Second day (the revenge of the Rooster From Hell)

Hi everyone

So I've been figuring that instead of sending emails to everyone individually telling them what I'm up to it would be easier just to start a blog and hand out the link to whoever might be interested. It gives me more of an incentive to keep it up to date as well.

Anyway it's my second full day here and currently I am suffering from a severe lack of sleep. I didn't sleep more than an hour on the flight out, figuring I'd be so tired when I arrived in Oz that I'd sleep through the night despite the fact that it wasn't my usual time for sleeping. It was a good plan that would have worked well except for the NIGHTMARE COCKEREL. This thing is fucking retarded I swear. The first night I was here it started crowing at 1:30 am and did not stop all throughout the night. I was woken up by it about every two hours.

Whatever, I eventually got some sleep and actually felt pretty good the next morning. I went for a walk with Monty who is Josh and Jenny's dog. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, it was about 30 degrees and the walk was great. The weather is so fantastic here, I love it.

So anyway last night I got Josh (my fifteen year old cousin) to put the rooster in a little box where it couldn't stretch it's neck out properly and covered it with a towel in the hope it would shut up. It didn't prove the slightest hindrance to the bloody thing and like clockwork it started again last night at 1am and didn't stop all through the morning. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was taking revenge on me for putting it there in the first place. So I was pretty much a walking zombie for most of the day today. Tonight we have moved it down to the far end of the garden. Hopefully this will do the trick. If it doesn't I swear I will have to shoot the thing.

As for the day time I've been mostly out with my Uncle working on people's pools. I did find time to buy some sunglasses and boarding shorts though so now at least I can look like a real Australian. Oh also there was a bushfire today. The smoke was rising up in a huge pillar, it was about 20 kilometres away from the house. When the sun went behind the smoke everything went a weird red colour. Some of the ash landed on our car. Ian has a trailer with a thousand litre water tank and pump on standby all the time just in case we have to deal with a fire. Everything is so hot and dry, coupled with the wind and the fact that eucalyptus trees actually explode when they burn and I don't think you could design a more flammable country if you tried. Kind of shocks you when you realise this kind of thing is real and Australians have to deal with it all the time.

I am going to go to bed now, I will continue with this tomorrow.

Sam