Knotts Abroad

When is a good time to go back?

We now feel settled in Oz, we have the regular weekly routine, friends and plenty to do at the weekend + in the holidays. We love our house, our pool and the area that we live in and have no regrets about moving.

A number of our friends that have been here about a year have now booked their flights to go back to the UK for a holiday which got me thinking when would be a good time for that first visit back and what do we really miss about our old lives?

I think that we could happily go back for a holiday now, but I would only want to go back for 2 weeks in the UK summertime not in the winter.

Here is the list of things that we would do when we got there:

Visit Friends and family, however we would now miss our new friends and family in Oz if we went back for too long.

Eat a full English breakfast with proper bacon & sausage. (They cure the pork differently here so bacon and ham joints don't taste the same. Although you can buy bacon & sausage from the English shop for a price)

Eat a proper Indian and Chinease meal, again both available here but not as good as what we were used to.

Shop for clothes & shoes, clothes here are overpriced for what they are.

And to be honest that's about it! Which I think is pretty good to say we have been here for only 18 months!

One Year Ago Today...

One year ago today our family landed at Brisbane Airport ready for a new life in Australia. I can honestly say that we have not been dissapointed and have no regrets on moving whatsoever.

The first few months were both exciting and scary as we had to learn a whole new culture really. Looking back to that time we tried to take things one step at a time, the practical things were easy to sort out, getting tax file numbers, driving licences, jobs, our first rental. The emotional side took a bit longer to settle down and our relationship was definitely under pressure as we both worried that we might have made a big mistake, that we were too far away from the people we cared about and would never meet new friends as good as those we had left back in England.

Well we still miss friends and family and always will but we have visitors lined up over the next few months which we are excited about, and email and webcam and the phone has helped us to keep in touch. And we have made new friends, and hope that we will continue add to them over the years.

Our quality of life has improved, we do lots more activities and try new things all the time the choice of what to do here is endless and some weekends it is nice to decide to do nothing at all and stay at home for a change.

We spend our spare time as a family rather than going off and doing our own thing. Steve works part time and looks after Lauren before and after school which has made them a lot closer and Lauren does not have to spend time in pre and after school care which she hated.

We are both doing jobs that are completely different to the jobs we left behind, but we have no complaints so far, and the money is about the same as we got in England.

We are currently in the process of buying our first Australian home. After selling our house in England in June 2007, we moved in with Steve's parents until we left in October 2007, we then moved in with Steve's Sister and her family until December 2007 when we moved in to our first rental. We moved from there in June 2008 into the rental we are currently in and then when Estate agents started coming around to look at the property as the owners may be thinking about selling, we decided that it was time to put down some firm roots so started looking at purchasing our first Australian home.

After several Saturdays looking at house after house and finding nothing we liked, we were asked by an estate agent if we would like to look at one that had come back on the market that morning as the contract had fallen through. We agreed to have a look expecting it to be a load of rubbish like all of the others and it was also further out than we wanted to be, but as soon as we pulled up in front of it we liked it. And when we looked inside it was everything we had dreamed about having in a home but thought we could never afford.

So fingers crossed we could be moving for the last time in a long time into our new home in 2 weeks. Our house in England was a 2 bedroomed terraced, this one is a 4 bedroomed detatched bungalow with a lovely big garden and inground pool definately an improvement.

So summing up on our first year, we can't believe it has gone so fast or what we have managed to achieve in that time, we look forward to the next 12 months and what they will bring, and definitely will not be moving back!

Barbeque Night

So at the weekend we decided that as BBQ's were on sale (it being winter here and all) we would invest in a super delux stainless steel BBQ with cupboard, side burner, shelf and rotissery, a snap at $399, (saving $300).

On the way home we stopped off to buy supplies to cook on the new BBQ and a gas bottle and then went home and proceeded to put new BBQ together.

One hour passed with some light swearing, but Steve was doing a great job and I stood by with a regular supply of beers and encouraging words of support.

Another hour passed and I decided to pop the baked potatoes in the oven and start making the burgers.

Around 5pm I decided to start the burgers off in the oven, while Steve dismantled the bottom shelf of the BBQ as it was on upside down and the doors would not fit with it like that (swearing becoming more frequent at this stage).

Approximately 6pm our shiny new BBQ in all its glory stood downstairs in the garage as we sat upstairs eating oven baked potatoes and burgers whilst watching the rain storm, thunder and lightning.

A week on we still have not used the BBQ, but I guess we did save $300.........what a bargin!

Confused

Had to share this one with you, I was stood on the Platform waiting for my train this morning, it was quite cool but still around 20 degrees.

I turned to look at the women stood next to me and noticed that she had on a polo necked jumper and a scarf; a bit excessive I thought and then looked down to see that she was sporting a fine pair of Billabong flip flops on her feet (with no socks I might add!) wierd or what .......?

Six Months Already???

I can hardly believe that we have been living in Australia for 6 months at the end of this week. The time has flown by and we are loving it.

The weekends are the best as there is always such a great choice, beach, mountains, theme park....the list is endless and it is a bad weekend when we have to do shopping. We have not travelled very far out of Brisbane so far as we are still exploring what is around where we live but we are planning a trip to Adalaide some time soon.

The weather (for all my moaning about the rain) is fabulous, but we are becoming used to it and I found myself putting on a cardi the other morning as it was a chilly 24 degrees at 7.00am?!? I hear it is snowing in the UK at the moment ; - )

Work is ok for both of us, I have decided to try and get a job working for the government again as my contract runs out in about 4 weeks and I fancy a change (and more money)

We have also decided to look for a better rental property with a pool if possible ready for Summer and visitors (we are booked up for December 08 already!) Not sure how we get out of our current rental agreement but I am looking in to that one at the moment.

We have made friends which is great, they are all people that have moved out from the UK to live here as that seems to be a common factor that draws us together unintentionally, i thought that my new friends would all be Aussies! Strangely enough one night we had been invited around to one of their houses and met yet more Brits abroad and one of them went to College with someone that I worked with back in the UK so Howard from Environmental Services you are famous! 

So all in all this has been a successful move so far and we have no regrets other than missing family and friends and the Black Swan.

Freebies

Well the sun has decided to shine again so i am happy. Drove to the train station this morning with sunnies on, windows down and CD player blaring out Lily Allen....fabulous.

I am really enjoying commuting to the City every day for work, even if i don't see much of the City while i am there as i am far too busy working! I like being able to read + listen to my ipod while I am swept along to work, and then there are the freebies at the station.

So far i have had free peanut butter and cracker snack pots (lots + lots of these), free cereal, free chocolate bars (which Suzanne would love, they were called 'flirt' and are like a malteaser turned into a twix type thing). One morning there was even the Queensland Bulls lined up giving away autographs, tickets to there next game (think they must play rugby by the look of them) and free sausage sarnies!!

The weather is on the up with forecasts of 36 degrees for Saturday so we are planning on going to one of the 2 water parks here, not sure which one yet though. Apparently we only have 11 days of Summer left to go so we need to make the most of it!

Good news on the job front....Steve has got one! he starts on Monday and he will be working 9.00am to 2.30pm so it fits around Lauren's school hours perfectly so no need to put her in pre + after school club which is a bonus.

Lauren is starting Cheerleading club this week, they practice in the lunch time break twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays so she is happy with that. She is making lots of friends in her year too which is good.

Well must put on the shades and go catch the train home again.

And The Rain It Commeth!!

So the rain has definitely decided to follow us to the other side of the world & stay.

On the plus side the Aussies are well chuffed as the dams that were almost empty are now filling up. In fact they are so full they are overflowing on the gold coast and flooding houses, roads etc.

Our local dam is almost 40% full (they built it in the desert where land was cheap and plentiful unlike the rain) and there is talk of dropping the water usage restrictions  down from a level 6 if they actually get to over 40%!! Wow no more 4 minute showers and washing the car in the guarage so the neighbours don't see us and grass us up (sorry dob us in)!!

So we are generally quite miffed that we moved to the other side of the world and the Summer here has been hotter but basically wetter than a UK summer!

The weirdest thing is that everyone is geering up for the Autumn/Winter Season, the shops are stocking wooly jumpers, hats and scarves the likes of which I wouldn't need to wear in the highlands of Scotland never mind the beaches of the Sunshine Coast so we will wait and see how that pans out. Lauren has requested some long 'pants' (trousers) for school for 'winter' so we conceded and ordered one pair but strongly doubt that she will need to wear them.....we will wait and see.

Other wise life is settling down into a normal routine, I have been told that work want to hire me on a permanent contract which is good news, especially as I am getting lots of use out of the pool here and have found out about the free monthly massages (10 mins hands, feet or neck) and the dry cleaning service that picks up and returns back to your desk (have not used yet but might get my winter coats cleaned in anticipation).

Steve has seen a few jobs that he is interested in that should fit in around school hours which will be good, so we are waiting to hear back on those.

We are so far unable to get a credit card due to a complete lack of credit rating so I have managed to get a BOPO card which is basically a VISA card that you load up with cash before you use it to buy stuff. This should help out with my internet shopping withdrawal symptoms.

Another thing we don't seem to be able to get here is a sun cream over factor 30 (waterproof of course so it doesn't wash off in the rain!), when enquiring on this strange practice and producing empty bottles of factor 40 from the UK I was told that Australian factor 30 is a lot stronger than the European factor 30 so we don't need anything higher .........what ?????

Anyhow better get back to work or they might change their minds about keeping me on!!

Happy Birthday to Me!!

It was my birthday yesterday (Sunday) and a big thankyou to everyone that sent cards and ecards to me. I had a fab day as the sun decided to shine so we went to the streets beach party in the South Bank of the City, did beach things, had italian for lunch then took a stroll up to Queen Street (via a ride on the big wheel) for shopping and ice cream it was my first birthday in the sun!

Now when you think of Australia you think of blue sky, sunshine, days out on the beach etc etc, I am bloomin' cheesed off to have to say that Sunday was an exception to the rule it was a day of glorious sunshine in a month of miserable grey skys and rain! We can't believe it! And it is not just a bit of drizzle either it is full on torrential rain, with occasional storms and prospective cyclones, I know that it is tropical weather in this region but come on where is the sun??

There was i worrying that I had bought a car with no airconditioning and the other day I had to spend a good 5 minutes getting the heater working. Actually it isn't that cold, it is about 25 degrees most days and the Aussies at work seem quite pleased that it is cool for the time of year as usually it is 40 degrees by now with 99% humidity, I think that it is a british thing to winge about the weather whatever it is like so maybe I should stop it!

On the house front we finally decided on which sofas we should buy and they were delivered today, apparently they had to take a door off to get them in (I haven't been home to see them yet), we finally decided after checking out several hundred suites on a 3 seater and a 2 seater dark brown leather sofa which were the most comfortable that we tried out. We have most things sorted for the inside of the house now so need to get started on the outside; if the rain ever stops we might even try having a barbie.

I had my first swim in the work pool today and it was very nice I can tell you, and i had it all to myself, and there are showers with shower gel provided too, I will definately be using that staff perk on a regular basis in the future.

Must go now as my lunch break is over, hope the weather back in the UK is bloody awful!!

Bite Me!

So it has happened, I have been bitten by something on my head and been infected.

I think that it was only a mossie but I scratched it and it got infected and spread all over the top of my head. I thought that it would just heal up and go away but a week later my forehead swelled up and then my whole face followed at which point I thought it would be wise to seek medical attention.

I was put on a course of anti-biotics and Steve had to bathe my poisonous wounds with antiseptic and some special cream which drew all the puss up out of the wounds and at one point it was just oozing out.

All better now though and I have taken on board the advice from my Aussie workmates to seek medical attention for all future bites asap!!

It is Christmas day today and the news tells us that it is the coldest christmas since 1999, however at a cool 27 degrees we are coping....just...Lauren has been in the pool but I wimped out as it was only 24 degrees in there.

We did have a turkey dinner today but I am hoping to drag everyone out tommorrow for a picnic in the Mountains. Not sure yet what we are doing for New Years but apparently South Bank is good so might check it out on the website.

The house is good, we have been to IKEA and picked up most essential furniture items on the cheap to give us a bit more time to decide on which sofa, table + chairs etc we want. Might have a look in the Summer sales and see if we can get any bargains, the government gives you a $200 rebate if you buy an energy efficient washing machine which is good of them.

Well I have to go now as it is my turn to host deal or no deal.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Renting in Oz

Since the last blog we decided that it is going to be months before we will be able to get a mortgage and we have been living with family since June so we would start looking for a rental property. We have money to pay rent, there are people with houses that need renting out there so it can't be difficult can it?

Well yes it can! Once the decision to rent was made I went on to the website to look at rental properties in our area, we decided to stay here for the moment as we don't want to move Lauren from school just yet as she has settled in so well. There were about 8 properties on there to rent so Steve went to the Estate agents to find out if we could view them. He liked one in particular that was in the centre near all the shops (and the pub) and was told that he would have to make an appointment for the following Monday which he did.

Come Monday the Estate Agent moved his appointment to the end of the day so I made arrangements to finish work early so I could go with him, meanwhile he went to look at another property just around the corner from where we are at the moment. There were 5 lots of people looking around when he got there, he was given an application form to fill in and told that it needed to be in by the end of the day with all of the supporting documentation which included the usual passport, visa, driving licence etc and then personal references, previous rental information etc. We met up later on and went to see the other house, the family that lived there were all sat there as we wandered through their home inspecting it, again there were 5 lots of people looking around at which point it clicked that even if we liked the house and wanted to rent it we were in competition with all of the other people.

We went to the estate agents for both properties and filled in the forms and were told that all applications are sent to the owner who picks out who they want to rent their house.

The next day I got a call to say that the second house that we viewed (near the pub) had gone to someone else. A little while later Steve got a call to say that we had got the first one, we decided to take it rather than risk not getting anywhere for months. The house is nice and big with a new kitchen and bathroom, 3 bedrooms and off the main road. It has a nice big garden front and back (with lots of grass for Steve to mow) so room for a trampoline for Lauren. Disappointingly none of the rentals available had a pool so we will be popping round the corner to swim in Justines as it gets warmer. On the bright side it does have air conditioning as apparently we will need it in the summer.

So we have the keys now and are waiting for our stuff to come from storage, the customs people decided that our plastic xmas tree posed a threat to national security so have fumigated it at a cost of $200 to us, how kind of them. I am looking forward to having our things around us again, and we are all looking forward to having our own space again.

Steve's golf clubs came yesterday, well some of them, it looks like they have been sent in 2 boxes, box 2 of 2 is here but box 1 of 2 has not got here yet so he has half a set of irons and no woods which is a problem apparently! He has decided to take Lauren golfing in the summer holiday which she seems happy enough about so he is looking out for some mini clubs at the moment.

A hairdresser came to the office yesterday and did everyones hair, apparently this is a big thing in Sydney which Lisa is trying to  set up in Brisbane, if you are too busy to go to the hairdreser the hairdresser comes to you! so at your alloted time you pop up to level 7 and get a cut and blow dry for $45. She is really nice, from England and does the hair for the big brother house contestents here and other celebs apparently. 

This weekend we are going to be busy buying 'essentials' for the new home, like TV, fridge, phone, sofa etc but the bank only lets you take out so much each day so I need to try and up the limit.

Later on there is a carols in the park thing on that my manager has invited us to go to. A big group of them are getting together and we have to take a picnic, it is in the botanical gardens in the city just on the river, I wonder if they will sing the 'Wendy the Wombat' xmas song?

Movember Update

Work is going well so far, settling in nicely and getting to grips with their systems and the currency transfer market and the people are all nice so I think that I will be ok there for a while.

Georgina introduced me to the beer fridge on Friday, which is literally a fridge situated in the IT section full of beers which at 4.30pm on a Friday members of staff raid to start celebrating the weekend.......and sometimes nibbles are put on too, how cool is that?!?

Steve met me from work on Friday (after the beer fridge) and we went out in the city for a few drinks, my new boss seemed chuffed that I asked her along and she showed us a few of the top spots before gently swaying off home to her hubby who was on call so couldn't join us this time.

We went to a bar on the Riverside after she left us called Jade Budda which came highly recommended and was nicely decorated with a balcony looking over the river which was a lovely view, we thought that we would try some cocktails from their extensive list so I ordered a long island iced tea and Steve ordered a highland Fling.

It was not particularly busy but it was taking ages to get served so we split up and eventually got served by a barman also called Steve. Steve the barman was the crappest barman in the world! We placed our order and he checked the receipe list from the side of the till and got 2 glasses, put lemon in one and some berries in the other then got a big wooden stick and crushed them up.

He then put white spirit after white spirit in mine which my Steve said was a 'Black Swan Special' with coke instead of orange, he then put a measure of drambuie and one of something else in my Steve's glass then looked a bit concerned but carried on. (by this point we had been waiting about 20 minutes and had been asked by 3 other bar staff if we wanted serving, how we wished we had waited). Barman Steve then got half of a silver cocktail shaker and  put it over my glass, gave it a shake and strained the liquid into another glass, topped it up with a thimble full of coke and moved on to the next one. While shaking Steves' cocktail he managed to crack the glass, he then strained the contents into another glass and passed it to Steve saying 'tell me what you think of that'. Turns out he had got the receipe wrong but was prepared to sell it to us at full price if we liked it ?!? as it was costing us $35 for 2 drinks my Steve said if he was paying full price he wanted what he paid for, so after about 30 minutes in total we had a drink each.

15 minutes later we had unsuccessfully tried to order food at the bar so left our drinks there because they were too disgusting to drink and went to MacDonalds for a burger (top grub) the heavens then opened so we called our first night out in the city to a close and got a cab back home to the local tavern for a good old fashioned glass of house white.

I have found out a bit more about 'Movember' apparently it started a couple of years ago by about 30 blokes who were raising money for Prostrate Cancer, it has become more popular and should hit the UK soon so watch out girlies as it is not a pretty site.

Also found out that you can get 'OMO Sensitive' washing powder for more delicate skin.

We also both got our Queensland Driving Licences this week. Contrary to everything I had been told (again) you don't need to pass any tests you just turn up at the Transport officer with the necessary paperwork and cash and get it there and then, took me a hour to get mine sorted in my lunch hour and it lasts for 5 years then you have to get it renewed.

The big election for Prime Minister was held yesterday with John Howard (Liberal) being turfed out by Kevin Rudd of the Labour Party after holding the post for 10 years. All Australians have to vote or they get fined so it was a big deal. I thought that it was more sociable to hold the election on a Saturday rather than a Thursday like in the UK, and liked the people that sit at the roadside with their banners waving at the cars and especially liked getting a bottle of free water one day when I went to catch my train to work.

I'll just finish witha couple of messages to friends, Kerry I have tried to email you but you must have written your address down wrong as they won't send, I'll try writing. Hilton I know I said I would email and I havn't yet but I will. Peter Hopper, we need to know your shoe size, Emma does your baby have a name yet?? we like the pictures on your facebook.

We miss you all, but the sun keeps shining xx

First Day at Work in Oz!!

Well I don't know whether it is Private companies in particular or Aussie companies in general that are slave drivers but they certainly got their pound of flesh out of me today!

Started at 8.30am only half an hour for lunch (so not a lot of shopping got done) and left at 5.45pm. And what happened to the day?? missed all of the sunshine, forgot what a bind the work thing is, but we can't keep chipping away at the savings for ever.

 Luckily steve picked me up from the station and cooked me spaghetti with a tomato and mango sauce and fresh garlic king prawns for tea (and I did check the bin for take out trays and there weren't any!!) it was delicious and went down even better with the cold glass of Chardonnay that went with it.

Unfortunately as I write this the day is over and it is nearly bed time for me but it is good to be working again I suppose.

High points of the job are, free raisin toast and fresh coffee for breakfast, a massage chair which costs $2 for 4 minutes, free tea, coffee, water all day, free pool and cheap Gym and only minutes walk from some of the best shops in the world; low points of the job, no bloomin time to enjoy any of it!!!

Whipper Snipper and other updates

I knew it would happen, the minute I start looking for a job I get one! Had an interview Monday morning and I start at 8.30am tommorrow (Wed) morning and I am officially a commuter to Brisbane City.

I have to drive to the nearest train station which is about 15 mins away and then catch a train into the city that takes about 30 mins and my new office is in a tall skyscraper next to the train station. I am on level 6 and on level 2 there is a Gym and pool for staff to use.

Queen Street is a couple of minutes walk down the road which is the main shopping street so the pool may have to wait for a while, mind you I'd better start earning some money before I spend it, you get paid fortnightly here which will be nice.
 
Apparently they have booked a fancy dress disco party for xmas which will be interesting, my new boss emigrated out here a couple of years ago and seems really nice, there are 10 people in the Accounting team all together a lot of them new starters and I will be covering someones' maternity leave for 6 months doing cash management, they are a world wide company selling software so deal in multiple currencies which should be interesting.
 
Steve has not started looking for work yet, I think that he was waiting to see what I got with a view to being a kept man, it is the summer holidays coming up though so I wonder how long into the 6 weeks holiday he will last lokking afte the kids before finding something??
 
Other things we found out this week include the news that a strimmer out here is called a 'Whipper Snipper', you don't get chopped tinned tomatoes they are diced, and many of the food + cleaning products are so un-PC they would have people marching on the streets in UK in protest such as 'Coon' cheese and 'Omo' washing powder.  

There are fruit bats flying around the night sky the size of eagles and apparently if they bite you, you have to go straight to hospital (not sure if this is true or not or if people have figured out that I am a bit squeemish as regards the local animal life)

Anyhow, better get an early night as I am up bright and early tommorrow!!

Movember

Hi, I know I missed a week on the old blog but might do a few extra this week to make up for it. 

I need to tell you about Movember, during this month men (and some ladies) are encouraged to grow a 'mo' for Movember (moustach) and some people are even being sponsored to do it, there are examples of good 'mo's' on TV and the internet including of course the Tom Selleck and My name is Earl guy. Bizarre!

We have got Foxtel installed here which is just like Sky Plus but with different channels, there is no watershed as such so you can catch nip tuck in the middle of the afternoon if you want to. They have a UK channel that shows Emmerdale, Eastenders and Corrie but the episodes are a bit behind so we don't bother, Charlie is still alive for goodness sake. They also have UK stands in the supermarket selling batchelors mushy peas and marmite (makes me think of the polish stand when you are shopping in ASDA so I refuse to entertain the idea of buying anything there)
 
We went to the Tavern bar on Friday and met some more locals, they seem ok although they love their heavy metal here, some bloke was bothering ladies for phone numbers so I gave him the UK Gay chat line but his mobile would not accept international calls, wonder if he will try again when he is sober?
 
The british expats hold regular meet ups here, Steve recons they must be swingers, I think why bother moving to Aus and then meeting up with a load of Brits?? Our new Aussy friend Melissa recons we are conspiring against the Aussies.....paranoid I'd say.
 
There is an election in a week to decide who will lead the country, and you get the local candidates and their helpers sat by the side of the road waving to traffic every day which is a bit wierd but very friendly.

It has been a rainy week this week so too cold to go into the pool (only 26 degrees) and I have had to dry the washing in the tumble dryer as when it does rain it is torrential here.

Had a good nights sleep last night so hoping to do something today as I might be working full time from tommorrow (fingers crossed!).

Will let you know how I get on.

Settling in nicely!

So we have been here 3 weeks today, how time flys.

So to update you on our progress then, we have bought a car for me, it is a little red Daihatsu Sirion GTVi manual but with no air conditioning so that will be the next job once the temperatures start rising. Lovely car but I don't like driving here yet, not sure whether it is the number of lanes or just that I don't have a clue where I am going, but I can take the kids to school and pick them up on my own now so I'm sure I'll be fine eventually.

The insurance was easy enough to sort out with one call to RACQ but I couldn't find our no claims certificates that I know I got so had to ring our last insurers in the UK to get the policy numbers to get an additional 10% discount and a 'rating 1' (think it is a no claims discount). To get a further discount I could join the roadside assistance, great I thought, I'll do that, the catch was that I had to pay for the roadside assistance over the phone by credit card and we don't yet have a credit card so we had to go to the nearest office to sort that out, but all done now.

Not having a credit card is a bit of a problem though, everyone wants you to pay by card and won't accept cash, we checked with the bank and we will have to have a regular income coming in for at least 3 months before we will be considered so we will just have to make do for now.

The bank accounts are all sorted now except that I still have not got a cheque book but Steve has so I use his! You have to pay a monthly fee to have an account here and pay for every transaction you make no such thing as free banking. Also we are still waiting for our Tax File numbers so our interest (and any income we earn) is being taxed at 50% until they come through, robbing dogs!

We got our mobile phones back, unfortunately everywhere we look there are cheap mobiles that we could have bought and saved ourselves loads of money, if you move here sell yours in the UK or at least get it unlocked before you travel.

I had my meeting with Hays Recruitment Agency last Wednesday and filled in a form and did a data entry speed and accuracy test, they think that I should be able to get some short term work inputting invoices for $24 an hour (about 12 pounds) which is fine by me.

Went away from that meeting realising I would have to start looking for work myself if I was ever going to find something I liked doing so picked up a copy of the Courier and the Australian (apparently the once to look at on a Wednesday and weekend for jobs) and found nothing. Went on to a couple of websites and found a couple of Policy Officer jobs in the Department for Communiites at Queensland State Government (headed by the Minister for Communities) that sound a lot like the review work I used to do at Boston so I have applied for those and am waiting to hear if I have an interview for either of them.

Meanwhile Dan from Hays has called and asked if I can attend an interview in the city on Monday at 8.30am (how early??) working for a private software company in cash management. If they like me they want me to start there and then so looks like the Holiday will end about a month after it began but at least we will get some cash coming in. I have had a look at their website and the company is huge with offices all over the world including one in Hertfordshire........and they want me to look after their billions for them????

On Sunday we thought that we would do something fun and took Lauren and her cousin Josh to Dream World on the Gold Coast (bit like Alton Towers but without the rain), we went in the Australian big brother house which was good, I went on the Claw which was a bit scary, so decided to take Lauren on some of the kiddies rides in the Nicolodean section while Steve and Josh went off to go on the Mickey Doohan new bike ride roller coaster.

You would think that if young kids are going on the rides they wouldn't be scary wouldn't you?? We went on the 'Reptar' roller coaster and it was like the Nemises at Alton Towers, she was ok but wouldn't go back on it. We then went on the big roller coaster, Steve and Josh went first while I looked after Lauren then I went on with Josh and we sat at the front. Whilst waiting for the ride to start Josh was telling me how scared Steve was and how much of a girl he was etc... we got off the ride and went to look at the photos and Josh looked like he had seen every ghost that ever appeared in Scooby Doo all at once, it was so funny I had to buy it

Highlight of the week this week was Melbourne Cup Day, much excitement and betting throughout Australia on Tuesday 6th November, similar to the Grand National. So we picked our Horses backed them each way (eventually after 2 attempts at filling in the slips correctly) and walked from the betting shop through the connecting door to the pub to watch the race. It was full of drunken Aussies that had been there since 9am for the first race of the day, the big race started at 2pm, a shock win by a horse called Efficiency caused much disgust amongst the locals, we both got second place with a horse called Purple Moon and picked up our $9 winnings with glee even though we were still $11 down each on our bets.

We then had the gambling bug and had a go on the Keno after a brief explanation from our slightly tipsy Aussie mate Craig (or brows as we have nick named him for reasons that would become obvious if you meet him). Keno is a bit like bingo but it runs continuously throughout the day, to play you fill in a slip with the numbers you want to play, how many games you want to play for and how much you want to bet on each game and hand your slip to the bar staff who get your ticket for you then you wait. You can watch it on the screens in the pub if you want, when your games are over you hand your ticket back to the bar staff for checking and they let you know if you have won or not. We bet $10 and won back $4, re-gambled the winnings and won nothing ......such entertainment!

Ah well better get on and do some lounging around, might be my last chance for a while....

First Week in OZ

Well we have been here for one week now. There have been some things that went well and some that did not go so well, but to be honest without having someone here to show us the ropes everything would have been much tougher to sort out.

Everything I had read told us what we needed to do in the first week:

1) register for medicare - we were pointed in the direction of the local shopping complex which is the size of Meadowhall in Sheffield. Went into the government office there, filled in a form got our temporary cards and numbers within 10 minutes, easy! However at the same office they dealt with family assistance part of which is called child benefit which we were led to believe was the same as the child benefit in England, wrong, it is like working family tax credit and if you underestimate your income and are overpaid you are fined $500 for every $1000 you are overpaid! we spent 15 minutes filling in a form only to find out that you can't claim until you have a tax file number and your childs immunisation record, having read about the immunisation record on another expats blog I handed over a printout of our daughters record that I got from our doctor before we left, unfortunately this will not suffice we need to register with a doctor and get them to fill in another form for us to convert her UK immunisations to Australian equivalent?!? more on that one later. So basically we are no further on with the family assistance thing and are a bit wary of applying now anyway.

2) get a tax file number - apparently the government office that we were in only dealt with the two issues above and could not help with this so we had to go to another building 3 mins down the road to the Centerlink office and pick up some forms, whilst there we registered for help finding a job (job centre for the unemployed type thing) and got interviews to register with the job search people for the next day. After getting the forms home I found out that we could register on line easier but at home we had no phone and no internet yet.

So we went to join the local library, to join you need to have something with your name and address on it, luckily our belongings had arrived in Australia  before we did and the shipping company had sent us an invoice and some forms to fill in to get the goods cleared through customs, and lucky again we had an address for them to post this info to us so we have library cards. Unfortunately they were closing when we joined up  so we had to go back the next day to use the internet and TFN registration took 10 minutes...sucesss! Apparently if you don't have one of these you are deducted tax from your salary at a rate of 48% which obviously is a tad extreme.

3) Get bank account activated - we had a bit of cash with us when we arrived so waited a couple of days before tackling this one. So I rang the Brisbane City branch of the Commonwealth Bank, as instructed in my letter from the London Branch, to make an appointment to activate my account and access our funds. Nice lady said we did not have any funds but we did not need to go into the city to activate our account we could do this at our local branch the next day but we would need to contact our person in London to transfer our funds over. Given the 9 hour time delay and our pressing need to buy vehicles I emailed London to ask them to transfer funds ASAP. We went to our local branch the next day to activate our account and set up other accounts and found out that our funds were still not there.

Another trip to the Library then to find an email from London saying that an email would not suffice I would need to ring them to transfer the funds over. So I waited until 6.30pm (9.30 am GMT) and called the number on a pay as you go mobile phone (more on that later too!) only to get a recorded message saying that the number was not recognised. After trying a few times we decided that for some reason the mobile phone was not allowing calls outside the country, so I set off walking into the night to find a phone box. 15 minutes later I found a Spar shop with public phone box, typed in the number 44 (drop the 0)20**** receive recorded message this number is not recognised, tried 44020*** not recognised, tried 044020, 04420 etc nothing. So I rang the mobile to ask Steve to check the phone book to check the code for calling England as we had been led to believe that it was 44, turns out it is 0011 to call outside of Australia, 44 to call England, drop the zero and then the rest of the number is the same.

Finally I got through to the London Bank, asked for my contact, and she is off sick?!? then my money cuts out.....aggghhh give me my bloody money!!??!! So I ring back explain phone box situation, not much change need money and after a nerve racking 5 minutes the deed is done. Got a really crap exchange rate as the AUS dollar is really strong at the moment but don't care as the money will be there after two days.

Walking home in the dark, I am ok until I need to cross the road and I see a thin black line on the road, glistening in the moonlight, a snake? need to cross the road so do I run behind it or in front of it or over it?? choose over it, I get to the other side of the road look back and it is still there because it is a bloody oil spill, my nerves are shattered I give in to pre-mixed G & T and some boxed white wine at $10 for 4 litres (about 4 pounds) this cheers me up a little.

4) Get daughter enroled in school - easy to choose which one as her cousin is only a year older so nip in to the office when dropping off cousin to enrole. We get an appointment for later on in the afternoon, all fine and dandy she will need a long list of uniform, bags, books etc which can be bought cash or card from the tuck shop in the morning, after checking the price list a dress is $45 (20 pounds) and no ASDA to turn to so we are looking at $200 + but money not in bank yet, no credit, and tuck shop only open Mon to Thurs until 9.30am, money in bank Thursday but not open until 9.30am, luckily Steve's sister lends us some money so all sorted to start on Monday morning. Plus have met a mum from Cornwall that moved with her family here 18 months ago and one from Hartlepool that moved here 3 years ago, both have kids in Laurens class and both seem to be well settled so that is positive.

5) get new sim cards for phones - everything I read said, take your UK mobiles with you and get a pay as you go sim card when you get there.

Sounds easy, but it isn't and it isn't cheep if you have a decent 3G phone. Waltzed into a Vodaphone shop, sim cards please, ok but they will cost $10 each and they won't work in your phones as they have been locked by Vodaphone UK, can they be unlocked? yes but not by Vodaphone Aus so we buy the sim cards anyway and $30 credit each and then have to wait 20 minutes to get our sim cards registered (you need a Aus driving licence to do this, Steve's sister now has about 15 phones registered to her) job done we ring some phone shops in the area to find out about unlocking the phones, thinking it will cost about $10 per phone we find someone the other side of the city that will unlock Steve's for $75 and mine for $50 but we need to post phones and money to him registered delivery and it will take 7 days for him to unlock them, we find someone nearer that can do the job in 24 hours for the same price so drive towards the city in rush hour to get them there before closing and should pick them up on Saturday. Meanwhile we put one of the sim cards in one of our nephews spare phones so we can use it. Total cost of getting UK phones in operation $215 (about 100 pounds) Telstar (Aus BT) sell mobile with camera for $45 (about 20 pounds) hindsite....priceless!!

6) Get a doctor - Simple go to the local surgery (of which there are hundreds & similar situation with dentists) ask to be registered, we are told we don't need to register just ring for an appointment when we need one. I explain about the family assistance and vaccination form etc, can they just get a doctor to fill in the form? apparently not we need an appointment and it will cost $70 which we can claim back if we have medicare. Wierd but we are going with it, I'll let you know next week how we got on.

7) Get a job - We had an appointment at a kind of job centre for the unemployed, we had to fill in forms and sit through a patronising video of a lady explaining what they could do for us and what we could do for ourselves. We then sat down with a scatty young lady who to be honest I wouldn't employ if she was the last worker on earth. After 45 minutes we left with a website address and a job seeker number and joy in our hearts that we were not truely unemployed and were  not relying on her help to find work...thank the lord!!

8) Get cars - Thankfully we have the use of Steve's sisters 4x4 (which I will not drive it is huge) but I need some independence and we will both need to get to interviews and to work so decided today (Friday) to start looking. We went to a road that has 6 used car dealerships and found nothing that suited our requirements or price range, both of our last cars in UK cost 500 pounds each and lasted 3 years without anything spending on them. Here they don't seem to have such bargains, you can buy a small Ford Fiesta type for $6,000 (about 3,000 pounds) and 4x4 with 7 seats are upwards from $12,000 (about 6,000 pounds), they are not brilliant condition either.

We will continue to search with low expectation of a bargain over the weekend.

So all going on, just one more thing to add, our Daughter's desperation to morph into an Austrailian. Every day she asks if we want to hear a new word, hand is her favourite as she puts on a nasel twang and says haaaand, she already calls chrisps-chips, sweets-lollys, flop flops - thongs and so she goes on.

Even though our accents stand out like jeans at a black tie party I am sticking with mine and I am proud, at the moment everyone we meet assumes we are on holiday, I guess it will be a bit different when we start work.

High points of the week, cheap wine, cheap eating out, no job, no bills, hot sunshine, pool in the back garden, Karaoke night every Thursday at Sam's Bar and Nando's, McDonalds, KFC, Dominos, Italian, Mexican, Indian, Donut King, Thai, Chinease on our door step.

Low points, early dark nights, no car, no job, no phone, no internet, time difference with UK and fake snakes in the road!!

More next week.....

Going, going, gone......

So after what seemed an absolute age we said our final farewells and boarded the plane to our new life on the 11th October 2007.

Apologies to those with long term liver damage, we did not mean to have quite so many leaving do's!!

We are currently holidaying in Singapore which is great, we are sleeping off the jet lag, taking it easy and getting to grips with the never ending heat combined with air conditioned cars and buildings everywhere we go. I have mastered wireless networks (more by accident than anything else), Lauren has mastered the ice cream sandwich, and Steve is threatening to try the sweetcorn ice cream soon.

We have been to China Town, (which put me off chinease food for ever); Little India where the food was ok, Orchard Road where there is every shop you can ever imagine (not such a great idea for me as we already need to lose 20 kilos before leaving here without buying Channel handbags!); the Night Safari at Singapore Zoo which was excellent. We still have to visit Sentosa Island to see the pink dolphins and the Raffles Hotel for our Singapore Slings but we have a few days left yet.

The first people that we met here are a lovely couple and their son, also on holiday, that live about 10 minutes from where we will be staying in Oz, so the first of the arriving do's have been planned, naturally.

Shippidy doo daaa!

Hi, I have had on my list of things to do (since we paid 2.5K to move some of our stuff to oz) to find out how we get hold of it once we (and the stuff) are there.

Spoke to the lovely Dale at Smeeton Panton of Sleaford today who told me that our stuff is on its way to Croyden as we speak and should be in a container and on the sea by 1.00pm tommorrow.

I can't even remember what we sent except for beds and the Dyson.

Apparently we need to contact our agent in Brisbane to find out about storing the goods over there until we are home owners again hope it doesn't cost too much or we will have spent more than it's worth to have moved it!

This is the last time....

Over the last couple of weeks we have been experiencing lots of 'last time' moments. For example, Lauren had her last dancing lesson in the UK, we just had our last family sightseeing trip to London, Steve played in his last Black Swan Shankers Bank Holiday Golf match, I have just booked my last dental and hairdressing appointments and the list goes on.

People keep asking if I am nervous or excited but I don't feel any different yet. Both of our jobs have been advertised and it is a bit strange talking to people on the phone about my job and whether they might be suitable for it. I have to surpress the urge to reply that no-one can possibly do my job except me, although I would be wrong wouldn't I?

When I think that we will be flying out to a new life in 6 weeks it still feels like we are going on  a holiday rather than moving to the other side of the world, maybe reality will sink in a bit nearer the time once the leaving do's start.

I read an article that likened the process of moving post Visa approval as slowly peeling off a plaster, which I thought was quite apt. You do get those moments when people say 'we are really happy for you', and 'you are doing the right thing', but you can tell that what they really want to say is 'please don't go we'll never see you again'. The hardest thing is definitely not the application process but dealing with the emotional side of tearing yourself away from your old life in preparation for a new one.

One thing that amazes me is why people feel the need to buy you presents when you have just spent the last 8 months selling as much stuff as you can before you go! I swear that I will never do another Car Boot sale as long as I live after I leave here!

Dates set & Flights are booked

The sale of our house completed on Friday so I went into the Travel Agents to pick up some brochures on Singapore and an hour later had provisionally booked our one way flights to Brisbane with a week stopover in Singapore.

After checking that the provisional dates were ok with everyone involved I confirmed the booking on Monday and paid for the lot.

On Tuesday we handed in our notices, our last working day will be 5th October, our leaving do is on the 6th October in The Black Swan in Coningsby, Carol has agreed to a Karaoke......Hurrrah!

We fly out to Singapore on 11th October, stay for 7 nights and will arrive in Brisbane on 19th October.

Currently selling left over furniture + stuff from the house that we don't want to keep, will do a car boot on Sunday rain permitting.