A trip to an Oasis

Hello People

The Blogs are coming thick and fast now. I thought I would let you know about my trip to Mildura, the homeland of the Farrell’s (Belinda, if you didn’t know). It was a Friday evening, after a day’s solid internet abuse, Belinda and I began our drive to Mildura. When I say drive, I actually navigated, which some might say is a far more important role in the journey. The navigating part was relatively easy, as there was only one road and it was predominantly straight, apart from the one turn, which I missed.

I would like to arouse your minds with talk of fabulous scenery and majestic views, but as we were driving at night all I can say is that it was dark, so dark you couldn’t even see the dead kangaroos I was promised. Navigating at night is a difficult task. It is very hard it is to stay awake when all that’s in your vision are cat’s eyes drawing towards you and Australian music on the radio, I was crying out for something familiar, even the Vengaboys would suffice. I would have slept hadn’t Belinda threatened to fall asleep as well and kill us both (out of jealous spite).

Any way, after 6 hours of driving we eventually arrived. It is very disheartening to be in a car for 6 hours and still not leave the state. In the UK, if you drove for that length of time you could travel through 3 countries, however, not if Bigtime was driving, hey Adam. When we got there it was so refreshing to see that teenage drunkards are universal, it was almost like being back in York apart from no obligatory fighting at the cashpoints. However, I took solace in the knowing that Mildura was a young town with possibly another 1000 years or so to mature into a sophisticated society like York.

The next morning was lovely, the weather was in the 30’s and the soil was as red as my face was going to be. Being English, and an ambassador for my country I took the opportunity speed tan. On with the shorts and t shirt and to hell with the sun block these Australians appeared to be so readily applying to themselves. I left my protection in the hands of God’s Ozone Layer.

In Brief Mildura was a lovely place, described as an Oasis, but it was a ‘blur’ to me. After 100’s of km of nothingness it did seem odd that people chose to settle there and set up a town. However, after a day I can see why. It has all the facilities one could want from a town-parks, a river, an obligatory Irish Bar (that’s my favourite word this week), and a well poncy Cafe, whose service I might add was so excrutiatingly slow I was sure they were not just growing the beans but reinventing the concept of coffee.

The most significant part of the weekend was Belinda’s parent’s 40th wedding anniversary. Her sister had managed to organize a complete get together of family and friends. I was able assess myself what kind and the amount of abuse I would receive at Christmas time, during the ashes. All conclusions pointed to a lot. It was small jibe here and there that indicated this to me, but the most conclusive proof came when they admitted there would be severe animosity. I will therefore take them at there word and try and work over Christmas. All joking aside (and I hope they were joking) they were all really nice and friendly and I look forward to heading back (by plane) and watch England stuff the Ozzies in the Boxing day test.

All the best folks

Ps. Angry Anderson was on morning television, I couldn’t believe it. He does loads for Charity. What a great Guy

A Month in the Colonies

Well it has been 1 month now and I am feel very much settled into life in Australia. I have done a lot since my last entry. I have a flat, sorry apartment, a job and a bank account, where I only have to pay the bank $5 of my own money a month for them to keep my money- bargain.

3 weekend ago I went to a place called Apollo bay on the Great Ocean Road, some commemoration to the Great Apollo Creed I thought, until I got there to find no gold statue, but rather a quaint little seaside town. It was a bit like Whitby but without the polystyrene chip containers thrown on the floor or the menacing thunder clouds hovering in the skies. As it was out of season it was nice and quiet. We had booked a shallay(not in the Butlins sense) on the cliffs overlooking the sea. It had everything, kitchen and utensils, spa and even satellite TV, suffice to say I was in my element. I got to grips with the remote control a lot easier than I did with the real log fire, that’s’ for sure. I don’t know what it is about them but they are obsessive. When you get thing started you are paranoid that the damn thing is going to go out. The TV was right beside the fire and on many occasion I would find my eyes drifting over to check the thing was still alight (this would not do!). Any way, with brilliant craftsmanship with kindling, expert wood retrieval and enough fire lighters to set half of Australia’s bush alight in the winter months, I was able to get the thing going and heat the room for a sustained period of time. On my time outs from manning the fire we went to a number of exciting things, like waterfalls, light houses and tree top walks, but you had to be there and my grasp of English isn’t good enough to do them justice. You will really get a sense when I post the picture, of which I have many.

The weekend after I attended my first Ozzie Rules Match, or as they call it, football. It was Geelong versus Hawthorn and for all those that don’t know, both teams did crap this season, and were playing for nothing more than pride. And as it was a trouncing by Hawthorn it would see Geelong had none. The game was quite exciting, well as exciting as you can get when one team is leading by over 50 points. The most notable thing I can remember, apart from the 100 gram bag of ‘chip shop salt and vinegar crisps’ I managed to get through, was the good humour in the game and a sense of good feeling in the crowd. Something you can only hope will change in the future. Also noticeable was the quality of the reasonably priced pies, sorry, Bigtime but no Bovril.

Any way, we have moved into our new gaff, in a place called Fitzroy, just 3 Km north of the city centre. It is a nice place with an outdoor swimming pool for all the residence to use. I won’t use the pool, but I think I will do my weight training around there. Just need a reliable neighbour to ‘spot’ me. I think I will go knocking on the doors this weekend and ask for volunteers.

Any way I hope all is well.