Castlemaine

The morning after I think we all rose quite late, Chris commented I should come more often so it happened more often! Paula did some nice eggs, baked in the oven in little dishes with ham on the bottom and butter on the top, mmmmm. We talked about the trip, and about how it's important to travel. Chris suggested people should take pensions for the first 4-5 years of their adult life, which sounds great but I think I've almost worked out the system to do so anyway!

Inevitably, Paula and Chris left for work noonish, and Andrew and I were left around the house with beautiful Bella their cat. She was shy earlier, but of course with cats, after sitting playing the guitar while Andrew showered, she rounded me on the couch and rested her head (with outstretched paws underneath it) on my arm and slept, so that I couldn't really play anymore and had to concentrate on her. Typical cat behaviour, no chance I could get her attention if I wanted it.

Before heading off to do errands such as pick him up some new guitar strings and a repaired computer for the business, Andrew and I went to Henry of Harcourt, out in the countryside, to taste / buy some cider. I couldn't really remember it well, but he told me that maybe 5 years ago or so when I'd left another time before, we went there for a tasting too. We tasted all 7 different drinks they made, bought some ciders for Andrew later and for my future hosts in the city, then each had a bottle of cider to drink in front of the pond full of ducks that was there in front of the little wooden sales office. He spoke about his plan to get an entry level job in an office somewhere in the city, that that's the best way to make money and that that's all he was interested in, and I tried to convince him a bad idea, the office lifestyle, the dull monotony, and lake of satisfaction. After telling him many stories, and trying to convince him a skill is a more useful thing than money, in the end he just told me that no matter what I tell him he needs to find out for himself. Very true, it really does take far too much energy to change someone's mind that it's worth, it's rowing upstream.

After dropping Andrew home (he was drinking his cider in the car during the errands - too drunk to drive) I picked up my things and headed to the warehouse, to say goodbye to Chris and get a lift to Castlemaine station with Paula. I hope things are going better for them next time I see them, that they aren't working 7 days a week.

After a dash under a bridge to reach the correct platform for my train, I hopped onto the 2 carriage little train at 1741 for Spencer st. station. I ended up opposite a mother and her 2 year old son, surrounded by baggage and discarded snakes and muesli bars, and little toys. She looked pretty young, maybe 20, and her son was 2 with a shaved head and a little rat's tail. I don't usually listen to an iPod, I prefer all the ambient noise, but I was when the boy threw a tantrum. My noise isolating in-ear headphones did the trick here, though he did manage to get through them a bit, after finally wearing himself out and into sleep. Apart from another 2 year old twin boy, whose brother and mother, looking just as poor and young as the other mother, were up the other end of the carriage, and a pretty girl who sat opposite me a stop or two, the ride wasn't too eventful.

Within about 30 minutes of arriving in town, I could see something happening the other end of the carriage, between the mother of the twin boys and some educated looking 40ish woman with a black pony tail and those typical rectangle lenses. The mother yelled 'stay away from me!' and 'leave me alone!' and hit the emergency alarm, which brought our little train to a halt for around 20 minutes. Then, just before the inspector came and reasoned with the women, the woman with the glasses begun crying, saying 'none of you in here are defending me when I am standing up against child abuse! This is shocking!' and saying something about amnesty international bla bla. Our fatter mother of the twins replied by saying this woman didn't kick up a fuss when our other mother's child was crying, which brought my side of the carriage yelling as well. In the end, both mothers and all 3 boys were happily up our end, making up with each other and also chatting with myself and a middle classish woman in her late 40s about what had happened. Turned out the fat mother had smacked one of her boys and this woman was on her high horse about it being child abuse, thinking stopping a train is a good opportunity for a moral debate. Not only was it likely that this woman herself had no children, as the middle class lady suggested (who had smacked her children once or twice), but it also trivialises issues which are worth our attention. It reminds me of a Cambodian woman who sometimes works with us, one of the youngest of 20 children, whose 10 older brothers were all killed by the Khmer Rouge, she can't remember them... reminds me of George Negus (is that his name?) on TV talking about the 'victims' of the ash cloud, who are people lazying around airports waiting for planes.

Anyhow, the nice older lady who found something in common with the poorer classes and their smacked children, gave me a lift in her taxi to the next station I had to take to get to Jarrod's. I ended up getting there a bit late, we dropped my things off at his and Ruby's place in Coburg, I had time to give Kali the cat a kiss, then finally we went to a great Turkish restaurant nearby. Ruby was in town drinking after finishing her final exam that afternoon, but came in time for the food which we'd ordered. We had a nice meal, probably left around 22:30. With $1.50 a head for bread, BYO, and only ordering starters / entrees, we all ate well for about $42, which was including a $13 meat dish for Jarrod and I which we could have easily done without. So a very cheap meal. We headed back, drank some of the cider I'd brought and also some port til about midnight, kissed Kali a little more then Ruby and Jarrod made my bed, Ruby fussing over me asking if I wanted a wheatbag - very homely! Jarrod headed off for work in the morning, Ruby was a little hungover but she dropped me down at Jonny's in South Melbourne, where a key was in the letterbox.

It was a little bigger than his last place, but looked like a beach house right in the city to me. I had a meal in the pub nextdoor (which Jonny's son Tom actually works at), drank a beer and by that time Jonny was stopping home before going to work for a few hours. We took the tram together into town, I wandered around a while until settling on a bench in front of the State Library, until Jonny met up with me after work and we did a tameish pub crawl back to his place and caught up a bit. While I was waiting some young boys (turned out to be Christians) sat with me and asked me questions about my thoughts and my life. I suppose they were hoping someone less interesting or something, in the end they listened more to me than I did to them and their bible, I topped it off with the story of Andrew just the day before, about how hard it is to change someone's mind.

Heading back to Jonny's we go through a little square, where Megs and Pip were with the two dogs. It was really nice to see them, last time I saw Pip she was only months old, now she is an almost 6 year old happy little girl who has a talent for singing dancing and adlib song writing, and Megs is as sweet and kind as I remember too. After a little dinner of party pies and snacks, I headed into town to a rooftop bar place called Madame Brussels to hang out with Julia after hearing nothing from my other Melbourne friends I'd met in Sydney. Nothing too eventful, nice to hang out with Juls and her nice friends, and ended up an early night but I did manage to make a new friend, Bianca, kindred spirit in how working every day of the week is no life. Again got pampered, came home to a roaring fire, a made bed with towels and Oz the dog curled up on the pillows warming them.

The day afterwards Jonny Pip and I headed down to the markets nearby, while Megs was at the botanic gardens working on uni stuff, to pick up stuff for dinner which was to be marinara. Pip has an amazing memory of which part of the markets is for what, the cupcake stall, the butchers who have a jar of lollies for the kids, she even knows where to find the gnocchi but dare to buy Oz the whippet some chicken necks over sausages and she gets a bit upset. We brought back her empty drink can from the market, which we turned into a cat (she is getting a real one for her birthday in July). That Saturday was a pretty relaxing one, Jonny and I playing 2 or 3 Age of Empires 2 games while Pip would play by herself and occasionally pretend to fall off something and cry to get our attention.

After Megs came home to look after Pip Jonny and I went to a pub near his place, very nice quiet place. There were only 8-10 people on a Saturday night, someone even had their dog in with them, it reminded me of London or France. Better again it had ale from a small brewery which tasted great. Had a good chat about life in general, how it's taken him til 44 to have his 3rd career so that was nice to hear. When we got back the house was clean, Pip had been washed and was in her frog pyjamas, and Jonny was cooking up. I showed Pip Jessie's 'victory gown' which was covered in frogs, which she enjoyed.

I didn't manage to meet up with my friend Sarah for a 2nd night running, so Saturday night ended up with Jonny and I drinking everything we could find in the house, keeping the fire going, playing Age of Empires 2 for a few hours until we go hold of the guitar and there was more music and singing than gaming. We were really letting our teammates down those last games. It's great, the feeling that everything you need for good fun is all there around you, including a bed to collapse in. I really am losing interest in going out and being surrounded by strangers, though they're friends you haven't met in theory, there are a lot of people out there who should remain faceless for a reason.

3rd and last chance still no luck on Sunday to hang out with Sarah, so I ended up seeing my new friend Bianca and hearing about her own latest trip overseas, where she'd been, her family, and also how she told her boss she didn't think it was right working 5 days a week and that she'd work 4, for the same money. It's nice to meet people who put themselves first in a world that seems to be one obligation after another in life, where in the end people forget what they really want deep down. She took me to a warehouse filled with all sorts of things, where at the back her and her friend did sewing. While we were, there to one other side through all the paths of piles of papers, old furniture, there was a recording studio where maybe 10 Sudanese women were singing their folk songs. Before having to part ways, we managed to go a rooftop bar, called 'rooftop bar' where we drunk some cider. Barely a cloud in the sky, it was sunny and crisp up there, very nice.

The Sunday evening was at Megs' mum's, Judy, place for her 75th birthday. It was very nice, a nice family feeling with lots of different people from different generations, all a bit different but everyone was having a nice time. It made me think that it's a shame for my family that we're almost all alone in Adelaide, and thinking about how we can treat each other and how horrible it sounds compared to here at Judy's. Of course people argue all the time, but at least having this extended family, people have to learn to act civil, unless they want to embarrass themselves. Anyhow, after the late night of drinking gaming and music, and all the cider I'd drunk earlier, I really hit a brick wall and began dreaming of having everything sealed, and a place to sleep on. So I wasn't much fun. After a ride home to pick up my bags, and another ride to the bus stop for the airport bus, it was time to say goodbye to Jonny Megs and Pip. Pip had been singing constantly since leaving her grandma's, one that sticks in my head was the cat dog song, 'cat dog, cat cat dog, cat dog dog, wooooeeee!'

Just before finally boarding while sitting at the gate, I had a call from mum and dad, who were around at Colin and Cecillia's for dinner. I had a chat to everyone and little goodbyes, finally I was speaking to Felix, my little Lego brother, about which were his latest Lego men he had. One of them had been a viking! I told him I wish I had one. Then I heard his dad tell him I was going far far away to viking school which Felix thought was funny. Which was true as well, I'd already begun - I was reading a book on Norwegian just before they called.