Country/Girl: A Good Day

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.