Long time no blog!

We got a boat! Yes we're really embracing the Aussie lifestyle and have now bought a second hand boat. It's a quintrex 4.65metre 55 hP (that's the technical stuff). So it's a little boat that we can go fishing etc in.

The first couple of times we took it out we saw dolphins, they swan around and under the boat and popped up at the side to say hello - well probably to see if we had any fish.

We've taken it around the islands at Shoalwater and seen seals and sealions, and heve been out fishing - the first time we came back with 20 whiting, which we BBQ'd aon the foreshore (and froze some). The second time it was a bit rougher than we thought it would be and I got seasick before we caught any and so we came back in. Going out on it again on Saturday when the forecast is better and we may catch out tea again!

We're gearing up for Xmas now, but are finding it strange having to do xmas shopping in the sun. The forecast for Xmas day is 38 deg - so We'll be having turkey butties on the beach - no big roast for us in that temperature. I've been charged with organising our works xmas do - so we're having a BBQ and a pool party - the invite said dress code: boardies(shorts) or jeans with thongs (flip flops) and bring your bathers (swimming cossies). How weird is that!

My place shuts down from 21 Dec to 2 Jan, so I get xmas off this year - what will I do with myself!!??? All that sun and 5 mins from the beach :-) Yes we are still really loving it - wish we did this 20 years ago.

The down sides - no real football (soccer), they play Aussie Rules (AFL) but soccer takes a back seat and the footie I've seen has been really poor - more like County reserves V Macc Town reserves than premiership. No mulled wine for xmas - well it would be too hot! The pubs aren't the same - but then again you eat late and outside and have wine with your tea and stay up talking, and you have your own bar. No best mates here -we're starting to get to know some people, and have had a couple of nights out - but not the same as your mates in UK.
Having said all that, I struggled to find the down sides! Most of it is up!

Stella the dog is doing well, she's 10 months old now - has 'graduated' from beginners class at dog training, and loves to swim in the sea. She has a good mate with Jess, Sue and Pete's dog - she's a puppy about 6 months now and loves Stella. We go round to their hose and take Stella and we don't see them all night because they're playing. She had her own dog club xmas party - and won a prize in 'musical spots'! - her own eskie (cool bag) that we can take her water in to ther beach or when we take her out for a walk!

Will try to update this more often. Will probably remember a whole lot more and post some in the next week or so - but if we don't it means we're enjoying life too much.

An example of enjoying life would be telling you about our night tonight - Came home from work about 5.00, took the dog to the beach, stopped off at a bar on the foreshore and had a wine, with John and the dog, came home and had a swim in the pool, got in the Spa, showered and cooked turkey steaks on the BBQ with baked spuds and our own home grown beans - oh and more wine. Yes we are loving it.

Perth City to Surf

2007 Perth City to Surf 12k run

Well I did it!!! And all without stopping, not a good time, but I did finish, come on 12km is about 7 1/2 miles, not bad for an old bird!

When I entered I had this vision of running through the city and parks in the sunshine thinking wow this is great, I'm in Australia, in a beautiful city in the sun and I can do this!

The reality.............

We got up before 6.00, in the dark, having been kept awake half the night by a storm, drove about 30 miles to Perth, the Swan River had waves on it that were coming over the Freeway! Got dropped off in the city, we had to be there 30 mins before the start, we got soaked before the race even started - see the picture, taken on my phone just before we set off. The fashion item for this year seemed to be the cut off bin bag! The race finally got underway - the count down to start was on - 10....9.....8....7....6...5....4.....3...2.....1.....and a major downpour just came out of nowhere, the rain was coming into our faces and we couldn't see for more than a few metres in front of us. So we set off, through the tall buildings of the city offering us some shelter, then we went up St Georges Terrace, and out of the buildings and up an enourmaous hill. The wind was that strong I felt like I was running backwards. Well I thought this course was flat - oh no there were so many hills and so much rain and wind! But it was fun!

Along the route people had gathered to watch, some in the front yard of their houses with friends having bbq breakfast and drinking champagne, under the shelter of their verandahs, oh how jealous I was. I was even jealous of the tramp with the dog drinking beer and shouting encouragement/abuse at the runners.

Well ok the rain did clear a bit, and I managed to get to the end having run through some great parkland and enjoyed the city, and what a sense of achievement it was. As I reached city beach oval, the smell of BBQ (yes again) hit me and then seeing the sea I know why it's called city to 'surf', the surf was definitely up!

Everyone made the most of it and some dressed up for the occasion, I spent most of the course just behind or just in front of Darth Vader and a Storm Trooper!

We came home and had a hot shower and a spa, then got the burgers on the barbie! and had some beers!

Yes I will be doing it again next year.

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!

Introducing Stella

This is Stella, she's 6 months old, and a mix of some Red Heeler (Aussie dog), and it looks like some Jack Russell, and many other things. We chose her (no she chose us) on Friday at the K9 Rescue Centre in Mandurah.

We don't know any history on her, just that she had been in the rescue centre for a few days, and in that time she had been spayed, so she's still got her stitches in, she has them out on Thursday, she also has a stitch in her foot so must have had an injury there. She is very young and puppy like, but really keen to learn, she is already coming back to us, responding to her name off the lead, and knows what 'sit' means, we're working on stay now, and will carry on doing fun training with her. She responds really well and is learning what 'no' means, when it comes to jumping on setees and eating slippers!

She sleeps outside under the patio (roofed area), on her new pet bed, the first night she was a bit unsettled and cried a bit, but last night once she settled she was fine until about 6.45 when she decided it was time to get up, and let us know about it.

She's named after the stars, not the beer (honest)! She's been to the beach twice already and has played well with other dogs, she likes chasing seagulls, and is still a bit unsure of the sea.

There's some more pictures of her in our online photo album, and I'm sure we'll get some more pictures as she grows up over the next few months.

quick post

Just a quick blog today - I had a full day in work yesterday, and guess what - I managed to start just in time for year end! Over here year end is 30th June, so I will be taking over from the busy period, I guess doing full time for 4 months won't be so bad, it will get me chance to get into the job.

The housewarming went really well, we had lots of drinks (I had to go out and buy a beer fridge for behind the bar!), and spoke to England and Spain on Skype; the lap top was sat on the bar and Pete (UK), Mike (UK), and Ann and Pete (ex Railway now Spain) all joined in the party for a quick chat which was great. Our neighbours brought us a wooden vase that he had made himself, very nice, this is now sat on the bar. Then later on we fired the BBQ up and had burgers and sausages, just what you need after a skinfull of beer, yum yum!

I've been for a run this morning to the beach and back, I've entered the Perth 'City to Surf' 12k run at the end of August, so thought I'd better do a bit of training, the run today was about 7.5k, and I could still breath at the end of it so I should be ok.

Got to go now - shopping to do, only food today, unless I find a nice office chair!

Oh Good Luck to Jeckyl on their 3 gigs over the next couple of weeks.

Our new house

We moved into our new house last Friday, so have had a mad week of sorting things out. the house is great, I've posted some pictures on our photo album, just to make you all jealous of our pool and spa, oh and a lemon tree. I'm getting all homely and today have made some home made lemonade, and we've been juicing our own orange, carrot and apple juice; we've found a great shop 'The Spud Shed' that sells fruit and veg grown locally and at really reasonable prices, so we are eating loads of healthy fresh food.

Again we're having to learn new things, they say that if you learn something new everyday it keeps you young, well we should be regressing! We're learning about pool and spa chemicals, algae and pumps, we've been in the spa everyday so far, but have yet to try the pool (it's too cold in winter).

We've got some books out of the library to learn about our Koi Carp and other fish in our pond, I've put a picture of these up, we have 12 fish in total, and are now getting to know them and how much to feed them etc, we also need to look after this pump and filter system and keep the water level right. We're trying to get them to hand feed, and they are getting braver, they welcome us in the mornings when we come to feed them, I never realised fish could be such social creatures.

The weather this week has been quite bad, we've had rain most days, but the sunny periods are still really warm.

I had a day in work this week, to learn the payroll and get to know some other parts of the job, again it is all very similar to English work but with different names and different rules, so I should be OK when I get my head round the language differences. The most bizarre thing I learnt is that you get paid more when you take annual leave than you do if you work, the reasoning is that you generally spend more when you are off work, so need more money; the unions apparently negotiated this some years ago, so now you get 'leave loading' on your pay when you're not in work - Great!

John has sold a house this week, and is really enjoying his job so far, he is hoping to get another sale on Tuesday, so this will keep the money coming in, and when I start work properly on 11th July we will both be earning again - The company I will be working for has persuaded me to do 4 months full time over the tax season, and then I should be able to go part time, should be ok as I will be on less hours in time for the summer.

Yesterday I played netball again, and was rushing home to meet a plumber (to plumb our fridge in - it's got one of those water/ice dispenser things on it), and got pulled for speeding - so I have to pay a fine of $150 and get 2 points on my nice new WA licence! I think I'd better watch my speed from now!

We didn't get to go for that Indian last week we are going next week instead, tonight we're having a bit of a house warming party, well when I say party, I think we need to get a few more friends to call it that; but there should be about 10 people here so we'll have a good night - we'll have Skype on, so if you want to join us in a couple of hours give us a shout! We'll put the camera on and you can join in!

Ok must go now got a bit of organising to do for tonight and it's getting on now, enjoy our new house pictures and please all keep in touch.

Tracey got a job

I was offered a job this week, and went in today to chat about it and see the office etc. I will be Accountant to a tax practice in Mandurah (about 30 mins drive), the position can be part time which I want, and will initially be to cover extended leave for 3 months. I will also be able to learn the tax side of the business, and then after the 3 month period, other employment options can be looked at. So initially it will include accounts, payroll and fee collection from tax refunds, then maybe more of the tax consultant work, we'll see how it goes!

Last night I played netball again, this time for the Angels, and we won!! It's really good to get back into netball, and meeting people - I even met one of the players today, she works at our settlement agent (small world).

John is now getting into his on the job training, and has completed his reports for this, so Friday he takes his work into Perth and should get his licence shortly after that.

Everything is now getting put in boxes ready for our move on Friday, you realise how well you've settled in when you have to change address at about 10 different places.

We're looking at health insurance (mine field), and now that we're working we need to look at Super (pension) schemes, another mine field. The most difficult thing is that everything is called something different over here:

P60 - Group Certificate
Pension scheme - Super
Tax code - TFN

Once you can interpret things they aren't too different than in England.

We've been invited out for a curry on Saturday night at a new Indian that's opened in Safety Bay 'The Korma Sutra'! I'll let you know how the Aussie curries compare with the Sangem or similar.