Settling In

It's ages since I last 'blogged' so here goes.

We're settling in to real life now - I've been working full time for 5 weeks, and getting into the routine, the job is good, but this is definitley the busy period, we do peoples tax returns and accounts and with the year end being 30th June, July, August and September are the 'tax season'. In Aus everyone has to do a tax return so that means a really heavy workload for all the tax accountants, but again this is where the money is made. I have to travel 30kms (about 20 miles) each way to Mandurah, but the roads are really easy and it's only taking 30mins door to door, that includes parking and walking in Mandurah, much better than when I working 13 miles away in Manchester, and it was taking me up to an hour each way. I manage to get out most lunch times and have a walk along the estuary, there's always boats cruising up and down and pelicans, but the other week I saw a couple of dolphins cruising up river, that's when it really hits me how lucky we are.

John's job is going well, he's sold a few houses, but only gets paid when they 'settle' which can be a couple of months after the contract is signed, so he should be earning soon. He's enjoying the flexibility of the work and managing to get afternoons off if it's quiet, but on the other side it does mean he has to work some weekends, which is when I'm off work. We're hoping that when I go part time we'll manage to get more time off together.

Stella is still great, she's learning things really well, and generally comes every time she is called, knows sit, down and stay, so is able to enjoy a bit of freedom off the lead. She loves the beach, and has just braved the sea deep enough to swim, she plays with all the other dogs on the beach really well, but knows when she's beat and comes back to us pretty quick. She's also started chasing the seagulls up the beach, they just go out to sea and she's stuffed and gives up. We bought her a floating toy to play in the sea with, she managed to destroy it the first time we took her out with it, so now we use cuttlefish and sticks to throw, which she seems to prefer anyway.

She does have a bit of a destructive streak which comes out when she's left at home alone. She's shredded her bed, dug loads of holes, pulled up a few plants and jumped in the fish pond. We seem to have cured the digging (bury her poo in the holes and she won't dig there again), and we had to buy her a new bed, we're hoping this one will be better, it's a steel frame with a hessian sack on it, which makes a bit of a hammock, and replacement sacks are only about $5 (£2) so if she chews that it's not so bad. The fish pond is trickier, we've put fencing around it, but she seems to be gettin through/under/over it, so we need to rethink that.


Sue and Pete and the kids made it over here, they landed on Friday, and we spent a day with them yesterday, going to the beach with the dog, barbequeing and chatting, I'm sure there will be many more days like that.

Sue and I have entered the Perth City to Surf 12km run, which is next Sunday, so we have both been in training in our different countries, and today are going out to do a run together. There's loads of great running routes over here, as everywhere there is parkland, beaches, lakes and walking/cycling/running tracks, so I've really enjoyed getting out and about.

Well I'll go now but will try and update it a bit more regularly!