Sunday 22 February 2009

a new life in a secondhand coat

As I hurtle towards my dissertation deadline like a fucked microlite towards the hills, and the recession beckons imminent graduates into it's dead-end embrace, one thought gives me hope. My future is secure. This is a girl in love, and in love with her own self-conscious naive optimism. Of course it doesn't matter that both Keir and I are very likely to hit the breadline as soon as my final loan goes. Of course we will be fine. Of course, because we have tha powah of lo-ove. We will saddle it up and ride it off into the sunset. Me, Keir and tha powah of lo-ove, making our fortune in a wilderness of unenployment, poverty and toil....
This year will be a test of our mettle. But I am confident we will be fine.

We are going to live on charity shops.

Charity shops for plates and mugs, clothes, kettles and ironing board covers. Charity shops for trinkets, books, coats, curtains. Charity shops. And freecycle, and ebay, and maybe a jumble sale or two. Secondhand life and all the riches it has to offer, as long as you have 50p. Of course we couldn't live entirely this way. Consumables must be new by definition. But I reckon people don't go to charity shops enough. An article in the paper recently predicted that in a few years, mending and making do will be thrown in the history bag, along with glass milk bottles and Sesame Street (my predictions, not theirs). Lets not be wasteful, chaps.

Monday 2 February 2009

Snow.

Bloody, miserable, cruel snow. I love it, but today it conspires against me. Yesterday I spent all day teaching mum how to copy and paste on a computer. Today I just want to get out of the house, but I cannot. The snow has stopped the busses from running. There is no escape. So, it's monty python dvd's, tea and vegetable soup today. If things continue like this tomorrow then I will be stranded in Dorset until the busses and trains allow me to return to Derby.
My hankering to do some knitting has worsened since my return to England. Mum's near phobia of clutter means that she has chucked all her balls of wool away. I want wool. I cant go into town. I want to knit Keir a jumper to warm his cockles when he returns, because I miss him and knitting is cosy and good to do while watching monty python dvds and drinking tea.
Ahhh, I miss Australia.

Nying nying nying nying-nying nying!



Hello England, god how I hate you now.

I left Will and Helen tearfully. They have been so good to us and shown us so many wonderful things, and been brilliantly fun company too. Keir and I are already entertaining the idea of returning in a couple of years to bother them some more :) this time with driving licences (at least one anyway).

We spent my last couple of days in Sydney poking koalas and kangaroos and cockies in a koala park, and snorkelling at clovely bay, one of the best snorkelling spots in sydney. It's sheltered and calm, and the fish are plentiful and friendly. The highlights were poking strange and foreign (potentially poisonous) squishy rockpool things, and plucking up the courage to swim out into the deeper water to meet the local blue groper fish. He was lovely- almost 2ft long, flanked by smaller fish that fed in the clouds of debris he dug up from the bottom as he grazed away. He had massive blue lips and a smiley looking face, so I didnt panic too much when he came straight towards me. Other divers were swimming down to try and touch him.
I left Keir at Sydney airport after failing to not cry (I fought hard not to cry in front of the immigration woman), and subsequently spent most of the first flight getting teary eyed every time some sad music came on my ipod, or someone in a film died of cancer.

Beijing airport is the loneliest place in the world when it's 5.30am and you look homeless, have no money and have six hours to kill. You cant just buy a sandwich and sneak off somewhere to eat alone. Nowhere sells sandwiches. Or snacks. You have to go and sit in a resteraunt or cafe and be scrutinized by hundreds of chinese people. I was glad to get back on the plane, at least until seven hours in when the air con was just redistributing farts and I had watched every film that wasnt Troy or The Simpsons movie (again), including a chinese comedy which featured as it's leading comic character a cross eyed villan who couldnt do martial arts and had bowel trouble. Amazing.
So thus concludes my astounding adventures in Australialand- I've had the best time of my life, and it pains me deeply to come home again, but I have unfinished business to attend to. That is, as soon as the snow stops.