Well it has been a interesting few weeks since I last wrote my blog, kind of anyways. I still have no employment. I was told yesterday they are pretty sure I will have work next week whereas they are telling others they have no chance basically and I am now listed as critical and everyone in the office knows me and Janine are the first girls getting work next as we are top of the list etc so hopefully this is all true. So after deciding I was going to leave to go to Brisbane to live with Henry for a bit to get any other job I have now decided to give it another week as itwould be terribly unlucky if I left then it turns out I have work here on Tuesday so in the long run I think its a good idea to stay for now. and to be honest I do love it here so to get my farm work done here is totally ideal for me as its not a terrible place to spend a long period of time. Shame its not summer like but the weather is definitely nice and warm when the sun is actually out. It just seems to rain alot like a b**** quite often too but nevermind being a northerner I am certainly used to rain and wet weather. It is a lot like a geordie summer however I would say its probably alot nicer weather that home and definitely a lot more beautiful (sorry guys). So yeah but I have basically being having arguments with myself a lot of the time as I had and still dont have a clue what to actually do for the best. We are constantly being told work is 2-3 weeks but having now being here 5 weeks it gets a bit desperate. You never know what to believe and whos telling the truth etc. We did finally figure out why we couldnt get work though (me and Janine) its because we are those awful creatures called FEMALES. Seriously Western Australia is still massively stuck in the 1920s and they think unless you are Female Asian or a man you can not do vine pruning which is exactly why I am here to work funnily enough as online and when you speak to the agencies not one person ever mentions they just let the men or the taiwanese girls do this job. It is massively sexist and quite frankly I think it is massively disgraceful that this county makes it a requirement for me to do 3 months regional work however I cant get employed doing this as I am a girl. What a joke. I feel a strongly worded letter to the goverment coming along, as well as a lovely phone call. Considering I left Melbourne 7 weeks ago to do my farmwork and in that time I have done 6 days of picking apples so 82 days to go. I feel its hardly my fault if I cant get this stupid thing done as its not like Ive not tried and its not my fault I was born the 'wrong' gender. Its very annoying and angers me alot obviously. So the work I am expecting to be doing next week is called wrapping and its some pathetic girlie job apparently. So I hope that will be fun.

I did put an advert on Gumtree stating I need my farm work done and I have had an offer of working on a mans farm in New South Wales. Cattle farming with board and lodgings and I said how much will I be getting paid and he said 'nothing, you're a facking unskilled pom, you facking poms come over here with no experience in farms, you dont want to work in a farm you do it only for your visa so I wont pay you until you earn it' I said piss off pet I'm not working 15 hours a day cattle farming for free. Some of the boys in the hostel do that and its a massively hard, dirty job and they werent experienced and they work mental hours with little breaks and they are paid a fortune for it $900 a week after tax! so no way in a million years am I doing that for free. To live on a family farm a week I would expect would cost $100 a week and food is mainly what they grow/farm themselves so I do not think they would be spending a great deal on me. So yep Piss Off. Some might say I shouldnt be picky but I am certainly not going to be a farm slave for 3 months for free I am no mug. Another man got back to me and offered me a job in a advert about how much I love coffee to tide me over whilst I await my dream farm job... haha oh dear. I have texts and emails from people offering to sign me off for volunteer farming with payslips, all visa stuff sorted and geniune ABN number for $300. Always an option if things get really desperate. So yeah my advert didnt really help me at all but nevermind I will perservere. and eventually I will be farming I hope. Where I am awaiting work I know they will gaurentee me work for 3 months which is why Im sort of hanging on for dear life at the moment. As doing farm work in one block takes way less than time than counting the days. So yep please all pray for me and think positive thoughts and cross your fingers and toes. thanks.

So yeah anyways meanwhile in hostel life as I might have explained had turned ever so slightly into boarding school with us all being naughty school kids and on final warnings to be kicked out and getting our parents called (ok well I made up the last part but the rest is true) I realised that actually it isnt boarding school its basically us living in Margaret River Retirement Village as we spend our days sitting round, drinking tea, eat biscuits, accusing people of stealing from each other and gossiping about anything and everything and also watching neighbours (when the WIFI works) So yes I am now fully prepared for a life of retirement. I must say Margaret River is a perfect place for retirement, its very peaceful and I am 28 already so god knows why I even want to work anymore I'm sure I've done my time now. So yeah as well as living the retirement dream we decided living in a hostel isnt good for us mainly as 12 midnight no more drinking/staying up rule is definitely against my basic human rights as a backpacker/free spirit so we started looking for a massive, massive, massive sharehouse! So we found one straightaway that was 4 bedrooms and basically a huge mansion in the woods for only $450 a week so at first 12 of us wanted to move in so rent would be $37 a week and then it changed into getting 2 massive massive massive sharehouses so there would 8 in mine which was the original sharehouse. So we put in a bid for it. The main issue was that out of 8 people who would be moving in only 3 had jobs (the dairy farmers) so we put 2 of them down and Janine and Sam's names down for the reference checks etc. We explained when Janine was called regarding her employment status that the boys wages more than covered the rent and her and Sam would be getting work immediately as the farm season has just started so we amazingly passed the reference checks and were approved. Although we clearly didnt bother letting them know we planned on letting 8 of us live there. 8 backpackers in a luxury mansion haha a letting agents worst nightmare!! We all had plans for the sharehouse. Dan was going to get a sign for outside saying 'massive, Massive, MASSIVE Sharehouse' oh dear haha. There was a forrest view hot tub bath upstairs in the giant bedroom and we were going to have hot tub and champagne parties. BBQ's every weekend. Parties, Goono. The lot. and we were going to have a family roast dinner every sunday which was hugely exciting. Then we found out some awful old english retired couple got it over us as the man whose house it was got to pick the winners and obviously he picked the oldies. DAMMIT. so we all got a bit sad and depressed and ate a lot of chocolate and lay in bed debating what to do with our lives and our sharehouse dreams so we decided we would go for a better house. The best house in a million years. A brand new CRIBS style party mansion complete with a POOL. Never been lived in it is that brand new. 4 bedrooms, right near the beach where the celebrities of WA live and it was a bargain at only $750 per week which would still have worked out cheaper than the hostel. So we decided we would go view it. We first went to another 3 bed house that the others are looking at renting also so we drove around there and that was canny nice but not as good as the original plan and right in the woods but with a lot of neighbours and was a bit creepy. So we then headed off to the huge party house. We were so excited. A funny part of this day was also that Dan was off work sick as he had suspected E-Coli from the dairy farm (self diagnosed) so the doctor had signed him off work, he had also s*** in a box for the doctor as he had the poos for 5 days - seriously bad ones too, no amount of imodium could keep it in. He did not look well bless him. So when we were in the car driving round he kept stating he might poo himself any second and he looked like he was trying his best to not poo himself! It started getting dark and as we had left the main strip of Margs we lost signal and my phone died so we were struggling to find this dream mansion. We eventually got some signal on Janines phone so google maps would work and off we went to the mansion. By the time we got there it was pitch black and it was amazing!! So huge I cant begin to explain how big it was. We saw the pool which got us excited and the outside pool/bbq area which got us more excited and we were running round like kids. We went right round the outside of the house and looked in the windows we could reach with our phone torches. the bathroom had a bath - OMG. One of the bedrooms had 4 bunkbeds. WOW! we now realised we can fit 10 people not just 8 in! excited as hell we were. so we decided we should leave, as we were on a impromptu viewing that might look suspicious. So we got in the car. Now I must explain WA is literally no mans land. And we were a bit off the beaten track in a lovely neighbourhood. Street lighting is a british thing ok. Not a WA super estate thing. So it was pitch black. Janine was like I cant see a think and had to reverse basically all down the drive. But she couldnt see and apparently didnt want to do that so she tried to turn around. I cant remember at which point she first crashed in to the $8.6 million dollar house (price potentially slightly exageratted here, but def over $1 million) - but she definitely did crash straight in to the corner. It turns out we were all too scared to check whether she'd marked the house (the house is bright white) but it didnt fall down anyways... So then Adam got out to direct her and he was shouting stop and no and laughing and then next thing you know she has drove in to the 'beautifully landscaped gardens' knocking over a tree on route. Adam by this point is killing himself laughing and screaming stop. and we realise with a thump that the car is now almost definitely jammed between a rock and a hardplace for real. If you can picture a long driveway and car wedged the wrong way between the wall and the mini wall surrounding the garden then you pretty much get where we are at right now. We all get out and are like 'oh my f***ing word' I have no idea how it was even possible for our Vera to even get wedged in this way its mental! So we are now panicking as we've crashed twice in the the $8.6 million dollar dream mansion, She does a reverse to get out and hits the back wall too. Strike 3. Oh dear. Dan has to get in and drive the car over the garden wall to get it unwedged and the front of our Vera is now hanging off in shame. Luckily Dan does get the car out of the unwedge and he reverses it down the drive - by this point the noise from laughing, screaming, panicking, and car crashing has alerted some of the people in the street and there is some family members watching us from their own $8.6 million dollar mansion. Our saving grace is thank god there is no streetlights as our Reg would be hard to catch in the pitchblack. So after Janine, Sam and Dan examine the car in full view of the street (please do not imagine a normal street however to be fair the houses are VERY spread apart) me and Adam are like 'get back in the car we need to leave right now before we get busted by the cops for criminal damage to our dream house. So we eventually do a get away however we get lost in this fancy estate and we finally make it out on to the normal road that leads home. We go straight to coles looking for cable ties to fix the car as apparently thats what the bumper was held on with anyways! But no avail. and we all cant stop laughing! it was massively hillarious although I have no idea how we were not arrested and sent back to the UK! but luckily we werent and we have lived so far to tell the tale.

The next day we are basically told from a lady in the work agency that we (us girls) wont have work for 3 weeks or summit so we all decide we might leave immediately. We then decide if we are going to leave James wont need the car for work now as he is working (hes a man) and has a lift already sorted on his team so its fine so we can sell the car so we put an add up straight away in the hostel and a few hours later me and Adam decide to go to coles for his daily packed lunch buys and we walk past Danny one of the italians in the hostel trying to take Vera for a test drive (Janine has now fixed her damage and the front is no longer hanging off) however the poor old car just wont start godammit. So thats a massive fail for the sale side of the car. As its dark we decide to sort it tomorrow. The next day however Vera just will not start at all and we just dont know what to do. By this point me, Janine and Sam have decided we are going to leave. Sam the next day as she has managed to get herself a job working on a farm and looking after a child in the middle of Abbo land where its 44% aboriginals oh dear. Janine is still unsure if she is going to leave with Sam on Thursday or me on the Saturday. So we are a confused bunch. We decide to take a walk round the forest to take some scenic snaps of Margaret River as it could be our last chance. I make them go via my running route which I think is wicked as its proper foresty and smells of nature. They dont appreciate it and say its s***? its just a forest and I take them to the 'waterfall' it a bout 1.5 metre high but still its beautiful there I think. Not quite a waterfall by Asia standards like but still nice. When we get so far into the wood we see a car driving up which is weird and they are proper tradies and are like 'you ganna need your gum boots down there mate' as there is a huge flood down there, haha I have flip flops on which is always perfect for a walk in the forest... We then continue walking back, Sam just wanders off and Janine doesnt like it in case shes being murdered... dramatic or what? I show her the murdered people tree thats covered in 'blood' of course its not blood its sap but the tree does look like someone has well be smashed in against the tree and theres a pool of sap blood on the floor next to it. Its literally oozing out of the tree. Photos on facebook people if you are unsure what i'm going on about! We then see Chris from Neighbours little brother (probably)and then we go play on Kate which is a steam train randomly in a park I see some crazy doberman going absolutely ragde which freaks me out. Also the other day on a run a dog chased me into the woods and I am convinced it was going to bite me as it was going crazy so I had to enter the woods a different way as it wouldnt leave me alone and I was alone apart from this crazy mutt. Stupid fecking strayans wanna learn how to control their pets like. So anyways on the way back we decide to ask in the garage whether he thinks our car will start with jumps leads. Janine explains the crack obviously failing to mention the 3 car crashes in the $8.6 million dollar mansion. He thinks jump leads are not gonna do a thing he says he can come look at it now in the hostel for $50 and we are like really? and hes like or wheel it down here. we explain which backpackers we live in and hes like 'people have done it before' so thats our new plan. Operation lets take Vera down for a check up he will look and diagnose then fix if we want or we wheel her back if we dont want. So that night when allthe boys come home from work we try to find rope for a tow down the road but none obviously so instead we push her. Theres Kate behind the wheel and me, Janine, James, Francesco, Matt, Connor and Adam pushing her all the way to the garage its hillarious. I must admit I wasnt pushing to much as I was trying to capture these moment in photographic history. we got her so far with no one bloody person offering to help on the way. It must have looked hillarious! our car is the most backpackery car you can ever find essentially shes a proper mess haha. We eventually got to the point where we had to go on the main road again with the car so I went to stop the traffic as I'm good at that kinda thing! So off I went standing in the middle of the road making sure no one would get in our way and they all run with the car moving it forward and they need to go left from the road... of course to make things more difficult and more funny kate steers us right. so now our car is on the main road (not quite the A1 dont worry mam) and heading away from the garage. So we push it back up a drive type thing in the road and I block the traffic again and we get the car going in the right direction although we are now pushing the biggest car/limo up a hill from scratch so we are wrecked! but we get her finally in the garage all dropped off for Chris the mechanic to estimate her costs and issues for us in the morning. We all then head back and have a drink!! we def deserved one. We got very merry it was mushtache night... see below for more information.

So yeah our car is going to cost $410 to fix as its the fuel pump which is why it wouldnt start. we find this out just after a visit to vinepower again where we learn we are top of the girls list and will be first girls team out... she promises to find out as much info as she can from a vineyard owner who will be getting us first. oh dear so now we feel we should fix the car as we will need it for work if we get some. we had orginally decided if car would cost more than $150 to fix we would scrap her where we would get between $60 and $100 back for her. So we now decide to fix her and pay the cash and then if we do get work we have a car to get there with and if we dont we can at least sell her for at least $700 which would mean after the fix fee we would all get $100 back each so its better value to fix it now and think long term... i really hope we made the right decision as I am feeling the pinch after working 4 days only in 5 weeks here. s***e. So yeah she is now fixed and goes like a dream. Janine and Sam have left. Janine might be back if she gets a work text as shes just in Perth so not too far to go for work. After speaking to vinepower again I am now staying another week which cheered all the boys up as they were worrying about me leaving as I wear very short shorts haha. In other news my black trusty topshop denim skirt that I've had since i was approximately 21 years old has been ripped and is possible destroyed after a wash in the washing machine and tumble dried. Which is exactly why I never used to wash the bloody thing as these things always happen to clean clothes!! so now I have no demin skirt anymore although I can potentially still wear this or repair it as its along the waist bit where the belt would go. Shame I cant sew. I wish Ryan from Canada from Manjimup was here he was a good sewer!!

On Janine and Sams last night it was their leaving party/Janines birthday which we were always planning on a mushtache party so we had one of those. Our original plan was to have the party in the massive massive massive sharehouse... bad times. So we all got really merry and did the harlem shake and drew mustaches on everyone!! we looked wicked!! At one point I attacked Kates face in the toilets and she was continously wiping her face so she ended up with a well red mouth it was funny! We eventually turned her in to harry potter, she wrote knobhead on my head and Janine looked like billy connelly!! haha. Good times indeed, it was a thursday and we were pretty rowdy! oops! naughty schoolkids us like. Me and Janine also did crabs off the picnic table outside so a sucessful night indeed I think.

anyways i think I have written enough now!! so speak soon guys lots o love xxxxxxxxxxx