I warn ewe, over the next 47 days, this blog is going to be boring. Seriously though, it's going to be baaaaaaad.

22/01/13

I got to Grandvewe at about 13:30 after lunch and was taken upstairs to 'The loft' where the udder helpers live. I'll just mention that I'm going to be living here until the last week of six nations, and what nationalities do we have living here? 2 Irish, 2 French, an Italian and obviously, my English self. I really hope they'll be up for a bit of late night rugby watching, also, I hope they show the 6 nations on freeview tv over here, but let's face it, it's doubtful. After I dumped my stuff in the room, and made my designated, single, top bunk, I was taken downstairs to get shown the cheesery and put straight to work, kind of. I completed a food safety course and then helped tidy up. Not sure if it counts towards my visa but it was good to get a grip on things. After work, we went to the field and hit golf balls, it's clear that I've improved since I last went to a driving range, which saved me embarrassment.

23/01/13

Not knowing what I was going to be doing today, I got up and went down with everyone who was working today. Started off by chopping apples for the pinot paste, quickly followed by coffee. Apparently this is a daily occurrence, a little coffee morning every day. I was then packing orders into boxes until lunch, half an hour off to get food upstairs. I had something which I've missed; Beans of toast. It was lush. After lunch I just helped washing up in the kitchen closely followed by milking sheep. There is NOTHING glamorous about working with animals. NOTHING. If don't milk sheep again, I won't be upset. Being pissed on and shat on whilst I'm touching sheep t*** isn't brilliant, but it's an experience and I hope I either get used to it, or don't have to do it often. The last thing we had to do was feed the lambs, they're sooo cute! We had to put a load of bowls of food down and just wait whilst they munched it all up. They certainly let ewe know when they were done, as they all come up to ewe when you're sat down, and demand more food. After work, I decided it's time to lose the bit of belly I've undoubtedly gained since leaving Thala, I put on my running gear and left the farm. I had a choice: Left UP the hill, or right DOWN the hill, I went left. I didn't exactly get far before I was practically dying, and then I couldn't run down because it's loose gravel and I would fall over. So on my way back to the house, I stopped off on a patch of grass, picking up rocks, wooden planks and walla! I have myself a make-shift gym, like I did at the bird sanctuary, but I'm going to be here for longer... a lot longer. 45 days remaining!

24/01/13

This morning at work I got asked if I knew how to make coffee using the proper coffee shop coffee machines. Thanks to Amee at Thala, I happilly answere yes, shortly before being the designated coffee b**** for the morning coffee. Compliments were made towards my coffee, I don't know if that was just out of politeness though, so we'll see if I get asked to do it again. Scheduled on for 'Cellar Door' I was a little confused as to where I was meant to go. Apparently it just means 'inside' and it could be the factory, kitchen or some udder stuff. This was soon scrapped when I was asked to do weeding outside, it was pretty easy going and Tom was doing it too, so having someone to talk to took the boredom away from it. After I gladly took a late lunch, it was pinot paste packing time! Just pouring the paste into pots, labelling and stacking them. Then it was home time, just as the food was delivered for this week. Making a conscience effort to lose the Thala weight, I headed out to my 'gym' to make a routine I can stick to and increase as my fitness (hopefully) increases! It's gotta be said though, cutting my portion sizes and avoiding snacking is pretty difficult when these guys don't eat until around 8pm, but my will power is better than that and I'll get used to it.

25/01/13

Not a lot different happened today, it rained, that was different. But I was in the kitchen all day, something that everybody hates. I didn't mind it. I'd rather do that than have to do weeding. It was very similar to working at café number 50 back in Yeovil, but just the quiet bits. I was asked to make coffee again this morning, so that confirms that they weren't terrible yesterday! This evening I am looking forward to a French evening, Apo and Axel are making some kind of steak tartar, with a load of udder French food, Ryan & the Grandvewe team are coming over too and apparently it's going to be quiet a drinking occasion. That should be pretty decent. I'll be honest, I've been quite reserved over the last few days. Breaking into an existing group is difficult, and I know this will sound bad, but the alcohol will make me relax a bit.

26/01/13

What a divine meal. It was as I said and the steak tartar was so good! Today I was on the farm with Axel, just doing general maintenance work and in the afternoon I milked the Ewes with Axel and the best job, feeding the lambs. I went to my gym after work, which is starting to look good. I now have a barbell and a weight bench. A huge rock that I run a small distance up the hill and back with for my cardio. I also found out that the piano works (apart from the central octave F#) So I had a little play on that too.

27/01/13

I was in the kitchen all day, not a lot to report udder than how hungry I am right now. We all cook together, but these guys eat so late! It's almost 9pm and nobody's cooking yet. This blog is going to be very boring if that's all I can write.

29/01/13

Nothing happened yesterday, I did the milking, didn't get shat on and that's about it. Today, however, is my first day off! What would I do with this day off?! There's nothing around for miles, I do need some new jeans though, my first day at Grandvewe, climbing over a fence, I tore an A5 sized hole right on the knee, probably for the best, there was a hole in the crotch already forming. So I needed to get to a town/city where there are shops. How would I do this without a car? Hitch. I set off at 9:15, to walk down to the main road. I heard a car and stuck out my thumb, may as well. First car, first lift! Only lift. Straight to Hobart. Dennis and his wife Christine. Also, they own a house just up from Grandvewe and have offered me some work next time they're down. Just gardening, but f*** it, it's a bit of extra cash! Got to Hobart and within 20minutes of being here, I'd bought the two things I needed: jeans and headphones. At the till there was some reduced chocolate, after closer inspection, I saw that it was Thornton's, imported British chocolate for 46c? I'll take 6! I'm now sat in a coffee shop called 'Dome' and it's pretty decent, if I had a lot of money, I would destroy their menu. Free wifi gave me a skype session with the Sister and a brief chat with Zoe Marsh. It's now 12:15 and it's quite a cloudy day, so I can't even just go to a park and chill. I might hitch back soon. Time to go for a walk!

31/01/13

After I wrote that, I got a dominos ($5.90 for a large pizza) and hitched home. Took me 4 lifts, but I wasn't waiting longer than 10minutes for a lift in any of the spots. Easy.

Yesterday was a strange day off, good, but strange. I got up when everyone left for work and didn't do much for the fist few hours, just sat on the sofa and watched Spartacus, How I met your mother and did some German. After lunch, I cycled to the water. 'The water' looks like a lake, but it's the channel between Bruny Island and mainland Tasmania. The weather yesterday was fantastic though, so I went for a swim in the crystal clear water and chilled out. The cycle back up to Grandvewe is one I won't be doing in a hurry!

Today, though, I was in the factory turning cheese in the morning and washing the van in the afternoon. Until late afternoon when I was asked if I'm any good at websites. Oh, well then! Even though they have a website up and running, it can do with a few improvements and a few things which are bugging them. So tomorrow, I'll hopefully be doing a bit of web editing! Cheeky!

I've spent the evening looking up flights for my return journey, tomorrow I might buy my flights. I emailed The Flight Centre a few days ago detailing what I want to do, where I want to go etc, and I've been told to phone them tomorrow morning to hear what they can offer me. Naturally, I don't want to get screwed over, so I've looked up all the flights I could book online, doing it myself and come up with a rather attractive price. If they can't beat it, I'll tell them to offer me better, or I'll just book it myself. Here's to hoping!

01/02/13

A month into the new year, a month remains working here. I'm just sat at the computer today, fixing many problems the Grandvewe website has. Well, I'm meant to be. A couple of the problems are proving more difficult than I first thought. I was fully engrossed before I realised it's 2pm and I haven't eaten lunch yet. Now, after eating lunch, I aim to tackle them heroically and get it done!

02/02/13

The last 24 hours have been full of joy. First, Edo cooked us burgers. Not normal burgers, he made these burgers with chopped up bacon inside the burger patty they were literally an inch thick. Ryan told us about a rugby game between the NSW Warratahs and a team from Melbourne; $15 for the match. Finally, Australia saw the arrival of Selina Rostrup in Brisbane, and I even received a phone call from the Norwegian girl herself! It's so good knowing I can call a close friend for next to nothing now. This has been written quickly because I'm on lunch, spent most of my time talking to Selina on the phone and know I won't get a chance tonight after work because of the rugby. Happy days!

03/02/13

Wow, yesterday was the busiest I have ever seen Grandvewe, and it all happened at the wrong time. At the milking (3pm), we had a stag do walk in. They stayed until 16:40. Luckily only ordering 2 platters, but still. This meant we couldn't really get ahead of ourselves and leave slightly early for the rugby. We did the clean up in double time, escaping at 17:10. The 40 minute drive to Hobart took only 30 minutes and we got into the stadium having only missed 20 minutes of the game. The game was pretty standard, not fantastic rugby as far as it goes, but the team I chose to support were triumphant, winning 19-16 after a close final quarter battle to maintain that score. We headed to Ryan's house after the rugby to have a few social drinks and left at about midnight. These social drinks included a German game which we adapted into a drinking game, naturally. There were a couple of moments which, if attempted, could not be repeated. A dice, thrown high by Ryan, hitting the box and spinning on it's edge for no shorter than 30 seconds. The spin of a nurf gun on my finger, cocked and shot at a bottle, knocking the bottle cap off which was resting on top. These were moments of awe after a few beers. Right now, I can tell I was quite drunk and I'm hoping it's a quiet day, or that I can carry on with the website editing. That'd be good.

04/02/13

I did get to do some website editing, but not until the late afternoon, after the fatigue of the grog had passed out of my system. When I got in last night, there was chicken left out on the side, so I decided to make a curry. The best curry I have ever made, and I didn't even have the recipe! Apo had said before she doesn't like spicy food, so I didn't use any chillies or chilli powder, but it was still delicious and received well by everyone! A spanner was thrown in the works yesterday when we were told we've used up too much data and the internet plan is only 20GB per month, so there won't be any internet use for 2 weeks. Not terrible news as I have my phone to keep in touch with the world, it's just easier to use the laptop. Today I spent the whole day updating the website, and really achieved.

05/12/13

Today marks two weeks since I got to Grandvewe and boy has it flown! I'm currently sitting in Hobart having just skyped with the parents and enjoyed a tradition English breakfast tea in the coffeeshop I found last week. The hitchhike in this morning was harder than last week (obviously) but I still got here in under an hour and without any issues. Today's plan include going to the Tax Office to put my tax refund claim in, go to flight centre to get a quote for my journey out of here (and maybe buy it if it's cheaper than the one I've come up with) and then go to Optus to find out why I can't send messages. There was something else on my mental list, alas, I cannot remember. So, I have 32 days left, just over a month. 1 month ago I arrived in Tasmania. Shouldn't be too difficult!