Llama, Llama, and Duck, the desk chickens

Desk Chicken [desk chik-uhn] noun: 

Widely mistaken for a domestic fowl, the desk chicken is in fact wildly untamed and will upend your paperclip basket and sticky tape your mouse to your mousepad at the slightest provocation. Their stealthy antics almost always go unseen by the human eye, however it is a strongly held belief that if your stapler ever jams, or your hole-punch empties it's confetti-like innards all over your office space, then the desk chicken is usually to blame.

Despite their spritely antics, the desk chicken warms the heart of anyone who is lucky enough to have them nest on their work desk, and they will quite often trick the hard working office dweller into thinking their day has passed much more quickly than it really has, just by the sheer brutal force of their cuteness.

My, what a lovely moustache!

As any self-respecting almost-30 year old knows, the only way to celebrate turning the big three oh is by getting a group of amazing friends together at a beautiful winery, slapping fake moustaches on them all, and drinking and eating until you pass out from the pleasure of it all!

The moustache bus!

A tremendously, stupendously huge thank you to everyone who helped to make my birthday one to remember - the weather was perfect, the food and wine were delicious, and the company could not be beat! An especially tremendously, stupendously huge thank you to His Travel Romance, who took me out for a delightful breakfast before the day's festivities, and who not only organised the moustache bus, but helped decorate it, and then drove it, along with 16 of my friends, to the Swan Valley for the day. What a man! xx

Returned to sender

New York - London - rural England - London - Mallorca - London - rural France - New York - London - Bansko, Bulgaria - Paris - Wodonga.

After nearly nine months of tripping around the northern hemisphere, I have landed safely back in the great sunburnt flooded/cyclone-ravaged land. Whilst I was away, His Travel Romance packed up our house in Perth in Western Australia, and we are now in the rural city of Wodonga, in Victoria. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing here yet (work? study? executive home assistant to HTR?), but I'll work it out. In the meantime, I have trips to South Australia, Melbourne, and Western Australia planned already - just because I'm back in Oz doesn't mean I wont still get around!

My flight home from London had an afternoon stopover in Perth on Sunday, which gave me the chance to share a few hours with good friends in Kings Park. Apart from the many long hugs, it felt like I'd never left, and I had the best time just sitting under a tree, overlooking the Swan river, and being around some of the best people you will ever meet in your life.

My work husband asked me to list my top three experiences from my travels which, surprisingly, didn't take me too long to come up with.

1. The Binissalem Wine Festival where I got to eat traditional Mallorcian food, share wine with fabulous people, and dance with demons.

2. My burlesque New Years Eve in New York, which I got to share with fabulous friends and HTR.

3. Paris, in general, because it is just so beautiful and romantic.

So, now what? I have a couple of ideas but I really don't know - but that's part of the fun, right?

Wonderful darling, just wonderful

When I woke up this morning I was so excited to see some sneak peak photos from a friend's photoshoot up on facebook!

The gorgeously vivacious Miss In Wonderland has, for the last few months, been developing herself a little empire of hats, hair pieces, accessories, and all things gorgeous, which you can check out at either her Made It store, or on Etsy. She is incredibly talented and I can't even begin to tell you how freaking proud I am of her for giving up her job of five years and following her dream to create and design.

Ashliegh puts in such a lot of care and love to her creations and you can certainly tell - I can't wait until I have one (two, three....) of my very own to start wearing around London town! After all, you never know want Santa may get me... Especially if Santa is going back to Perth before meeting me in New York... Ahem... ;-)

So, this photoshoot, shot by the ever-so-talented Dabs (yet another gorgeous Perth lady pursuing her dream!), looks oh-so-amazing! The models are gorgeous, the photos are absolutely stunning, the hats and accessories are to die for and, well, I'll just let them speak for themselves!

From Perth to London

This week has been rather lovely so far. Not only did I manage to score a whole four day's worth of work (at Top Shop, in the fraud prevention department - mind you it's not all that exciting - I'm doing receipts reconciliation and the most exciting part of my placement was when Jordan was spotted in the store... My response was to keep working on the receipts!), I got to have dinner with a friend from Perth!

Keryna was on the tail end of an extensive, "I've got long service leave and I'm using it!" European trip with her man-friend Matt, so we decided to celebrate our both being on the other side of the world by eating at a little French restaurant in Earls Court called The Little French Restaurant! My big brother had suggested it was the very best value meal in town, and I would have to say I agree - three delicious French courses for 10GBP on the proviso that you have a glass of wine is not a bad deal at all. (Thanks bruv! xx)

The restaurant is gorgeously quaint, and we even had a French waitress - I was impressed. We also got to enjoy a little old(er) couple snuggling and canoodling outside our window for a while... It was actually quite sweet and romantic. Of course, that's based on my imagining they've been married for 60 years and are still madly in love with each other after all this time. In reality, they may have each knocked off their original spouses and met in prison where they married just a few short weeks ago, prior to their release, and are still in the honeymoon phase. You never know.

The Last Weekend Before The Last Weekend

This weekend is the last weekend I have here in Perth, before my last weekend in Perth. With me?

I decided to get in a little tourist practice so, after dropping the ever lovely Yak off at the airpot this morning, after her keeping me company and looking after me for the last few days*...

... I decided to go and explore the beautiful buildings and grounds of the University of Western Australia. Having driven past this delightful place a thousand or more times, and having always wanted to go in and look around, and with time to kill before my afternoon's activities, I finally made it through the front gates. I'm so glad I did.

"Verily by beauty it is that we come at wisdom" - what a fabulous line to remember whilst traveling around Europe.

* Yak and I had an absolutely lovely visit... We are both nanna's you see, and so spent a great deal of time curled up on the couch together, in our trackies and hoodies, drinking red wine and watching movies. It was lovely. The problem is, we never take photos of ourselves. For being such good friends, we have surprisingly few photos of us together. Apart from Yak's wedding photos, I can actually only think of one photo we have of the two of us. This makes story-telling on a blog quite hard because blogs are about being visual and this is mostly why I have avoided talking about the last few days but, for the record, Yak looked after me like a little mother-hen, gave me lots of love, cooked me some amazing meals, and gave me cuddles at all the right moments. I love my Yak, and I can't wait to see her again in a week and a half's time.xx

Double Fail

Fail #1
On Friday before I left work last week, I decided to play with Adam's keyboard and make it completely awesome...

Which I thought would be taken, in our usual playful manner, with guffaws of laughter and congratulatory chuckles throughout the morning on my aweseomeness at coming up with something so utterly awesome. Instead, Mr Grumpy Pants came to work today instead of Adam, and he was nothing but annoyed at my awesome gesture, complaining that his password now wouldn't work because he couldn't get his brain to ignore the misplaced letters on his keyboard - not to mention that he hadn't even seen the word "awesome" imbedded in the top alpha row. I'd even had to give up my own 'e' for this effort! Such little appreciation to be had at 7 o'clock in the morning... We have since discussed his lack of mirth at what was so clearly an awesome joke played on my part, and he has agreed that I now have permission to change his keyboard around whenever I so wish. Oh, and he'll buy me flowers.

Fail #2
Sex & The City 2 isn't tonight!!! I slumped at my desk in complete devastation and could have cried this morning when I opened my diary and realised that I'd bought the tickets for next Monday, not this Monday! I was so looking forward to tonight! So, I've done what any girl in my situation would do, and have decided to placate my tormented soul with new episodes of Gossip Girl at home instead...

Gaol Time

One of the things on my 'must do before I leave Perth' list was to go and do the Tunnels Tour at the Fremantle Gaol. Double M and I managed to get this done today and it was so much fun! We had to get kitted up in lovely white over-all style suits, black gumboots, and we topped all of this with blue harnesses, red life vests and red hard hats with headlights on them! It's official. We were the hottest chicks in any Perth tunnel system today!

Our adventures underground were followed by a lovely pasta dinner at a family Italian restaurant in Fremantle - I had the special, four cheese gnocchi and oh my gawd it was amazing! I was even good enough to stop myself from eating it all in one go so that I can now look forward to if for lunch tomorrow.

Tomorrow is a public holiday in Perth but I've volunteered to work (as it's not a public holiday in other the other states of Australia, whom we deal with) so will be trundling in with my yummy pasta lunch, counting the hours and minutes down until 6pm.... Because at 6pm I'm going to watch S&TC2 in Gold Class!!! I'm so excited, it's going to be fabulous!!!

Other than that, not much to tell really... My apartment has finally settled and everything is nearly wrapped up with that. By the end of this week I should officially be debt free for the first time in about ten years! Huzzah! I have two weeks and two days left of work before I fly back to Adelaide... Everything is getting rather close now! Must email resume to temp agencies in London soon... Yep, that's about it.

Filling Up

A funny thing starts happening to a girl's diary when she only has about a month left in a city... the pages start filling with last dinners and dates, and all of those things you always meant to do but never have. Before you know it, you really can't fit another thing in, or spare another second! Well, I'm not quite at that point yet, but it's getting very close!

Today I booked tickets for four of us to go to Sex & The City 2 in Gold Class! We decided on a Monday night to give us something to look forward to on a Monday. I can't wait! Although, it's not for another couple of weeks yet...

I also booked myself and a friend in for a tour of the Fremantle Prison Tunnels! Double M and I have been saying we will do this tour for at least the last year, and we finally found the motivation we needed! The tour will be followed by a lovely dinner date somewhere in Fremantle, but we haven't decided on that part yet.

Tomorrow night His Travel Romance and I will be dining at Hippo Creek - our favourite 'come and be completely carnivorous' place in Perth! This was his special request, and I was happy to make the booking. Saturday morning is breakfast at The Greenhouse, which has been on my 'to do' list for a good six months, especially after I saw Liz's review! Saturday night we have dinner at L&D's and on Sunday night Annie's kitty-sitter will be coming over to meet her fluffy little charge, and we shall have a dinner party for seven (plus the fluff-chop)! As I'm off to London, I thought it only fitting that the theme be English Nosh, so my thoughts at this stage are for gourmet bangers and mash, followed by roast rosemary chicken served with minted peas and Yorkshire puddings with gravy, with scrummy bread and butter pudding with custard and cream for dessert! Mmmm.

Meanwhile, the sale of my apartment is almost complete with settlement being next week, I've organised to roll over my super into one superfund before I leave, I have a form to complete to ensure my electorate is aware I will be out of the country come the election later this year, and I'm almost ready to give my brother Power of Attorney so that he can handle anything for me whilst I'm away. My mail will be redirected and my mobile disconnected before I leave, I shall stock up on cat food and kitty litter for Annie and her kitty-sitter, and in amongst all of this, I will make sure I finally drink that bottle of Moet His Travel Romance gave me a year ago!

Get Your Disney On

It's been another crazy busy time - working all weekend, then fitting in social commitments around that. Saturday night was a double-whammy. First, His Travel Romance and I went out for dinner to meet the lady who will be looking after our fluffy little girl for the five months we're both away from home. The Nanny is absolutely lovely and I am now feeling secure and happy about Annie's living arrangements whilst we're away. The second commitment was the long awaited, much anticipated Disney Party for Ash's (2)6th birthday!

His Travel Romance worked tirelessly all through Saturday whilst I was at work, sewing and crafting an outfit so that we could go as the Slinky Dog from Toy Story!

Can you see the resemblance?? Our slink was fashioned out of laundry hampers and floating floorboard underlay cut and sewn into strips, and my floppy brown ears used to be a pair of brown pants from an op-shop.

The party was a fabulous success, with some amazingly colourful costumes and characters.

The birthday girl (Jesse) and Mr In Wonderland (Woody)

Such a pity I had to be at work again by 7am the next morning!

Happy Birthday Boop!

A very, very happy birthday to one of the most vivacious, fun-loving, delightful, spontaneous, crafty, swingingist, and just plain crazy ladies I have ever had the pure pleasure of knowing!

In Bali for my birthday last year - dressed to go white water rafting!

Miss In Wonderland turns even more fabulous today, and I look forward to more fun dressing up times with her in the very near future! ... Just look at her will you - she just glows with fun in every photo!

Love you, you funny, crazy, pink banjo playing girl :-)

xx