Dreamy Times

Its quite hard to believe .. but we’ve just passed our 2nd anniversary in Australia. Well, its quite hard for us to believe as it seems only 2 minutes since we were sat in Manchester Airport, absolutely terrified that we were going to miss our flight at Heathrow as the plane was delayed an hour thanks to the horrific storms. Some things never change!

On the other hand, its hard to remember just what life was like before we left the UK. I know we lived in a great place, Himself had a good job and the boys were well settled in school – but Australia has felt like home since the moment we stepped off the plane into the sweltering heat of a Brisbane Summer’s day. Even though we’ve moved down to NSW, we’re still loving it – our house is beautiful, our village is set in the mountains with rolling greenery and bushland all around and our day to day life is fairly brilliant.

We have gone through a bit of a cultural revolution in the last 2 years. The kids call routers ‘rowters’ instead of ‘rooters’ and I have been known to refer to my status as a ’stah-tus’ rather than a ’stay-tus’ – and thongs are now something I wear on my feet rather than on my bottom.

In return, we’ve had our effect on Australia, no matter how small. Dams in Queensland were at their highest for years by the time we left, and I’m just waiting for them to change the Bush Fire Warning indicator signs for Flood Warning indicator signs here! Ben reckons it”ll only be a matter of a couple of months

Himself is well settled in his job now and coping admirably with the train commute every day. Ben and Matt had the result of their exams – Ben will be on his way to Uni to do a degree in Engineering later this year, and Matt is looking at doing a diploma in Computing at TAFE, and then ‘thinking’ about going on to do it at Uni too. James is due back at school in a couple of weeks, and although he’s repeating Year 10, thanks to the differences between NSW and QLD educational systems, he’s looking forward to making some new friends. He’s not so sure about the Maroon and Yellow uniform, but hey, we all have our crosses to bear!

Our second Christmas passed without incident. It rained most of the time Himself was off work (quite predictably!) and so it was a little cooler than last year. We did a proper Christmas dinner this year too, which helped with the spirit of the thing. I also attempted to put the Christmas Tree up, but mostly it was a battle between me and the cats as to where the branches were placed – slotted into the tree or scattered around the house. The cats mostly won, and, apart from a bit of tinsel, I didn’t even bother with decorating it! Next year it can go out on the deck, where we shall admire it from afar

So what does 2010 hold for us? Hopefully: Permanent Residency, Uni for Ben, TAFE for Matt, James settled into school, Himself advancing further into his job and me just doing what I do best  – looking for excuses to avoid the housework!

Hope 2010 brings something wonderful for each of you!

The Dreamy family are all together once again, not just in the same state, but now in the same dwelling. Hurrah!

Well, obviously not at this exact moment as Himself has to go to work to earn giant pennies to pay for the two houses we now own. At least the Queensland house is finally on the market, even if the real estate blokey had to use old internal pictures cos the feckarse cleaners hadn’t finished cleaning when he went to take them! Hopefully they’ve completed the job today and he can take some of our decor rather than the ‘lovely’ green and blue that was there before. Hey ho.

So yes, I am sat here in me new study, looking out at New South Wales trees and wondering where the mountain breezes are that I promised the kids. The house is as lovely as I remembered it and it still looks lovely even with all our crap in it! Dogs, cats and kids have all settled in, so all is right with the world.

The move went off remarkably well (despite an escape attempt by LukeDini the cat). They came and packed everything up last Monday, then came back on the Tuesday to load the containers, which would then travel down to NSW by train. The plan was that I’d grab some sleep on my faithful blow up bed and drive down with the dogs and the cats early on Wednesday morning. I think  Igot about 2 hours before I gave up. Part of the problem was that Ellie really really liked sleeping on the blow up bed. Really REALLY liked it. And didn’t want to share any of it with me. In  the end, I loaded the car up early and set off about 9.15pm Qld time.

No real dramas on the way. The dogs were great, mostly just lay in the back and slept (alright for some!) The roads weren’t too busy – mostly trucks coming the other way. Some fog settled in about an hour over the border but it wasn’t too bad. I drove until about 5am and then pulled into a rest area and had an hour’s sleep. Unfortunately, when I let the dogs out for a wee I was attacked by 3 billion mozzies – all up my arm and legs and a couple on my face and neck. Luckily only 3 of them swelled up excessively, but they’ve all gone down now.

I drove on a bit further and about 8am NSW time (they have daylight saving here, which they don’t in Qld) I rang his Lordship. ‘Guess how much further I have to travel’ .. ‘about 500km?’… ‘nopes, only 270km left to go!’ Not bad for a journey of about 1100km

I only had one slight scenic detour when my directions let me down. But Parramatta wasn’t that bad to drive through, honest We were all glad to get here and stretch our legs, and the boys and Kev had arrived at the house after picking up the keys from the agent.

I went and grabbed a couple of hours sleep and felt half way human again. Although to be fair, I don’t usually feel more than 3/4 human at the best of times Thursday morning dawned, bright and hot. Thank God for ducted air con! We got a bit of shopping but not having a fridge limits what you can buy. We did manage though and the furniture was due to arrive on Friday. Unfortunately, there is absolutely NO signal for my virgin mobile, which was the only number anyone had for me, so I had no idea if everything was going to plan.

There was one weird incident sometime Thursday night/Friday morning. We were asleep on the blow up bed and I woke up, having had this really weird dream involving rabid cats. I lay there, wondering why I could hear a cat collar (they have bells on their collars) and also wondering what the hell the strange popping, tearing noise was. In our wardrobe, there’s an access hole for the air con, which is stuffed with a plastic thingy at the top (in the floor of the wardrobe) I realise that doesn’t sound very clear, lol, but its hard to describe it. I woke Himself up and told him there was something in the wardrobe. We both sprang off the mattress (well, ok, I sort of rolled off it in a direction opposite from the wardrobe – it was early in the blooming morning) and he was sent to investigate. His investigations mostly involved sliding the door shut, which had to suffice. Needless to say I didn’t sleep very well for the rest of the night.

Next morning, we were up bright and early to wait for the removals men to come. I opened the bedroom door. Only one cat was there. Went downstairs to sort out the dogs and make pet related breakfasts. Still only one cat. Realisation dawned the bell noises and nightly shenanigans might be connected. We went back up to the bedroom – definitely cat claw marks on the plastic. Rahhhhhhhh!!! We tried moving the plastic to one side – no good. Then we tried to work out where he might be (for yes, it was Lukedini once more – Leia is far too sensible to get herself into trouble) What was worrying me the most was that there was a distinct absence of mewing noises. We took a hatch off in the hallway which seemed to lead to the air con ducts. However, we had no furniture, so nothing to stand on and have a look. No torch so we couldn’t even have seen much even if we DID have something to stand on.

I was in tears by this point, convinced the SFC (stoopid fecking cat) was dead somewhere in the ceiling. James went out on the deck to see to the dogs and, thank God, heard mewing coming from the eaves. Back we all went to the open hatch. Himself hoisted James onto his shoulders and we did the ‘lukkkkkee…’ thing, whilst shaking a box of cat biscuits. No sign.

Out once more on the deck – the mewing seemed to have moved further inside. Hurrah! It must be working. Back to the hatch again – eventually, his grimy little face appeared. James tried to lift him down. No, he wasn’t having any of it. More encouragement was needed with cat biscuits until James could grab hold of him. Finally he was rescued – James has a lovely big scratch along his forehead but we’ve told him it’ll make an interesting scar.

It was decided to put SFC aka Tom Cruise straight into his cat carrier ready for the removals men coming. Little shit promptly escaped. Cat carrier was taped up with the grill bit facing a wall, just in time as the containers arrived. Himself went into the kitchen – SFC had escaped AGAIN and was hiding in a kitchen cupboard. He was finally deposited in a bathroom, although concerns were raised that he might do a mission impossible down the bath plug or something.

So finally, as mentioned at the beginning of this lengthy post, we are all together again. Furniture is all in. Boxes are ALL unpacked. I can hardly believe this last fact, I think its the first time since 1995 that I haven’t had any packing boxes in the house! Boys are happy with their Warhammer painting workshop in the basement. Dogs love the undergrowth in the garden. I’m in heaven with the kitchen. Himself loves his study. And the SFC can stay out of the flipping air con!

Up, up, up to the Blue Mountains, what fun!

Yes, we’ve bought a house in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, NSW and two weeks tomorrow it’ll be all ours! The big move will start the following Monday (a two day pack up, on the freight train on Wednesday, delivered on Friday) and I’ll drive down with the dogs and cats on Wednesday. I promise to take the camera and take pictures along the way.

Its a rather beautiful house (well I think so anyway).. here’s some pictures stolen from the estate agents site until I can take some of my own

Of course, buying the house means that I’m in full on panic mode to get our QLD house sorted out before we leave. We’re lucky that we can wait until we’ve vacated before we put it on the market, so no worry about what to do with the animals when people are coming to view.. and also solves the problem of just how do you keep 3 teenage boys bedrooms tidy..

I’m just about to start glossing the doors downstairs.. then its a matter of painting the downstairs bathroom (now we’ve finally been able to get a plumber to come and fix the dripping toilet) and touching up the worst of the painting excesses in Ben and James’ room. I’ve got a garden man coming on Monday to tidy up and a cleaning firm to hose down the outside of the house and the paths/driveway/pool area.. and the lady from next door who has a cleaning company is coming this afternoon to give me a quote for cleaning inside once we’ve departed. Next week I’ll get in touch with some agents and find out just how much they think it’ll sell for..

Its certainly all go.. but it’ll be worth it.

Finally, I have my home back to myself.

We waved goodbye to Himself’s mother last Monday, after her month long visit, and although it wasn’t as horrific as I feared it would be, I was glad to wave her off. A month is definitely too long, Himself will have to tell her 3 weeks max for her next visit, which she was threatening to make in 2011.. rahhh. Although that might have changed now as she had a nightmare travelling back. Her flight was going from Brisbane-Sydney, and then Sydney-Heathrow with a refuelling stop in Singapore. Himself arranged his trip back to NSW so he could go on the 1st leg with her, and point her in the direction of the Internation transfer section once they got to Sydney.

All went well until they touched down in Sydney. There was a massive electrical storm which meant that no staff could leave the terminal – so they were stuck in the plane for about 30 minutes. Unfortunately, Violet had a short connection time.. so even though her international flight was delayed too, and they knew she was coming, by the time she’d got off the plane, over to the international terminal (having just missed the first transfer bus) the plane had taken off. Naturally, she got herself in a panic – but Qantas put her on the next flight which was leaving about 20 minutes later, via Bangkok.. and when they said she could sit anywhere in the cabin (except Business or First Class) she plonked herself in the Premium Economy seats and had massive leg room the whole way back. Every cloud has a silver lining and all that

Anyway.

It’s been a busy old time in the Dreamy household. Alfredo Delmundo Crash Bandicoot Stoopiddog managed to get bit by something on his side. He’d had this bite for a while, but decided to mess at it so much that it became infected and swelled up ginormously! We took him to the vets and they said that it needed to be cut out and that although it was unlikely, could be cancerous. When we picked him up after the surgery he had this HUGE gash down his side, about 9 inches long and he looked soooo sorry for himself. Fortunately the lump was benign and its all healing up nicely now. He’s had his stitches out and hair is growing back in the area now.. and he’s lost that hangdog look. We’ve told him if he gets bit again he’ll be having a big needle so hopefully he’s learned his lesson.

KillerCatLeia is definitely under the belief that she is a dog. She’d stolen a bit of fatty lamb when we had a roast last Sunday. She lay down on the floor to gnaw at it, growling at Luke and Alfie every time they went near her. Alfie kept looking at me as if to say ‘there’s something wrong here, but I’m not sure what, and I have no idea what to do about it’. It was hilarious. It was a proper throaty growl. At least it stopped her from leaping out from behind walls and attacking me for a while

We’re in full on house hunting mode now. The bank has agreed to give us a new mortgage (rather than just a bridging loan) so we know how much we can borrow which gives us a great budget for the new place. We’ve done a bit of a shortlist – and as soon as I’ve finished decorating here I can go down to NSW and do some viewings. Its all very exciting!! And it takes the pressure of selling this house, so we may wait until we move out before putting this one up for sale. At least that would solve the problem of what to do with kids, cats & dogs when we have house viewings..  I painted half the rumpus room yesterday, so just the other half, the bottom of the stairs, the downstairs bathroom and touching up in the kids rooms to go. Oh.. and glossing the chuffing doors. Shouldn’t take long, so hopefully we’ll find something quickly and be settled in the new place by Christmas! Otherwise I don’t know what Himself will do over the holidays, he’ll have to take a couple of weeks off work I guess, so that he can get on a flight back here. He’s doing really well in his new job, already a promotion to Possessions Manager, which is fantastic!

Fingers crossed all goes to plan!

We’ve had a bit of a spate of going to the pictures recently. A couple of weeks ago we went to see The Ugly Truth (mostly because I was down in Penrith and Himself only has 5 channels on his telly in the rental and they were all showing rubbish) – we had no real idea what it was about, only that it was a romcom with rather more com than rom. We both really enjoyed it though! It was crude, but not too crude, and they managed to keep any soppiness out of it. I guess lustcom would have been a better description than romcom!

Yeah, it was a tad cliched – girl sees boy on telly and rings in, boy pisses girl off, girl made to work with boy, boy becomes svengali, boy and girl fall in love and won’t admit it, boy and girl realise its mutual and disappear off into the sunset. No doubt bitching at each other about who’s fault it all was. But we both laughed, we both gasped and we both said how much we enjoyed it on the walk back to the rental.

Normally when we go to the pictures (and yes, I still miss the Pearl & Dean music from the intromission) we have a set routine when watching the trailers. Thumbs up for things we’ll go to the pictures to see, thumbs down for anything that looks crap, and a dodgy shaking of the thumb for things that we’ll probably just watch on Foxtel Boxoffice or buy the dvd.

So there we were, doing our usual routine, when  a trailer appeared for Inglourious Basterds. The thumb went up, the thumb went down, the thumb waivered – we hadn’t heard anything about it before (yeah, I know) and weren’t really sure what to make of it. Anyway, last weekend I was down in Penrith again, nothing on the telly again, so off we went to the cinema and decided to give it ago.

It was absolutely brilliant! Brad Pitt overacted his way through it all just like Quentin requires. But the real star was the Jew Hunter, Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Yes, he was evil (and distinctly less evil than Brad Pitt, but that apparently doesn’t count because he’s American) but he was hilarious with it. If he doesn’t get an Oscar nomination then I’ll be amazed. I loved the way there were French actors playing French parts (and speaking French), German actors playing Germans (and speaking German) and Mike Myers playing a Brit. And through it all, Hans Landa weaved his way through, speaking French, English, Italian and German (natch) with aplomb. Fantastic film – the kids have told me to stop going on about it

Speaking of the children, they were complaining to me the other night about their Christian names. Apparently, they’re too bland, too generic, too boring. !!!! I deliberately picked good Biblical names for them so that they wouldn’t be embarrassed in later years, but apparently its just not good enough. Admittedly, we now live in a country where names are as bizarre as they are colourful, but even so, how can you go wrong with Ben, Matthew and James? Anyway, I’ve now renamed them – Ben is Fall (born in the Autumn), Matthew is Noel (born at Christmas, and as Ben points out, there’s No L in Matthew) and James, despite pleas from his brother to call him Douche, is now NearlyHalloween. Apparently Himself and myself need new names too – Himself is now R2, thanks to his likeness to R2D2 and I am Grotbags, shortened to Grotty.

We have bizarre conversations in our house.

I’m fairly sure that the bloody cat is trying to kill me. Naturally, I’m not on about the LovelyLuke, who spends his days lounging in the washing basket (thus, incidentally, preventing me from doing any ironing, which is a wonderful side effect) but the evilLeia.

This morning I was innocently walking down the little corridor from my bedroom towards the living area when she jumped out and attacked me from behind the kitchen wall. I almost wet myself and its a good job the stairs are a fair way away otherwise I would have been found (eventually) by the children in a tangled heap in the stair well.

Other than that, I am now fully lounging on the settee with no real need to venture downstairs again. The current story line for us DownUnder afficionados on Coronation Street revolves around Ken Barlow attempting to resurrect his writing career. Inspired to do the same, I have dusted off my extremely ancient laptop (so ancient it has XP on it, lol) and found the wireless network card – so now I can sit and type away from the comfort of the living room, instead of venturing ALLLL the way downstairs to the rumpus room. I may never move again.

Speaking of stories though, I’ve read through the hundreds of half heartedly started stories, discarded most of them as being crap and am left with a handful of ones that I actually enjoyed reading  .. so, figuring that’s a good start I am now determined to work on the most promising one and do at least 3 pages a day. I’ve also done pretty much all of its outline so I know fairly much where its going and I’ll be looking for people happy to read my wafflings who can give me an honest (and constructive) critique. Apply below

First up, a big hello to my new subscribers, you poor poor people

Secondly, a very creditable excuse for the time delay since my last entry. I’ve had the visit from my Mam (more about that in a moment), then TheLovelyJames was faffing about moving blogs to different serveryhostthingys, then I was at work and straight down to NSW over the weekend. Last night when I got home all I wanted to do was crawl into my pit and go to sleep. Fortunately, its the Ecca here (apparently short for ‘Exhibition’) which has resulted in the boys having a day off school, so I could even have a lie in! Hurrah, hurrah and thrice hurrah.

It was really lovely having my Mam here, just wish it could have been for longer. One of her dogs isn’t well (all the complications that arise from old age) and if she hadn’t been worried about her I think she would have stayed longer. She might have had to buy more plates for my Dad to eat off (!) but that would have been easily sorted The weather was absolutely perfect for her too. We’d had a fair amount of rain leading upto her visit, but the entire time she was here we had beautiful, clear, sunny days with the temp in the low 20s and low humidity levels. At night the temperature generally dropped to between 6-9degC.. but you can always snuggle under a jumper or a blanket and put socks on More importantly, it means its easier to sleep than during the summer when the nights are soooooo hot and sticky.

I showed her various shopping havens – Queen St Mall in Brisbane.. where it was great to actually wander in and out of the side alleys! Normally if I go there I have boys/Himself in tow and its more a case of ‘what do we need? Got it? Lets go!’. We sauntered around, had a mid-morning sushi break then lunch on the way back to the ferry. I’d parked the car on the other side of Brisbane, near where we used to have the apartment, so we got the ferry over the Brisbane river – if we’d had more time it would have been lovely to take the citycat up the river to make it more of an excursion, but it was still enjoyable. We also went to Westfield in North Lakes (which impressed my mother with its spacial airiness) and to the delights (lol) of Morayfield Shopping Centre where we had a girly day and had our nails done. Its extremely weird to have nails but I was amazed at what they could do even with my short, extremely bitten nails!

We also did the Australia Zoo where we saw a kangaroo with a joey in her pouch!!
We were so excited as, although I’ve been there a couple of times its the first time I’ve seen that. Mam had a great day – stroked a koala (apparently she’s as obsessed by them as I am!), saw the tiger, saw the elephants, stroked the kangaroos, fell in love with the wombats.

We also ventured up into the Glasshouse Mountains and had coffee and cake at a little cafe. Its no wonder I’ve put on about half a stone lol, all I’ve done is eat cake and have cappuchinos! The view from the lookout point is quite spectacular but I’ve had photos on here before – if you want to see more, have a look at my flickr site in the Glasshouse Mountains album

I think the best thing about my Mam’s visit was the amount of time we just sat and chatted, about all sorts of things. I can’t remember the last time I felt so close to my Mam – so the trip was so valuable for me. And my nails are still going strong

This weekend I went down to see Himself in NSW. He’s out in Penrith now, in a furnished rental which isn’t too bad. Little living/dining room, tiny kitchen and laundry room, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. He’s even got a little balcony where he can sit and have a smoke. Also, as he went mad and bought **another** PS3, he can spend his evenings playing Tiger Woods. I know he’s much more settled because he doesn’t ring me every 10 minutes now, lol!!

The plan for this weekend was to hire a car on Saturday and have a drive out up the Blue Mountains (a little way) and try to get a feel for the little villages and towns to see where would be acceptable to live.
We absolutely fell in love with this area

 Springwood, NSW

I almost drove off the road several times, as every time we went round a bend I was oohing and ahhing and pointing from one side of the road to the other at the amazing views! We drove up as far as Woodford, which was stunningly beautiful.. but decided that it was just a little too remote.. and it doesn’t get ADSL2+ lol. The boys are likely to be at Uni down at Penrith, and although the train goes all the way down there and then onto the City for Himself, it would just be too far out for us. We did really fall in love with Winmalee – but we have lots of alternatives now for when the house hunting starts in vain. We’re probably more likely to end up in Glenmore Park, just south of Penrith as there will be much more choice in the houses available.. but if we get our wish we’ll be over the river and up in the foothills of the Blue Mountains!

So anyway, I forgot to add this bit this morning when I did that huge bit about the planning involved in finding Himself’s new office.

When he got there this morning, after trekking 1.5km up the road.. it was the wrong address.

I didn’t laugh when he rang to tell me, honest Guv.

Apparently, the office was a further 2km BACK the way he’d just come. So he had to hoof it allllll the way back up the street, right back near the train station.

He wasn’t impressed .. I have to say, HR is pretty shite lol. Perhaps they need a super administrator like wot I am?

Absolutely knackered this morning, I’m fairly sure I walked the length and breadth of NSW over the weekend! My legs are telling me that, anyway.

I did have a good weekend. On Friday I sloped off work early and caught a flight down to Sydney. Himself met me at the airport and we caught the train back to the apartment. I have to say, its not as bad as he’s made out. Granted, its not exactly big – but he forgets that he’s used to living in a house with 4 bedrooms and 2 big living areas! He’s not going to get that feeling of space of space in a 1 ‘bedroom’ apartment.

Our main priority for the weekend was to check out a promising furnished rental he’s hopefully got sorted out in Penrith, west of Sydney. We also wanted to head further up the line into the Blue Mountains and get a feel for the area. We weren’t going to rent a car from Sydney (omg!!! the roads are way too confusing!!) so we just wanted to see what was around the various train stations. We must have spent an hour planning out our route, times of trains in and out, etc etc.. and then we saw there was track works on the Penrith line!!! Gah. This is now officially Himself’s fault as he’s a railwayman again.

In the end, we got the bus out to Penrith and checked out where the rental was. Only about a 10-15minute walk from the station and set back from the High Street so it should be fine. He has to ring the agent and arrange an internal inspection and then its just a matter of waiting til its free. Yes, despite it being advertised as ‘available’ this is in fact a lie. You get used to that, dealing with agents!

I have to say that Penrith was a very pleasant surprise. Obviously I wouldn’t want to live there but I could quite easily cope with it being my main town for shopping and such like. Also, the Engineering Campus of UWS is based there so it’ll be good for both Ben and James who want to do Engineering of various disciplines. There’s a ginormous Westfield Shopping Centre right in the centre of town, probably about the size of Meadowhall in Sheffield, so what more could a girl want? Fingers crossed Himself manages to sort the rental out and then we can use it as a base to explore the area.

After the trauma of being on a bus and with Penrith being so nice, we decided to leave the journey out to the Blue Mountains for when we have a car. We’ll be able to get a better feel for the place that way. At least we’re feeling a lot more positive about the whole move. So, after lunch we got the bus back into Sydney.

Sunday morning, Himself wanted to check out where the office was for this morning. Off we went and were pleased to see it was down by Circular Quay – good for transport links, a Subway round the corner so he wouldn’t starve and plenty of coffee shops and such like. It meant we could work out the best way for him to get to work while he’s still in Sydney and also when he moves out to Penrith. Job was a good’un

After that, we got the ferry round to Darling Harbour so I could do my online check in and print off my boarding card in the shopping mall. A lovely lunch later and we headed back to the apartment for me to pack my little (Carry on!) bag and to catch the train to the airport. Next time I go, he’ll (hopefully) be in Penrith but at least I know how to get there on the train so he won’t necessarily have to come meet me at the airport.

It was so funny boarding the plane. I’d plonked myself in a window seat on the online check-in, but there was a little Asian nun in front of me who seemed to be booked in one of the over wing emergency exits. They were trying to explain this to her and she was getting all confused so I offered to swap seats with her. It meant I was now in an aisle seat but it didn’t bother me.

I got on the plane, put my bag and handbag in the overhead locker (can’t have anything under the seat in those emergency exit seats) and stretched out my legs in the ACRES of space lol. Now, its been many years since I sat in an emergency exit seat, since before the children were born. Back then we used to ask for them when we could, as Neil was 6ft 4 and the extra leg room was a bonus. I have to say, in the many flights I made sat in such a position I never ever had my own individual safety talk on how to use them in the event of an evacuation! We also all had to give a verbal agreement that we were happy to sit there and we knew that we could be called upon to help in the event of an evacuation.

Twas most bizarre.

Finally got back to Brisbane about 10 minutes late (the plane had been about 25 minutes late leaving so the pilot hadn’t done bad to make up the time) and legged it to the long stay car park. The woman in front of me at the payment booth was shoving $50 notes in by the handful! Then it stopped accepting them and didn’t return her ticket… I felt it best to just pay on exit after that. Made my way through the roadworks of Northern Brisbane, called for MaccyDs for the boys and got home about 8.30pm or so. By the time I checked my emails I was ready for bed.

Apparently, though, when I left Himself at the airport, he’d rung the kids to advise them I was on my way. The conversation went something like this.
Himself: ‘Home base, home base, this is Mother goose, Eagle has taken flight, Code: Emergency Clean Up is a go, go, go. Repeat: Code Emergency Clean Up is a go, go, go.’
Child: ‘What?’
Himself: ‘Home base, home base, this is Mother goose, Eagle has taken flight, Code: Emergency Clean Up is a go, go, go. Repeat: Code Emergency Clean Up is a go, go, go.’
Child: ‘I can’t hear you. Are you at the airport or something?’

Wasted I tell you. He did try again once I’d landed.. ‘Home base, home base, this is Mother Goose. The Eagle has landed, you have 45 minutes to complete Emergency Clean Up’

At least that time they understood even if it wasn’t acted on

I think that my last update detailed our visa success and that we were waiting to hear when Himself would actually start work.

I guess the title of this entry gives the game away that he’s already gone

We still hadn’t heard anything by last Wednesday, so he emailed the HR Woman again. She got back to us quickly, hugely apologetic that no one had been in touch with him. Apparently there was a huge misunderstanding over who was actually sorting him out – this is because although he’ll be employed by one company, he’ll be secconded to an Alliance – his employer thought the Alliance were sorting him out and vice versa. Anyway, it was eventually decided that he would start with the Alliance next Monday, and spend this week getting familiarised with his employer.

He flew down to Sydney on Sunday evening where he’s staying in a company provided ‘one-bedroom’ apartment. I say ‘one-bedroom’ because according to Himself its a glorified studio apartment with a tasteful Japanese type screen at one end separating the bedroom! I’ll be there over the weekend so I’ll be able to give it the Dreamy Inspection. Its only a 90 minute plane ride but at around $350-400 it isn’t something we’re going to be able to afford every weekend

So, he seems to be settling in down there – he was in Head Office yesterday, had to get the train upto the Hunter Valley today, is in 2 other outposts tomorrow and Thursday and the back to HO on Friday, ready for his start somewhere else completely on Monday, lol. He won’t know whether he’s coming or going but at least he’s getting paid!

Back in QLD, I have a busy week. Yesterday I had work which was very very quiet. I guess because the project is in the final stages and no one gives a shit about proper procedure. I spent most of the morning doing reports on documents which needed to be closed out in the system – left it in the capable hands of the girl I job-share with.. and then she was told it was all completely irrelevant and to stop wasting time on it. Hey ho.. so long as when the project DOES end they don’t expect poor Doc Control to have to fix it all…

Today is hugely exciting as the septic tank is being emptied. Yes, this will be the highlight of my week
Tomorrow Lucas O’Reilly Skywalker is going to have his bollocks removed. This will be the highlight of his week heehehe.. (he’s the cat in case you thought I was being cruel to a child) I also have a plumber who is supposedly coming to out when he has a free moment, to sort out the two leaky toilets (one leaking from the soil pipe and one from the inlet pipe.. delightful I know) And then I have to slope off from work early on Friday to catch the plane down to NSW.

I bet y’all wish your life was as exciting as mine

Finally.. a big Happy Birthday to my lil’Bro – 39 today. And to my Mam, who is 60 today! (Yes, those who can do Maths can work out that she had him on her 21st Birthday.. apparently my dad thought it was cheaper than buying a present.. how wrong was he?)

Happy birthday and lots of love to you both xxxxx