The World According To Me

In my mind, I am already in the West, catching up with old friends in trendy city wine-bars before heading down the coast on weekends to stay with my Gran, drinking red wine on her verandah and talking about vegie gardens. I can feel the mildness of the winter, and the afternoon sea breeze sweeping across the city already. I've also already lost a lot of weight and have perfect hair.

In reality, I have not yet applied for the job. I have made some headway though, yesterday I e-mailed a 'contact' who's name will hopefully be a clincher on my C.V. At least, if I were applying for a job in Melbourne it would be. Perth, I wasn't so sure. He enthusiastically agreed to be a referee, and mentioned that he happened to be speaking to the head of the organisation where I plan to apply for the job just the other day, being a friend of his. Woot!

This is a sign.

What isn't so great is thinking about finding a place to live. It is so bloody expensive over there. I mean, ridiculously so. This is obviously due to the 'boom' that everyone's talking about, whereby most of the population are earning ridiculous amounts of money and the real estate market has burst a blood vessel in it's eye to cash in. Which doesn't bode well for me. Especially with the three babies to cater for. Truly, at this early stage it looks like it'd be easier to rent a house in the middle of Melbourne than to find somewhere in Perth where I can have a backyard for the dog and buy groceries. I've done some more exploratory e-mailing to friends there asking them to keep their eyes and ears open in relation to people wanting housemates to move in with their excessive amount of pets. I'm not holding my breath. I really don't want to have to think about 'alternative arrangements' in relation to the girls. Especially Lucy, I just can't fathom not having her with me. It's not an option. There must be some sort of secret rental list where you show your birth certificate to prove you're not really from 'over east' and they say "Oooh, well here's a delightful fully renovated 3 bedroom terrace with a HUGE backyard and pets are welcome - is $200 a week okay?". Can anyone clarify this for me? I have actually been told that a lot of real estate agents over there don't list on the internet, but surely this can't be the case. Not on the internet? Doesn't exist then.