I am back from the land of my icon!

[lobelia321]

We returned from Australia yesterday. I am still full to the gills of our month-long holiday. It was more than a holiday, it was an epic experience and adventure. My heart glows with it.

I'm not even going to attempt reading any past posts lest I go insane. I don't think I've ever been off LJ this long! If there is anything truly important that I've missed, I trust you to point me to it! :-)

I'm not sure I can attempt a summary of my holiday -- not today, at any rate. Suffice it to say that:

• I have a wonderfully wobbly belly and (for the first time in my life), sidehandles on my waist! Whoa. This is because I gorged myself on: sticky date pudding, friands, fat pancakes with maple pancakes (as opposed to European thin pancakes) and all manner of other gorgeous foods wot i discovered down under.

• I slept under the stars in a swag in the desert in Australia's Red Centre. It was beautiful and amazing. A swag is a canvas pouch-thing that is filled with a mattress and, if desired, extra blankets and zips up around one's sleeping bag to keep one snug and warm on the red desert sand.

• We went camel-chasing with our naughty guides on our safari adventure tour in the Red Centre. It was phenomenally absurd fun!

• I learned what a tequila bodyshot is and I took a dare and did a tequila bodyshot to a random (and no more than 20 years old) male stranger in a backtrackers' bar in Alice Springs. The children were shocked and are now possibly traumatised for life. T'h was amazed! So was I.

• Perth I found to be a dump. Alas and apologies to all Western Australian Freinds. No doubt it was because I didn't have any of youse to show me around... Fremantle is like Perth without tall buildings. In fact, Fremantle is like Royston with sunshine.

• Places wot i loved:
- Darlinghurst in Sydney and Bar Coluzzi, Victoria Street
- Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains near Sydney
- Rottnest Island, off the coast of Fremantle in Western Australia
- Alice Springs
- the Red Centre, Uluru, King's Canyon; I LOVE it so much; I love deserts
- Alice and Gertrude cafe-bookstore, Hall Street, near Bondi Beach, Sydney

• Memory lane:
- the leafy North Shore suburbs
- the leafy Eastern suburbs
- Woollahra and Oxford Street in Paddington
- Glebe Point Road

• Odd places that intrigued me:
- Ardlethan and the Riverina, six hours to the west of Sydney
- Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, wot we flew over on the way back and saw its lights like jewels in the night and they were spread in a very odd way, and now t'h and I are planning a holiday in Samarkand

• Whoa.
- T'h was offered a professorship in Sydney. Do we stay or do we go? Argh.
- T'h was offered a visiting professorship in Stanford, and this may possibly turn into a permanent post. Do we stay or do we go? Argh.
- The agent of my friend who is writing the thriller said that he liked my sample chapters so we are getting the go-ahead and omg, I may be a published novelist soon. T'friend supplies t'plot; I supply t'prose and t'characterisation (and t'humour).

• I bought the poster of the Ned Kelly picture that my icon is taken from!

• The kittens are CUTE!!!

• I bought a digital camera one day before we left for Australia so you may actually get pics uploaded soon. ;-)

Comments

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Wow! That all sounds fantastic! I'm so happy it was such a good experience for you. :) The thriller thing sounds really promising, too!

I'm starting a new job in two weeks - yes, finally I am leaving the place of awfulness! Actually, I'm going back to the place I was at before I went back to the place of awfulness. Er, if you see what I mean. Funnily enough, the ex-colleague I'll be replacing is leaving to go back to her home town of Perth! Also, she is on LJ. Funny old world, eh?

Welcome back!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yes, whee, and it's not even raining in England, and only marginally chilly, so yes, hey. Today my G.P. told me that no, I couldn't go off the sertraline yet. Should I be worried?

You are leaving the place of awfulness! Oh, let this be a beacon to me and my own P of A.

LJ, LJ, why is everyone on LJ? It's getting very crowded in here.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

No, I wouldn't worry about the sertraline, they always want you to stay on it for a significant length of time, in case you come off too soon and slip straight back into the depression. Or... they don't get their drug money. One of them two things. :) But if you're feeling better, then all to the good!

Just be glad you're not on Facebook (You're not, are you?) People keep inviting me to compare movie tastes with them, or throw various foodstuffs at them, and other things. It's an odd place. LJ seems so peaceful sometimes.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I registered for facebook, had a look around for all of 4 minutes and immediately unsubscribed again. That place is... I don't know: boring? I couldn't see the point of it.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

I have come to the conclusion that it's basically a slightly more dynamic version of Friends Reunited. It's ok, but it's not LJ!

[wanderlost.livejournal.com]

You're back! Welcome back from what sounds like an amazing vacation.

I must tell you that I thought of you quite a bit while you were away. I'm not a stalker, no; I was reading a book by Frances Mayes and she mentioned lobelias I'm not sure how many times. (It was a travelogue, but she's very into flowers and half the book turned out to be a description of all the flowers she'd seen on her travels.) Each time she mentioned your flower, I thought 'Hey! I know a lobelia!!!'

It seems that fantastic opportunities are in the horizon for t'household! I'm sure that t'husband will make the right decision (my advice: go! go! go!) and you're going to be published! *squees*

Oddly, like sheldrake I'm starting a new job and leaving my place of awfulness to go back to the place I was before I went to the place of awfulness o.O

Welcome back! It'll be good to have your posts on my flist again.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*laughs very much* Yes, I have insinuated myself evolly into random novels in the guise of floral matter.

Oh, and let these people leaving their places of awfulness be an inspiration for me and my own place of horror!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Um, my mind is a blank and I don't remember where we know each other from. Um. Football fandom??

[junalele.livejournal.com]

Oooh! You're back. Just a few days ago I randomly thought that the month should be over. Teehee!

It sounds like an amazing holiday. Especially the bit about sleeping in a swag in the red desert. And Samarkand has to be magic!

Great news about the offered professorships. And how cool is it that you may be soon published!! Great!!

Looking forward to the pictures. :D

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yes, whee, am back! And sleeping under the stars was the best thing, it was just breathtaking.

:-)

[junalele.livejournal.com]

It sure sounds like that. :D

[blithesea.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're back! :-* And it only took one post of you on my friends list for me to dream about you this night - I dreamt I was at a cocktail party, and Michael Ende's oldest son was there (does he have an oldest son? I have no idea), and I mentioned that I knew you, and then we reminisced over the good old days together. XD

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

You dreamed of me??? Wow. Michael Ende's oldest son?? No, he hasn't got any children. But who knows? Some bastard somewhere on this planet?? How flattering. I take this as an omen for my future writing career! *hugs you*

<--- Here be manbutt to get you back in the swing

[pecos.livejournal.com]

Welcome Back! Very excited for you on ALL fronts!

Re: <--- Here be manbutt to get you back in the swing

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Manbutt! *loves* I saw quite a bit of manbutt during the evening at the bar which also featured my tequila bodyshot... There was much dropping of trousers and revealing of hairy cracks and inappropriate tattoos... Ah, those frontier nations.

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're back, finally! LJ just isn't the same without you! I was just on holiday too, but only for five days.

You should be a published novelist soon. It's about time!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, am back! It is no wonder that you were only gone for five days as I read a statistic comparing holiday allowances and Japan and the USA have tiny numbers of days while Germany wallows in 35 days per year.

How are you, you wonderful person???

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Yes, it seems the Germans are always on holiday, because they are! I ran into quite a few at Yosemite, unsurprisingly.

I think the typical US allowance is 10 days. My previous job was incredibly generous, with 20 days. Now, I'm self-employed, and my sister stays at home with the kids, but my brother-in-law is a 10-day-slave, so we had to work with his schedule.

I'm okay. Not terribly thrilled to be back, since I have loads of tedious things to deal with, but it was good to get a little break. *hugs*

[(Anonymous)]

I've been a German at Yosemite! I have to say, I loved Yosemite.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I've been a German at Yosemite! I have to say, I loved Yosemite.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Yay, you are back! Sounds like a wonderful trip, and YAY for the book thingy.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yay, and so are you! Back! Well, I know you've been back a while but as soon as you came back, I left, so it feels as if I haven't seen you in ages and ages and ages!

Glad to see that your hair's still in snakes. :-)