A Break from the Old Routine

G'd evening bloggers. Sunday night here so time for another update on our big adventure. Thanks to all those who emailed to let me know the reason they havent subscribed is because they dont have googlemail. I'll assume I am typing to more than Dan and Dad here so hello to all. Its been another great week here in Adelaide. We are fully settled in now and really enjoying life. We really like Adelaide as a city, its big enough so there is lots to see and do but also small enough in that you can pretty much walk most places or its 20mins max on a bus. We have been really enjoying having everything on our doorstep and living a more spontaneous life. I can see we will be looking to make some changes to things when we come home (leaving Loughborough being a priority). To make you all feel better the weather has been more mixed this week. Mainly sunny and in the mid 20s but we have had 2 days where it was about 17 degrees and overcast all day - v. depressing it was :) So for me (Sacha) this week was my first full week in work and it went pretty well. I was mainly in the lab setting up experiments. I have no technician here so its a bit like the old days for me but I actually enjoyed it. The people are all friendly although its a lot quiter than Nottingham which I think I would miss in the long run. Worst experience of the week was when I opened a store cupboard at work and a lizard jumped out at me and landed on my foot. Unfortunately I squealed like a girl much to the amusement of the aussies here (I am sure they planted it there for a joke). Emma and Dylan have been doing a very good job of being even busier than me. Their week included swimming, gymnastics, library storytelling, group singing and picnics by the river. Emma has made quite a few friends now (how does she do it?), mainly brits but some who are here short term and some who have emigrated so she is getting a good view on what life is like here. I think they are especially loving life here at the minute as it really is a like a long holiday, certainly if their weekly capuccino bill is anything to go by. Dylan is coming on well with his speech now and has added several new words to his vocabulary this week including 'roar', 'more', 'no' and 'goal!!'. The latter brings me on to one of the highlights of the week (sad you may think) but I got up at 6am to go to the gym to watch Arsenal v Spurs. Not because I am mad for the exercise of course but because we dont have Sky Sports at the apartment. Anyway the match was cracking and I certainly brought entertainment to the group of ladies behind me on exercise bikes when i slipped off the treadmill because i jumped up to celebrate spurs's last minute equaliser. On friday, because work had gone well, I took some time off and we had a nice cultural day and visited the botanic gardens and art gallery (a first for all of us) and then went for a family swim. And then this weekend we hired a car and did some exploring. Saturday we went south down the coast to Victor Harbour and Aldinga Beach (see pic of Dylan covered in suncream, emma is a bit obsessive about this but you can burn here in a few mins). The beaches are fantastic and Dylan especially loves them. They are in excellent condition and generally pretty quiet. The only problem is the water is from the Antarctic and bloody freezing so its paddling only. In fact Dylan has a bad cold today probably due to his irresponsible parents dipping him in the icy waters. After that we went to a wild animal reserve. A little bit like a safari park by foot. We saw kaolas, wombats, dingos and kangeroos....actually we had a bit of an encounter with the 'roos. The park owner told us the kangeroos roamed wild, were friendly and would love some of the food she would sell us. So off we toddled and about half way round saw a field full of kangeroos. From about 100m they look quite small and friendly. However they can travel that distance in a few hops and as they get closer, they look a lot bigger. We must have looked like silly poms as Emma shouted "run away" as they headed towards. As we ran, they came bouncing even closer to us. At which point I threw the food at them and ran faster. We must have looked quite a sight. Of course they were friendly as we discovered later (see pic) but they were a lot bigger and faster than we thought. The image of Emma diving over the front of the pushchair to sacrafice herself and save Dylan will last a while. And today we went north to a place called Roseworthy. It is about 45 mins north of Adelaide and the site of one the universities campuses. It was 125 years old today so they had an open day/agricultural show to celebrate. This was good fun as they had lots of farm animals to entertain Dylan and mini-steam trains ("choo choo" was phrase of the day)(Thomas the Tank Engine is the current favourite). They also had lots of huge tractors to play with (see pic). Whilst on this one the offical open day photographer came and asked to take a pic so we may even make a the new prospectus!

So that's about it for the week. We are still having a great time here (but we will come home we promise!). One thing we realised by having a car this weekend is that we have been really lucky and found a great area to live with loads to see and do. There are lots of other areas that had we ended up there it might not have been such a great experience. So we are lucky the university is paying the crazy rental price (i hope no-one from university is reading this). The week ahead promises to be good also. There are two big events happening this week. The Melbourne Cup is on Tuesday which seems similar to the Grand National but bigger. Apparently the country comes to a stand still for the afternoon. And next Saturday is the Christmas Pageant (only a month and a half early). Apparently a load of christmassy floats parade through the city. Doesnt sound too exciting until you discover 300 000 people attend ! So hopefully we will report back on that - see http://www.cupageant.com.au/ - if you can't wait.

Right, time to sign out, just time for the 'moan of the week' (I would love to do the programme 'Grumpy Old Men'). The annoying thing this week has been buses. Ok they are mainly late, as they are everywhere but, here, if they happen to be early they wait at the stop until they are back on time. So if you are heading home you have the frustration of sitting on a bus which everytime it reaches a stop, even if there is no one to get on or off, stops and waits. Well annoying! well I think so anyway. Rightyho, hope the weather is still as good at home as you all keep telling me it is, have a good week, enjoy bonfire night (fireworks are banned here due to fire risk) and we'll speak to you all soon, Love the Mooneys x

PS. Forgot to say, we have been loving skype, so if anyone would like to chat, give us a call on 'sedmooney'. 7-9am and 9-10pm your time are best.