busterboy

It's Australia not Narnia, I love it. I may just have to change my '$5 for whining' statement below my avatar to this.

PS I think it is interesting to see the response rates to reasoned posts like these. The 'jeez this is shit, I am about throw myself off Craggy Point' ones seem to do better, so do the dolphin and butterfly posts. MMhhh.

moneypenny20

Always the way. Say something is definitely one or the other and everyone comes out of the woodwork to argue with them. Have someone say, this is it, some of it's shit, some's great and there's little to argue with

katsmajic

Jessssuss 3 years, wow.
Well done
Glad to hear things are good and fingers crossed the financial bits all fall in to place soon.

Take care. xxx

rinkerdink

What's so great about Narnia, i'd take Oz any day, always winter but never Christmas

Hutch,

Haing read your boaty posts in the past I'm wondering whether there is potential for some kind of skippering angle on the work front? I am toying with the idea of working my way through the RYA motor cruiser or power boating courses in blighty with a view to making living of it out in Oz. I've done nothing other than dream (including zero research), wondered if you'd considered it is all.

Great post and your journalistic past definitely shows through, entertaining as always, I don't always agree with you but you do get me thinking. good luck.

Hutch

Hey you. How's things down south? Missing Glawcester?

lol - well ultimately lots of folks seek support on this forum in one form or another. So I guess they gravitate towards threads with people in a similar predicament to them.

It is a nice dream, but this isn't a boaty sort of an area. That's not to say that every other house in our town doesn't have a boat of some sort under a tarp on the front lawn. But you really need marinas and large populations and/or a great barrier reef for that sort of work.

The current economic envrionment doesn't help either. My brother's an area manager for PADI and his patch takes in Queensland, Papua New Guinea and the Northern Territories. He knows lots of skippers with dive boats and many of them have put the boats in dry dock until the upturn because they can't afford to keep them on the water.

brickies wife

It's Australia, not Narnia.[/QUOTE]


Love this.

painter man

Wise words mate

kporte

Love it H, if only you could get warm, flat beer eh?

katsmajic

Howdy, all's good down here thanks, loving it - still leaping over hurdles but thats life - not missing ole glos, hear they have floods again this week, but cant believe how cold it gets down here - prob the only negative we can log!
martin is at bunnings and enjoying it - cant get toolmaker job as engineering/manufacturing is dire down here, so a job is a job...
on the plus - were building a new home and life is good
you all take care xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hutch

That's cool - best of luck with the new house.

herrchook

Sorry to hear you guys have hit some hard times this year mate, but I'm thrilled to see you're riding the wave and hopefully seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

Best of luck with the job hunt

Hutch

Cheers m'dear - new era has begun with my return to fulltime employment. Onwards and upwards.

herrchook

Great to hear that mate

Hutch

Small update re my return to work. I'm working for Surf Life Saving Australia in Bondi, Sydney. It's my first time in fulltime employment in 15 years (!) and it has been something of a shock to the system, but I'm settling in now. The money's good and since SLSA are a charity I can take $16,050 of my salary in a tax free form every year and also claim for $5200 worth of sit-down meals. I get four weeks paid holiday, plus every public holiday (Queens b'day, labor day etc), plus 10 sick days, plus a couple over Xmas - basically works out at just under two months off!

There's some weekend work involved, which is fine (I knew about it when I went for the interview) for which I get a day in lieu rather than overtime. And I can work from home for the 3 days out of 5, which is brilliant. At the moment (for the first three weeks basically) I'm travelling up everyday while I get acquainted with the job. The commute takes two hours each way thanks mainly to the fact that I have to drive via the airport - the last 40km of my 140km journey take an hour. But it's cool - I have my iPod in the car and loads of good podcasts on it to while away the time. Come a week monday I'll only have to travel up on Wedsnesdays and Thursdays and I'll do that by train rather than car so it's not 'wasted' time.

It's great working for an organisation I have a vested interest in (I'm an active patrollling surf life saver) and it certainly helped me to get accepted quickly as most of the people in the office are 'clubbies' too. Every lunch time I walk downstairs and swim some laps in the (accurately named) Bondi Icebergs pool. Then I buy a latte from the club cafe and eat a packed lunch watching the surfers do their thing at South Bondi. The people I'm working with are a sound bunch - there's a couple of other Brits in the office too.

At some point I'm going to be starting doing training courses natioanlly and internationally. SLSA's software, merchandise, policies etc have been adopted all over the world (including by the RNLI) and we support that on-site. So there's trips to surf branches around Oz and international trips to Thailand etc.

It's been a bit different not being at home all the time - my son misses our chats to and from school - but that can all resume in a week's time. So yes, I'm basically counting my blessings - we were a heartbeat away from bankruptcy (indeed we still are with regard the UK side of things) but there's money coming in now and we feel we've turned a corner. Life is indeed what you make it.

NickyC

Gee, it's a tough life, isn't it? Many people would give their right arm to have to commute to Bondi.

Anyway, glad to hear things are improving on the work front.