hey hi hello! i bet you didn't expect to hear from me again hey??? ( Australians say the word 'hey' after every sentence for no reason )
so yes i am back with my bi-annual update to reassure you all back in the UK that i am not, in fact, dead. on the contrary, i am currently lying in a nice comfy double bed in a wooden beach house lookin thing in Brisbane with two of my nearest and dearest from home. well they aren't actually in the bed with me, gemma is at work ( lol ) and abbie is upstairs doing some important research ( watching sun sex and suspicious parents )
anyway, where was i ??? sooo the adelaide festival finished and i volunteered to do the bump out... for people who don't know, this is the process where we get eeeverything out - tents, rides, containers, everything - and pack it all away. so it's essentially a few days of intense manual labour. i know what you're thinking - its got me written all over it!!! but the money is amazing and obviously i had drank and eaten my way into the poorhouse by this point so i was like WHY NOT, I'M A STRONG INDEPENDENT WOMAN, I OWN A FILOFAX. well firstly lets say i have never felt so useless in my life. i was like a gooseberry in a hi-vis jacket. everyone knew things and people kept using words I'd never even heard of before - "what the bloody hell is a pallet" - and i basically nearly busted a lung trying to lift things that clearly were not meant to be lifted by a weakling. not to mention the day where i ended up in first aid twice before 10am ( both glass related incidents ) . however i did spot a forklift ( yeah I definitely thought they were called 'forklets' before this, true story ) which was only like the best job eveeeer. i even made it into a merry game in my head. there were these miniature flags sticking out of the ground all over the park and i was seeing how many i could run over with the forklet (7 at the last count). apparently though, in an unfortunate twist that nobody could have forseen, the primary job of a spotter was making sure that the vehicles avoided these flags as they were marking water points or something. awkward... anyway it actually ended up being really quite fun and i learnt a lot, so if anyone wants to know anything about cable ties, yutes or front loaders then I'm your woman !!
( EDIT: SO according to some know-it-alls (lydia milne), that is apparently not an australian flag. not like I've been in the country 3 months or anything... whats the point in having flags so similar, get some originality eh? )
so the time had come to wave farewell to adelaide and say a big GDAY to melbourne. ali had kindly offered me a lift in her car alongside some of our other friends from the festival ( jenny, hope, kiran, liz and matilda ) and we resolved to drive down the great ocean road. the scenery was great, we ate fish and chips, drank blue moon, sang taylor swift and had a great time in general !!
when we got into melbourne i felt as if I had been reborn. this place had BUILDINGS. and SHOPS. BARS THAT WERE OPEN PAST 12. and 7/11s that sold $1 COFFEE. and it was full of cool cats and all the food was packed full of "smashed" avocado and kale. anyway it was a bit of a shock to the old system coming from adelaide to an actual city, so i was wandering around in a bit of a daze at first. i was obv homeless at this point so my first prerogative was to find somewhere to live ( i crashed at my friend anna's for the first few days, thanks for that bbz ). i eventually was put in touch with a house share in West Brunswick. as soon as i stepped through the door i was greeted with fresh fig from the garden and i knew that this was the place for me. when I inquired about the keys, I was met with " oh, none of us really have keys, the back door is always open " .... fab. anyway my flatmates were super cool ( one of them even gave me an embroidered ribbon with my name on it yaas ), all laid back and stoned and/or drunk most of the time. they were also super into cooking, and were frequently whipping up various culinary delights, usually from our very own garden. and so the tale of my terrifying biscuit ordeal begins...
once upon a time I was leaving the house to get the tram into town. as I made my way to the back door ( wide open, didn't see that one coming ) my flatmate offered me a delicious looking cookie. well, who am i to turn down any baked good ? as I reached for the treat, i hesitated. "why!" i exclaimed "this biscuit appears to have a greenish hue about it!" it turns out that these cookies were for a party that my housemate was attending that evening and had added a rather substantial measure of marijuana to them. now, i haven't eaten the stuff since i was about 16 at Big John's in Dumbydykes, and it failed to have any effect on me then, so without much of a second thought, I ate it ( almost whole, it had chocolate chips in it and everything ). i got on the tram. i walked through the city. i met my friend. we had coffee and had a nice long chat. then all of a sudden, i had an existential crisis. i was melting. i felt like i was melting??? one minute i was there. next minute i was somewhere else. how did i get there??? how did i get on this planet??? what am i doing here???????? deep fried macaroni cheese seemed to be the answer to all my queries, but my satisfaction was fleeting. i then sat in a chair and simply couldn't get up, for what felt like hours. many hours. gradually, very gradually, i started regaining the feeling in my limbs and mastered the art of speaking once more but wow... never again. my weed eating days are very much over, and they had barely begun. never again will i shovel anything with chocolate chips in it down my gullet without inspecting it and mulling it over thoroughly first.
despite the unwelcome presence of edible marijuana, Melbourne comedy festival was slightly more low key than Edinburgh or Adelaide. the plus side of this was that I managed to see plenty of shows which kind of made up for my pitiful effort in Adelaide !!! saying that, i did manage to drink A LOT and eat a lot of lord of the fries ( this amazing veggie burger fast food place ) and i also went slightly off the rails and evoked my inner trashy teen by getting my belly button pierced. it was quite the spur of the moment, hungover decision. all was well until after it was done and the guy ( classic Melbourne hipster, beenie, plugs, tattoos ) decided to say "okay, all done, check out your new BODY BLING." yep. body bling. i couldnt believe i had just let this man pierce me. anyway, it's so great to be chilling now in Brisbane watching films every night all snuggled up in a duvet. however soon I am leaving Brisbane for the unknown ( no really ). I simply do not know what I am doing or where am I am going, mostly because I am extremely low on money right now. busking with 'the getaway game' may be the answer...
anyway, that's enough boring rambling for one session!!! I hope everyone's well, I'm missing you all greatly. please spare as thought for me in the next few weeks as i will be living in a skip. i spent all my money on "body bling".
jess
xoxoxoxoxoxo
