What Is This? October 25, 2009
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Out and about around the City today and took lots of piccies. Question is – what is this a photo of?
Another Scorcher in Bundeena October 21, 2009
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After 3 weeks with my MIL visiting and it being unseasonably cold, damp and all round unpleasant weather it’s been wonderful sunshine and blue skies since she left on Thursday. Today it was another lovely day and we had our first over-30 deg day for some time. As it was my brother’s day off we spent the day with him at his pad in Bundeena (which is a lovely little remote township in the Royal National Park in Sydney). Headed off to the beach with little Evie and remembered (first time since Jan) to bring her bucket and spade set. We had ice creams and went down to Horden’s Beach first and enjoyed the lovely clean sand and Evie paddled around a bit in the creek. Yet again she found another boyfriend, this time, a Thomas the Tank Engine toddler to play with. Headed over the ferry pier, over the rocks and onto Gunyah beach. Gunyah is a lovely small beach and it’s always very quiet as noone (apart from those who live nearby) know it’s there. The house was boiling when we got back and even with all the windows open and fans blasting air around the humidity didn’t really drop till around 10pm (just in time for sleeping thankfully).
The Day Sydney Turned Orange September 23, 2009
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Yesterday evening was so humid then suddenly the wind changed and there was an almighty storm. Proper thunder, sheet lightning and torrential downpour. Finally – it’s been so muggy this last week and the garden was thankfully for it was parched. The winds blew all night and shortly before 6am this morning we woke up and were surprised to see a bright orange glow coming from around the curtain edges. At first I thought wow one of our neighbour’s houses must be on fire or something. Then we opened the curtain and blinds and saw the most amazing thing. The world was totally orange. It was like a mist had descended and it was bright orange! It was just like in the films where there’s been an apocalyptic event and the world has ended. There was just orangey red dust everywhere. Here’s a piccie I took from the back verandah – this is actually how it looked and I swear I haven’t altered the colour settings or anything.
View of Our Back Yard
Sadly hubby had to go to work (even though it was blowing a gale and you couldn’t see further than about 20m). Being asthmatic I hid indoors all day today. The eerie orange glow faded around 10am and by lunchtime the sun was out however there was dust everywhere. My lovely black car is now orange!
Kogarah Street Fair August 29, 2009
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We went to the Kogarah Street Fair today. Unsurprisingly, it’s held in Kogarah 
We didn’t make it down till mid afternoon so unfortunately missed the bed race – they race in teams to push/pull along old hospital beds for charidee. It was bloody boiling today and we were slightly regretting deciding to walk down to Kogarah which is 2 stops on the train line away and takes us about 20 minutes. Ordinarily 20 mins walk isn’t too bad, but when the sun is glaring in your face it’s very hot! There were loads of stalls set up. Mostly food and drink of different types as well as the local banks and businesses. There was also a stage set up in the Plaza and various bands/dance troups performing which was cool. Mocha enjoyed “swooping” about trying to snaffle up morsels of food dropped probably by some wayward toddler. Evie enjoyed playing peekaboo behind her freebie helium balloon. We enjoyed sitting having a lovely coffee in the shade whilst people watching. I love love love Alexander’s in Kogarah. It’s a cafe/restaurant and we’ve been there 3 times and not been disappointed yet. I had an iced coffee and hubby had a freshly squeezed apple and ginger juice. We finished off with a slice of the tallest lemon meringue pie I’ve ever had (seriously it was about 6″ high).
Oatley Park August 1, 2009
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Decided to go on a family excursion to another place near our new home. Looking on the map we found Oatley Park. Drove off there with baby and rather squeaky, excited dog in tow. It’s a beautiful place and lots of things to see. First stop the Steamroller Playground. It had a lot of play equipment as well as an old steamroller to climb on. Walked off down to the Oatley Baths which is a netted off area of beach and sea on Jewfish Bay. Up the steps to the “Castle” which was more of a folly but enjoyed climbing on top of the “ramparts”. Note if you come with young kids, don’t expect to be able to do much walking from the beach with the buggy – we ended up folding up the buggy and carrying Evie whilst dragging it behind us (thankfully it was the lightweight umbrella one). Then followed the long walking track up to Dracula’s Canteen and The House. They are both cave formations. Dracula’s canteen is a massive cave with a huge overhang. The roof looks sort of honeycombed or brain like and the rest is all pitted and gnarly looking. We’re not quite sure why it’s called Dracula’s other than maybe bats might live there. The House is a smaller cave that looks like it has 3 walls of the house. unfortunately it was pretty eroded away on the rocks that make up the floor so we couldn’t walk around to see it properly. The walk was lovely and skirted along the edge of the water through the bushland so was pretty shady and cool. Every so often there was a lookout and the views were spectacular. We found ourselves trying to guess whereabouts we were on the Georges River and whether we were looking at Como or Bonnet Bay, etc We didn’t meet a single soul on the way round the bushwalk.
The thing I really noticed was it was so peaceful (even with the deranged monkeys/kookaburras) and there were so many families there enjoying the space. Wonderful place and we’ll definitely go there. On the way back we stopped at Oatley and had fish n chips in the Memorial Gardens from the chicken shop-ace.
Afternoon Tea @ QVB June 19, 2009
Posted by graciek in Family, Life in General, Sydney.Tags: Afternoon Tea, QVB
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Our rellies have been staying with us on hols for almost a month now. As a thankyou treat they took Evie and me up to the City for a treat. We booked ourselves into Afternoon Tea at the QVB (Queen Victoria Building). It was really lovely up there on the 3rd floor. Surprisingly it was a very serene atmosphere, considering all the hustle and bustle and noise downstairs it was silent, peaceful oasis in the tea rooms. It also felt very peaceful and unrushed – the kind of place you spend an hour or so sipping on your tea. I picked the traditional afternoon tea (choice of teas + 3 tier selection of sandwiches/cakes/scones). My rellies had the sparkling choice which inc a glass of sparkling Aussie wine too. The rellies enjoyed it, but were a little disappointed with the scones – I don’t think they’ve heard of clotted cream here and also they only had raspberry, not the traditional strawberry jam. I picked the Black Lavender tea which was divine. It was a nice light tea (as hubby would put it I only like to dunk my normal tea bag 2x in my hot water) and it had a mild lavender hint and the camomile was relaxing. They refill your plates with sandwiches (but not the pastries or scones). Evie was very well behaved and scoffed loads (inc 1/2 a rather large scone and 2 sandwiches amongst all the tidbits of pastries). It was $32 for my tea which is expensive, but it’s High Tea in an opulent setting and more about the experience than value.
Star Trek @ IMAX June 6, 2009
Posted by graciek in Going Out, Life in General, Sydney, Television.Tags: IMAX, star trek
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Went to Sydney IMAX to watch the new Star Trek. It was bloody fantastic. Later doing our sums and conversions we worked out we were watching on a screen 120ft wide or ~1200 inch telly!! At first it was a bit strange as I found myself actually having to move my head around to see what was going on. Some of the space scenes where you marvel at the magnitude of the vista were spectacular. Being at the IMAX meant we also got very HD close ups and in particular we noticed Chris Pine/Kirk was a bit stubbly and spotty on his neck ha ha!! I’m no Trekkie but I have watched a few of them and did enjoy this latest one (I have vivid memories or should be nightmares of watching Wrath of Khan when I was about 10 and being scared to put my cycle helmet on). It was fun playing guess the crew member when they appeared on screen and comparing them to my memories of the earlier incarnations in real time (or later incarnations in Star Trek history). The new style transporting was kinda cool too – reminded me another show where they had nanobots repairing something (can’t remember what that show was). It cost $20 to watch it at the IMAX (with a Sydney Guide 20% voucher) and $16 at our local normal cinema. It was def worth the extra 4 bucks to see it in larger scale.
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
10 Things We’re Looking for in a House March 19, 2009
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It’s been a while since my last 10 things post. This week’s 10 things are 10 things we’re looking for in our next house. The first 5 are necessary, the last 5 are wish list but not deal breakers.
1. Less than $600,000
2. At least 3 bedrooms
3. Family area (not rough)
4. At least some garden (not courtyard style)
5. Easy access (i.e. not having to abseil to get to the front door) and safe for baby
6. Two floors
7. Close to train line
8. Garaging and storage space for hubby’s model railway
9. Near water (beach, river, or reserve etc)
10. Ensuite to master
We’ve been looking for about 2 months and have put offers in on 4 houses so far. Disappointingly none have come to fruition. I think the problem is we have too much choice so dither about and every week there are yet more houses to see within our range. Back when we bought our first place it was easy as we had such a limited budget we were restricted to very few houses and when the right one came along we offered and got – all done on the same day over the phone with the estate agent and vendor. Here it’s a joke. The first house we wanted the vendors wanted far more and had 4 other offers on the table whilst they waited. The second house was odd as it was never publicly advertised and ended up being something like a private auction where they drove everyone up 5k at a time from 550 up to 570s. We got p**sed off around the 571 mark and stopped. Last we heard ours was the second highest offer and that the vendors haven’t accepted any offers (funny that… I wonder if we’re the only bidder and they are just holding out for more). The third house was in a worse area, but closer to hubby’s work. Asking price 575, we offered 570 – they didn’t even bother getting back to us. The last place was simply “by negotiation”.. turns out they want 620+ but seeing as we have seen at least 3 similar houses in the same area all go for 570-580 they are dreaming (and they only had a courtyard garden when others had pools). So we’re gonna change tack a bit and perhaps look at something cheaper but where we can spend the extra money on an extension/doing it up. Buying a house in the UK was simple. The vendor decides the asking price and everyone offers lower (unless u really want it and go all out for asking price, or a little more if others also want it). Here it’s a bloody minefield. First you have auctions – you have no idea what kind of price they want, the vendor can bid (at their own auction??), there’s usually some shenanigans going on with relatives/friends bidding to up things. Secondly there are price ranges – say the house is up for sale 520-550, now what does that mean?? Of course you’ll want it at the lower range, the vendor will want it at upper range why bother giving a range, just say what you want! Thirdly you have offers over – this is a joke as they seem to put them so low in some cases even if you bid 30k over they still want more, why not just say what you want! Yet looking at the statistics it would seem that most houses tend to be sold approx 20-50k under their asking price – funny this statistic hasn’t applied to any of the houses we’ve offered on. I think for the next offer we’re going to say we’ll give them X amount only, they have 48 hours to respond (yes or no, not silence, not um hang on indefinitely while we wait to see if any mug will pay more) and we wanna be in within 4 weeks. We have cash, we have no chain and we can move straight away yet this seems to hold no sway even though everyone says it’s a buyer’s market (obv not in Sydney it isn’t). It’s exacerbated by the first home buyers grant being doubled will June so every man and his dog is looking. Although I have noticed that last weekend there were far less people viewing than previous weekends.
G’day Patsy! March 12, 2009
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Unexpectedly met up with my old friend from Uni days. It must have been I think about 7 years since I last caught up with him. Oh how things have changed for me – somehow I’ve got old, married and have a baby. Went to have a chilled lunch in Darling Harbour. Decided to hit Yots Cafe which is outside the Maritime Museum. It was a nice quietish spot away from the main tourist thoroughfare. The food was actually really nice. I had the Portuguese chicken baguette thing (that was so tall I had trouble actually getting it into my gob). My friend had the Beef Tower which was a bit disappointing in size, considering my mate has a big appetite The service was very slow (took us about 90 mins) but the waitresses were actually quite attentive. The only other thing that spoiled it was there was construction work going on right next to the cafe, so although there were lovely aromas from the food all we could smell was fresh sawdust!! Think I would try one of the many other restaurant/cafes along the Harbourside next time.
