Escape!

After wanting for so many years to spend some time in Brisbane, I've suddenly found myself very pleased to have escaped. As much as I love it and don't feel like I properly caught up with it all, living in a city, particularly a familiar one, does not mix well with a lack of regular income. There are far too many temptations, whether it be visiting favourite haunts, buying meat and booze for BBQs with friends or buying spur of the moment meals and funky things just cos they are there. We've parked outside various friends' houses since early January and it has been fantastic to spend some proper time with them, not to mention extremely grateful for use of their creature comforts, but we bought Jym to go travelling and it was well and truly beginning to feel like the world tour of Brisbane! After being away for such a long time, it has been a valuable time to reconnect with people. It's impossible to fully maintain friendships over such distances, so I better understand where friends here are at in their lives now. I think Bryn feels closer to them too so rather than them just being my friends, they have become our friends.

So a number of expected (and unexpected) van repairs and improvements later, we've set off to Stanthorpe in search of apple picking. We feel bloody lucky to be where we are at the moment, comfortably south of the flooding in north Queensland and north of the NSW/Victoria bushfires, so despite suffering a severe lack of funds, it's not all bad. We are staying in a beautiful, peaceful place, it's warm and sunny and there are some amazing national parks nearby. We're trying not to get too stressed about being broke but it's hard to adapt to the uncertainty that accompanies both a change of career and the very nature of harvest work. We've had a very comfortable lifestyle for a few years, where we'd spend money all over the place without a second thought and still increase our savings, so having to scrimp again is at times a fun challenge and other times utterly frustrating.

Keep your fingers crossed for us that we get a bit less sun for the next week or two so the apples colour up nicely and we get some work nice and quick.

Adios 'til next time...