Good'day folks!

And by golly it certainly is! For me anyway... Not for the girl who is sitting behind me in this library... This poor American lass is being harassed by some weird Asian dude. She's just quietly sitting, trying to get on with some kind of project, and he's crossing ALL the boundaries. Getting all up in her personal bubble, leaning in her face... Perving her up, good and proper. Oh God it's getting worse. Here I'll quote for you...

"I just think you're amazing! What's your last name?... I don't mean to sound weird, but I NEVER want to let you go... like not in the holding you so tight kind of way... But like out of my head... out of my mind."

I can't help but feel I should help the poor girl in some kind of way...

He's a f***ing fruitcake.

He's probably going to stalk, rape then kill her. I should help...

But I'm handicapped, so I wouldn't make much of a defence machine... That's right ladies and gentlemen, this huckle berry, happy traveller now has a broken wing. I've gone and snapped my arm in two, and I'll happily tell this story for the 200th time...

So as you all know, I've been working on a hazel nut farm in Narrandera for the past month and a half. The farm was only going to keep 16, out of the 40 backpackers on for a few more weeks to complete the planting process. Me and Alex were picked to stay on for the extra work... Plans were made... Mo and Emily were going to travel north with Sam and Jess, whilst we stayed at the farm.

The first day of planting started for us. This meant a few things... No more s***ty pruning, staying in the shed for hours on end, clasping, getting blisters and sores all over my knuckles. This meant fun stuff!! We all hopped in the ranger after lunch. The ranger is like a Jurassic park, buggy type of vehicle. It has no doors, just a framed car with a roll bar above us. We all hopped in, Clarissa driving, Sharples, Gerry, Andy and me all as the passengers.

We took an easy cruise from the lunch shed to the planting field... A nice cruise until we reached this suck arse corner. I felt the car skid, sliding the opposite direction to where Clarissa was turning... In a panic, she turned the wheel again, and and tried to slow down. I thought she'd saved it... thought we were going to be fine.... How wrong I was.
The ranger took a hard tumble, and rolled a couple of times. I felt like I was in a budget roller coaster. Our bodies flopped from left to right, a scrambled salad of high visibility vests and screaming heads.

It was nuts.

The ranger finally stopped rolling, and landed on the left side (my side). Everything was dead quiet. The ranger didn't make a noise and no one moved. My arms were splayed out in front of me. I could see my fingers in the cold mud, but couldn't feel a thing. I began to move, leant on my right arm, went to raise my left, and was stunned by this agonising pain in my forearm.
I lifted my arm to see what had happened, and was greeted by a huge, surprise flop of my fingers in front of my face... (which made me feel slightly sick)...

My head was in a confused state... "I didn't tell my arm to do that..."

And then I twigged...

"AHHH!" I broke the silence...

"My arm is f***ing broken!!"

I started frantically kicking, rolling around in the mud. My gum boots were stuck hard in the mud... So, in my socks and leggings, I carried on kicking and wriggling around. I think the adrenaline was kicking in. I must've looked hilarious. No one really knew what to do. My eyes opened to find Clarissa clasping her mouth, and shaking her head, Gerry was on the ground, still as anything, and the others trudged towards me.

Beardy Alex ran over from the tractor, and tried to help me up as carefully as he could.

"I don't know what I'm doing, do I keep it up? I don't know"

Alex looked pretty petrified himself. He carried me to the bosses car and stayed with me.

"Mother f***er, this hurts!!"

Apparently it was a good 40mins until the ambulance arrived. 40mins of agonising pain, shakey legs, cold cold body and random bursts of cursing.
I looked down at Gerry (Irish chap) who was still lying on the ground, not moving much. I began worrying about him. Whether he'd broken his back? Legs, hips? I don't know, he looked out of it!

The ambulance finally arrived. A blonde lady named Sarah came to the rescue. She pretty much immediately handed me some happy gas. It was a green alcohol stick, which I had to breathe in. It tasted like Oozo (probably spelt that wrong). If any of you have been to Greece, you'll know what I'm talking about! Within minutes it started to kick in. The pain was still there, but I felt at ease. Not so 'shouty'.
I made some jokes about her turning my arm into a Subway sandwich, as she placed a cardboard cast around my broken limb.

"If this ambulance lark doesn't work out for you, you know you could always be a sandwich maker?" 

Alex and Sarah seemed to be in hysterics with some of the gibberish I was coming out with. I can't remember half of it.

I asked for Alex to come with me... And off we went!

NEE NOR NEE NOR NEE NOR!! WOOH! WOOH!!

The hospital was a bit of a blur for me... I felt sick, and the pain in my arm was worse than ever! I had a number of different people come by, asking me questions and prodding me.

This really dapper looking doc came by. I tried to pull myself together (as he was kinda cute). Nope. I couldn't do it... he started telling me about screwing my bones together with a metal plate, and inserting a rod into my arm, whilst I was experiencing the worst, thudding pain ever in my arm. I just wanted him to piss off, and stop talking about hammering my bones together. I felt like I was in a "Saw" episode.

Alex was an absolute saint, and stayed with me for hours, by my side. He made sure I was as comfortable as could be, and fed me Maple and Peacan danish. (Which was awesome!!). That was pretty much the last thing I ate for about 3days. The doctors dosed me up on so much s***, I just threw everything up. (Which was a pain in the arse, changing robes and bed sheets whilst feeling dizzy, and waddling around with a broken arm).

The doctors were awesome. Nurses were really friendly, but jeez! The second day wound me up!! They came around and woke me up at 5am to take some more pills. I had been constantly pressing the Morphine button over night (the nurses advised me to ;) )... So I was feeling pretty drowsy. I tried holding my pee in for as long as possible... I didn't wanna get up, because I felt sick. I left it too long and had to go... IMMEDIATELY.
I asked one of the nurses if she could help me. She went to go and grab a wheel chair for me, due to me being a wobbly mess. As soon as I tried to get up, I puked everywhere. All over myself, the bedding... My arm. I think I may have pissed myself a tiny bit too... Great. Bursting for the toilet and covered in vomit. What else?

The younger nurse ran off, I presume to grab some cleaning utensils?

A different nurse opened the curtain to find this miserable looking blonde, vomit girl sitting on the bed.

"Oh you poor thing! Is someone helping you already?"

"I don't know... Maybe?"

And off she went... Time passed by... I was still sitting on the bed, at the very brink of flooding the bed in piss.

10-15mins went by... What the jeffing hell was going on?! I just needed a wet wipe and a potty!!

These docs in smart suits walked in, saw that I was covered in cold, Orange vomit and proceeded to talk to me about my operation.

I just wanted to explode and shout "I AM A PERSON, LET ME TAKE A PISS!!!"

But instead, I kindly pointed out that now is not a great time... And that I'd appreciate if someone could help me to the toilet.

"Can't you walk there?" One of the doctors said...

"I could, but I'll probably throw up again, and my arse will be hanging out of this robe."

Finally! The nurse with the wheel chair arrived... She was very apologetic, and swept me away from all the vomit and dopey doctors.

It's degrading having someone assist you to the toilet. I refused to have her wipe me. So I awkwardly wriggled around the cubical, using my teeth to tear off the toilet paper.

Then came shower time. Unfortunately, I couldn't avoid showering alone. I had the young, female nurse help me wash. Jesus, I felt like I was 4 years old. We both agreed that I was better off wiping down my lady garden...

4years old... Maybe slightly younger... The nurse ridded me off my nice, little G-string, and handed me a huge, padded nappy.

So, as you can imagine, when day 3 came about, I was extremely happy to be sent home. Sam, Jess, Mo and Emily came and picked me up from this old people's ward. 
I felt awful. The drugs were starting to have an impact on my sanity. I was a big stinky mess by the time they came to meet me. 

So it's been a bit of an adventure. A crazy few days. I've managed to contact a woman about claims, so I should be covered until the 13th October (HANDY!!). 

Gerry is fine! (Thank God!!) He was flown to Canberra from the farm, to be treated immediately. Turns out he bruised his ribs and scratched his kidney (ouch!), and also bashed up his wrist pretty bad. Extremely lucky people... Could have been a lot worse!! 

So being off work meant a few things...

1- A LAY IN (consistently getting up at 6am everyday sucks after a while) 
2- Abusing the "Can you do this for me?" System 
3- Painting :) because my right arm is perfect WOOP WOOP! 
4- And of course... A trip to good old Melbourne to catch up with some chums and also watch KANYE WEST! 

That's correct ladies and gentlemen, me Mo and Emily took a spontaneous trip to Melbs, and purchased some fancy tickets to see the crazy black rapper. 
I had goosebumps throughout the whole thing. The music was crazy loud! Thudded my chest so hard! Everyone was up dancing (minus the wheelchair bound folks... Even they were wiggling about though). During the song 'Blood on the Leaves', he got everyone at the front to mosh pit. Don't worry Parents! We were up on the balcony, away from the hooligans, so my arm was safe and sound. 

He got a little crazy half way through, and started to dribble some emotional jargon, about love and being 'misunderstood'... But the music was friggin awesome. Opened with the song 'Blackskinhead', everyone immediately got up and started jigging about the joint. He played a lot of his earlier jams (Jesus Walks, All Falls Down, etc). It's a 'You had to be there!' Moment for sure... So I'll stop blabbering on about it. 

After the concert, we did a day's shopping, chilled out, then met up with our good chums Sam and Emma for the evening. I'll be very honest, I can't remember much from that evening, only that I got the mega hippy giggles and I ate my body weight in take away pizza. Awesome company though. 

Mo and Emily stayed with them for an extra couple of nights before flying North to Cairns. I headed back to Narrandera... Pain in the arse... I have to hang around for my wages and medical appointments. Boo. 

So whilst I'm here, sitting home alone, while the troops are at work on the farm, I've been making myself useful... I've painted the bartender a picture of his baby son, as a present to his missus (for a bit of extra coinage!)... And I'm now working on a couple of art pieces; Pel's guitar, Ciara's canvas and... Get ready for it, drum roll please... The Van! Wooh! You heard correct... Alex has kindly given me the 'Okay!' To paint the van... I'm stoked! I won't ruin the surprise of what it's going to be... It'll be finished by next week. Just in time for 'Burning Seed', the festival were all heading to (including Mo and Emily - who have now purchased a swanky automobile) 

Burning Seed is like a smaller version of the American festival 'Burning Man',but more environmentally and community focussed. From the web pages, it seems there's going to be a fair amount of crazy art work, and music. It's a 'non profitable' event, so a lot of people trade and exchange items. Couple of people have said I should give out some paintings or sketches whilst I'm there. 

So that's the planalam. 

What else has happened? Hmm... Oh yeah! Us girlies (Jess, Clarissa and myself) received a surprise gift in the post... A tiny, square box was delivered to each of us, perfectly wrapped with a label saying: 

"Because every traveller deserves to have one..." 

I opened this tiny package, to find a beautiful silver St Christopher necklace! It was from Zeke! An English chappy who was working on the farm, and left recently (due to the farm managers being unreasonable p****). Anywho! The gift was wonderful! However, there were some jokes flying about how "Every traveller deserves to have one... If you have a vagina"... Think the lads were just jealous that they didn't receive a pendant. ;) 

Moses, if you're reading this (I doubt it... You're probably too busy playing Candy Crush, or banging Emily)... Happy 1 year Travelling Anniversary. It's been an absolute pleasure tumbling around the world with you, buddy ol'pal. Make it a Jim Beam & Coke on Tuesday ;) Ta!!