WEEK THIRTY-TWO

It was my first day of freedom. I woke up feeling remarkably terrible, which isn’t surprising, but not pleasant all the same. Will and Toni were both already at work doing the bump-out, and I had the house to myself. So I made a up of tea, and went to rest in bed again! I fell asleep again for a few hours, and when I woke up again I felt slightly better. I still was in no mood to get out of my PJ’s, so continued to lounge around. I did very little for the day, apart from sit in front of the tele, and eventually, when I felt like moving again, I sorted out my bag, as it now had a lot of unnecessary crap in it, like a tiny torch. I won’t need that for a while! That was pretty much my day, apart from eating a massive bag of Twisties, and watching bad TV. Despite doing nothing, I still ended up going to bed at some stupid time. I have no excuses now. Dammit.

I once again had the house to myself, but at least I felt normal at last. Part of me wished that I had been asked do to the bump-out, the extra money would have been useful, although the work would have been horrible. I instead had a great day of doing nothing. And I managed to avoid leaving the house ta all! Success! Haha! I tried to do some writing, but instead found myself on Facebook chatting to people. I did find out that the dumpling man was doing another festival at the weekend, so I gave him a text, and got a days work out of it. Awesome! It was going to mean a stupidly early start on Saturday, but I got to camp overnight too, which is always good! It’s at least a start towards new employment! I really did just mess about for the rest of the day – not exactly using my newly found freedom well, but it is exactly what I wanted! Means there’s not much to write about though!

I did some more work on my bit of wood on Wednesday. And knackered it again. When am I going to learn not to use the corner of the sander? I had once again scored a massive mark across it. Bugger. At least this time I knew it could be fixed, but it also put me back to square one in terms of sanding it. Not frustrating at all! I had successfully covered myself in sawdust, and I had my second shower of the day – didn’t think that one through! And then I lit a fire – it was chilly. At some point I need to learn how to make a good fire without smoking out the hole house! They just don’t work when I do them, but, eventually, after a lot of coaxing, it started resemble a fire and not a pile of smoking paper. I phoned Mum for a chat in the evening, to get some of her news, and try and organise what we were going to go and see at the Olmpics (or at least apply for) and by the end of the call, it was just me going. Bugger! But, I then got onto the computer and started searching through to see what would be my final choice. In the end I went for the horses and the muscly men. I mean, the show jumping, and men’s gymnastics. Whatever, I’m just going for the horses and fit men! Tickets for these two events were going to cost me £120, so I decided that was enough, and submitted my application. Time to wait. It really is the weirdest way to sell tickets – I think the Fringe should adopt such a random system! It would be hilarious, and maybe slightly horrible at the same time! Haha! It would cause hell. Anyway, that pretty much took up my whole night, so I watched a little bit of TV, and then went to bed. 2am isn’t that bad.

It was Will’s first day off, and he got hard to work trying to persuade me and Toni to spend the day sanding and painting. In the end we agreed, and so got on with it. Although it is a pain in the arse sanding a wall at least you get a sense of achievement – it looks very different. It looks a bloody mess actually, but at least you can see how much you’ve done! It was at this point Will then decided to tak the sander to stuff we had already painted. Going backwards was never part of the plan. But, apparently it was bubbly. Boring! Will also ‘fixed’ my bit of wood again, by taking a plane to it, but at least it doesn’t have a massive mark across it now. I did a bit of sanding, but couldn’t bring myself to spend ages doing it. It was so lovely before I knackered it! In the afternoon I went into Yarraville for a little trip to Flight Centre. I had two missions, to get travel brochures for the east coast, and also find out how much flights are to New York - $2500!! Ridiculous! That ruled out that plan pretty quickly. But, I did leave armed with a stack of glassy magazines with beautiful photos in them. When I got home I couldn’t resist looking up what I can do when I go up there, and have found some amazing things!! I can’t wait! I spent the rest of the night cutting stuff out of the magazines and making a massive map! Geeky or what! But, as I was having trouble actually remembering where the places were in the country, it helped a lot! We had an amazing Indian takeaway that night – I will have to get more stuff from there. It is brilliant. I spent the rest of the night, and a few hours of the next morning trying to plan my trip. I have tried this so many times, but with my map (for idiots) I was actually starting to form a proper plan. It’s all getting quite exciting, but still doesn’t seem real yet!

We had the day off from painting as it was raining, which was good at the time, but I had to camp the next night…eek! We did go to Bunnings though, it had been a while since Will had been, and I went along with him. Not sure why. We were meant to be going curling that afternoon with people from the comedy festival, but I was starting to think it was going to be a bad idea – if I knackered myself I would be useless the day after, and I had 14 hours of standing to get through. I did feel quite guilty, but when Will phoned up, it had been cancelled anyway because there were other people who were are flaky as me, so in the end I didn’t have to feel to bad. I had to pack up my stuff. I was only going for a night, but I needed all the camping stuff, so once I had made a pile of crap I was ready. I was due to be in St. Kilda by 7am, which meant I had to be get up at 5:30, with this looming over me, and the usual fear I was going to sleep through my alarm, I couldn’t sleep for hours, and just counting down how long I had till I had to get up. I think I fell asleep around the time that would allow me three hours sleep. Bugger!

I woke up. And my alarm was going off. Success. It was pretty hard convincing myself to get out of bed, but I was too scared that I would go back to sleep, so I made tea, had a shower and got ready to go. I hadn’t packed my willies, mainly because I couldn’t be bothered carrying them, but Will got up just before I was about to leave and told me that rain was forecast. I grabbed them quickly, and set off. I didn’t have long to get to the train station, so I speed walked through the dark! I was the only person at the train station, surprise surprise, and got into the City, and onto a tram pretty quickly. I got to Luna park pretty  much bang on time, and just had enough time to watch the police arrest a hilarious drunk. I say hilarious, if the police weren’t there he would have been terrifying as he walked down the street chucking chairs around, but, all the chase needed was the Benny Hill music to make it a true piece of comedy gold! I was getting a lift up to Bendigo with someone I worked with at Rainbow Serpent, and as it was still pretty early we didn’t chat much, and it wasn’t long before I was asleep. I woke up when we pulled into a servo, and I got a cup of tea to try and help wake me up. It didn’t really work, and I swiftly fell asleep again once we were back on the road. I woke up when we were on the outskirts of Bendigo, and with no map, we had to ask quite a few people for directions. But, we got there in the end, got our wristbands, and found our stall. The next couple of hours were spent doing the preparation for everything, and watching the final touches being done to the site. When they let everyone in we were expecting a few sales, but there was nothing for a couple of hours. I thought it was going to be a rerun of Rainbow Serpent, but, after a while we started getting a few orders, and a few more, and then we were slammed for the rest of the day. It was amazing! Despite the fact I was pretty tired, and my back was buggered, we all had great fun. I got a break to go and have a look around, and get some dinner. I couldn’t bring myself to go for the dumplings! I’d had enough of them! After a look around a lay down on a bench where I could see the stage, and then fell asleep. I was woken up by a security guard who wanted to check I wasn’t dead. I had no idea how long I had been gone for, so thought I should go back to work. Strangely enough, the quick nap had fixed my back! The rest of the night was really busy, and finally when everyone was being herded out of the site, we started pulling the stall down. There were so many of us it really didn’t take that long till everything was in the trailer and ready to go. We then had to make the decision whether or not to drive back to Melbourne that night, or camp. I was pretty chuffed when the consensus was to camp! Hurray! So we went to the campsite, and after a bit of bother, all put our tents up, and got ready for bed. I love camping in a country where you don’t freeze. It makes it much more enjoyable! It didn’t take me long to get to sleep after such an early start.

I woke up before everyone else – why does that always happen when I am camping? – and went for a shower. I hadn’t actually thought of bringing a towel, as I forgot how dusty you get, so used my big fluffy jacket – it makes a pretty good make-shift towel! Once we had all vaguely woken up, and had our tents packed up we headed into Bendigo to get some breakfast. And so the eight of us found a place which had space, and ordered. And then waited, and waited. After about 45 mintues we asked where our food was, and was told it was a couple of minutes away, and it was just getting plated up. We then waited a further half hour, and got mildly pissed off. When we asked where it was again we got shouted at by the waitress! Talk about service with a smile! Another 15 minutes later, and we have all read the bits of the paper we are interested in, and are getting ready to just leave, when eventually our food arrived! Hurray! And it was great. It didn’t take long for us all to finish our plates, and then all said our goodbyes, got paid, and we headed back to Melbourne. I fell asleep in the car again, and woke up when we were about 5km from Will’s house, which was perfect. The plan was for me to be dropped off in the City, and make my way home, but instead I guided them to the back gate of the house, and then gave them directions how to get to the City. Perfect! Much appreciated!  Will and Toni had been busy painting all weekend, and by the time I arrived they seemed pretty fed up. Then it started raining, so it could finally stop! It look s pretty good, but I’m bloody glad I didn’t have to do it! There is still plenty more to do though…boring!

Another week, another festival – the way life should be! And the money can just go straight towards my big adventure. I’ll need it! I also got offered work at ‘Splendor in the Grass’, but it is the weekend I go back home, and I’m not desperate enough to change all of my plans to do it – it does have a good lineup though…