Not much time to think and relax here, 5 sisters, 3 grand kids, friends and significant others, it’s pretty overwhelming sometimes. Tam’s birthday today, Michelle’s 5 days ago. Everyone is up early, singing happy birthday to the birthday girl, then chocolate and cookies for breakfast (as well as some good food) and presents and everything too early!
Continue reading ‘Family Busy’
Monthly Archive for December, 2004
Figured out that the bus I’m waiting for doesn’t leave at 8:30 but at 9:30. The terminal is already pretty packed. Visited the office (that is now open) and I’m a student paying student fare, and have a ticket, so there is room on the bus for me! 6 and a half hours and I’ll be in the city that I’ve been hearing about since, well, a year and 5 months ago.
Continue reading ‘Excitement, not Stress’
En route to Armidale, I hope. I’m in Port Macquarie, waiting for a bus to show up. Feels like many days - last day at Gloria’s was good, she insisted on paying me for some of the roofing work ($50!) and invited me back to do “Part Wwoof and part paid work” in January, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that now. Roofing was good there, felt like I got something done, a project that took more than a couple hours.
Continue reading ‘En Route’
Went into Nimbin this afternoon with Gloria, she needed to pick some stuff up. Used the internet to send some emails. Spoke to my parents last night, but did the calculations for the time difference as if I were still in Queensland when I’m actually in NSW, so it was 6:30 AM, not 7:30 AM.
Continue reading ‘Get up and Go’
Lonely. A nice night with Gloria, Scrabble (her 330 won easily, but not doubling my 198), veggie stew, conversation. Another person you can tell anything because they don’t really remember.
Continue reading ‘Lonely again’
Playing flute makes me happy. I played for the others a few nights ago, but it is much more relieving to play for me.
Continue reading ‘Flute’
I have a feeling that I won’t see them again. The girls decided to get a lift with Tomi today, instead of staying around until Tuesday. I’ve promised myself that I wouldn’t get in the van again - there were very negative vibes in it on the last ride.
Continue reading ‘Gone’
The girls and Tomi are well baked, and we spent the afternoon not working all that hard, eating and baking cakes, laughing and opening up. Been tension between us all now it’s mostly evaporated, dissipated in a big cloud of good vibes. Sun was shining today, got off the property to the community centre to meet people, and I continued to work with some guy on a greywater system for this place.
Continue reading ‘Goin Away Party’
I’ve been bitten by a jumping ant, burrowed into by a tick and sucked by a leech since yesterday morning. I spent an hour or so awake last night, damp and in almost pitch darkness before getting to a sleep haunted by surreal dreams. The work here seems to take hours, but is small projects, so we barely fill in 4 hours, which then leaves the rest of the day to be alone with my thoughts, which is not where I want to be, but since the cohesion of our little foursome has gone all dodgy, it’s where I end up.
Continue reading ‘Jumping Ants, Leeches and Ticks, Oh My!’
Sleeping on a couch in the attic of the main room I think I’ll be here for the next 8 or 9 days, then on to Armidale. Just over 4 hours of work done by 1 PM today, and that was with a break. The girls are hoping to leave earlier, I’m satisfied with my location. It’s just a bit of waiting now. Built a dry-stone retaining wall, re-roofed a shed (just quick repairs, it is to be demolished and rebuilt elsewhere) put up a “flying fox” (I’d call it a zip line) and did some other basic work. Lot can get done in a few hours.
Continue reading ‘Clearing Up’