At long last, things have really started to happen for me here in Melbourne. I've moved house into the centre of town - yay! And I've found work - yee ha! Now all I need to round things off nicely is a steamy relationship or twelve - wahey!

So yes, the house is great. I'm sharing with four students at Melbourne University. I have the smallest room EVER (just enough room for a single mattress and a clothes rail) but I figured it doesn't matter as all I'll be doing in it is sleeping. The kitchen is a good size, and everyone in the house appears to enjoy good food. The only real disappointment is the bathroom, which is so pokey it's actually quite difficult for me to reach the minuscule sink wedged in behind the shower cubicle. Never mind, things could be a lot worse. At least there's running hot & cold water.

I have finally worked for money again. I registered with Select temping agency, did the tests (my typing speed is just fabulous, darling!) and was told to keep in touch. Then I registered with Manpower temping agency, showed them my test results from Select and immediately got offered a position! It's only a three-dayer but it's all money in the bank.

So my job was cool actually: I was working for The Age newspaper, in their call centre, taking calls from customers who wanted to suspend their delivery for the long weekend (Monday just gone was ANZAC Day, when Australia's (and New Zealand's) war dead are remembered) and then ringing their newsagent to tell them to not deliver. It was easy work, and the volume of calls was lower than the paper had expected; the three of us temps that were there were certainly not stretched.

But do you know, I think I really like customer service! At least, this kind of customer service, where the customers are happy and not ringing to have a go at you, and you can have a bit of banter with them. The work environment was great. All the permanent staff were young and friendly, and there was a good atmosphere.

The weirdest thing about being at work there was the rush of memories that came at me the minute I walked in. Even though the layout was completely different and the people all strangers to me, I really felt as though I was back at Westwood working for Powergen. It was as if the higher memory of some sort of Platonic Ideal open-plan office was brought to mind now by The Age as it had been in the past by Powergen. A bit of a freaky feeling, really, but not unpleasant.

On the non-work front, I've been seeing a lot of Rainnie in recent days. I'm reminded of the strong friendship I had with Siobhan when we were living in Spain together back in '94. And yes, Siobhan, that means Rainnie is a cheeky monkey too! We meet for lunch or a coffee or dinner or a drink, and chat about this & that & the other. Lovely. It's great to have a surrogate sister here in foreign climes, and particularly such a warm-hearted, funny, food-loving, interesting one.

A cool thing that Rainnie & I did recently was honour Australia's war dead. Every year on ANZAC Day, a special remembrance service is held at dawn at the Shrine of Remembrance, an imposing building up on a hill on the south side of the river. Rainnie convinced me to get up at 5am and make my way there, despite a quantity of red wine being consumed only hours before.

It was refreshing to see the city that early in the day; the streets were just being swept of the detritus of the previous night's revels - indeed, a couple of clubs were still pumping out music (and rank vapours). There was hardly anyone on the streets. I was thinking the remembrance service itself would be a small affair, a bit like a midnight carol service in a church at Christmas, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

The first clue should have been the way the tram I jumped on was almost bulging at the sides, so many people were crammed into it. When we all got off and began the walk up to the shrine, I was put in mind of Glastonbury the other year. People seemed to be streaming from all sides towards the hill and its striking angular temple. Even though I got there a little bit early, I couldn't even approach the central area. I was content to be a part of the huge crowd that gathered in a ring around the complex, and that's where Rainnie found me (ah, the marvels of mobile telephony).

The service began with a haunting rendition of the Last Post, and this was followed with readings and a couple of hymns. There was a general murmur around me during the national anthem; it seems people don't really know the words, but never mind. And to round things off, the armed forces laid on a huge camp breakfast of eggs, sausages & beans, serving them in massive long khaki field tents.

In a lighter vein, but still in keeping with the military theme of the day, later on I watched Tank Girl at Rainnie's house. This is a film of the cartoon strip of a feisty lady in a post-apocalyptic 21st century, fighting the forces of evil gathered in the form of Malcolm McDowell, who plays the head of the omnipotent Water & Power Company. Shades of E.ON! Ice-T is cast against type as a poetry-quoting kangaroo. Hm.

It's weird not having endless time online to write inane drivel about the minutiae of my day-to-day life. Now that I'm in a house where there's no internet, and I'm having to pay for internet access again, and I'm having to actually make time to go to an internet cafe, time is passing quickly and I can't write it all down. I hope I'm not missing out anything momentous though.

I'm going to end now - shock horror! - with a lovely little anecdote from when I was visiting a temping agency the other day. It was evening, and I had just spent half an hour or so doing a mind-numbing online registration with them. I had to take a lift from the seventh floor to leave the building, and in an autopilot way I started to walk out as soon as the lift doors opened. But we had only reached the third floor. There a guy jumped in and made a comment about the whole autopilot thing (which isn't the funny bit of this story, honest). Then he said "could you press the 'guh' for Go Home button please?" I had never thought of the G for Ground Floor having that other possible meaning! It tickled me.

So now I'm going to press the 'puh' for People Will Know What I've Done Recently button. Or does it stand for Publish? Whatever.