I’ve bitten the bullet. I looked my deadline right in the face (cringed) and knew it was time to settle in one place long enough to actually earn the pay cheques I’ve been living on for the past year of my gypsy life. Thus, I find myself squarely planted and caged in Melbourne, Australia. My tropical paradise is lost. I’ll be here until April and hopefully the completion of one non-fiction book on mining equipment manufacturers. The convenience of my parents’ house being completed and therefore free rent for moi as ‘house-sitter’ only slightly sweetened the idea of returning to Oz, which otherwise is enough to make any grown vagabond cry. Saying ‘good-bye’ to warm humid days and warmer, slightly less humid nights and ‘hello’ to southerly winds ripping their way up from Antarctica and hailing down on little-old-tropical-me, is a not very appealing concept in of its self. After a mere month here I find myself extremely dedicated to finishing this project before Autumn comes into full swing, and with any luck I’ll be sunning myself in Paris by the time my southern hemisphere abode plummets into single degree winter fun.

 

There are some advantages to my current situation, which are almost enough to get me over the ten fold increase in my cost of living, and the severe coffee wasteland that is my country of origin…almost.

The first must be the freedom of movement. If I want to go out for the afternoon I no longer need to reserve the driver 24 hours in advance, spend all morning in traffic getting to the mall and all afternoon getting home again. Weather permitting, I simply grab my handbag, make sure I’m wearing shoes (yep, forgotten them before), and walk out the front door. Within ten minutes I can be surrounded by cafes, clothing stores, or be at one of the best cinemas in the country. Or, if I really feel like going on an expedition, I can be in town in 20 minutes, where the world of galleries, Italian bistros, and scary men that pee in alleyways is laid out before me. It’s not much, but it’s familiar and I guess that makes it home.

 

The second advantage to locking myself away in Melbourne has a more basic instinct. The new house (which matches all the other houses, painted prettily in institutional white) is smack bang in the middle of a brand new development. That’s right ladies, there are tradesmen of all shapes, sizes, colours and fragrances, everywhere. I’m like a kid in a candy store, a sailor at a bar, or a teenage boy at Sexpo. True, they do have the annoying habit of starting power tools at ungodly a.m. but they make up for it by strutting about the complex in the tradesman trademark, ‘wife-beater’ blue, singlet; shoulders bulging, biceps flexing and the muscled cords of manual-labour-forearms displaying more peaks and ravines than The Himalayas. Most are good from far and far from good, but they do make the view of my kitchen window, and even more so from the deck… well, it’s like living inside a Diet Coke add really, and it’s always 11.30.

 

I may no longer have the ability to skip off to Bali when I’m bored on the weekend, or sling over to Singapore when my wardrobe needs another shoe addition. Alas, that island paradise has disappeared into the Pacific for now. I think however, as far as perfect office environments go, my kitchen bench may be Paradise found. Between the white houses and blue singlets, if I turn my head really fast it almost seems like Santorini…almost.