#1 of x

19 days, it's taken me. And I jumped as much as usual.

I saw my first Australian spider today (first of this visit, anyway). It was not small (although I've seen ones of similar size in the UK). Unfortunately, I had to walk past it very close by in order to get to the gas meter, so I could get the serial number for it to be connected. Not fun. I was quite glad the serial number is only 6 characters long!

I was also the victim of bad timing today. I had the first call to my recently-acquired Aussie mobile while I was wrestling with an overly full sandwich. Sadly, my voicemail was set at the most hypersensitive setting (and try as I might, I can't change it), so it only rang twice and then switched off, by which time I'd managed to throw chicken and salad all over the table and drop teriyaki sauce all over my T-shirt. I'll just have to speak to them later instead!

I've bought my fridge, but it isn't in the flat yet. It will be delivered "some time in the next week" - I'm slowly learning that Australians have no concept of urgency, which in general is a state of mind I have a great deal of sympathy for, but not when I need a fridge! So I guess I'll be living on takeaways and non-refrigerated food till next week, then. That's not so easy here, not when days can get up to the mid-30s! There's quite a few snack bars and takeaways just round the corner which I will be frequenting. There are also a load of antique stores and wedding shops, for some reason - Armadale is the place to be if you want something old, new, borrowed or blue, with the emphasis on the old.

Spider in the Web

I'm getting a little bit bothered about the potential for spiders on this Venezuela trip!

I'm OK with ones of up to about an inch across - those are my absolute limit, and while I can cope with having one of that size in the same room of me, I'll be keeping a very close eye on it, almost to the exclusion of looking anywhere else. Anything bigger than that, and I can't really even look at pictures of them - a friend I told about this said he'd scared himself stupid looking at a photo of a bird-eating spider, about a foot across.

I'm worried how I'll react if one drops on me in the jungle, or I wake up and one's on my bed, or my face...

No - I need to sleep this evening, so I'll have to stop this train of thought!

In my usual style, I have yet to do any packing whatsoever, despite leaving tomorrow lunchtime. I've also got several things to do in town tomorrow, including getting the haircut I didn't get last week, faxing the last bits of my visa application off and getting toothpaste, towel and other little things I've forgotten.

Oh, and the Oz bank account application too.

And my MFI furniture.

And...