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.