Fleeing for the Hills

Some  bright soul has been banging out Christmas Carols on a P.A. system the Foo Fighters would dream of, down at the local oval all afternoon. I thought it was my neighbours across the road doing weird karaoke to one another once their son left in his lime green ute. I don't really know them that well, but it turns out, they are not as dorky as my imagination would have them. After 'closing' my door with more than necessary force in a futile , somewhat childish protest, turning up my own stereo and feeling righteously Grinch, I realised the sound was floating cross town from down at the school oval....and would be all afternoon.

Goodbye peaceful Sunday on the veranda reading the paper. These carols sucked. I'm not a big Christmas who-ha person anyway but soprano notes on All I want for Christmas were making my stomach turn. All I want for Christmas is to stop these stupid carols. (Newsflash - "Grinch Grouch pre-middle aged woman dies with ears bleeding  and gritted teeth. Unknown if due to business or cheer-related stress.") I washed down my beer quickly and started to cook. Frustrated. Not wanting to be inside. I'm inside all week! I had energy to burn, but didn't want to do anymore housework.  Nor listen to this unholy racket.

Shoes on, pre-exercise beer in the system,  I started off down the street to explore north Quorn in more detail.  Just about every time I go walking in Quorn, I discover something new: a foot bridge, a sleepy lizard, a new park, a short cut. This time I saw two kangaroos, another sleepy, walked past two ten year old girls in cowboy boots looking for a boy in blue who had done the dash from a birthday party - before the cake was even cut!!!! Imagine. The party was kinda near the school oval. Poor little bugger.  Flee, flee for the hills!

I walked past horse yards, down Arden Vale Road, feeling free and happy with my choice to live here. Choosing a tree change. Feeling good again about this little town, my new home. A blue heeler flew out of the yard barking and scared the living daylights out of me as I wondered past his turf.

"Chill out Bluey," I coo. He snarls back unconvinced, smelling soprano in the air.

I high tail it back down past Williams St, looking at the native gardens and sinister pine trees making noise  in the winds that have been gusting all day.  I look at abandoned houses, and the backstreets of a town with its roots in the 1800s, the iron clad and stone cottages restored, painted, so quiet. I head back toward my own. I pass a fig tree in an abandoned block and pull three early season ripe figs and think of grilling them tonight, with turmeric honey and pistachio ice cream.

Entering my own garden at 7pm with the evening glow stretched across the yard,  I inspect my own trees and pull another 4 figs from my sprawling fig and relish the delight of fruit-bearing plants,  being able to share  excess with my new neighbor friends down the road and more broadly, a grander hope for fun times in the years ahead.

With the year coming to a close, Im looking forward to travel again soon, the anonymity of the airport transit lounge, time off and cold climate Tasmania with Mt Wellington as the backdrop, and yes, fresh seafood and more fresh produce.

The carollers are still going. They are now repeating carols. Holy moly. Cars parked up and down the street. All the life in Quorn is at the oval. I pull out the bottle of Baileys and slink ice cubes into a large glass. If you can't beat em, join em.

Deck the Halls and Lets Get Trollied!

Business Survival Pep-Talk

Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that's exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.

Anita Roddick


That's what it feels like - like being born into battle, landed like a wet heap on the floor after a few comfy months and facing a long summer when the market goes quiet and the savings are ebbing.  Entrepreneurs adopt a sort of bloody mindedness about priorities in every aspect of life that costs something. Everything  is under review, in the act of paring back scant resources and pushing forward priorities. Things have to be said directly and honestly and brutal decisions made, for a business to take shape and get momentum.


Pure survival. For 3 hours driving back up to Quorn from a weekend break in Adelaide I thought long and hard about what I can do to generate more income to keep going. Thoughts about going to China to complete my MBA are fading fast, think what $4000 could do in my business! I don't want to give up damn it, I won't give in with this much invested. Database marketing, write letters send out those fliers. Get that website up! Jesus, how can you run a regional business without one?! every week it's not up, I'm losing around $1000 I reckon - potentially.


My chiro and physio - both small business owners while treating my body this morning gave me the pep talks I was looking for, advice and support coming from unlikely places:


You need start-up capital to support your business, have you considered a loan? 


I got great advice from so-and-so in Adelaide and he turned my business around in 3 years when it was going down hill. We bought a house that was too expensive and we had negative income when I started. I had an accountant who said 'yes', now I have one that says 'no' and tells me why, and he's the one who has helped me turn it all around...


How did you get your income up and running? I spoke at schools, told people what I did and how I did it, not why I was the greatest. You guts it out, develop your nerve. You will never have the security that a salary gives you, you leave it at the gate to do what you want.


I chose to market not through advertising, but word of mouth on solid reputation. his is a longer path, be prepared to go hungry, and work long hours. I wanted customers who would come back again, not the quick fix.

Virgin Birth and Bus Ticket Wisdom

Spending all day on a computer without a colleague to interrupt me with the stupid  banter that I love and that  bonds humans together is beginning to bug me. First, I really loved being able to get up and make myself a coffee in my bright big kitchen, and not have to crawl around in the annex that was my last workplace kitchen.

But now I question  trading company for space and the privileges of home ownership in a country town. Sometimes I'm not sure that was a good trade.  This comes as another wave hits...Im battling in the surf again. Aghhhhhrrr...splutter!   The other thing I'm finding tough at the moment, is working with sub-contractor designers in Adelaide and having to initiate, initiate, initiate the whole time. I'm feeling a bit out of sight out of mind. I'm only 4 hours away, but to Adelaideans, it's like a world away.  I'm exhausted and need perspective on this business thing. Bring on Christmas. Virgins giving birth and Wotif only had a bloody barn available. Now, there's perspective. I could be in a whole lot more trouble!

I'm going to have to do this better, because I'm spending a lot of time driving projects forward - but that's what my clients are paying me for. I feel like I'm repeating myself - why don't people listen to what I'm saying? I'm not saying it loud/clear/well enough?  Do I really have to be a relentless hounder before shit happens?   I have a feeling I could be a real whip cracker - but when my income is depending on my site being up, and after 3 months it's still in draft stage, I am beginning to get tetchy.

In small business, when you live a long way from others, how do you make your priorities someone elses without being a tyrant or a bitch face hound? Or do I need to be a better bitch-face hound? What is it I'm not communicating? Is it the love? Is it the need? Surely if  a designer says they can do something in a budget and a time frame, and don't, I'm justified in being a little cranky.

Big breath in. Think of the horses I visited today. Im going at a different speed to my surroundings. I need to slow down.  Stay away from the panic button. I'm writing this outside in my backyard under dark clouds, turning pink in the sunset. It's been a wild hot northerly wind coupla days. Im pooped.  I feel like Im walking on that knife edge again, this is taking a lot of energy all this worry...

"Worry is interest paid on trouble before it is due." I love that. Read it on a bus ticket years ago, and its just stuck around, like wisdom does.

Sunshine after Rain

It all started with a massive storm, last week Back Up the Track around Maree way, headed down to Quorn and across the pastoral districts south of here. I sat in the darkness of my kitchen, damp with November humidity, watching the silent electrical lightning display through great looming black clouds outside.

Don't be fooled, this big sky is pretty scary filled with lightning at night 

The wind picked up and was  literally howling and whipping at  the kitchen windows. I scurried around my little house stuffing tea towels under doors keeping out the now heavy rain.  I wanted to feel the wind after a humid sticky day, the chance to open up my home to clear out the hot still air. But the wind refused to come in nicely, it was doing nothing of the sort.

Would the roof stay on? Would the neighbor's roof stay on?! Locally the favourite building material is corrugated iron. The stuff surrounds me and as the storm blew in I imagined sheets of it flying through the air, whipped up into a tornado tunnel ....oh, there goes Dorothy and Toto! Yet, no tornado came.  I was wearing the wrong shoes, clearly.

Since that night, I've been panicky about coping against the reality of natural disasters - will my house be too hot in summer? Will I have enough water in my tanks? Can I afford a new air-conditioner, or should I get insulation? How many jobs do I need to win before I build a veranda?  Should I fill up with cheap petrol here or the next town? Can I live off the contents in my cupboard a little bit longer?Should I get a paid job like normal people? Would life be easier that way? Why am I doing this business thing again?  What would I do if a bush fire came through? Will I get poisoned if something dies in my tank?  I was beginning to feel very, very small.

I need a New Girls' Guide to Country Living! (will probably write it myself ) My optimism was sky high two weeks ago. And then I fell flat, body tired from driving, of thinking, meeting strangers, explaining my business, on the hunt for jobs, from working without being paid.

Being self employed in a remote town and owing my own home is testing my limits and blowing old ones away. Emotionally, financially, psychologically, physically, creatively.

This plant is called Pimpin Mallee and he's a treat to watch growing slowly, next to the compost and the rubble. 

My conversations with others are better,  slower, more paced and more present. Humour is everywhere.  I'm enjoying others' company more, given I spend so much time at home on my own, which apart from the odd occasson I don't mind. I'm laughing more,  I'm happy when I go to sleep, and I'm happy to wake up. I'm happy to leave the house and I'm happy to return home. I'm happy to have a beer at 2pm and wear the consequences.

It's this happiness that doesn't delete the worry, but is an old familiar feeling that keeps me here. I wonder if I leave it will come with me too?

Chilli Mango Muffin Madness

One batch of chili mango muffins later,  Sue Lee can say she has landed a monty!

I won my first 'big job' today and I'm stoked!! And just had to post this, because now business is up and running after 4 weeks of marketing, wondering, doubting,committing, recommitting, applying for night-fill at Coles,  I have landed a retainer job for 6 months which means I can basically pay for my mortgage and eat. Woo-hoo!

The week has progressed nicely. One feels as though the proverbial 'rollercoater' has been workshopped, oiled, wiped down and set back on track to resume her hurly burly way, with full-bellied passengers ready and up for the ride.

Last weekend, to sooth doubting business nerves, I channelled Martha Stewart and baked my little fingers off. When I realised I had more cake  in my house than I can actually eat, I packed up chili muffins with the idea of feeding the entire staff at the Whyalla Regional Economic Development Board on our first date. I drove  104 kilometres on a warm spring morning to deliver them with my own special brand.  Chili mango muffins = marketing 101: "People do business with people they like". Major suck-up? You bet.

Turn these over and you get chilli mango syrup on the bottom,  mmm...they're the business!

But,  in the rush to get out of my car on time I chickened out. I had a great meeting anyway, discussing sheep, workshop ideas and failing supermarkets in Wilmington...and drove to my next meeting happily eating warmed-in-the-car muffins, all  70 kilometres back to Port Augusta. This, took me past the delightfully named Iron Knob turnoff  (I think I know him, he was a steely bastard.... tee-hee) that just gives so much childish pleasure for new locals.... plus the rather speccie twin tank graffiti exhibition documenting the winning local footy teams over the  past decade. Its like Melbourne's Laneways graffiti meets footy bogan culture  on a grand public scale.

With childish pleasure I wonder at the small but endlessly amusing things that human beings do for entertainment in regional Australia.

Re-entry in to a regional town is a pretty nice thing if you haven't burned any bridges.  As a past resident in Port Augusta, I have less nerves and more comfort about where I am and who I'm talking to than I did 3 years ago - the difference to me is massive. People say after the first introduction at the squash club....  "So...why are you back? " Coming back is unusual and locals are quite shocked I've actually returned. The toughness new people face coming to town is the years of stamina locals build to being left over and over again, the waves washing over the glass that breaks down to sand, eventually.

I'm a bit in awe of locals because underneath is really the softest, warmest  and most accepting side of people who are willing to do it tough and looking for a different quality out of life than sheer modern facades, doorbells that chime Australian Idol Hitz and 'look at me I'm 24 and in love with nothing' attitude.

Picture Port Augusta Squash Club - fans whirring the air above, heat rising off the sweating players, balls slamming and scores being yelled out over the noise. People leaning over the railings, clustered around the action.
"So, Sue, are you around for awhile?"
 "Yes! I have no plans to be anywhere else, really..."
"That's the best way to be!"
Smiles all round.  Simple pleasures. I'm back on the squash team, just like that, a regular spot.  Two games of squash won 3-0. Sue Lee is back on track.

I'm being treated like a local, except I've forgotten street names, the cousin of so-and-so, or that you are actually a grandmother not the aunt.  Jeez - where's a chili mango muffin when you need it?

It's not the region, stupid. It's REALITY.

Woohoo! My ABN has been re-registered (after a 6 week application process and short lecture from ATO agent Angela). The first good news Ive had in two days.

The Receptionist at an unnamed outback organisation has reminded me how dumb I am that I don't know what I don't know about an organisation I have never done business with.  Welcome to the region, to you too.

A printer has misunderstood my order and  there's been a 2 week delay for business cards. A simple application for a tender has me running and looking under cushions for this detail and that detail.

I've had unsolicited 'feedback' from an ex marketing consultant, now public servant ( "my wife loves the regular paycheck")  about how my (first ever) newsletter design could improve with all the spare cash I have been rolling around in during all my spare time.

I think someone pissed in my recycling bin overnight and I had the glamourous task of washing it out.

I've been sent in circles to get my details on a list of consultants on the DTED website, and a wiser version of me that doesn't put up a fight says, "Two years. Give it two years and you'll be on that list." So I give up on that one.

I call an old colleague in town who used to be in business now works for government and tell him about my new move. He inhales sharply before saying "Wow. Um.....wow. Good luck with that. You know there's downsides and upsides working for government, as much as it shits me...." and trails off.  The last drop of optimism dribbles out of my cup sizzles away on the floor.

My mobile phone is buring my ear. I'm in deperate need of chocolate, a lotto ticket, a belly laugh, some variation in market forces and a game of squash.

I'm thinking about going outside and rolling around in 3 corner jacks in the midday sun, just to to take the edge off.

Welcome to small business.  Where we test your sanity at every turn.

Hanging Out the Shingle

Perhaps if I were as committed to personal relationships as I find myself to my business, I would be in a very different place.  However, pontificating about what may be is about as useful as a bumblebee with slippers.  All I know is as I go about the daily task of setting up printers, deciding if I need a fax line, meetings to find opportunities, that I have never felt as deeply determined, excited and focused about a relationship, as I do about giving my business everything I've got to get it on its feet and making progress forward.

I wonder about where my business could take me, and occassionally consider the sad realisation that yes, it might fail, but at least I won't die wondering if there's a market for my skills in the 'back blocks' of SA, as my friend Jill calls the Far North. It doesn't escape me that starting a business consulting business in Quorn sounds a little crazy. There is something about 'contrasts' that work for me in a creative way - the peace  and nature of this area contrasts beautfully with the busy - ness in my head, the needs of industry across the region especially in the next 12 months as BHP Olympic Dam expansion gets going and trades and contractors position for their own growth.

I haven't found that big cities are full of opportunity and friendly people. I haven't found that regional areas are empty and desolate and full of nothing. I think back to the beautiful poster in Alice Springs for a concert with Paul Kelly protest gig for the traditional owners fighting nuclear waste dumping that read  "We are Not No-One and this is Not Nowhere." That's how I feel about outback Australia. It has such personality, it's a living, providing thing.

This past two weeks, I have experienced the nitty gritty details that sole traders in start-ups face...which email address, what phone socket, which insurance company, who will do my website,  and on and on it goes.  But, I can see it working in my mind's eye; my vision is clear.  Im not sure if I can tap into a paying market this side of Christmas, but I have plan B. And with or without the Gods of Business and Market Forces, I'm going to try and find it. I'm well aware some people dislike my determination, but it's gotten me into and out of some tricky situations in the past. It's amazing where pure tenacity can get you.

It's not all plain sailing. I've had a few sleepless nights, lying awake, blinking in the dark and listening to the nocturnal sounds of my old Quorn house creaking and  settling;  I'm alert, but not scared, just frustrated ...body tired, but brain-wired.  1am, 2am Jesus Christ will you go the fuck to sleep! 3am. Ok this is ridiculous, as I know I will not be getting up for the 9am start back down to Adelaide.... but I did, to clean the flat, drink beers with friends and returned back up to Quorn to breathe relief that finally I am 'home'.

Dirt in my Cup

A woman with power - and I don’t mean spiritual or economic power,  I mean actual electricity - can do anything.  Such as, make a cup of tea, and feel like it will all be ok.

I have arrived in Quorn, done a lap of my house and unpacked my small but very reliable car. Now I wait for the kettle to boil, and the removalists to come. Just like yesterday, but 330 kilometres north on a map. Little things about a house I forgot – how sticky the front door is, how the knob comes off in my hand when I pull it open, how the fireplace handle does the same. How awesome the floor tiles are in the kitchen, and what a cool kitchen it is.  How down lights make everything look glamorous.  How I love the bathroom’s groovy green, and didn’t he do a great job painting that door? Yes, I remember where the hook is for the mirror. And I see how the house has aged a little, the rain swelling the French doors and the cracks in the soft, damp walls.

How I always need to piss so bad when I get to Quorn as I don’t stop north of Lochiel, and trying to open the door with foreign keys while hopping around with my ass sticking was an unconsidered but memorable first impression for the neighbours, slowly driving by.

I filled the kettle up with rainwater – straight from the tap and feeling very Goode Life  ( 1970s TV show, not the gourmet pizza place) and set it to boil. Went to pour a cup of tea and it came out brown from the jug - gross! Is this my water? Brief panic sets in. What am I going to do without someone to tell me what to do? Runs through my mind. No landlord, no boyfriend/builder, no neighbours who I know, no strata title, no housemate.   

Who will I ask about ‘country things’ like what switch to flick to go over to mains, and who has a bobcat and where can I borrow a lawnmower or will I have to buy my own? She who can’t bring herself to buy a decent vacuum cleaner – yet.    Eek! City Slicker Panic Sets In!

Notice in the Quorn Trader reads, “Unemployed single female homeowner seeks experienced country person for brief liaisons about essential regional matters. Reply by homing pigeon due to no network coverage at present.”

Some saner more wise part of me, I’ll call her ‘Country Sue’, (no relation to Sue Ellen or Suzie Beth), lets the water run til its clear – fucking genius, eh? And start again. Moral of the story; if you say you are going to love the country, you have to be prepared to get a bit of dirt in your cup.

Day before yesterday

A few remaining things. A last wipe down. Tea leaves floating in my cup as the strainer is packed. Eggs boiled in the kettle – unsuccessfully as a last ditch attempt to a) eat any food before transporting it 350kms b) amuse myself in the absence of saucepans. Yes, that’s what its come down to folks. The stereo is packed away, beers stand around stranded without refrigeration, popping out upright out of green bags like soldiers looking around for a piece of the inaction.

My nails are split and the countdown is on before which one breaks. Things needed for a good move: sturdy shoes, water, caffeine at some point. Newspaper, lots of it.  Sense of humour. Check.  

Final goodbye to the local beach at 7 am this morning, all I needed to know about the day was in the sunrise. Red in the morning Sheppard’s warning.  Stormy out to sea, the sky purple over calm blue water like the sun was setting, not rising. And on the other side, behind the houses to the east a ball of gold sat fat behind another bank of clouds.

I woke up from a dream where I was sticking a squash game date and time to the front of a fridge. I couldn’t decide which night I wanted to play squash, there were so many options! It was a good dream.  One of many things I am looking forward to. Threads of normality will weave a safety net underneath me. As I move from this place to the next.  The programs I watch on telly, the mates I speak to on the phone, the newspapers I read, this blog I will continue writing. The food I will keep cooking and the music I listen to.  The sport I play, the plants I tend to, the love I dream of.  I may still grieve to leave Adelaide, I won’t know until 50 kms north of Port Wakefield. What’s that tiny place with the purple salt lake and the tyre Lochness Monster? The one ABC presenter Peter Goers can’t get enough of? Jesus, I’ve promoted it…driven through it a kazillion times. (Lochiel!)

I’ve washed my face and tied back my hair, found a stick of deodorant in my squash bag.  This is as close to showered as I'm going to be today. Now I wait, and know what they mean by ‘sitting pretty’.  I look forward to living among people I can relate to, sans Jaguars and huge mansions with unoccupied rooms.  When people build these houses, do they think they will stay there forever? 

I now sit and wait for the removalists. Professionals in packing, box fitting, lifting and securing objects, the masters of furniture puzzles. God bless removalists everywhere. God bless my mum who has paid for these guys to move me. Rain is on its way. 

I sit still and feel the early tremors of a new life begin to unfurl and take hold inside me. 

Memories and Dreams

Daylight savings says it's one time but my body says it's another. The morning light is clean and new and I'm sad about saying goodbye to the little things, now. The way light spills through the lounge room window in the morning, giving everything a glow. The sounds of neighbors getting up and into the day with slams of dustbin lids, back doors and shuffling along the back fence we three neighbors share.

Empty Henley Square at 5.30pm Grand Final Day

I've awoken with my dreams still lingering as memory, rising like the curls of steam from my morning cup of  tea. A dog barks blocks away. I don't want to miss a thing in these last 48 hours in this my neighborhood of 2 and a half years. I dreamt about walking around a large outback lake with other walkers following us. Becky Hirst was leading the way and I was worried our friend Katie wouldn't find us because we were so far 'back up the track'.

In the dream, it was hot. I had peeled old colourful paint off the side of an old 19th century building, I wondered if it was a film set? And then I was laying long pieces of stripped paint on the floor wondering about outback trade across Australia 200 years ago, and would 300 yards of muslin really cost six shillings to transport across to Perth, as the writing below me said?

Back in Somerton Park, through my front window I see a walker waiting for his dog wait at the end of my street, deciding which direction to go in. They turn and walk away from the beach. A girl rides by chattering to her dad, enjoying the morning's adventure.

I'm grateful to be alive, to want to get into every minute of every day. I'm nervous about the unknown, of course, but hope I can hold onto this love for life and a sense of belonging in a neighborhood. It amazes me how a life can fit into boxes sealed up with sticky tape - I expect them to burst open and get on with living the way this move has taken 4 weeks to happen from an idea to a reality.

This move is sponsored by Lenswood Apples

It is amazing what a person can get used to.

Unemployment Never Felt So Good

Ok.  I know people are reading, which is great - but I only have 4 followers. Not that I want the 'Cult of Sue' - you know that would be a great band name, but all they'd do all day long is read stuff and fancy a cup of tea now they...... ARE OFFICIALLY UNEMPLOYED.

But wow, I must say, unemployment never felt so good. The title of this blog. Bound to get some its by hardworkers....? C'mon, you know you want to follow me.... join up, don't be a sissy...

What a life. A good life! Beautiful. Saying goodbye....supported, loved, thankful, greatful, gentle, wonderful! Great workmates, great friends...the week of the long goodbye is washing up to be a fabulous end to a great chapter. I'm surrounded by A-grade people. This is the best, most rewarding goodbye, ever.

Gush, gush, gush...its ok. Im about to say g'bye to the squash crew, and they're bound to put me right!

Let!!

Neighborhood watch

Coming home from the last committee meeting I'll ever attend, I turn off the car radio and darken the dash board lights. Streetlights flick over and above me.  I just want to hear the sound of tyres on Anzac Highway headed west for Glenelg. Don't want the distractions of radio noise, or to think anymore. This month has been too big for my tired brain.  I think of  a good friend of mine, Casey, diagnosed with depression and hallucinating at work. Her brain ceased to function. Just could not work out how to move her hands to move the damn computer. She couldn't believe she had 'depression', more like complete malfunction.

I cruise in the silence, blissful. Breathing, quietly the sound of my breath soothing me. Shoes kicked off and air coming in through the windows. My body gears down one more level. Head for Holder St to find my tree. I've navigated my neighborhood by this massive gum tree; it dominates west Hove, towering above houses with branches reaching an forking out  30 metres and more.  It's the granddaddy of trees, stretching elegant, tall and silent. My ritual is to drive slowly underneath it with my headlights turned off, just to see the silvery bark glow in the darkness all above me, moving gently like octapus arms, watching over the neighborhood.  I love that tree.

I do it again, one last time.

The week of the long Goodbye

It's started, finally. The week of the long goodbye has arrived and this time they are fun! No slinking off into the outback this time. This time it's a square on look at my gorgeous friends in the eye and saying "Jesus, this is really happening."  Mostly, I love their reactions, from shock to surprise, to shaked heads and cocked eyebrows (!).

I'm having all sorts of interesting conversations with people on this last whip around.  With the MBA crew at a rather long lunch in Cibo, talking about  our final assignments, trying new things and how each of us have changed through the past two and a half years of postgrad study. How could we be the same after dealing with the oddballs in group work, drinking dodgy campus coffee and surviving the Managerial Finance exam - the nerve test for all MBA students sans engineering degree? That's a regular lunch date right there.

With Kim at the Espie over cold beer, talking about our sense of god and spirit and how do we find it and what does god look like if you draw it? Is god ok with not having a capital G?  How dog is god backwards.

Kim said "Wow, you look glamourous!" as I gave her a hug in welcome.
" Yeah, that's just my make up holding up my face. It's still returning from Perth and is an hour and a half behind."  I replied.
It's been a big week.

All the talk of god, as I was riding home  I decided to visit the Brighton Cemetry and walk among the dead. As I rode through this space of bones and tombstones I thought of how we remember others, the things they did, how they loved us or not. You can' tell much from an inscription about the way someone lives. I kept my bike moving, not a soul around. Quiet. Noone visiting. Wind in the trees. Cracked cement and lots of faded fake flowers. A grave dug up, I wasn't going near it. Not superstitious, but I didn't want to explore that much. Bones are all that's left at the end of a life, the skeleton that holds us up.

I left the way I came, the cemetry was large and I was feeling a little depressed. There's plenty of time to visit when Im dead. Not even spirits want to visit a graveyard. No ghosts in sight. All busy at the bar in heaven, talking about Dog.

Sunday morning, popped in to have a final cup of coffee with the neighbours, Mary and Paul McCabe.  Paul still in his dressing gown, at 11am and loving it. Me too! He knows how to live. The most well connected Adelaide couple I know. In their 80s, their networks and family stem across the country. They are great lovers of the bush, horseraces, a good laugh and sharing stories. While I was there, two other visitors popped in and the stories just got better.

"Remember so and so? Married to so- and so. Lived on XYZ street, two blocks from so-and so. Had ten kids, the youngest related to the Connors." And so on. Couldn't keep up with them!

Sunday at the Wheatie, a fabulous Adelaide pub frequented by musos, roller skaters, gay friendlies and locals....  Sitting at the bar, waiting for 3pm to roll around and for more of my crew to come by for a drink. The bar door opened and a guy and girl walk in. I think, "Man, he looked like someone I knew..." and immediately switched off. The a big hulk of a man approached me and my jaw dropped. I thought he was in the States!?

"No way!"  I said blinking in disbelief clambering off my bar stool.
 "Yes way!" he responded with the biggest bear hug of recognition. Yes way! It was Chris Vargo from Alice Springs, some 5 years ago since Ive last seen him. Just popped in for a coldie before he hits the road to Port Augusta with new g-friend Emily. Didn't plan it, but travellers up the Track find one another when they need it the most.

Other crew rolled in - old uni mates, Alice friends, family, squashies and niece, the bonkers British crew (you know who you are - keen lovers of the Track),  best ever housemate... Sunday afternoon sesh ended with pizza and an open fire, a fine way to say ciao, for now.

OMG, WTF and ATJ (All That Jazz)

Earlier this week I attended a funeral of a man very inspirational to me who lived constantly outside the square. And I loved him for it. Because he showed me how a life could be lived when pushed up against a corner. Where I have so often found myself,caught up in other people's expectations of who I am and how I should live. So, when you're up in a corner, what do you do? You make the room a different shape.

The rollercoaster has started. For someone who generally doesn't deal with ambiguity very well, I'm sure as shit dealing with it now. I've quit my job as a business consultant in the city, or maybe I was fired, I'm still not too sure. But I chose something different to what my boss had in mind, and now I find myself starting a new business, moving house, leaving my home town and preparing for re-entry into country life.  I'm waking at 4 am, going to bed at 8.30. Swimming at 5am. My body clock is shot, in shock finding new rhythm.  I'm not wildly excited, because I've done all this before and I hate packing.

Yet, I'm ready for the next round, but this time, on my terms.

'Moving to the country. Gonna eat a lot of peaches...'  such a good song. To sing in the car. While driving to WORK. Which I don't have any of as of the end of September. Breathe....

So the story to date is this. I own a small tin clad house in the tiny country town of Quorn, best known for Pitchi Richi railway, 4 pubs, 2000 people and just being generally a very chilled out and beautiful place to live in the Flinders Ranges. It's the retirement hot-spot for  northern outback pastoralists, tradies with utes, dogs, and 2/3 times a year location scouts  and film crew who wander through marvelling at  the wide streets, the silence at night, the amazing yellow pastry pasites at the local IGA.

My house, known as 'Jimmy Cavenagh's place', was bought to end a relationship involving a great bloke with a great dog, both whom I loved very much but not enough, as it turned out, to stay. The plan is to go back to sell the house we renovated. Sell something I love. This is gonna be tough.