April Update

I've not written anything in five months and I suspect people were wondering if I had given up. My main problem has been that we've done so much in that time that the subjects to write about have risen exponentially and the energy and time to write about them has diminished at a similar rate.

Hannah and I have both been feeling shell shocked for the last month or so and it feels like we are not achieving anything, we are running to stand still, but then I decided to look over the last blog and the list of things we were supposed to achieve this year.

Well, Hannah has passed her physics with distinction and we've bought a house and a barbeque. Mum and Dad came to stay and we not only enrolled Esme in School but also witnessed the finest England Ashes performance in Australia since the 'eighties.

I am now much fitter, have lost 15kg and had almost forgotten that there was a malicious Frog keeping us awake every night. Not bad for five months really.

Not only have we achieve a lot, but the only remaining target I have until October when we will enrol Esme in Nippers is to make beer. That doesn't sound much of a challenge, but imagine how much beer it might be possible to make and drink in that time.

Unfortunately, although I will not let a wifely decree prevent me from achieving my goals, I also can see that the single focus of making lots of beer might not be a wise move. I had thought about setting some other goals just to tide me over until next November. Noble persuits such as:

- Lose another 10kg

- Surf the point at Dee Why

- Get Zoe and Esme a surfboard and get them both riding it.

- Make some furniture out of wood, maybe a coffee table.

- Go and watch three Swans games

I'm not sure though that I want to put myself under any form of pressure right now. I feel I need to spend six months relaxing, learning how to live the new life I've set up for myself in Austalia and learning to enjoy it. All the things we neglected last year, spending time together as a family, cooking, visiting the beaches, making a mark in our jobs, building a social life. We need to focus on those now.

Having said that, Hannah is a social whirlwind, even when she was failing to clothe and feed her family last year, she was organising drinks, play days, attending P and C meetings and book clubs and, if I remember correctly selling saucisson and garlic products at the school French market.

Now we have come up for air, it's a good feeling. I realise that I missed Mum and Dad when I saw them, I miss my brother and George and a few other people, but I haven't really missed England at all as a place. I have banished thoughts of winter walks, woodsmoke and fireside beers from my mind. I know I will really enjoy those when we can get back to England, but you can't beat having a pool in your back yard and being able to dive in whenever the mood takes you.

The mood takes Zoe quite often actually. Whether she is fully clothed or not, a trick she learned from her mother. Earlier this year, after being ignored several times in requests for help in cleaning the pool, I was forced to demonstrate my displeasure at Hannah by throwing myself in fully clothed. Hannah, the role model in the family decided that clothed underwater reconciliation was necessary and joined me in her skirt and t-shirt. Zoe, weighing up if this was really a sensible thing to do and if she would get

into trouble decided that she was in the clear and jumped whooping into the pool. Since then she regularly "trips" or "overbalances" near the pool and due to Hannah's approval of the practice, I feel I cannot reign her in.

We are definitely through the worst of the hard times associated with moving and while we can see that there is some reasonably hard work ahead, we can also appreciate and hopefully offer some support to others who are in similar situations.

We are acquainted with a number of families who are between five months and a year behind us in the process and its nice to be able to talk things through with them, both because it helps s know that everyone goes through a degree of pain, and hopefully to offer them some hope and support. Some of them are still considering whether Australia is the place for them even noticing differences such as the fact that Cadbury's Dairly Milk tastes different in Australia and they don't have pavements in most residential suburban streets. Hannah and I never had concerns that Australia is the right place for us so its difficult to understand that, but we certainly had low times with little support available to us so we understand.

The great thing about Brits in Australia is that they are all my kind of people. They are not sit-at-home, content-with-their-lot types, they are adventurous and open to new things and they are generally good fun to be around. We do have plenty of Aussie mates and we are trying to assimilate ourselves with their culture, to become part of the community and living in the Northern Beaches makes it so much easier. People here seem to have escaped some of the city airs and graces which you find in the Northern suburbs, its not overpopulated with Brits such as the Eastern Suburbs and Manly and the people here are friendly, down to earth with strong family values.

So assimilating the Aussie culture, it it means having to force down a few unflavoured lagers, in lady sized glasses, chucking large pieces of cow around on a barbeque and sharing the company of some pretty friendly and interesting people, it isn't that bad. That said, I also appreciate the Brits we met in the process. It's a tie back to home, but I think more so it is a shared struggle which gives us a strong connection.

I've got a few subjects to write about in more details, but I don't think I have the energy to cover them all now.

The process of buying a house for example is very interesting and different to the UK. I've also been going to a Natruopath, who had made me feel a lot better until she poisoned me with pills made from Dandelions. Both of those subjects deserve a bit of coverage but they need something in their own right.

It is worth mentioning the house itself. It is a five bedroom house which is built into a hillside so it is a bungalow at the front and a two story house at the back. There is a cellar which maintains a fairly constant temperature of 22-25C, which makes it an ideal spot for brewing beer and storing wine.

We have a 60,000 litre swimming pool and barbecue area at the back and a big lawn out front, which i get to mow every so often with a petrol lawn mower. Its perfect for us because two of the bedrooms are downstairs which means "the kids" get their own space.

Since we have moved in, there have been a few issues, most of which have been solved by members of the famous Grien family, Jo, who is Hannah's step-aunt, her husband Ross and their son Jesse, have really helped us out recently.

That's where we have been very lucky, not just because the Griens have been so welcoming and happy to help us but because they happen to be in the ideal professions for dealing with the immediate issues we have had with the house.

The two biggest issues we have had so far have involved a broken swimming pool and a blocked sewer. As luck would have it, Ross works in a pool shop and Jesse is a plumber.

A swimming pool is like a complex organism. It has pipes, pumps and lots of water in it and the chemistry of that water needs to be maintained and controlled. Somehow, a pool that had been well looked after for years seemed to go downhill rapidly once I got my hands on it. We had cloudy water, not enough stabiliser, not enough chlorine, too much chlorine and a build up of leaves, not to mention the other issues. They say you learn by your mistakes and l have learnt a lot over the past couple of months in charge of my pool.

It wasn't helped by the fact that the son of the previous owner owned the local pool shop for a while. The first time I opened the pool cupboard all I could see were hundered of pipes and what looked like a nuclear reactor sitting in the corner. It seems that during the eighties, every new gadget that came out for pools was rigged into the system until no-one knew what the pipes were for and where they went. I was reasonably assured however that there has never been any history of pools heated by atomic energy and the device in question was in fact a sand filter.

After I had paid a pool man twice to come round and then asked Ross for some advice I had a rudimentary understanding of how it worked. It's very easy to get it wrong though. For example, we have a device called a Jet-Vac. It is a kind of underwater, water powered hoover which picks up all the leaves from the bottom of the pool. If you turn on the Jet-Vac pump without the main filter pump the Jet-Vac pump runs dry and burns out. No problem though, as we had a couple of timers set up to make sure that didn't happen. Also you have to reverse the flow of the system to clean the filters every month. If you forget to open a valve when you do this, something really bad happens. I didn't ask, I didn't want to know.

Anyway, about four weeks ago, we noticed that the Jet-Vac wasn't working and wasn't cleaning the pool overnight. After some investigative testing, I noticed that the flow of water through the main pump was very low. After consulting with Ross, he decided we must have a blockage that might require major surgery. The pipe in question was under concrete and slabs.

After investigation, it turned out that the pipe had been crushed underground by a tree root and that this had caused, you guessed it, the Jet-Vac to run dry and burn out. In the end, since work was being done, we had the Jet-Vac pump replaced, a new safety timer for the Jet-Vac which links it to the filter pump and a new solar heating pump. All of this together with the 11 hours labour the pool guys put in meant that if Ross wasn't able to negotiate a decent deal for us on the parts and labour, we would have gone bankrupt in our forst month in the house. Either that or developed a rather unplanned wildlife sanctuary in our back garden.

The bad news didn't end with the pool. This week, on Sunday evening, Monday morning, we realised that there was raw sewage flowing into our downstairs bathroom, which is fortunately a wet-room. We relocated Zoe upstairs and asked them not to flush the toilets, anticipating a long wait. Within 24 hours however, Jesse had been round. He spent about ten minutes hosing out the obstructions and another fifty answering a constant barrage of questions from Zoe and Esme. It cost us a fraction of what it would have for a standard plumber call out and means that we should make this months mortgage payment, AND be able to put food on the table, always a bonus.

Jo's been great too. She has regularly invited us round and made us feel part of the family. We were round on Sunday afternoon and caught up with everyone. That's not to mention every Monday night she looked after Zoe and Esme over the last year or Zoe, Matt, Rhiannon and Mallory's contribution to entertaining the kids when we go round.

I reckon, without the Grien's help we would be in a much worse space than we are now and for that Hannah and I are truly grateful. If you read this, thank you all.

Another thing which Antipodeans have been in the news for recently is natural disasters. The Floods across Australia and then the Earthqueake in New Zealand, both of which are truly awful for those affected. We in Sydney have been very lucky. We live on top of a hill, near, but high above the harbour and we are not subject to flash flooding.

We do get the rain though and this has been intense in its own way. Last weekend, the pool overflowed due to all the rain and then water started building up in the garden over the top of the drain. Hannah volumteered to fix it and was observed, in her own stylish way, in her night clothes, a light green raincoat and yellow marigolds, bailing water out of the drain using a dustpan. Fortunately the rain abated and I later discovered that a simple "Back-washing" of the pool would have empited it down into the sewer.

The only effect the rains will have on us is that we will be taxed more, to pay for the recovery effort and the price of fruits and veg, things like Bananas have gone up from around $1-2/Kg to $12. Unfortunately for Esme, they are still cheaper than other snack foods, according to a source close to the Banana industry. We are mainly relying on apples and pears right now though. Anyone interested in Bananas should read the article

Even in these hard times however, it is still possible to find a bargain. I visited the fruit and veg shop and asked them for the hottest chillies they had. I've been on a diet recently and I'm not allowed to eat carbohydrates. One of the things I can eat is a chicken kebab salad with chilli sauce. I reckon I could emulte all of it apart from the sauce and I intended to try.

The owner of the shop showed me these little round chillies about the size of cherry tomatoes. I told him I was making Chilli sauce so he offered me the whole batch for five dollars. I took him up on his offer and made an excellent sauce. It's so good, I'm going to share the recipe, if only to annoy the kebab vendor who wouldn't give me details of his sauce.

A big bag of chillies around 1kg

Same amount of tomatoes

Two onions

One bulb of garlic

A big squeeze of honey

A cup or so of white vinegar to taste

Salt to taste

Chop the onions and fry in olive oil until soft

Chop Chllies and fry with all seeds and everything with Onions

Crush and add the carlic

Chop and add tomatoes taking out the nasty bit where the stalk has been

Cook with for quite a while, stirring to prevent burning

When its reduced to a liquid with bits in, put it through the food processor on high for a couple of minutes (In my case it took three batches) until it is as smooth as it can get. It should still have chilli seeds in it and be a little bit coarse.

Add Salt and more vinegar until you think it tastes great

Cook and reduce until it its thick enough to be described as a sauce rather than a soup. I had to add a bit more vinegar at this point as I think some of it evaporates

Let it cool and bottle it.

So there you have is, a fruity, very spicy chilli sauce that can breathe a bit of life and fire into anything!

Cooking is something both Zoe and I love and but couldn't do last year. Now we have a big kitchen. we often cook together. She learns a lot about cooking, I learn a lot about hygene.

So really, we've made it. Things will get better as hopefully our wages go up and our mortgage goes down and we are able to do more of the wonderful things Sydney has on offer. However, things are already great already. We have a house, a pool, thanks to Hannah we are part of the local community and we have the beach 15 minutes down the road where this morning, I went surfing and was back in time to start work.

You can't get better than that.

One year today!

We arrived in Australia, one year ago today! It's been quite hard work, understandably as this year we have:

• Bought two cars, one dead, one alive but hurting.
• Got iPhones (Only 3GS, but Yeeehawww!)
• Secured ourselves somewhere to live (temporarily)
• Had three different jobs between us
• Enrolled Zoe in School and seen her rise to the dizzy heights of class Student Representative Council rep.
• Enrolled Esme in two pre-schools
• Seen both kids learn to swim front crawl (Zoe with breathing, Esme without)
• Enrolled Zoe in Little Nippers
• Drank 14 bottles of Whiskey
• Passed one Physics exam with a high distinction (Well done Hannah)
• ...oh and I almost forgot, Moved our entire lives to the other side of the world!

Targets for the current year:

A History of Australian and Korean BBQs

It’s interesting. I started off in Australia telling myself that life here was great and at some point this positive frame of mind eroded until all I could see was the negative. My last blog article gave me the chance to confront this and convinced me that the negative effect on my health was largely due to my state of mind although mould, damp and excessive consumption of beer probably also contributed.


With these thoughts, for the past six weeks, I’ve been trying to climb out of the mental hole I have fallen into and look on the positive. At last, it seems to be working. I’m beginning to feel a bit better, I can see a number of steps which we will take to improve our quality of life and I’m becoming more and more interested in the various projects I am getting at work.

With this new found positivity, I am beginning to feel better, less lethargic and happier more of the time. If I can feel this way now, just imagine how happy I will be when we are living in a real house and Hannah has finished her course and is able to devote some of her time to the family again.

News and Photos

I'm just about to post a longer arrticle, but here are a few photos which depict a few things we've been doing recently:

Tough going

It's my birthday, today.  I'm 36 and I've been at home all day today, trying to work while looking after daughter Zoe who is off school.  Yesterday they were both off with different illnesses.  Since the time is past 5.30, I'm going to see what I can write in sixty minutes while having a birthday drink.

We've witnessed a few more Australian phenomena since my last post, so I have things to write about.  The election and house hunting are the most recent experiences but I'm finding my current state of mind is not conducive to writing.  I've had a really hard six weeks and I find myself without much hope of good things in the future.

Sport in Australia

What's going on in Australia at the moment? Well, Julia Gillard did the dirty on Kevin Rudd (What would you expect from a girl from Barry) and now she is fighting it out with Tony Abbot to be the next legitimate Prime Minister. For those who don't know him, he is my local MP (or equivalent) and is famous for competing in triathlons wearing speedos or "Budgie Smugglers" as they are described so aptly. Far more important to the Australian public than the outcome of the election though was the outcome of Masterchef last night. Hannah and I tuned in to watch two hours of some really good cooking and the crowning of Adam as this year's top Australian amateur cook.

We have now been in Australia for almost nine months and are halfway through the winter and this is where things are getting mundane. We are making less effort to go to the beach and enjoy the experience of being in Australia and there are less "new things to do." We are beginning to miss people and wonder if we made the right decision, it almost feels like we are getting into a rut again and owning our own home doesn't feel like something we can take for granted anymore.

East Anglian Popular Fiction

Having not had much time recently to write things on the blog, I find myself in a position of news delivery again, I’m not able to discuss random aspects of life as I prefer to spend my time doing because so many important things have happened in the two months since my last article.  These include my new job and I do mean a new job, I only lasted in the previous one for three months.  Also Hannah has regular work, we have a social life, and Zoe has had her first school report, which I might say was very good.

Where did all the love go?

Having been a bit negative recently, I thought I'd make a quick post on a more positive note.  I was listening to a Kasabian track called "Where did all the love go?" and I was thinking, "Yeah, where did it all go?" No-one is nice to anyone else anymore."

Just then, the bus pulled up outside the QVB on York Street and I pulled out my earphones in preparation for donning my tie and security card when the bus driver stood up and announced "Happy Easter Everyone!  I hope you all have a great weekend and I see you again soon".  Everyone on the bus then proceeded to wish the driver a happy Easter and thank him for being such a good bus driver!

Wow, so that's your answer Kasabian.  All the love went to Australia and you know the best thing.  When I got to the office, the Easter Bunny had been in the night and there was chocolate everywhere.  What a nice place to be!

Don't Panic

I've not posted for two months.  Its funny really because I started to write this a week ago and that seems just like yesterday, but as I read over my musings from last week I realise that the seven days has completely changed the way I feel about being here and that this experience is still a roller coaster for me.

This week has been good and the weekend has just ended on a high of wading in big surf at Narabeen with Hannah, Dave and Lucy with the warm Autumn sunshine causing us to lose track of time,not leaving until almost 6.00 p.m. on a school night!.

Independence by the skin of our teeth

We are here to stay (for now.) Having been reliant on friends and family now for too long for our own sanity, let alone theirs, we are now independent again.  Hannah and I live together with our two girls in a two bedroom apartment in Killarney Heights and I can just afford to fund it and sustain us from the salary I will earn from February.  Zoe will start school on Thursday and we are looking for a place in nursery for Esme.  Hannah remains optimistic of the Australian system accepting her qualification bolstered by numerous further university qualification before the turn of the decade.

This is a time for questions though.  Did we do the right thing?  For me it is too late to ask that question for practical reasons, but interesting none the less for its academic value.

Coffs Harbour: Above and Beyond

Christmas and New Year are now out of the way and things are returning back to normal.  We have now found a house which all-importantly will allow us to send Zoe to the school with a bilingual English-French programme. Also, I had my third interview with a company in Sydney yesterday.  Actually it was a test which lasted three hours and reminded me of being at school.  Still, I passed that so I now have a final interview with the New South Wales regional director on Tuesday.

I'm looking forwards to writing my next article more than this one because it will be my latest "Observations on Australia" which is far more interesting to write than a diary of events.  Still, we had a great time in Coffs Harbour and north of there on our summer road trip and I want to make a record of it for my future enjoyment.  This is a fantastic place to be.

A Car or a Lemon?

Arriving at Coffs harbour was a relief and after stress over running out of money and the car, we took a few days to recover while Matt and Fiona carried on their routines of work and taking the kids to and from Nursery.  Actually, the first day, Matt took me to the Deep Sea Fishing Club for a couple of beers and had second half of the afternoon off.  We looked out over the sea, drank cold beers and enjoyed the scenery.  It was pretty good really.

We came back to his place and drank half a carton of beer between us.  This was inevitable, as was the fact that we have probably done more or less the same thing every night since, although we did have onenight off, just to keep the ladies happy.  We did have a dodgy car on our hands though and that would prove to be a weight on our minds which needed lifting.

Meeting Bob McTavish

Last autumn in England, before I went to Australia, I went down to visit my brother in Devon.  Mike had previously helped me acquire a new longboard to replace the 7'6" minimal I had been using.  This longboard is a beauty, it is a 9'6" McTavish longboard and it rides like a dream.  If the waves are good in Devon, when I get on that board I am in heaven.

My brother raved on about Bob McTavish, telling me he was a really cool surfing legend from the 60s who had pioneered new technicques in surfing and shaping.  I just wanted to get out on the board.

The first month in Australia

We've been in Australia for a month now and certainly have found it difficult to find time to make new posts.  When you have no schedule it is really hard to fit blogging into your schedule.  Therefore I'm going to try and summarise the first few weeks in Australia with as few words as possible.  I will probably ramble on as ever though.

A perfect day in Sydney

This is Zoe's first post, actually the whole family are contributing. We have really had a perfect Sunday with the family in Sydney despite the fact that the westerly winds have brought day long 40 degree heat for the past three days.

Zoe: I think it is just a fabulous day in Sydney, I have just got hot the whole day and have got thirstier and thirstier. It's just the best day ever. We saw the ferry going round and round that we went on. It was always the same ferry. We saw a long green ferry and a yellow ferry and a short green ferry.

There were lots of people making sand castles on the beach. When we got to the party, there were people jumping off the side into the deep water of Sydney harbour but it didn't matter because they could swim.

Esme: I enjoyed my food. I enjoyed my fantastic cooking pizza yesterday. I liked swimming in Hans's pool. I liked all the pools, there's one, two, three there is mummy. I liked it when I throwed the balloons in the air, the balloons that i didn't like. I liked everyone on the TV putting the balloons up in the air and they sprinkled. I didn't like the beach. I did like walking in the rock pools....where's my seat, can I get on my seat? Thank you for my Holiday.

Hannah: we started with a perfect beach morning which was surprisingly busy at 9.00 am but made sense with the temperature. Zoe, Nick, Esme and Sue swam while I paddled. Then we went for a beautiful walk along the shoreline and onto the little island at Balmoral where Sue used to play when she was twelve. We saw where the shark nets were tied until last year and saw the manly ferry and round the headland. Then back to Nick for a wonderful swim before home for a late breakfast.

During that time, Sue phoned and said did we want to go to Hans's for a swim? We agreed to go after a quiet half hour in which even the children read silently which ended abruptly when Nick said "We've got 10 minutes to catch the ferry Hannah". We literally hot-footed it down to the ferry in the hottest heat I've ever experienced and made it with two minutes to spare.

At Hans's we had a wonderful afternoon swimming and eating and drinking with the Kirribilli community from three sets of flats and arranged New Years at Kirribilli. That means front row seats for Sydney harbour fireworks.

Nick: I am shocked that no-one mentioned that we travelled to the beach in the 4L Ford Fairlane Passion Waggon.

Nine days in Thailand

Thailand was Hannah's idea.  We were paying for the flights anyway and s stop-over did not add to the cost. I also had stacks of Hilton points to spend, so we booked ourselves into a resort in Hua Hin for nine nights.  The ideas was that we would use the time to recover from our hectic last few weeks and months so we would  be ready to arrive in Australia and hit the ground running.

When we landed in Thailand Zoe and Esme both drew a lot of attention from the locals.  At first I was worried that they were going to be kidnapped and kept a close eye on them.  As time passed however, I realised that they were just being friendly and that their way of being friendly to the children was to touch their face or ruffle their hair.  Later in the holiday I was surprised when Zoe refused to wear a pretty pink sari with elephant prints on it.  When I asked her why she told me in a very stroppy fashion that she was trying not to look pretty because she didn't like people touching her.

Esme's christmas list

Getting ready for Christmas in the sun and with the absence of cold weather, early evenings and snow/sleet/rain is something which we are not really concerned with.  However, we have been encouraging the girls to think about Christmas as we will be spending it with family who are well used to preparing for the festive season in 35 degree heat.

Anyway, this is a very quick post because I asked the two girls what they wanted for Christmas yesterday and Esme's list might take a bit of time to get together.  She assures me that her top presents would be:

UK to Thailand

I've been in Australia seven days now and am only just getting prepared to write about our trip out of England. I made some notes as we went around Thailand and reading through them now, I realise it's a good idea. I had forgotten about half the things that had happened already. I am finding it hard to find time to write now though. When at work, a bit more work seems to fit quite well, but the thought of getting my computer out while on holiday really doesn't appeal.

The taxi took us to Heathrow in what seemed like no time at all. The girls were excited, Hannah sitting in the back with them, with me in front talking to the driver, Richard. It all seemed a bit surreal, what we were doing just seemed like a dream and the feelings were just not what I expected.  It was very relaxing, I didn't feel excited, or sad, just exhausted and ready for a rest.  Not the best place to be when you are about to embark on an eleven hour flight with two small but very energy sapping children.

Leaving England

After my work leaving party on the Thursday, I decided to have a lie-in. I asked for a late checkout from the Hilton, but true to form, other things came up which meant I did not truly relax. I got a call from my friend Gary at 10.00 saying he was coming to see me at 10.30. Great! Although I wanted to see him, my plans of relaxation would have to be put on hold. Gary only stayed half an hour, we went for a walk in the Newbury sunshine and looked at cars on the A34, the source of the famous Newbury Bypass dispute. Some people will know about it, this guy called "Swampy" climbed up a tree with matted hair and an army surplus jacket and refused to get down saying that it would ruin the natural countryside around Newbury. Swampy had a point, you can hear the roar of the A34 in some of the most beautiful and otherwise quiet patches of woodland on the north side of Newbury and it ruins the peace. I don't think iPods had been invented back then though because once plugged in, the place takes on an even more atmospheric quality, depending on the track you are listening to at the time. I suspect Birdwatchers would disagree, they normally do, but I can handle it.

Leaving today

Just a very quick post to say we are leaving today.  We'll be arriving in Thailand tomorrow and flying into Sydney for the 5th November.  We may be out of touch for a little while....but we'll be back.  Soon.