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Published: June 15th 2009
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Thorny Devil
Cutest little critters ever! How time flies eh?! 7 weeks without a Blog!….Sorry!
Well we are both still alive and kicking, just! This working for a living deal is not really agreeing with us!
Well after an hour wandering round town and a couple of interviews well more like chats really, Tel found himself with a choice of a couple of jobs. He’s been into the thought of doing something that pays him but with no real responsibility, well not the “peoples lives” variety of responsibility anyway! So he has landed himself a job as a cucumber packer, not really just cucumbers but that’s his self appointed title anyway! He’s working for a wholesale fruit and veg place in Alice, they basically buy stock from Adelaide in pallets, pack it into saleable packs and distribute it to all the outlying communities and stations in the Northern Territory. (Some of the communities are over a thousand Km away!) He seems to be enjoying the work, they sound like a nice bunch of people so although it is hard work I think they have a laugh doing it. The money is not bad really, I guess something like that in the UK would be minimum
Snake in the Shopping Mall
It took a few minutes to realise it is rubber! wage, he’s earning more than twice that so its all good!
My work…….well I’ve been there a month now and am slowly getting used to it, its very different to emergency in the UK, the department is fairly small, without overflow spaces it has trolleys for 16 and 3 resus beds. The illnesses that present are hugely different to at home, I have not seen one patient with a heart attack but several a day who have missed renal dialysis, had alcohol withdrawal fits, been assaulted etc. I’m back to working 8 hour shifts, i.e. earlys lates and nights, which after being used to 12 hour shifts feels like I never get any days off! There is hopefully the opportunity soon to change over to 12 hours so hoping to do that when I can.
Socially, we are having a ball! We’ve met some lovely people, both through work and by randomly meeting people when we are out. The Anzac weekend did us the world of good and we have made friends with lots of the people we met there so every day off we do have is filled with something. Meeting someone for coffee or lunch, dinner
or drinks at someone’s house or going out to party! There still seems to be lots to do and discover in and around town, for such a small in the middle of nowhere kind of place its amazing really. There are some great restaurants and pubs around, we are slowly working our way around them! Also visiting some of the Tourist attractions in town, as a Northern Territory resident most places have special discounts, the desert park for example, you pay your $20 entry like everyone else the first time but then they send you a card to visit as many times in a year as you want for free! We also recently visited the reptile park, lots of lizards, snakes, crocodiles etc (strangely their big salt water croc is called Terry!!) It is a great place to visit, you get to handle some of the lizards (I did) and snakes (I declined!) and learn a bit about them. You get legless lizards here, basically looks just like a snake, the guide was telling us you can tell that they are lizards because they have ear holes which snakes don’t. I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t get time to look for
Local Paper Headlines!
We thought this beat even Biggleswades "carrots stollen" headline! ear holes as I was Olympic running in the opposite direction tho!
Our new flat is great, we really feel at home here and are much more settled. Although it is officially a ‘Unit/flat’ it feels more like a house and definatly the biggest place we have ever lived in! Just waiting for the warmer weather so we can use the pool! We have 3 bedrooms, so no excuse for any of you not to visit, and a huge garden (with palm trees!!) We rented the flat unfurnished as we looked at a few furnished places and the rent is much more, about 50% extra a week and generally the furniture is crap, probably been there since the 80’s! Since Alice is such a transient place everyone was telling us it is easy to find good cheep furniture at ‘lawn sales’ of which Alice seems to have at least 20 of every Saturday morning! Well THAT is an experience! Generally they start at 7am, well that’s what they say on the adverts anyway. If you get there at 7 either everything is gone as people arrived at 6, or the people having the sale are lucky enough to have
Gallah
These birds are everywhere around Alice garden gates which they can lock and so you find a heaving mob around the gates which when they are opened would give Harrods sale opening a run for its money! Anyway, we managed to survive a few and get ourselves a few bits and pieces at some bargain prices. We compromised on a bed and went out and bought a new one, I didn’t really want a second hand one and we managed to get a good deal! So here we are, it feels strange sitting here with all the trappings of real life again, although we definatly know it is not forever this time!
Tilly is in the garage at the moment, we have to transfer her rego to the Northern Territory for which she has to have a roadworthy exam, (like and MOT) She actually needs quite a bit of work, apparently the main thing was the King Pin ????? Which was almost worn out, I’m told its something to do with the steering and VERY important! Hmmmm tuned out at that point! Anyway, we should be picking her up today or tomorrow, (a few thousand dollars lighter!) in time for our friends from UK Clive
and Vanessa arriving on Wednesday! They are staying with us for 2 ½ weeks and we are really excited both to see them and to be able to show them “our place”! We plan to visit Uluru this weekend with them, it will be the first time we have got out of town since we arrived so we can’t wait to be back on the road! Clive is going to be celebrating a big birthday while he is here, (can’t reveal which big birthday tho!!) and we have a surprise all planned for him so hopefully he’ll enjoy it!!
Anyway, not much else to say really, I am back on night shift tonight, just 2 though, so must get on with sorting out cleaning shopping etc. Keep in touch all of you….(beginning to wonder if UK internet is down!!)
Tel will add more photos tonight!
More soon x x x
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