I've been at the pensions place for just over a week now, and things have settled down into the daily routine. Open letters...sort into piles...enter onto spreadsheet...repeat. But as I said before, I don't mind this particularly as the money is good for a temp job (I got paid for the first time on Thursday) and as you can imagine, it has a stress level of zero. And there's the walking of course. I also quite like the commuting on the train. I sympathise with people who have to go across London on the Tube twice a day, as compared to them my daily commute is dead easy. Sydneysiders are always having a go at the train system (as most train users do), but I've always found them to be good. My daily journey takes about 9 minutes, and trains run every four minutes - so what have I got to complain about?
The other temp in the office is a middle-aged woman from New Zealand called Laurie. When I told her one of the prime motivations for me working was to earn the money necessary to go to New Zealand, she started telling me places worth visiting. By a co-incidence she's always wanted to visit Scotland, as she has distant relatives in the Shetlands (which are as different from Sydney as I can imagine). I found a map of Scotland, and started pointing out highlights - Dundee, Livingston, Stranraer - that kind of thing. She pointed at the Western Isles and said 'They have fairies out there', which was news to me. 'Fairies?' I asked. 'Yes - you can ketch a fairy to the islinds' she replied. You've got to love that Kiwi accent...
