That's it, over and out and to bed now, sleepy. The glass of wine with the skype convo has kicked in and relegated the shift-work adrenaline to second place in my head. Thursday is but a memory, work is done for another day, thoughts are jumbling around, jumbled and dreaming now.
09:00
'... say hello, go say hello Mosey, go on.' Urgh, I'm not ready to wake up, and roll over to ignore the dog nosing at me from the side of the bed. He licks my leg and noses towards me, then trots away to something more interesting. I've been awake four or five times already today: half-remembered dreams leaving me disorientated, bolt upright in bed, trying to understand the half truths of my right brain.
11:00
Ok body, brain needs coffee now. One-two, ... . Try again. One, two, three, my legs swing round and plant themselves insecurely on the carpet. A push, a stumble, fumbles for clothes then glasses that make no difference to my sleep-encrusted eyes. I wash my face then sip carefully at the coffee before me. It's instant and not nearly as strong as usual - damn not having proper grounds today. Annie puts some hot Nutella-covered muffins down on the table and I'm grateful this isn't a morning she's over-tired too.
11:45
Morning's almost up as we head out. First stop is a coffee shop in Victoria Park East, Antz Inya Pantz. We've bought our last three bags of grinds from there, but last time I was pre-caffeinated and got whole beans instead. After rectifying my mistake and sucking down a cold one (of coffee: it's still just morning after all) it was gone midday.
12:30
At the supermarket (Coles, Victoria Park's 'Park Centre') we got limes, grapes, cous cous and an assortment of mundanities like cling film and marg. Our reward for our domestic chores: an apple and walnut scroll from Brumby's. Yum!
13:20
Driving back along Mill Point Road, we swung off slightly early to get some smoked fish for a salad lunch from South Perth Seafoods. I've a soft spot for hot-smoked salmon from the Fin and Flounder on Broadway in Hackney, but, and I'm sure you can all appreciate my middle-class woe at this point, haven't seen it at all on my travels. True to form, although there was hot smoked whole trout (just not the same) they only had normal (cold) smoked salmon (alas! We bought some anyway). The fishmongers stock was, by a vast majority, frozen, though the range was impressive, and not at all unreasonable in price. I'd still rank Clayton's butchers as my preferred local shop, though.
14:00
Annie has made a cous cous salad with some of the salmon and a piece of halloumi on the side, which I demolish hungrily, washing it down with a freshly ground Bolivian 'Jacoba' coffee from my aeropress.
14:20
Simon prompts us to review the voucher book they have for activities and day trips around Perth. I like the look of sea kayaking out of Ningaloo, though admittedly that's not in Perth but quite a drive up the coast, and Annie noticed a couple of good deals on wine tours in the local wine region of Swan Valley, and even one by boat.
14:22
I'm due in to work at 17:00 today, but then my phone beeps twice:
"Hi Thomas sorry tsunami is not busy you may have off today. Thank you"
Woohoo, day off.
14:30
Annie's work hasn't been cancelled, though we didn't get our hopes up too much. Her shift starts at 4pm, but we've some washing up to do and the time quickly disappears into the temporal morass that is domesticity.
15:30
We're almost ready to leave: Annie for work, me for a first visit to the driving range of the local public golf course. It's really close, and it will be good to see if I can hit the ball on grass any better than on the scrub of the Nullabor.
15:50
I visit the Angelo Street branch of ANZ, my bank, to pay in my cash-in-hand wages and get receipts for the quantities to go with the photos of my wage packets. If the tax man here is anything like the one at home, I doubt they'd be happy with me simply announcing the cash figure (without documentation) on my end of year tax return.
16:25
Why is there so much traffic?! It's taken me 30 minutes to go 3 kilometres. The Aussies clock off early, that must be it. I've just arrived at the golf course and see another text from work:
"Hi Tsunami staff, we organised the schedule this coming valentines day on Feb. 14 Friday, we would like to remind you all that everyone will be free to work with us on that day. Many thanks."
As with many things said at work, this needs some clarification, and it turns they should really have just sent something simple like: 'we need all of you to work on valentines day.' That would be much easier.
17:15
Balls hit, divets dug, now that was quite fun. My hand is starting to suffer from friction burns, so time to leave the land of pristine green grass and head back to the parched outside. There was some rather silly golf dress on display, but the people were friendly and it was a lot more welcoming than on our appearance at the Kalgoorlie golf club at the end of the Nullabor Links. Wow that did make us feel a bit uncomfortable!
18:10
After letting a very friendly Mosey back into the house, I wonder what to make for tea, or if we should go out.
18:20
I look at the events for the Perth Festival, which starts today and lasts a few weeks. It's not very centralised, but I note there's an outdoor cinema showing of the current Robert Redford film about a shipwrecked yachtsman that I know Annie is keen on. It's unallocated, unreservable seating so we might as well buy tickets on the door. There's even a pizza place as part of the venue, somewhere over the river on the University of Western Australia campus. 'Sorted, let's go there', I think.
18:35
OMFG so many ants. And not just the super small worker ants, there are the bulbous angry protecting ants too, hundreds of them going right into... the... food... cupboard. Urgh, nasty, time for ant genocide.
The spray does the trick, and soon nothing is moving. I spray some more, then follow the route back to the window frame with ant-trail masking spray. I have to leave it for a little while, there's just too many of the buggers to deal with right now.
18:50
Ok, I'm a bit calmer now, and wipe them all away, clean the cupboard, respray, done.
19:00
I grab the esky from our room and gather picnic supplies for the movie: diet coke, popcorn, a couple of beers, a bunch of grapes. It all gets packed in with ice blocks, and I scramble to get a blanket, some jumpers (it can be almost chilly at night sometimes) and find where exactly the venue is and where to park.
19:23
Quick, time to leave. Annie should be outside work in 5 mins, which will just give us time to get to the venue - she can call the pizza order in en-route.
19:30
Annie waits with one of her Italian colleagues, Gracie, who cut her finger cleaning the deli slicer. It's a deep cut, so plans change and we're heading back to the house to get the first aid kit. The 'supervisor' had left her with tissue paper which does nothing to staunch the flow of blood.
19:45
The cut is too deep and wide for butterfly stitches, so Annie wraps it with dressing pads as best she can and we cover it all with primapore tape. Nicci and Simon arrive back and immediately start to look for out-of-hours medical centres.
19:55
Nicci finds an open doctors in Belmont who will see Gracie when we arrive. To the car! I drive us along the 4-lane highway (with a very slow speed limit of 60kph / 38mph), Annie directs us to the clinic.
20:10
I plonk myself in the waiting room and pick up a Time magazine from October 2013. Annie helps Gracie complete the medical forms.
20:40
I read an article by Bill Clinton about why he's positive about the future of the world. Gracie gets called through to the doctor
21:10
I read an article about coffee shop variations across the world. The girls are nowhere to be seen. I look for places we can get something to eat, but we're running out of time for Solo Pizza (10pm close), which has the best reputation around.
21:30
As if there's causation, almost the moment I drop the fully-read Time on to the pile, they emerge from the inner sanctum. Gracie has a bandaged finger, three stitches on a local anaesthetic and a tetanus jab. We have to wait ten minutes, in case the wound re-opens? Gracie has a doctors note and can't work tomorrow, so Annie and Gracie talk through what Gracie has to say to the boss on the phone.
21:40
Equipped with the word 'stitches' and the confidence to tell the boss she can't start at 8am tomorrow, Gracie makes the call. Annie gets roped in to going in to work early, and after fighting claims of 'another holiday!', Gracie is all set. Now for some food, but not until we've raided the picnic stash for an M&Ms sugar boost.
21:48
At the lights, I notice another text from work:
"Hi Thomas tsunami is not busy again you may have off tomorrow Saturday again. Thanks"
Bonus! Wait - I need hours to get paid. Hmm.
21:55
You can do u-turns at traffic lights here, and crossing three lanes from a side-road isn't frowned upon as it would be at home. I'm glad therefore that the traffic is light as we somehow navigate to the wide array of fast food outlets which, along with motels, provide an unbroken neon edge to this wide highway. Dominos had no seating, so we decide on McDonalds, despite it being on the other side of the road. I don't want to re-park, so we jog across and are soon in the comforting warm glow of the 24 hour 'restaurant'.
22:05
We share stories. Gracie talks of a trip to Paris with a boyfriend, also Italian, on which, due to a dislike of French food, they ate at McDonalds every day for a week. Apparently, croissants just aren't as good in Paris as in Sicily, and once you've had burgers a few nights in a row you start to order the salad meals as your first choice!
22:25
We drive Gracie back to her flat by the zoo, and Annie swaps numbers with her. She has to have the stitches out on Wednesday, so we can give her a lift as long as I'm not at work (with the car).
22:50
Annie and I arrive home after what has been quite a long day. I eat grapes and continue to write this, Annie relaxes with a dose of Buzzfeed. We discuss what to do tomorrow after Annie's shift, but we don't know when she'll finish. Maybe the film will still be on? Otherwise there must be some music or dancing. We decide we'll decide tomorrow: my favourite type of decision.
23:40
To bed. What an unexpected turn of events today. I thought it would be a portrait of both our work days, but it does show the changeability of life on zero-hours contracts (ha, I scoff - there's nothing official or contracted about my job!)
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