The Stanford Home for Wayward Girls

If you don't want to read my diatribe about my new landlord, feel free to skip to the **!

I'm beginning to realize that Michael sees this rental property as more of an old fashioned boarding house than an apartment rented out to independent adult human beings. He wants what's best for "his girls" at "the Attadale house" and he's thrilled to be helpful. Weibke (pronounced VEEP-ka) and Irena, my new roomies, tried to warn me...

When I looked at the room/property, I mentioned that I'd like to take a crack at gardening here. Climate is totally different, plants are different, but I like getting my hands dirty. Yesterday I learned that Michael took that request for permission as a mission statement for himself. He brought me a trailer full of dirt from the local compost heap, drove me to the garden supply store to pick up some plants and seeds, even dug up a self-rooted tomato plant from his own garden so that I might have one. So lovely!

Roses at Michael and Grace's house. Clearly he's good at this.

But then he doesn't stop. So I've got all my supplies and he's decided that gardening is now a group activity. After dropping me off last night with all my new things, I kept at it (he had instructed me to keep the plants in the shade "til tomorrow"). I planted my seeds. Planted my plants. Watered. Weeded. Poked around and generally got dirt under my nails. Then this morning I had some errands to run so I was out pretty early. When I got home around 1pm, I discovered that Michael had continued working on my plot. He left my plants as such but my seeds have all been trampled by him adding more soil (goodbye, carrots!) and popping in another tomato plant (so well-intentioned, but that's where my sunflowers were!) and digging new drainage along the wall (ta ta, arugula!). So Michael and I need to have a chat. He emailed me a bit ago to let me know he brought me some lovely loaves of bread that he gets for free when a local bakery over-produces and can't sell all their wares in a day and that he'll be by to garden between 5-6. Sigh.

Those water hoses used to be arugula and the clay cylinders used to be sun flowers. I guess I'll find out what he plans to put in them tonight between 5-6!

I guess I should have seen this coming when he applauded me for not bringing any alcohol home from the grocery store the day I arrived (I refrained from mentioning that I took care of that in the duty free section of the airport). And when he's stopped over several times every day so far. He would give me the shirt off his back if I asked for it, I'm certain, but I'm probably going to kill him if he doesn't give me some space. So.

**
Anyway, I've been really productive the past few days in terms of getting settled into my new place, exploring the area a bit more, and getting ready for my class! Found a local thrift store which I've patronized twice to purchase some home goods - a tea pot, a pitcher, a cup for my toothbrush, some tea towels, that sort of thing - and got my medical clearance today for diving. Australia has stricter rules for diving, so I had to do a complete hearing test, lung capacity test, and then explain to the very kind Scottish doctor that the exercise induced "asthma" I checked yes to was probably a bogus diagnosis from an over-zealous American doctor because I've never used the inhaler he proscribed anyway. So once we got that cleared up, I was free to go with an Aussie-affirmed clean bill of diving health.

Art at the Fish Shop

This afternoon I'm going to finish up watching some videos I need to do for class this weekend. I'm planning to pop over to the dive shop tomorrow to take my exam before going to my first ever cricket match! A guy from my class, a Welshie named Jack, is going to join me, so at least I'll have someone else to be hungover with on Saturday morning. Australia v Pakistan tomorrow afternoon at 4:30. Will report back once I know what the deal is for cheering.

By the Fremantle Market