Sorry about last week

To be honest we just didn't do much, so it wasn't worth blogging. However this gives us more to talk about this week.
  So we got the keys to our new house last Saturday and finally got entrance to it, its better than we could have imagined it to be. We loved it that much that as soon as the furniture that we've bought over here arrived we moved in. This has meant that we have been sitting on garden furniture in the living room and James' mattress is on the floor however this is immeasurably better than the shithole we have been living in. Although the day the furniture was delivered (Moving day) turned out to be a complete disaster, first thing they said they were delivering our flat pack furniture at dinner time so Sue wasn't getting to the house until 11am plenty of time, I received a phone call from the delivery company asking why nobody was there this was at 10am luckily they came back and delivered later on. This was the best thing that happened that day, The next episode was we received an email saying our UK furniture which was supposed to be delivered on the 7th would now not be coming until the 18th this was gutting as we'd built ourselves up to getting our couches and telly's etc. Then whilst going to the chippy for some tea the car packed in luckily we had some warning of this as it had struggled to start earlier so i'd just been and bought a battery. Unfortunately I had no tools with which to change it. So for what of a better term I was up shit creek without a paddle. I had just started dialling the recovery company when I had a knock on my window. A kind soul had seen me in my moment of distress and had found some jump leads in the car, so one quick jump start later and I was on my way (fish and chips had gone cold by now). so all that remained was to build the bed luckily this went well and our luck has been good since.

Wednesday we finally had broadband fitted we had only ever been able to get 1.5Meg tops in the UK now were rocketing along at 12 Meg this has made Skype much more usable and much better quality which makes conversing with home much easier.

Friday night I went out for a couple of pints with a bloke from work A couple turned into a lot and I rolled in at 2am to an awake Sue This was a disaster even through my drunken haze I could tell that I was in trouble in the morning. Fortunately Sue didn't have to do much in order to make me feel bad as I'd very impressively done that to myself it turns out the 8 pints of lager i had was stronger than Stella then I'd topped it off with a couple of bottles of 6.5%  Tooheys. All in all I was a mess. On the plus side I never got shouted at.

Saturday was also Foxtel day fantastic finally telly thats worth watching and of course premier league footy, we can get every game including the Saturday 3 o clocks excellent. So i finally got my footy fix and Everton won 3-0 too Result :-). Sue repaid the Friday night and drank half a bottle of vodka the busily proceeded to ruin the 2nd half of the match for me by chatting drunken rubbish. Luckily all the goals were first half and the second half was a bit crap anyway.

Sunday we went up to a wildlife park in a place called Ballarat, This place has free roaming Kangaroos and emus and also has Tasmanian devils and Koalas. this was great there were Kangaroos everywhere most of them asleep and we also had one join us for dinner at least it tried to until James shouted at it " Go back to your Mum and Dad" Then it went to hassle Sue so James gallantly stepped up again "Get away from my mummy" while Sue made little squeeks of terror, I was far to busy laughing that I couldn't do anything in the end we had to stop eating and pack up but we went and fed the other Kangaroos with proper Kangaroo food James also had a go too which was good.

Om Nom Nom

So as I was saying the only way to go with the shares market is Australian mining

No Fear

Friend for Life

Lazy Bear

So as it stands we are much more settled now Particuarly with the new house, Sue has settled into her lady of leisure mode excepetionally well, and is busily working her way through all the wine region has to offer.

So thats it for now Our Uk furniture arrives on Wednesday which is great news .

Look After yourselves

The Nuttalls

Not A Lot Happening

Well it was bound to happen and to be honest i'm surprised its taken this long, but not much has happened this week. As per usual I was in work all week and its really busy so I've been quite tired every night when I've got home.

The weather has also been a bit off and dropped off last week down to about 17C which actually felt a bit cool I understand that its been similar in the Uk and your all in shorts, still its improved a bit over the past couple of days and it was 24 today and its gonna be 26 tomorrow settling at 22 for the rest of the week which is nice.

 I ummed and ahhed about going to the Grand Prix all week on Saturday my decision was made for me, as our faithful little netbook which has been absolutely hammered since we got here started throwing in blue screens of death which signified one thing it was facked (See I'm learning Australian already) So we had to go and get a new laptop which is what i'm typing on now.

So instead of going to the grand prix we'd been asked to go around to a mates for afternoon tea. They have 2 boys aged 2 and 4 so the intention was to take James around to have a play. To be fair he had a whale of a time the kids played great together and he even ended up having tea there. They are a really nice family who have been here for 2 1/2 years so I have roped Dom (the dad) into being a regular Thursday night drinking buddy (never let it be said I'm not a creature of habit) and Sue is going around there tomorrow so James can play again. There is also talk of arranging another Poms in Oz night out in the upcoming weeks so we seem to be slowly but surely building a small circle of friends and a large circle of aquantainces.

James has also started kindergarten this week, he did 3 hours on Friday and absolutely loved it, Sue said she was a bit upset when she left him there but soon got over it. Its quite nice really because we both had to work in the UK Sue never got to take him on his first day of nursery so this made up for that to a certain degree.

Our furniture arrived in Melbourne on Thursday so our couches are only 100Km up the road, although we can't touch them yet its comforting to know they are here they should be delivered after they have been checked by customs etc on the 7th April. The countdown has begun.

Our other furniture that we have ordered from here will be delivered to our new house so I have a few days of flat pack building to look forward to next week. But at least we get our keys to our new house on Saturday so I think we'll settle much more when that happens.

So that's about it for this week I haven't even got a food of the week because we haven't been out, Or any new pics so sorry its a bit boring it should be better next week. Although I did have to fill the car up today and the price of petrol is rocketing it cost us $67 for more or less a full tank.

Look after yourselves

The Nuttalls

Up and down

Well to be honest not a lot has happened this week which I suppose is a bit inevitable after a while plus there was a little bit of homesickness nothing too bad but we got some news from the Uk on Friday which I won't divulge but it made us realise how far away we actually are, but we came up with a plan, and that is to treat every weekend like a holiday and let the humdrum of weekdays (which will get better when were in the new house and have our stuff) look after itself.

So with this in mind and with Sue deciding she wants Ugg boots for her birthday we headed for Melbourne. After doing a bit of research online ( and me trying to get them as cheap as possible) it came to my attention that UGG australia (the ones everyone in the UK wears and pays a fortune for) aren't Australian at all they are owned by an American company and the boots are made in China. UGG is a style of boot nothing more. So the best make for australian UGG style boots is a company called EMU. Anyway I digress we went up to Melbourne on the train as it probably works out around about the same price as driving and we headed to an outlet mall. This took us straight past the ETIHAD stadium very impressive it looked a bit like the Everton Stadium at the kings dock was going to look (letting that go is probably Mr Kenwrights biggest cock up through his Everton Tenure). Then we found ourselves in Melbourne Docklands which has all been done up with restaurants and hotels etc and I have to say it is lovely and Harbour town the outlet village looks like a slightly older Liverpool one so much so that it made us think L1 might have been based on it. Anyway after traipsing around there for 3 hours we hadn't bought anything and headed back to the train station.

We were a bit early so we found another Mall that is built onto the station this was much more impressive and had plenty of shops that we recognised unfortunately we didn't have time to look around there as we had to get the train and we were knackered. So the upshot was we didn't buy anything.






This brings us onto Sunday, we promised last week that we would go looking for koalas and Kangaroos. So first off we headed down to Torquay to check the surf shops for EMU boots which we found so we bought them that was that done. We then headed of down the Great Ocean Road to a place call kennetts river where there were rumours of wild Koala's. I know I go on about this road a lot but it is quite simply stunning and gets better the more times we travel down it. The first stop was split point lighthouse. This light house was the place where legendary kids show Round the Twist was filmed so we saw that and took in some of the views from there. Beautiful.

Have you ever... ever felt like this (theme tune for round the twist)

View from the lighthouse

Start of the GOR

 We then carried on down the road towards Kennetts River and as we were driving we saw what we thought was a rotten palm leaf in the road... Then it started wriggling it turned out to be a 6ft eastern brown snake apparently the 2nd most venomous land snake in the world and it was big.

Not the actual snake just for illustration purposes

So we trundled down to kennetts river which is a small town of 100 people and turned off onto a dirt track that steeply rose into the bush forest ( I was suddenly glad we'd bought a 4 x 4) Then Sue spotted something in the tree tops. It turns out it was a Koala so we stopped and had a walk around and spotted a few more and took some pictures. which are displayed below:

Koala very unusual for them to be active during the day

In their normal pose they sleep 19 hours per day

We then headed back towards Geelong and had heard that Anglesea golf course had been a popular place for kangaroos so we stopped there on the way through and sure enough there they were so photo's again:

Finally proof they exist

It does have its ups and downs here homesickness will come and go I'm sure but I have to say that when its good its fantastic the landscape is just stunning and the people are great. When its bad its not too bad if you know what I mean you just feel a bit down and miss certain things and people.



Chris' Food Of The Week

This week its a bit boring but just look at the size of it:

Problem is it was shite but hey ho


Look after Yourselves

The Nuttalls

Melbourne and fun runs

First off sorry its late but its bank holiday here so its still the weekend. We haven't done a lot this week really work has been busy and Sue is fitting into the housewife routine nicely. Most of our time now is taken up trying to sort things out for the new house getting the bits of furniture together and all the small stuff cutlery pots and pans etc. So we decided to take a drive up to Ikea in Melbourne. NIGHTMARE

First off we decided to drive up there just as a storm decided to roll in so it bounced down all the way there. we did get to drive over the westgate bridge which is pretty special and it would have had fantastic views had it not been for the rain. Being the prudent type of fellow I am we decided that toll roads are for mugs and driving round is by far the best way to go......This train of thought was wrong.

We ended up driving straight through the centre of Melbourne I'm sure most of you have seen/heard about Oxford street or Tottenham court road on a busy shopping day and you get some idea it also turns out there was a big street festival on which made it all a bit worse however it gave us a chance to see a bit more of Melbourne than we've seen previous which was interesting. Ikea however was pretty much the same as the UK a conveyor belt of people slowly trudging around crap displays, however it has to be said we did get some bargains which ticked a few more of our stuff to get boxes. The main problem was somebody in their infinite wisdom had decided to put the customer collection point on the exit ramp of the multi -story car park this resulted in chaos, but we lived through it and the car passed its first big test and it was a good chance to experience driving around Melbourne which we won't be doing again.

James also completed his first sporting event, there was a fun run organised for local charities which involved a 100m fun run racing against Thomas the Tank engine, it went really well Jam.es loved it he completed the fun run and came in in the middle of the group smiling all the way. He ended up getting a certificate and a goody bag we he liked and they had a load of other things to see fire engines police cars etc so James loved it.

Just got his number Flying the flag

Start Line lots of competitive dads

First certificate

We have also enjoyed our first nights out, I went on Friday with the fella's from the group that we met a few weeks ago, and Sue went out with the girls on Saturday. Good times were enjoyed on both nights which I have to confess to being the most inebriated out of the 2 of us as I was nothing short of a mess which I suffered for on Saturday Sue was fine after her night. It was nice to be able to get out without having to worry about James





Chris's Food of the Week

This week I have discovered the taste sensation that is Sushi, King prawn with Avocado, and Teryaki chicken to be precise wonderful.

mmmm Sushi I like the Soy sauce bottles

Sorry its a bit dull this week we are going on a search for Koalas next weekend so that should be a bit more interesting than Ikea.



Look after yourselves 


The Nuttalls


 

Its a trap

Well we thought it might be too good to be true, our one mouse had disappeared but then came back and he brought all his mates. So the traps were out again we caught a couple but saw a few more. So we threatened the landlord that we were leaving if he didn't sort it out. We had a pest control fella out the next day ( who bizarrely also used to work for Pilks) and as yet we haven't seen sight nor sound of them since, Although we occasionally get a whiff of mouse fart one one particular couch so one might be dead in it. but hey ho the smell is receding and its not my couch so I don't really care.

There has been an air show on this weekend we thought about going but then saw the price $55 each seeing as we don't have any interest in planes whatsoever we thought sod it we won't go. However I received an email on Friday afternoon from Geelong council offering us free tickets in their VIP runwayside chalet with free drinks and free food, so whilst we have no interest in planes we have a very high interest in free food and booze, so off we went and I have to say it was very impressive the food was lovely and as much free drinks as you could fit in your belly plus we got some free programmes and caps etc and there were plenty of kids for James to play with. We also met some other recent immigrants and exchanged phone numbers etc. Sue is going out on Saturday with some of the girls from the people we met next week so she invited a Canadian girl she met today along too as she's here on her own ( Very Brave) I also met a few people, and as luck would have it one lad from Manchester is a mechanic for Renault excellent. Oh and there was some planes.

A plane

Same plane different view

On Saturday we had a drive down to Torquay again and worked our way along to Bells Beach this is one of the best surf beaches on the surfcoast and the pictures below describe it much better than I ever could so I won't even try.

Bells beach from the car park

View of the Coast looking towards Torquay (not the one in Cornwall)

 We have also ordered Foxtel to be installed on the 9th April just in time for the premiership run in which looks like it might be quite exciting. We've also ordered our Furniture i.e spare bed and our bed and mattresses, so when we get them and were settled please feel free to come and see us we'll put you up no problems.



And a new feature I'm adding to the blog as it appears to have become a bit of a regular feature anyway is:

CHRIS'S FOOD OF THE WEEK

This week its;

It's lemon meringue LOVELY

Until next time

The Nuttalls

Bells Beach

Well that wasn't too bad

We left last week with us starting to look for a new house in earnest, So i launched the scattergun approach and sent off enquiries left right and centre. Things work a little different here they have inspection times then all the people who are interested go at that time and then put applications in.

We had decided on the area we wanted to live in it is an older area but it has lots of shops and good transport links. the problem with the area is the houses are the older type and really we want a modern one. So it was going to be difficult. We managed to find one that looked like the perfect fit so we went to inspect it there were plenty of other people there who all picked up application forms on the way out. So we thought sod it you've got be in it to win it so we took some too. We filled them in and sent them in to the estate agents, The main thing we had against us was that we can't move in until the beginning of April which meant if we were going to be considered the house would be empty for a further 6 weeks. Which isn't good for the landlord really so we scratched it down to experience of the whole process for next time.

The next day i had a phone call from the estate agents telling us that we'd been successful and the house was ours from April 2nd, and here it is:

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-vic-belmont-106800052

This was a good thing because the night we'd been accepted we discovered the house of hell had another surprise for us. As we were watching the telly Sue suddenly came out with an OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYGGGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOODDDDDDD
I looked around to see what she was looking at just to see a mouses nose sticking out from the fireplace  marvellous. So we got a trap and I taped up the fireplace with duck tape ( not really for mice i know but it appears to work as well with furry rodents as it does with floating birds) we saw it try to get into the fireplace the following night but we haven't seen it since and the trap remains empty and theres no other tell tale signs so hopefully it has moved on, as I didn't really want to kill it anyway

So thats that sorted. Before we came out here I used a forum called pomsinoz for various information and advice, and it was decided that all the people who lived in Geelong should all meet up and have a drink, so we decided to go fully expecting to get home at about half 7 after exchanging pleasantries and then it getting a bit dull and then moving on. This was not how it panned out after meeting some really nice people and exchanging experiences the drinking started Sue took James home at about 9pm and left me in the pub I staggered home at about 11:30 a bit worse for wear and with a few invites for nights out and to take James round to play with their kids so it went really well. It turns out there was a few of us that arrived within a week of each other and one of them lives opposite to the house were moving into which is bizarre.

We took a drive to Anglesea (not the one in Wales) this is part of the great ocean road so we carried on down it to a place called Lorne and I have to say it is breathtaking you go from the top of a cliff down a winding road to beach level then up again, the beaches are amazing and empty most of them don't have any houses near them so they are totally deserted. The sea is an amazing colour of blue and when you see it from the cliffs you can actually see where it starts to go deep as the colour goes a darker shade of blue. It was wonderful.

Unfortunately we forgot to take a camera so yet again this blog is stuck with Iphone photos, we'll go down there again soon and take the camera with us as its only 15 minutes from our new house :-) So here's some of the iphone ones to keep you going.

Lorne beach looking West

Lorne Beach looking East

Lorne beach Looking south take a boat next stop Antarctica

As I said these don't do it any justice and I never took any photos from the cliffs because I was driving and that would be downright dangerous.


Look after yourselves

The Nuttalls

FFFFFFFRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM

Hello all, yes as you may have guessed we got the car yesterday, which has opened up all sorts of new opportunities for us although thus far we have used it to go shopping, don't laugh the freedom to not not shop in the same shops we've had to go to for the past 6 weeks is immeasurable. It is lovely here but when your restricted in your travel movements it can become a bit stale and your missing out on everything.

The Green Machine

Other than that the biggest things that have happened this week are;

James has given his dummies to the fairies to give to the little babies

and, Sue has lied to a woman of the cloth (the one who said grace in the playgroup) so she is naturally going to hell.

Yes the time finally came for James to give up his dummies, we felt that were settled here enough now and he has settled so well that we would try it. We put them on pegs for the fairies to come and collect. So far he hasn't asked for them at all the only thing that has changed is we cant get him to go back to sleep when he wakes up at 7am so in reality it has bitten us on the arse a bit, but we can't go back now so we'll just have to get on with it.

Ready for the fairies

Sue bumped into the playgroup leader in the shopping centre and spoke to here for a while leaving on the promise that she would be at the playgroup on friday this was a barefaced lie, Sue was never going back there because it was a bit wierd. Tut, Tut ,Tut.

Having the car has also allowed us to investigate where we want to live next, we have managed to rule out a couple of places whilst also adding a few, so our search for the house we are going to live in for the forseeable has started in earnest. its quite an important choice because we'll be in there for 12 months minimum. Plus our furniture will be delivered there in about 6 weeks so the clock is ticking.


We were also invited to a mayoral welcome on friday night, this was for all new arrivals in Geelong to be officially welcomed into Geelong we walked up fully intending to go but when we got there we decided against it most of the people there looked like refugees (which they probably were) and a rather large Nigereian man in a powder blue suit with a matching hat, he looked sharp and i just couldn't compete with my bench t - shirt and jeans on, so we decided to leave it and instead went to the pub down by the promenade. It turned out there was a festival of sport on down there and a fun run. So being that weve been in Australia for the past 6 weeks and are settling into their culture we decided that what we should do is sit in a bar next to the fun run route and offer support by drinking and eating as they ran past. The food was amazing I got seafood linguine with crab, mussels, king prawns and calamari in garlic and chilli and it was stunning ( see picture).

Yummy

So this past week has again been a good week and having the car now we should be able to get out and see a bit more and provide some better photo's for this blog, and if its any consolation the weather has been shit this week. (its been about 20C).

Look after Yourselves

The Nuttalls