WEEK TWENTY-FOUR

On Monday I had a day off, which was well appreciated, and I celebrated it by waking up early, making a cup of tea and watching hours of terrible American TV, in the form of the Oscars. And to be honest I didn’t move much from that spot all day. I did however leave the flat once to go and get some real food, which I thought was required, and also stocked up on silly amounts of crap food too. I can’t be trusted sometimes! I spent most of the day watching bad TV, and attempting to plan some kind of idea for my trip up the east coast – it’s just so hard, Australia’s so big. During the evening boredom must have set in, as I decided to cut my own hair. Some may think I should have learnt from my mistakes, but, with scissors in hand I chopped a chunk. And then realised it seemed awfully short. Bugger. I then cut more off to try and even it up. That didn’t work. So, I chopped a bit more, and then the small amount of vanity I had made me stop at that point, and I tried to remind myself that it would grow back. Oooops. Ah well, at least I have a good excuse to go back to the hairdresser! And that was my day. Not exactly the most eventful, but it was very nice having a whole day that I didn’t go on site.

And so I had another day off, and to be honest I wasn’t really that happy about it, one in a week is fine, and I would rather have the money, but as Tuesday is a quiet night I wasn’t need, but once again woke up too late to go to the zoo. I want it to be a full-day zoo experience! Nathan also wasn’t free to catch-up, so I just spent the afternoon in the flat, and did some much needed writing. In the evening I started with Philip Escoffey (not that hard to pronounce, you’d be surprised at what some of the morons said when they came up to the box office!) who has been around for years, and been very popular, but I hadn’t seen him, and I have to say I was impressed, and although I know that he can’t be a mind-reader, he is incredibly good at what he does, and I wish I knew how he did it! Next on the list was Wil Anderson, who was apparently sold out, but there was plenty of room for me to get in, so I sat right at the back, safe from the onslaught which was to come. I haven’t seem him for years, and I couldn’t even remember if I liked him, but 10 minutes into his show and I was in hysterics! He is brilliant. Another well-chosen show. The final one was a bit of a guarantee and I went to see Axis of Awesome, and I pretty much know most of their songs word-perfect, so I sat at the back, and mouthed along, and had a lovely time! Most people probably thought I was some kind of crazy stalker, which I may be, but they are hilarious. After the show I saw Bec as well which was awesome, I knew she was around because she has a show, but I didn’t think I’d bump into her. I really do have to go and see her show. How long have I been saying that for? God I’m a bad friend. Anyway, that was my night, and it well and truly got me back in the mood for it all for the next fortnight.

After two days off work I really didn’t feel like going back, but the lure of money got me there, and although I was scheduled to be doing my Front of House shift, when I arrived, there were too many people there and I got to sit in the box for the night. To be honest I was pretty chuffed about it, and it was pretty quiet, so I did very little. Even better. I was becoming quite attached to my little shed! It was pretty bloody hot, and it was only then, after a couple of weeks of sweltering did I think of going to the bar to get some ice. I cant believe it took me so long to think of it, but it made the next few hours much more reasonable, and then once then sun went down it got to a decent temperature. But the bugs came out. These were the nastiest locusts/crickets I have ever seen, and they were fearless – I spent a lot of the evening flailing my arms around trying to get them off my. Not nice. They could even get through our lovely grate we had in front of our windows. Little buggers. No one ever tells you about the bugs when they tell you about Australia – they are everywhere, and if they aren’t trying to fly into your face, they are biting you!

Work work work. Boring boring boring. But actually surprisingly busy for a Thursday – weird Adelaide people can’t make up their mind! Their new found enthusiasm for Thursday nights meant that neither of us got breaks, which was annoying. We dis manage to get them right at the end of our shift though, and at least it was a chance to eat, even if the choice was limited the what I could buy on site. So, I went for a falafel wrap, and got it for free, which is always abonus I suppose. After it was al over all I wanted to do was go home, and so I went, and buzzed the door. No answer. Bussed again, no answer. Text one of our flat mates who may have some keys, no answer. Phoned Will to find out if he had keys, he answered, but didn’t have any. So, he came over to the door, and phoned the same person I had text, no answer. So, we went back to the site, and got the swipe card from someone else who worked there, who was staying in the same block – annoyingly they also had to live on the same floor as the keys would only get you to one level. So, with that in hand we got in, and got the lift up to our level, and turned the handle of the door. For what must have been the third time, at most, during the festival it had been locked. So, we went back down to site to give the key back to it’s rightful owner, and tried to think of a plan. We knew one person was in the flat, but they must have been asleep, with their five-year-old son. This meant, if we tried to call them, the kid might wake up, and it was about 2am at this point. After a lot of walking between site and our locked front door, when faced with the prospect of sleeping on a hammock, in a shipping container, we decided to call the flat. And we got an answer. And the child didn’t wake up. And we got let back in. Success! At last.

As always, a couple of weeks into the festival, and the weekend starts to get stupidly busy – and that is what it did. Still there was no sign of punters trying to jump the fences, I’m starting to think it was al elaborate story! But. The queue was stupidly long by 10pm, and I was given the rather fantastic task of getting a comedian past security. This challenge was given to me by Mickey D, and my accomplice would be Hannah Gadsby – so off I went. Luckily enough it was a lull in the crowds at the box office. After the usual pleasant introductions had been done, I made a bit of a tit of myself, and so decided not to open my mouth again for a while. When we got there however, I got a phone call to say that she had already blagged her way through – I was looking forward to that, would have been one of the more exciting things I had done! Once we had eventually gotten through the night, and cashed up, which seemed to take an age, which was frustrating as hell at the end of such a night. One day I will just go mental at someone who asks ‘what’s good to see?’ – arghhhh! It’s really annoying! Even when we had closed everything up, there was still a queue of people round he corner, just wanting to get in and have a look, and drink beer, and be annoying. So I left, and hid in the apartment and just talked crap for hours with one of our housemates. Not a bad way to spend the night in my opinion. Not exactly exciting, but at least I didn’t have to deal with any more of the general public!, which was precisely what I needed.

And then on Saturday I had my day shift, and true to form I was absolutely knackered and made my first port of call to get a cup of tea and a piece of flapjack for breakfast, and then go and sit in the box for 7 hours. It was a really quiet day, and I spent a vast majority of it on the BBC News Website reading pretty much every article they had – it wasn’t too bad really! That was pretty much my day, and when people came in to cover me I asked if I could go home, and normally the answer would be yes, but instead I was given a few boring jobs to d first, so I stacked up some boxes with programmes until it was actually the time I was meant to go home, and then ran away. There was no point in staying to see shows because the ones left I wanted to see would be sold out, and I couldn’t be bothered just wasting time all night, so instead I went home, and did some writing, and had a nap. How lovely!

After my evening of doing very little I felt remarkably well rested the next day, I still had very little to do, and once again the Adelaide sun was showing it’s force, but I had a huge bottle of frozen water, and even got a break to go and get some food, so it wasn’t too bad really. As I finished quite early I could have gone home, and been off site for a night, but instead, I got a beer, and my dinner and sat on a deck chair for a while, just enjoying it. As much as I bitch and moan about my work, I know I shouldn’t really, because ultimately I work in a pretty cool place, and the Garden ahs to take the biscuit for cool places to work – awww, the festival must be almost over, I’m starting to get sentimental about it. I also still have loads of shows to go and see, so, I made a definitive list, of what I could see in the time I had left, slightly cursed myself for not seeing more in the beginning, and it looked like I was going to have a pretty good week. And then I slept..