Taking a step back

I’ve been contracting for work for just over two years now. Contracting is stressful because you never know if your current contract will be extended or not. I’ve been lucky for these two years because I was with the same organisation and the last contract was for nearly a year. It was great not to have to worry about looking for more work for that time. As I knew I was finishing up in the middle of the year I thought, bugger it, I’m booking a holiday and hang the job situation.

So while having a holiday to look forward to, I’ve also been hussling my wares on the job front. It wasn’t going so well and I only had two more weeks left of work. Then I saw an advertised job – another contract – that looked promising. Then my work asked if I could stay on for another 2-4 weeks. I also applied for another two jobs and got interviews for both of them. It was all a bit much. People close to me were confused about what job I was talking about that minute and I don’t blame them. I’ve got some work to go back to, so that’s a load off my mind.

But during all of this I had a holiday to look forward to. Unfortunately when we left I had a migraine so I tried to sleep on the flight here and had an early night last night.

We’re staying in a very green spot inland from Port Douglas in a friend’s brother’s house for a couple of nights before we hit the bright lights of Port Douglas. It didn’t take long for JJ to declare he thought it was fantastic and go off exploring with the resident dog.

The house is what I think is a typical Queenslander. I’m sitting on the balcony typing this and the vista is amazing.

There is another guest staying here, but he’s fairly quiet and thankfully keeps to himself.

A couple of times JJ has gone off into the ‘forest’ and a couple of times I’ve gone into try and find him. We’ve both had a fairly good explore. Not sure if we went onto someone else’s property, but we probably did.

Sometimes you can sneak up on the resident fauna.

And you can see them in their element.

Coming from the south where it’s pretty dry most of the time, you really notice somewhere different having different vegetation.

But it doesn’t take long to relax and I’m thinking I should have loaded my Kindle up with more books. Maybe I’ll even splash out and buy a magazine to read. I’m so glad I booked this holiday.