Puppy Is Gone

Sadly after a lifetime of comfort and love, we have lost Puppy. He is somewhere in Brisbane - even though we made every effort to find him, he is gone. Those of you who know the strong bond between Abi and Puppy will know that this is a devastating calamity for Abi - especially after her forehead ordeal yesterday. We have bought Abi a 'new' Puppy and they have already become good friends. I think that this has upset me more than Abi - although Abi did have 2 restless nights over this - I think she has come to terms with her loss. She still refers to new Puppy as 'new' Puppy or the second Puppy vs. the first Puppy. She is a clever lady.

Here is a rare picture of Abi with first Puppy - I will post a picture of new Puppy soon...

Brisbane Children's Hospital

Abi had her first accident today. She was running around - as they do - and tripped in the lounge and fell with her head on the coffee table. Luckily she fell on her hands before hitting her forehead. We were in a panic and found the local hospital. We actually live close to the hospital and we were there very quickly. They were very efficient at the hospital and we saw a doctor very quickly. We chose to have her head 'glued' and she was so good and let 2 nurses and a doctor hold her down to clean the wound and glue her back together. The cut was just over a cm. I just really hope that there is not a bad scar. Poor little angel. I am sure we were more shaken up than she was! A promise of a strawberry milkshake made it all much better! She is not allowed to get her forehead wet for 5 days - so no swimming for 5 days - that's probably the worse part for her.

Merry Christmas

Happy Christmas everyone... We hope you had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends. We are on 24/7 hour holiday I know, but the last week has just seemed more like a holiday. Everything here really does wind down. We went out early one evening to see the Christmas lights. There is a competition for the best lights – most houses here don’t put up any lights and some go really crazy with lights – unlike the UK where almost everyone puts up something cheerful.
We spent Christmas eve with friends and had a lovely meal with them. On Christmas day we went to friends for breakfast and spend a lovely day with them and Abi had a ball playing with their son, Luke. Luke and Abi are now great friends and today we went up to Noosa Heads and spent the day together again. First we went to a big (and busy) market at Eumundi. This is a really good market with lots of interesting things to look at – crafts, art, jewellery, clothes, furniture, music, food – I am sure we will be back – its over 100km from Brisbane, so you really have to make a day of it. Then we went to the beach. Beautiful white sands stretching for miles, lovely and clean and the kids had a ball.
No luck at last Friday’s interview – I’m overqualified – I suppose there are worse reasons to be turned down for a job... we will pick up the job search when we return from our holiday to South Africa.
Here are some pictures from the last few days...
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Christmas Breakfast - Yum

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Abi's Christmas present - she is loving this and plays with it just about all the time...

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Beach! Here I Come!

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Abi on the beach - isn't it fantastic?!

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The Photographer - this will keep Abi occupied for ages too

New Home

We have found a house to move into. It is in an area called Kenmore and is about 10km from Brisbane CBD. It has 3 bedrooms upstairs and downstairs has quite a big living area that will fit our furniture – with a small study area. There is a small plunge pool at the front and a small garden at the back. I say the work small often - 'cos that's what it is. We are going to be very busy the first week of January as we should get the keys on the 5th, container delivery with all our belongings from the UK is the 7th and we leave for a holiday in South Africa on the 8th. At the same time we need to vacate the place we are in at the moment and have it spick-and-span with carpets cleaned before we leave on the 8th. Oh and at some point we also need to get a fridge and washing machine too.
I went for a job interview today Friday for a Project Manager role. I think it went ok – first interview, so an experience if nothing else. Should have some feedback before the end of the year on that one. Guy and I have also been put forward (after 5 pages of writing and an hour interview by the agent) for a portfolio manager role. That one sounds like a nice challenging role – they are only interviewing for that one at the end of January. Government job selection is a very slow and arduous process – for comparison the other position went from application to interview in under 2 weeks.
Abi is growing by leaps and bounds – she is such a character. The other night, guy was braaiing some meat using a pair of tongs. Abi went to the kitchen drawer and got another pair and went outside to help Dad – she did an excellent job!

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

We decided to make the best use of our time off and do some touristy things. So today we went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It was a great day out – we saw our first koalas, kangaroos, emus and lots of other animals. Abi got to touch a snake – she was very excited about that – and she stroked a kangaroo.
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Kangaroos relaxing in the shade of the tree:

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Abi delighted with the little kangaroo:

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Koala's munching away in the background:

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Abi's photography - she managed to get one of Guy and I!

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Of course - they don't let you out without walking through the little shop!

Mooloolaba

We went for a drive up to the ‘Sunshine Coast’ today. We had perfect weather - 32 degrees sunny, with a bit of cloud. It takes about 1 hour to get there (on the ‘Bruce Highway!) and its quite a pleasant drive. We went to a town called Mooloolaba as this was recommended as a great place to go to the beach. And it was – Abi had such a great time today playing in the sand, playing in the sea and jumping over the waves. She loves to swim and will simply lie down on her tummy in the shallows in the water – smiling and laughing with absolute delight. I am sure we will be back soon, there are loads of little shops and cafes/restaurants along the beach front – which we didn’t even get a chance to explore. We drove a bit further up the coast to Maroochydore and also spent some time driving around the Mooloolaba marina – stunning houses many with their own pontoons with massive boats... dream on! On the way back home we drove along the Steve Irwin tourist route and took a detour to the Glass House Mountains – which had beautiful views. While we were up there we saw our first wallaby – Abi was amazed – she loves looking at all the wildlife. There are facilities to have a BBQ up there too – looked like a good idea for another day. I’m sorry to say that today we only have a picture of the beach at Mooloolaba because we ran out of camera battery! Next time.

Still Job Hunting

Well, it has been a week since I posted... so I suppose you are wondering what we have been up to... To be honest, not anything too exciting – the focus now has to be getting a job as we are spending and not earning... not a good place to be. The market is still slow, but we are still steadily applying for jobs and meeting agents. Applying for a job here is quite a procedure – I have just written a 5 page document explaining why and how I meet the position’s key selection criteria. This is a regular requirement, especially for government positions. And the process is very slow – they will be interviewing for this position in January. Sigh.

We went to view our first possible property rental as we need to move out of here mid-Jan and we also need a place to unpack our container of belongings. Renting property works very differently here. Firstly, most places only require 2 weeks notice (rent is paid weekly here) and so there are not many properties available mid-Jan at the moment. Secondly, when you view a property its called an “Inspection” and what happens for many of the properties is that a time is published (a 10 minute slot) when anyone who is interested comes to ‘inspect’ – so on Saturday we went to see a place with a load of other people – all wondering through the house together. Very strange. Needless to say it was not very nice, so the search goes on. We have another few ‘inspections’ set up for next week.

24th November was a normal day and we had a friend round for dinner – so a lovely evening on Guy’s birthday.

Abi is still well and loving being with us all day, every day. She is such a little character – so sweet – she has learned how to use the digital camera and walks around the house taking photos of EVERYTHING. She finds this highly amusing. Thank goodness its a digital! Maybe I will post one of her masterpieces next time.

The other evening she told me quite plainly... “But I can’t brush my teeth now – I’m watching Little Einstein’s”.

Glorious Car

As promised – here are some pictures of our new car – these were taken at a place called Mount Glorious – we took a drive out there on Sunday. It is quite beautiful. We went to a lovely little restaurant for lunch which had ‘glorious’ views... On the way there we stopped in at a little nursery called ‘Lifestyle’. It has a little shop with lots of knick-knacks and a treasure trove to wander around. Not a place for the parents with a 2 ½ year old – as you can well imagine. It also has a cafe where you can have a light meal. I am sure we will be back.

Little Shop:


Abi wanted to take this home with her:


View from the restaurant:


'The' Car

Storm Damage

Yesterday we had the most incredible storm here in Brisbane. From where we are there was lots of rain, thunder and lightening and wind. However the storm hit other areas of Brisbane very hard. We are ok – but a couple of our friends who live in Ferny Grove and The Gap are without electricity and one friend’s house was hit badly by the storm. Guy is going there tomorrow to help out – apparently their neighbour’s roof is in their pool and their bathroom has been damaged badly. It is a terrible mess. They have no fresh water either.
News Coverage: 1000-homes-still-without-power and pm-pledges-cash-to-storm-victims

15 November

Brisbane has some lovely parks. Most of them have really nice play areas for kids as well as BBQs – electric, wood – or both! While we have been driving around looking at suburbs we often stop for Abi to have a play and have a picnic. Today for the first time, we took some meat along with us and had a little BBQ (or braai as we habitually call it). We had a great time as we met another 2 couples who also have children Abi’s age and she really loves to run around with them. It was really warm today – up to 33 degrees. One really does make use of the air-con in the unit (is what an apartment/flat is called) and the car.

We fetched our car on Thursday and it is really great. I have even been allowed to drive it 300m between shopping car parks. Hopefully Guy will get over the novelty soon and let me learn to drive an automatic....

Job search is still very slow – we have met with another 3 agents this week – but no jobs to apply for and it may well be very slow until the New Year.

Finally – we completed our house sale on Friday. Bitter Sweet Bitter – so sad that our lovely house is not ours anymore (and our lovely neighbours no longer neighbours boo-hoo); glad the sale is finally over and sad that we had to make such a loss on the home that we ploughed so much effort and love into – but – now we move forward (luckily we still get to keep our neighbours as friends!)

As promised – here is a picture of a “Queenslander” – this one needs a “bit” of work...

Abi – exhausted after playing in the heat

Tracey and Abi enjoying a snack

Guy at our first BBQ in the park

3 weeks into the dream...

We have settled in nicely now – 3 weeks down the line and we want to start settling into ‘real life’ now. It is very strange not going to work every day and there is not much of a routine to life, which can make it difficult for Abi and then for us. She has been so patient hanging around with us all day – doing mostly boring things – we can’t ask for more from her really.

We are loving Brisbane and Australia so far – but as I say, its more like a holiday and hopefully we can get into some regular things soon. I have seen a swim school nearby and want to get Abi swimming as soon as possible – she is doing really well in the pool, but Guy and I don’t really have the skills to get her swimming on her own and I am sure she could do it really quickly. She loves the water and will easily spend hours in the pool. The sun is very fierce here so we have to limit the swimming time and utilise the shade, sun-cream , hats and t-shirt etc!

We have bought a car – a Hyundai Sante Fe – we will pick it up on Thursday afternoon – so really looking forward to that. We have been using a loan car from the dealer since last week, which is good on the wallet.

We have spend most of the last few days driving around suburbs looking for areas that we like. We will look to renting a house from the beginning of January where we thing we want to live long term – to try it out as a place to live. I normally pack a sandwich lunch for us and we stop at a local park when Abi gets hungry – or sees some slides and swings she wants to play on. One of the areas that we quite liked has a lovely village shopping centre – and at the local butcher, lo and behold – boereworse – and other SA goods too – I asked what the South African connection was and they said that it was just the market – so many South Africans living in the area...mmmm

We had a great weekend (well every day is like a weekend at the moment – but you know what I mean). On Saturday we were taken to the “West End” for breakfast and we had a lovely meal with friends of ours. It is a quaint part of Brisbane with lots of unique places to have breakfast – quite a buzzy place. Then we went to a lovely park (another one!) and played with Abi for a while before heading home. On Sunday we went into the city and went to the “Eagle Street Market” – which was very nice and fun to walk around for an hour or so.

Tonight we were invited next door for dinner. We had such a lovely relaxed and informal evening with them as they are a South African family and made us feel so welcome and at home.

Not much news on the job front - market is quiet at the moment, but we are hopeful. I am seeing a recruitment agent tomorrow and we have a meeting with another one on Thursday.

Weather is still fabulous and it should be 30 on Saturday and Sunday. What a life.

Searching for Wheels

We hired a car last week Thursday and we have been looking at cars very day since then. I am wondering how we will cope when we also have jobs to go to every day as the time flies by very quickly. Looking for a car with a 2 ½ year old is not easy – Abi has been so good and patient with us driving to 2 or 3 dealers a day looking in each car in great detail. I just pack some fruit, a sandwich and a drink for her and off we go for the day. If you know Guy and I you will know that this has been an exercise of epic proportions and we have yet to make a decision after nearly a week – also our initial expectation of what we were going to spend has somewhat increased – which is adding to our dilemma – and with both of us not working... you can imagine. Will let you know the outcome.

On the job front – not much time for that at this point, we have our CVs out at a few agents. It is very frustrating as we ring the agents and leave messages and they don’t ring back. Once we have the car, we will have more time for job searching.

Now we have the hire car we have been able to go shopping and get some more groceries. There is such a wonderful variety of items here, we are very impressed. I am sure I have said this before, but it is not going to be easy to stay slim here! We also passed a shop with a South African flag on it – and yes, it did have pronutro and all our other favourites (also has real marmite!). Got home and Abi asked for a plate straight away!

We have also used the car to drive around some of the suburbs. There is quite a range of suburbs with sections of older ‘queenslander’ style houses and newer places too. (I will post a picture of a ‘queenslander’ at some point). There is still so much to see, we have no idea yet where we will look to rent.



On Sunday we went east towards the coast to a place called Wynnum and Manly. Lots of parks and play areas as well as a wading pool and plenty of picnic spots. No beach to speak of around here so we will have to travel further north or south to get some good beaches.
Other than that we try and have a swim every day – or at least jump in the spa bath... its been cloudy the last 3 days – but still lovely and warm enough for shorts and a t-shirt. Heaven.

Had a wonderful day today and saw a lot more of Brisbane as friends of ours came to fetch us and spent the day showing us around. We went to Brisbane University and walked around the beautiful grounds. Then we went up to Mount Coot-tha and had a look at the beautiful views of Brisbane. We had a snack at a picnic spot in the area and then our friends took us to their place for a swim and for lunch. We also had the chance to see some of the houses around some of the suburbs near The Gap. We had a very enjoyable and relaxing day – we still think this place is great!

A good night's sleep

Last night and the night before we basically slept through till morning - including Abi - which is great and we are now in 'the zone'.
Thursday evening was great and we had our first Ozzie BBQ (we even had boereworse - does that cancel the Ozzie bit out?). And we were also taken to the local supermarket to get some heavy items like washing powder etc - which was very helpful and we were so grateful.
Today we went to South Bank and met a lovely couple and their 2 children for a play in the water and sand and for a bite to eat - it was to nice to meet up and we had a really lovely time
Nothing else to report except that we are really suffering from sand fly bites. The only bad thing so far!
(note the beautiful Jacarandas in the picture below!)

Hello Brisbane

The Flight

The flight wasn’t as bad as we expected – I suppose it helps to expect the worse– then its never that bad. Abi slept most of the flight from London to Singapore. The stopover was short enough to be bearable and the worst part was the onward flight to Brisbane as it was daytime for us – but we needed to sleep as we were arriving in the morning – and Abi was having none of it. But all in all, she was very good considering – enjoyed having her own seat and her little meals – but did get frustrated at being strapped in. When we landed she kept telling everyone who would listen that ‘we landed!’

Monday 20^th October

We got the keys to our apartment at about 9am and got settled – to be honest the first day is pretty much a blur. We unpacked as much as we could (given the fact that we had no hangars!); did the inventory check (rubbish job best gotten over with asap) and also walked to the nearest little shop to buy basics like bread, milk etc. We all had an afternoon nap and then went for a walk to a nearby park to keep ourselves awake. The first night Ab woke up about 5 times – either to go to the toilet, find ‘puppy’ or just woke up a bit confused I think. She has settled in so well and even refers to her room as ‘my room’ already and the apartment as ‘home’. How adaptable children are.

Tuesday 21^st October

Day 2 and we went a bit further a field today, walked a bit further to a larger cafe with more expensive arbitrary food (we need to get to a supermarket asap!) and in the afternoon we caught the ferry to South Bank. This was our first view of Brisbane central and we were so impressed. It is so clean and South Bank is great – a

lovely water area – man made beach and ‘pool’ right next to the Brisbane river with loads of restaurants.

Wednesday 22^nd October

So Day 3 we decided to spend the day in Brisbane, planned to get our drivers licence sorted out and get online at the library. Stumbled at the first hurdle at the Queensland transport office as we did not have any suitable evidence of address – which we needed at the library too. So we just did some walking around, found some great shops and LOTS of food – looks like it will be hard to stay thin here. We did manage to change our address for our Australian bank account at HSBC – good evidence to be used for the drivers licence etc.

Thursday 23^rd October

We have our Australian Driver’s licences! Excellent, and we also joined the library – where I sit now writing this (Great Library!). Guy has an appointment to see an employment agent this afternoon. We have also signed up to get online at home – so hopefully tonight we will be online. We are going out to dinner tonight to a friend of a friend who has kindly invited us around and we are very much looking forward to that. Would you believe it – the family next door are South African! The lady there says she knows were the SA shop is – Abi misses her pronutro.

So I think we are over the worse of the jet lag. We are finding our way around now and getting settled in slowly. Will keep you posted on progress.

Goodbye

We are leaving in a few minutes for the airport and we are very excited... We have 5 suitcases and 3 hand luggage - a buggy and car seat... etc. We are just within our baggage allowance of 120 kg +21kg hand luggage!

It has been very hard to say goodbye to everyone - we will miss you all so much, please keep in touch.

We Exchanged!

Well - would you believe that after all the hassles we have had - we have exchanged contracts this afternoon - so we have sold our house! Completion date is 14 November.

Bit of a disaster today - Guy sprained his ankle quite badly - mmmm now who will carry all those bags tomorrow?!

Plan B

Today we are full steam ahead for 'Plan B' - ie. renting out our house. Had 2 rental agents round today taking pictures and signing paperwork as we are very sure that the sale will not happen now and we leave in 2 days time.

Our buyers have come to us at this last minute and reduced their off by £10k - we have met them half-way, as we really want to sell, but we have no confidence...

It was Abi's last day at the nursery today - it was very sad to say goodbye.

No Going Back

The packers finished up today and all our worldly belongings are now on-route to Brisbane.

We spent the rest of the day cleaning - and preparing to rent the house out as the we have still not exchanged contracts.

We thought that the DIY was over!

The packers arrived today and packaged most of our things. The container arrives tomorrow. We have moved into our kind neighbour's place next door. When we took the mirror down from the wall in our bedroom – the wall underneath was still pink – while the remainder of the room had faded to almost white! So we have just painted that wall again.

We have also not sold the house yet as we have not exchanged contracts. We are progressing with renting now as the sale could go either way now – hence still working on the house – Guy put up blinds in the bathrooms and the kitchen on Monday and we also put up light shades in all the rooms. So we have had a very busy week – running on adrenaline I think.

When will rest come?

Cousins

Lovely time was had by all on Sunday - Abi is kitted out for her new occupation in Australia.

1 Week to Go

Well - one week to go today until we fly out. We have not exchanged contracts on our house yet - Friday was d-day, but it did not happen. We are hoping to exchange on Monday... the only big thing getting us down - and the impending "good-byes" too of course.

We have started packing our suitcases and there are half filled cases and boxes everywhere!

Abi is coping very well so far and keeps saying "I'm going to Australia soon" - we are not sure that she understands what that means, but she seems excited about it.

VISA Timeline

10 May 2007 - Guy skills assessment sent to ACS
28 September 2007 - Guy skills assessment approved
12/26 January 2008 - IELTS Test Written/Passed
28 January 2008 - Applied for 175 visa online
3 April 2008 - Tracey skills assessment sent to ACS
16 May 2008 -Tracey skills assessment approved
1 August 2008 - Case officer assigned
7 August 2008 - VISA Granted

The Journey Begins

Only 10 days until we fly out of Heathrow and onto Brisbane to start our new life. We are in the middle of packing up our home into various boxes and suitcases. It is all very exciting.

This is a blog of our big adventure – our move from the UK to Australia.

Chasing the Dream