Joy

I had a super wonderful weekend.

Friday night Janie came over to have shabz dinner with my housemate n I. Janie is a doctor from Melbourne and is incredibly impressive. Tall, blonde, thin, smiley, bubbly, energetic, fit/sporty, funny.. Honestly, she's perfection. I'd made lasagne and fruit crumble for dinner and I'd say it all went pretty well.  We hung out and chatted til it was too late for anything else n we went to bed. Shabz morning, Zoe (my housemate) n I went for a walk, we wandered through the markets and along the river. Then we came come, had some lunch n lounged/napped the rest of the afternoon. Shabbat arvo we walked over to Janie's house for a picnic. It was a bit awkward that walk. I didn't carry anything over b/c it was still shabz but I wasn't too keen to go explaining that whole thing (thus far I'd managed to avoid explaining shabbat to Zoe, except for the Friday night dinner things). So Zoe was carrying two bags and she was just too polite to ask me to take one for her. But I just didn't know how to explain to her shabbat without sounding a bit nuts/crazy. But so that I won't seem like an asshole who doesn't carry things I probably will. In any case, the dinner picnic was lovely. It was vegetarian (as is everything in Katherine since everybody I meet is a do-gooder greenie), we lay a blanket out on the grass lit some candles and had a great evening. There were a heap of ex-pats from Melbourne or Sydney who were doctors and lawyers and teachers. Good fun.

Sunday morning we got up super early and John (my housemate) took Zoe n I to Nitmiluk (Katherine) Gorge. Another guy from Melbourne called Glen joined us. He's an environmental educator. We wanted to go canoeing in the gorge but there weren't any. So we did a long hike. It was 6 hours of hiking plus about 2 hours of swimming along the way. It was the lily pond walk, about 20 kms round trip. You walk to all these beautiful little ponds and water falls along the way to the gorge. We went swimming in one it was totally incredible. There was also a very impressive waterfall just before the end. We had a bit of a shower under that. It was breathtaking. And then the gorge itself was stunning. After the 8 hour of hiking. We did another little hike (about 1hr round trip) up a little mountain they have in the park to watch the sun set. It was really the perfect day.

Sunday was Territory Day. The day the Northern territory celebrates independence from South Australia. It is also the only day of the year that fireworks are legal in the NT. So after the hike, John took Zoe n I to the show grounds to see the fireworks. They were pretty exciting. Very pretty and loud. Yet, b/c individuals could do fireworks the whole  town sounded like a war zone. 

Today was a pretty good day at work. I was given the task of preparing all the files for Borroloola. So preparing the pre-trip report. Making sure the clients know we are coming, what documents they'll need to bring, what the court list is like etc. It's good work and it should be interesting. I got to interview my first clients today more or less by myself. One was a woman whose child had been kidnapped by her ex-partner and is now seeking a recovery order. She was breastfeeding a 3 year old during the interview. Now that's fucked. Also, the 3 year old is her 2nd child and she's younger than me.  The other was a woman who reckons she lied in court to get her boyfriend into prison and now she feels sorry. So she could get 15 years in prison for that. More than anything I'm not sure if she really did lie then or if she's lying now to get her boyf out of prison.

Tonight I made spinach and ricotta pie for my housemates.  It was super yummy.

So I'd say this week is going to be above average. It's definitely looking up. I get the car this week one day n I'll probably go to the hot springs in Mataranka about 100kms away. Maybe I'll bring somebody along with me. Maybe I won't. We'll see.

Joy