So, a subtle comment was just thrown my way, relating to June, the sixteenth day therein and how my most "recent" LJ post happened to fall thereon.  Why yes, that was almost a month ago.  I've been doing things.

Well, sort of.

Mostly I've been on holidays.  That's hard work, that is.

I also went to visit the parents and the boy and the Sonia, during which visit I overcame my laziness enough to take some photos during the course of an hour-long walk.  You may now all gaze upon them in lieu of a post containing actual substance.

Firstly, in case anyone has ever wondered what Beechworth actually looks like, ( here's a fairly indicative image for you: )

So, uh, I was in Beechworth for the last couple of days.  My apologies to those people who didn’t know and who tried various non-government approved voodoo methods in order to summon me to msn.  I didn’t know I was going until the day before and I had to leave at seven in the morning.  Seven!  I had to get up at six.  Six!  Although that was mostly so I’d have time to check my email (not that I’m addicted to the internet or anything).

However, it seems the whole world is conpsiring to make me feel younger than I am at the moment.  Take this conversation that occurred whilst booking my train tickets, for instance.

Me: Hi!  I’d like to book a return ticket to Wangaratta
Booking Guy: OK.  Do you have a student concession?
Me: No.  (Curses!)
Booking Guy: Are you under fifteen?
Me: O.o

I’ve long suspected (based on listening to my own voice mail message once) that I sound like a hyperactive twelve year old on the phone.  Now I have more proof to add to that suspicion.

And yesterday, as I was waiting for my train, my parents encountered someone they knew from Beechy.

The Da: Yes, we’re just seeing our daughter off.
Me: Uh, hi.
Guy from Beechy: Going back to Melbourne, then?
Me: Yep.
Guy from Beechy: Back to school?
Me: O.o
Pause.
Me: Well, I work in a school...

And then my mum takes great delight in shouting out, “Are you kidding?  She’s almost thirty!”

The bit that got me was he didn't even suggest “uni”, just “school”.  I always thought I at least looked my age, even if I didn’t sound it.  Still, I’m not complaining.

And now for the obligatory photos.  (Click on a photo for a larger version.)


And finally, a plea.  My friends page is so long at the moment it makes me dizzy to look at it.  What did I miss while I was away?  Anything exciting or sad or scary?  Please let me know and point me in the right direction so I can comment on it.

I wish my camera phone took better pictures.  Actually, what I really wish is that I hadn't forgotten to take my camera with me to Beechworth, but I'm over that.  I've moved onto the camera-phone-hate.

Nevertheless, it was all I had and I used it when necessary although I now have cause to curse its complete inability to focus on anything, anything at all and its general crapitude.

With this bitter disclaimer out of the way, I hereby present for your viewing pleasure, the following images...



And that was my trip to Beechworth.

Oh, I am sick.  Indeed I am.

*cough*

*cough*

*sniffle*

How awful, for this means I am given an extra two days off, meaning my first week back at work will consist of Wednesday and Thursday and my regular Friday off.  Pity me.

Mind you, I’d be enjoying it a lot more if I could actually do things such as breathe through my nose or swallow without feeling as though someone has stuffed a bushel of razors down my throat.  But, on the up side, I get two days off work!  Huzzah!

*cough*

I think this could be revenge for my forgetting I was supposed to be a rain magnet.  These duties completely slipped my mind when I went up to Beechy and the weather remained warm and blue-skied the whole time I was there.  In revenge for this lack of inclemency, I have been gifted with this virusy thing.

But did I mention the two days off?

*snuggles medical certificate*

In non-sickly news, I managed to cope for almost two days without internet in Beechworth.  Of course, I was on it right up until I had to leave and I may have responded to comments on my LJ when I got home last night at, oh, say, around eleven thirty at night.  While I was up there, though, I managed to have a couple of revelations and they are as follows.

The internet seems to have affected me to the point where I hardly ever open WordPerfect any more.  That word-processor used to be one of my greatest loves.  I clung to it when Word tried to overwhelm it and I considered myself one of its greatest fangirls.  And now?  Now, I don’t care what programme I use to write.  Well, as long as it’s not MS Word.  I don’t bother with prettying things up the way I used to.  In fact, it now seems wrong to put only one space after a paragraph and to indent the next line; I'm more accustomed to leaving out indents altogether and double-spacing after paragraphs.

In related news, I think I’ve made a decision of sorts regarding my writing.  I’m going to take some of my favourite stories of recent years - Apple Pye, Postcards, Why I Ran Away and Joined the Nunnery and an as yet unfinished and un-named story - do a final edit (or in one case, a first complete draft) and just post them on my LJ or DeviantART for people to read.  Because I’ve realised that’s really my main aim in writing - for people to read what I’ve written.  My biggest disappointment in not being able to get Postcards published so far isn’t that I won’t get paid for it or get a publication credit.  No, it’s that people won't be able to read it.  And I really want people to read it.  I love this story and I simply want to share it.

So I shall.  Along with others.  And if I get the re-draft of Nunnery right, crazedturkey might actually be able to start a club of Ikvar fangirls.

*loves Ikvar*

Speaking of DeviantART - who out there has an account?  Let me know so I can watch you.

Hehe - “watch you”.  I love it.  It sounds so stalkerish.  Which is probably the reason I’ve set my status to “lurker”...

Well, I'm off to the land of internetlessness, otherwise known as Beechworth.  That’s not entirely fair - there is internet there: dial-up.  I remember dial-up.  Oh yes.  I got a lot of reading done when dial-up was around.

Also, I think it would be a bit rude if I turned up at my parents’ place and then said, “Hey, I’m off to spend the next couple of hours on the internet.  Just bring my cuppa in later, will you?”

Just a bit rude.

I’m only going to be away until Saturday, but I have a list of things to do already being compiled in my head.  For the most part, I’m hoping to get some writing done.  There are a couple of projects I really work on and I think they could be a lot of fun.  I just hope I can summon up the discipline to make a start on them.

Before I go, I want to wish flippyfrog much luck with the jamboree. Don’t let the pink get to you! Be strong!

Ah well.  For now, I am off to make the most of my remaining internet time.  Be good while I’m gone!

Every couple of days for the past week, my dad’s been ringing me and letting me know how cold it is up there in Beechworth.

“Minus four this morning!” he’ll say.  “But it got up to eight degrees later.”

Or,

“We had no water this morning because the pipes had frozen.”

To both of which (and all variations thereof), I say:

“Argh!”

Because I hate the cold.  I’ve often thought that this has much to do with the fact that I was born on the coldest day in the history of ever.  I never want to be that cold again.

Or something like that.

And yet, we’re still going up to Beechworth for the next two and a bit days, because it’s the school holidays and it’s the thing to do.  Even though I’m going to freeze.  And people will mock me.  This includes both of my parents and my Timothy, all of whom have absolutley no problems with being SO COLD YOU CAN’T MOVE BECAUSE YOUR JOINTS HAVE FROZEN.

And they think I’m the weird one, just because I like being warm.

I will see you all on Saturday, when I have vague hopes of having caught up on my writing quota.  Indeed, I have even vaguer (and more deluded) hopes of pulling ahead!  I think it’s the cold... it’s done something to my brain.

I am a rain magnet.

Really.  If anyone out there is in the midst of a drought and would like some relief, just call me in and put me up for a couple of nights.  I assure you that rain will follow, especially if I only bring t-shirts and skirts and no warm socks to speak of.

It mightn’t be a lot of rain, but it’s better than nothing.

They haven’t had rain for weeks in Beechworth.  Every time someone looked up, they’d encounter an endless blue sky or possibly a duck, depending on their luck.  It’s been one long, unbroken stretch of fair weather and a complete absence of any sort of precipitation.

Except maybe in the vicinity of any air-borne ducks.

We met my parents and the Boy and the Sonia in Euroa for a birthday picnic lunch.  The Boy and the Da’s birthdays fall within eleven days of each other, so it was a combined meeting for the exchanging of food, presents and, in the case of the Sonia, ’flu germs.

It was rather hot for March but despite this, white fluffy things were noted forming in the sky.  They couldn’t be clouds, could they?

Well, to push an analogy too far, they certainly weren’t ducks.

I went back with the parents to Beechworth, like some sort of hostage exchange: my Timothy got a bottle of tomato and chilli sauce and my parents got me for two nights.  On the way, the fluffy white things were seen to increase and multiply, occasioning further comment.  It got the point where the Da had to admit they were the first clouds in a very long time and not simply figments of a collective imagination.

And then, on the second day of my visit, it rained.  For most of the morning, the first rain in weeks soaked steadily into the ground and I had brought it with me.

I also brought a strange fog which descended quite rapidly, obscuring the hills that are virtually on the doorstep of my parents’ house, but this was less impressive than the rain.

I charge a small fee for my rain magnet services but I think you’ll find it’s worth it.

( In other news, here are some photos from my trip. )