November [week 2]
Laura & Mark - 8th November 1999
It's the Monday before Laura starts her official work in the centre of Adelaide so what we had to do today was buy some more comfortable and more black-looking shoes. We also had to have lots of fun as the rest of the week was already getting filled up by other appointments. We headed off towards the shops in Glenelg to have a quick look. On the way we stopped at the information centre to ask about sports clubs in the area and were disappointed to hear that there were only really tennis or bowls clubs. We got the addresses of some tennis courts so that we could always rent them for an afternoon when we were feeling active.
We then caught a bus into town, having given up with the shops in Glenelg and we stopped on the way again to go into Worksmiths. Here Laura told them her tax-file number and Mark asked again if they'd had any news (negative). We then continued to the centre where we visited the information SA office and found out some more phone numbers to call for possible jobs (they still had a copy of the Saturday paper that we hadn't bought this week). We called a couple of different charities and struck it lucky with a very friendly lady who worked for the charity that supports Huntington's disease. Mark agreed to drop past the office the following morning to get some more details and maybe even start working. The general idea seemed to be that you collect door-to-door between 3.00pm and 7.00pm Monday to Friday, and work for about 6 hours when you felt like it at the weekend. It seems that in this time you could expect to collect about $500 of which $300 would be yours (the rest going straight to the charity).
This sounded quite suitable as you could do it for as long or as short as you liked and it would tide Mark over until there was some more positive news from Worksmiths.
Contented that we had once again got a little closer, we went off to Tea Tree Plaza (a huge shopping mall) on the O-Bahn bus. Laura had never been on it before and so she excitedly filmed some of the journey. It really does cut straight through parkland and across creeks. It's just for the buses as cars would actually fall through the middle. The tracks are a little like train tracks only wide enough for the bus tyres to drive on. Little wheels stop them from flying off the tracks so the buses zoom off at 80km/h without hold-ups.
We arrived at Tea Tree Plaza and felt quite lost in the sheer size of it. The first stop was of course to look for luxury articles that we shouldn't be spending our money on like volleyballs and body-boards. We found both in the K-Mart and they were even reasonably priced. We bought a beach volleyball straight away and decided to come back for the body-boards another day.
Next was the continuing quest for shoes. It is in fact impossible to buy plain, black, no-heeled, closed, comfortable ladies shoes. Yes, of course men are allowed to wear black Doc Maarten style boots, but it seemed to be against the fashion laws for women. Having tried on lots of ridiculously oversized men's shoes and ridiculously undersized children's shoes Laura was on the verge of despair. Then, finally, a few minutes before we would both faint from fatigue, hunger and plain annoyance, we found some, and bought them straight away.
By this time it was too late to go into the hills as we had planned and instead we headed home, not until after having great difficulty pulling ourselves away from the multiplex cinema at Tea Tree Plaza though.
We got home and decided not too cook tonight, especially considering we had no food in the fridge anyway, so we were off in search of a nice take-away. We settled upon a fish 'n chips shop and ordered lots of chips, a hamburger, a hot-dog and two spring rolls. Just a small snack after the long day behind us. We got it home and tucked in, only for Laura to be a little disappointed that her spring rolls tasted like fish, but never mind, and egg tasted good with her lovely chips too. We watched Good News Week and again got a reasonably early night.
Laura & Mark - 9th November 1999
The alarm rang early again this morning and Laura got up to get the tram in to work. She was only a little behind as she half walked, half ran to the tram stop, leaving Mark to get up slowly a little later.
Laura - I just managed to catch the tram, making a mental note to allow for time to walk to the tram stop the following day, rather than leaving home when the tram was due to leave. I then got to town in time to half walk, half run to the Cheap as Chips store. I was there with a few minutes to spare and waited outside the shutters while one of the girls opened up. I was soon feeling a little settled having been given the task of helping to put stock out, which gave me a chance to get used to the locations of things within the shops.
The only disappointment was that the stock I had to help with first was some of that which I had only just done the week before while training. To make matters worse, they were very irritating Christmas boxes of three sizes one inside the other. These of course had to be unwrapped and separated before they could be priced and that was my first task.
Things were soon going smoothly and within no time it was lunch, I even had a chance to have a little chat to Mark when he came in to visit. At lunch time I walked off to have a little look around the food court and decided on a pasty to go with my sandwich. When I retired to the shop I had more stock to put out and was also continually interrupted by customers looking for things. One nice lady came over to ask about a small foot stool, which I hadn't seen yet so I in turn went to ask where they were. Once having been pointed in a general direction I was still unable to find it, so I apologised to the lady who said that she'd keep looking. A few minute later she reappeared and showed me the foot stool that she had eventually found. She thanked me again for my help and I apologised again, explaining that it was my first day there. She asked me my name, thanked me for a third time and went off to pay for the stool. An hour or so later I went across to my supervisor in search of a new task, and she said she'd had a phonecall about me. I was surprised and of course worried that it may have been a customer that was angry at me for something, but she said it was a lady who had called to compliment me on my helpfulness, so I smiled for the rest of the afternoon. At 16.00 (I was working until 17.30) my supervisor told me that I would be trained to use the till as they were so busy and didn't have enough people. So I spent the remainder of the afternoon battling with the computer and bar-code reader, trying to get used to the money properly, and trying simultaneously to be friendly to the customers.
It all worked quite well, only a few hick-ups that will of course not be detailed here. At 17.30 I went off to catch the tram back home, looking forward to my cooked dinner "à la Mark".
Meanwhile, Mark had been to visit the office from which he would hopefully be employed to collect money for Huntigton's disease. He had a nice chat with the lady there who was a volunteer and told him all he needed to know. They agreed that he would start on Thursday and that he would be collecting in the Glenelg area. That all sounded very good, so he went home to cook dinner. Not before stopping in to see how Laura was doing at work, and of course going past the Information SA office to use the computer.
He had chosen chicken kievs (known to be one of Laura's favourites), with French beans (one of his favourites), and potatoes (just because), and cooked it all up while waiting for the working girl to get home.
Once Laura got home we enjoyed our meal together and shared stories of the day before catching a bus to the Marion Megaplex to see a well-deserved film. Tonight's choice was "Blue Streak", a very good and recommended comedy. By the time the film was over, both of us were exhausted by the day's excitement and were happy to catch the next bus home, and to bed.
Laura & Mark - 10th November 1999
This was the last free day that the two of us would have together for quite a while, so we spent it doing not very much: simply preparing for the busy time to come. The weather decided not to co-operate with our plan to go to the beach, and so we didn't. Instead we went to the supermarket, and spent a good deal of the afternoon chatting, playing games and cooking dinner. We made a delicious pasta bake and enjoyed it thoroughly in front of lots of mind-blowing television. We sat through plenty of the kind of television programs for which only a small part of your brain need be awake. By the end of the evening (which wasn't very late as Laura would start work at 7.00am the next morning), both of us were satisfied that we had recovered from the past few days and were ready for the days ahead.
Laura & Mark - 11th November 1999
Today was Mark's first day of work, for which he had to mentally prepare himself to knock on people's doors and ask for a donation. Thankfully he had until the afternoon to do this and so he got up in a slow and leisurely fashion, enjoying his breakfast, his shower and his cleaning chores.
Laura on the other hand was out of bed and on a tram by 6.06am. This is not a very pleasant time to have to keep you're eyes open, and the lulling rocking of the tram was no help. She was however pleased to discover that she was not the only one destined to start at dawn that morning, there were in fact two others. Together they made a happy, if sleepy crew, pricing and unpacking before the birds had even begun their morning song. By the time the shop opened at 9.00am, the three of them felt that they had done their day's work, but sadly it would still be another 6 and a half hours before they could really go home.
Laura spent much of the morning on stock, and helped to relieve the pressure on the registers during the lunchtime rush. The day passed quickly and just as she felt she was beginning to wake up, it was time she was going home.
Just as Laura was beginning to dream of home, Mark was getting ready for his first door. Knock, Knock? He spent four hours repeating the drill knock, introduce himself, introduce the cause, wait for a donation. At the end of it all his feet were sore but he felt successful, he'd made roughly 70 dollars, not bad for a first day. and no-one had been all that rude either!
He went home to find Laura cooking and together they enjoyed the meal: pork chops, baked beans and boiled potatoes for Mark, omlet, baked beans and boiled potatoes for Laura.
By the time we had eaten, washed up, caught up on all the news, had a little ice-cream and put our feet up, it really felt like time for bed again, and so, not to argue with our body clocks, we decided it was.
Laura & Mark - 12th November 1999
We had reached another Friday, and time seemed to be flying: it would soon be Christmas.
Laura went off to work again in the morning, just not quite so early this time. The 7.00am start was not the best of fun, so she was glad to be starting at 10.00am instead. Mark had another day of work to look forward too as well, but spent the morning sleeping in and doing a little more shopping and cleaning.
For Laura, the day passed quickly and the customers were their usual interesting selves and it was soon time to go home to Mark, Pizza and "That thing you do".
Mark hadn't made so much money today after the good start Thursday, but returned home too, to Laura, Pizza and "That thing you do".
Laura & Mark - 13th November 1999
We got the bus into town together this morning, Laura to go to work, and Mark to watch the Adelaide Credit Union's Christmas Pageant. We caught an early bus in as there seemed to be lots of roads blocked off in preparation for the pageant. Mark found a good place to stand and wait for this, the world's third largest, long parade of floats, bands and clowns to come by. He positioned himself just outside the entrance from which escalators lead down to Cheap as Chips, so that Laura might be able to find him on her tea-break.
Meanwhile Laura went down those escalators and spent the first hour and a half at work selling mainly sweets, hats, sunglasses and folding chairs to all the happy pageant-watchers.
At 10.15am Laura was due for her tea-break, but she asked her boss if she could have it a little later instead so that she could see the pageant, and it was suggested that she take an early lunch-break at 11.00 when the parade was due to come past.
It was agreed, and Laura continued to sell chairs as the shop emptied of people while the first floats came past. By the time 11.00 came the parade was in full swing and Mark had already taken loads of photos from his good vantage point in the crowd. The floats were beautiful, each with it's own familiar theme and the streets were lined with thousands of supporters. Laura had already missed a Dutch float (with a big windmill, headed by two farmers in clogs, and surrounded by a field of tulips), a Peter Pan float (with Captain Hook's rowing boat filled to the brim with characters from the story) and loads of other Disney-style floats.
Once Laura had joined him, they watched together as a large purple dragon float (lead by knights) came past. Here followed floats with fairies and castles, lots of marching bands, including one with two members we actually knew (Gail's daughter and her boyfriend), a feast of other floats and finally: Father Christmas, standing proudly and waving from the top of his own huge float, complete with sleigh, reindeer, clouds, rooftops and smiley helpers.
After the parade had passed and the cheering for Father Christmas had subsided (and all the kids had run off after the last floats), we went to grab a quick lunch together. Laura had a croissant, and Mark had a hotdog, before we parted once more to go to our own respective work.
Laura returned to an absolutely chock-a-block Cheap as Chips and spent the first two hours after her lunch being rushed off her feet by customers. It finally began to get quieter at around 14.00 and for the rest of the afternoon there was a more relaxed atmosphere throughout the shop.
Mark went to catch a tram to Glenelg to start his collecting. Arriving at the Victoria Square, where the tram leaves from, he found out where all the crowds had gone after the pageant, and how they were expecting to get home. He joined the masses in waiting for the 12.15 tram. Luckily he squeezed on and was soon flying down the track to Glenelg. He found out later that getting off was an entirely different story. Because he was getting off before the final stop, he had to wrestle his way through the fog of sweaty, excited armpits to the door in order to be there before the tram was off again.
When he started to collect, the first ten people he spoke to were very generous and so he thought that the day would go well money-wise. How wrong can a collector-boy be? He made the pathetic grand total of about 3 times what the first ten people had given him, with 4 hours effort invested in it.
Laura finished work at 16.00 and caught a tram home quickly as there was to be barbeque-ing tonight. Mark joined her at the flat and together they got ready.
We had already bought a present for Angie (Gail's daughter), to who's birthday BBQ we were going and just had to change quickly and hurry for the bus. We'd found quite a clever present as we were told to get her chocolate, so we bought her an M&M's dispenser complete with chocolate, which was in the shape of an M&M man playing the saxophone (which she does too).
We arrived at the house with time to spare, and soaked in the atmosphere and expressed our envy of their pool. We settled into some chairs outside and into some drinks (we'd brought our own, like true Australians, though only because we'd been warned). We played a few games of table tennis and enjoyed the pre-BBQ snacks. The evening passed quickly and the food and drink went down well, along with the conversation. We met lots of nice people, and learnt lots of new things. The only sad note to the evening was that Gail herself could not be there as she had to go to Mildura to visit her father who was ill.
We left to catch the bus home, with promises that we would attend both a music recital and another birthday party in December. We walked down the drive and watched the bus drive happily past. We were about to set off in a mad and probably futile chase after it when a car pulled up alongside us and one of our new-found acquaintances offered us a lift! We accepted gladly and were whisked home in style.