“I sensed that a clear picture of my predicament lay veiled nearby, like an exam result in an envelope, or a pair of policemen sitting in the next-door room, awaiting my arrival.” - The Country Life.

As vintage slowly came to an end, so did my time at Frankland Estate. At first, I was taken aback when Elizabeth mentioned May, suggesting that I could stay until the end of vintage if I wanted to. Three months seemed like a daunting amount of time, but it soon became clear that it made sense. Not only was it the amount of time I needed for my regional work, but it was also the length of time Felix would be there for his internship. Those three months would have been a completely different experience for both of us if we didn’t have each other as roomies – I could not have been more grateful.

As the previous day's road trip clearly showed that vintage had come to an end (the work is so full-on that it is rare to have a day off) I spent the following day reading a book about a twenty-nine year old who leaves her London life to move to the country to work on a family estate. Suddenly, I had a terrible thought. Not terrifically terrible, but almost panicked. I thought, what if, once again, in a state of contentment and easiness, I have over-extended my stay. I don’t think it is quite over-extended yet, as last week was the end of vintage, but another month here I think will be over-extended. I knew the time was coming up, but I didn’t think that it was now, sooner rather than later. There wasn’t much work left for me to do at the winery – although there is always something to do – but I’m pretty sure I was all set with my experience in labeling, bottling, and shipments. It wasn’t so much the what or where that had me in a panic, but the time frame I had to figure those out. Last time I was trying to figure out what to do it took me three weeks. Luckily, as things always seem to work themselves out, I figured it out sooner rather than later during a weekend in Perth. After a week of researching, applying, and writing to people and places, I had an interview and a flat meeting set up. And before the weekend was over, I had a  part time job and a room in a flat! Everything seemed to come together so easily that I was just waiting for something to go wrong.  It didn’t. Goodbye country mice and vineyard spiders, Hello city life.