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

Playgroups and Opera

The big news this week is that nobody has been sick, this was a recurring theme in this blog that has now finally come to an end.

 We started james in a couple of playgroups this week that he has really enjoyed plus its got Sue out and about a bit and speaking to other people although she has become good mates with the girl she met in the park a few weeks ago which is good.

The playgroups here are a bit different to home as you have to take your own food to give the kids. In one of them they insisted on saying Grace before eating, we'll I say they it was just they woman who ran it and her daughter, everyone else just sort of let them get on with it, its not even as if they were sitting down to a formal meal James had a banana.

The other playgroups were better though apart from a woman breastfeeding her 3 year old child 'Bitty' for all of the Little Britain fans........ Oh just me then. I have offered to take James to that one in the future if Sue doesn't want to. The other one has Quite a formal setup and actually teaches the kids co-ordination, words and colours etc rather than just letting them play, this one is fairly expensive but I think James will benefit quite a lot from it.

We have decided to buy a car as mentioned last week, we have found one and had our offer accepted so we should be getting it this week. Which will change things for the better. We also need to start thinking about our next house and have to start getting serious about it, we know the area we want to live and know the type of house we want so I would imagine there'll be a compromise on some level to where we end up.

Last night there was a free concert by the Victoria Philharmic Orchestra down at Eastern Beach. There were planty of people there and it was well set up. Some opera bint came on and started blasting out a couple of Opera songs we went for a walk around the safe swimming area and Sue noticed something out to sea, it turned out to be dolphins jumping about there were about 5 of them in all and they looked like they were having a whale of a time (Hee Hee) until the aforementioned Opera bint started blasting out 'Time to say goodbye' The dolphins swam off sharpish they appear to have the same impression of Opera as me Its a little bit shit. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me just the iphone one which is rubbish but I have included a picture anyway. On our way home we saw some huge ants  and i mean huge about 1/2 inch long (which is big for an ant) apparently i'm reliably informed the bites hurt.

We are settling better Sue hasn't had a bad day this week and getting the car next week should see us going from strength to strength. However i am seriously missing my gadgets and technology now we are not allowed to get foxtel in this house and we can't sign up to broadband GGGGGRRRRRRRRRR. So I have no access to football. On the upside the furniture is now on route from the uk I think when it arrives i'll just hug my PS3 and my mac for a while, whilst lying on my couch Oh how I miss my couch.

Orchestra stage Opera bint is in the white

James taking in the ambience

Dolphin, Note how calm the sea is, its like a lake

Pierce Brosnant

Look after yourselves

The Nuttalls

Melbourne..........Finally

We left the last blog with us cooking in 39C, it cooled down nicely on Monday which was pleasant it was about 30C this was to lull us into a false sense of security because on Tuesday we got hit with a 42C day, this as you can imagine was a bit sticky that coupled with the fact that I work next to a furnace basically meant I spent the day dripping.

Sue wasn't faring much better to be fair, she had taken James down to the playground at Eastern beach which is down a rather steep hill, alarm bells should probably have started to ring when it was absolutely desserted, but hey ho James was enjoying himself. So the time came to head home and tackle the Hill. Sue started off ok but quickly tired halfway up a rest was required. Sue sat down while James shouted at her that he wasn't tired. So like the good mother she is she soldiered on to the top of the hill, where she proceeded to vomit. Never let it be said she won't push herself to the limits to ensure James is happy.


We had our first taste of a proper storm on wednesday caused by Cyclone Yasi up in Queensland  it wasn't part of the cyclone but it had forced other weather systems south. Oh lord I have never seen rain like it, when it started to rain the spots on the floor were about 1.5" in diameter then it went heavy. Geelong is quite hilly so the roads very quickly became fast flowing rivers I have never seen anythig like it manhole covers had popped off due to the force of the storm water. After about 10 minutes though when the rain had stopped there was no sign of any sort of storm.

Saturday we eventually made it to Melbourne, we got the train in and went without a plan we just thought we'd have a bit of a look around. First impressions Melbourne is tall very tall  it is also very European. The Southbank is exactly like Londons Southbank and the north of the city is very like Frankfurt and it's a mixture of old buildings and new skyscrapers some places it works some it just seems confused.

view from Fed. Square

We walked up a few of the side streets by Flinders street station and even though they were no busier than Liverpool on a saturday afternoon it felt very claustrophobic i'm not sure why its only been 4 weeks since we've left big cities. Perhaps we've got used to the big sky and spread out nature of Geelong without realising it.

Flinders Street Station

We also noticed it was full of Chinese and I mean full, there were more asians than white people it was strange and not expected we knew it was culturally diverse but we didn't think it was an extra suburb of Beijing, so we made our way to the free city tram and jumped on. The fella who announces the stops on the tram decared that the stop we had got on Swanston Street AKA ...........Chinatown. Suddenly everything became clear.

Next time we go to Melbourne we'll have a plan of where to go as we ended up ambling a bit aimlessly, but it was good all the same.

Today we started looking for a car with the intent to try and get one only to be foiled by the fact that none of the car showrooms are open on a Sunday, bizarre.

We have got James into a couple of playschools next week and Sue is going to have a look at a Kindergarten. So everything is going quite well now and were getting into a routine and at this moment in time it actually feels a bit cold.

Parliment building

The MCG

View of Southbank

View of the north of the river

Until next time

The Nuttalls

Melbourne and the heat

Melbourne is the most European city in Australia, its rich in art and culture and has some of the best restaurants in the world, It is also home to many smaller neveu riche cafes and restaurants. Which makes it one of the top 10 most livable cities in the world...........

At least thats what the guide books say, we don't know as we haven't been yet, our planned trip on Saturday fell too bits when Sue started puking up at about 3am on saturday morning. We had gone out after work for a few drinks and something to eat then we came home and had some more to drink so naturally the food did it, although to be fair she had been ill earlier in the week, so she might actually have been sick. So we decided to stay local and went for a bit of a walk which turned into a 5 mile walk in lovely 28 - 30C sunshine. we headed for the place where we think we'll get our next house Belmont its up on the hill and has a great shopping centre and if you get the right house it has views right across the city.

We were warned that the heat would arrive on Sunday with temperatures would get to around 42C this like the weather forecasts back the Uk was wrong it reached a mere 39C, although I didn't know much about it as the pissing out your arse and puking out your nose bug had reached me so i stayed in the house/bed. Although Sue did go to the supermarket for a couple of bits. When she came back she was a similar colour to a well ripened tomato she described it as a fan oven outside because there was a hot wind involved. This was hot even to the Ozzies. we also found out that the aircon in the house is shit unless you've got your face on the fan outlet. So hopefully we won't get many days like that before we get our new house.

Work is getting better as i'm starting to find my role and settle into it. Sue is settling more and more we all have the odd off day but provided you realise what it is and its just a down moment its better to embrace it. We need to find either a kindergarten or at least a playschool for James as he's starting to play up a bit so he might be getting a bit bored. He has really come out of his shell here and is much more confident on the playgrounds and the big slides and climbing walls. So its great for him.

I have included a couple of pics of eastern beach from our evening walks. And could any of the fishermen who read this please tell me whats in the last pic?

Until next week The Nuttalls

A week of work and Sue home alone

Hello again from the future. I started work this week which meant us starting to settle into our new life, i started in work on Monday and arrived nice and prompt on my first day, and was introduced to my new workmates they are all how i'd expect them to be it is a glass factory after all and the world over they don't change much. Although I have to say they have all been very friendly and supportive and i think i'll be ok there, the job is slightly different but that will make it more interesting.

My main concern at this point was leaving Sue home alone with James and what she'd do to combat boredom and homesickness. Its fair to say on monday she struggled and broke down on monday night, after that small glitch though she has got more and more comfortable, we have been trying to arrange some parent and toddler groups but they don't start until the schools go back which is the beginning of next month. Although she has been keeping herself busy and has manged to meet a couple of people and has met a lady called Kim who has a 3 year old daughter they have exchanged phone numbers with promises to keep in touch which is a very promising move. She is also meeting up with some of the mothers from a parent and toddler group that she spoke to so thats all very promising.

James as per usual is still loving it he runs around like a loon on the playgrounds then tires himself out and goes to sleep. Although he had an off night on wednesday and was a bit sick, but he was fine on Thursday so nothing to worry about.

We gave the hire car back on wednesday and also picked up our box from Melbourne airport (cheers Brain) so since then I have been bussing it to work, although with views like this on the way into work i'm not really complaining.

Generally after work we go for a bit of a walk in the evening sun which is very pleasant.

There is also a big regatta on this weekend so there are stalls of stuff everywhere and a few stages with live music, culminating in a big fireworks display at the end of the night, all free which was great and rather than the usual stalls selling burgers and hot dogs etc. I had calamari and chips and sue had paella which is something you don't get from stalls at home.

 

Geelong Donkeys

Today we were invited to My new bosses house for a BBQ, first thing I can say is WOW the house was like something out of Grand Designs. It was huge with games rooms amd a pool table. It hit home what can be achieved here if we stay.

So in summary so far so good were settling in nicely job is going well and were finding our way around. Next week were off to Melbourne to meet up with Simon and Ben so we'll what thats like. It looks like were going to have to invest in a car the place is a bit too spread out.

Until Next time

Settling in

After the Hectic couple of days when we first got here and all of the rain, we decided to have a bit of a break from doing boring important things and thought we'd have a couple of days just enjoying and exploring the city we've moved into. We decided to have a drive down towards the Great Ocean Road. We set off in bouncing down rain and drove towards Torquay (Not the one in cornwall that would be ridiculous) Flash floods aplenty all the way but when we arrived at Torquay the cloud was breaking and the sun started shining Lovely;

This improved our mood no end, and we decided to go for lunch. Cue as soon as we arrive in Torquay town, I hear a moan from the back of the car 'Where's me sunglasses' disaster Sue had left her Oakleys at Torquay beach we drove back and retraced our steps and luckily enough we managed to find them Hurrah.

So Lunch was very pleasant ( I had a chicken and mayo butty) and we decided we would try and make the house of doom a bit more homely so we headed back to Geelong for some photo frames and odds and sods of things. On our way back the flash floods had gotten worse so the road was closed luckily enough iphone tomtom guided us safely back.

When we got back we walked down to the shopping centre then I hear a moan from next to me  'I think a birds just shit on me 'ed' I looked and she was right a bird had shit on her head and shoulder. Well as you can imagine I erupted James joined me and Sue nearly cried. Brilliant that was a turning point though because since then things have just got better.

Saturday we arranged to meet Sue's cousin Simon and his mate Ben at Werribee open Zoo, unfortunately because of the rain only half of the safari part of the place was open, fortunately because of this it was half price, Result :-) It was great to see other people and the Zoo itself was excellent. Hopefully we'll meet up with them again soon (Simon and Ben not the animals) Because James loved them ( both the animals and Simon and Ben)

Today we thought we'd just stay local although we went and did a bit of shopping this morning and had to cross the barwon river it is in flood on quite a major scale, luckily its in a dip with boathouses being the closest thing to the edge of it so nobodies house has been flooded. So we shook our heads at it a bit and tutted and then went to the beach.

The last time we went to an open air pool James wasn't having any of it, it was too cold and he was fightened well he's not anymore he went straight in and absolutely loved it. The place was busy but not too bad we stayed in there for about an hour and then walked the approx. 3 yards to the beach. He spent his time playing in the sand although he did have a small amble into the sea which was toasty warm. While me and James were doing this Sue was spending her time burning. After this James had an hour in the playground.

Then an amble along the front.

The weatther here has made a massive difference although it has coincided with our jet lag wearing off. The house is a problem for Sue but our little changes to it will help and its only for 11 more weeks. Other than that we've really started to appreciate what australia is all about, at this moment in time I love it here the lifestyle ticks all of the boxes for me, James also loves it he even loves the house I suppose its a bit like the batcave for him. Sue Likes it here too but as mentioned shes not a fan of the batcave. I start work tomorrow so the realities of living here will start to set in this week.

I will try and update the blog on a sunday night and thanks for all of your kind messages.

The Nuttalls