Honeymoon eyes

In late 2004 Andy and I honeymooned for 6 weeks in Australia.  This is when we fell in love with the country.  It was truly an amazing holiday and I long to be able to see some of those places that we visited again.

We arrived in Perth and spent 4 nights or so here and explored my birth place a little, caught a flight to Uluru for 2 nights, watched the sun set over the big red rock.  Then flew on to Cairns and had 5 nights or so, we explored the rainforest and then on to the truly Great Barrier Reef.  Which is the point of this blog.  I will come back to this in a bit!

We then hired a camper van for 2 weeks and drove from Cairns to Sydney stopping and exploring all the amazing East Coast along the way.  We camped (for anybody that knows me that was a bit of a departure from the norm but I loved it and have been bitten!) in amazing coastal sites just a few steps from the beach.  We went to a lovely place just South of Cairns called Mission Beach and I will always hold this place in my heart and I long to see it again.  We were approaching Christmas and there were carols being sung in the shopping centre and we were sat in a restaurant lit by candles only.  I have never been that relaxed since!  Wonderful beach and if Andy and I have the chance to renew our wedding vows then this is where I would like to be.

 Mission Beach

Spent Christmas 2004 on a beach and New Year in Sydney.  Wow, just wow!  Can't wait to spend New Year again there this year.  It was the best celebration of a New Year I have ever seen. 

 One big party!

We did go down to Melbourne as well but didn't get on too well and I strongly suspect we actually missed the city and I am looking forward to visiting again and doing it justice.

I digress.  Massively.  Anyway, the point of this entry was that visit to the Great Barrier Reef.  We took a boat journey from hell on rough, rough seas for 3 hours.  And then we arrived in paradise on the reef.  White coral kay island with the most amazing fish I have ever seen.  Turtles, clown fish, blue tangs, etc.  The water was so warm it was like stepping into a bath.  Heaven.  I tried my hand at snorkelling for the 1st time ever.  I must have been in the water for around 10 minutes when I lost a contact lense.  Can you imagine it???!!!!   The horror.  I could now no longer see the amazing sea scenery around me and the fish became blurry and unclear.  I was so dissapointed.   It was still an amazing day but my eye sight uncorrected was really not good enough to appreciate the beauty of the reef.  To top it off the journey home was equaly stormy and even the crew were ill!

So, it was then that I seriously thought about having laser eye surgery.  I wanted to be able to snorkel, swim and generally be in the water in Australia when we emigrated.  For this to happen with the ease that I wanted the best option was surgery.  So, 4 weeks ago I had it done.  It truly is amazing and one of the best things I have ever done.  I have better eyesight now then I had corrected with contact lenses and absoultely no hassel each morning and night with lenses.

In preparation for the water based activities I intend to partake in in Australia, I have bought goggles and a nose clip.....attractive!  Last time I tried them on Isla wouldn't talk to me for a good 30 minutes after so I have some remedial work to do with her!

I cannot wait to get my eyes in goggles and snorkel off the beach on the Northern beaches in Sydney and be able to see all the fish!

Burning the candle at both ends

I almost need to go back to work for a break.  Almost.

I honestly have not stopped since I finished which is nearly 4 weeks ago!  The afore mentioned holidays took up 2 weeks and then we returned and got straight on with all of the wonderful things we have had planned for so long with our nearest and dearest.  Finn has been to numerous birthday parties which he absolutely loves.  I have been to a spa with one of the best girls.  We had a massage and a manicure over lunch which was amazingly relaxing.  Then Mum and I headed off to London on the train for the day to go and see Wicked the musical which was such fun.  We walked to the theatre from Covent Garden and took in the National Gallery on the way which was a very interesting couple of hours and for a moment I felt like an adult!

We have cooked for people, been out for dinner and we even did a barbie today.  It was such good fun and all of the children played in the paddling pool and messed around on bikes together all afternoon.  It was brilliant.  We, as a family are having such a good last few weeks.

If I look in my diary it is packed for the remaining time we are here and to be frank it's quite exhausting but I struggle on!  However, the other day I looked past the 18th August in my diary and apart from 1 weekend when we have visitors over from Perth it is empty.  There is zilch planned and nothing organised.  To quote my best girl Bronnie, we have nothing planned as "we won't know anyone".

Now that is actually a little scary.  We will travel around the globe as a family of 4 all on our own for the 1st time ever.  We will have no-one.  We won't even have a house to start with.  I hope it's going to be OK and we start to fill our diary again quite quickly.

Our ship is sailing

Our container gets packed on Wednesday and sails a week on Saturday to arrive in Sydney 1 day before us and then it should clear customs around 11th September which is when we hope to move into our rental house.  We fly 6 weeks on Wednesday.

Mum told me that she copes with the fact that we are leaving by thinking of us just going on holiday.  An extended holiday but not for the long haul.  I suppose in my head I am not thinking about it permanently or for ever as I can't really until we have lived it for a while.  At the moment it is a little of an unknown quantity as we have only ever holidayed in Australia, for 6 weeks which is a while but still not the same.  I hope that it is all we want it to be for the 4 of us.  Mum then went on to say that she is also so excited for us that we are going off on an adventure.  To try something new and different.  Where there are new experiences and challenges to be had.  I think it really helps that she did it herself in the 70's so can understand a little of what we are trying to achieve.

I don't think I will be able to see it as a move for life until we have created our lives over there again and we are settled.  I feel a little like a nomad at the moment and that isn't going to change for some while yet.

I mentioned to Andy the other night that hopefully in around 9 to 10 weeks time we will have moved into a new home, unpacked all our stuff and will be about to welcome our first visitors and dear friends, Marky & Kat from Perth who we haven't seen since Christmas.  I am so excited about seeing them.  Marky is a dodgy car salesman (hope he reads this one!) and has offered to negotiate a price on a car when we find one we want.  After all he does this for a living so should be pretty good at it!  He even offered to buy one in Perth and drive it over to us, now that is dedication at 3000 miles or so!

I have wobbles of confidence as the day gets closer but on the whole it's all good with us at the moment.

SAHM

Stay at home Mum: a wife who manages a household and looks after the children while her husband earns the family income.

Which doesn't sound quite as liberal woman's front as perhaps I would like.   However, I realised last night that after 7 months of extracting myself from work I am now at the point where I can class myself as a stay at home Mum. 

When I was first pregnant with Finn I thought that after 9 months I would be striving to get back in to the cut and thrust of my IT job.  Then he arrived and everything changed.  We decided pretty early on that we would have a brother or sister for Finn with a small age gap.  We were very fortunate and Isla arrived when Finn was 17 months.  We decided that part of the plan to emigrate to Australia would facilitate me being able to stay at home with the children until they are at school.  After this time I hope to be able to do something with photography.  I have until Isla is 5 and at school to get some sort of photography qualifications and experience to allow me to get some part time freelance type work to fit around the school hours.

Things have changed so much and I want to be the one taking them to school and picking them up.  Taking them to clubs and just generally being around consistently.

The fact that I have finished work and now fall into the demographic of SAHM shouldn't come as a huge surprise as we have orchestrated our lives over the last 2 years to get to this point.  However, last night at about midnight it suddenly hit me.  We have achieved it and I am so happy to be able to do this for them. 

Part 1

I know it’s been a while since I last wrote and I write this on the laptop while on holiday in Newquay where we have no wireless to upload.  Must get fingers on the keyboard before I start to forget all of the things I have to say and keep. 

The day in mid June arrived when I would work with my employer of 15 years for the last time.  The morning started well and I was optimistic that I would refrain from crying.  I was wrong.  It suddenly hit me that I was leaving all of these people that I had known and worked with for so long.  You really do spend a lot of time with the people that you work with. 37 hours a week on average.  Or, in my case as a part timer over the last few years – 19 but previously 37 hours for 12 years.

I was sat at my desk at 11 in the morning rounding up a few last e-mails and generally touching base with people as they came around to wish me luck (and tell me that they wished they could leave too!(it’s not how it once was!))   When there was the unmistakable patter of feet as people started to congregate around my desk, there must of been around 50.  I duly took to the floor as one of the managers gave a speech about my time and some of the mis-adventures that I had been involved in!  I immediately choked up and had to take a deep breath to steady myself.    A common theme, it is fair to say, was my driving.  Now I consider myself to be a reasonable driver but I can only draw the conclusion that I may be a little sporadic as there were around 4-5 stories of my skills!  Some I really had forgotten and it was lovely to be reminded of some of the laughs we have had. 

One amusing one was when I was driving a particularly gutless pool car up a pretty steep hill near Bristol and decided to go for an overtake only to draw level and seriously think I wasn’t going to make it!  Foot to the metal and we crawled past and nipped in just before a car coming in the other direction got pretty close.  Ha ha, still makes me snort to think about it.  When the story was told I had to dig pretty deep to remember but then it all came flooding back!

Several other drunken stories came out and my favourite was a corporate race day in Worcester which started well as there was a free bar!  One of the girls, Sam & I made full use of that facility and ordered 2 drinks of double Pimms at a time.  Slaughtered.  That’s what we were and in bed pretty early!  Our table caused a few raised eye brows as we could certainly put it away!  This memory resulted in one of my leaving presents being a bottle of Pimms.

The conversation then turned to Andy as we met at work and then the birth of Finn & Isla.  Some very lovely things were said and I really feel that I did add something and make a small difference.  I hope so.  I said a few words and I really did have quite a lot of trouble holding it together.  I was given some lovely things.  Some camera books and a flash diffuser.  Union Jack cushion to remind me of home.  Some lovely pictures of the people I have worked with and the infamous bottle of Pimms!

Three of the people I have worked with the closest over the years gave me some extra pressies and I was so touched.  Kangaroo ruck sacks for the children, a very apt bbq apron for Andy (genius!) and some Cath Kidston vouchers and sewing bits.  They also gave Andy and I a book on British history with a lovely, poignant poem about home stuck in the front.  Fresh tears with this one and a real tug in the heart.

I left the office sad but happy.  Andy and I went out for a leaving do in Bristol on the Friday night and had an amazing time.  Andy and I caught the train in and took a slow stroll though the city in the afternoon stopping off for ice cream and browsing along the way.  Cocktails in Browns were had which was very relaxing.  Food, drinks, drinks and more drinks!  Another emotional time and puffy eyes from crying is really not attractive!

I headed off the Newquay the next day with my best girls Bronnie & Charms.  We spent 2 days doing what we do best.  Drinking, eating, talking and enjoying the good things in life.  Sun, sea, surf and Pimms!  The very gratefully received bottle above was obliterated in 36 hours!  We swam in the pool and enjoyed G & T’s and cream tea.  By chance it was the Newquay night surf on fistral beach which was stumbling distance from our beach cottage.  The sea was floodlit, a rock band was playing and the surfing competition went on until 11 and then was followed by fireworks.  I had a funny feeling in the pit of my tummy on both evenings and couldn’t place it.  I felt unsettled and close to tears on both evenings.  I spoke to the girls about it and they think I was a little homesick.  Obviously I haven’t left yet but everything that I have known for so many years either has changed or is in the process of changing.   Bronnie has felt like it when she has moved away from home previously and she reassured me that is completely normal.  I felt better when Andy arrived with the children on Monday and the manic pace of life with 2 littlies helped to subside the feelings.  I hadn’t been away from the children for so long and had so much time on my hands before and I don’t think that helped as I had too much idle time!  Lovely as it was I’m just not used to it!

So much more to say, but for now, enough.

x

Funnies

A couple of short funny moments from life at the moment.

Mum has a very large cat.  Chloe.  She moves not a lot and on the other hand eats....a lot.  She is more like a small dog than a cat!

Daddy:  "Finn, what does Chloe say?".

Finn:  "Miaow"...short moment of contemplation "Feed me, I'm hungry"! 

Queue parents rolling on the floor laughing.

Andy is all about the exams at the moment.  Work, work, work.  If he isn't required to be doing anything else then he has a laptop on his, err, lap and a book in his hand, revising.

Finn exits the room with his toy laptop in hand.

Daddy: "Finn, where are you going?"

Finn: "I'm going to the sitting room to do some revising"

So good we had to write them down.  Wanted them in the blog so when I make a book out of it we can look back and remember.  And laugh.

Sooooo busy!

There are so many lovely things happening in our life at the moment and sometimes I have trouble just keeping up!

Finn's birthday trip to London was a huge success, especially compared to last time...  We had a great trip on the train from Somerset to London but at 2 hours 40 minutes it was around 40 minutes too long.   We spent the last section humouring, placating, reprimanding and diverting our two dearly loved ones.  In the nanosecond we had to discuss during the disaster aversion tactics we worried each other by wondering aloud how 14 hours to Singapore in August will be....hmmmm.  I wonder.

We went to The Diner in Soho for Finn's birthday lunch which was really nice and for a little while I felt like a cosmopolitan Mummy around town rather than a practical and slightly obsessive aspiring domestic goddess.  It made me wonder if we could live in the inner suburbs of Sydney in a smaller place but much more in the cut and thrust of things and enjoying the trappings of a city life.

One of my favourite places in London and in fact the UK was on the itinerary for the Sunday and in fact numerous other families - The Natural History Museum.  I am pretty keen for Finn to have an interest in dinosaurs so I am nurturing and igniting this for him by providing plenty of books and toys around the subject which we purchased from the shop.  If he is going to be 'into' something I fancy this may be a good subject to be passionate about.  I got Isla a Tyrannosaurus model also but at this time she is not quite as interested.  We bought a big reference book for Finn and he really enjoys looking at all of the dinosaurs and keeps asking me to pronounce the names for him - there is a bit of guess work from me here!  I have taught him about extinction (which he has a grasp of now) and tonight we moved on to herbivores and carnivores.  Sometimes I think I underestimate the capability he has to grasp things like this as I feel he is still so young, but grasp it he does!

Took a spin around Harrods before tea in Leicester Square and then a lovely walk down past 10 Downing Street and around Westminster.  Lovely evening and Finn fed the squirrels in the park monkey nuts donated to him by a very kind lady.

The next day we hit the London Eye again and had a much better time than on the last visit (see 1st link!) which, to be fair, wouldn't be hard!

We also caught the train home, which was on the Monday evening, so we now had two toddlers who were pretty tired from a busy weekend of walking, early starts and late nights.  We started in Paddington with a relatively empty train, only around 5 other groups of people in our carriage.  Within around 45 minutes we had the carriage to ourselves!  Can't say I blame them all really - Finn & Isla were pretty noisy and quite a bit tetchy...  Andy and I joked that if we could have been in another carriage we would have been!

Great weekend had by all.

Today we have been to the Royal Bath & West Show (which I love) with Andy's Mum.  I have been going for as long as I can remember.  I bumped into 3 sets of people who I know through work, which was really bizarre as it is a pretty big event with a lot of people.  We took a picnic and looked at all the animals, stalls and displays.  Another lovely day in the sun - it must of been around 25 degrees today which was lovely.  The children were really good and Finn walked the whole day without being crabby, they were both great company.  This will be last show I go to for quite a while.

10 weeks on Wednesday until we fly.