Ok so it's been about a decade since I last posted anything up here for you all to have a browse of, but as I said last time we're pretty much just going to be living our lives like we would regularly back home. But it's about time I at least gave you a little bit of my goings on.
Remember I was originally supposed to be working for this family for a week and then temping wherever for a month before returning to take care of the children while the Mum (Nicole) was incapacitated after some pretty hefty knee reconstructive surgery? Well turns out somehow they really like me and thought it was so great having me around that i've now been working for them for almost 5 weeks. Nicole is a stay at home Mum, but as the children are 5, 3 and 1, she hasn't had a break to just relax a bit in almost 6 years. So Jon asked me to stay on to alliviate the pressure of having 3 small children and a house to run and just generally being run down and exhausted. I love this family, they are amazing, I just wish Nicole would learn to take full advantage of me being around so that she could take some time out for herself all the time. She seems to think that she should apologise for my doing things for her or the children, when in fact i'd give anything for her to just leave the brekfast mess/lunch mess/washing/ironing etc and let me take care of it while she has some sleep or a massge or something. Because soon enough she's going to be unable to move and she'll be kicking herself for not taking full advantage of me. But anyways i'm doing my best and I hope that my being around is beneficial to her.
Being around the family has also helped with my homesickness. At first it made me really miss home because they had a lot of extra family staying with them and Nanna reminds me of Nanny Pam and the Aunties and Uncles all being around made me think of Sunday gatherings at Mums, but now that it's just the basic unit I kind of feel a part of it and very welcome and that makes me happy. Nicole is an avid listener (useful when you talk like me) and she's pretty straight to the point like Mummy with the advice she gives me about things. She's pretty brilliant and when she does talk I like to hear about the interesting things she has done with her life. Like living in Japan and travelling Australia. Both Jon and Nicole have been really helpful with what to do and where to go in Australia as they've done a lot of it. They've also been great at including Lauren too which i'm really grateful for. Pretty much they're just amazing and I hope that one day when the children are all grown they'll come visit me in England or that i'll come back and visit in a few years time to see how they're all getting along.
Speaking of relaxed I backed the UTE (their pick up that I take home sometimes) into the gate first time I drove it. They barely batted an eyelid. Then I reversed the 4x4 into a metal bollard and smashed the blinker cover and bent the step bit. Not to bad, but still not really great. But literally they didn't even seem concerned about it and I felt awful! I mean these people employ me to help them out and yet they can't do enough to make my life easy and then I smash up their cars/gates! They're awesome. I'll miss them all incredibly when I leave. Things like I went to Tillies first school disco, bought her a bad fairy outfit (pics to follow) and got Oskar a black Spiderman mask and had Ollie dressed as Beetlejuice (which we had to change as he got blueberries all over it) and was there dancing and skidding around on the floor with them. I've taught Tillie words and actions to Elton Johns "Tiny Dancer" as well as getting them hooked on "Crocodile Rock" and their favourite "Benny and the Jets." I've drunk under the stars with Nic and her mate Amanda (who is also amazing), been to family gatherings, so it will be hard when the time comes to say goodbye to an adoptive family for an even longer period than I had to say goodbye to some of those who have adopted me at home. Oh yeah. Jon and Nic are taking me to Sydney with them this weekend. Nic's sister Simone has just had a baby girl so we're off down to Whale Beach (about an hour North of Sydney) from Thursday through until Sunday, can't wait for that. Apparantly Whale Beach is beautiful and Simmy's house is amazing. Simmy's been in London for the past 8 years and her Husband Nick is English so that'll be interesting to chat with them about their opinions on Australia and England i'm sure.
So what else of note? Dancing is going well. I do 8 classes a week. 2 every night from Monday to Thursday, each an hour and 15 minutes. So by the time I get home it's 10pm and i'm up at 6 for work so i'm pretty much just exhausted 24/7, but it's good to stay busy and it's also a good way to meet people. We've actually only been out once since getting to Brisbane and we discovered that it's pretty whack on the entertainment front. We ended up meeting up with the Scottish and Irish we met at our hostel, who gave me the right hump and I stormed off, bumping into some nutty Australians who we then went with to their hotel on the promise of a party only to discover they had a very different sort of party in mind to what me and Lauren had envisaged so we exited pretty swiftly.
Lauren has secured a job painting and decorating which she's really enjoying and she's getting pretty good money for it. She does however need to get her arse a hobby because i'm off out at dancing or working a lot and so we barely see each other and she's getting a bit bored, but she'll be saving a lot more money than me because, well because she's Lauren and she's good at abstinence. I however don't care because I'm living how I want to live and i'm not sitting around bored and if I run out of money i'll just stop and get a job until I can trot off again. And if I run out of money and don't get to all the things I want, if I want to do it that desperately i'll come back and do it when i've saved enough.
Our Canadian flatmate Sam has gone now. I'm quite glad about that as he was a n arrogant so and so, only confirmed to me after Ben (Australian flatmate) returned from his 3 week fishing trip to tell me that Sam was giving it the big "I am" saying how he was going to "go her (aka me)" the night before Ben went away. I wasn't to impressed with this and promptly facebooked him to tell him what I thought of him before deleting him. Men are not a favourite thing of mine currently. Especially not those who are all matey etc to my face and then speak of me as nothing more than a toy to be had behind my back. Uh-uh, no thanks.
Other than this there's not really a lot to report. We're no longer going to Western Australia, save it for another trip as apparantly it's to expensive to try and do in the time frame we have and on our budget it will be a waste of time. Instead we're going to try and do the Northern Territories. Jon has a number of people who he keeps offering us accomodation with (we'll see how they feel about it when we have more dates etc in mind). I just booked our flights to New Zealand for New Year, as have the Irish so that's a go. I love my job, Lauren loves hers. We're all tickety boo.
Catch y'all later.
x xx x
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