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

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!

Going, Going...

I have been struggling to make a final decision on when, exactly, I should leave Perth. There were many factors spinning around in my head and I've been thinking for a while now that I needed to wait to see what happened with several things before I could really make a decision. If I'm honest though, I was scared, and I was putting off making the decision until I absolutely had to.

Today I decided that I wasn't waiting any longer. I've made the decision! My last day at work will be 23 June, after which I will fly to Adelaide to visit my family, and then I'll be on a plane flying to the Northern hemisphere on or around 1 July. Eep!

Photo by His Travel Romance