You knit where?!

Marilyn was a knitter too, don't you know?

To all those naysayers: proof that all those coffee cups at the Art Gallery really do form a portrait of Marilyn Monroe. Thank you all so much for making my flying visit to Perth so wonderful.

Two different kinds of procrastination.

If you're wondering why I haven't been in touch recently, this might explain it. After years of procrastinating, I finally decided to take the plunge and do Nanowrimo. Sheer insanity given the circumstances, I know, but to make it even worse, I'm about 39 000 words away from the required 50 000 and there is only four days left. Crap! I'm taking bets on whether I can write more than 9000 words a day until the end of the week to get it done. Wish me luck...

Oh, and to help with my procrastination, I finally started knitting the Icarus Shawl, (thanks to Helen). I'm using Naturally NZ 'Mist'- beautiful 2ply merino/silk, in a lovely wine red colour. It's been a tough decision- to knit or to write? I wish I had voice recognition software so I didn't have to type and could just tell my story, but I suspect it would sounds like it was written by someone with Tourettes if I were to talk and knit lace at the same time.

An Inconvenient Guest

One of the things I've really struggled to get used to over here is the overwhelming number of bugs, and other miniature wildlife. Now, I'm not scared of spiders, moths, bees, or beetles, but the proliferation of many-legged critters is driving me batty.

I've never had so many mosquito bites in my life, and it's impossible to read in bed at night without being attacked by hordes of moths, midges, flying ants and other nameless winged things. It's particularly bad the days just before and after a storm- one night I woke up with flying ants trying to burrow through my ear drum which was pretty unpleasant. I need that ear!

The worst offenders are the frogs though. Yes, they're cute, and green, and depending on your cultural beliefs, are pretty important little fellas. However, they are less cute when you go to the toilet in the middle of the night, and find a small, clammy green hand attaching itself to your backside. It's lucky I was in the toilet by that point because if I hadn't been, I would have hated to do the clean-up. You just don't expect to be molested by a frog living in your own toilet.

Despite repeatedly picking him up and moving him outside, he is insistent that our throne is his home. He's survived repeated flushings by hanging on to the toilet seat for dear life, but now we're worried about how to clean the dunny without poisoning him. I think we'll just have to give him a name and make up a roster with him on bathroom-cleaning duties- that usually gets rid of inconvenient houseguests.

I went to my first rodeo on the weekend. What an experience! It appears all the cliches are true. Cowboys really do spit, status really is determined by the size of your belt buckle, and people really do listen to country music in the country. They were even line dancing at one point... admittedly at that point they were playing Black Eyed Peas, but there were line dancers nonetheless. I'm not sure how that works, but there you have it.

I also realised how hard it is to take photos of guys on top of scary beasts. I took about 50 photos and I think this is the only one where you can actually see both the rider and the bull. Expert photojournalist I am not! I'd seen a few pictures and videos of rodeos, but I don't think a photo can adequately capture how intense it really is. Those bulls, they are big! And they move fast! The whole thing is usually over in less than fifteen seconds. And then there's the exciting bit, where the bull charges the perimeter fence, and all the audience moves backwards in case it gives way. I think you'd have to be either made of rubber or completely mental to think that being a bull rider is a good idea. There were even small kids riding poddy calves, which to me seemed insane. What are their parents thinking? But at least kids have the advantage of soft, bendy bones and- if they're anything like I was- plenty of experience at falling off stuff.

I failed my driving test again today- automatic fail because I went 10kph over the limit, at 60kph in a "built-up area". It didn't look too built-up to me, obviously, but now at least I know that any paved road which isn't a highway is more than likely "built up", even if you can't see any houses. Oh, the irony, considering my complete aversion to speed. It seems I'm a latent speed freak. Whoops.

What with rodeos and driving tests and deadlines etc., I haven't even looked at my knitting, for yet another week. My housemate's cat found my yarn stash, which was a heart-stopping moment, but luckily all is okay. It just makes me appreciate my own cat (who would never do that) all the more.

I'm still working on the Saturday in the Park dress from Fitted Knits, but my yarn and needles seem to be having a disagreement- the cotton sticks to the bamboo circular, and makes it really frustrating to knit. Even wine does not help. I don't really want to order Addis without doing a gauge check on it, so I'm waiting until I get back to Perth (November 16-19!) so I can return the needles if they're wrong. In the mean time, I'm tempted to start work on a Rogue, after seeing Lupinbunny's version. Given that I am 155cm which decidedly shorter than average (judged by how frequently I am told that I'm really short), I figure it might fit me perfectly!

Whoa, Nelly!

It's true what they say. Things really do move slower here. People walking down the street dawdle. It takes twenty minutes to get a cup of instant coffee. Most of the men talk so slowly I think they've forgotten that they'd started a sentence, and so quietly I can barely hear them. (I have a theory that this is because they don't want their strident wives to hear them. While the men are practically mute, the women here are like foghorns.)

But the internet is by far the worst. We're supposedly on broadband but the connection drops out about once every half hour, and even on a fast day, it can take three minutes to load a page. Those of you who think three minutes isn't long have never waited two and a half minutes for Google to load, only to have the browser crash as soon as the logo appears. I wouldn't mind so much if it was just for personal emails and blogging, but I need to do a lot of research for my job, and it just drives me up the fricking wall. I'm contemplating getting internet via satellite powered by hamsters running in wheels. Surely it would be quicker.

The one thing that is faster around here is... me! Learner drivers can go a whopping 100kph here, rather than 80kph in Perth. And because there's very traffic, I've discovered my inner speed demon. Well, those who have driven with me know that I hyperventilate if we go more than 60kph, but really, I'm getting better! I'm re-sitting my driving test on Tuesday, and one of the reasons they failed me the first time was because I consistently went too slow. But after a few weeks heavy practice and after a stern lecture from the cops about the dangers of crawling, I'm a reformed driver. Is it cynical to suspect they just want the revenue from speed traps?

New beginnings

This is a new blog for a new beginning.

A month ago, I packed up my stash, my cat Igor* and my life, and moved from Perth, Western Australia, to a tiny little place in Queensland that you've never heard of. It's somewhere around here.

* Okay, at time of writing Igor is still in Perth, being looked after by my awesome ex-housemate. But I'm going to pick him up in less than two weeks!

Although I loved the city lifestyle, my knitting group and my social group, my career was going nowhere and it was time for a change. From working at a company which employed more than 2500 people, I'm now in a two-person office in a town on less than 2500. While I love my new job, and haven't had more than a minute's regret so far, I have had some major readjustments to make:

In this neck of the wood, there are no knitting groups, no quick trips to pick up some 'emergency' yarn, and even worse: no natural fibres. No wonder people here don't knit, if their only yarn choice is between acrylic or polyester!

For someone who has always resisted the label 'yarn snob', I certainly became one when confronted with the yarn section (reality: shelf) of the local craft shop. A label proudly proclaiming "Wool- all colours- 100g" yielded nothing but no-name acrylic and faux fur, and a small basket held a selection called  "Novelty Wools". Mysteriously, this turned out to be the store's scant supply of Patons Jet and Inca, containing real, natural fibres. So for now, I will be relying on what's left of my stash, and the glorious internet to keep me  happy, crafty and sane.

For those concerned, I'll still be posting as irregularly as ever at CraftyAction! This blog will be for my personal ramblings on what it's like to live, work and knit in the middle of nowhere.