Textick

Originally Written 27th of November, 2007

Guess what? Yesterday was exactly two years since James and I left Australia, and today is exactly three years since James and I first met. Where oh where oh where has the time gone?? I’m feeling contemplative, and so I thought I’d…I don’t know…recap the last two years of my life. I guess I want to do it for myself, to see what I’ve achieved over the past couple of years, and I thought maybe you’d like to see it as well. This kind of arises from me being quite freaked out that two years have passed since James and I first left Perth for Singapore (26th of November 2005). Plus, I thought it’d be fun! Read the rest of this entry »

14-09-07: Last Day!!

We chose to spend our last day doing something a little different. We went on a zipline trek, which involved five cables suspended between trees, hundreds of feet above the Earth, and whizzing along them by a harness. Wonderful fun!! I went upside-down on for the last one, which was a very crazy feeling, seeing the trees rushing below. It’s amazing how quick it is and how fast you go, but also how safe you feel. Definitely not for anyone scared of heights, though! Read the rest of this entry »

11-09-07: G’day From WA (Washington, That Is!)

The bus trip to Seattle was pretty nondescript. We woke early, spelt a little on the bus. The border crossing was way tamer than we thought it would be – the guards were friendly enough (although being fingerprinted was a novelty).
Seattle itself is a really lovely city – very art deco and clean. Like everywhere that has clean streets and blue skies, it reminded us so Perth. We wandered the streets a little before catching the monorail (built for the 60s World Fair where the mobile phone and microwave oven were introduced). It’s a 5/10 minutes trip, and you go through the music/sci-fi museum that Paul Allen (co-founded of Microsoft) founded Read the rest of this entry »

06-09-07/07-09-07: Bussing It

We spent two days travelling from Banff to Vancouver, with a one night stopover in Kelowna. The first bus was so full, we didn’t get to sit together, but thankfully that didn’t happen again. Sadly, that is the only thing of interest that happened on the buses.
Kelowna was like Osborne Park, or Cannington (at least, where we stayed it was!). We stayed in one of those cheap motels you see in the movies, so that was fun. It was quite nice inside. We ate ribs for dinner at a Lone Star-type restaurant. We shopped at Walmart Read the rest of this entry »

02-09-07: En Route to Banff, 8:02am

Despite the weirdness of day One, our taxi driver Sunday morning was great! He studied in Perth at Bentley TAFE! Weeny little world, ain’t it?
For breakfast I made fresh waffles, but had to eat them in the taxi because our bus to Banff was to leave Calgary City Greyhound shelter at 7:30am.
Leaving Calgary behind left me with a sense of unparalleled relief.
Seeing the Rockies rise on the horizon as we drove along the highway left me with a sense of stomach-tingling excitement and anticipation. The mountains are much grander and awe-inspiring than I expected Read the rest of this entry »

01-09-07: Calgary, Land of Gallon Hats, Scary Taxi Men & Emo Kids

So. We survived a 9-hour flight with no in-flight entertainment to arrive in…Perth. This wasn’t immediately apparent, although we did feel somewhat suspicious as we flew into Calgary over a flat wasteland of brown industrialism. Where were the trees? The mountains? The moose?? Read the rest of this entry »

This website has not left my immediate consciousness, but it has fallen onto the backburner while I work on my novel. I’ve not been keeping up with it because I’ve assumed that no one really checks it anyway…

I still have my notes from Cuba to write up at some stage, plus we’ve been to Berlin. I’ve also had some bookmarks produced by a friend in Perth and a story selected for publication in a mag called Litro. Aside from that, London life keeps trotting along. I’ll try to write a decent entry one day soon, I promise!

This heading is misleading. There are no other rhyming cities we’ve been to recently unfortunately. However, on the weekend of the 23/24 September, I went to York for a work training weekend. I bunked off Saturday night and met James in York city for the night, and then we spent Sunday wandering the streets Read the rest of this entry »

The weekend just past was a marvellous long weekend, with perfect weather for relative hunting (hounds and rifles optional). I took James to meet my family in Newcastle. I think it’s a loose connection genetically, but it’s definitely a close connection emotionally, starring my Uncle Peter as the grandfather we never had Read the rest of this entry »

Outdoor cinema in Australia means:

- picnic blanket
- mozzie repellant
- cheap wine that tastes like the cardboard it is bought in
- cold chicken
- something to shield the screen, so that the sun (still high in the sky at 8pm) doesn’t bleed out the colour in the screen
- soft grass
- ants nibbling at your bare ankles
- a radio somewhere playing all Cold Chisel’s Greatest Hits

Outdoor cinema in London means Read the rest of this entry »