Okey, dokey, update time...

Will try and do this as concisely as possible...

Walked out of my vile job.  They decided not to pay me.  Have taken action to make them pay me since they are legally in the wrong.  We shall see the outcome since it's $650 that I'm currently short of, which is by no means a figure to be sniffed at.

On the other hand, have found a wonderful, wonderful job at a lovely Italian restaurant in the Crown complex and I love it there and the boss is absolutely lovely and so I'm very happy there.  Added to this I am working a couple of days a week on the tour desk at my hostel, which is good fun and also it means that I get to do tours for free (ie three day Great Ocean Road trip next week.  Win.) so I will see lots of Victoria.

Am still really liking Melbourne.  Friend from England was here for a couple of weeks and I haven't seen her for years and we had a fabulous time catching up over coffee and shopping and things like that and she took me to the Neighbours night (she used to work for the company that runs them) and even though there were a couple of moments of cringeyness and it was very, very cheesy it was also so much fun.  But now she's gone back to England.  Boo.

I have also, to be fair, met some really wonderful people here who are 18 and as a result make me feel incredibly old because now I say sentences that start with things like, 'I remember when I was your age...' and frankly I am far too young for this to be happening but I am dealing with it by being a grumpy old woman and I feel I fulfill that role really rather well.  But anyway, so I share a room with them and we've hung out and I work with two of them but now they're all leaving to go to Surfers Paradise so I will be here all by myself except that luckily Gemma is coming here in June so I will have at least one friend.  We will also be planning how to smuggle a Cambodian child back to London to raise.  I'd prefer a Vietnamese child but she's convinced Cambodian is the way to go.  Something about border control.

I will have to leave Melbourne relatively soon, though, because I have to go and do fruit picking or some sort of banal rural work in order to get my second visa.  It's not too, too bad (I hope!) but equally I'd rather be able to bum around in Melbourne and be able get my second visa anyway.

Anyway, frankly that is basically everything.  I'm still beyond excited about the coalition situation in England.  I would actually compare it to when I first saw Sydney Opera House.  When I first got to Sydney it was amazed disbelief and this need to pinch myself that it was real and then that was the case the first few times I saw it, just the awe and wonderment.  I actually have that about the coalition.  Sad but true.  Also I think it will be good for Britain with a bit of a balancing act going on.

Oh, I am also on an actual diet and it's day 4 and I'm SO hungry and it's ridiculous.  I had dinner ages ago and I had three meals and three snacks that were all decent sizes.  This is proof of just how stretced my stomach was.  Turns out I didn't really need the double Angus meals and 10 McNuggets.  More's the pity.

Is this actually for real?!

Girl on my Facebook friends list just posted this as a status:

Loser Girl wants to find the type of <3 Nicholas Sparks writes about; A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Dear John, The Last Song...

Is she FOR REAL?!  I mean, The Notebook is a lovely, beautiful film but how cheesy and unrealistic can you get?  When I read it a bit of vomit actually went into my life.  I feel like commenting and saying, 'Keep dreaming, kiddo!

I really, really must remember...

I wish I was where I was when I was wishing I was here.

Just sayin'

With all the Tiger Woods mistresses and Jesse James mistresses coming out and saying that they were duped by the men in question, who had apparently told them that their marriages were not happy and were basically over, I had thought that they were bullshitting and that they were just trying to play victim.  I'm not saying that we should see them as victims, at all, and at the end of the day they did sleep with married men.

But I had thought they were bullshitting.  Then I remembered that I have had a man attempt to pull the same thing on me.  Maybe people shouldn't be calling bullshit so readily.

Bye, bye Beijing Bistro.

I woke up this morning to the news that my joint favourite restaurant in Bristol has closed down, and this news has upset me greatly. It's stupid, a little, and I'm maybe, perhaps, exaggerating slightly but Beijing Bistro is amazing - the food is really cheap and you get loads of it but more to the point, I've eaten there so many times and had so much fun. It's where Jeff and I used to go when we first met, it's where I used to meet Lucy, Pippa and Philip for dinner on an almost weekly basis and I went with other friends too. It also had really good sesame prawn toast, which I'm slightly obsessed with and frankly that is the thing that I will miss the most.

Damn you world! Nothing was supposed to change whilst I was away!!!

Also, for the record, El Puerto is my other favourite restaurant and if THAT closes, I'll never come back to Bristol.

Stupid stupidness of stupidity.

Pretty much ever since I got to Melbourne, I've spent practically all my time with two girls called Alice and Harriet. A lot of that time has been watching TV or chilling out drinking tea or whatever but we get on really well. It's been so nice hanging out with them, even if it's just been going to the cinema or hanging around in their room doing a crossword or all curling up on one of our beds to watch a film or TV.

Well, last night we went out for a lovely dinner at an awesome restaurant opposite Parliament of Victoria and had a wonderful four course feast of deliciousness because today Alice has gone back to England. I'm so, so, so gutted. To compound this, Harriet is going to Adelaide on Wednesday morning so I'll be by myself. It's horrible because even though I know I will meet other people, I kind of don't want to if I'm honest. I've become tragically long in the tooth and lazy and there are so many people at the hostel who just want to get drunk and hook up with each other and I'm tired, to be honest, and can't be bothered getting involved in all that.

So yeah, down day. BUT I think I will have some exciting work related news to convey quite soon. In the immediate, that arsewipe from Oxford has handed his notice in. It's just that there are so many chiefs, not enough indians, and no team spirit. It's not a very big venue and so even when it's busy it's not busy and the second there are a whole bunch of people eating lunch or whatever it becomes a nightmare. People run around like headless chickens achieving nothing and being rude to each other... It's awful but of course I work for Vue de Monde so I have to get on with it because it's one of the best things I can put on my CV in Australia.

Election stuff still a source of fascination - loving it!

Things I miss...

Oh my GOD!  I miss Tampax Compaq!  You can, if you're lucky, get hold of regular Tampax but most of the tampons sold over here are non applicator ones, which I loathe with a passion.  I'm actually tempted to beg to have a load of Tampax mailed to me, I hate the tampon culture over here so much.

Also Ariel liqui-tabs and Comfort fabric softener.  The washing machines and washing powders/liquids over here are rubbish.