When I changed the bed this morning, it struck me that my doona was well and truly past its use-by-date. Later while food shopping, I detoured to the bedding store. As I drooled over a "Daydream queen-size sheet set", I had a flashback. When I returned home I leafed through a photo album and found this pic of the sleeping accommodation at Minilya It took me back to 1989. The newspaper where I worked had closed down. On a whim I applied for the position of governess on a sheep and cattle station in the Australian outback. The station homestead pictured below was the inspiration for my debut novel, The Biocide Conspiracy.
Maybe it was a direct consequence of all the Georgette Heyer Regency Romances I’d read. You know the ones, where the governess falls in love with her brooding complex master. Well, to put you in the picture I didn’t find Mr Right, but I did find the setting for my introductory novel, “The Biocide Conspiracy”. But I digress.
Up in the North West the climate is HOT, all year round. Fortunately the homestead was air-conditioned. However, as a humble governess I slept outside in the workers’ quarters; a hotbox that wouldn’t have been out of place in a North Korean torture camp. Or so it seemed to me. But then I do have tendency toward exaggeration.
The following day, I dragged my bed onto the veranda. For the rest of my stay I slept outside, under a mosquito net, something I'd never done before. You see like the hero of The Biocide Conspiracy, I was the quintessential city-soft. And like Mo I was in for a rude awakening. But more of that in my next post.
In the meantime if you'd like to know if Mo toughs out life as a jackeroo click here.
Up in the North West the climate is HOT, all year round. Fortunately the homestead was air-conditioned. However, as a humble governess I slept outside in the workers’ quarters; a hotbox that wouldn’t have been out of place in a North Korean torture camp. Or so it seemed to me. But then I do have tendency toward exaggeration.
The following day, I dragged my bed onto the veranda. For the rest of my stay I slept outside, under a mosquito net, something I'd never done before. You see like the hero of The Biocide Conspiracy, I was the quintessential city-soft. And like Mo I was in for a rude awakening. But more of that in my next post.
In the meantime if you'd like to know if Mo toughs out life as a jackeroo click here.
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