Pablo and me, and other stories

I have a bit of time spare. I'm technically at work, but I only have one patient in CCU, and no-one to clerk in, so I felt it was time to talk about Pablo, and catch up on a few more things that I may have missed over the last few action-packed weeks.

Pablo is Kate and Ben's 10 month old Golden Labrador puppy. Typically of Lab puppies he is cute, with big brown eyes, giant paws for his size and likes to lick everyone in sight. He is also pure evil! Possibly the most hyperactive thing on the planet he makes Marley from the book and film look like a little angel. As mentioned briefly in my last entry, Cat and I were dog sitting for Kate and Ben while they went to lounge around on beaches in Thailand, which is how my association with Pablo began. He was still recovering from an injury to his back leg, as he had jumped out of a moving car, so when we first moved in to Kate and Ben's he was quite subdued.

This did not last long.

As the fortnight progressed he became more and more boisterous, as it became clear that his injury was healing. And the shenanigans he got up to - he ate Kate's plants, he beheaded all of his toys, he scratched holes into the wooden balcony that he sleeps on, he jumped up on Cat and me ripping her clothes and putting his foot in my crotch, he scratched George on her thigh, and the little son-of-a-bitch (literally) bit me on the one sunburnt part of my body after my weekend in the Whitsundays! And when that body part is the Achilles' tenon, trust me it hurts!

However, his evilest (and also funniest) action was when Cat and I took him to the ebach for a little walk. He spotted a couple of young teenage girls playing beach volleyball about 100 metres away and immediately ran towards them, jumping up at them and trying to steal their ball - after all, any ball on the beach had to be for him, right?! After a short struggle, which ended up with him back on his leash and me out of breath, we took him further up the beach, and felt that he could be trusted enough to be let off his leash again. Stupid us! He immediately ran back to the girls, and once he realised that they did not find him jumping up at them endearing he went in the huff and decided to take a crap in the corner of the pitch that they had set out for their game! At this point, the girls decided to abandon their game and go home. I swear that when he eventually dies, in many years time, he will be going to doggy hell and taking over the place!

So that deals with Pablo.

In other news, I never mentioned the Mackay races. These took place on my second weekend in Mackay, and were grand fun. The ladies dressed up in their finest frocks, the men wore shirts and ties, and we sipped the finest offerings from the bar (well OK, I had coke). I was also successful in winning at two of the races. My success was not due to my ability to read the odds, but rather was based on choosing the horse which was my favourite number, or because I liked the name. This caused great upset with Andy who was studiously checking the odds for each horse, their recent form, and how they had fared on the Mackay track in previous years, and losing on each bet! I was quite pleased to say that I went home $70 richer.

I am also pleased to say that I now have a home to live in. I will be living in Eimeo in a four bedroomed house with Cat, Tori and Andy. We have two lving rooms, a big entertainment centre and barbecue, a boat shed (not sure how useful that will be), and best of all, a pool. Awesome! Otherwise, not too much else has happened recently, though at the weekend, I'm off to Brisbane with Cat and Zoe. Should be great!

The Cast of Characters

At long last, I have finally got around to filling in a cast of characters. Here are the people who important in my trip out to Oz:

Cat - the little blonde. A friend from university, we decided to come out to Australia sometime in November last year, while on holiday in Italy with Morag, another of our friends. Cat is a fan of science-fiction and fantasy like me, and has brought many DVDs of Battlestar Galactica for us to watch at our leisure. Huzzah!! Surprisingly good at poker (which even she never knew), she abandoned me in Singapore to rot in a Japanese prison...! She's also notable for trekking through the rainforest near Mackay in high heels.

Zoe - the middle blonde. A friend whom I worked with in Derby as a lowly F1, we quite randomly applied and accepted jobs in Mackay without the other knowing the other was doing it. Frequently found sleeping, Zoe is renowned for being less than punctual at times, which was frequently a source of competition between us when we worked together as to who could arrive the latest. She also likes asking strippers what their parents think of their job.

George - the tall blonde. A friend of Zoe's who I met on a trip to Alton Towers. As we've already discovered she cheats at Towns, Cities and Countries, a game of her own devising. Possibly the only other person ever to read The Man Who Was Thursday, we have surprisingly similar tastes in books and films. Except that she quite enjoyed the remake of Fame.

Matt - another friend from university, Matt moved over here with his wife, Lucy, shortly after they got married. They are now expecting twins (as I correctly predicted), and are concerned at the number of times they will have to change nappies (the current conservative estimate is 25 times per day). Matt has surprised me greatly by showing enormous culinary skills which he never displayed at university because, and I quote, "If people knew I could cook, I'd have had to do it a lot more." He's also possibly the only person whose Yorkshire accent has got stronger after a year in a foreign country.

Andy - a PHO in medicine, he's another English doctor who has just finished his F2 year. It seems the medical workforce out here is almost entirely made up of us. Andy enjoys stroking other people's hair, getting his head massaged at Stefan's and doing lumbar punctures on fat women. He's out here with his girlfriend...

...Tori - short for Victoria. She's an A&E nurse, and the young one, being a whole four years younger than me (damn her!). She's also an accomplished pole dancer (so Cat and Zoe say), and cooks a surprisingly good chicken breast for someone who is a vegetarian. She also owns an extremely cute chihuahua puppy called Juno.

Ken - another of the PHOs, who trained in England and came over after F2, though he is originally Malaysian, and took seven months off to travel before starting in Mackay about six months before we all arrived. He like birds (of the feathered variety) and sticking his hand down snake holes. He has also had malaria, but didn't realise this until the raging fever he had for two weeks didn't clear up.

Ben and Kate - are two of the kindest people I've met. They allowed Cat and me to stay at their house (which is a gorgeous old Queenslander) while they gallavanted off to Thailand, and didn't even complain when we killed their plants. Kate is the only Australian PHO in the medical department, and Ben is an audiologist who moved here because he was given an offer he couldn't refuse! Also the owners of Pablo, who most definitley deserves his own post.

So that's it. The main characters in my life at the moment, though I'm fairly sure that more will be added as time goes on, and some will leave, as sadly people are wont to do. So before I get too philosophical I had best stop here, and start saving up stories of Pablo, the world's naughtiest dog!

The Whitsunday Islands

Last time I promised a little summary of the characters that I've been around for the past few weeks, but I'm afraid that that's going to have to wait a little bit, as at the weekend I went for a trip to the Whitsunday Islands, and I want to tell you about it while it's still fresh in my mind.

It started on Saturday morning; Zoe, George and I left early (well, for us), to drive up to Airlie Beach, well known as the party place of the East coast of Australia. It didn't start well to be honest, as I tactlessly (ME?!) insulted Zoe's driving, which led to a frosty silence on the drive up - until we arrived and I looked around and discovered that Zoe had actually been asleep for the whole two hours drive up. The hotel we were staying at was serviceable. OK, it was a bit of a dive, but it was clean enough, and a place to sleep. There were big groups of football (Australian Rules, so what passes for football here) teams who were out for their annual piss up staying at the place, which was quite amusing, until they were whipping each other with wet towels on the balcony outside of our bedroom at six in the morning. Somehow they kind of lost their exuberant charm at that point.

The first thing that we decided to do in Airlie was to get to the town centre and book a trip to the Whitsundays for us and a friend, Andy. He is another of the PHO's in Mackay, and as he had the weekend off he had arranged to meet us the next day. Unfortunately, my usually impeccable sense of direction let me down significantly, as I confidently marched us in completely the wrong direction, and like a typical man I refused to admit we were going the wrong way, or stop and ask for directions. On the plus side, as part of out 3 mile enforced hike we got some lovely views of the harbour, so it's not as though Zoe and George can complain that much!

We finally arrived in Airlie hungry and tired, but after a delicious, hearty lunch, we managed to set about the task of booking a trip, then went off to look through the shops (something Mackay is sadly lacking). After a brief stint at the hotel to freshen up we then went out for dinner at a steak house (which was an odd choice, as Zoe is a strict vegetarian), whereupon we supped on a dinner of fresh kangaroo. Yum! It tasted very much like beef, and George and I pitied Zoe for her paltry nachos and soup. The evening then took a turn for the uber-friendly (and in Britain, socially forward) when a fresh faced young man who went by the name of "Puppy" decided to forego meeting his friends in the pub to chat up George. He very confidently introduced himself to us, as though we had been waiting all night just for him to turn up, before launching into a story of his life, and how he was here playing football. I suspect he tired of us making jokes about how young and Australian he was, as after half an hour of talking to complete strangers he decided to up and leave, never to see us again. How sad. After a few (or more) drinks, the three of us decided to cal it a night ourselves.

The next day brought the promise of the long awaited trip to the Whitsundays. As usual it started with me trying to get Zoe and George to wake up (which I achieved by serenading them with songs from Wicked) in time for us to leave on our trip. And as usual, we were late for the bus picking us up! However, we met Andy at the pier where our boat left, and we set off on "Wild Thing," our ride for the day. Wild Thing is a power boat which the Australian government have deemed to be unsinkable, which our skipper tried his best to disprove, by throwing us around in the surf, and bumping us around in the wakes of other boats. It was absolutely awesome!!! We were bouncing up and down on the sides of the boat, hanging on to ropes for dear life. And I loved every minute!

Our first stop on this journey was to see some Aboriginal paintings in a cave on Hook Island. They were very pretty, but admittedly, not what most of us had come for. The next stop, however, was. Snorkelling; the name can conjour up a lot of things to different people. To me, there is a mixture of terror and excitement. Terror, because I can't swim; excitement because, well, it's snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef! Luckily, I was provided with a life jacket, and after a few seconds panicking because I was underwater, but able to breathe, I started to thoroughly enjoy the experience. The amount of life that is supported by the reef is unimaginable, and there were so many fish that could be seen, that it was almost overwhelming. Obviously, Nemo was on the top of my list of things to see, and see him I duly did! But the number of other fish was spectacular - there were blue one, yellow ones, pink ones, green ones, black and white striped ones, I lost count. It truly took my breath away.

After all the excitement we went to chill out on Whitehaven Beach, which must hold some kind of title as the most beautiful beach in the world. It is about a mile long, and pure white sand surrounded by aquamarine waters and Australian rainforest, and as the island it is on is uninhabited, almost completely unspoilt. Another hearty lunch awaited us on the beach, provided by the company we'd come with, followed by several hours of sunbathing (well, for the sun seekers, the paler among the crew headed for the shade provided by the trees). I decided to take a walk up the beach by myself, and after just a few minutes found myself completely alone, the only sound the sea crashing into the fine sand beneath my feet. It's not often that experiences like that come along, and trust me, I relished it.

After a further powerboat ride back to Airlie the four of us arrived; windswept, covered in saltwater spray, slightly sunburnt, and having loved every single second of the day.

A long time coming

OK, so I haven't really kept things up to date here, but I plan to rectify that just now. After arriving in Mackay completely knackered, George and I met Zoe in the airport, and she kindly took us to the hospital to pick up the keys to our accomodation. This was all very exciting, and I was quickly dropped off at a lovely big house, Mackay style! This means that it's a one storey house with sliding doors, a verandah, fans in every room, and ants everywhere! And naturally, being British, because I've just said that it's a lovely house, I'm going to spend the next paragraph complaining about it. The front door has an air cylinder attached which hisses every time is closes, which has me looking around for a snake every time I leave. I've also noticed that there are cockroaches in the house (I find their dead bodies every few days, which I promptly hoover up), and as everyone knows I hate cockroaches; they make me scream and run around like a little girl (trust me I look so masculine when it happens, it's no wonder I haven't got a girlfriend). It also took me ages to find the air conditioning, which was a bit of a problem intially!

The job itself is pretty good - I'm in CCU where I am technically considered a registrar, or PHO as they are called out here. This is a bit worrying as I am really a fairly junior SHO, and quite indolent, lazy, lethargic, whatever you want to call it. This does mean that the consultants get called a lot more than a real reg would call them, but it's good fun. I've got to do a couple of cardioversions, and I also have to do stress testing every day. The first time is pretty exciting, but after that they get a bit routine, although the patient I saw yesterday who developed an SVT during the test was maybe a bit too exciting. However, I do enjoy introducing myself as "Dr Anthony Baird, CCU registrar!" OK, I admit it - I'm on a power trip!

The weekends have been the best bit though. It's always so warm and sunny, that the other PHOs and I have been up to all sorts of shenaningans. The first weekend Zoe drove George and I up to Cape Hillsborough where we saw wallabies jumping around on the beach, and we paddled in the surf. The next day we went to Eungella National Park, where a little walk through the rainforest was in order. We saw some native turkeys before deciding it was time to head off to see some playpuses. Sadly the platypuses (platypi?) were not playing that game, and steadfastly refused to come out to play. There were plenty of turtles and kingfishers, but those damn platypuses just would not come out! I'm convinced that as soon as we left they immediately came out and did a Busby Berkeley synchronised swimming routine.

We also had a wee trip to Finch Hatton Gorge. Now Finch Hatton has these bugs that produce noxious substances the way allergy sufferers produce snot. Just touching someone's skin causes it to come out in sores. They are imaginatively titled Finch Hatton Beetles, and are best known for flying into Cat's eye and causing her to get conjunctivitis, keratitis and uveitis. Her eye was so bad that she couldn't see for a week and had to wear sunglasses at work because her red, swollen, pussy eye was so bad that she was freaking out patients! However, this trip was fine, there were no eye incidents and we ended up in a gorge with a waterfall where crazy American tourists were diving into the pool under the waterfall.

So that brings us up to date with all the events that have occurred so far. Future installments will include a little cast of characters of everyone who is in Mackay, and hopefully even some photos if I manage to wake up early enough tomorrow to get to the shops, before heading to the Whitsundays for a wee cruise and a bit of sunbathing on a white sand beach. Ah, bliss.

Almost there

The day after I posted my last entry I was lucky enough to receive some good news - my visa had come through! And they wanted me to start on Monday... As it was Wednesday I quickly realised that this was not going to happen especially as I was going forward in time. That's a fight you just can't win.

Luckily, I had a quick word with George (who like me is also working in Mackay, had had visa problems and hence had not started in August either) and we both felt that leaving on Sunday was much more convenient. The flights were booked quickly and then, on Sunday, we were off, flying from Newcastle.

I have to admit that I know George only a little, having only met her three times before through Zoe, our mutual friend. And one of those times was a trip to Alton Towers, so most of that meeting was spent screaming as we were whisked through the air at 80mph so conversation was not particularly forthcoming or deep then. So I was slightly aprehensive about the prospect of a 48 hour flight (including a stop over in Dubai) with someone I barely knew. However I had nothing to worry about. George is a particularly fine conversationalist with a nice line in Top 5 Lists, and a game called Capitals, Cities and Countries, the rules of which seem to change to match her whims and whether it looks like she might lose! So we got on famously on our trip to Sydney.

We did have a slight blip in Dubai though. The airport hotel is surprisingly difficult to find, and our search took us through customs (whoops) and into the country ourselves. It was rather difficult explaining this to passport control when we had to get back into the airport 15 minutes after leaving it, and unfortunately my Arabic isn't what it used to be now that I'm no longer smuggling arms to Iraq and Libya... (Too soon for a Libya joke?). We did manage to get to the hotel eventually - it turns out we had completely missed the man holding a big sign with our names on it outside our arrival gate. For someone who is still stuck in student mode and tends to stay in hostels, it was quite the luxury to stay in a boutique hotel with free food and drinks. I have to admit I felt like Sinbad as I feasted on the complementary grapes and bananas. All I needed was the scantily clad serving girls for the true Arabian feel, but George was not willing to comply with this. Ah well...

The next leg of our journey has taken us to Sydney, a gruelling 13 hour flight, which has left me feeling distinctly less than fresh. When you can't change your underwear for over 20 hours, frankly you just feel grotty. True. Also, Sydney airport (I am sad to say - and I must type this furtively as I am sitting at a computer terminal in the airport typing this now) is not living up to the high standards set by Dubai. There were massive queues casued by flight cancellations (not ours), and then the baggage transpoter failed so they had to stop checking people in (luckily we had already checked our bags in).

Well, we're almost about to board to Brisbane for our connecting flight to Mackay, Zoe has promised to pick us up at the airport, I have an address to go to for my accomodation overnight, so I'm hoping a good night's sleep will set me up well beore I start on the CCU in the morning. Things, I can't help feeling after all the trouble getting here, are looking up.

Everything must (false) start somewhere

Some of you may know my friend Morag - she went travelling for a year and kept a (highly successful and amusing) blog during that time. You can even check it out at moragchrisite.blogspot.com if you haven't already. You might wonder what this has to do with me, but I'm heading off to Australia to work for a year (give or take a month or so), so I felt that I should try my hand at keeping a blog too. Who knows, it may even turn out to be mildly readable...

So I should start with my attempt at getting to Australia in the first place. You may think that this should be a nice easy thing to do, but this is me. Things are never easy with me - I can somehow manage to make the simplest thing a Herculean task. That is why I am starting this blog sitting on my bed in my parents' house, and not on a beach in Queensland!

Everything started back in August. I had just finished working in Lincoln, and was due to fly out to Australia a few days later. There was just one small, tiny problem - I had no visa. I'd been advised by the recruitment agency to apply for a Business eVisitor Visa while I was waiting for the temporary resident visa that would allow me to stay in Australia for the year. However, even this was not back when I was due to fly out. I discussed this with Cat, one of my friends who I will be working with in Australia, and we decided that, as we had already booked tickets, we should use them, and as we were staying in Singapore for a few days I could just check that the eVisitor visa came through whilst I was there. So, after a 13 hour flight to Singapore on a particularly unfriendly flight with Quantas (one air hostess in particular had the welcoming manner of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot combined) , Cat and I arrived. And boy was it hot and humid! Thank God for air conditioning is all I can say, and my reaction does not bode well for the coming year as Mackay, where I am working, regularly hits temperatures of 40 degrees in their summer!

So Cat and I did what everyone does in Singapore - we shopped. Well, window shopped. And then an e-mail came. My application for a Business eVisitor Visa had been rejected...

There's no denying that I was pretty disappointed about this, but I figured, what the hell, it was a possibility, and since I was in the area I could spend time in Japan, or some such place. Or at least I could if my credit card had a decent limit. Let this be a lesson to you - if you're going away for any extended time make sure you have a credit card with a limit greater than £350. Since I could not afford flights on such a paltry sum, and they did not accept a debit card I had to go home.

However, the next morning Cat and I were woken up by my phone ringing furiously (well, as furiously as the Nokia tune will allow - come on, I have to add some drama to the story). On the phone was Jenny, one of the ladies who works at Wavelength, the recruitment agency that Cat and I had gone through to get our jobs in Australia. And she sounded very upset. Our conversation went something like this:

"Where are you? We've heard from Mackay that you don't have a visa, and are in detention in Japan and that Cat abandoned you in Singapore."

"I'm sorry - what?!"

"We heard that you're in detention in Japan and I wanted to know if you need some legal advice or for me to itervene on your behalf."

"But I'm sitting in a youth hostel in Singapore, and Cat is here next to me. And I haven't been to Japan."

She was pretty relieved to hear this, as she had been on the verge of calling just about every airport in Japan to find out if I was there! I have to say that this was probably the best rumour that I've ever heard about myself! So once this was cleared up, Cat and I had one last day in Singapore before she departed for the working life and I headed back to Blighty to await my visa while watching daytime TV and eating more chocolate biscuits than is healthy for one man. Which essentially, is where I am now.