Sooooooooooooooooo behind on blogging!

Hello hello

I am rubbish at blogging at the minute - I am terribly sorry. I hope someone other than my mum (hello mum!) is listening.

Lots to catch up on from the last couple of weekends, as they have been very uncharacteristically busy. I have barely had any time for sitting around in my pyjamas - I am sure you can imagine how traumatic a time it has been.

I have now officially commenced my stint as an RSPCA volunteer. I work in the wildlife ward, in the Fairfield Shelter in Brisbane, which is the state HQ. It is huuuuuuuuuge and has a big farmyard section, all the usual dogs, cats etc and my little section which is for wildlife. Last weekend I had my orientation where they showed us a video that made everyone cry, then a tour of the shelter and bit of animal behaviour and training training. On Saturday I started properly. Mostly scrubbing poo and cutting up fruit and whatnot, but it's very interesting and rewarding. There are a lot of birds in at the minute - a couple of Rosellas, a Lorikeet, 2 Kookaburras, a couple of cockatiels, a plover, and a couple of Galahs. Just as I was leaving they were bringing in a Tawny Frogmouth, which is pretty exciting! There's also a blue tongued skink with a missing foot, a brush tailed possum and a couple of ringtail possums, and some mice. There are also 150 Peachfaces whose owner is in prison, so we get the unenviable task of looking after them for the minute. Being lovebirds they are getting pretty busy with the lovin, and there's shortly going to be a bit of a population explosion which everyone's pretty worried about.

We are responsible for cleaning out cages (which is pretty grim in the case of the possums) and getting them all fed, and that's what I'll be doing with my Saturday mornings from now on! I am very excited, if a little intimidated at the prospect of having to handle these animals as some of them are a little fierce, and obviously they're all wild and not too keen on being held. On Saturday me and the other girl who just started managed to release 4 birds by accident, which was a bit traumatic. Obviously on the way out I find it a little hard to walk past the cat section without pausing for a while... I have fallen quite badly in love with one chap in particular and I have the distinct feeling that if he's still around once we have moved out to a house he might be coming home with me one day.... (hope Stu isn't reading this)

Last Sunday we had a bit of an exciting adventure... One of Stu's ex colleagues has a boat, and offered to take all the poms out to South Stradbroke Island for the day. It was fab - South Straddie is lovely, and we had a great boozy afternoon on the boat and the Island and whatnot.

Trip out to South Stradbroke Island

So what else has been happening in the world of Robinson.....

Oh yes, we have decided upon the suburb we want to move to - Paddington. I have long coveted it, and this weekend took Stu up for a look round, and he also fell in love. It is lovely - really nice houses and cafes and little boutiquey shops, and stuff and things shops and whatnot. I heart it. It is really seriously hilly though, which is a bit of a drawback, but does mean that the views are fabulous. We love it so much, and are so sick of here that we are considering breaking our lease so we can move soon. There are some great places for rent at the moment (and obviously we need somewhere suitable for cats) and we are very excited! In other grown up decision news, we have decided that we are going to apply for Permanent Residency. Being here on the visa type that we are frankly sucks arse as we get absolutely no benefits at all, and are fleeced left and right by the taxman. It's going to take a while to save up the cash to apply, but I'll keep you posted. Apparently it should be pretty easy because we are already here and working and whatnot.

Next week I'll be going to the gold coast for 4 days, for my company conference. I am really very unexcited about it - 18 hour days and lots of schmoozing, room sharing and all that bollocks. In fact I tried to get out of it - there are concerns about cost because of the number of staff going, so I volunteered to take one for the team and stay back. That backfired slightly - not only am I going, I am going for the full 4 days, I am hosting a table at the conference dinner, and manning a stand to talk about the analytics team. I have been working there for 10 minutes, and am somewhat surprised and feeling distinctly intimidated by the whole thing as I don't really know anything and have no idea how to schmooze HR big cheeses. I'm also pretty concerned that someone will notice that I have no real HR or analytic background, and my appointment as an analytic consultant is a bit of a fraud. Ah well - just gonna have to hope all the delegates just get pissed and don't care.

Well, I hope that you are still awake after reading that essay. I'll try and be a bit less rubbish in future. Wish me luck for the stupid conference!