Fall in Perth

It's proper autumn here in Perth. Winter's coming soon (seasons start on the 1st of March, June, September and December) and I can feel it. Maybe I've gotten spoilt by the hot summers and–for the lack of a better word–mild winters.

The leaves are falling down from the trees, and it instantly urges me to drop everything I'm doing and run through them, resulting in everyone normal out there looking at me like I've gone bonkers. Maybe I'm still a kid deep inside, even though I feel like a grandpa on the outside.

Europeans are excited about summer's approach (despite the floods, storms, earthquakes etc), and here I'm thinking how I'll make it through the winter. Winter, to be fair. I've been waiting for the time when I can actually wear long sleeves and cosy up in my hoodies, but I just hope I won't regret it in a couple weeks' time.

But I'll be going for holidays in Croatia soon enough, and it's going to be summer there. Counting the trips back and forth between continents, I will have had seven summer in a row. I know a couple of people who'd slap me right over my face if I told them that. Different places–different summers though.

An update from the Desert

I’m out bush for the weekend – no work over Saturday and Sunday. Not that’s a rare sight. I’m out for a ten-day field-work trip spread out over fifteen days. The usual, I hear you say... Even though I have a bunch of small things to sort out during this time, it's still nice to be able to kick back and relax – even for a short while.

It's been a weird couple of months. Insanely busy, but also alarmingly edgy. As I've ranted before, I was supposed to go on a trip for my birthday (just to take a couple of badly-needed days off), but the whole trip got cancelled due to a cyclone. I went to Bali for a couple of days after that, but don't tell me it covers for it – it doesn't. Not that I'm ranting...but I am.

Anyway, having gotten home early to go out on this trip, I will have been out of the office for almost a full month. People are telling me I work too hard. I feel that I am working a lot, but when your busy-as co-workers point it out, it must've come to a serious point. They were really happy to hear I was taking a couple of days off – and were as bummed out as me when it didn't happen.

And now it's all busy and it doesn't look like it's getting any calmer (right at this moment there are a couple of Caterpillar pieces of heavy machinery getting refuelled right next to my window as I'm enjoying the fresh air). I'll be going back to Croatia in what is now less than three months' time. I've got a bunch of things to sort out before that, which might prove to be a but tricky, as my calendar and I have obviously gotten in a bit of a fistfight (for the record, I was never notified).

There just seem to be too many things going on. There's definitely too much going on in my head. I can see myself taking one of those courses. You know, the one that makes you more assertive, stand up for yourself, learn to let go and stuff. Like in American movies, yeah.

Anyway, there's chillout music playing, the Sun in shining, and I'm enjoying a cup of ginger and lemon tea. It's all good.