The Outback starts here!

But not just yet...

Thursday started with a mad (sunny) dash through Perth, buying last minute things for the trip and generally drooling at the various get-ups in hiking and outdoor shops.
Then home, pack, drive to Joondalup where I picked up K from school, only to discover that my car-food-buying-skills leave a lot to be desired. The coke? Yes. The cheese and bacon roll? No. The hedgehog slice? Later. The strawberries? Get lost...
So - we dropped Norma at home, K got changed, we got a taxi and got to the airport with time to kill. Serious time. Thinking perhaps the Hungarian flash-cards wouldn't be enough, I bought a box of 50 lateral thinking puzzle questions, and we settled on the front row of seats, cards spread out on our knees, sharing the hedgehog slices.
The plane trip flew by (har har har) - and K's pronunciation and enthusiasm were fantastic. I couldn't wait for him to spring one of his key sentences on his Dad.

Newman airport struck with the same wonder and isolation and it felt so gloriously familiar. The reddusty smell of Mat's car, the glowing Red Sands sign, the 'baby' dump truck at the visitor's centre and the apartment. I was very happy to be there.
Happier still to be wandering around Woolies among all the miners...it's such a different world.

Our first dinner was at the Capricorn Roadhouse, just over (or under?) the Tropic - steak, of course. And our first trip on Friday was Karijini, where M and I thought we'd explore a different gorge and settled on Hancock, where I'd heard about the Spider Walk and there were pools to swim in. I had no idea then the bravery that would be required of me.

So in sparkling sunshine we hurtled the 170km or so towards the National Park, passing huge trucks, sometimes stopping to let them pass, the trusty Ranger purring its turbo-diesel tune.
The walk into Hancock Gorge ranged from class 3 to class 6 (super fitness and abseiling equipment required). And so we descended. The scrambling over rocks and under shelves and over the creek was fine. I even survived the ladder without screaming. And the dive into Kermit pool, while it knocked the breath out of me, wasn't as bad as the corner climb at the start of the spider walk. On the way there it was still somehow okay, on the way back, panic struck. I never thought I could watch my brain slide into "OHMYGOD"-ness without my control. But I could feel fear in my belly and at the base of my throat and I was gripping the ledge like my life really did depend on it. Mat tried (and failed) not to giggle, but he leaned out and gently took my elbow to which I screamed "don't touch me don't touch me"... and I made it (obviously) and after calming down a little even stepped back to pose for a photo.

Dinner was at the All Seasons - I think as fancy as Newman gets and my prawns in coconut sauce were divine.

Saturday morning - after a wake up call from the local cockatoos we crammed everything into the car and then tried to cram ourselves in. K and I took it in turns to sit in the front because both seats had their element of discomfort. But discomfort was nothing as the wide road spread before us and we headed towards the Kumarina Roadhouse in rising heat and billowing red dust.

yesterday i woke up under a big cloud. (not the mia-farrow-voiced "I'd like to just get one of those pink clouds and put you in it and push you around." ) not even a cloud - under a frog's arse. Said frog sitting down the bottom of a coalmine...
work stuff mostly, the old 'i'm going to be a secretary for the rest of my life' worry...

but that's all solved now. Or at least the Bananahope has been restored, and I'm back to being happy in the little and important things around me.

There have been lashings of haiku-hope yesterday, and sun-soaked lunching, there was a wonderful long long long (so that i'm yawning excessively) conversation with Betty last night and this morning a really uplifting conversation with M.

At a Cultural Awareness training course all day today, at King's Park. Afterwards I expect a walk among the wildflowers, and a salute (not that kind of salute) to my beautiful city in mellow afternoon sun.

My jeans pockets and my socks are full of white sand.

Geelong won the semi final against the Dockers. And I'm sorry Freo fans, but WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHH! It's an awesome thing. Awesome enough to take your top off in almostpublic! Go Cats!

Today was a beautiful day. Both at work and after. Not too sure what it's going to be like now, but until now it has been pure bliss. Even the bits where we talked about imperfections, and am I settling, and what am I settling for?
What is it about rednecks?

I was truthful when we were sitting on the sand and I said I don't need any more than this. The wide Indian Ocean, the sinking sun in the west. Seriously, what more could you need?
Wanting is another thing entirely, of course. But this is where I am happy.

We were talking with V at work today, about 'wild' and 'gamey' things we had eaten...and we were all listing things like crocodile, and goanna, and venison and turtle...and then V said, very bravely: "I've eaten duck". I could have kissed her.

So, a Geelong drenched night. A belonging. A beautiful day.

Galah

I think M. Nature may be compensating me for the loss of little Richard. I walked out into the yard after work today to check on the asparagus and the lovage (don't you love that?) and my three proud little tomato plants. And there was a shamelessly pink (slightly fat) galah on the lawn, looking at me with no fear whatsoever. I'd like to say there was no fear in the look I returned, but I'd be lying. Credit to me though, I said hello, and told him he was welcome stay if he left my plants alone. He squawked in assent, and flew just over there, to sit on the fence and watch me from over his glossy grey shoulder. Welcome Galah.

I know tomorrow is Friday, still very much a work day, but M comes home tonight, and when he's home it's always a holiday.
Right now, the long thick kilometres of the Great Northern Highway melt beneath the wheels of the Ranger, and hopefully the roos just blink from the roadside.

On the way home from the station tonight, in a slightly hubcapless (ironic, isn't it?) Norma, I listened to Poison by Alice Cooper and cranked it up so loud my mirror was vibrating. It had to be loud so I couldn't hear myself singing...

I can't bear to write about work. To write about how wonderful it is to be doing what I really really want to do, doing something I feel matters.... and yet I've only got a week and a half left and most days I still don't feel like I've cracked the cool veneer of my colleagues.

I've just come back from another wonderfully sweaty RPM class, with the Malcolm Turnbull-Hughesy lookalike, who I am finding sexier every time I see him. Well, tonight his wife was there, and they're such a humorous couple. The new music is hideous: "Come on team, make your legs hurt, not just your ears"

There has been a book doing the rounds lately, called the Slap, by an Australian author of Greek origin, Christos Tsiolkas. And I haven't had such lively discussion about literature since the days of Straz and Mrs Howie. How she leapt around the classroom, holding onto Dawe and Fitzgerald and I knew...I knew exactly how she felt.
My soul has felt more awake these last few days of talking and analysing and reading... I am thinking about going back to study and getting a Dip Ed.

I love words so much. Two nights ago, I had a really bad dream, and while I was waiting for the black wings to stop flapping around my skull, I picked up the only Fitzgerald I have to hand (Gatsby is on holiday in Melbourne) - "The Price was High"... a collection of his final stories, poignant only because I know he was writing them just to get money to pay for Zelda's treatment. They're not wonderful stories, but they're so Fitzgerald. They drove the black wings away and I slept again.

I don't miss her actively, and indeed some of her latest writings have felt like a bit of a letdown, but I read Winterson's column today, and that too was full of light and hope and good words. Careful words. Not this careless bullshit where people don't even read over what they have written. I know that missing the odd apostrophe (fuck me, I'm sure I do it too, but let me have my rant) is not a sign of dull intellect... it's a sign of appalling carelessness.

And just one more thing...
I watched Spicks and Specks last night - and the quality of easy comedy was so wonderful, it took me back to Bedford, to Chook and Keith's lounge room, to my first week in Perth. I embrace that memory and I am so unbelievably fucking glad I am here.