croc-free pool at the top of a waterfall to pass at least one of my afternoons.

Might even make it back in time to see all the fireworks on Territory day...

Must run, toast is ready and I have to leave for work otherwise I won't get to leave for the park!

PS. Hot showers are back!

Failing to Pack

While I should be packing for my trip to Darwin, I am instead updating information on the plethora of profiles for online communities that I've joined this week. It would seem that it's the week for it... after all I've joined three groups (Facebook which I much prefer to MySpace, Friendster, and Linked In). With the amount of time I've spent playing about with the profiles I can't help but think that I should have organised drinks with friends instead... Oh well!

Friday was my last day of temping for at least the next four months and I'm grateful for that. The day dragged on as there was very little for me to do. Still it was nice to be asked to stay on by so many people. Even nicer to know that I couldn't because I'll be in Darwin on Monday in a job I'm actually excited about!

So packing you say? Well, tonight wasn't really the night for it as I headed out for drinks to celebrate Dave's birthday. Besides, anyone who's traveled/lived with me knows that I'm a last minute packer. The world would implode if I wasn't up to the wee hours of the morning throwing things into my bags/boxes...

Things Beginning With the Letter "s"

Festival Fina closed on Sunday with some delightful weather and crowds after a wet and windy start. Definite favourites for the festival were (in no particular order) Quidams - Herbert's Dream, Group F, Guo Yue, ERTH Dinosaur Petting Zoo, Ulik and Le Snob and the memorable installation of Méchanique Vivante's Song of the Sirens. It was great to see all the performances run smoothly and even better to see people showing up in the Melbourne weather. Yay for Nick and Nomi coming to say hi!

I must say that's one thing I love about Melbourne. Weather is no barrier for the arts/festival loving people. They just bring their umbrellas, jackets and rugs and huddle together to enjoy the show. It's great and very much appreciated when you're totally soaked to the skin and still have at least 8 hours of your shift to go.

After a swift load-out of the bulk of the festival life's been slipping back to craft heaven for me. Mingled of course with large doses of Final Fantasy XII and season 1 of Buffy.

This Sunday we'll be getting ready to farewell Naomi with a lovely picnic and what was going to be some blues dancing that I was very much looking forward to...

Sadly I slipped down the bottom half of the stairs yesterday and landed (well but painfully) on my knee and ankle. It all happened a bit quickly and involved the dog stepping on the back of my pants causing the fall as I was holding my laptop... Laptop is in tact but my leg is still a little sore when I put weight on it. I may have to take a rain check on the dancing for a bit.

So I've decided to spend my restful time making scarves to bring to the picnic on Sunday in the hopes that they might find a good home. I'm slowly making my way through my stash of pretty yarns that have been hoarded over the years. It's good for me :)

I've also almost completed Gene's socks which he's happy about... Just having some troubles with the heel (namely I misread the pattern when I made the first one and now have to decide what to do with the second one). Yeah, post-festival life is complicated.

I'm sure I'll live though.

Travel Bug

Today is an Autumn cleaning day. We've got family coming to stay with us on Wednesday night for the rather big weekend that Melbourne is set to have. I believe that the Grand Prix is what's caught their attention.

So it's looking to be a day of sorting through clothes, doing laundry (potential secret to happiness?) and working out how to store our clothes temporarily. That is one thing that I miss about having a house. Admittedly we tended to store things on the floor but we did try sometimes!

Last night we caught up with Paul, Deb who we hadn't seen since we left for Doha which was great. Love their new place (which when I think about it isn't that new) and it made me think two things. Firstly - Gee it'd be nice to have a place again and secondly It is kind of nice not having a place in some ways too... The latter is due to my urge to travel again.

I definitely have a bad case of the travel bug! You'd think that two months traveling around Europe would have cured that. When I think about it though, it's not so much the traveling that I want to do (I could live without spending quite that much time in train stations on a daily basis) but more the being somewhere else. I think I really do want to move somewhere else for a while. Currently "somewhere" is the UK (which isn't a particularly original destination for an Aussie) because I really liked the small taste I got while I was there. In any case there's still a lot that I want to see over there.

While I've been trying to work out how I can get back there I discovered that I can also do a working holiday type thing in Ireland for a year. That covers me for being over there for three years if I add it to the other one... By which stage I'll probably have moved on anyhow because I don't ever seem to be in the same place (physically or mentally) for particularly long. Commitment you say? I like my freedom in most things.

Okay I really should get stuck into the cleaning if only so that we can get back to our DVD/Final Fantasy XII routine before we start work tomorrow!

Day 1 in Melbourne

I achieved most of what I wanted to do today. Admittedly I wasn't aiming very high and my to-do list was questionable but it's a start.

I'm eternally grateful that I'm not suffering too badly from jet lag. Ended up going to bed at 22:30 and getting up at a respectable 08:45. The day started well with a couple of bits of toast and the long awaited vegemite. This was followed by a delicious cup of chai tea. Mmmmmm.

I spent the morning starting my Doha gallery at Zoto but I've only got 16 pictures up so far and the rest will have to wait until Wednesday when I pick Gene, Nick and the laptop up from the airport. I thought I had all the pictures on my hard drive but I was wrong. Ended up posting some pictures that I took in Brisbane as well because I figured I might as well store them online.

After a few hours Mum came home and kindly drove me to VicRoads where I was able to replace my driver's license. Yay for having a license again. Now I just need to replace my fork & EWP licenses, a couple of bank cards, health insurance card... *sigh* Stupid wallet.

Naturally, having no work until March, we headed to the shops for a quick browse (my bad. I wanted to get some cocoa butter to help soothe my skin). We both came back with woolen skirts that we'll have to wait until Winter to wear (but they're pretty!) and a random collection of cosmetics (Mum wanted to get some mascara so it wasn't entirely my fault). It was a fun afternoon but highlights my need to get a job.

Looking forward to Wednesday night where not only will I get to pick up the boys from the airport but Dad will be picking up my laptop. Yay for shiny new toys. I'm looking forward to setting it all up. I'm having laptop withdrawals, sad I know.

As we no long have Gram (Gene's car) I'm without transport. I don't count public transport here. So it could be a while before I'm out and about again (except for job hunting purposes). I am strongly considering trying to make it to Kew for swing dancing though. It's been awhile and I do miss it. I should get as much in as I can as it's looking more and more like I'll have to move away for work.

It's been great getting text messages welcoming me home. I feel very loved :)

Tomorrow I'm aiming to get some more of my random lost cards replaced and sort out some other paperwork. If I'm really good I'll start going through my old clothes because most of them don't fit me any more.

We'll see how I go.

The Arctic Measles That Never Were

A.K.A. WE’RE STILL IN DOHA, TA-NAH!

Once upon a time there were three friends, Tech Boy, the Little One and Ta-Nah! who lived in the city of the Four Season Days. Tech Boy was generally cheerful and enjoyed fixing things with one of his many purpose built matte-black tools. His smaller half, the Little One, spent more time shrouded in papers or when she wasn’t working in yarns of all colours and plys. Ta-Nah! was so called because of his happy disposition, and ability to point out things that should seem obvious but aren’t. (Possibly also because I’m terrible at nicknames and it’s the first thing that sprang to mind from the trip).

The three friends spent much of their time wearing large amounts of black while toiling in the hope of attaining the much prized black “crew” shirt from as many shows as possible. They were folks of simple wishes. The work was often hard with unsociable hours and they didn’t get to see many of their friends outside of this world. It was not without reward though. They often enjoyed the shows that they worked on and even when there was no t-shirt in sight, the pleasure of having a hard earned drink with workmates often made up for any aches and pains from the day.

It was having just returned from one such work trip that had ended in holiday resort Up North that the Little One heard a call from a desert. It was a crackly call but it spoke of unbearably hot days, slightly more bearable nights and a culture like she’d never experienced. It also mentioned a fabulous job and people who she’d enjoyed working with earlier that year and the promise of paperwork. Much paperwork. How could she resist? Maybe there’d even be another t-shirt…

One week after her return to Four Season Days the Little One packed her bags, bid her friends farewell and set off towards the Land That Will Always Be Free.

As the Little One settled into her new temporary home she sent home tales of the heat, the lack of pork products, the need for a license to purchase alcohol and the sole bottle shop in the country as well as the crazy drivers and roads.

Tech Boy was stunned and could not believe that such a place existed.
“What? No pork products?!” he exclaimed, “That’s crazy talk”.
So it was that two weeks later he joined the Little One in the place where the People of the Desert came together and joined hands with the People of the Sea.

Time passed and although the Little One and Tech Boy were enjoying their time, despite the food and drink restrictions, they missed Ta-Nah! greatly. He was part of their family and they felt lost without him.

More time passed before they found out that Ta-Nah! would be joining them in the desert in a matter of weeks. They were most excited. Days and nights were carefully counted and important preparations were made for his imminent arrival.

As a result Ta-Nah! was greeted at the airport by his two friends bearing gifts. One had brought him a stack of papers of varying degrees of usefulness and the other had brought him a case of beer.

After terrifying their friend with tales of road accident statistics, various ways to (by home standards) easily get yourself incarcerated and how easy it seemed to become severely dehydrated, Tech Boy retired to bed for a few hours rest leaving the Little One to look after their friend.

The day ran smoothly overall after the Little One had attempted to get them both run over on the way to lunch. After this, the days and nights started to run into one long day of show preparation.

The weather began to cool down and one by one the beanies and coats started to grudgingly appear despite it being 23˚C. It still seemed cold. There was also the welcome sight of a couple of drops of rain which rapidly became less welcome when it was discovered that the city was not particularly drainy.

As the temperature dropped the tension, stress and excitement grew until it culminated in a spectacular, albeit wet, opening ceremony. There were horses, a city of lights, another horse and a great big flaming cauldron. Just in case all involved weren’t wet enough from the show, it continued to rain through most of the night after the show with the exception of the half hour or so that it hailed. Tech Boy, Ta-Nah! and the Little One were beginning to think they’d seen it all.

The days passed quickly and before they knew it they were well into the closing ceremony. There were campfires to be lit, camels and horses to do as they do, thousands of little genies to get entangled with and a donkey. After the show there were a few more long nights of packing up followed by many nights of celebration before it was suddenly all over.

Friends parted, old and new alike, with promises of keeping in touch or visiting. This was not the case for the three friends in our tale though. They had decided to go on a whirlwind tour of the Continent, the Land of Tea and ultimately the Arctic!

So they did.

They spent Christmas in the City of Love in the Land of Wine & Cheese with an old friend while regaling some new friends with tales of camels and 1200 men with flares.

In the Land of Tea, Tech Boy and Ta-Nah! searched fervently for a decent cup of coffee while the Little One unhelpfully pointed out that this might be a lost cause as she sipped on her cup of tea. They kept searching and eventually found a decent cup of coffee by a museum.

Having achieved their coffee-finding mission the trio made their way back to the Land of Wine & Cheese where Ta-Nah! was twice crowned the King of Revelry.

A last minute decision saw them travel even further South to a city by the Mediterranean Sea where they discovered the long-lost secret to getting Tech Boy to smile in photos. There were human statues aplenty and more historical architecture and gardens than they could fit into the two days that they had and they agreed that they would have to return one day.

It was here in the city by the Mediterranean that the trouble started.

While Tech Boy, Ta-Nah! and the Little One were reclining on a pier by the Mediterranean, Ta-Nah! started to explain how it wasn’t really a sea but a big bay. He continued to explain a little of the Mediterranean’s history and his reasoning behind his statement. The Little One was doubtful that this was a good idea to be insulting the very body of water that they were reclining beside. The three of them made a few more flippant remarks about being dragged into the potentially offended Mediterranean before heading off for a little piece of home at the theatre.

The next few weeks passed uneventfully and the trio thought nothing more of their quips regarding the Mediterranean. They continued their journey to the Arctic through several countries stopping to sample their beers, wines and as much local fare as they could find.

On their journey they walked on the World’s Greatest Stage, visited the Little Mermaid and wandered through red light districts at the wrong time of day. The trip was going well.

Two days before they were set to arrive in the Arctic, Ta-Nah! mentioned that he wasn’t feeling well. Not knowing how else to respond, Tech Boy and the Little one responded with encouraging words (“you’ll be right” and “have some spirulina and some paracetamol it’ll help” respectively).

They were sadly mistaken as when they arrived up in the Arctic, Ta-Nah! had not improved at all. The attractive Arctic doctor confirmed their fears. Ta-Nah! had Arctic Measles. Sadly the attractive Arctic doctor had no solution for Arctic Measles but the good news was that it wasn’t contagious.

Naturally the explanation for Arctic Measles was that the Mediterranean had been cunning in seeking to teach the three travellers a lesson in manners. As all bodies of water are connected in some way She had sent the Arctic Measles to them as a reminder that there was nowhere to run. Naturally.

So the trio continued with the activities as planned. Despite his protestations that he “didn’t do fun”, Ta-Nah! continued to partake in the night-time tobogganing, sleigh riding, dog-sledding and seeing pretty lights in the sky with Tech Boy and the Little One.

As the days passed Ta-Nah! improved slightly. By the end of the five day Arctic excursion he was well on the mend.

At this point the Little One parted from her travelling companions for a side trip back to the Land of Tea to visit more people and drink more tea. Tech Boy and Ta-Nah! continued on to the Land of Wine & Cheese where they passed the days eating good cheese and drinking varying qualities of wine.

Feeling refreshed after her trip the Little One rejoined her companions and spent the week relaxing with them. Tech Boy and the Little One celebrated their five years together in fine company as the Little Lisa had chosen to join the trio for the weekend.

The Little One was starting to feel rather fatigued. More so than normal and much more than she should as she was sleeping quite a lot during the day. She put this down to her usual stressing about life, the universe and everything and tried to put it out of her mind.

On what was to be their second last day in the Land of Wine & Cheese, the three travellers headed South to the coast to visit the Mediterranean to ensure that everything was good between them and the Sea. The Little One barely made it out of the car.

She had discovered a few little red itchy spots appearing over the last few nights.

By the time they arrived back in the cottage some of these had blossomed into blisters. They still itched but now they hurt too.

This perplexed the three travellers as they looked awfully like the non-contagious Arctic Measles but by the very nature of non-contagious Arctic Measles couldn’t be.

The next day Tech Boy kindly took the Little One to the doctor who cheerfully pronounced that she had chicken pox. Yes it was definitely chicken pox which is unfortunate in an adult. Yes it’s what Ta-Nah! had too, even if the attractive Arctic doctor said otherwise. Bed rest till the end of the week and try not to catch anything else as it could get complicated… and that was that.

Oh and dragons and unicorns and such. (for Nick)



So it’s now the end of the week. The blisters are slowly drying and last night I managed to sleep for more than four hours at a stretch for the first time in a week.

Gene & Nick are in fine health and are looking after themselves to avoid a relapse of chicken pox and have kindly taken over the travel arrangements while nursing me back to life. It’s my first time out of bed in three days and I may be heading back that way soon.

There are two points to the story.

Firstly, don’t insult any body of water. It always ends badly.

Secondly, the three of us will be home late. We’re not sure how late we’ll be yet as we’re on a wait list to get back from Singapore but I’m sure we’ll keep you posted.

For now, thank you for reading, have fun, be safe and we’ll see you soon.
- The Little One.

St Flour, France.

In a big nutshell...

It feels like ages since I last posted. I'm having blog withdrawls! Sad I know. Anyhow we're still on the move but I thought I should do a quick update... On a side note the European keyboards are driving me crazy so bear with the erratic punctuation.

We're currently in Tromsø, Norway. I've been lead to believe that this is within the Artic. We're most excited! It's only -6 degrees celcius so it's not too crazy yet. Much warmer than we were expecting so we're happy. We're up here to check out the Northen Lights (coinciding with the festival that's about to start up here).

In short since I last posted...

We made it back to London a few times and visited the Museum of Natural History which was not only an impressive museum collection wise but the building was also pretty spectacular. While we were there Gene & Nick found what they believe to be the only decent cup of coffee in England in a little Italian cafe near the museum. The barista was pretty cute too :)

Other exciting things we did in London included taking Gene's cousin Will and his wife Harika to see their first show in the theatre, The Phantom of the Opera. Nick & I were particularly excited as it was our first theatre show that we'd seen as kids too. Gene got us amazing seats in the Royal Circle and it was every bit as cheesy and wonderful as we remembered although they did change some of the lyrics. Some of the acting choices were interesting too but we still enjoyed it.

After Phantom we headed to the pub where I caught up with Dave briefly before we headed back to Guildford.

Some time after all this we headed back over to France. I had finally let my post-show cold get the better of me and spent three of the four days in France in bed. We went to St Brevin des Pins, to stay with Gene's French family, which is a gorgeous little town on the south west coast of France. It has many bakeries and a yarn shop. I could live in a place like that :)

It was interesting having a fever and having to speak in another language. I found that all my dreams were in French which is really hard work when your entire knowledge of French is based on Year 8 French. I found myself waking up exhausted thinking of sentence structures. When my fever broke my dreams were in English again and the first and only word that I thought of was "ameliorate". Appropriate but more complex than necessary.

After St Brevin we made a last minute decision to head to Barcelona. We took an overnight train there and stayed for one night to see Tap Dogs and catch up with Dave again. There's something surreal about sitting in a theatre and listening to Midnight Oil in the middle of Barcelona. We liked it a lot.

We also discovered that making Gene say "Barcelona" makes him smile for photos. Yay!

Barcelona was amazing. We saw Sagrada Famillia (ignore my spelling) which you simply have to do. It's the cathedral designed by Gaudi that they started building about two hundred years ago... they're still going. The postcards say something about 2010 for finishing... Aside from my wallet getting pinched (it's all good folks, cards are cancelled not much cash lost and my passport is with me). It was a fabulous trip.

We had a little time in Paris where we caught up with Lisa again and finally got to see the Eiffel Tower. Queues to go up were too long so we didn't.

We returned briefly to England where we regrouped, jettisoned excess baggage and saw Wicked. Again with the amazing shows... It just blew me away. Love the music and the set and costumes were visually stunning. I just can't say how much I loved the show.

Then we headed off to Brussels for a few hours where we drank good beer, visited the "world's greatest stage" at the Grand Place (which was pretty special), the boys ate mussels and chips while I had sausages and strøemp. Then it was back on a train to Hamburg.

It rained in Hamburg. It rained a lot. We were soaked but we chose to walk all around the city anyway. Pictures of grey Hamburg and a tour of a couple of churches (one was intact the other destroyed in WWII and left as an anti-war memorial) then it was onto another train to Denmark.

We spent two nights in Copenhagen. During the day we walked from the city hall to the Little Mermaid who was indeed little. It was a lovely walk which took us past the palace. Didn't sight Princess Mary although we were willing to converse about drop bears and Boags draft if it happened. Pity the Tivoli Gardens were closed when we were there. They looked pretty special.

After Copenhagen we headed on a train to Oslo where we spent a night and a couple of hours wandering the city enjoying the snow. After a quick photo taking walk to the Palace and National theatre in Oslo we boarded a plane and here we are now!

In a nutshell that's what we've been doing for the last 18 days. Tomorrow night we're going dog sledding and the night after that we're going on a horse sleigh ride to see the Northern Lights. It's been a big trip and we're starting to feel a little worn out but what a holiday!

Keyboard's driving me nuts so I'll finish here.

Shows

Last night I headed down to the Corniche with Amy to watch the multimedia show at Fisherman's Harbour. After an interesting detour from our cab driver we made it there late but the show started about 20 minutes late.

It was an interesting idea doing a laser show on the harbour as the wind blew away half the smoke but luckily the pyro produced enough to keep up the effects. While the story was a little lacking (they stopped telling it for about a third of the show and then picked it up again at random) and nothing seemed to be in time it was a pretty good deal for the 10QR (AU$3) ticket price.

After the show we went for dinner at one of the nearby restaurants and had fresh hommus and lebanese mixed grill. It was good :)

All Naomi's talk of swing dancing reminds me that I should post the picture that the lovely Rick Dobbie sent me yesterday of Gene & I swing dancing in the 40 degree Doha morning. It seems like an age has passed since the picture was taken!

A Cool Doha Night

Last night the temperature dropped to 25 degrees Celsius with a cool (probably 23-24 degree) breeze and I kid you not some of the locals had jackets and beanies on. I must admit that it did actually feel cool to us as the maximum temperature that day had been 31 degrees. (Although I would swear that it was warmer)

As I was on the bus on the way home, Under the Milky Way started playing on my iPod. That song triggers a myriad of feelings and thoughts when it comes on. So much so that I can't really find words outside of my head to describe them accurately. I'll always see ballerina's flying in the air with pyro wands and silver trial bikes dancing with them. I still remember how wonderful it was to know that my friends were watching what I was watching and that I had my family in the stadium with me sharing the moment. It also makes me think of home. Not as in Melbourne, but home as in where my friends and family are. I actually think of my friends as a bit of an extended family because like my family they're always there for me. I can't see the Milky Way here in Doha. The light pollution is worsened by the dust and sand that's always in the air and as such there aren't that many stars that can be seen from the city. For the first time since I left Melbourne in mid-August I missed home.

With perfect timing as always, Nick C will be arriving in Doha in the morning. I called yesterday to let him know that I'll be buddying him and meeting him at the airport. I managed to catch him just after Matt's show finished and it was really good to hear both their voices even with the ridiculous delay. There's something wonderful about being able to say to a friend from home, I'll see you on Saturday. It's not something that I've done for awhile!

I've got a long day of work ahead of me but I know that it's going to fly by because I'm working with great people and it's an amazing environment that I'm working in. Gene's at home tucked in bed, apparently not sleeping which is bad because he starts work in seven hours, and well for all who've asked. He sends his love to you all, but in a more, Gene-manner than I've managed to pass on.

We're both really busy and it's kind of strange being in the same place, sharing the same house and not seeing each other. I really should be used to it by now but it still gets me everytime :)

This post sounds more melancholy than I expected it to. I suppose I should stop listening to The Happy Prince just before bed because the story always makes me sad!

Hope you're all well and thanks for the emails. They make this busy, restless and exciting period easier to work through!

PS. The cold is much better. Sleep is a wonderful thing. Novel is doing less well. Completely stuck and have returned to knitting Mum's socks while procrastinating.

Improving

Things are looking up today. I've had 12 almost solid hours sleep. Woke about at the 6 hour mark in a panic because I thought I was late for work, turned out it was only 3:43am. Still sitting on just under 2,500 words of novel but I'm still pretty happy with that considering my workload and recent cold.

Happily the cold has subsided quite a bit after my good long sleep so I'm sipping on my raspberry & echinacea tea having just had my vitamin C, spirulina and garlic oil capsules and I'm feeling fine! :)

Gene & I are both very excited at Nick's impending arrival in Doha and look forward to welcoming him to the glories of desert life (tee hee). No, it'll be fine Nick! No really! You can trust us. :)

I've already bumped into one of the girls I went to uni with over here who's here to followspot. It's always nice to see a familiar face when you're abroad.

Totally stuck on my novel. Have contemplated re-starting but am trying to fight that urge. Next year I'm going to have a plot outline I swear.

iPod is still going well and I'm happily (or tearily) falling asleep to "The Happy Prince" and other stories by Oscar Wilde. I always cry when I hear that story. Not sure why I decided to listen to it before bed.

Okay, running away to be busy now. Can't wait to show you all pictures of Doha when I get back!

Notes

One thing I've discovered, in Doha, is that I can only send emails via a web-based email page. This is rather frustrating when just wanting to say a quick hello to someone who hasn't sent you an email in a while. So I've decided to do a few notes to people instead based on the assumption that if they don't read the blog someone who knows them will pass the message on if they read it. Did that make sense?

In no particular order...

Nick C, if you find time to check out Fringe, say hi to Sara & the gang for me. Anyone else reading this should feel free to say hi to Sara for me as well, but as I know that Nick actually knows who I'm talking about I thought it might be easier for him to do so.

Mum & Dad hope the China trip is still going well. Keep off the local food Mum! Enjoy your desert experience.

Fi, how's the new place? Hope you're settling in well. Miss having a place to call home! It's a little weird not to have one. Say hi to Mark for me and give Tori (Tory?) a hug.

Naomi, I can't believe you're back in Melbourne in just under two weeks. Seems like ages since I saw you last after swing dancing. Enjoy the last of your time in Indonesia and have lots of fun! Even with the 4am wake ups :)

Tanya, Apricots Tomorrow will be on its way probably next week along with The Son of A Duck Is A Floater, I'm just waiting on the later to be in stock.

Matt, hope rehearsals are going well, send photos or something? Really wish I could be there to see it as everything you work on is always amazing. Don't stress, all will be well!

Philby, hope everything went to plan for you last week! It was good to hear from you. You missed out on a tasty brunch! Maybe after Ramadan eh? :)

Lisa, Paris still sounds amazing. Can't wait to catch up with you! The airline better be giving you lots stuff to make up for your luggage shmozzle.

Nic, all the best with your show. Look forward to hearing about it!

Paul & Deb, always great to hear from you both. Some excellent names in that email! How's the house going? (I seem to ask this a lot)

Rami & Caroline, love reading your blog. Wish I could make it for one of the meals! Maybe you'll still be going when we get back! All the best for the thesis Rami.

That's all for now, if I haven't left a "note" for you, I haven't forgotten you, I've probably been in contact with you recently. Miss you all!

Brisbane Update

The season has changed and the festival's going well. Yesterday was aptly proclaimed Horror Day and it was possibly the busiest we've had all festival. The morning was spent trying to flatten the rather horribly rolled tarquet in the sun and lay the stuff so we could rehearse. We fell a bit behind but we may not have been at 100% as most of the crew had been out drinking with the crazy Alaskans for their final night drinks the day before.

After a bit of lunch we were much better and we battled our way through three plots, three dress/tech rehearsals and opened the first show 20 minutes after the last tech run. I've called my first show in four years which was kind of exciting. I was calling the show blind because I hadn't seen it before and there were cues written on pages 4-8 but not on the first three or the last ten. It went well though and there were no obvious mistakes. All shows went smoothly and were not in one way disturbed by the brawl outside the pub next door or the rooftop running backpack person who the police were trying to catch.

Today was a much easier start at 13:00. We were woken this morning at 9:17 by a phone call from one of my shows but that was rapidly sorted out. We were then treated to a televised church sermon which thoroughly confused me as I've been having trouble working out what day it is. A Saturday sermon apparently.

Tomorrow we're going to visit Timea and her folks in Fern Gully (if there are not environmentally friendly forest folk I'm not going to be impressed). Then it's more shows and then three bump outs.

We're excited to find that Nick's coming up to Brisbane to visit us next week and have been speaking to our accommodation to work out beds so all's going well.

Work is rolling in all at the same time - as it does - which is a weight of my shoulders as I've been going through my usual nearly-the-end-of-my-current-gig stress.

There's a couple of hours left before we have to go back to work for our next shift so we're going to play some network games to pass some time. Geeky yay!

A Few of My Favourite Things

A good meal shared with friends is possibly my favourite thing in life.

Last night Gene, Nick & I went to Iku-Izakaya for dinner and it was lovely. We had a bit of fun finding a carpark but once we got there it was lovely. Friendly service and great food. We had the Ozeki Set which was rather filling and overall well timed in terms of the courses. After dinner we decided to take a stroll across the fish-shaped bridge (well it looked like a fish from the restaurant) and discovered that it led to the Blowhole Sculpture in the Docklands. After playing on the air-pressure platforms, climbing all over the slide, jumping on the springy foam ground and swinging on the swings we headed back to Nick's for a lovely cup of tea - or beer for the boys.

After that we watched Napoleon Dynamite which was amusing but weird before retiring to bed to read our respective books.

It was a pretty good day all round really. Good food, good company, a movie, some reading, more knitting and a play in the park. What more could a girl want?

Family Changes

Having just attended a beautiful wedding on Sunday of two gorgeous friends, I can't help but notice how we're all growing up. Last night one of my friends told me that she has just gotten engaged. It seems that weddings are the new 21st birthdays to attend!

I still remember being a little freaked out when all my cousins got married, within the space of about two years we attended four weddings. It made me think that we'd all grown up a bit and really put into perspective how long ago the days of backyard cricket and commando rolling while playing Terminator 2 really were. Now that my friends are slowly starting to get married, I'm feeling really happy for my friends, because so many of them have found someone who they can share their life with and travel through new adventures together. This is getting a little soppy I know, but apparently I cry at weddings now so leave me alone. :)

We used to live from day to day, making sure that we could make rent, buy food, get the next show on and hopefully still have enough left over to throw a huge afterparty. Oh we also had to do our homework but that did end up a bit of an afterthought some days. We still do kind of live day to day, but now there are people to share that with.

Even at our parties, and they are often now more dinner party style than raucous affairs, we all seem to have settled down. Take dinner at Flick & Dale's reception. We all sat down to dinner in our pretty dresses with our boys in their suits (we know they're men but they are boys at heart) and who'd a thunk it but we all scrubbed up well! Aesthetics aside, we then proceeded to compromise on who got to eat which dish as the different choices were alternated according to seating. What can I say? I think we're all growing up.

More and more I hear my friends saying that if they don't do something now, or try something now, that it will never happen. I've even said the same myself. When just a couple of years ago we thought the world was ours, suddenly it seems that we're feeling the pressure of time.

It's hard to gain perspective of how far you've travelled in life while you're living it. Every birthday feels the same until you look back and remember that at your 12th birthday party you were playing hide-and-seek, while at your 21st you wore your first silk dress. Even looking back less far to my 19th birthday, an ungraceful affair on my part with my dislike of birthday celebrations in general, where we all got dressed up and headed to Crown (oh the class) for a buffet dinner, girls & boys dressed up for the outing. Some of us were in couples back then too, but the intervening four years have changed us all. We are settling down a bit. That's scary but that's okay too.

Over the last few years, I feel like I've found another family. I'm not related to them in any way other than our friendship but I'd still do almost anything to help them if they needed me. We are not family in the traditional sense, but I think we are an association of people who share common beliefs or activities, and that makes us family. The saying goes that you can't choose your family but I guess that's what makes this family of friends special. We did get to choose.

The Housework Queen

I have a hallway again... and lots of clear floor in the living room and a clear path to the kitchen too.

I'm all out of steam though and happily awaiting Matt's arrival for an evening of Howl's Moving Castle and good company.

Can't wait till Gene gets back from Geelong. He'll have a pleasant surprise. Just three more rooms to clean and all will be good.

Yay for clean floors!

No biscuit

Bad Sarah. No biscuit.

Certainly no more books! Not for a while anyway.

a while adv until all six books and one graphic novel have been read in their entirity and possibly re-read.

The day was never destined to follow any rules. It started innocently as an inexpensive trip to the Melbourne Museum to check out the Spirit of the Games exhibit. It was going to cost $12 for my parents and I to get in - Dad gets free entry - and it was going to be a day spent walking happily through all the exhibitions and learning new things. Unfortunately I didn't realise that the exhibition was opening at 15:00 today so we only got to see the Spring Roll (a.k.a. flying W-Classd Tram from the Ceremony). Needless to say there were proud photos being taken by my parents and we decided to take a raincheck and explore the Food & Wine festival just outside.

Of all the ways to pass a morning off, knocking back small samples of dessert wine with my Mum was not what I would have guessed. The wine was lovely though and we each bought two bottles. I got a bottle of feijoa wine and a bottle of blood plum rosé. Very yummy. We also experienced our first taste of fresh pistachio nuts. I honestly held the belief that the lurid pink and green colours must have been part of the salting process of these nuts, but have been pleasantly surprised to discover that they actually are that colour. We decided they were quite addictive and bought four bags ($5/bag) as a result.

With our snacks for the day taken care of we trundled off to the Vic Markets to pick up some souvenirs for Dad to take to the Closing Ceremony for the teams he walks with. While at the market I found this snazzy-oh-so-fashionable black military (?) style jacket that I had to have. It was a bargain at $35 and we all know how I feel about jackets. While browsing the Market we also discovered that for $10 we could have bought a kilo of fresh pistachios as opposed to the kilo that we bought for $20. We're taking that as a learning experience though.

After quick lunch break, a fast shop for nuts for Herman (man that rat gets spoilt) and a short walk to the car I was on my way home. Not for long though. I dropped my stuff and headed straight to Chapel Street to meet up with Matt for an afternoon of shopping. (This is the part where it starts to go a little wrong)

I was quite proud at how little I'd spent so far in the day and wasn't planning on buying much, but then we got talking and Neil Gaiman came up and I became fixated on buying a copy of Death, the high cost of living so we went to Borders. Despite them not having a copy of the comic, I walked out of the shop with no less than three Robert Asprin books. You see Borders were having a "buy two get the third book free" deal on all sci-fi & fantasy books. Bargain! We wandered down Chapel Street, Matt got a great pair of jeans and funky t-shirt while I apparently flirted with the guy in the shop. A cup of hot chocolate and a debrief of the ceremony and I was back on a tram on my homeward journey.

Over cups of hot chocolate we debriefed the ceremony a bit, discussed work and life and the all important question of "what's for dinner"? This caused me to remember that I'm almost out of yoghurt. I figured that I'd just stop by Lygon Court and pick some up on the way home. As some of you may know, Lygon Court has a Borders in it... it's just to your right as you enter from Lygon Street while you innocently try and walk past to the supermarket...

As I walked past the bookstore I thought to myself that I should go and see if they had a copy of the aforementioned comic. Happily they did. They also had the book that I'd read an excerpt of on the tram, on the way to Lygon Court, in one of those free sampler books that I was given after buying the Robert Asprin books in the other bookshop. Naturally having picked up one book I had to search for a second reasonably priced book so that I could get my bargain third book free. An hour later I exited the shop $88 poorer but guiltily happy in the knowledge that I now own, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire, The Earthsea Quartet by Ursula Le Guin, Shadowfall by James Glemens and of course Death, the high cost of living by Neil Gaiman.

Oh and in case you're wondering, I did remember to get the yoghurt too.

So now I'm at home with plenty to read and a fair bit of guilt over the book spree. I should never be allowed in a bookshop unsupervised. Retail therapy and a good nights sleep have done me wonders though. I'm in good spirits again and ready to tackle a big day of paperwork and preparations for the Closing Ceremony (which is just a week away!)

Wonderfully Surreal

Tonight was surreal. Sitting in the main control room at the MCG watching the Opening Ceremony unfold was wonderfully surreal. Usually I'd be sitting on a couch at home, surrounded by family or friends, but tonight I was on a bean bag (care of the TD) next to another production assistant with a perfect view of what was happening and the commentary I heard was the show call. I spent much of the night on the edge of my seat playing anxiously with silly putty while the show progressed smoothly. It was nice to know that I was in fine company with the silly putty as three of the Heads of Departments were playing with it during the show. I think it had calming effects on us all tonight. Something to channel the fidgeting/fiddling out of us and help us concentrate.

A big thank you to all my friends who wished us well tonight, the messages were much appreciated by all involved and especially me.

It's all going to be gone in the next couple of days. The usual bump out blues as you watch your carefully constructed set come to pieces kicked in as less than an hour after the show came down bits of stage were being deconstructed. These stages have been like home for the last couple of weeks, possibly even three weeks.

It's going to be a very different work place tomorrow but I look forward to the next show as always.

Wow!