#cardboard. literally one of the worst sounds at night or ever is them crawling on it

[lilgynt]

i know the roaches own my house but like i’m paying them rent kind of own it

[virmillion]

Ibytm - T minus 48 seconds

Masterpost - Previous Chapter - Next Chapter - ao3

Words: 2,053

Logan hisses gently as he pulls the bowl of popcorn from the microwave, setting it on the counter as fast as he can manage to shake the burning feeling from his fingers. “Popcorn’s done!”

“Great, now come pick a stupid show already, so I don’t feel like I’ve wasted my Friday,” Virgil calls back. Remembering to check his pride this time, Logan scoops up the bowl with two objectively safer napkins and peers around the corner of the kitchen wall.

Virgil’s head just barely peeks over the top of the couch, a tuft of pale purple hair sticking out opposite the rest. Beyond him is a daunting list of movies and shows scrolling beneath the Netflix logo. A fifteen second trailer loops for the movie Wreck-It Ralph, but Virgil stubbornly refuses to press play. The tuft of hair vanishes as Virgil leans forward and clears off a space on the table for the popcorn bowl.

“Careful, ’s hot,” Logan warns, dropping the bowl on the open spot.

“Noted.” Virgil, after acknowledging Logan’s words (which really ought to be heeded), proceeds to completely ignore them in favor of grabbing more than a fair fistful and popping the whole mess in his mouth. “Ha her he hah king?”

“You want to run that by me one more time?”

Virgil swallows around the lump of butter and grain with a grimace. “What’re we watching?”

“Great question. No more scary movies, you’re cut off from those, but that’s about our only parameter.”

“Puh- leez, it’s not my fault you couldn’t get to sleep last week. You’re the one that kept me up with nervous texts, ’member? I would’ve expected you to be grown up enough to survive watching Nightmare on Elm Street . Guess I was wrong, if laser tag was anything to go off of.”

“Laser tag was barely two months ago, and already you’re having delusions about my lacking bravery?”

“Hey, hey, you’re the astronaut in training here. I’m not the one with explicit and express intent to fly a hundred hours of pilot-in-command aircrafts before I turn twenty-seven.”

“A thousand hours, or three years of related professional experience. And if I want to break any records, it has to be before I’m twenty-six. Try to pay more attention when I lecture you about my internship next time.”

“I have to endure a next time?”

Logan shoots Virgil a pointed look, the effect of which is lost to the popcorn kernel lodged between his right molars. He prods at it with his tongue.

“In my defense,” Virgil continues, “this is pretty much the longest a relationship of mine has ever lasted.”

“Oh, is that what we’re calling it now?” Logan isn’t quite sure where all this bravado came from, but it’s doing wonders for keeping his voice even, so he won’t jinx it by digging deeper right now.

“It’s faster to say ‘relationship’ than ‘that dorky guy who hangs out at my apartment every Friday night to make fun of movies because we have nothing better to do as self-respecting adults,’ but I’ll gladly switch to that absurd and overly expository title if you prefer.”

A pout tries to crawl onto Logan’s face, which he promptly ignores. “Point taken. Did you pick a movie yet, or are you just that obsessed with watching a pixelated handyman smile on your television screen?”

“Neither. There’s no good bad movies left on here, so at this point, we’re better off watching something one of us has already seen—”

“Out of the question.”

“—watching nothing—”

“No thank you.”

“—or binging a series show.”

This gives Logan a moment’s pause. “That could work.”

“Right, because watching half an hour of an unending show every week without fail is how I want to spend my next three years’ worth of Fridays.”

“Well, why not?”

“What would we even watch? There’s, like, no serializations that normal people haven’t seen. Everybody’s watched The Office —”

“I haven’t.”

“— Brooklyn 99 —”

“I haven’t.”

“—and Parks and Rec .”

“I haven’t.”

Virgil slams the remote gown on the couch and gapes at Logan. “You haven’t seen Parks and Rec? ”

“Have you even been listening to a single word out of my mouth?”

“You are an absolute monster. You disgust me. We’re through, no more movie nights. I can’t hang out with someone whose true colors are so monochromatic.” Logan is not entirely certain whether Virgil is kidding at this point. “I’m kidding.” Logan is not entirely certain whether Virgil is about to add the caveat ‘mostly’ to that statement.

After an uncomfortably long silence wherein Logan looks absolutely anywhere that isn’t Virgil, the speakers proudly announce the sound of Leslie Knope introducing herself to a small child playing in a sandbox. “This isn’t very funny,” Logan murmurs. “I mean, what child would say they were having a moderate amount of fun and somewhat enjoying themselves to a stranger? I suppose I might if prompted, but still.”

“Shut up ,” Virgil hisses, “this part is hilarious, stop talking. ”

“Ha ha,” Logan says dryly. “I love watching drunks hide in swirly slides. Ha.”

“Shut up. ” This command is accompanied by Virgil swatting at Logan’s shoulder.”

“Well, hey, can’t we skip the theme song?” Logan is almost hoping he’ll say no, just so these movie nights can be that much longer. Series show nights, now.

“Nope, out of the question. Skipping the intro is cheating and an act of cowardice to the nth degree. Be quiet and enjoy the upbeat music.”

A few weeks later, Logan finds himself enjoying watching the theme song. Maybe it has something to do with how they’re sharing one bowl of popcorn, their fingers brushing against each other every so often, rather than Virgil hogging the whole thing for himself. Maybe it’s how their knuckles linger when they reach in at the same time, neither pulling away instantly, but neither vocalizing what’s happening. Maybe it’s how, when Virgil is distracted by people assuming Leslie is dating Ann, he absently lets their fingers link together loosely, too intentional to be a thoughtless mistake. When the scene shifts to some guy named Anthony waving, they both yank their hands away from each other. Logan swears he can feel his nerve endings burning.

Upon the premiere of season two, the distance between them has closed ever so slightly. Rather than being at opposite ends of a three cushion couch, Virgil leans on one armrest and Logan arranges himself on the next cushion over. And if Logan’s fingers wander over to Virgil’s when Leslie marries the two gay penguins (despite the popcorn being well out of reach on the table), and if they hold on long after the credits for the episode have passed, well, that’s nobody’s business but their own, isn’t it?

When the Galentine’s day episode rolls around, Logan has abandoned all pretenses of slowly inching closer, instead taking Virgil’s hand as soon as they’re both seated with their respective mugs. Both cheap water steepings from a broken keurig, of course, but at least they’re enjoying them together. Well, enduring, enjoying, same difference.

“Hey, that’s what you said the first time we went to the museum together!” Logan exclaims, watching the sweater swap moment between April and Andy. Okay, so he doesn’t really exclaim it, per se, so much as say it suddenly and without warning—it’d be rather difficult to literally exclaim it, what with his head resting heavy on Virgil’s shoulder and all.

“Oh, right, on our first date, you mean?”

“Our first what?”

For those of you keeping track at home, yes, Logan has managed to go about six months without realizing that their first date was, in fact, a date.

By the time Chris asks Tom and Jerry to come up with a new logo for the department, Logan is literally sitting in Virgil’s lap with an arm slung around his shoulders. You might liken the position to that of a koala, but then again, Logan didn’t ask you. Full disclosure, they started watching more than one episode a week somewhere along the line, but this was spurred in some part by the need for background noise while they packed everything Virgil owned into a small mountain of cardboard boxes.

“Something to celebrate the occasion?” Logan asks tentatively, holding up a bottle of champagne. This kitchen certainly looks much nicer than the last one, but the leniency of adding paint to these walls was a buffer Logan had sorely missed at Virgil’s old place.

“If you want,” Virgil replies, craning his head over the back of the couch. “But you’re paying damages if you spill it all over my clean floors.”

“Well, duh, I’m paying half the rent, of course I’d fund repairs.” Logan holds back what more he wants to mention, still wary of the sore spot surrounding Virgil’s careers.

“In that case, plop your butt down on the couch we need to replace—speaking of which, we need to figure out a day to descend on IKEA for some upgrades.” Virgil pats his lap and gestures toward the screen—longer and thinner, purchased with some of the funds they’d pooled from their respective savings when picking a place together. “Now, c’mon, we’re about to see the squad go to London. I know you’re all about the architecture over there, aren’t you?”

“As if you even need to ask.” Logan grins, plopping himself down on top of Virgil and whistling along with the theme song.

Living together, unsurprisingly, does wonders for powering through the last couple seasons at a much more efficient pace. In what seems like the blink of an eye, Logan is watching the futures of the main squad playing out as they do one last project, and it’s not a stretch to say he’s holding back tears. As the credits fade to black and The Office pops up as a recommendation to watch next, Logan lifts a hand to his cheek and is baffled to find it come away wet.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Virgil murmurs, slipping an arm around Logan’s back and rubbing circles on his arm. “This is the worst part, I know. You’ve never been this attached to fictional characters before, huh?” Logan hiccoughs. “Yeah, I got you, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

Between shuddering breaths that aren’t quite laughs, Logan manages to get out, “It’s like the end of an era. I don’t know, I mean, it’s really over.”

“Oh, I know, sweetie,” Virgil mumbles, pressing his lips against Logan’s hair. “It just means moving on, and I’ll be here for you through it all.” Slowly but surely, Logan’s hiccoughs turn into giggles as the ridiculousness of the situation dawns on him. Why should he be getting so emotional over the end of some tv show? He literally went into this knowing the series would have a finale. He says as much to Virgil.

“True, but we sank a couple years into this tradition. You’re allowed to mourn a tradition, even if you think it’s silly. There’s no rules for what you can or can’t grieve, and even if you lie to yourself enough to believe there are, I’ll be here to help you through it.”

“First off, you can’t spell believe without ‘lie,’ and second, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, hon. What would you get out of dealing with nonsense emotions?”

“Besides knowing I get to wake up every morning to see your face?” Virgil pretends to ponder this for a moment, only breaking into a grin when Logan elbows him in the side—not intentionally, mind you. It’s more of an effort to bury his nose in Virgil’s neck, but unfortunately for Logan, Virgil is ticklish right around there. He laughs loudly and announces, “I want the moon.”

“The moon?”

“The moon, spaceman.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll bring you the moon. Is that all?”

“One more thing.”

“One more thing besides the moon, you mean?”

“Well, yeah, you have to know how much the moon costs.”

“How much does the moon cost?”

“The stars.”

“The stars?”

“It’ll cost you the stars.”

Logan shakes his head and smiles, wrapping Virgil in a tight hug and drying his eyes against his boyfriend’s sleeve. His words are no doubt muffled, near unintelligible, but he’s sure Virgil can make it out well enough. “Okay, love. I’ll bring you the moon.”

[roodiaries]

Can’t All Be Peaches & Cream: Citrus Farming, My Car & the Working Hostel (Renmark, SA)

Apologies, because it's very late and very long, but finally here is my blog about what I did from late July to early December 2016. This article may be the most negative one so far, but I committed to writing an honest account of my time in Australia so I'll keep to my word. It can't all be peaches and cream. In fact, it's oranges, with no cream, no bowl and no spoon.

It seems a while ago, but I was happy to end my Tasmanian adventure and head back to the Aussie mainland in late July. I was ill on my first nightbus journey on the continent, a 10-hour cross-state one from Melbourne to Adelaide, capital of South Australia and the country's fifth-largest city. It might have been because I was feeling flat on arrival, but I immediately disliked the City of Churches, which was disappointing because I was just conforming to all the stereotyped opinions of Adelaide as the 'Boring' Capital. I ended up back there five more times and my opinion still hasn't budged: its spacious streets and quiet centre might sound pleasant in a city of 1.3 million, but there's a serious lack of atmosphere throughout most of the CBD, while its empty, insipid and uninspiring streets are a ghostly shell at night and not much better in the day-time.

Saying that, I had a good time there with my mate Mark from university. We found some very good bars with live music and cheap 'pints' (for some reason, South Australia has smaller pints than actual pints, so when you order a 'pint', it's really a schooner (425ml) in the rest of Oz; I guess SA just does whatever it wants). We also rented a little Honda and cruised down the Fleurieu Peninsula to seaside towns like Victor Harbor, Goolwa and the mouth of the mighty River Murray, Australia's longest at 2500km. As it turned out, I would be living on this very river, far upstream in the Riverland heart of darkness, for the foreseeable future. Mark and I also visited the famed Barossa Valley north of Adelaide for some wine-tasting. Not knowing anything about wines, we turned up at the Rockford Winery in Tanunda and just asked the woman to tell us everything. “You've never been to a winery before?” she asked, puzzled, as if we'd just told her we'd never heard of Steve Irwin. We knew wine was from grapes and that was about it, but learned a lot that day and found the knowledge intoxicating... or was that the alcohol?

I moved to the fruit-picking hotspot of Renmark (300km north-east of Adelaide, near the tri-state border with Victoria & New South Wales) on 26 July, to finish collecting my 40-odd days left that I needed for the second year visa. I planned perhaps 3-4 weeks here, but didn't end up leaving until 7 December! Renmark became the first irrigation settlement in Australia in 1887, designed so fruit could be cultivated, and is now surrounded by various fruit farms (from stonefruit to nectarines) so it felt appropriate that I was here to work in that very industry 129 years later. However, the appropriateness of the job did not overcome its drawbacks. I spent July & August picking oranges for $25-29 per bin, making around $250 per week (enough for rent, crap beer and little else). It was probably the worst job I've ever done, at least in the hard work-to-wages ratio. You were mostly put in pairs: I had a few different partners (Jakiah, Suki, Kira, Pete), but the one I worked with the most was Ellie from Taiwan, and we worked at the same speed and enjoyed longer lunch breaks. The main trials involved high ladders (teetering, tottering, collapsing), heavy bags weighing down on your neck/back, branches belligerently poking you in the face and scratching your arms to shit (so you wore a sock over them and got sweaty instead), the occasional large spider, and eagle-eyed supervisors constantly telling you to pick the oranges you definitely couldn't reach and then doing something with the ladder that you were unable to do to make it look embarrassingly easy. I spent most of the time frustrated, bored, stung, sunburnt, sweaty, unmotivated and panting heavily beneath a hot sun wondering why my life had taken this turn for the worse. Things even became animalistic at stages: when thirsty I would resort to biting the orange open with no patience to peel the entire skin, and then simply squeeze the juicy goodness into my general face area to try and imbibe some vitamin C. It was my revenge against this malevolent fruit.

Thankfully, Kevin (the hostel owner) found me a new job with his old school mate, Humphrey, in September. It was on a private organic farm called Fat Goose Fruits, exporting oranges, lemons, avocados, mandarins and grapefruit across Australia and some to Malaysia. It was run by Humphrey and his wife Michelle, and they followed organic practices, using sheep and geese to keep the weeds down (and feeding the geese oranges unfit for sale), keeping away from harmful pesticides and using compost instead. My job was hourly paid ($22.16) in the little packing shed next to the house, running the fruit through the machines and sorting it into five different grades: bin (rotten or split fruit); 'seagulls' box (for the general public – slightly damaged but not that bad); juice (for ugly ones or with big marks on the skin); second-grade for netting; first-grade for loose in the large cardboard bins or in the 17kg boxes. It took me a while to get the hang of netting in particular, and Humphrey got annoyed one morning when my hands were cold and I kept dropping oranges (“stop fumbling, you need to be quicker than this!”) But he was a top bloke, and we had many in-depth chats about politics, history and travel, all while listening to the full ABC Radio programme which I grew to love, especially the Phillip Adams section at 4pm. As time went by, Humphrey left me alone more (he's a busy guy, with a prominent position in the Renmark Irrigation Trust while running a business), and I was given more and more responsibility, which I enjoyed. I still fumbled and dropped stuff from time to time of course, and will never be the fastest packer. I was often distracted/fascinated by the huge quantity of spiders that lived in the shed: wispy ones, red-backs and hunstman in particular. A few times, I had a giant fang-bearing huntsman crawl over the orange I was holding and scare the crap out of me!

I did other odd jobs when in Renmark, including working as a dishwasher in Chill-N-Grill restaurant at weekends, tutoring my friends' Chinese supervisor in English twice a week, and other farm jobs, including at Gillainey's, a larger scale packing shed where I injured my arm, attaching spiral clips to irrigation tubes in a vineyard, constructing solar panel frames in a garden, putting up a fence at Kevin's farm for his giant pigs while they shat shamelessly and tried to eat literally anything (including a chainsaw), and picking small green plums at a farm owned by an eccentric Lebanese Christian called Moses, who told us about kangaroos biting the trees which made them scared and the fruit smaller. The funny thing was, I didn't necessarily think he was crazy for having this view... That's Renmark! The tutoring was definitely my favourite of the jobs as I was actually able to use my mind to excel, something I hadn't done much when working in Australia.

I also did a sleep study in Adelaide for 5 days in late August, getting paid a bit of money for that. I had my own room, which was nice, but was observed and studied by a bunch of PhD students the whole time, and we weren't allowed to know the time or leave the lab. There were six of us on the study (four Brazilians and one Indian), and we had three hour-long mealtimes per day, and saw the students a lot when they tested us, so it felt fairly sociable. It was mostly reaction-time and stress-related tests and questionnaires throughout the day, more tedious and repetitive than anything else. During much of the day you had free time to read or watch films (you spent more time deciding from the long list than watching, like with Netflix). At night, we had about 15 different wires gelled all over our head and a few on our chest, so that they could monitor heart and brain activity and would know when we fell asleep or were dreaming! On the last morning, all of us (in our separate rooms) had to make a 5-minute speech to the wall about our life, immediately after having woken up, which was extremely weird and awkward. “Ummm, I was born... I went to school... this one time in IT, Atkin poured out the hole-puncher on my head...” Haha.

The negative aspects of working long – usually 8-10-hour – days alone at Humphrey’s sometimes took its toll (depending on how much coffee I'd had and what radio segment was on). I would often return to the hostel feeling flat, tired and antisocial, and be overwhelmed when entering the back gate to a swathe of chatty, beer-drinking hostel friends, unable to escape and feeling like I was making a statement of non-sociality if I retired to my room too early, which I hate. I really value my privacy and I received none in the hostel, which sometimes got me down. Cooking is also something I have never enjoyed and something that others seem to spend time dedicating themselves to, hence I was often judged for cooking basic, strange or generally terrible things (because I'm easily pleased and have unsophisticated tastebuds apparently), and that's another part of hostel life I dislike. To be honest, I’ve left my comfort zone many times - and I never regret that - but it doesn’t mean you’re going to enjoy everything. I’d say I’m well and truly over the hostel life and hope to never spend more than a few days in one again. Anyway, I talk more about my ‘home’ away from home below...

Hostel life was a major factor in memories of my time in Renmark. I was at another working hostel, the legendary Renmark & Paringa Backpackers, a long low building with a large backyard and intimidatingly metallic chef's kitchen always choc-a-block full of backpackers from all over. Well, when I was there the predominant nationalities were always either Italian, German or French as people came and went. But why am I grouping people only based on nationality? It is something that everyone – myself included – tend to do, as it's more convenient. Why not on something more personality-based? Because nationality matters a lot to most people, I guess. Common stereotypes prevail, as a joke and for real, like the French speaking English with a strong accent, or Italians being over-dramatic, or Germans being clinical and organised. But everyone has their own individual quirks, independent of and also heavily influenced by their own geographies. Generally everyone got along and there really weren't any proper cliques, though people are naturally inclined to speak to others in their native tongue. It was extremely social and everybody knew each other's names. My stay of four and a half months, though ridiculously long, was about average; some stayed for much longer. Kevin the owner was a joker, but very helpful in finding jobs for people (as mentioned above). He wasn't best pleased when I reversed my car into the gas tank, or when I split the girls' bathroom door with a shoulder-barge when drunk... I was trying to help someone trapped inside in case you were wondering!

Lots of localised events went on: impromptu music sessions (there were some talented musicians, especially Stefano & Rocco); intense weekend games of poker to win $50; movie nights where people came in, asked the name of the movie, had to have it repeated because they didn't understand, and then realised they'd never heard of it and walked off; giant group meals & the sharing of vegan/non-vegan philosophies; getting eaten by hungry non-vegan mosquitoes; the odd cross-state trip to Mildura, VIC for shops and cinema; a nice cold shower beer; 'the pub' versus guzzling goon/Hollandia and smoking out the back; free haircuts with Jonny; Pop burning the rice & playing chess; with Leon, Sam & Rose making movie titles with 'Baris' in the name; Wednesday evening library sessions using the only Wifi in town; lots of leaving nights and goodbye cards; everyone asking how many days you had left; kids robbing shoes, speakers and beers in the night; huge storms and a state-wide black-out; some disastrous off-roading; the election of Donald Trump; sitting by the river or pool, kayaking and much much more.

For my part, I couldn't shake my past as an English teacher, and as one of only three native speakers for most of the period, I ended up imparting knowledge of my language and being asked to correct/explain grammar on a daily basis. Not the coolest role, but I relished being an authority on something. I even had to explain to a certain Yorkshire lass the concept of uncountable and countable nouns ('much money' versus 'many bags full of money'). It's difficult to single out people to mention from the hostel, but particularly close friends that I spent the most time with and deserve a mention include my room-mates Sam (the Barnsley-Italian full of knowledge) & Tatjana (confident optical Germanic picking machine); Rose (talented artist & cider-lover), Baris (the Saver of My Car, also a movie legend in his own right), Eisen (the coolest Asian guy in town), Luca (Gianloser, Roadhouse) Yusuke (the Yusuking), Mady & Robin (meine schätz) and Julien (French gay icon). But if you're reading and your name's not there, I am still thinking of you ;) Pop, Elise, Julia, Leon, Carina, Jonny, Thomas, Roxane, Thibaut, Simone F., Rocco, Stefano, Carolina, Simone D.C., Lulu, Cyp, Soo, Kim, Yumena, Sori, Pille (see I mentioned you too!), Triin, Sim, Katri, Adrien, Judy, Michele, Jules, Eddie, Sophia, Mollie, Stu, Rupert, Em, Simon, Carine, Valerie, Jeremie, Manu & Ninja.

In SA I also did one of the things you need to do in life: I bought my first car! A 1997 white EL Ford Falcon sedan. I have a decent knowledge on some subjects, but I know nothing about cars. I didn't even know what 'sedan' meant – huh, is that a make of car? People often ask what 'model' the car is... is Ford a model? Or Falcon? Or the EL part? I really don't know, or care. I took a pretty random French guy, Nick, with me to look at one of the cars advertised on Gumtree during a frantic two-day car-searching bonanza in Adelaide back in August. We had to drive in his car all the way up to Middle Beach 45 mins north of the city, where vast light-brown windy fields swept across the landscape out west towards the sea. The guy selling the car was a tall Aussie bloke named Paul who lived in a tin shed constructed mostly from corrugated iron, with wind turbines for power. There was a hilariously awkward exchange where Paul offered us both a scotch and Coke (Coca-Cola, obviously) when we went into his house to do the paperwork – which we declined – and a few minutes later, Nick said “I noticed before that you offered us some cocaine... I was wondering, do you have any MDMA?” I laughed pretty hard about this misunderstanding, since the guy was over the age of 23 and not a student on a night out, and therefore definitely did not have any MDMA, or cocaine. For $650 in cold hard cash, I was happy with my purchase and felt incredibly free that I could just go wherever I wanted, after years of relying on public transport and other people. Mum had been scared I'd drive to the Outback and maybe die, but I reassured her that the car was far too crap for me to attempt any seriously remote journeys.

The car, which was never properly named (the number plate read 'WDM' so I sometimes called it 'Weapon of Destructive Mass'), was a problem child to say the least. I was locked out of it standing in Maccas car park for about 2 hours one evening after work with Ellie, waiting for the RAA guy to break in. This happened again a week later when I forgot to tell Simon at the hostel not to lock it when he borrowed it! Then on our weekend hostel trip down to Adelaide & the Barossa in September, the air filter exploded as the car backfired, shell-shocking me and Baris with our heads under the bonnet. It ran only on LPG, which isn't good for the car, and backfiring is not uncommon. But there was a hole in the petrol tank for some reason so I couldn't run it on petrol. Backfiring incidents occurred regularly over the next few weeks, especially at Maccas, and one time I had to be towed back from Woolies car park by Kevin because it wouldn't start! That was very embarrassing, and I copped a lot of grief from friends about how terrible my car was. Then as a final leaving present, a giant hole inexplicably appeared in the muffler, so whenever I accelerated, people living in the next town were deafened by the noise. All of these problems ran along to the legendary soundtracks of the only three tapes I had and played on repeat for the entire 3 months I owned the car: Sting & The Police, Frank Sinatra and INXS. I felt fast and free as I belted out “There's a little black spot on the sun today!” when cruising down the vast empty freeway. I sold the car for a pathetic $100 in the end, but it was a relief to get rid of it and not have to drive to the Outback and burn it. It was certainly a learning experience if nothing else.

My time in Renmark will not be forgotten any time soon for better or worse and saw some of my darkest days in a long time, and many times I could only dream of moving on. But eventually I did, because all things come to an end. At times that can be depressing, but at other times it's very uplifting. And bonds formed in such surroundings are all the stronger for it. In fact, writing this post has made me see that I did actually have some very good times in Renmark too, in amongst all the dullness, hard work and feeling trapped. This blog post has now (thankfully?) come to an end but see below for photos, inside jokes & more. Blog about my trip to Asia soon to come...

Thanks for reading,

Oliver