9 Superficial Things I’ll Miss About Australia (No, it’s Not the Weather!)

But the weather ain’t half bad, just sayin’

It’s a truth universally acknowledged by a certain resident of Kansas that there’s no place like home. There are just some certain comforts that make you feel safe and secure, and while many of these are now available thanks to globalisation, there are a few silly things about Australia that I know I wistfully think of when back in Ol’ Blighty. Let’s get listing, shall we?

• The Size of Avocados – Being a part of the avocado lovin’ family that I am, this is *quite* a significant thing. Avocados in  Australia are deliciously bloody huge, creamy and ripe. On several occasions in the past I have had the misfortune to buy several avocados in England that have proceeded immediately from rock hard to completely rotten, totally bypassing any edible stage. This is important, you guys.
• Availability of Great Coffee – Look. It’s a lot better in Kent on the coffee side of things now, then it was in 2010 when I first came here. There are still many crappy tearooms selling crappy dishwater style coffee, but you can actually get a flat white here now, Lord be praised. But it’s just not quite as easy as popping down the road to Mooba, Lawley’s or Milkd, like I could in Perth. Heaven is a coffee flavoured place on earth. That’s a song, right?
• Grill’d & Jus Burger: 

Click for Source – Chi (in Oz)’s Photo Stream

 

Don’t know if there is much more I can say. Burgers. Delicious delicious burgers. Chunky chips. Before you say it, no, I         don’t live in London and no, Byron Burger is just not the same. Suitable replacement suggestions very welcome indeed.

• Cheap Public Transport – The People of Perth might disagree with me, but public transport is sooooo much cheaper there than in England. In the Motherland there is no such thing as a grace period, meaning you need a new ticket  every time you jump on the bus. For a non-car-owning citizen such as myself, this becomes rather problematic. Terribly interesting too, don’t you agree?
• David Jones Foodhall – I’m not saying that there is no equivalent in England. There is. It’s a tiny little shop known to the locals as Marks & Spencer, the greatest English shop of them all. But M&S is missing one crucial thing in my book, which gives my beloved DJ’s the advantage. That crucial element is the World’s Greatest Sushi Bar. I don’t know what it is about David Jones Sushi, but it’s bloody delicious and quite cheap really. It shall be missed.
• Frosty Fruit Icy Poles – Also known as quite a depressing icy pole if you’re a normal person, but the WORLD’S GREATEST SWEET TREAT when you’re trying to watch what you’re eating and are desperate for some kind of cold sweet treat on a hot Australian Summer’s day. It’s the little things you miss, you know?
• Tax Returns – Stay with me here guys. We don’t have to do these in England, but in Australia if you earn over X amount (I’ve forgotten how much because it’s been too long since I had a proper job :-/) you need to do a tax return, and if you’re lucky, it ends up that the Government owes you money and you get a nice little deposit into your bank account. A form of enforced savings, if you will. Luckily I’ve never had to repay any tax, although I know people who have, and that’s not fun in the slightest. But when I was saving for my travels, I worked three jobs and paid a lot of tax, and ended up with a $4,000 refund waiting for me come tax time. Thanks very much!
• No Electric Showers – Just typing out ‘electric shower’ makes me go a bit funny. Water pressure in Kent is technically known as ‘a bit shit’ and so if your bathroom is on the first floor or above you need an electric pump to get your shower on in the morning. In Australia I had the full force of outback water blasting me in the face every day, and by golly I’ll miss it. My English shower feels like a combination of being spat and weed on at the moment, and let me tell you, it’s not as fun as it sounds. Unless you’re into that sort of thing. I’d also like to point out that in England you’re not allowed so much as a powerpoint in the bathroom (you are in Australia!) but you can have an electric shower? MADNESS.
• Knowing How to Do ‘Life’ Stuff – Now this isn’t quite as superficial as the rest, but it’s something I’ll certainly miss. When you’re a local or a native citizen to a country, you end up just somehow knowing how life works, as if you’d picked it up by osmosis throughout your life. When you’re an immigrant, you forfeit that knowledge and so it just takes you that little bit longer to work stuff out. How to get a driving license, why you need a TV license, who pays council tax, what the hell council tax even is, who can vote and where. Having lived here for a few years, I’m much better than I used to be, but there are still times where I feel like a stranger, and I make the odd misstep. But I guess that’s life!

I returned to Rochester at about 9pm on Tuesday night, and it was incredibly surreal. I haven’t yet quite consolidated the fact that I’m back in my own house, with my own cats and my own fiancé. I haven’t yet begun to miss Australia too much, although I’m prepared for that to hit me when I am least prepared, as I’m sure those of you who have travelled will recognise.

Moving Forward, Moving On

This image is what moving forward and moving on has looked like in recent years.

When I was 12 and a half we moved from the home of my childhood to a bigger town further north, much closer to my new high school. I was so excited for the move, and had many grand plans about how I was going to be the most popular girl in my class, and how high school would be exciting, wonderful and fun. Full of naive enthusiasm, and totally, totally oblivious.

Looking back I think this had something to do with the fact that the farm I lived on wasn’t sold until many years later, so I had that lovely sense of moving forward without too much changing behind me.

As the movers filled their trucks I wandered around the property, saying goodbye to the familiar hills, the dams we swam in many times, the rickety old fences and reticulation piping I could be consistently relied upon to trip over. I thought of the geese we’d had before, and the rock I stood on to feed them, pretending I was a sailor at the bow of a ship. I used to leave a couple of handfuls of grain in the bucket for our one goose with a deformed beak, which meant he had to strategically scoop the seed into his mouth rather than peck. He was imaginatively named Beaky.

I wandered around, saying goodbye to trees and bushes because I was a child, and moreover a child who spent a considerable amount of time in a fantasy land of her own. A big property is fruitful land for many things, not least a child’s imagination.

If I was ever asked the day that my childhood ended I would say without doubt or rancour, that this was the day.

This post was written in response to the prompt ‘disappearing’ 

The Gratitude Series

I spent some time this evening going through the archives of an old Tumblr I follow – in fact one of the first blogs I ever read. Reasons I Love My Mother by Chris Kelly is a journal of 365 reasons why he – strange as it seems – loves his mother, who passed away from metastasised cancer in 2009. It’s a heartwarming/breaking reflection on what made her the most perfect mother in the world for him.

He talks about her gratitude journal, and how even during her battle with cancer she made a point of focussing on the things she was grateful for. I found it very moving, and I felt inspired by this woman I never met. So this year I am going to use this blog as something of the same. It won’t be every day, but every week I will pick something I am grateful for.

And you’re going to hear all about it!

 

Thank You, Women Who Write

I have maintained a blog in one form or another for nigh on five years now, not nearly as long as some around these parts, but long enough to feel some sense of belonging in my own, slightly imaginary blogging community. Due to the ridiculous amount of time I spend online I’ve noticed over the last year or so, there seems to have been a bit of a shift away from the blogs I really cut my teeth on, and the blogging scene has become decidedly spiffy-er. Of course, this is both wonderful, and a little sad as I’m finding it harder and harder to find well written and interesting blogs that are about the every day delightful hum-drum, rather than a perfectly Photoshopped version of life. I feel nostalgic for my ‘old days’, even if they were considerably newer than the days of others’.

Strangely enough, I remember the first blog I ever followed, the now sadly defunct London Makeup Girl (who appears to be infrequently around on Twitter). Lydia gave concise and helpful makeup reviews from a really pragmatic perspective and with a focus on niche brands. I really adored her approach to makeup, and it was like permission to be a feminist and interested in beauty products. As strange as it seems, she really gave me the confidence to start buying makeup from counters in department stores, whereas before I was too terrified of the perfectly eyebrowed sales assistants.

It was through a comment on her blog that I also discovered Love Audrey, an English lifestyle blog to whom I have linked many times before. Franky was the exact type of blog I adored – thoughtful, fun, and willing to talk about the not quite so delightful aspects of being a student. Makeup FOTD photos in weird lighting before she became so good with her new camera, outfit shots, delicious recipes and giggly posts about heading out in London with her friends. I’ve read regularly for years now and in the last 18 months her blog has definitely changed, undergoing a major redesign that I totally adore. I honestly look forward to her posts the most out of the many blogs I follow, but I do miss the days when she was around more often!

When Franky got engaged she led me to Love My Dress, the inimitable wedding blog that I not-so-secretly read for two years before getting engaged. I know, I am almost embarrassed to admit that, but I don’t really care because the love Annabel has poured into that blog over the years has been a wonderful thing to be a part of. Love My Dress has also been redesigned a couple of times since I began reading, and there is something to be said (I’m not sure what, but hey) about remembering an old design, it’s kind of a ‘you weren’t there man’ feeling, and of being one of the original fans, even though of course I wasn’t. Annabel has recently advertised for new writing interns for Love My Dress, something I would adore to do. I began an application as well, only to come to the conclusion that I simply cannot  keep piling more work onto my plate, especially next year, even if I was lucky enough to get a place. So that may stay as a pipe dream for some time.

All of my favourite blogs are written by women. Most of them are written by women who live varied and interesting lives, which is fantastic, but quite unreasonably sad for me. Many have ceased to write, or dropped the frequency of their posting drastically because they’re out actually living their lives. How dare they. I’ve noticed the absence of their voices in my life. So this post is  a little tribute to those bloggers, as well as the ones linked to above and many, many more.

The Hello Sam Goodbye Samantha List of Bloggers I Wish Were Around More

London Makeup Girl – the blog is now defunct and so no link! 😦 Twitter link above

Modesty Brown Loves Makeup

Belgian Waffle – who incidentally I met once, but was too shy to speak to, and having read her blog since, I suspect she was too!

Dempeaux – who lives near my hometown in country WA

The Velvet Bow/The Peach House – a friend!

Not Enough Mud

Parlez Vous Moo

Please Don’t Eat With Your Mouth Open

Irretrievably Broken

Happy Sighs

Blabbermouse – possibly the second blog I ever followed.

Blogging has given me a wonderful new creative outlet, and has kept me feeling connected to other women throughout periods of massive change in my life. I’m so grateful for women who write.

In Which I Try to Be a Blogger

There seems to be, in my humble opinion, a certain type of status that comes with being a ‘blogger’. Not a person who writes a blog, but a blogger. I am rather susceptible to a bit of the ol’ green eyed monster every now and then when it comes to other peoples’ blogs, I won’t deny it. But every now and then I brought firmly back to earth, and to the knowledge that when comparing those who have blogs and the ever jealous making bloggers, I am most certainly in the former camp.

Take these series of photographs, for example. Several days ago I thought I would try out a modest photoshoot, to see if I too was capable of having swoon worthy photography gracing the pages of this here weblog.

Nope. Can’t see my face, too much shrubbery, and plus…that’s a decidedly strange pose you’ve got going there girl.

Also in the NOPE pile. Firstly, it’s an unflattering angle of a new top I dearly regret impulse buying, and secondly, that stupid look on my face is clearly the results trying to look natural while I fake brushing my hair off my face. 

Too far.

Too close. Plus a slightly deer-in-the-headlights-what-have-I-become look about me. Dainty finger pose too.

This one I admit, is acceptable. I like that my face seems to realise what a ridiculous thing I am trying to do. The top looks slightly better, and I’m doing something rather attractive with my shoulders. I like it. I like my one average photo!

I could say something calming and reflective here about how during this process I realised that I don’t need to strive to replicate other peoples’ blogs, because we’re all different and rah rah rah unique gifts rah rah. But I won’t, because if I am honest, I do wish I had a shiny pretty happy blog. I do wish I knew how to take great photos of my carefully curated life, but I don’t. More to the point I honestly probably wouldn’t, either, even if I had the requisite skills.

I feel very much a part of a huge blogging community, having blogged in some way or another relatively consistently for four years, but more so because I’m a consumer of blogs. Maybe my best role in the blogosphere is to support others who do it  better. To put some love out there for people who plan and publish content more regularly than I. I don’t feel bad about that in the least, and so for now, I’m reminding myself to be pretty content with my one average photo, and my average little blog.

 

Taking a break

Hi y’all

Just want to let you know that I’m taking a break from writing at the moment.

I hope to be back in a few months, with more things that excite and engage me, but for now I’m taking a breather.

Thanks for stopping by

Sam

Ignite. Create. Discuss.

Photos by Tracy Affleck of The Rochester Flea

I’ve fallen a bit back in love with blogs recently, reading and finding new ones whenever I can. But this hasn’t necessarily translated into me writing a lot more. In fact, almost the opposite is true – I feel as though I’ve got nothing to say.

What I need is some direction, and a little bit of the focus that was a key part of the Box of Crayons Great Work MBA e-conference, which aired recently. As I seem to be in an information-devouring mood at the moment, I’ve done what any self respecting self improvement junkie would do, and signed up for every blogging and photography e-course I could get my grubby hands on. It’s intense, and I don’t work on them every evening, but I’m definitely learning things. I’m focussing on this one by A Beautiful Mess.

I’m in the middle of a longer than expected re-brand of my bespoke bunting business’ website, and so have been lusting over great photography that I’ve seen on other craft websites. I did a shoot with the lovely Tracy Affleck of some of our bunting, the spoils of which can be seen above, and when you get real photos done it’s amazing how different (and how much better!) they look.  Natural and restful, not amateur and filled with bits of everyday clutter poking in.

I’m not at the stage where I’ll have a fantastically designed blog and perfect photos. I want to get a bit closer to that soon, but my gut tells me I need to work on my content a little better.

Enter ‘Ignite. Create. Discuss’

Three words I’m  tossing around at the moment, and I’m deciding whether they’re the three words that really sum up what I want to happen on my blog. I want to have a place to be inspired and to express what has ignited my mind’s appetite. I want to be able to share my creativity and talk about the creativity of people I know, and some I don’t!

But it’s the discuss part I’m keenest to work on. I want to use my blog to open up a new little area of the internet where I can share what’s in my mind, and to be able to feed back to others. I want to develop an audience for the things I say, but what I would love more would be to be able to develop an online (or offline for that matter!) dialogue about the things that matter to me.

I’m working on it.

One Day A Week

Is what I wanted. One day more a week is probably a little more accurate. One day more a week where I didn’t have to go to my 9-5 job. One day more to pursue my projects. The time had come to ask and I was indiscreetly terrified.

I work in finance (well the bit of finance where you don’t have enough), and it’s a hard job a lot of the time. The other part of the time it’s a fascinating job, with colleagues I get along with. We’ve become a weirdly (dis)functional little family, squabbling one minute and whipping our hair back with laughter the next.

#workselfie

But there it was. A big ol’ full time job where I couldn’t sneak off and write my future novel in between reports. I found myself writing my WOW Magazine copy in my lunch breaks, organising burlesque workshops when I got in from work, and sewing bunting until past 12am for weeks. I loved every minute of it, but surely something had to give before my hair started falling out in vast clumps from the sheer stress of viewing my Google calendar.

In the end, someone asked me for help, and I didn’t have the time to give it. Yet. But I promised I would ask my boss that week for one day more. It was planned. Now for actually doing it…

Professor Google stepped in. Google “how to ask for reduced hours” and you’ll get a multitude of self employment book recommendations available for only three easy instalments of £13.99. So Prof Google got the sack. Onto real people it was, those who had tried and triumphed, as well as those who had tried and failed.

You’ve got to make a business case for them
I heard this over and over, and I think it’s really true. Make it short, make it snappy, tell them how it’s going to benefit them. Don’t say what you’re doing with your one day more, but just say that the time they give you will mean you’re more focussed at work. Which needs to be true, obviously!

Be prepared
Oh yeah. A biggie. Hell, be over prepared. I was so nervous about asking, that I shook! I felt ill, and so I scripted out word for word what I wanted to say. I had clear points, because although 99% of the time I’m a confident communicator, this was the 1% I was not. I knew I’d lose track of my point, because I knew my boss. It had happened before.

Work out the benefits
I went the bullet point route. Benefits to them? Retention of a committed and trained employee. Reduction in wage outlay. Better focussed and less stressed employee.

Benefit to me? One day more a week. The precious gift of time.

What are you prepared to sacrifice?
Because you will have to compromise. I was prepared to lose a day’s wages, and had worked out that I couldn’t afford that right from the beginning (LOL – seriously, I’m going to struggle, but I’m prepared to deal with that just for one day more).

What I also had to give up was the idea of having a Monday or a Friday off. Two of my team members are parents and had reduced hours on Fridays, so it was never going to happen. Turns out the only day my most senior boss could commit to being in the office was a Monday. So….I guess that leaves the three other days of the working week. For me, Wednesdays worked best, as it split up the week a little for me, and it meant I was already in the habit of getting up and out of bed. So no lay-ins for me!

Get your timing right
Six months ago, I wasn’t trained enough. Six months ago we were running around like headless chicken trying to drown in the mountain of work accumulating. Now? Things have settled, I’ve carved out a nice place for myself in the team. 

So I took a deep breath, asked my boss if I could see them for 5 minutes and almost cried as I followed her into the office. We sat down, I went bright red and launched into my spiel. The sentences “I like to think I’m a valued member of the team” and “I’m prepared to be very flexible” were uttered. Stammered, rather. We nodded. I said I didn’t need an answer straight away. She said she didn’t think there would be a problem, and my heart rose into my throat.

Two weeks later, I found myself sitting in coFWD, a local co-working space, during my one day more. Guess what I was doing? I was organising a cabaret, running a personalised bunting business, writing copy and hanging out with my friends.

Love a bit of Seth Godin with my coworking!

I’m so grateful to my work for being up for the change. I’m proud of myself for realising what I needed, and then making it happen.

If you want to ask your work for a reduction in hours, and want to run over anything, please feel free to email me on sam@hellosamgoodbyesamantha.com, and I’ll do my best to help!

Missing You

Every single day at the moment I think about writing. So much is going on right now, a lot of it incredibly interesting, and I’m yearning for the opportunity to process it all by writing it down.

I have four draft posts ready to go, none of which I have been able to finish because of lack of time. In my other life as a bunting enthusiast we have had a massive order for a well known British retailer, and every spare moment I have (apart from this sneaked one!) is taken up sewing. It’s lots of fun, but I miss writing!!

On the things I do, when distracting myself from all the work I said I would do in November.

I sometimes do this:

and email it to my sister and my mother (sorry Dad – I’ll do one!)

or even this:

by which I mean spy on my boyfriend reading, through the cunning use of Photo Booth. He’s eating, by the way, not picking his nose.

Or even this:

Which is me physicalising whichever brooch I happen to be wearing that day. On a side note: HOW GOOD ARE BROOCHES. They are even better written down than said, because everyone always says ‘broooooches’ first and then corrects themselves with ‘broaches’.

In other news, November has got me over a barrel. And not in a fun way. No, November is being mean to me, and by mean I mean that I promised myself I would write a fucking book and then blabbed to everyone, so I now have to do it or risk being stabbed in the eye with a ballpoint pen by everyone that is disappointed in me. Namely myself. Apart from the mother complex, my life is not dissimilar to Oedipus. Pauvre moi, non?

But on another note, I feel strangely alive. I’ve decided to let go emotionally a little bit to some friends who can’t/wont/don’t know how to give me what I need. It’s better for everyone that way. I’ve felt a teensy bit miserable about the situation I’d gotten into, but I’ve realised that a bit of me banging my head on a wall has been happening, and I can’t say it’s been a whole heap of fun for either of us. It was a bit of a cock up en generale, let’s just say.

I’m working a lot, both on things that are pleasurable to me outside and inside of my day job, and I’m spontaneously feeling better about the career that lays ahead of me. I feel as though it could really go in two directions at this point and I have to say I would be happy with either. I am happy, which is a bit of a relief. It’s been a long time coming. I’m the kind of happy now where I very rarely get the panicked feeling that something needs to change, and change dramatically, and change NOW.

I won’t be too sorry to see the back of November (or will I?) but I am really loving it right now. Not just existing through it, but fucking living! Woot for that!

Woot for that indeed.