Happy Birthday Queenie ;) June 8, 2009
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Today, in Australia, we get a Bank Holiday because it’s the Queen’s birthday. It’s so funny that we spend almost 3 decades of our lives in the UK and never once celebrated Her Maj’s birthday, yet we move 1/2 way across the world and we get a day off to celebrate it.
It was lovely having hubby home for the long weekend and the weather was glorious. It was 21 degC today, sunny and bright. We went to the park with my friend Flora and kids and they had a whale of a time on the playground (so did some of the big kids who are in their 60s too – namely Great Uncle Nigel)!! Mocha loved coming out for a little walkies trip too. Later we stopped off on the way home for lunch at Kogarah. The only place we could find open was Alexander’s, an Italian style cafe. The food was really lovely, I would say that was the best pizza I’ve had since I’ve been in Oz. Thin and crispy, yet fluffy under the topping and the topping most of the way to the edge too – just as I like it.
Hello – I Missed You! May 7, 2009
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Finally 5 months after being packed up in our old house in Loughborough our belongings have been delivered to our new house in Sydney. We shipped our stuff with Doree Bonner (Levetts in Hucknall). Apart from the extraordinarily long time it took (considering they quoted 12-14 weeks and it took more like 21 weeks in the end from door-to-door) we were pleased with the service and nothing was broken or stolen!! Customs decided on Monday that hubby’s compound bow was in fact a compound bow and not a crossbow they finally released our stuff (though it was only inspected on Friday so that’s not the reason it took so long – it was the fact that it only set sail from UK at end of Feb). So 1 hr and 73 boxes were moved into the rumpus and kitchen! Luckily Evie was fast asleep and missed all the commotion and poor Mocha had to be locked into the laundry room (otherwise she’d run out onto the road). The stack of boxes filled our rumpus literally to the ceiling (and we have really high ceilings too). It’s so nice to have our stuff back. It was like Christmas opening all the boxes. After about 10 boxes the novelty wore off and it was more like a chore. Mocha could smell her beanbag in one of the boxes and tried to rip it open via the corner so I got it out for her. She jumped into it straight away and refused to get out of the beanbag all day (except for dinner). Managed to unpack the kitchen today. It’s so nice to have our lovely tableware and also possessing things to cook with (i.e. more than 1 spatula and 1 frying pan). Now to mammoth task of not only unpacking the boxes but also finding places to put all the contents!
Offer Accepted!! March 26, 2009
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Hurray – Hallelujah! After 3 months of looking for a house we have finally had an offer accepted. We went into the Estate Agent’s today to sign the contracts. It is noticeably different to the UK system. In Oz you sign and exchange the contracts straight away but you have a 5 day cooling off to get surveys done and finance in place. In the mean time you provide a 0.25% deposit to hold the house for you during the week with the remainder of the 10% deposit paid at the end of the cooling off period. If you pull out before the end of cooling off then you lose the 0.25%. In comparison in the UK it takes ages about 4 weeks for the solicitor to get to exchange and the surveys can take 4 weeks too. The Aussie way is a little more stressful, but much less risky as less chance of being gazumped after you’ve exchanged. So I was ringing and running round like a mad woman yesterday trying to get things sorted out. Firstly, find a conveyancer. Secondly, make sure I have the home loan (what we would call the mortgage) offer in place. Thirdly remember the cheque book and important details for the estate agent. We’re soooo excited. The house is everything that we want. It has 2 storeys, is about 10 min walk from the main train line with trains every 20 mins into the City. It’s a family area. It has a pool. It has a garage. It has 4 bedrooms as well as a study. There’s some grass for Mocha to play on. There’s enough room for all of Evie’s toys. The verdict is still out on whether there’s enough space for all hubby’s toys (3′x5′ model railways, 8m long rowing boats, etc) – relegated to the shed me thinks 
Symbio Wildlife Park March 3, 2009
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I took Evie and my sister and BIL to Symbio Wildlife Park today. We were going to venture up to Taronga but there just wasn’t enough time to get into the City and do that zoo justice in one afternoon. So down to Symbio we drove. It was only about 25 mins down the road from Woronora. It’s a charming little place. Not massive and touristy as the big zoos, but nice and quiet and lots of animals to see as well as the obligatory koala cuddling. Evie absolutely adored the koalas. As soon as the keeper brought one in she was fixated on it and kept laughing and flinging her arms and legs about in wild abandonment. She got to pat the koala after the talk and she was so happy grinning away. The koala seem quite enamoured with Evie too as it was smiling at her. I propose a new hypothesis that baby animals can communicate with each other regardless of species. Evie and the baby koala were definitely communicating in some way.
My favourites were the meercats and the llamas too. I think Phil liked feeding the wallabies. Chec enjoyed taking photos of all the animals, in particular the echidna which kept posing for her. Our joint favourite were the Spider Monkeys. They were so funny larking about in their enclosure and when the keeper came to feed them they were going nuts stealing all the bananas and running round hoarding tomatoes
Zoos always make me think of Zoo Tycoon (it’s a ‘puter game where you design and run your own virtual zoo).
Totally Skint February 6, 2009
Posted by graciek in Australia, Life in General, Money.Tags: exchanging money
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Well, after a whole week of watching and waiting for the exchange rate between GBP and AUD to spike (which it actually didn’t really, it just fluctuated) we finally bit the bullet and changed our UK money over. We’re using a company called UK Forex (also Oz Forex), which seems to have good rates (approx 0.01c less than interbank lending and has no fees/commission on sums greater than £10k). Last weekend it stopped at 2.29AUD to 1GBP and it went down all week (with a couple of spikes when the AU rescue package wasn’t a shoe in and GBP interest rate cut was announced). Nothing major to report unlike October 2008 when it hit 2.7! Managed to get 2.229 in the end. Shortly afterwards it fell below 2.2 so we got in there just in time. It was very scary sending all our money off into the ether. I had to send it in £10k batches through Nationwide online banking. Hopefully it will appear in our Oz bank by the end of next week (given that UK Forex probably won’t receive it until say Wednesday). So it’s going to be a nervous week next week wondering where our money has gone.
Now I can go back to my real life where I’m not sat there watching graphs!!! How sad am I?
Happy Chinese Australia New Year Day!! January 26, 2009
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Gong Xi Fa Choi! Ha ha, today is a bit of a coincidence. It’s both the first day of Chinese New Year (Year of the Ox) and also Australia Day. Our first Australia Day since moving to the country.
They’re very patriotic in Australia which is quite refreshing after years in England (when most plebs wouldn’t even know when St George’s Day is) and any patriotic behaviour is usually linked to some form of racism or riot. The adverts are so funny and there’s all sorts of tacky junk merchandise. Soooo Australian
We had a massive BBQ (far too much food) and spent the rest of the afternoon recovering from all that eating. We even had some really naff burgers that came in the shape of Australia (no Tasmania though), hey they were on offer and cheaper than the normal ones. Seemed such a waste to be indoors – but I just couldn’t move afterwards. Must go for a walk later in the week to make up for it.
My brother took Mocha the dog for a run. He was extremely surprised that Mocha beat him in his running challenge. I suppose it’s cos he’s used to our old dog Oscar, who you used to take out for a walk and come back carrying cos he was so lazy. Mocha is a running freak – we used to take her running whilst we rode our bikes at full pelt, tongue slapping away on her own face!!
News in Australia January 21, 2009
Posted by graciek in Australia, Life in General, Musings, Television.add a comment
Well seeing as today is consumed pretty much by the inauguration of Barack Obama in the US I thought I might blog about the state of the news in Oz. The news seems to be pretty dire here. No not bad news, but the lack of topics really. A glance on most paper’s front covers on a normal day would be full of pictures of sportsmen and women. It’s also very optimistic – not much about the economy other than specific stories of hard luck businessmen. Such a change from the UK newspapers 6 months ago where it was all doom and gloom! I’m also finding it hard to not laugh when you read some stories about some poor sod who got “bashed” – yes they do actually print it as “bashed” rather than “assaulted”. In fact the International news is pretty awful too, the whole of the Gaza issues were summarised in 3 sentences in a box about 2inches high near the bottom of the page. Well, at least it made it to the news! Today’s newspapers are full of the Inauguration which goes to prove that things do actually occur outside of Australia.
Equally the TV news is terrible too – so much sport and entertainment. In fact telly is a bit naff here in general – feels a bit like watching Channel 5 (proliferation of US sitcoms/shows). Well that should encourage me to be not so much of a couch potato , except it’s so bloody hot outside I can’t bear to spend more than 15 mins in the sunlight (keeeeergh – vampire noises). Neighbours starts next week – that will be entertaining as it will be like watching a movie (albeit a dodgy soap opera) but missing out the middle section.
Aussie Baby Car Seats January 19, 2009
Posted by graciek in Australia, Evie, Life in General.add a comment
Evie’s new car seat arrived today. We’ve been using her car seat that came as part of her travel system (the stroller bit is still good, albeit one of the wheels being buckled after some rough treatment whilst loading on and off places). It’s a UK reward facing carry seat and I suppose it hasn’t passed Aussie standards, as it hasn’t been tested, being a German/EU brand (Hauck Roadster) that isn’t in Australia. Strictly speaking it’s apparently illegal to not have children restrained appropriately to AU standards, but what option did I have getting Evie from the airport and out to the shops to buy said new car seat. Anyway, Evie is getting a bit too big for her current chair. She weighed in at 14lb 14oz (about 6.75kg) on Thursday, which would be OK as the seat is fine up to 9kg, but she’s super long and her feet hang out. Her feet are already kicking up against the back of the seats (it’s rearward facing) and she’s way too heavy to carry in it all the time. Saying that is is very convenient if Evie wants a nap then we can bring the seat out of the car and it has a rocker too. With the new seat it can’t be removed for those purposes. Her new seat will take her up to 18kg and can go rearward or forward facing. It’s a Zu Zu Convex, purchased mainly because it was on special offer at $159 (cheaper than Big W at $184). The main difference as far as I can tell with the Aussie standard is that the seats have to be restrained using special straps that attach to special bolt fixings in Aussie cars. It’s a faff so there’s no way that we’re getting the seat in and out of the car. In some ways it’s more annoying, but in other ways I do feel more reassured that Evie is secured better as the old UK car seat just fixed in with the normal seatbelt which was iffy in some cars (especially Singapore taxis where they seem to have extra short belts).
Welcome Tilly to the Family! January 15, 2009
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No, we haven’t suddenly had a new baby (impossible seeing as Evie was only born 6 months ago). Today I picked up my new car. Her name is “Tilly” because that’s short for Matilda, and it’s sort of like “My Tiida”. Well, it seemed a good a name as any and you need yo give your car a name so you can coax it into going up hills, making it to the petrol pump when the refuelling light’s already on, and overtaking things etc
Today was also my first experience of driving in Australia. It’s actually not too bad. Working in km rather than miles is very odd and driving is so much slower here. Had to keep looking at the speedo to make sure I wasn’t speeding (they’re strict on fines and also there are speed cameras all over the place). Normally I would hate to be a middle lane hog, but driving in the slow lane is impossible as every 50m there is either a car parked in the lane or the lane just disappears/merges/diverts off to left turns only. The traffic lights are also strange to me. There’s not red, red and amber, green. It’s just red then suddenly green. Also there are arrow lights for straight, left and right and occasionally the red arrow light goes off and no other light goes on. Must get myself an Aussie equivalent of the Highway Code.
