Well its taken me so long to do this I imagine the chances of anyone ever reading this are pretty slim, although i have been quite surprised since we have been home by the number of people who actually read the blog and even said they missed it so you never know. So we have been back in the U.K. four weeks now and it has all been a bit of a blur but rather sadly our time in Adelaide already seems like a distant memory. However coming home has certainly made us realise how great Adelaide was/is and what a fabulous time we had there. I am sure it wont be the last time we ever visit at least i hope not.
So to briefly cast my mind back to complete the story our last few days in Adelaide were pretty great. We took every opportunity to visit the beach, friends and generally keep busy during the day time and sampling our favourite food and drink for the last time (Coopers Pale Ale and Farmers Union Iced Coffee in particular). We left on Jan 2oth and did the first part of the journey to Singapore which was a 7 hr flight. Dylan only slept for 1 hr but was amazingly well behaved and managed to stay sat for the whole flight (iam still not sure how) only occupied by the odd toy and book and a few biscuits. We then had one night at the Mandarin Oriental hotel which was just amazing. We got upgraded to a suite and lived the high life for 20 hrs. Dylan was again treated like a god and showered with free gifts. In our day in Singapore we visited the zoo (we are becoming zoo veterens now) which was the best we have ever been to. Loads of animals which you get very close to. They even had a great water park hidden away at the back. It was then back to the airport and the long - 13 hr - flight. Despite being surrounded by fairly young babies who didnt sleep so well Dylan was again great, sleeping about 11 hrs (we slept about 2!). So all in all it was a fine trip. We were met at the airport by the university chaffuer which was nice and whisked home in a few hrs bar a brief delay when it looked like we had lost a bag from Singapore (it actually arrived in the UK the day before us somehow). It took sometime to get used to the cold, dark, rain, wind and traffic but it wasnt so bad really as we had lots of family and friends to catch up with - and work to get on with so it took our minds of it.
And that as they say is that. Obviously lots of other stuff is going on since we returned like emma back at work, buying a new car, dylan starting nursery again, and selling our house but its not really blog worthy so i'll sign off for good this time with the hope that we will be again doing something blog worthy in the not so distant future. So until next time as Emma says 'byesbye'.
Friday, 27 February 2009
Sunday, 18 January 2009
Goodbyeeee
Hello, I am guessing our readership has dropped pretty considerably by now, so an extra special thank you to those who have hung on to the bitter end, and in case it is just you Mark - nice one mate!
So this is it, the final blog, actually I am toying with the idea of one final - but short - note once we are home for completeness, a kind of epiblogue (see what i did there?) so this might not quite be the last, but I guess we can pretty much say this is it. And its with a small tear in the eye as we really have had just the best three months, but thankfully we have had a great week to finish things off so here goes..
As you might expect its all been about goodbyes. We have met so many nice people here it is rather sad to say goodbye to them all but we really hope to see them again either back here in Oz or if they visit the U.K. So for me it was quite a busy week trying to finish things off in work. Things in the end have gone well and I have lots of data for analysis back in Nottingham, Rob the computer programmer I have been working with has been putting in the hours to develop some code to analyse my work and thankfully it all came through at the last minute so I can go back to Nottingham a satisfied man, which is pretty good as work was the main reason we came here in the first place although we often forgot this!
Tuesday was the real scorcher, our first day in the 40's, 42 degrees to be precise and it was very hot. So hot in fact you couldnt really be outside as you could just feel your skin burning. It was accompanied by a real strange hot wind which felt like standing in front of a hairdryer. Thankfully the temp dropped to the low 30's the next day where it has been ever since so we have been taking lots of advantage with lots of outdoor swimming etc. On my last day in work they had a little leaving party for me which was nice and I was given a red Adelaide United shirt as a leaving present. I said that just for them and Adelaide I would break my rule of wearing something red and with the word 'united' on it.
On Wednesday I had a great night out at the tennis. I mentioned this last week - it was a current players and seniors tournament which made it a bit more interesting. The current players were amazing. Seeing top players serve at full speed was really impressive. Gael Monfils looked really good so I'll be keen to see how he does in the Australian Open which starts tomorrow. In the seniors Pat Cash and Henri Leconte clowned around which was good value and kept everyone entertained. Forgot my camera though :(
So that's me, what about Em and Dylan? They started the week with (another) trip to the zoo. Emma hired Dylan a car to go round in and they had a fab day shouting 'boing boing' at kangeroos. Seriously he shouts this now which can be a little embarassing. They also had a trip out with Natalie and Claire to Littlehampton to a miniture railway and farm (see pic). This was the first of the many goodbyes and I think it has been a really sad week for Emma as she has made lots of friends, was just settling in and then she has had to say goodbye but I think they will keep in touch. The weather becoming hotter though has made things a little harder as you really need to find indoor things to do when it gets so hot. I think Dylan will actually be glad to have a few months off being coated in suncream every few hours.
We said goodbye to Annie on friday which was sad as it was down to her really that made this trip happen for us. In true aussie style she went away but left us her car to use which has been really handy. So the weekend has been about packing and goodbyes. We had our final day out at Glenelg yesterday which became one of our favourite spots for beach and amusements, plus the best thai food which Dylan seems to love. We then had a 'goodbye' with Nicole who has been one of Emma's best friends. Nicole has a little boy, Marcus, who is a similar age to Dylan and similar temprament (hyper, loud, and occasionally a bit moany) so they have had a common bond comparing notes regarding toddler behaviour. We all went round on sat evening for drinks (rather too many in a rather short time) before heading home to get on with the packing. And then today we had our final 'goodbye' with Natalie, Roger and Rhys which included a trip to Henley Beach (Shark Central but none around today) and a BBQ. It was a little strange for us as they arrived in Adelaide at a similar time to us but Roger has a four year visa so they have just moved into an amazing house near the beach and it made us feel a little bit like 'it could be us' if we were here for longer. But hey ho. We then went into town for the Tour Down Under to see Lance Armstrong. However arriving 10 minutes before it started with a crowd of 100 000 was never going to guarantee a good spot. However we did manage to get a reasonable view only to discover than road cycling isnt the worlds greatest spectator sport but boy do the go fast ! I think i saw Lance..
So that as they say is that. We have one day left now before we fly home on Tuesday. We leave around lunchtime with a 7 hr flight to Sinagpore. We have an overnight stop at the Mandarin Oriental before the 14 hr flight back to Heathrow. The plan tomorrow is to just chill in preparation for the trip which we are both dreading. Dylan has been moaning at anything more than an hour in his car seat recently so heres hoping the Calpol Night does its stuff again! So until next time, it could be a while, typically we get sabbaticals every 5-6 years, I hope you have enjoyed reading this, strangely we have actually enjoyed reading it ourselves. I am surprised I kept doing it but I think I liked it in the end although its 11pm now and seriously time for bed. Best wishes and wish us luck for the trip home below if you like. I assume its warmed up a bit now??
Love Sacha, Emma and Dylan xxx
So this is it, the final blog, actually I am toying with the idea of one final - but short - note once we are home for completeness, a kind of epiblogue (see what i did there?) so this might not quite be the last, but I guess we can pretty much say this is it. And its with a small tear in the eye as we really have had just the best three months, but thankfully we have had a great week to finish things off so here goes..
As you might expect its all been about goodbyes. We have met so many nice people here it is rather sad to say goodbye to them all but we really hope to see them again either back here in Oz or if they visit the U.K. So for me it was quite a busy week trying to finish things off in work. Things in the end have gone well and I have lots of data for analysis back in Nottingham, Rob the computer programmer I have been working with has been putting in the hours to develop some code to analyse my work and thankfully it all came through at the last minute so I can go back to Nottingham a satisfied man, which is pretty good as work was the main reason we came here in the first place although we often forgot this!
Tuesday was the real scorcher, our first day in the 40's, 42 degrees to be precise and it was very hot. So hot in fact you couldnt really be outside as you could just feel your skin burning. It was accompanied by a real strange hot wind which felt like standing in front of a hairdryer. Thankfully the temp dropped to the low 30's the next day where it has been ever since so we have been taking lots of advantage with lots of outdoor swimming etc. On my last day in work they had a little leaving party for me which was nice and I was given a red Adelaide United shirt as a leaving present. I said that just for them and Adelaide I would break my rule of wearing something red and with the word 'united' on it.
On Wednesday I had a great night out at the tennis. I mentioned this last week - it was a current players and seniors tournament which made it a bit more interesting. The current players were amazing. Seeing top players serve at full speed was really impressive. Gael Monfils looked really good so I'll be keen to see how he does in the Australian Open which starts tomorrow. In the seniors Pat Cash and Henri Leconte clowned around which was good value and kept everyone entertained. Forgot my camera though :(
So that's me, what about Em and Dylan? They started the week with (another) trip to the zoo. Emma hired Dylan a car to go round in and they had a fab day shouting 'boing boing' at kangeroos. Seriously he shouts this now which can be a little embarassing. They also had a trip out with Natalie and Claire to Littlehampton to a miniture railway and farm (see pic). This was the first of the many goodbyes and I think it has been a really sad week for Emma as she has made lots of friends, was just settling in and then she has had to say goodbye but I think they will keep in touch. The weather becoming hotter though has made things a little harder as you really need to find indoor things to do when it gets so hot. I think Dylan will actually be glad to have a few months off being coated in suncream every few hours.
We said goodbye to Annie on friday which was sad as it was down to her really that made this trip happen for us. In true aussie style she went away but left us her car to use which has been really handy. So the weekend has been about packing and goodbyes. We had our final day out at Glenelg yesterday which became one of our favourite spots for beach and amusements, plus the best thai food which Dylan seems to love. We then had a 'goodbye' with Nicole who has been one of Emma's best friends. Nicole has a little boy, Marcus, who is a similar age to Dylan and similar temprament (hyper, loud, and occasionally a bit moany) so they have had a common bond comparing notes regarding toddler behaviour. We all went round on sat evening for drinks (rather too many in a rather short time) before heading home to get on with the packing. And then today we had our final 'goodbye' with Natalie, Roger and Rhys which included a trip to Henley Beach (Shark Central but none around today) and a BBQ. It was a little strange for us as they arrived in Adelaide at a similar time to us but Roger has a four year visa so they have just moved into an amazing house near the beach and it made us feel a little bit like 'it could be us' if we were here for longer. But hey ho. We then went into town for the Tour Down Under to see Lance Armstrong. However arriving 10 minutes before it started with a crowd of 100 000 was never going to guarantee a good spot. However we did manage to get a reasonable view only to discover than road cycling isnt the worlds greatest spectator sport but boy do the go fast ! I think i saw Lance..
So that as they say is that. We have one day left now before we fly home on Tuesday. We leave around lunchtime with a 7 hr flight to Sinagpore. We have an overnight stop at the Mandarin Oriental before the 14 hr flight back to Heathrow. The plan tomorrow is to just chill in preparation for the trip which we are both dreading. Dylan has been moaning at anything more than an hour in his car seat recently so heres hoping the Calpol Night does its stuff again! So until next time, it could be a while, typically we get sabbaticals every 5-6 years, I hope you have enjoyed reading this, strangely we have actually enjoyed reading it ourselves. I am surprised I kept doing it but I think I liked it in the end although its 11pm now and seriously time for bed. Best wishes and wish us luck for the trip home below if you like. I assume its warmed up a bit now??
Love Sacha, Emma and Dylan xxx
Sunday, 11 January 2009
JAWS
Hello all
Welcome to the penultimate ‘mooneysinadelaide’ blog. Very sadly we will be leaving Adelaide in 8 days and leaving the heatwave for the cold freeze. We all agreed that it would be nice to have another three months here but sadly work and money mean that it can’t happen. So, on to happier news, here’s what we have been up to over the last week or so. Summer is in full bloom now, the temperature hasn’t dropped below 28 degrees and we have been having a brilliant time. I have had a pretty productive week in work trying to finish things off where as Emma and Dylan had a great week spent mainly outdoors meeting up with friends and being active. Emma is starting the process of saying goodbye to her friends which she is a bit sad about as she has met some really nice people. I think they are also really sad that she is leaving. They have been having great fun going swimming, picnicking in the botanic gardens and of course chilling on the beach. In fact one of the highlights of the week was on Thursday when they spent the day at Henley beach with Natalie and Rhys when suddenly the beach was descended upon by several helicopters and a police car with sirens driving down the beach shouting for people to get out of the water just like in ‘Jaws’ as a shark had been spotted – a 5m white pointer as they are called here. This sort of thing has been a regular occurrence in Adelaide for the last few weeks with at least 3 or 4 shark sightings a day by the spotter helicopter. Over Christmas a man was killed by a shark whilst kayaking with his son and yesterday there were two attacks where people were bitten but survived (they each lost legs). Remarkably though Emma said within 20 mins of the sea being cleared people were back in the sea! Made of brave things these aussies (or a little mad).
So what else have we been up to? I skipped work on Wednesday afternoon and went for a game of golf which was great especially as it was nice and sunny. Golfing over here is a lot more laid back in terms of what you have to wear and equipment etc so it was pretty relaxed which was nice although as it is summer holidays here it was quite busy. Dylan has had a few successful visits to the crèche at the gym which is good as it looks like Emma could be heading back to work soon on our arrival home so its good practice for nursey. Dylan has been in great form the last few weeks and is now becoming an expert in copying words that he hears (so I am especially having to be careful). He has finally learnt to say his own name and has been entertaining people by shouting ‘Dylan’ at them, although it sounds more like ‘Dil-lin’. He is also now on to saying ‘wee wee’ and ‘poo poo’ at the appropriate time so it looks like potty training will be kicking off in earnest on our return – wish we had wooden floors..
So this weekend we hired a car and had one of the best weekends in Adelaide so far. On Saturday we drove a few hours to the Yorke Peninsula which is a little like an Italy shaped outcrop of land to the north of Adelaide. It is quite remote but has some fantastic beaches and we had a great day travelling, playing in the sea (close to the shore of course) and watching the fisherman catching blue swimming crabs. One thing that is different to back home is that most of the tourist attractions have very little infrastructure associated with them. There are very few shops so picnics are pretty essential. It is nice though that so much is unspoiled and natural. We also stopped off at a great adventure playground on the way back and all got to act like children going down the giant slides and zip wires (see pic). Then on Sunday we headed south to Moana beach for the day. Fortunately (especially for Emma) there was a surf carnival so there were lots of men in trunks competing in kayaking, rowing and swimming competitions. It was amazing to see just how good at swimming they actually were jumping over 5 ft waves as if they weren’t there. We ended the day with a little retail therapy at an out of town shopping centre which was thankfully really quiet and picked up a few presents to bring back home. That night I felt like a true aussie as I sat with a beer in my shorts and sandy flip flops watching Australia V South Africa in the 20/20 cricket. Having lived here I am actually starting to quite like cricket.
All the talk in Adelaide this week is about the weather (its due to be +40 tomorrow for the first time this year) and Lance Armstrong who has just arrived for the tour down under which starts next Sunday. We will miss most of it as we will be leaving but we’ll get to see the first day around the Adelaide city centre, apparently its on sky sports so look out for us! This week will mainly be about goodbyes though. I finish work on Friday but on Thursday Annie goes to China so i’ll be saying goodbye to her. She has been an excellent host who has been really great to us so we are thanking her by inviting them to ours for dinner on Wednesday (don’t worry, I am doing the cooking). Annie is coming to the U.K. later in the year so it will be great to see her again. We are also going out on Wednesday night to a tennis tournament which includes current and former players (Pat Cash, Mats Wilander, Jim Courier, Henri Leconte, Phillipoussis, Monfils, Johansson) so I am looking forward to that. For Emma she is taking Dylan to the zoo today and then has days out planned with Suzy, Natalie, Claire and Nicole so she’ll be busy visiting the parks and beaches. Nothing planned for next weekend yet apart from dinner at Nicole’s. I guess we’ll be starting the packing process in time for our flight on Tuesday lunchtime. Neither of us are relishing the thought of 21 hrs on a flight with Dylan. Thank god we have an overnight in Singapore to look forward to in the middle. Thankfully Annie is due to become a grandma in a few months so she has bought all our baby stuff which is handy. So I think that’s it for now. Mixed feelings this week. Having a brilliant time here but as they say all good things come to an end. We are just making sure we enjoy everyday now. So until next time – the last time – over and out, Love Sacha, Emma and Dylan x
Welcome to the penultimate ‘mooneysinadelaide’ blog. Very sadly we will be leaving Adelaide in 8 days and leaving the heatwave for the cold freeze. We all agreed that it would be nice to have another three months here but sadly work and money mean that it can’t happen. So, on to happier news, here’s what we have been up to over the last week or so. Summer is in full bloom now, the temperature hasn’t dropped below 28 degrees and we have been having a brilliant time. I have had a pretty productive week in work trying to finish things off where as Emma and Dylan had a great week spent mainly outdoors meeting up with friends and being active. Emma is starting the process of saying goodbye to her friends which she is a bit sad about as she has met some really nice people. I think they are also really sad that she is leaving. They have been having great fun going swimming, picnicking in the botanic gardens and of course chilling on the beach. In fact one of the highlights of the week was on Thursday when they spent the day at Henley beach with Natalie and Rhys when suddenly the beach was descended upon by several helicopters and a police car with sirens driving down the beach shouting for people to get out of the water just like in ‘Jaws’ as a shark had been spotted – a 5m white pointer as they are called here. This sort of thing has been a regular occurrence in Adelaide for the last few weeks with at least 3 or 4 shark sightings a day by the spotter helicopter. Over Christmas a man was killed by a shark whilst kayaking with his son and yesterday there were two attacks where people were bitten but survived (they each lost legs). Remarkably though Emma said within 20 mins of the sea being cleared people were back in the sea! Made of brave things these aussies (or a little mad).
So what else have we been up to? I skipped work on Wednesday afternoon and went for a game of golf which was great especially as it was nice and sunny. Golfing over here is a lot more laid back in terms of what you have to wear and equipment etc so it was pretty relaxed which was nice although as it is summer holidays here it was quite busy. Dylan has had a few successful visits to the crèche at the gym which is good as it looks like Emma could be heading back to work soon on our arrival home so its good practice for nursey. Dylan has been in great form the last few weeks and is now becoming an expert in copying words that he hears (so I am especially having to be careful). He has finally learnt to say his own name and has been entertaining people by shouting ‘Dylan’ at them, although it sounds more like ‘Dil-lin’. He is also now on to saying ‘wee wee’ and ‘poo poo’ at the appropriate time so it looks like potty training will be kicking off in earnest on our return – wish we had wooden floors..
So this weekend we hired a car and had one of the best weekends in Adelaide so far. On Saturday we drove a few hours to the Yorke Peninsula which is a little like an Italy shaped outcrop of land to the north of Adelaide. It is quite remote but has some fantastic beaches and we had a great day travelling, playing in the sea (close to the shore of course) and watching the fisherman catching blue swimming crabs. One thing that is different to back home is that most of the tourist attractions have very little infrastructure associated with them. There are very few shops so picnics are pretty essential. It is nice though that so much is unspoiled and natural. We also stopped off at a great adventure playground on the way back and all got to act like children going down the giant slides and zip wires (see pic). Then on Sunday we headed south to Moana beach for the day. Fortunately (especially for Emma) there was a surf carnival so there were lots of men in trunks competing in kayaking, rowing and swimming competitions. It was amazing to see just how good at swimming they actually were jumping over 5 ft waves as if they weren’t there. We ended the day with a little retail therapy at an out of town shopping centre which was thankfully really quiet and picked up a few presents to bring back home. That night I felt like a true aussie as I sat with a beer in my shorts and sandy flip flops watching Australia V South Africa in the 20/20 cricket. Having lived here I am actually starting to quite like cricket.
All the talk in Adelaide this week is about the weather (its due to be +40 tomorrow for the first time this year) and Lance Armstrong who has just arrived for the tour down under which starts next Sunday. We will miss most of it as we will be leaving but we’ll get to see the first day around the Adelaide city centre, apparently its on sky sports so look out for us! This week will mainly be about goodbyes though. I finish work on Friday but on Thursday Annie goes to China so i’ll be saying goodbye to her. She has been an excellent host who has been really great to us so we are thanking her by inviting them to ours for dinner on Wednesday (don’t worry, I am doing the cooking). Annie is coming to the U.K. later in the year so it will be great to see her again. We are also going out on Wednesday night to a tennis tournament which includes current and former players (Pat Cash, Mats Wilander, Jim Courier, Henri Leconte, Phillipoussis, Monfils, Johansson) so I am looking forward to that. For Emma she is taking Dylan to the zoo today and then has days out planned with Suzy, Natalie, Claire and Nicole so she’ll be busy visiting the parks and beaches. Nothing planned for next weekend yet apart from dinner at Nicole’s. I guess we’ll be starting the packing process in time for our flight on Tuesday lunchtime. Neither of us are relishing the thought of 21 hrs on a flight with Dylan. Thank god we have an overnight in Singapore to look forward to in the middle. Thankfully Annie is due to become a grandma in a few months so she has bought all our baby stuff which is handy. So I think that’s it for now. Mixed feelings this week. Having a brilliant time here but as they say all good things come to an end. We are just making sure we enjoy everyday now. So until next time – the last time – over and out, Love Sacha, Emma and Dylan x
Sunday, 4 January 2009
Bumper Blog Christmas Special / Roadtrip
Happy New Year all, hope you had good ones
Seems like an age since the last blog even though its only been a few weeks. Since the last time we have had christmas and new year with our roadtrip in between followed by a few days in the sun in Adelaide. Tomorrow is back to work for me and the countdown for home has really begun (only 2 weeks now). Anyway here's what we have been up to..
So christmas in australia was predictably quite different to back home. I am not sure we were really homesick as we had a great time still. However it certainly didnt feel like christmas and we both agreed we much preferred christmas back home. The weather makes it different but in addition to that it just isnt such a big deal over here, its more like a normal public holiday. Anyway, to do this in chronological order..Christmas eve was scorching and we were invited out to Annie's house in Gawler which was really nice. Annie's house was full of decorations and Dylan had a great time trying to break as many of them as he could. We had a lovely dinner which even included xmas pudding! From there we went to our local church to the evening navity service. It was packed with families and outside the church they had a BBQ, a petting zoo full of farm animals and free donkey rides. We sang 'All come all ye faithful' with our sunglasses on and a glass of fizzy wine to try get in the spirit. On christmas day we did a whole host of skyp-ing with family while Dylan opened up his presents. I think it was probably quite slim pickings for him but he was more than happy with his Thomas the Tank Engine, Igglepiggle, Squabble and Elmo. Not sure how these will all fit on the plane. We heard that my grandma after a long illness had died on christmas eve which was sad and took a bit of the gloss off the day. Later on we took the tram to Glenelg to the beach and we werent the only ones there, in fact it was pretty busy with most of the cafes and bars open. We had a bbq in the park for lunch and even made a full(ish) christmas dinner back home that evening. Emma bought the Snowman on DVD so it did feel a little christmassy in the end.
So that was christmas, on boxing day we picked up the campervan and began the roadtrip. As it happened we got upgraded to a 6 berth van in the end which was huge but it was a good job in the end as we pretty much filled it. It was certainly luxury camping, we had A/C, microwave, TV, DVD even a playstation ! We headed off to our first stop which was Robe. One thing you certainly realise driving round Australia is just how big it is. Adelaide to Robe seemed a short distance on the map yet it took 5 hrs to get there. In fact over the week we drove over 2500 km ! Anyway we loved Robe, its a really small, nice seaside town. Our caravan park was on the beach and we were a few mins walk from parks, cafes and pretty much anything you might need. The other people on the campsites were also really friendly which is good as they do pack you in a little bit. One thing we noticed is that Aussies dont do camping as we know it, its a bit of a sport here with a competition to make it as home from home as possible. They have huge vans, trailers and tents plus every kitchen utensil you could imagine including (and I am not joking) coffee machines, beer kegs and wood fired ovens for making the perfect pizzas! Anyway we had a few great days in Robe as beach bums just chilling out before we took off on another trip, this time to Mount Gambier to meet Tina and Ben. Unfortunately being further north and elevated Mount Gambier has a reputation for not having the best weather and so it proved to be. The temp was about 20 degrees and we even had rain! Anyway it was really fab to meet up with Tina and Ben. We got a great campsite overlooking the Bluewater Lake (a volcano crater) which was close to a few good parks and wildlife spots. On the first night we had a bbq underneath several hundred of the loudest parrots and then got to see a possum in one of the floodlit gardens (we were promised several but as the temp dropped we were happy with one). The next day we explored the best tourist attractions the area had to offer although attraction was a misleading word in a few cases (we used the words 'one horse town' a few times) followed by another bbq this time in the rain (we joked the weather was probably better at home although i guess it probably wasnt). That night the heavens opened for the first time since we have been here and in a campervan it sounded like it was raining golfballs, at one point we were thinking we might get washed away. Miraclously Dylan (like every night) slept through it all oblivious. Tina and Ben had to head back to Melbourne the next day so we decided to head back the opposite direction towards Adelaide chasing the sunnier weather. It did certainly improve but wasnt quite beach weather. The remaining travels saw us drive for hours on long straight roads with us frequently the only travellers. We did a few more seaside places (Goolwa, Port Elliot and Victor Harbour) and had the best fish and chips ever, bar none (see pic). We arrived back in Adelaide just in time for New Years Eve and headed straight to the river for the family fireworks celebrations which was pretty cool although Dylan wasnt so keen. We spent midnight celebrations at home watching the Sydney fireworks on TV which were amazing.
And so the last few days we have just been making the most of being all together and in Adelaide doing all the things we have done many times the last few months and loved (beach, wildlife parks, playgrounds, outdoor swimming etc). The weather has been above 30 everyday for a few days now and its really great. Last night I went to see Adelaide play Sydney at soccer but at the Oval cricket ground which i think was the most picturesque match i have ever been to even if the skill on the pitch wasnt so good. And so now its pretty much all about coming home although with the falling pound its probably a good job as things are becoming pretty expensive now. I have 2 weeks of work left starting tomorrow and loads to do so I'll be busy. And Emma and Dylan I think are starting the process of saying goodbye to all the friends they have met. We might even try fit in one last trip away next weekend. We are all looking forward to seeing friend and family but we have had such a great time we will be really sad to leave. The stories of freezing cold weather, the credit crunch and most of the football results are not enticing us home at present but hopefully a few of those will improve over the coming weeks...maybe...
Ok, well time to sign out, hope you all had good holidays, would love to hear about them, although dont worry I wont ask for any comments :) Until next time byesbye S, E & Dx
Seems like an age since the last blog even though its only been a few weeks. Since the last time we have had christmas and new year with our roadtrip in between followed by a few days in the sun in Adelaide. Tomorrow is back to work for me and the countdown for home has really begun (only 2 weeks now). Anyway here's what we have been up to..
So christmas in australia was predictably quite different to back home. I am not sure we were really homesick as we had a great time still. However it certainly didnt feel like christmas and we both agreed we much preferred christmas back home. The weather makes it different but in addition to that it just isnt such a big deal over here, its more like a normal public holiday. Anyway, to do this in chronological order..Christmas eve was scorching and we were invited out to Annie's house in Gawler which was really nice. Annie's house was full of decorations and Dylan had a great time trying to break as many of them as he could. We had a lovely dinner which even included xmas pudding! From there we went to our local church to the evening navity service. It was packed with families and outside the church they had a BBQ, a petting zoo full of farm animals and free donkey rides. We sang 'All come all ye faithful' with our sunglasses on and a glass of fizzy wine to try get in the spirit. On christmas day we did a whole host of skyp-ing with family while Dylan opened up his presents. I think it was probably quite slim pickings for him but he was more than happy with his Thomas the Tank Engine, Igglepiggle, Squabble and Elmo. Not sure how these will all fit on the plane. We heard that my grandma after a long illness had died on christmas eve which was sad and took a bit of the gloss off the day. Later on we took the tram to Glenelg to the beach and we werent the only ones there, in fact it was pretty busy with most of the cafes and bars open. We had a bbq in the park for lunch and even made a full(ish) christmas dinner back home that evening. Emma bought the Snowman on DVD so it did feel a little christmassy in the end.
So that was christmas, on boxing day we picked up the campervan and began the roadtrip. As it happened we got upgraded to a 6 berth van in the end which was huge but it was a good job in the end as we pretty much filled it. It was certainly luxury camping, we had A/C, microwave, TV, DVD even a playstation ! We headed off to our first stop which was Robe. One thing you certainly realise driving round Australia is just how big it is. Adelaide to Robe seemed a short distance on the map yet it took 5 hrs to get there. In fact over the week we drove over 2500 km ! Anyway we loved Robe, its a really small, nice seaside town. Our caravan park was on the beach and we were a few mins walk from parks, cafes and pretty much anything you might need. The other people on the campsites were also really friendly which is good as they do pack you in a little bit. One thing we noticed is that Aussies dont do camping as we know it, its a bit of a sport here with a competition to make it as home from home as possible. They have huge vans, trailers and tents plus every kitchen utensil you could imagine including (and I am not joking) coffee machines, beer kegs and wood fired ovens for making the perfect pizzas! Anyway we had a few great days in Robe as beach bums just chilling out before we took off on another trip, this time to Mount Gambier to meet Tina and Ben. Unfortunately being further north and elevated Mount Gambier has a reputation for not having the best weather and so it proved to be. The temp was about 20 degrees and we even had rain! Anyway it was really fab to meet up with Tina and Ben. We got a great campsite overlooking the Bluewater Lake (a volcano crater) which was close to a few good parks and wildlife spots. On the first night we had a bbq underneath several hundred of the loudest parrots and then got to see a possum in one of the floodlit gardens (we were promised several but as the temp dropped we were happy with one). The next day we explored the best tourist attractions the area had to offer although attraction was a misleading word in a few cases (we used the words 'one horse town' a few times) followed by another bbq this time in the rain (we joked the weather was probably better at home although i guess it probably wasnt). That night the heavens opened for the first time since we have been here and in a campervan it sounded like it was raining golfballs, at one point we were thinking we might get washed away. Miraclously Dylan (like every night) slept through it all oblivious. Tina and Ben had to head back to Melbourne the next day so we decided to head back the opposite direction towards Adelaide chasing the sunnier weather. It did certainly improve but wasnt quite beach weather. The remaining travels saw us drive for hours on long straight roads with us frequently the only travellers. We did a few more seaside places (Goolwa, Port Elliot and Victor Harbour) and had the best fish and chips ever, bar none (see pic). We arrived back in Adelaide just in time for New Years Eve and headed straight to the river for the family fireworks celebrations which was pretty cool although Dylan wasnt so keen. We spent midnight celebrations at home watching the Sydney fireworks on TV which were amazing.
And so the last few days we have just been making the most of being all together and in Adelaide doing all the things we have done many times the last few months and loved (beach, wildlife parks, playgrounds, outdoor swimming etc). The weather has been above 30 everyday for a few days now and its really great. Last night I went to see Adelaide play Sydney at soccer but at the Oval cricket ground which i think was the most picturesque match i have ever been to even if the skill on the pitch wasnt so good. And so now its pretty much all about coming home although with the falling pound its probably a good job as things are becoming pretty expensive now. I have 2 weeks of work left starting tomorrow and loads to do so I'll be busy. And Emma and Dylan I think are starting the process of saying goodbye to all the friends they have met. We might even try fit in one last trip away next weekend. We are all looking forward to seeing friend and family but we have had such a great time we will be really sad to leave. The stories of freezing cold weather, the credit crunch and most of the football results are not enticing us home at present but hopefully a few of those will improve over the coming weeks...maybe...
Ok, well time to sign out, hope you all had good holidays, would love to hear about them, although dont worry I wont ask for any comments :) Until next time byesbye S, E & Dx
Monday, 22 December 2008
Attack of the killer bees!
JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS JINGLE ALL THE WAY
CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRALIA ON A SCORCHING SUMMER'S DAY !!
g'day family and friends
afraid i failed in my attempts to get Emma to do the blog, she would rather do the ironing apparently although she says hi. So this will be the last blog until the new year i think as we head of on our campervan adventure on boxing day - emma is very excited about this, i am a little more hesistant i think. Anyway I would imagine we should have some tales to tell. The rough plan (for those who use googlemaps) is to leave Boxing day morning (apparently the busiest day of the year on the roads) and drive south out of Adelaide for about 4 hrs to a small fishing village called Robe where we have a spot booked on a campsite by the beach. Then we are heading on to Mount Gambier - a kind of Lake District style town to meet Tina and Ben for a few days before heading back to Adelaide around new year via the coast probably staying near Goolwa and Victor Harbour. Anyway more on that next time.
So we have only 4 weeks left of the adventure now so we are making sure we enjoy everyday. The plummeting pound is not helping our cause (down to 2.18AUD from 2.65 when we arrived) and everything is becoming more expensive which is a pain but hey ho we'll worry about the recession when we get home. So last week was a pretty good week. The first part of the week was the quietest as we were all still recovering from being 'crook' the previous week. Work was busy as i tried to finish things off. I had my departmental seminar on friday and that went really well, got lots of nice feedback. I scanned the last of my samples today and officially broke up until Jan 5th. The weather was great for most of the week, mainly between 25-30 degrees, so Emma and Dylan were out and about most days including a few days on the beach at Henley with Natalie and Claire. The main excitement of the week was our flat getting attacked by a swarm of bees. It started with a few at the window trying to get in and before we knew it we had several hundred trying to get in. Some managed it as well but thankfully not too many. Anyway we had to get the pest control to come and save us. Apparently when a bee colony gets too big it sends out a scout party of a few hundred bees to find a new home and it seems like our flat was the prime real estate. Thankfully the pest control sprayed some powder and the day later they were gone but it was quite scary at the time!
The weekend again was jam packed. I took friday afternoon off (a theme developing here) and we went to the modern art gallery. Dylan had a good go at knocking over the priceless exhibits. I also realised for the first time that I need to becareful what I say around him as he is starting to pick up on words he hears as he shouted rather loudly, in the silent gallery, "boobs" at one of the sculptures. Saturday we headed to the zoo again which was nice but we didnt realise that the hotter the weather, the less you see as all the animals hide under the shade. Emma had her night out on saturday night going for a curry and a few drinks with her friends. And yesterday was another day at the beach in Glenelg. Last night was the main event though, 'Carols by Candlelight', 35 000 people down by the river for a free public concert. It wasnt quite as expected, the music was not so much orchestral and more pop style by a variety of australian idol finalists and minor tv celebs. Still it was good fun. The park was packed with many people getting there manyhours before it started to get a good spot. Loads of people were dressed up and the picnics were certainly impressive! Anyway we managed to see about half of it with Dylan lasting til 9.30pm before flaking out. It really is great that there seem to be so many community events here with everyone so friendly.
However it still doesnt feel like christmas to us... I think at this stage it probably isnt going to. The aussie approach to xmas is slightly different to ours. It seems more about fun and partying and less about tradition. The media certainly doesnt get into it as much as at home. If you look at the TV listings for xmas day it looks like any other day (although the queens speech is on at 11pm!). One reason for the difference is that the christmas period is the main holiday period so most people as more concerned with where they are going on holiday after xmas. So for us we are going to spend Christmas eve at Annie's house and then Christmas day at the beach in Glenelg, not sure if it will be packed or if we will be the only ones, we'll have to wait and see. The weather is due to be 34 degrees though so its certainly going to be a little different. I think we might even miss the cold and dark (and the Snowman, Quality Street, Turkey etc) for a few mins.
Ok so that's it. Happy Christmas to everyone reading this. We hope you all have a great day. We will certainly be thinking of you. If you are around it would be great to chat via skype even if only for a few mins (7-9am and 4-6pm your time are best for us). Failing that leave us a message below - I have removed the restriction on anonymous people leaving messages so anyone can leave a note. Have a very happy new year. And hopefully we'll be in touch in early 2009 with an update on the holiday and the countdown to us coming back !
Love to all
Sacha, Emma & Dylan xxx
CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRALIA ON A SCORCHING SUMMER'S DAY !!
g'day family and friends
afraid i failed in my attempts to get Emma to do the blog, she would rather do the ironing apparently although she says hi. So this will be the last blog until the new year i think as we head of on our campervan adventure on boxing day - emma is very excited about this, i am a little more hesistant i think. Anyway I would imagine we should have some tales to tell. The rough plan (for those who use googlemaps) is to leave Boxing day morning (apparently the busiest day of the year on the roads) and drive south out of Adelaide for about 4 hrs to a small fishing village called Robe where we have a spot booked on a campsite by the beach. Then we are heading on to Mount Gambier - a kind of Lake District style town to meet Tina and Ben for a few days before heading back to Adelaide around new year via the coast probably staying near Goolwa and Victor Harbour. Anyway more on that next time.
So we have only 4 weeks left of the adventure now so we are making sure we enjoy everyday. The plummeting pound is not helping our cause (down to 2.18AUD from 2.65 when we arrived) and everything is becoming more expensive which is a pain but hey ho we'll worry about the recession when we get home. So last week was a pretty good week. The first part of the week was the quietest as we were all still recovering from being 'crook' the previous week. Work was busy as i tried to finish things off. I had my departmental seminar on friday and that went really well, got lots of nice feedback. I scanned the last of my samples today and officially broke up until Jan 5th. The weather was great for most of the week, mainly between 25-30 degrees, so Emma and Dylan were out and about most days including a few days on the beach at Henley with Natalie and Claire. The main excitement of the week was our flat getting attacked by a swarm of bees. It started with a few at the window trying to get in and before we knew it we had several hundred trying to get in. Some managed it as well but thankfully not too many. Anyway we had to get the pest control to come and save us. Apparently when a bee colony gets too big it sends out a scout party of a few hundred bees to find a new home and it seems like our flat was the prime real estate. Thankfully the pest control sprayed some powder and the day later they were gone but it was quite scary at the time!
The weekend again was jam packed. I took friday afternoon off (a theme developing here) and we went to the modern art gallery. Dylan had a good go at knocking over the priceless exhibits. I also realised for the first time that I need to becareful what I say around him as he is starting to pick up on words he hears as he shouted rather loudly, in the silent gallery, "boobs" at one of the sculptures. Saturday we headed to the zoo again which was nice but we didnt realise that the hotter the weather, the less you see as all the animals hide under the shade. Emma had her night out on saturday night going for a curry and a few drinks with her friends. And yesterday was another day at the beach in Glenelg. Last night was the main event though, 'Carols by Candlelight', 35 000 people down by the river for a free public concert. It wasnt quite as expected, the music was not so much orchestral and more pop style by a variety of australian idol finalists and minor tv celebs. Still it was good fun. The park was packed with many people getting there manyhours before it started to get a good spot. Loads of people were dressed up and the picnics were certainly impressive! Anyway we managed to see about half of it with Dylan lasting til 9.30pm before flaking out. It really is great that there seem to be so many community events here with everyone so friendly.
However it still doesnt feel like christmas to us... I think at this stage it probably isnt going to. The aussie approach to xmas is slightly different to ours. It seems more about fun and partying and less about tradition. The media certainly doesnt get into it as much as at home. If you look at the TV listings for xmas day it looks like any other day (although the queens speech is on at 11pm!). One reason for the difference is that the christmas period is the main holiday period so most people as more concerned with where they are going on holiday after xmas. So for us we are going to spend Christmas eve at Annie's house and then Christmas day at the beach in Glenelg, not sure if it will be packed or if we will be the only ones, we'll have to wait and see. The weather is due to be 34 degrees though so its certainly going to be a little different. I think we might even miss the cold and dark (and the Snowman, Quality Street, Turkey etc) for a few mins.
Ok so that's it. Happy Christmas to everyone reading this. We hope you all have a great day. We will certainly be thinking of you. If you are around it would be great to chat via skype even if only for a few mins (7-9am and 4-6pm your time are best for us). Failing that leave us a message below - I have removed the restriction on anonymous people leaving messages so anyone can leave a note. Have a very happy new year. And hopefully we'll be in touch in early 2009 with an update on the holiday and the countdown to us coming back !
Love to all
Sacha, Emma & Dylan xxx
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
The end of the drought
hello
apologies for the delayed update - due to a stomach bug that we have all had over the last few days which we think Emma picked up from a baby group. Anyway we are all on the mend now so hopefully things will get back to normal. The update wont be as exciting this week as not so much has happened. The main news here has been the weather which properly took a turn for the worst last week. Adelaide has a higher annual rainfall than Manchester but for the last three years they have had <50% of the usual amount and has officially been in drought. However that seemed to change on friday when the heavens opened and it chucked it down for a few days. All the locals we met were delighted commenting how great it was to see rain, unfortunately for us it meant we had to cancel our trip to the Yorke Peninsula which hopefully we'll get to see before we come home (which is 5 weeks today sadly). Thankfully normal service had now resumed, it was 25 degrees today and looking like 30 degrees this weekend.
So what have we done? Not too much really. With Emma poorly her and Dylan didnt get chance to attend the usual baby groups which was a shame as they have all broke up for christmas now. Thankfully Emma has made lots of friends here and her phone is constantly ringing so her and Dylan never seem to be short of things to do. They have a nativity play to go to tomorrow where Dylan will get chance to be in it. Last friday was my christmas party - the bbq by the lake - however as it was raining it was a bit of a sad affair huddled under a marquee. Despite the weather we had a nice weekend though. Saturday we hired a car and explored a few parts of Adelaide that we havent visited before which included the largest shopping centre (surprisingly quiet given the time of year), the beach (for fish and chips) and the worlds largest rocking horse (see pic). The latter is the centrepiece of a wooden toy factory nestled in the Adelaide Hills and was obviously an attempt to draw people out of the city to visit - and it worked. They even had a free wildlife park with albino kangeroos (see pic). We took the scenic route back to the city along the windy mountain roads and experienced what it is like to have a child with travel sickness for the first time (projectile vomiting!). On Sunday we also did quite a bit - visited the street markets, went to a rap festival (dylan wasnt keen), took a boat trip down the river torrens, went swimming and then went to the picnic and carols in the park event which was at the end of the street. The picnic was actually really nice. Emma noticed that there is a real sense of community here which is not something we have had anywhere before. People are certainly more friendly here than back home. We got talking to lots of people and overall the event had a real nice feel to it. Mick-me (Santa) turned up and Dylan seemed to have got over his fear this time (see pic), although perhaps it was because this was the most laid back Santa ever who also gave out free chocolates. Dylan has learnt a few more words this week but the best by far was 'ho ho ho' whenever he sees anything christmassy even tinsel. He has been entertaining lots of people in the local shopping centre by running round shouting 'ho ho ho' all the time.
So that's all the news really, told you not so much has happened. Even though we still have 5 weeks to go things feel a little different now with talk of home more and more common. It still doesnt feel that christmassy here. There are lots of christmas decorations in public but it seems most people dont really decorare their houses with lights or trees. There is also hardly any mention of it on TV. In fact potentially christmas might be a little strange here. Not sure what we are doing yet but it seems sadly as if the bbq on the beach could be an urban myth! Someone told us the beaches are deserted on xmas day. We are hoping to pick up the campervan on christmas eve so then we'll at least be able to explore a little. It seems most aussies have a bbq (tutkey and seafood) at home with family. We have a few things lined up for this week though. I have my departmental seminar on friday and then Emma has her mums night out on saturday night. Then on Sunday it is Carols by Candlelight when 40 000 people gather in the park by the river with the symphony orchestra for carols. Not sure what that will be like, especially since it doesnt start until 8pm and we'll have Dylan with us but we plan to check it out. Anyway we'll report back on that next week in what might be the last blog for a bit. At least probably until the new year. You never know I might convince Emma to write next weeks one as a 'guest blogger'. Might also use next week to deliver our annual christmas message :) So until next time Bye The Mooneys xxx
PS feel free to leave us a christmas message below !
apologies for the delayed update - due to a stomach bug that we have all had over the last few days which we think Emma picked up from a baby group. Anyway we are all on the mend now so hopefully things will get back to normal. The update wont be as exciting this week as not so much has happened. The main news here has been the weather which properly took a turn for the worst last week. Adelaide has a higher annual rainfall than Manchester but for the last three years they have had <50% of the usual amount and has officially been in drought. However that seemed to change on friday when the heavens opened and it chucked it down for a few days. All the locals we met were delighted commenting how great it was to see rain, unfortunately for us it meant we had to cancel our trip to the Yorke Peninsula which hopefully we'll get to see before we come home (which is 5 weeks today sadly). Thankfully normal service had now resumed, it was 25 degrees today and looking like 30 degrees this weekend.
So what have we done? Not too much really. With Emma poorly her and Dylan didnt get chance to attend the usual baby groups which was a shame as they have all broke up for christmas now. Thankfully Emma has made lots of friends here and her phone is constantly ringing so her and Dylan never seem to be short of things to do. They have a nativity play to go to tomorrow where Dylan will get chance to be in it. Last friday was my christmas party - the bbq by the lake - however as it was raining it was a bit of a sad affair huddled under a marquee. Despite the weather we had a nice weekend though. Saturday we hired a car and explored a few parts of Adelaide that we havent visited before which included the largest shopping centre (surprisingly quiet given the time of year), the beach (for fish and chips) and the worlds largest rocking horse (see pic). The latter is the centrepiece of a wooden toy factory nestled in the Adelaide Hills and was obviously an attempt to draw people out of the city to visit - and it worked. They even had a free wildlife park with albino kangeroos (see pic). We took the scenic route back to the city along the windy mountain roads and experienced what it is like to have a child with travel sickness for the first time (projectile vomiting!). On Sunday we also did quite a bit - visited the street markets, went to a rap festival (dylan wasnt keen), took a boat trip down the river torrens, went swimming and then went to the picnic and carols in the park event which was at the end of the street. The picnic was actually really nice. Emma noticed that there is a real sense of community here which is not something we have had anywhere before. People are certainly more friendly here than back home. We got talking to lots of people and overall the event had a real nice feel to it. Mick-me (Santa) turned up and Dylan seemed to have got over his fear this time (see pic), although perhaps it was because this was the most laid back Santa ever who also gave out free chocolates. Dylan has learnt a few more words this week but the best by far was 'ho ho ho' whenever he sees anything christmassy even tinsel. He has been entertaining lots of people in the local shopping centre by running round shouting 'ho ho ho' all the time.
So that's all the news really, told you not so much has happened. Even though we still have 5 weeks to go things feel a little different now with talk of home more and more common. It still doesnt feel that christmassy here. There are lots of christmas decorations in public but it seems most people dont really decorare their houses with lights or trees. There is also hardly any mention of it on TV. In fact potentially christmas might be a little strange here. Not sure what we are doing yet but it seems sadly as if the bbq on the beach could be an urban myth! Someone told us the beaches are deserted on xmas day. We are hoping to pick up the campervan on christmas eve so then we'll at least be able to explore a little. It seems most aussies have a bbq (tutkey and seafood) at home with family. We have a few things lined up for this week though. I have my departmental seminar on friday and then Emma has her mums night out on saturday night. Then on Sunday it is Carols by Candlelight when 40 000 people gather in the park by the river with the symphony orchestra for carols. Not sure what that will be like, especially since it doesnt start until 8pm and we'll have Dylan with us but we plan to check it out. Anyway we'll report back on that next week in what might be the last blog for a bit. At least probably until the new year. You never know I might convince Emma to write next weeks one as a 'guest blogger'. Might also use next week to deliver our annual christmas message :) So until next time Bye The Mooneys xxx
PS feel free to leave us a christmas message below !
Monday, 8 December 2008
Yum Cha & Sparkling Sharaz
hello blog regulars and any secret blog readers we may have... Funny i thought not many people were reading this and then when i dont do it on sunday night i get loads of emails saying 'where's the blog!' How will you cope without the blog when we leave?? I dont think the 'Mooney's in Loughborough' is worth blogging about..
So its been a little quieter this week so I dont think I have so much to report. Following on from last week my sunburn at the cricket was a little worse than i thought, got to be better with the sunblock i think. On the plus side we got away with the bump on the hire car so no £1000 bill thank god. The middle part of last week was a little non-eventful as Saoirse and I were working pretty hard and Dylan and Emma were busy with their usual activities. Dylan was in great form until the end of the week when the blasted teething returned for a few days again. He has had three main new words this week, firstly, 'flower', this took some practice, secondly, 'cheese' or as he pronounces it 'cheeeeeeeeeeese' (in fact he sounds a bit like Harry Hill when he says it). The other, and our current favourite, is his word for Father Christmas which is 'Mick-me'. Gods knows where this came from but it makes us laugh every time he sees a Santa and starts shouting 'mick-meeeee'. He is also especially enjoying his chocolate advent calendar so thanks to grandma for that.
The main event of the week was thursday when Emma and I go our first night out in ages when Saoirse babysitted for us. It was great to see Adelaide by night and we really enjoyed going out for a thai meal and then on for a few beers. Dylan slept the entire time we were out but unfortunately he woke up crying on our return and continued to do so until 3am which rather took the shine off things. Still it was good to go out. Unfortunately Saoirse has flown back to the UK today so that maybe the last one for a while. On Friday night I got another night out this time with the guys as i went to see Adelaide United v Wellington Phoenix in a football match. It was a really good night out and quite different to a game in the UK. You could pay on the gate and it was only £8. You could choose where you wanted to sit and drink a beer from your seat. I was also lucky to see Adelaide's highest ever win (6-1). The other guys werent really footy fans so I was in my element explaining all the tactics and highlighting the best players. They found it funny that the one player I identified as being the weak link went on to score a hatrick and get man of the match. I'll shut up next time!
So on to the weekend, and unfortunately saturday like most of the week was a little dull and overcast so the beach was off. Instead we just hung out around Adelaide. We went out to an authentic chinese (nobody spoke english) restuarant for lunch and had yum cha. Not sure what the wikipedia definition of this is but essential there is no menu, no price list, they bring you lots of little dishes, sort of tapas like, and you decide if you want it or not. None of the food resembled anything we have had back home even if it sounded the same. Anyway we had a good laugh eating all sorts of things mainly in the form of dumplings and buns although we did draw the line at the salt and pepper chicken feet. Sadly we both agreed at the end though that we preferred the non-authentic chinese food. It doesnt bode well for my planned trip to China next summer!
The best day of the week was Sunday (yesterday). As it was Saoirse's last day we hired a car and headed out of Adelaide to the Barossa valley, the famous wine region (in the top ten best places to visit in the world according to trip advisor). Anyway you can go round all the wineries, some famous, some not so (see pics) and taste all the wine for free. And then the best bit. You can buy a bottle really cheaply, they give you free glasses and you can then go and use the free BBQ's in the picnic area, which is exactly what we did. The Barossa is most famous for Shiraz and i had the tasted one of the best red wines i have ever had, pity i was the designated driver! Anyway the weather was great and we all had a fab day. Although our sausages on the BBQ looked a little sad compared to all the aussie ones who had shrimps, steak, calamari etc.
So that's it really. We are thinking about a road trip to the Yorke Peninsula for a few days next weekend although the forecast isnt great - cloudy again - so we arent sure. Emma and Dylan have lots on this week as a few of the groups they have attended are shutting down for christmas so its party time. Emma even has a girls night out next week with some of her friends so that good. It still doesnt feel much like christmas here, not sure it will, although Emma has decorated the flat thanks to the $1 shop.
Rightyho, hope you are all keeping warm, I heard there was snow last week, sounds fun! Many thanks to all those who have sent cards and pressies too. Love The Mooneys x
So its been a little quieter this week so I dont think I have so much to report. Following on from last week my sunburn at the cricket was a little worse than i thought, got to be better with the sunblock i think. On the plus side we got away with the bump on the hire car so no £1000 bill thank god. The middle part of last week was a little non-eventful as Saoirse and I were working pretty hard and Dylan and Emma were busy with their usual activities. Dylan was in great form until the end of the week when the blasted teething returned for a few days again. He has had three main new words this week, firstly, 'flower', this took some practice, secondly, 'cheese' or as he pronounces it 'cheeeeeeeeeeese' (in fact he sounds a bit like Harry Hill when he says it). The other, and our current favourite, is his word for Father Christmas which is 'Mick-me'. Gods knows where this came from but it makes us laugh every time he sees a Santa and starts shouting 'mick-meeeee'. He is also especially enjoying his chocolate advent calendar so thanks to grandma for that.
The main event of the week was thursday when Emma and I go our first night out in ages when Saoirse babysitted for us. It was great to see Adelaide by night and we really enjoyed going out for a thai meal and then on for a few beers. Dylan slept the entire time we were out but unfortunately he woke up crying on our return and continued to do so until 3am which rather took the shine off things. Still it was good to go out. Unfortunately Saoirse has flown back to the UK today so that maybe the last one for a while. On Friday night I got another night out this time with the guys as i went to see Adelaide United v Wellington Phoenix in a football match. It was a really good night out and quite different to a game in the UK. You could pay on the gate and it was only £8. You could choose where you wanted to sit and drink a beer from your seat. I was also lucky to see Adelaide's highest ever win (6-1). The other guys werent really footy fans so I was in my element explaining all the tactics and highlighting the best players. They found it funny that the one player I identified as being the weak link went on to score a hatrick and get man of the match. I'll shut up next time!
So on to the weekend, and unfortunately saturday like most of the week was a little dull and overcast so the beach was off. Instead we just hung out around Adelaide. We went out to an authentic chinese (nobody spoke english) restuarant for lunch and had yum cha. Not sure what the wikipedia definition of this is but essential there is no menu, no price list, they bring you lots of little dishes, sort of tapas like, and you decide if you want it or not. None of the food resembled anything we have had back home even if it sounded the same. Anyway we had a good laugh eating all sorts of things mainly in the form of dumplings and buns although we did draw the line at the salt and pepper chicken feet. Sadly we both agreed at the end though that we preferred the non-authentic chinese food. It doesnt bode well for my planned trip to China next summer!
The best day of the week was Sunday (yesterday). As it was Saoirse's last day we hired a car and headed out of Adelaide to the Barossa valley, the famous wine region (in the top ten best places to visit in the world according to trip advisor). Anyway you can go round all the wineries, some famous, some not so (see pics) and taste all the wine for free. And then the best bit. You can buy a bottle really cheaply, they give you free glasses and you can then go and use the free BBQ's in the picnic area, which is exactly what we did. The Barossa is most famous for Shiraz and i had the tasted one of the best red wines i have ever had, pity i was the designated driver! Anyway the weather was great and we all had a fab day. Although our sausages on the BBQ looked a little sad compared to all the aussie ones who had shrimps, steak, calamari etc.
So that's it really. We are thinking about a road trip to the Yorke Peninsula for a few days next weekend although the forecast isnt great - cloudy again - so we arent sure. Emma and Dylan have lots on this week as a few of the groups they have attended are shutting down for christmas so its party time. Emma even has a girls night out next week with some of her friends so that good. It still doesnt feel much like christmas here, not sure it will, although Emma has decorated the flat thanks to the $1 shop.
Rightyho, hope you are all keeping warm, I heard there was snow last week, sounds fun! Many thanks to all those who have sent cards and pressies too. Love The Mooneys x
Monday, 1 December 2008
Scary Santa
hello again, another delayed blog but i think enough has happened now to justify a quick-ish update. Hope you are all doing good. Its been a really good week in Adelaide this last week. The weather picked up and was pretty nice mainly bar the odd dull day. In fact today I got my first sunburn (and least i look like a pom now). Firstly, before i forget, lots of people keeping asking for our address and the first one i gave out was incorrect so for the record our address is
Apt 13
158 Archer Street
North Adelaide 5006
Adelaide
Australia
So far the post has been taking about 7 days in both directions. Many thanks to the grandparents for the pressies that have been keeping Dylan entertained.
So its been another nice week. Dylan has actually been in cracking form. The teeth had a few days rest from coming through and it seemed to make all the difference. In fact Emma and I pretty much spent all the week just watching him and laughing. He has taught himself to spin around until he falls over dizzy, no idea why but its funny. He has had a great time doing lots of swimming (indoor and out - see pic) and playing outside in the many parks that Adelaide has to offer. The parks here really are great, loads of them, lots of kiddy play things, mainly shaded and with free public bbq's for the parents. They are often full with kiddy parties and it seems much better than the 'wacky warehouse' style parties at home. Dylan has learnt lots of words again including 'boing boing' for a kangeroo and 'cheeeeeese' whenever he sees a babybel (he is addicted to these). The one bad thing he has learnt is his new game of throwing things in the bath or down the loo including house keys, towels and toilet rolls. He finds this especially hilarious. He also did 2 sessions in the creche at the gym which bodes well for the future and meant that Emma could go to the gym at a decent time instead of at 8pm when she is knackered.
We have now been here about 6 weeks which is the longest break from the UK we have ever had and the weird thing is that it doesnt really feel like a holiday anymore, in fact it sort of feels like we live here now. As a family life is great out here, lots to do and see all the time, the weather really helps of course. I think coming home will be really hard for all of us, especially after dad showed us the street view of early morning Britain in December. But rest easy we will obviously be coming back. I think living out here for good would probably be quite different, although we have both been surprised how much we have enjoyed things so far.
For me there were two main events in work this week. Saoirse, my researcher from the U.K. was here so I spent most of my time with her which was nice as work is sometimes pretty quiet. She is fairly easy going so we got on well even if I did have to work a little harder (about time probably). The other big news was I heard from Nottingham that I won a grant worth £250K which is great and will certainly be something to look forward to when i get back (from a work perspective obviously). I also got my first xmas party invite for in a few weeks time. Its a bit different to back home - a gourmet bbq by the river - sounds good to me though.
At the weekend we chilled out around Adelaide mainly. We had a trip to the Central Markets to stock up on fruit and visited the Chinatown. We also went to this brilliant outdoor swimming complex that we pretty much had to ourselves as it was only 25 degrees and too cold for the aussies. Today (monday) we took Dylan to see Santa at David Jones (aussie John Lewis). This was our third attempt as each other time the queue was +2hrs. Today we got there when it opened and there were people already there who ran in once the store opened ! Anyway we got to see Santa (for £15!) so Dylan could have a picture that we could send back. However as soon as he seen him he grabbed me for dear life and pretty much didnt stop crying until we left bar a 2 second interval when the photographer managed to take a pic - now that's skill ! He was shaking for a while afterwards as well, must have been the beard! After that I went to my first cricket match with Ann's husband Murray (yes, i know, that means i skipped work). It was really good actually (bar the sunburn) with Australia bowling New Zealand out in a day. Only £6 to get in and after lunch they made it free entry so Dylan and Emma came along too. Fairly sure a similar event back home would cost much more.
So that's about it really. Nice week, lots of fun, nothing spectular but all doing well and having a generally great time. Its not so christmassy but that isnt for a want of trying with all the decorations. Perhaps you just need it to be cold and dark to feel christmassy? Not sure what's on the agenda for this week. More work for me as this is Saoirse's last week. Think Em and Dylan are doing kindergym and the beach - thankfully the shopping calmed down a little last week :) So until next time cheerio, Sacha, Emma & Dylan x
PS if you read this, why not leave a comment or ask us a question or something - at least we can see if anyone actually reads this !
PPS our skype contact list is pretty big now (we're not bragging, honest) , and the times to speak are quite short so apologies if you call and we are engaged.
Apt 13
158 Archer Street
North Adelaide 5006
Adelaide
Australia
So far the post has been taking about 7 days in both directions. Many thanks to the grandparents for the pressies that have been keeping Dylan entertained.
So its been another nice week. Dylan has actually been in cracking form. The teeth had a few days rest from coming through and it seemed to make all the difference. In fact Emma and I pretty much spent all the week just watching him and laughing. He has taught himself to spin around until he falls over dizzy, no idea why but its funny. He has had a great time doing lots of swimming (indoor and out - see pic) and playing outside in the many parks that Adelaide has to offer. The parks here really are great, loads of them, lots of kiddy play things, mainly shaded and with free public bbq's for the parents. They are often full with kiddy parties and it seems much better than the 'wacky warehouse' style parties at home. Dylan has learnt lots of words again including 'boing boing' for a kangeroo and 'cheeeeeese' whenever he sees a babybel (he is addicted to these). The one bad thing he has learnt is his new game of throwing things in the bath or down the loo including house keys, towels and toilet rolls. He finds this especially hilarious. He also did 2 sessions in the creche at the gym which bodes well for the future and meant that Emma could go to the gym at a decent time instead of at 8pm when she is knackered.
We have now been here about 6 weeks which is the longest break from the UK we have ever had and the weird thing is that it doesnt really feel like a holiday anymore, in fact it sort of feels like we live here now. As a family life is great out here, lots to do and see all the time, the weather really helps of course. I think coming home will be really hard for all of us, especially after dad showed us the street view of early morning Britain in December. But rest easy we will obviously be coming back. I think living out here for good would probably be quite different, although we have both been surprised how much we have enjoyed things so far.
For me there were two main events in work this week. Saoirse, my researcher from the U.K. was here so I spent most of my time with her which was nice as work is sometimes pretty quiet. She is fairly easy going so we got on well even if I did have to work a little harder (about time probably). The other big news was I heard from Nottingham that I won a grant worth £250K which is great and will certainly be something to look forward to when i get back (from a work perspective obviously). I also got my first xmas party invite for in a few weeks time. Its a bit different to back home - a gourmet bbq by the river - sounds good to me though.
At the weekend we chilled out around Adelaide mainly. We had a trip to the Central Markets to stock up on fruit and visited the Chinatown. We also went to this brilliant outdoor swimming complex that we pretty much had to ourselves as it was only 25 degrees and too cold for the aussies. Today (monday) we took Dylan to see Santa at David Jones (aussie John Lewis). This was our third attempt as each other time the queue was +2hrs. Today we got there when it opened and there were people already there who ran in once the store opened ! Anyway we got to see Santa (for £15!) so Dylan could have a picture that we could send back. However as soon as he seen him he grabbed me for dear life and pretty much didnt stop crying until we left bar a 2 second interval when the photographer managed to take a pic - now that's skill ! He was shaking for a while afterwards as well, must have been the beard! After that I went to my first cricket match with Ann's husband Murray (yes, i know, that means i skipped work). It was really good actually (bar the sunburn) with Australia bowling New Zealand out in a day. Only £6 to get in and after lunch they made it free entry so Dylan and Emma came along too. Fairly sure a similar event back home would cost much more.
So that's about it really. Nice week, lots of fun, nothing spectular but all doing well and having a generally great time. Its not so christmassy but that isnt for a want of trying with all the decorations. Perhaps you just need it to be cold and dark to feel christmassy? Not sure what's on the agenda for this week. More work for me as this is Saoirse's last week. Think Em and Dylan are doing kindergym and the beach - thankfully the shopping calmed down a little last week :) So until next time cheerio, Sacha, Emma & Dylan x
PS if you read this, why not leave a comment or ask us a question or something - at least we can see if anyone actually reads this !
PPS our skype contact list is pretty big now (we're not bragging, honest) , and the times to speak are quite short so apologies if you call and we are engaged.
Sunday, 23 November 2008
Heaven for the weather
hello all again, its sunday so it must be blog day. I am sitting here a little tired and a little sun and wind beaten today so i think it maybe a shorter blog than usual. Although I am good at waffling so who knows? In general its been a pretty decent week in Adelaide although not the most exciting we have had so far. The classic car rally has been on all week which is pretty cool but we didnt get to see much of it apart from the odd classic porsche as it hurtled up the street.Workwise has been pretty mixed for me. My digital imaging has all gone well so far and I have managed to tame the computers but on the bad side one of my main experiments failed (the plants died) so I am back to the drawing board there. It is fortunate we have extended our trip by 10 days as this will give me time to hopefully recover from this (and it gives Emma and Dylan another 10 days of holiday so everyones a winner). For those that we havent already mentioned this to our new ETA back in the UK in Jan 22. Next week plans to be a busy one at work, new experiments to set up, a departmental seminar on thursday which i have to give plus my new PhD researcher, Saoirse, has arrived this weekend for a 2 week stay so i will be busy showing her the ropes. As she will be heading back to Nottingham in 2 weeks updating everyone of my progress I may even have to work a little harder for a bit !
Emma and Dylan have had another nice week. I think Emma's highlight was when a DVD of english tv arrived in the post - mainly documentaries i think, no soaps i am sure :) As mentioned previously Emma is still single-handedly managing to keep the southern hemisphere away from recession via our credit card. After another host of toys were acquired this week Emma mentioned the possibility of seeing if some of it could be shipped back to the UK (i kid you not).They have been fairly busy this week going to various groups (see a pic of Dylan on the right in a boat at kindergym). They got invited round to Nicole's house last week and got to see what a typical aussie house is like. Nicole tipped Emma off about some 'special' teething gel that is made and sold at the local hospital which seems to be 99% novacaine. It seems good stuff although applying it to Dylan's gums without numbing his mouth and lips is a tricky process. In general Dylan has been pretty good this week. His sleeping has been great, in fact, dare i say it, he is getting a little lazy, frequently not getting up until after 8am, yesterday he slept from 6.50pm til 9am! (a record).
On friday we hired a car for the weekend and headed to Monarto which is 50 miles south of Adelaide. Unfortunately this coincided with the two worst days of weather since we have been here (cool, below 20 degrees, cloudy and drizzly). Anyway the reason for going to Monarto was the safari park and the weather didnt spoil it too much. It was actually a little 'jurassic park' like as you got taken around various african style environments on a bus to see the animals. Dylan loved it especially the giraffes (he calls them raffs) and lions (called roars) although keeping him sat in the same place on a bus for an hour was a challenge. On saturday as I mentioned Saoirse arrived so I picked her up at the airport and felt a little guilty dropping her off at the rather basic student accommodation to sleep off the jetlag. We then spent sometime in a rather busy soft play area (wacky warehouse) as believe it or not it was a bit too cold to be outside! And onto today, the best of the weekend, the sun returned and everyone was it a great mood. We picked up Saoirse after the usual sunday morning ritual of capuccinos and banana bread at the bakery and headed to Cleland Wildlife Park for more fun with koalas and kangeroos (see pics). We must have done every animal activity going in south australia at this stage. Anyway Dylan seems to love visiting these places and Saoirse seemed to really enjoy it although she still had that spaced look after all the flying. We then headed to the beach for ice cream by the sea and the funfair for Dylan. And thats that really. The car goes back tomorrow. I am a bit anxious as I foolishly decided against paying the £15 a day extra insurance charge to reduce the excess from £1500 to £150 and I noticed a little dint on the side by the door which I dont think was there when we got the car so I hope that doesnt end up costing us a fortune!
So as I mentioned its a busy week lined up for me in work this week although I am hoping to take friday off to go and see the cricket (2nd Test between Australia V New Zealand at the Adelaide Oval). Emma and Dylan are going out with Nicole and Marcus tomorrow and then swimming. A visit to see Father Christmas in one of the department stores is also on the cards this week. There is actually quite a lot of christmas stuff around now but somehow it just doesnt feel christmassy (is that a word?). Emma is also busily planning the route for the campervan holiday after christmas which is starting to come together now. Looks like we'll be driving +1000km!
And finally moan of the week, not one from me this time but from Emma. Those who know Emma well will know that one thing she likes very much is sleep and those that come between her and her sleep had better watch out. Well this week we had not one but two visits from the roadsweepers. Why? who knows as Adelaide is by far the cleanest place I have ever lived. The roadsweeper visited this week on Tuesday and Thursday at 6am each time. They also decided that three passes of the road were required. And were also accompanied by two chaps with leaf blowing machines. This would all be ok if there was any rubbish or even a leaf to sweep but there isnt. Anyway lets just say they are fortunate that we live two floors up.
ok, told you i could waffle, time to go, hope you are all well and the artic wind doesnt last too long. We can symphaise honestly, we had to wear jumpers yesterday ! take care S,E&D x
Emma and Dylan have had another nice week. I think Emma's highlight was when a DVD of english tv arrived in the post - mainly documentaries i think, no soaps i am sure :) As mentioned previously Emma is still single-handedly managing to keep the southern hemisphere away from recession via our credit card. After another host of toys were acquired this week Emma mentioned the possibility of seeing if some of it could be shipped back to the UK (i kid you not).They have been fairly busy this week going to various groups (see a pic of Dylan on the right in a boat at kindergym). They got invited round to Nicole's house last week and got to see what a typical aussie house is like. Nicole tipped Emma off about some 'special' teething gel that is made and sold at the local hospital which seems to be 99% novacaine. It seems good stuff although applying it to Dylan's gums without numbing his mouth and lips is a tricky process. In general Dylan has been pretty good this week. His sleeping has been great, in fact, dare i say it, he is getting a little lazy, frequently not getting up until after 8am, yesterday he slept from 6.50pm til 9am! (a record).
On friday we hired a car for the weekend and headed to Monarto which is 50 miles south of Adelaide. Unfortunately this coincided with the two worst days of weather since we have been here (cool, below 20 degrees, cloudy and drizzly). Anyway the reason for going to Monarto was the safari park and the weather didnt spoil it too much. It was actually a little 'jurassic park' like as you got taken around various african style environments on a bus to see the animals. Dylan loved it especially the giraffes (he calls them raffs) and lions (called roars) although keeping him sat in the same place on a bus for an hour was a challenge. On saturday as I mentioned Saoirse arrived so I picked her up at the airport and felt a little guilty dropping her off at the rather basic student accommodation to sleep off the jetlag. We then spent sometime in a rather busy soft play area (wacky warehouse) as believe it or not it was a bit too cold to be outside! And onto today, the best of the weekend, the sun returned and everyone was it a great mood. We picked up Saoirse after the usual sunday morning ritual of capuccinos and banana bread at the bakery and headed to Cleland Wildlife Park for more fun with koalas and kangeroos (see pics). We must have done every animal activity going in south australia at this stage. Anyway Dylan seems to love visiting these places and Saoirse seemed to really enjoy it although she still had that spaced look after all the flying. We then headed to the beach for ice cream by the sea and the funfair for Dylan. And thats that really. The car goes back tomorrow. I am a bit anxious as I foolishly decided against paying the £15 a day extra insurance charge to reduce the excess from £1500 to £150 and I noticed a little dint on the side by the door which I dont think was there when we got the car so I hope that doesnt end up costing us a fortune!
So as I mentioned its a busy week lined up for me in work this week although I am hoping to take friday off to go and see the cricket (2nd Test between Australia V New Zealand at the Adelaide Oval). Emma and Dylan are going out with Nicole and Marcus tomorrow and then swimming. A visit to see Father Christmas in one of the department stores is also on the cards this week. There is actually quite a lot of christmas stuff around now but somehow it just doesnt feel christmassy (is that a word?). Emma is also busily planning the route for the campervan holiday after christmas which is starting to come together now. Looks like we'll be driving +1000km!
And finally moan of the week, not one from me this time but from Emma. Those who know Emma well will know that one thing she likes very much is sleep and those that come between her and her sleep had better watch out. Well this week we had not one but two visits from the roadsweepers. Why? who knows as Adelaide is by far the cleanest place I have ever lived. The roadsweeper visited this week on Tuesday and Thursday at 6am each time. They also decided that three passes of the road were required. And were also accompanied by two chaps with leaf blowing machines. This would all be ok if there was any rubbish or even a leaf to sweep but there isnt. Anyway lets just say they are fortunate that we live two floors up.
ok, told you i could waffle, time to go, hope you are all well and the artic wind doesnt last too long. We can symphaise honestly, we had to wear jumpers yesterday ! take care S,E&D x
Sunday, 16 November 2008
Heaps Good!
Morning all, slightly later blog this week as we were back late last night. Another great week in Adelaide. In fact its been 'heaps good' (this is a south australian expression). The weather was splendid throughout and in general we were all in tip top form except for Dylan on friday who has especially hacked off with the teething - these back teeth really are causing him some grief. So what have we been up to? well not much really, we have pretty much found a routine now of work (for me) and fun (for emma and dylan). I had a good week in work, experiments starting to come together and I even got a trip to the pub after work on thursday for a few pints (of Coopers Pale Ale - check it out if you can, its v nice) which was great. We went to an apparently studenty pub although it was probably nicer than most pubs back home. Emma and Dylan had a good week doing all the usual activities (kindergym, shopping, swimming, shopping, singing classes and shopping). On Tuesday, they also went to an outback animal reserve called something like Woolawoolawonga (most places are called something like this) and they got to see deadly spiders and snakes. Dylan even touched a snake (see pic). They went with Emma's friends Natalie and Clare who both have cars so its quite good for them to get out and about. So far we havent missed having a car at all really although it is handy to have one at the weekends so we might get one again next week. Wednesday was a barmy hot day - 37 degrees - although the humidity is low so it didnt feel quite that hot. The temperature didnt really drop much at night where it was 32 so we had the air con on all night. That night I went to the park by the river where they have a big screen to show the Asian Champions League final - Adelaide V Gamba Osaka. The atmosphere beforehand was great even with Adelaide 3 nil down from the first leg, unfortunately Osaka scored again after 3 minutes so that was pretty much that but at least the bbq was good!
This weekend was nice, we spent saturday chilling out around the city centre. Dylan got to see Father Christmas who rather scared him until he gave him a chocolate bar. We then went to see the Australian 3-Day eventing competition - apparently the biggest horse show in the southern hemisphere. We got to see the cross country event which was actually really good. The horses were huge and fast and Dylan loved shouting 'nayyy' everytime they flew past. This is one of the things were are really liking about living here, there seems to be something on all the time, its usually kiddy friendly and also really cheap to do. Next week there is a classic car race round the city centre and in January the 'tour of australia' starts in Adelaide so Emma is looking forward to seeing Lance Armstrong race. On sunday we took the slow train to Gawler to Annies house (the lady I am working with). They put on a traditional aussie bbq for us which was great and we all ate lobster and kangeroo! which tasted a bit like beef, Dylan seemed to like it anyway. To drink we had chilled sparkling red wine which was unusual but also nice. Then Anne's husband, Murray, took us on a tour of the deadly wildlife including the redback spiders that live in his shed. They are quite small but if they bite you need to get the hospital pretty sharpish for antidote or they can kill. Not sure seeing these helped Emma much with her phobia (she got our landlords out this week to remove some cobwebs from the wall outside the flat this week in case it was redbacks).
So thats about it for this week. We have been here a month now and so far it has been a brilliant experience. For the first time this week we mentioned the 'H' word (home) and it wasnt something we are especially looking forward to as we are having such a good time. Although we have another 2 months left so no need to get depressed yet :) I am not going to have a moan of the week this week as I cant think of anything really to moan about, well perhaps the flies but that's about it. However just in case I am painting a super glossy picture of Adelaide there was a reminder this week it has its problems like all cities. On wednesday there was a fight in the city centre between 2 gangs of Sudanese immigrants which ended up in a 14 year boy being stabbed and killed by a 17 year old. This is the first time such a thing has happened but still shocking all the same. The worst thing was that Emma and Dylan were actually on the street no more than 50 metres away when it happened. So its not all roses here.
After that I best end on a positive. Dylan (bar the teething) is in fine form. He is growing fast at the minute, finally got used to wearing a hat (yay!) and extending his vocab every day. He is now starting to say the names of characters he sees on TV - Bob the Builder is called 'bob-bob', Thomas the Tank Engine is called 'choo-choo' and Roary the Racing Car is called 'row-row'. He has also finally learnt to wave goodbye, says thanks and give a kiss (although he hasnt managed it with a closed mouth yet, be warned). Ok, time to go, hope someone is still reading this! love sacha, emma and dylan x.
This weekend was nice, we spent saturday chilling out around the city centre. Dylan got to see Father Christmas who rather scared him until he gave him a chocolate bar. We then went to see the Australian 3-Day eventing competition - apparently the biggest horse show in the southern hemisphere. We got to see the cross country event which was actually really good. The horses were huge and fast and Dylan loved shouting 'nayyy' everytime they flew past. This is one of the things were are really liking about living here, there seems to be something on all the time, its usually kiddy friendly and also really cheap to do. Next week there is a classic car race round the city centre and in January the 'tour of australia' starts in Adelaide so Emma is looking forward to seeing Lance Armstrong race. On sunday we took the slow train to Gawler to Annies house (the lady I am working with). They put on a traditional aussie bbq for us which was great and we all ate lobster and kangeroo! which tasted a bit like beef, Dylan seemed to like it anyway. To drink we had chilled sparkling red wine which was unusual but also nice. Then Anne's husband, Murray, took us on a tour of the deadly wildlife including the redback spiders that live in his shed. They are quite small but if they bite you need to get the hospital pretty sharpish for antidote or they can kill. Not sure seeing these helped Emma much with her phobia (she got our landlords out this week to remove some cobwebs from the wall outside the flat this week in case it was redbacks).
So thats about it for this week. We have been here a month now and so far it has been a brilliant experience. For the first time this week we mentioned the 'H' word (home) and it wasnt something we are especially looking forward to as we are having such a good time. Although we have another 2 months left so no need to get depressed yet :) I am not going to have a moan of the week this week as I cant think of anything really to moan about, well perhaps the flies but that's about it. However just in case I am painting a super glossy picture of Adelaide there was a reminder this week it has its problems like all cities. On wednesday there was a fight in the city centre between 2 gangs of Sudanese immigrants which ended up in a 14 year boy being stabbed and killed by a 17 year old. This is the first time such a thing has happened but still shocking all the same. The worst thing was that Emma and Dylan were actually on the street no more than 50 metres away when it happened. So its not all roses here.
After that I best end on a positive. Dylan (bar the teething) is in fine form. He is growing fast at the minute, finally got used to wearing a hat (yay!) and extending his vocab every day. He is now starting to say the names of characters he sees on TV - Bob the Builder is called 'bob-bob', Thomas the Tank Engine is called 'choo-choo' and Roary the Racing Car is called 'row-row'. He has also finally learnt to wave goodbye, says thanks and give a kiss (although he hasnt managed it with a closed mouth yet, be warned). Ok, time to go, hope someone is still reading this! love sacha, emma and dylan x.
Sunday, 9 November 2008
That was the week that was
Evening all, sunday again so time to jot down on what we have been upto in Adelaide this week. Its been another good week although I dont think we scaled the heights of the previous weeks this week, it was more a 7/10 than 9/10 i'd say although Emma thinks I am being a bit harsh. So I'll come on to all the good stuff in a minute, what didnt make it so good? Well after dipping Dylan in the Antarctic Ocean last weekend he promptly came down with a cold (yes, we know whose fault this was), plus the four back teeth which are all coming through combined to make him a bit miserable and sleep a bit erratically for the first part of the week which wasnt so good. The other thing not quite as good was the weather, seriously !, we had a few days of 15-20 degrees and overcast skies which was a bit of a bummer, it even rained yesterday morning, well drizzled. The locals here are desperate for rain, there has been hardly any in the last three years and apparently over 50 ancient trees in the city have died as a result with a further 100 expected to go this summer. So a lack of good sleep and some grey sky took the edge off the week. However, it was still pretty good...
For me it has been quite a busy one in work, my first using Adelaide University's new $500 000 X-ray scanner. I have only done a little work but already encountered my first problem....1 sample requires 50GB of disk space (Iam hoping to do +50 samples) so I have already had to go and buy new hardware. My first day using the scanner coincided with the Melbourne Cup which I mentioned last week. This was good fun. At 1pm everyone downed tools and headed to the coffee room for champagne and chicken sandwiches (an aussie combo i guess). I was invited along and made to feel welcome which was nice. I was given a horse in the sweepstake that promptly came last. Also a bit strange was a few people had dressed up for the occasion including some ladies in dresses and hats who wouldnt look out of place at Ascot, except we were in the basement of the medical school some 1000km from where the race was taking place. My other work news is that Nottingham University have found the cash to pay for my new PhD student, Saoirse, to come out and visit to see what I am up to (I best get busy). She is coming in 2 weeks and will stay for 10 days. Apparently they are already teasing in Nottingham that I have set this up to get a babysitter, now they come to mention it though its not a bad idea!
Emma and Dylan have continued to be super busy. Emma has made yet more friends (seriously) including a few aussies. We went out for the afternoon yesterday with another family who Emma had met who are here for 18 months (Raj, Suzy, Sofia & Matthew). They are from Newcastle but lived in Leeds for a few years so we had lots in common. Raj is an angioplasty surgeon on an 18 month fellowship out here working on MRI so we had a bit to talk about. As they have already been here 3 months they gave us lots of tips of places to go etc. Other than that Emma and Dylan have been to kindergym, music class and some other baby groups. Our gym has a creche that Emma tried out on friday, she was a bit hesitant as Dylan's track record with childcare isnt good and apparently he was good for 30 mins but then cried and could only be appeased by watching Thomas the Tank Engine. Emma is keen to keep trying though just to help with the transition to nursery when we return home.
So the big event of the week was on saturday, the all singing, all dancing Christmas pageant which is in early November for some reason. Unfortunately it coincided with the worst weather since we have been here which i think dampened spirits a little bit. Still 250 000 people lined the streets of Adelaide and waved at the clowns, elves, fairies etc. See pic, unfortunately the camera batteries went before Santa came! Its a little odd but the christmas countdown is in full effect now. All the shops have tinsel in the windows, the lights are up and the queues to see Santa in the toy stores have begun. Normal service resumed weatherwise today (30 degrees and sunny) so we headed to the zoo which is 10 mins walk away. Dylan loved it, he now shouts the animal noises at the animals - well providing its a lion, monkey or cow. He has taken a real shine to the giraffes but we dont know what noise they make. Any ideas? After the zoo we took a stroll up the river (see pic) and had ice creams in the sun - the perfect sunday i think.
Not too much making the news down here, although Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross did get a mention, is it really a global story? The credit crunch gets the odd mention but they arent really experiencing it here, although that maybe due to Emma keeping their economy afloat by a record number of consecutive days shopping!
Not sure what we have lined up for this week, no big events i think. We have today booked a summer/christmas holiday. We are going to meet Tina and Ben somewhere between Melbourne and Adelaide between Christmas and New Year and so we have hired a campervan, well actually a motorhome for a week. This was actually very difficult as everywhere was booked out as this is the busiest week for holidays in Oz. We had 2 options, a cheap VW campervan style or a v expensive giant winnebago style one. I favoured the former for price, emma favoured the latter for comfort. Emma won. So that promises to be an adventure with Dylan in tow.
Ok, time to sign out, hope you are all well, please continue to email, skype, comment on the blog etc. Just time for my moan of the week (I think this is like a little bit of therapy for me). This week it is the drivers in Adelaide. The boy racer quota here is very high. As I mentioned most cars have the giant, noisy exhausts. Anyway, they drive like nutters. This was highlighted yesterday at the top of our road when one went crashing into a coffee shop (see pic). Luckily it was early and nobody was hurt...
Right then so, love to all and we'll update you some more next week. Sacha, Emma & Dylan x
For me it has been quite a busy one in work, my first using Adelaide University's new $500 000 X-ray scanner. I have only done a little work but already encountered my first problem....1 sample requires 50GB of disk space (Iam hoping to do +50 samples) so I have already had to go and buy new hardware. My first day using the scanner coincided with the Melbourne Cup which I mentioned last week. This was good fun. At 1pm everyone downed tools and headed to the coffee room for champagne and chicken sandwiches (an aussie combo i guess). I was invited along and made to feel welcome which was nice. I was given a horse in the sweepstake that promptly came last. Also a bit strange was a few people had dressed up for the occasion including some ladies in dresses and hats who wouldnt look out of place at Ascot, except we were in the basement of the medical school some 1000km from where the race was taking place. My other work news is that Nottingham University have found the cash to pay for my new PhD student, Saoirse, to come out and visit to see what I am up to (I best get busy). She is coming in 2 weeks and will stay for 10 days. Apparently they are already teasing in Nottingham that I have set this up to get a babysitter, now they come to mention it though its not a bad idea!
Emma and Dylan have continued to be super busy. Emma has made yet more friends (seriously) including a few aussies. We went out for the afternoon yesterday with another family who Emma had met who are here for 18 months (Raj, Suzy, Sofia & Matthew). They are from Newcastle but lived in Leeds for a few years so we had lots in common. Raj is an angioplasty surgeon on an 18 month fellowship out here working on MRI so we had a bit to talk about. As they have already been here 3 months they gave us lots of tips of places to go etc. Other than that Emma and Dylan have been to kindergym, music class and some other baby groups. Our gym has a creche that Emma tried out on friday, she was a bit hesitant as Dylan's track record with childcare isnt good and apparently he was good for 30 mins but then cried and could only be appeased by watching Thomas the Tank Engine. Emma is keen to keep trying though just to help with the transition to nursery when we return home.
So the big event of the week was on saturday, the all singing, all dancing Christmas pageant which is in early November for some reason. Unfortunately it coincided with the worst weather since we have been here which i think dampened spirits a little bit. Still 250 000 people lined the streets of Adelaide and waved at the clowns, elves, fairies etc. See pic, unfortunately the camera batteries went before Santa came! Its a little odd but the christmas countdown is in full effect now. All the shops have tinsel in the windows, the lights are up and the queues to see Santa in the toy stores have begun. Normal service resumed weatherwise today (30 degrees and sunny) so we headed to the zoo which is 10 mins walk away. Dylan loved it, he now shouts the animal noises at the animals - well providing its a lion, monkey or cow. He has taken a real shine to the giraffes but we dont know what noise they make. Any ideas? After the zoo we took a stroll up the river (see pic) and had ice creams in the sun - the perfect sunday i think.
Not too much making the news down here, although Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross did get a mention, is it really a global story? The credit crunch gets the odd mention but they arent really experiencing it here, although that maybe due to Emma keeping their economy afloat by a record number of consecutive days shopping!
Not sure what we have lined up for this week, no big events i think. We have today booked a summer/christmas holiday. We are going to meet Tina and Ben somewhere between Melbourne and Adelaide between Christmas and New Year and so we have hired a campervan, well actually a motorhome for a week. This was actually very difficult as everywhere was booked out as this is the busiest week for holidays in Oz. We had 2 options, a cheap VW campervan style or a v expensive giant winnebago style one. I favoured the former for price, emma favoured the latter for comfort. Emma won. So that promises to be an adventure with Dylan in tow.
Ok, time to sign out, hope you are all well, please continue to email, skype, comment on the blog etc. Just time for my moan of the week (I think this is like a little bit of therapy for me). This week it is the drivers in Adelaide. The boy racer quota here is very high. As I mentioned most cars have the giant, noisy exhausts. Anyway, they drive like nutters. This was highlighted yesterday at the top of our road when one went crashing into a coffee shop (see pic). Luckily it was early and nobody was hurt...
Right then so, love to all and we'll update you some more next week. Sacha, Emma & Dylan x
Sunday, 2 November 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, 26 October 2008
Getting on with it
Hello blogfans (or dan & dad if its only going to those who have subscribed)
we have now been here about 11 days so time for an update on what we have been up to. I cant promise it will be that exciting but i can assure you it'll be more interesting than the if we were doing this in Loughborough! So we have started to settle here now and things are really good. Aussie life is certainly less stressful and less formal than back home or at least it has been for us. Of course I am not on holiday and have done my first week in work that has gone quite well even if i took a day off for a brief case of the man-flu (sad, I know). The people at work are all really friendly and there have been lots of long lunches and extended coffee breaks. This last week was mainly about meeting people and getting my IT account set up etc and now that is all sorted I will be doing some experiments (for the first time in about 5 years!) this week. I am also going away on a post-doc retreat for one day into the Adelaide Hills, not sure what they will be like, apparently they have arranged for some motivational speakers to come along and then there will be a team building exercise (which i will try and avoid). One thing that is nice about work here compared to the UK is that academics and students mix a lot more together. Anyway enough of the work stuff. Emma and Dylan have had a great week exploring Adelaide (by public transport). They have been swimming, to the zoo and to kindergym to name but a few of the activities. The zoo seems to have been a bit of a hit and Dylan can now make all sorts of animal noises although we dont know what noise a kangeroo makes?? Emma also managed to make a friend - Suzie from Newcastle - who is over here for 18 months with her husband and two kids so that has been good. She is even meeting another person from a mums in adelaide webpage - Natalie - for coffee this week (at least that's what she tells me). One thing that is much better than home is that I have less formal timetable so each day we have breakfast all together and then we usually meet in town late afternoon and come home and have tea together which is great. As we live next door to a load of great food shops we buy our tea each night and all eat the same thing. We have gone a bit mad on the tropical fruit recently but Dylan's been eating lots of new things including sushi, olives and baby eggplant. The food is really great here, and we are certainly eating much better. To help with the general fitness theme "operation smaller-belly" officially started this week when we joined the brand new, rather expensive but next door to our flat, gym. Only been a few times so far but its a start. Money has been rather pouring out a little this week. Unfortunately Emma got a bad toothache this week and needed emergency dental treatment which cost £100 and worse was to follow when we found out she needed root canal at £700 - ouch! Worse still if this had happened a few months back at home it would have been free. As for Dylan news, he has been in great form despite 3 new teeth on the way, he is loving all the new parks and activities I think. He also got his haircut in a posh salon although the close crop looked like something you'd get from a backstreet barber. This weekends activities were a day on the beach (see pic) and 'Baby Proms' which was a classical music concert for tots which he seemed to love - although we got an insight into his personality when approx. 100 babies all sat and listened to the music on their mums knees whilst Dylan ran around, arms waving singing 'bo bo bo bo'. Chilled and relaxed he is not. Ok, I have waffled on long enough now, I think that covers it, the weather has been great all week, today was supposed to be a bad weather day and it was 22 degrees and a little overcast at times, s'pose we can live with that. And just to finish off, the grumpy old man in me feels obliged to mention somethings that are not so good just to readdress the balance a little and not make it seem that everything is brilliant (although it mainly is, honest). Here a few not so good things
we have now been here about 11 days so time for an update on what we have been up to. I cant promise it will be that exciting but i can assure you it'll be more interesting than the if we were doing this in Loughborough! So we have started to settle here now and things are really good. Aussie life is certainly less stressful and less formal than back home or at least it has been for us. Of course I am not on holiday and have done my first week in work that has gone quite well even if i took a day off for a brief case of the man-flu (sad, I know). The people at work are all really friendly and there have been lots of long lunches and extended coffee breaks. This last week was mainly about meeting people and getting my IT account set up etc and now that is all sorted I will be doing some experiments (for the first time in about 5 years!) this week. I am also going away on a post-doc retreat for one day into the Adelaide Hills, not sure what they will be like, apparently they have arranged for some motivational speakers to come along and then there will be a team building exercise (which i will try and avoid). One thing that is nice about work here compared to the UK is that academics and students mix a lot more together. Anyway enough of the work stuff. Emma and Dylan have had a great week exploring Adelaide (by public transport). They have been swimming, to the zoo and to kindergym to name but a few of the activities. The zoo seems to have been a bit of a hit and Dylan can now make all sorts of animal noises although we dont know what noise a kangeroo makes?? Emma also managed to make a friend - Suzie from Newcastle - who is over here for 18 months with her husband and two kids so that has been good. She is even meeting another person from a mums in adelaide webpage - Natalie - for coffee this week (at least that's what she tells me). One thing that is much better than home is that I have less formal timetable so each day we have breakfast all together and then we usually meet in town late afternoon and come home and have tea together which is great. As we live next door to a load of great food shops we buy our tea each night and all eat the same thing. We have gone a bit mad on the tropical fruit recently but Dylan's been eating lots of new things including sushi, olives and baby eggplant. The food is really great here, and we are certainly eating much better. To help with the general fitness theme "operation smaller-belly" officially started this week when we joined the brand new, rather expensive but next door to our flat, gym. Only been a few times so far but its a start. Money has been rather pouring out a little this week. Unfortunately Emma got a bad toothache this week and needed emergency dental treatment which cost £100 and worse was to follow when we found out she needed root canal at £700 - ouch! Worse still if this had happened a few months back at home it would have been free. As for Dylan news, he has been in great form despite 3 new teeth on the way, he is loving all the new parks and activities I think. He also got his haircut in a posh salon although the close crop looked like something you'd get from a backstreet barber. This weekends activities were a day on the beach (see pic) and 'Baby Proms' which was a classical music concert for tots which he seemed to love - although we got an insight into his personality when approx. 100 babies all sat and listened to the music on their mums knees whilst Dylan ran around, arms waving singing 'bo bo bo bo'. Chilled and relaxed he is not. Ok, I have waffled on long enough now, I think that covers it, the weather has been great all week, today was supposed to be a bad weather day and it was 22 degrees and a little overcast at times, s'pose we can live with that. And just to finish off, the grumpy old man in me feels obliged to mention somethings that are not so good just to readdress the balance a little and not make it seem that everything is brilliant (although it mainly is, honest). Here a few not so good things
- flies, lots of em, always hassling your face, think we might need hats with corks soon
- crossing roads is a bit of an ordeal as you wait for ages.....at the crossing points
- their telly really is bad...
- the dentists are rip off merchants
that's about it, its a bit slow to upload pics so i'll mainly put them here (www.flickr.com/photos/dylanmooney). Take care, enjoy the autumn sunshine I keep hearing about and cheerio til next time. The Mooneys x
Monday, 20 October 2008
Settling in
Hello
had lots of feedback on our blog. Mainly postive, i think, so we'll stick with it, probably sending an update once a week (apparently if you fill in your email address on the site i think it will mail you when we update). So we have been here now about 4 days and so far it is all really positive. Adelaide seems like a really nice place. It is a city probably similar in size to Leicester. The weather has been great which has helped. It has mainly been around 25 degrees which is nice although we had one day at about 34 degrees when we all melted. Strangely it gets quite cold at night and we have been using the air con as a heater! Most people seem to stay indoors between 12-3 to avoid the sun. Anyway we have avoided the sunburn so far. We are living in North Adelaide which is about 15 mins walk from the city centre. Its a really nice area with lots of coffee shops (tried most of these) and bars (tried none of these). We have a 2 bed apartment on the second floor which is fun when you have to carry Dylan and the stroller. It is all open plan which makes a change but everyone seems quite happy with it. I especially like the 40 inch HD plasma TV although it only seems to show rubbish (actually emma is quite happy that she can see the latest episodes of neighbours). The first few days were mainly spent sleeping and not venturing too far but we are all on aussie time now and even dylan is sleeping through which is great. The first few days with Dylan jetlagged were funny (see pic of him falling asleep whilst eating). Next door to the apartment is a little shopping centre which has a deli, supermarket, newsagent, bakery and sushi bar. Dylan had sushi yesterday and loved it! The city centre is fairly standard although different to the U.K. in that they dont have many chain stores, mainly independent ones. They do have a Woolies but that is a supermarket here. On sunday we visited the beach at Glenelg which is about 30 mins away, nice seaside place although it was very busy and a bit windy. Yesterday was my first day in work and that went really well. I have my own office and all the staff went out of there way to be friendly. It was also the first time I have had a safety induction that included a warning about getting brown snakes (2nd most venomous in Australia) in your office! The campus I am mainly based at is about 4m out of the city centre in the foothills. Its quite rural, surrounded by trees with Kaolas in them. Emma took Dylan swimming yesterday. The aquatic centre is something else. 5 different kiddy pools + slides, diving pools, olympic standard pool. We now have 12 weeks to turn him into a baby 'Thorp-edo'. It is taking some getting used to being without a car as everything is quite spreadout so we have been using the buses and trams. They are relatively frequent and you pay by the hour rather than by distance - £1 for 2 hrs - so pretty cheap. We have so far avoided the creepy crawlies although emma thinks she got biten by a spider. She is still alive so I am not sure about that one. Oh and Dylan HATES having sunscreen put on everyday. Think that is about it so far (jordache will be pleased i kept it brief). I'll end with a few bullet points (I am a lecturer after all) on some of the main differences (so far) here and home.
had lots of feedback on our blog. Mainly postive, i think, so we'll stick with it, probably sending an update once a week (apparently if you fill in your email address on the site i think it will mail you when we update). So we have been here now about 4 days and so far it is all really positive. Adelaide seems like a really nice place. It is a city probably similar in size to Leicester. The weather has been great which has helped. It has mainly been around 25 degrees which is nice although we had one day at about 34 degrees when we all melted. Strangely it gets quite cold at night and we have been using the air con as a heater! Most people seem to stay indoors between 12-3 to avoid the sun. Anyway we have avoided the sunburn so far. We are living in North Adelaide which is about 15 mins walk from the city centre. Its a really nice area with lots of coffee shops (tried most of these) and bars (tried none of these). We have a 2 bed apartment on the second floor which is fun when you have to carry Dylan and the stroller. It is all open plan which makes a change but everyone seems quite happy with it. I especially like the 40 inch HD plasma TV although it only seems to show rubbish (actually emma is quite happy that she can see the latest episodes of neighbours). The first few days were mainly spent sleeping and not venturing too far but we are all on aussie time now and even dylan is sleeping through which is great. The first few days with Dylan jetlagged were funny (see pic of him falling asleep whilst eating). Next door to the apartment is a little shopping centre which has a deli, supermarket, newsagent, bakery and sushi bar. Dylan had sushi yesterday and loved it! The city centre is fairly standard although different to the U.K. in that they dont have many chain stores, mainly independent ones. They do have a Woolies but that is a supermarket here. On sunday we visited the beach at Glenelg which is about 30 mins away, nice seaside place although it was very busy and a bit windy. Yesterday was my first day in work and that went really well. I have my own office and all the staff went out of there way to be friendly. It was also the first time I have had a safety induction that included a warning about getting brown snakes (2nd most venomous in Australia) in your office! The campus I am mainly based at is about 4m out of the city centre in the foothills. Its quite rural, surrounded by trees with Kaolas in them. Emma took Dylan swimming yesterday. The aquatic centre is something else. 5 different kiddy pools + slides, diving pools, olympic standard pool. We now have 12 weeks to turn him into a baby 'Thorp-edo'. It is taking some getting used to being without a car as everything is quite spreadout so we have been using the buses and trams. They are relatively frequent and you pay by the hour rather than by distance - £1 for 2 hrs - so pretty cheap. We have so far avoided the creepy crawlies although emma thinks she got biten by a spider. She is still alive so I am not sure about that one. Oh and Dylan HATES having sunscreen put on everyday. Think that is about it so far (jordache will be pleased i kept it brief). I'll end with a few bullet points (I am a lecturer after all) on some of the main differences (so far) here and home.
- Weather better no doubt
- People generally friendlier
- Most things a bit cheaper (except baby stuff)
- Less commercial overall
- Cars are a lot older here and about 50% have boy racer exhausts
- No congestion on roads
- Public parks are everywhere and better maintained.
- TV is definitely worse here but i guess we didnt come for that
- Relatively easy to avoid the gloom and doom of the current football season
Ok, time to sign out and get an iced coffee. cheerio - The Mooneys
Friday, 17 October 2008
The Journey
hello
decided to run with this for a bit as a way of keeping in touch. We have of course landed in Adelaide so while it is all fresh in the memory (its oh so fresh), let me tell you about a few of the the epic 3 day journey highlights and lowlights. I'll save the first impressions of Adelaide til the next post although i should point out it is currently 5am here and we have been up 2 hrs already so not quite on aussie time yet...
So we set off last monday morning and headed to heathrow early to avoid the rush hour traffic. This meant we spent most of the day in a place near heathrow called heston which is truly one of the grimest places i have ever been too. The only redeeming features was a great kiddies play centre that Dylan ran riot in for a few hrs. The next phase of the journey was the heathrow experience which was probably the worst of the whole trip. Check in was +1hr and Dylan cried through most of it. The place was mega crowded, hot and full of stressed people (us included). Security was a nightmare, bags searched, medicines confiscated, full body searches for us etc. We had to open all the food and milk for Dylan and taste it (effectively spoiling it for the 12 hr flight). The departure lounge was full and we holed up in the only available seats in an irish bar and tried to keep Dylan from crying for 2 hrs til we boarded. We flew on the new 800 seater A380 which was very nice, we got good seats on the top deck and thankfully Dylan fell alseep shortly after take off. And amazingly he then slept for the next 9 hrs which was great. This meant we only had a few hrs of books, toys and breadsticks til we landed in Singapore. Changi Airport is the opposite of Heathrow - spacious, clean, friendly people and within an hr or so we were at the Shangri-La. This is certainly the best hotel we have ever stayed in, nothing was too much trouble. Dylan was treated like a god (think C-3P0 to the Ewoks if you know Star Wars). He has given toys, shown around, basically treated like a VIP. So we had a great time here. Great food with free beer (although we could only manage one), outdoor swimming at night in 30 degree temps and generally really friendly people. It was then on to Adelaide. The highlight of the trip was boarding the plane in Singapore, Emma and I were geared up for another 12 hr flight until the captain announced the flight to Adelaide was 6 hrs. The other passengers looked at us weirdly as we celebrated ONLY a 6 hr flight with a 1 year old. Dylan fell asleep before take off and slept for 3 hrs. Unfortunately that was it on the sleep front and it then took every book, toy, cartoon, food and air hostess to keep him occupied for the next three hours. By the end of it he was throughly fed up, shattered and a bit worse for wear, but so were we. Arrival in Australia was not a short process - 2 hrs after landing before we cleared customs and passport control. They seem to be more concerned about people smuggling in biscuits than drugs or illegal immigrants. Suffice to say we made it, even managed to get HIPP organic baby lasagne through (Yes!) and were greated on the other side by Annie, my contact at the university. From here we were rapidly whisked to the apartment where we checked in and promptly slept for 6 hrs. So overall it wasnt too bad. I mean if i had the choice I would rather run over hot coals or even the marathon again then do it it again, but Dylan did really well and we made it. Of course, its 2 days on and we are all far from settled but I'll save that for next time. By the way, it was 33 degrees yesterday ! speak soon, The Mooneys
decided to run with this for a bit as a way of keeping in touch. We have of course landed in Adelaide so while it is all fresh in the memory (its oh so fresh), let me tell you about a few of the the epic 3 day journey highlights and lowlights. I'll save the first impressions of Adelaide til the next post although i should point out it is currently 5am here and we have been up 2 hrs already so not quite on aussie time yet...
So we set off last monday morning and headed to heathrow early to avoid the rush hour traffic. This meant we spent most of the day in a place near heathrow called heston which is truly one of the grimest places i have ever been too. The only redeeming features was a great kiddies play centre that Dylan ran riot in for a few hrs. The next phase of the journey was the heathrow experience which was probably the worst of the whole trip. Check in was +1hr and Dylan cried through most of it. The place was mega crowded, hot and full of stressed people (us included). Security was a nightmare, bags searched, medicines confiscated, full body searches for us etc. We had to open all the food and milk for Dylan and taste it (effectively spoiling it for the 12 hr flight). The departure lounge was full and we holed up in the only available seats in an irish bar and tried to keep Dylan from crying for 2 hrs til we boarded. We flew on the new 800 seater A380 which was very nice, we got good seats on the top deck and thankfully Dylan fell alseep shortly after take off. And amazingly he then slept for the next 9 hrs which was great. This meant we only had a few hrs of books, toys and breadsticks til we landed in Singapore. Changi Airport is the opposite of Heathrow - spacious, clean, friendly people and within an hr or so we were at the Shangri-La. This is certainly the best hotel we have ever stayed in, nothing was too much trouble. Dylan was treated like a god (think C-3P0 to the Ewoks if you know Star Wars). He has given toys, shown around, basically treated like a VIP. So we had a great time here. Great food with free beer (although we could only manage one), outdoor swimming at night in 30 degree temps and generally really friendly people. It was then on to Adelaide. The highlight of the trip was boarding the plane in Singapore, Emma and I were geared up for another 12 hr flight until the captain announced the flight to Adelaide was 6 hrs. The other passengers looked at us weirdly as we celebrated ONLY a 6 hr flight with a 1 year old. Dylan fell asleep before take off and slept for 3 hrs. Unfortunately that was it on the sleep front and it then took every book, toy, cartoon, food and air hostess to keep him occupied for the next three hours. By the end of it he was throughly fed up, shattered and a bit worse for wear, but so were we. Arrival in Australia was not a short process - 2 hrs after landing before we cleared customs and passport control. They seem to be more concerned about people smuggling in biscuits than drugs or illegal immigrants. Suffice to say we made it, even managed to get HIPP organic baby lasagne through (Yes!) and were greated on the other side by Annie, my contact at the university. From here we were rapidly whisked to the apartment where we checked in and promptly slept for 6 hrs. So overall it wasnt too bad. I mean if i had the choice I would rather run over hot coals or even the marathon again then do it it again, but Dylan did really well and we made it. Of course, its 2 days on and we are all far from settled but I'll save that for next time. By the way, it was 33 degrees yesterday ! speak soon, The Mooneys
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
The Departure Lounge
Hello
I am still undecide as to whether this is actually a good idea and an easy way to keep in touch with all our family or hideously naff and likely to lead to lots of ribbing at a later date. So until I work out which one (although I guess its going to be both) I'll give it a go.
I guess the aim of this is to be a home for any updates of stuff we have been up to plus a few nice pics as and when we have them. No pics as yet but I guess we have been up to lots of the planning side of things and we are now pretty much ready for departure on monday. The main source of grief was the visa as we had the wrong one (thanks to the university travel agent) and after much expensive photocopying courtesy of a local solicitor plus a few letters from both Adelaide and Nottingham universities saying they agreed to the trip we finally have our visa. Emma has been busy trawling websites for advice on what we can and cannot get through security checks at the airport - very little it seems in terms of essential baby stuff so that should be fun. And we have finally sorted all the other issues with insurance, bills, cars etc. Basically lots of planning for only a short (13 week) trip.
Anyway we are now all set we think, a few more goodbyes this weekend then its time to begin the adventure starting with the small matter of a 4 day journey and a 24 hr flight, the calpol is on stand by...
more to follow
I am still undecide as to whether this is actually a good idea and an easy way to keep in touch with all our family or hideously naff and likely to lead to lots of ribbing at a later date. So until I work out which one (although I guess its going to be both) I'll give it a go.
I guess the aim of this is to be a home for any updates of stuff we have been up to plus a few nice pics as and when we have them. No pics as yet but I guess we have been up to lots of the planning side of things and we are now pretty much ready for departure on monday. The main source of grief was the visa as we had the wrong one (thanks to the university travel agent) and after much expensive photocopying courtesy of a local solicitor plus a few letters from both Adelaide and Nottingham universities saying they agreed to the trip we finally have our visa. Emma has been busy trawling websites for advice on what we can and cannot get through security checks at the airport - very little it seems in terms of essential baby stuff so that should be fun. And we have finally sorted all the other issues with insurance, bills, cars etc. Basically lots of planning for only a short (13 week) trip.
Anyway we are now all set we think, a few more goodbyes this weekend then its time to begin the adventure starting with the small matter of a 4 day journey and a 24 hr flight, the calpol is on stand by...
more to follow
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