niina.amniisia » bits, pieces and photos from sydney, australia and elsewhere

darker times (Wednesday March 30th, 2005 - 23:57)

category: mmhuh?

The clocks switched themselves over throughout Sydney on Sunday morning (except for the various electronic devices in my home that I can’t remember how on earth to re-program [glares.at.oven/microwave/video/phone]) and it was a bit of a shock to head off from work on Tuesday in darkness – it’s only March! My walk home the last two nights has been extended from 30 minutes to 35 because I don’t want to cross through Belmore Park in the dark, bopping cluelessly along with my iPod shuffling so sweet in my ears. I think it’s time to experiment with some other walking routes.

Four day week last week and again this week thanks to easter days; next week only three days before my holiday starts and three days the following week post-whirlwind-trip so I’ll be suffering from short-week-stress four weeks running.

Wellington NZ awaits but the accommodation is yet to be organised – tonight I figured out I want to stay at base backpackers because I saw their Melbourne hostel on tv a few months ago looking very cosy and they’re meant to be the height of doing it cheap. Just waiting for them to get back to me on some questions (like why they don’t have selection of different dorm types on their booking form) so hopefully I’ll sort that out tomorrow and have one less thing to concern me.

There’s still a vague plan to go to Picton for a day but Christchurch will have to wait. The NZ trip is going to be for wandering around town, checking out galleries or exhibitions, sitting and contemplating, reading good books in cafes and generally doing it easy. My feet need to be up!

Note the lack of “taking pictures with my camera” – it’s still awol at the Canon people (I assume) and I’m scared to call them and ask how it’s doing incase they realise my anxiety and plonk a note on it – Do not bother to even look at until May 3, 2005. I’ll resort to my wee ixus and a disposable if needed; even if I do get my camera back I’ll get a disposable – I want to see if my digital practice can be put in to use with taking interesting shots on film (Finland trip in 2003 comes to mind but atleast this time I won’t be wearing big chunky gloves to protect from minus-way-too-many-degrees temperatures).

No gigs recently but a few coming up for the weekend to rock my socks a little before my own clock ticks forward.

3 comments to “darker times”
Wiseblood said on April 1st, 2005 at 4:12 pm:

Umm…I hate to alarm you but Picton is a tiny, one-stoplight little port town! What on earth are you going to do there for a whole day?! I’d try to book passage over to Nelson at least if I could. Then again, you’d probably be hard pressed to get back to Picton and catch the ferry back if you did that. Decisions, decisions.

niina said on April 2nd, 2005 at 2:22 am:

the holiday’s all about relaxing so a one-stoplight little port town sounds ideal.. as does the ferry ride there and a scenic plane back.

what’s wrong with a one-stoplight town anyway? 🙂 my home town had no stoplights while I grew up there and a few years ago when I visited there last my uncle proudly showed off their first round about (still no stoplights). visiting peak hill last year where my mother was living, a town of 1,000 or so people, with an interstate highway as the main street they had no use for stoplights there either. stoplights can ruin the flow 🙂

Wiseblood said on April 2nd, 2005 at 3:01 am:

I’m not knocking small towns. I was raised in a small 2-stoplight town before it got incorporated. My father’s family is from the deep American South. His parents lived in the smallest of small towns in Texas, one that could rival your Peak Hill for population. Believe me, I know small town life ;-). I only meant to warn you that, for what you have planned for your vacation, Picton may not be able to accomodate you as well as you hope. You’ll see when you get there. Maybe we were stuck in the industrial part of town coming off the ferry, and it was getting onto dusky twilight, so perhaps we missed all that scenic downtown Picton had to offer ;-).

Enjoy your trip whatever you decide.

On a more depressing note, you don’t have to worry about missing the Guitar Wolf show in Sydney on the 16th. The bass player for GW died yesterday in Japan of a heart attack after returning from a tour of the U.S. From what I can gather it is no April Fool’s joke. If it is, it is a sick one.

I’m pretty gutted over it this morning. I loved that band.