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