MissLeonie.com

I had a bit of a cycle trip planned yesterday. My job agency had set me up with a “nearby” (I use the term loosely) golf course that was in need of someone to help them replace a sick colleague. I was extremely non-nervous about the whole thing, because the job was for just 24 hours a week, a 10km cycle ride one way, and not the kind of work I want to be doing. That really took the pressure off. Of course, earning a bit of money again would be very pleasant, so I thought I’d at least give it a chance.

I’d never been to the golf course before, and had dad not showed me where it was the night before, I would probably have got lost. I didn’t, however, and I didn’t get rained on either which is a miracle and a half given the weather we’ve been having. The place is huge and incredibly fancy, but thankfully the lady who interviewed me was wearing jeans, so I won’t have to buy a new uniform. I got the job, and they’ve actually asked me if I’d mind working four or five days a week instead of the three originally proposed, too! My salary’s gone up, and I won’t have to worry about exercise anymore. Very happy with how this worked out. It’ll earn me the money I need to finally get my driving license sorted - I’m currently working on the theoretical test book. I can’t believe I was lucky enough to find a job two and a half weeks after getting home. I didn’t even really start looking until a week ago…

Then, to complete an already lucky day, I found out I’d won a set of face care products from one of my favourite brands, just like that. Not bad! Unlucky in love (sort of, anyway), lucky in everything else, apparently. *knocks on wood*

I’ve uploaded two photos taken on what will now be my daily commute here. Could be worse, no? It borders on one of the bigger forests in this area. It’s full of foxes and deer, so hopefully I’ll see some occasionally. I’m bringing my camera to work every day, that much is certain.

I scribbled this on some school stationery earlier today. I’ve been so tired that I haven’t had the energy to post much. I’m having a doctor look into that this week just to make sure everything’s OK. Anyway, to the main course:

Today saw me surveilling exams at a school for future teachers. You’d think that future teachers would be disinclined to cheat, but they want to make absolutely sure no cheating happens anyway. The first exam was about the English language and teaching language in general. I know it’s mean, but some of the answers to the “translate this Dutch word into English” questions cracked me right up. “Buttermilk” proved especially difficult, triggering such answers as “sour milk”, an exasperated and hopeless “milk?”, and my personal favourite, “silky milk.” “Civil servant” in Dutch elicited “parole officer” (someone’s been watching too much Law & Order) and “correct the following sentence: who is on turn” (a wonky version of “whose turn is it?” brought about “What are you doing?” These people will be teaching English to primary school kids aged 11 and 12 in a year or two. It’s made me consider homeschooling for future offspring. I’m on again next Tuesday. Joy!

I decided I needed to take The Brick for a walk yesterday evening. I’m amazed by how long the days last here. In Byron, 5pm pretty much meant darkness. It’s some form of light until at least 9pm here. I live on the edge of town, and most crops aren’t so tall yet that they obscure views. In a country that’s flat as can be, you really don’t need 2m tall corn stalks to prevent you from getting a shot of the horizon.

Anyway, I came up with what I think is a pretty decent shot. Have a look at the full-sized version here.

Somehow, on this sunny Sunday afternoon, I got dragged into teaching advanced high school maths. It’s the maths I did years ago, that a family friend is now doing in order to get into medical school.

Maths and I have a curious relationship. I used to be great at maths, I won prizes in competitions (I know there is nothing even remotely cool about winning a subscription to a science magazine for kids in a maths competition, but it beats not winning), and I regulary scored 90 to 100%. Then. Cue New Teacher, the teacher who would simply say “Listen, perhaps you just don’t have talent in the maths area,” whenever I had a question. I believed him, and from then on, maths and I never got on again. I passed my final exam and graduated with a fairly decent mark, but it was never as effortless and fun (this is where the Internet collectively rolls its eyes. Yes, I just called maths “fun.”) again.

I took a maths course at university, just to prove to myself that my old teacher, Mr New Teacher, was full of it at the time. I passed the course. I failed both exams, but I passed the course. I know I am not as skilled in deductory, theoretical maths. I like hard numbers, outcomes that mean something. And when I get to work with those, I do just fine.

After learning so much from so many people in Byron Bay, now is my time to pay it forward. The student becomes the teacher - but never in my wildest dreams had I imagined I would be teaching maths. Fingers crossed!

The sun has come back out and so has my good mood! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - I must be solar powered or something!

I’ve ordered a driving license theoretical exam preparation book from the library that I’m now leafing through occasionally. So much of what’s in there is so obvious I can’t be bothered to read the thing front to back, but I try to absorb the knowledge anyhow.

I did manage to read Paulo Coelho’s Brida front to back, in the space of about a day and a half. I tried to pace myself, but I couldn’t help it. I don’t know how the writer I met on the plane back to Europe knew that this would be a good book for me to read at this stage of my life, that I would be open to some of the things it has to say, but he was right. My first urge is to recommend it to everyone. But I think it would mean more if someone were to recommend it to you at the right time in your life. Or if you picked it up in a book shop or library one day, read the back cover blurb, and somehow it spoke to you, tempted you to pick it up and take it home, to cancel appointments and just read all day long. I think that’s when you need to be reading it.

I’m having a bit of a blue day today, not quite sure what brought it on. It’s such a change to go from a bustling social life in Byron Bay to the quiet of home. Going to university on the other side of the country and across the channel means most of my friends live far away - I’m feeling a bit lonely today. It doesn’t help that I miss a certain Welshman. Life has a funny way of going about things, putting certain people in your life, taking others away. I’ve always walked the line of sentimentality and find it hard to let people go. Maybe that is the lesson I’m meant to take away from my travels - that it’s OK to enjoy experiences, and even better to know when to accept that things come to an end.

I’m trying to counteract my melancholy by keeping busy and focusing on what I do have. Besides, it’s no day to be sad as it’s my sister’s birthday. I simply get a little overwhelmed by this growing up thing sometimes, more so this year than ever before.

One upside? I’ve been painting almost every day since I’ve been back. There’s something about having a desk to work off that makes the whole process so much more manageable and exciting!

PS. Where has this crazy amount of visitors come from? Feel free to say hi in the comments if you’ve just stopped by, I’d love to hear from you.

This is a short summary of my trip home. I’d try writing it out but it would take about as much time as the actual trip. It might give you some idea of why I haven’t managed to post all this before - I’ve been a little tired, somehow!

• Friday 7pm - goodbye/birthday drinks at the Lodge. Who would have thought tequila with cinnamon and orange could be so delightfully intoxicating tasty?
• Friday 8pm - say goodbye to Jamie and get on Greyhound bus in Byron Bay for a 14 hour trip to Sydney.
• Friday 9pm - get to Ballina to be told that the bus will not go any further until 9am, possibly noon, the next day. The roads are closed due to flooding. My flight to Hong Kong leaves at 2:25pm on Saturday, I need to be there three hours beforehand. Mild panic ensues when I can’t reach my airline’s customer service because they are closed until 9am the next morning.
• Friday 10pm - the bus takes those who want to back to Byron Bay. I call my hostel in the meantime and arrange for Jamie to come and pick up myself and the three extra customers I’ve arranged.
• Friday 10:30pm - get back to the hostel, only to find that every single staff member is shitfaced drunk. End up checking in the three extra kids myself, even though I used to be kitchen cleaner at the hostel and have never ever checked anyone in before. Don’t quite know how the upgrade in job title came about, but I’m now “assistant night manager”.
• Friday night - manage to book a flight from Gold Coast airport to Sydney on the reception computer. While I was on the bus back to Byron Bay, Jamie was feverishly looking up flights. He’s also managed to get the (drunken) boss’s permission to use one of the hostel vans to get me to the airport the next morning. More importantly, he’s got the keys. Not quite sure how I would have managed without this Welshman!
• Friday night part II - a Swedish girl being carried around falls to the ground, injuring her arm. She drunkenly argues it’s broken, I don’t think it is but think it needs looking at anyway. Jamie and I, being the least drunk out of everyone, drive her to the hospital emergency department.
• Saturday 5:30am - get up after a little under 4 hours of sleep. Can’t find my phone charger anywhere, phone’s half-dead from phoning Jamie and my mum all of last night.
• Saturday 6am - leave the Lodge for Coolongatta, where the airport is, armed with Googlemaps directions and, as it turns out, not armed with Jamie’s wallet, so we have to head back two minutes into the trip.
• Saturday 7am - get to Coolongatta after driving on the freeway in the dark during a storm in a car I didn’t trust particularly. No signs pointing to the airport anywhere. Jamie jumps out to ask some guy delivering stock to a shop in the main street.
• Saturday 7:20am - get to the airport, check in. Of course my luggage is overweight - I packed it for the 23kg allowance of Virgin Atlantic’s international flight. Jetstar only allows 20kg, the suitcase weighs 26. The guy at the desk has to be a total arsehole and point out that had my international flight been with Qantas (Jetstar’s mother company), he would have waived the excess weight. Vow never to fly with either company again, check in, pay money, go through security to be told that my hand luggage is too heavy, do some crying to the male luggage attendants that seem about my dad’s age, it works cause they feel sorry for me, I get to walk through so long as I pack my stuff in several bags.
• Saturday 10am - get to Sydney airport’s domestic terminal. I have absolutely no change left so I have to take out a 20 dollar note to hop on the bus to the international terminal. Find it outrageous that this isn’t free, like at Heathrow.
• Saturday 10:30am - find myself all checked in. The lovely Virgin Atlantic lady doesn’t care about my excess luggage. Relief! I walk around the airport, buy a cup of tea and some magazines and books, and do some tax free shopping.
• Sunday 5am - arrive at Heathrow and make my way to the Virgin Atlantic transfer desk, only to find that no one is there. More worryingly, my flight isn’t on the boards. I finally work out I’m at the wrong terminal because my flight is codesharing with British Midlands, and my e-ticket doesn’t say so. I hop on a bus and make it to the right terminal on time.
• Sunday 7am - arrive at my gate to be told that somewhere along the line, I haven’t been checked in properly. The lady at the gate fixes everything up, and I hop on the smallest plane I’ve ever flown.
• Sunday 10am - get to Amsterdam OK, passport check isn’t a problem either, but when it’s time to pick up my luggage, my suitcase doesn’t show up. I finally work out where to report it missing and manage to call my parents from the personal mobile phone of the airport staff helping me out (my battery is dead). It turns out my suitcase is still at Heathrow.
• Sunday 1pm - get home, manage to stay awake until 8pm, crash out for 12 hours sleep.
• Monday 12:30pm - my suitcase is delivered to my door and all my souvenirs are still in one piece. Success!

So after 48 hours of trying to make my way home from the other side of the planet [I’m working on that story, hope to publish it soon, bear with me!], I’m back in the town where I spent the first 18 years of my life; the town I have come back to every time in the four and half years since. This afternoon I went to pick up a book I’d reserved at the local library. This library lives inside an old farm with wooden shutters opposite the only church in town. It’s a building I spent time in every other day of my childhood. If I skipped two days the librarians would be wondering what kept me so long. I loved to read, and I ran out of fresh stock soon enough. Sometimes the lovely ladies who ran the place would let me have a browse in the room behind the check out desk. It had New Books. It was heaven.

Today I visited to pick up Paulo Coelho’s Brida. I’ve always shied away from Coelho precisely because most people who read Coelho then rave about how the book turned their lives upside down. I quite like my life the right way up. I don’t mind a few degrees’ tilt one way or another, but upside down seems awfully unsettling.

As I entered the library, I noted a sign announcing one of their occasional book sales. Basically, “old” library books are sold. Something about knowing I won’t be able to borrow the books I’ve read and reread over the years always makes me terribly nostalgic, so I went up the stairs to salute the departing books. Before I’d even set foot on the first step, a booked popped up in my mind. Cranberry Queen. It’s been years since I’ve read it and I can’t even remember the writer. I vaguely remember it’s about a woman who flees to cranberry country in one of the northeastern states of the US after her family die in a car crash. That doesn’t sound particularly cheerful, nor does it do the novel justice, but suffice to say that all those years ago, it made an impression and I’ve borrowed it many times since. It’s not brilliantly written, it probably won’t be remembered in ten or even five years from now. Hell, it’s being sold from a library today. Like I said, though, it made an impression, and that’s more important to me than brilliantly stylised writing or novel and fascinating metaphors.

And somehow, before I’d even had a chance to look at the rows of books that were being sold, I knew it was up there and I knew I wanted to take it home. I don’t know how else to describe it, but when I scanned the books for sale I wasn’t the least bit surprised to find it.

Now here comes the best bit, and the best bit about living in a small town. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m home safe, somehow. It only took 48 hours of travelling. No, that is not an exaggeration. I’ll elaborate when I’m less tired. Suffice to say it was eventful, in very bad and very good ways. Keywords? Logistical mishaps and chance meetings.

My last full day in Byron Bay has turned into the biggest, most-likely-to-create-floods kind of rainstorm I’ve ever seen. It started late last night, and on my trip down to the bathrooms - only about a 8m walk - the howling of the wind put the kind of unease in me that can only come from instinct. Everything in me was screaming out This Is Not Good, Walk Quickly. It’s the sheer sound of it that does it, because the wind wasn’t even really tugging at me. Just that constant howling, and then occasionally, having it go up a note… it chills me to the bone.

This morning, we woke up to a partially defrosted fridge, and a flooded garden. All the concrete paths in the jungle-esque garden are covered in ankle-deep water, as is most of the rest of the garden. The power cuts out occasionally, taking the Internet along with it, so posting this is a fairly exciting process.

The town’s also flooded, and power has gone in the central shopping area… Oh-oooh.

PS. I’ll admit to heavy backdating on this one. I wrote the original entry on the day, but the power cut out and took my Internet with it. Didn’t find time to upload it until now, and didn’t want you to miss out on my flooded garden!