Phew, I've just got through my first full week of work since I left PG. It's been crazy! But I have a secret perversion to admit to: I like data entry!! I've been sitting in a warehouse typing in six-digit file numbers into a database, listening to the radio. It's been fab. Also, the thought of actually earning more money in a week than I manage to spend on coffee, wine & lunch is a heart-warming one.

Anyway, it's been so long since I made the time to write a blog entry that I've sadly forgotten all the amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experiences that litter my daily existence like the soft chunks in life's catlit. Or almost all of them. A few that spring to mind:

A double-take out the window of a tram as we passed some dreary Soviet-looking concrete blocks of flats on Brunswick Street: some comedian of a town planner has allowed the installation of what must surely be ironic giant Babushka dolls in the neighbouring kids' play area!

A series of photographs taken of a chimney stack opposite my place of work in Port Melbourne. Sounds unpromising, doesn't it, but actually the time of year and the change of weather have conspired to bring a kaleidoscope of evanescent dusky hues into the burnished cloud-speckled skies across from my bus stop. It'll look smashing once I get a chance to upload the piccies, trust me.

An afternoon spent babysitting little Aimee, Liz's daughter, with Rainnie in Northcote. Liz went off shopping for furniture and stuff for her new house, while Rainnie & I wandered around the shops and had coffees and stuff with Aimee mostly asleep in her pushchair. At one point, we found ourselves in K-Mart arguing about what colour socks Rainnie should buy for her new bakery job (or some such clothing trifle) and we both realised how married-with-kids we must be seeming to everyone. That, and Rainnie saying how all the lesbians in the shopping centre - it's a fairly alternative area of town - were looking at her with me & Aimee as if to say "just what the hell are you doing, girrl?"

A very late breakfast (let's call it afternoon tea for the sake of chronological consistency) at Yummy Bread with Rainnie & Jodie. Picture the scene: a couple of tables out on the pavement, a dog tied to a lamppost, passers-by going about their business, trams and cars rolling past. Then the traffic slows down. An ugly bastard of a greasy geezer hangs his head out of his car window and wolf whistles. Rainnie & Jodie turn their heads to discover the source of this less than subtle sibilation. I look on in amusement, which turns to peals of laughter when said individual shouts at my two friends: "not YOU. Go AWAY!!!" For good measure, he follows up with a rude gesture involving two fingers and his tongue. Great value!

Learning to cook an authentic Cantonese stir-fry from my housemate Fiona (who, aside from improving my Asian cooking, is giving me a hand with my Mandarin lessons; she's learning Mandarin too as it happens, and let's face it, she's going to be better at all the tonal side of things than me, with her family background) using the rice cooker we have in our house and a battered old wok. God I'm good!

Getting a massage - at long last - from my massage teacher from Victoria Uni. Rainnie and I had back-to-back (if you'll pardon the pun) appointments with Michelle in her house south of the city centre, out past St Kilda. It was a chilly day, but thankfully the massage room was toasty warm, and the massage itself was out of this world. Michelle is such a sorted person too! She's done the whole living abroad, corporate lifestyle, married, divorced, where's-my-life-going thirties crisis stuff, and has come out the other side a better person. I hope I find myself in the way she clearly has.

Walking around the huge cemetery north of my part of town, taking snaps of gravestones and endlessly blue afternoon skies. The autumn in Melbourne has been outstanding. I think it's been the warmest April on record, and the sunniest May. Even the week of cold wet weather we've just been through has been replaced today by blue skies once more. I like the sun. I hope we see more of it in the weeks to come.

Frantically negotiating with three temping agencies, trying to pull together a feasible week's work and having to reschedule myself about twenty times in the space of half an hour on Friday afternoon. It was almost like old times in real jobs!

Too much red wine by far under the fairy lights in Rainnie's garden, with Leesa & Jodie and a barbecue. And then going into town to drink even more, nearly losing my bag, and drinking even more more to celebrate not losing my bag. I ended up - with what is becoming alarming regularity - back at Jodie's backpacker's, only this time there was no fry-up to be had. Jodie went to bed while I was momentarily resting my eyes, and the next thing I knew it was 8am and I had a sore arse from sleeping bolt upright on a shitty sofa in the waiting area! I crawled home, my head sucked into a vortex of hangover hell, and slept for most of the rest of the day.

Standing at a crowded pedestrian crossing in the centre of town at hometime, and watching all the commuters scurrying for their trains/trams/buses, people tutting at how long it was taking the green man to show himself. And realising that, even though I am working again, I am SO not one of those blind wage slave robots. I choose to work, and I choose to walk home through town, and I choose to notice a different new architectural detail somewhere along my route every time I walk (a little tip I got from Alain de Botton's excellent book The Art Of Travel). I choose life.

That'll have to do for the moment. If I remember anything else that is worthy of mention, I'll make sure to write about it next time. But for now, dear readers, remember that all the world's in a grain of sand, and ecstasy lies in holding it up to catch the light.