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| Plants, they're a thing. |
“Is it very far from your house?”
“Yeah, it’s right on the edge of town,
probably about as far from my place as you can get. About a 5 minute drive”
Small town living is still such a new
experience to me, but sometimes I do catch myself saying stuff like this,
without any trace of humour in my voice. Perspective changes when you move
somewhere like Dalby. Once I thought Toowoomba was a tiny, hole of a place, and
now it seems like a massive city. Driving through it takes aaaaaaaaaages.
Beautifully, I know this must mean that there are people living in even smaller
towns who think Dalby is way too big and I have met people who consider those
of us that live in town to be ‘townies’, not real country people like those who
live on properties in the region.
I am obviously not a real country person,
because I’m so new, but I really am loving the small town life. Yesterday was a
really good day, let me step you through it.
7:45am – I drag myself out of bed at the
earliest time I’ve had to in a long while. Ah, unemployment, you sexy beast. It
is way too cold to be alive.
8am – I eat a delicious warm breakfast of
porridge with berries and, of course, a cup of tea. This has become so routine
for me I find myself going to sleep actually excited about my breakfast in the
morning. It’s so delicious. And this is huge for me considering I spent many
years not being able to stomach anything before about 10am.
8:15am – I doll myself up all corporate
like
8:45am – I leave the house for a job
interview. It’s nice and close so I walk.
9am – Job interview. I’ve already been
interviewed by this company, and I’m not 100% sure what to expect here.
9:15am – I realise he is offering me a job.
Not the job I applied for but one I have absolutely no experience in. He says I
have the right attitude/temperament for it and would like to train me. I am chuffed
but stunned and ask him if I can think about it, he is more than happy to
oblige.
9:30am I am home already and spend some
time contemplating the position I have been offered. I also call my mum and
drink some tea. I spend some time cultivating my tea tumblr and interacting
with humans I know on the internet.
11:30am I call my Nana. We talk for more
than an hour about all sorts of things, but specifically we discuss gardening
in great detail. She is a master. I describe my little yard to her and she
gives me advice on what I can do with it. She spends some time trying to
convince me to take furniture from her even though we live quite far away from
each other and none of it would fit in my house.
12:45pm – I contemplate the special dinner
I might make for my friends when they come up this weekend and write a shopping
list.
1pm – At the mall in town, I discover the
GLORIOUS news that the deli now sells sushi. It is a brand I know to be
actually good. This is the only sushi in town, and I am so excited I order a
sandwich instead. The sandwich has Brie on it and I am so excited about the
sushi I text my mum to let her know. She calls me again and we have a brief
chat.
1:15pm – I look for some people I need to
interview for the ABC Open workshops I am doing. There are 2 people in
particular I see all the time who I think would be really interesting to talk
to. Of course they are nowhere in sight.
1:30pm – I go grocery shopping. Riveting
stuff here, people. Oh, also I buy a crotchet needle and some yarn because I’m
AWESOME.
2:30 pm – Deciding to take some of my
Nana’s advice, I go to the giant Mitre 10 and buy some dirt and a trowel. One
of the ladies who works there is super rude for no reason, and this is so out
of character with pretty much everyone I’ve ever met here that I am stunned and
outraged. They don’t sell plants, but the nice man at the counter tells me
where the landscaping place is.
2:40pm – Driving around town to all these
little places, I get a sudden and overwhelming rush of love for Dalby. The sun
is shining, everyone (except that Mitre 10 lady) is lovely and helpful. The
streets are wide and everything is close together. I’m running all these
errands and they’re all within spitting distance of each other. I don’t even
care that I accidentally scraped my car with the trowel.
2:45pm – THE LANDSCAPING PLACE IS AMAZING.
It is beautiful and full of lovely plants and garden things and house things
and I want to spend FOREVER there. I manage to only spend about 20 minutes
there, and pick out some great little plants that are on sale. I tell the guy I
will probably see him again soon because I’ll kill the plants and he encourages
me to try not to.
3:15pm – sitting in my backyard, happy as a
kid in dirt. Because I am, in fact, a kid in dirt. I pot all my new little
plants in pots I stole from my mother’s garden last time I was in Brisbane. I
make a little corner of the garden come alive with herbs and lavender and
things. There’s a strawberry plant too but I don’t have a lot of hope for that
one, it’d be too good to be true to have my own strawberries.
3:45pm – I get the old, ugly hose working
and water everything. I also clean the outside walls a bit and fill a plastic
bag with crap the last tenant left in the yard; cigarette butts and broken pegs
and things. I decide not to despair about just how much crap there is and take
it one plastic bag at a time. If I chip at it for a few weeks it should be nice
again soon.
4pm – I shower all the dirt off me and
contemplate that job some more.
4:30pm – I potter on the internet again.
4:55pm – I get a call from another place I
have been interviewed at. He asks me to come in for a THIRD time tomorrow
morning at 8:30 and I agree hurriedly before really finding out why. SPOILER – it’s to offer me the job, which I
totally just accepted! Hooray!
5pm – I wash the dishes and Boyfriend gets
home. I regale him with my excellent day (while wearing soap sud gloves) and
make him come and stare at herbs, which he says look great.
6pm – I make Shepherd’s Pie while Boyfriend
plans his lessons.
7pm – We eat Shepherd’s Pie. Delicious.
It’s excellent ABC TV night so we watch Doctor Who (Are you my mummy?),
Randling, Seven Dwarves (such a great documentary, I love it) and Laid
(although at this point Boyfriend has gone back to planning).
10:30pm – We go to bed and I spend half an hour
half sleepily convincing myself that the interview the next day is actually a
race and if I get there after the other final applicant (there was no other
final applicant in the end of course) then I’ll lose the race and they’ll give
me a silver medal but no job.
