His alive, his allliveee...

(Pictured: Eden Sessions 2006 - The biggest YET!)

Oh god it's been such a long time since I've posted here. It's become a massive effort just to write up a few words for some reason and I can tell you now that at 11pm at night with a 7am start it's a struggle.
Things are mostly going to plan which is good news. I'm helping Sam out with her cafe 110% as intended and doing a fair few hours and saving up plenty of English Pounds.

Quick over view of recent events:

• Moved to Newquay

I've moved out of the barn where I was staying with Sam on her grandparents property and I'm now living in Newquay with a new friend called Lance.
Lance has also been working for Sam at the cafe helping cook on her days off. Living in Newquay is a big help as shops and all the regular mod cons are just that bit closer compared to St Merryn.


• Eden Sessions 2006 @ The Eden Project - Jose Gonzalez & The Magic Numbers

Went to see Jose Gonzalez perform at the famous Eden Project. For those that don't know he is a vocalist for Zero 7 which I went to see a few months back in Bristol. It seems he must be doing very well for himself if his headlining now days! It was a huge night and I'm loving the vibe of live music!! The Magic Numbers were great too... just not quite what I'm into music wise.


• Mum is back from Alaska


Mum's and Kevin arrive home safely (just) from their trip to Alaska. It's the first time our family has been more then a few hours apart and now with me in the UK and mum in the US we couldn't have been further apart.


• Tony & Colin got married in the US

Always looked up to my half brother Tony and I've never had more reason to be proud now his married to his long time partner, Colin. Congratulations guys! I hope to get to talk with you pair soon!


• My birthday pressie arrived from Cassy

Contents included: some Milo, an ANZAC biscuit, 1 GIANT Caramello Koala (mmm god... Australian Cadburies) and 2 precious DVDs that I forgot, Donnie Darko and Hercules Returns


• Missed Goldfrapp but get to see Imogen Heap and Mylo

So I missed Goldfrapp at the Eden sessions but should get to see Imogen Heap on her tour through the UK and should also get to see Mylo do a DJ set here in Cornwall!


• Got my National Insurance Number

I'm now officially a number here in the UK, tax wise... oh goddie!


• Plans for London and Spain

Looking into "what next" now the cafe is coming to a close. Sam's auntie owns a holiday house in Spain, handy that I've been doing a fair bit of computer work with her, potential payment.

Missing everyone out there and having a ball!!!

*Cough cough*

Well, it's finally happened! I've got a cold! Going almost 2 months without being in the slightest way sick in a brand new country is doing fairly well. Erk... I've been at home all day watching the mass amount of game shows that are shown on TV here. If you were an old nursing home bound granny, bored housewife or at home sick for the day your set. There's also a tax on TV here. From what I'm aware it costs a pretty penny too but it does mean that there's fewer ads on TV and it seems to be of a higher program quality. There's sooooo much Big Brother on TV too! They are up to BB6 and it's a heck of a lot better but I suspect that is due to the new types of people, accents and characters that I'm watching.

I went surfing for the first time the other day. Very cool! Kinda have in idea why people can love it and get so fanatical about it now. Me and Sam headed out on boards given to us by her uncle along with a few basic pointers. Managed to catch waves without a problem and almost managed to stand up too! The plan over the summer is to learn to surf. Very odd thing to do now that I'm in the UK considering that I've spent my life in "surfing capitols" of New South Wales like Newcastle and the Northern Beaches of Sydney 90% of my life.

Well I quit my job at the restaurant at the golf club. Left as easy as I originally came. Bit of a disappointment really, I was hoping to leave with a pay rise offer or something but instead I got a "good luck". Could have been worse though. It seems that nobody is indispensable in seasonal work Cornwall.

Well it seems I may have made a "right twat" out of myself on my very public blog. The flag being at half mast in my last post may have had a lot more to do with the 1 year anniversary of the London bombings opposed to the English loosing a football match! Oops!

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Listening to:

Title: Beautiful Otherness
Artist: Bent
Album: Hed Kandi - Serve Chilled 2006 - CD 1
Length: 4:52 mins

An odd feeling...

(Pictured: Symbol of my independence, my new bike!) Well not so new, second hand in fact. Expansion on the earlier posted story goes that Sam's friend, Mia has a professional cyclist husband who is currently working at a cycle hire place in Padstow so he did me a bit of a deal on the bike! He can apparently ride approx 60 miles (96 kilometers) in one day! So I have my benchmark set for me!

I've had this link for too long and have been meaning to post it. A dear friend, Michael sent me this one. It's helped explain some things that people keep rambling about and it's quite a good read! Judith, you may like it especially!

http://www.cornishfolklore.com/

So this is work for the moment. Very interesting people and dynamics behind the place, and I thought SeaChange was unorganised! I do wonder what it will be like when I tell them that I'm going to work at Sam's Cafe instead ?

Now this is an interesting one, things actually taste different over here. The two notable items are Caberys Chocolate and Coke Cola and worst of all they taste worse! Caburys Chocolate tastes of a much heavier coco flavour and I'm not even quite sure what the go is with Coke but it's just wrong!



Having moments of feeling really out of place and out of sorts because I can't find my bearings, weather they are conscious ones or not. Just simple things like looking in the sky and not seeing the usual stars or the sun setting in the usual spot or the birds sound different and all the odd smells in the air. Quite a disconcerting feeling!

In other amusement, the English football team are out of the world cup. We found this flag while driving to work yesterday. Hehe!

Independence a-hoy!

(Pictured: Wind turbines nr. Truro - Awesome sight to see. I really do want to get under one of them. So fun!)

Okay, I'm here today sitting in a bar in Truro (capitol of Cornwall), drinking a terrible cappuccino because I feel guilty for chewing up their wi-fi to access the internet but it's worth it because they have Royksopp's albums playing in the background! Fancy that, a pub playing electronic music! That wouldn't happen at home!
Speaking of music I have got the "Mylo" and "Goldfrapp" lined up to go see! I never dreamed of being able to see these bands live,wasn't even within comprehension!

I'm attempting to maintain some form of independence and good health, this has worked out to mean long bike rides into the bigger towns around the area. I managed to ride 15 miles (24 kilometres) into Newquay attempting to stave off the "Heathrow Injection", description as follows courteous of the YHA website:

This is a very real and very stressful condition experienced by Australians once in London. Effects are literally noticed over night and no warning is given. Put simply, it is the injection of fat on arrival at Heathrow airport; however, this fat does not surface until anywhere from one week to one month after arrival. It tends to affect females the worst with an overall expansion of the body while males experience a concentrated expansion in the stomach area, commonly know as a beer belly!

There is no doubt that moving half way across the world into another hemisphere is bound to affect you - the food, water and air are all different. Also you are many miles away from home and a binge on ice cream, chocolate or alcohol to help lift your sprits at times is necessary.

Doing this bus trip to Truro is making me feel a little more independent and I get to go shopping to buy things that aren't in the Padstow area like CD-Rs and S-video cables (yep, still a nerd)!
Despite being a nerd I have managed to delete all my data on my laptop by attempting to resize partitions an the hard disk, I swear it wasn't my fault, the program I was using had an error. All my data gone in a blink of an eye. I recovered 99% of it after several hours of work (some family members would know what I'm like if my computer isn't functioning).

I did yet a little excited today when I saw in emu today on the bus trip down here. Managing to meet plenty of new wildlife though! For example we have our backyard badger where I'm staying. Hehe!

Quite odd how the roads are named over here, all coded opposed to named. But yet roundabouts have names, handy for a reference point I spose.

Well now I'm on the bus trip back home but theres been an accident up ahead. I don't think people have been hurt... going to be late for work now. It's going quite well I think, getting to know everyone slowly. I still manage to underestimate people! I pass people by at work not thinking much of them initially only later on to find out they are really quite interesting people! A lesson to be learnt there no doubt!

I'm writing this all in using the tablets handwriting recognition. It's not bad considering my handwriting is so sloppy , though it has major issues with the why I write my "p", keeps thinking they are "q's"! It's really quite difficult to change ones writing style!

Clearly I'm not getting much time to keep this blog up to date because I seem to have heaps to write. Sorry to all that waiting on post cards and phone calls, time in the day just seems to fly!

Okay running low on battery and shit to crap on with so I'm going! Ciao!