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Blog 14
Happy New Year everyone, hope you all had fun celebrations last night and a great Christmas! We had a really good Christmas day.
Apologies for it being so long since our last blog, we tried to do it on Friday but the website was down.
The temperature hit 40C on Christmas day, although work was quite chilled for the best part of the day. Everyone kept escaping to the walk-in freezers to cool down too! That made things feel a little more like home and a little more Christmassy :-) I started the day by jumping off a jetty with Bonnie before work, which definitely woke us up!
Laura worked 7-3 and I worked 8-4.30. I was supposed to work 'til 4 but we had the biggest last-ferry rush ever and they needed me to stay back. It was a bit of a pain because most of the customers were of nationalities that don't celebrate Christmas and as such hardly anyone spoke a word of English! We got through it though, and afterwards we opened our pressies. Laura and I didn't get each other too much as we're on a budget, but I got a couple of really cool t-shirts off her along with some smaller bits and bobs and I got her a t-shirt she'd wanted since arriving at Rotto, a coconut-shell necklace, and some sunglasses. Many thanks to everyone who sent gifts, cards and text messages! They were all greatly appreciated.
We had a party at Jim and Samala's place in the evening with a bbq and music. We had all bought 'Secret Santa' presents, our game had a twist to it - people could steal each others pressies! Although I was the only one to steal anything! I stole a 6 pack of Crown lager with a cool pint glass off Sarah Mum, but she was happier with the present she picked up after that anyway.
No-one stayed at the party too late as almost everyone was due to work Boxing Day, which is apparently the busiest day of the year - only it turned out to be a lot quieter than expected! It was probably a good thing, as one of the cool rooms broke down which meant all the pre-prepared food had to be thrown away! Temperatures soared to well over 40C and it apparently reached over 50C in the kitchen. I was glad to be washing up as the dish-pit is the only air-con'd part of the building!
Going back to Christmas eve-eve, I had a day off, and Laura managed to finish work early. We went to Little Parakeet bay for a swim, in my opinion it is the best swimming beach on the island, and only about a 10-15 minute bike ride from the house. We didn't stay in the water for long though, as once we were in we realised we were swimming with thousands of tiny jellyfish! I got stung on my throat and arm, but both were fully healed within half an hour. Next time I'll wear a rash vest. Laura escaped unscathed. We had a nice afternoon sunbathing though.
The next day - Christmas Eve - I went for a swim at Kingstown beach with Blondie, Dani and Tamsin after work. There are less jellyfish there as the current is stronger and there is always a bit of a swell. When Laura finished she went jetty jumping for the first time ever, she really enjoyed it. We went to the pub for a bit that evening and chilled.
I went back to Kingstown again on Boxing Day, where me and Blondie dug a big sofa into the sand and sunbathed. Dani and Fish joined us after a while. It was a really relaxed afternoon.
On Boxing Day I had a split shift at work - basically I did 7am-1pm and 3pm-9pm. It got pretty crazy but had lots of variation doing different jobs all day. Laura worked 6.30am-4pm, despite being supposed to work until 3pm. It was really busy! Afterwards me and Snarah, who'd also done a split shift, dived off the jetty in our uniforms, it was really refreshing after such a long hard day. Laura spent her afternoon with Helen, they went snorkelling at the Basin and sunbathed afterwards. Sounds like she had a good time! She cooked Taco's for everyone with Dani that evening, and there were some waiting for me when I got in in my sodden uniform :-)
Laura had Friday off work so went over to Fremantle to try and upload the blog (unsuccessfully, hence why it's up now instead) and do some other stuff on the internet. Our flights home are booked now. We leave Australia from Sydney on 1st June, then we are spending 2 weeks in Thailand, a few days in Singapore then arrive back in Manchester on 20th June. We decided to leave from Sydney as flights were cheapest from there, and it's always cheap to get an internal connecting flight from wherever we end up.
On Saturday I had a day off but Laura had to work from 8.30-6.00. I had a really chilled day, just relaxed and read my book. It made a pleasant change.
Sunday was an amazing day although first thing we had to say 'good bye' to Sarah Mum and Snarah. They will be sorely missed in the house, New Year celebrations didn't feel quite right without them. Sarah Mum has flown to Brisbane to work there for a while, and we've agreed to meet up with her as we pass through later this year.
We went on a flight around the island at about midday as a present off Laura's Grandma and Grandpa. It was fantastic. We did two laps, once high up so we got a view of the whole island and the second lower down so we saw everything close up. It was great. If anyone ever comes to Rottnest I seriously recommend doing it. We got some great photos. In the afternoon we went to the beach with Dani and Nikki then went and played crazy golf. It was a good laugh. I won and Laura lost, ha-ha! We were both meant to be off for the day but Laura and Dani ended up getting called into work for 2 hours to clean up because they'd had a really hectic day.
Yesterday Laura was meant to be off again but we both worked from 8 until 4/5. We were meant to be off today as well but I ended up working 7.30-1 to fill in for Blondie, who's had to go back to mainland. It went well though, and I was paid double-time for it!
We hope you all had great New Year celebrations, and until the next blog, we wish you all a very happy 2008. Enjoy the photos!
Lots of love, Laura and James xXx
Sorry we have not been able to upload the photos. We are on the internet at work and there is no broadband and it said it was going to take over 400 minutes. I'll do them when I'm off on Friday.
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