One Year On . . .

Year On Blog. . .

The 22nd August was the anniversary of Sheldon and I arriving in Australia. It is now November. We cannot quite believe it has been well over a full year since leaving the shores of Britain. In that year so much has changed for us. . . some great things and some not so great. Once we got the immediacy of living in Tasmania out of our system in the later half of 2006, and decided to settle in Sydney. Things are looking rosy now that we have a plan. . . .

We list the "Top 10" Things that are great in our lives right now - Starting at number 10.

10. We have moved out of the townhouse on the northshore and have rented a bungalow in the southern part of Sydney in a suburb called Marrickville. The house is sweet and has a little garden. We have lovely neighbours and a neighbourhood of people who introduce themselves when you meet them on the street. It is probably about the same distance from town as Hackney is from Central London and we are very close to a rail station that is 4 stops to Central Station.

09: Sheldon is going to be the best hairdresser Sydney has ever had! No ifs or buts. See this article that Sheldon was in for the Sydney Morning Herald Careers section last month!!

08: It is great to be around immediate family - you never know what you really missed when you didn't have it. We have spent a lot of time with my sister, Mike her partner and her your son Artie. They live about an hour from Sydney but we go and visit them often and they come to Sydney quite a bit. We had a great holiday together to Tasmania which was great. My brother had his 40th Birthday bash in August where we caught up with lots of the Moffatt's and Gow's. We attended the Victorian, country wedding of my cousin Sasha to his beautiful Japanese bride in January this year. What a clash of culture there was that day.

07: Although it is bad that Kylie the 4WD has unfortunately been bonded back into the work force - she is lugging road building materials for a real worker - we now have a more reasonable City car Shel has nicknamed Violet - she is white!

06: Sheldon has started to enjoy cooking again . . . what with me working evenings he has no choice. So nice to pop home for a home cooked green chicken curry or a bunch of home baked White Chocolate Chip and Macadamia Nut cookies!! All good as far as I am concerned

05: Balmoral Beach on a Sunday . . . what a corker. Mid Winter. 25C bright sunshine. The harbour, beach and great food and wine. You can't beat it. There are plenty of amazing beaches around Sydney but Balmoral is, I believe, one of the best for water, sand, grassy parkland, coffee, cafes, restaurants and sun. Of course there are many more beaches and places just like this. Many other places that are no where near the beach that have just as much interesting things to do - Dank Street, Rozelle Markets are some of our favorite places.

04: Friends, good food and fabulous wine. . . these two go together well. We have made a lovely group of friends - a mix of old friends of Nicks from way back when combined with some new friends we have met since being here. Wine seems to be always at the centre of hanging out with these friends, sometimes a bottle of bubbly and more often than not for Nick - a bottle of some lovely cold Larger!! Just remember - screw cap bottles of wine are the way of the future!! Buying wine is such fun here in Aus. The stuff on the shelves of the local cost cutter just don't cut it - even the Aussie stuff!

03:Old friends coming to stay! So far we have had several visits from people in the UK. Good ol Jen is always good for a visit to the Sydney shores . . . keep em coming Jen. John from Shanghai had a good long visit en route relocating to China. Good ol Terry H-R made a visit very early on this year - funnily enough just in time for Mardi Gras. It was great to have you with us! Ali Bell making her 4 month Aussie trip coming in a few weeks time. Good one. Keep em coming. We always have a bed available for friends from "The World".

02: Our 50 acres in Tasmania now has a "shed" on it - Sheldon likes to call it the Cottage. The water tank has been attached in our last visit, the furniture installed. Now the hard work comes making it comfortable and with some more amenities. I am planning to build the dunny extension - or as Shel might call it - the Amenities Wing. Composting toilet and shower bucket hung from the roof! It will develop over time. Can't wait. Next trip in January.

Number 1 . . . . .drum roll. . . . .are you ready . . . .you've already guessed it . . .

Farrah Fawcett Moffatt - or FFM to her friends. Well she is just the cutest. Our beautiful 8 month old Toy Poodle. We love her to bits - she would melt anyones heart. We cannot imagine our lives without her now. She is mad sometimes - but what little girl wouldn't be!

Attached are some pics of her!

See the comparison?

Those who said we would miss London . . .

They were right and we were wrong. When Sheldon and I planned to leave London we were certain that there was nothing that we would miss, but friends. It has been almost eight months since we departed the shores of Britain and now I am pretty certain that I miss London . . . a lot! We mostly miss our friends and "family" of course. . . but there are plenty more things that are missing:

1. There is nothing like Zara, Topshop/Topman, Benetton, H&M or even GAP in Australia where you can walk in with 100 quid and walk away with an entire summer holiday wardrobe!! Com'on Ozzie. Get with it!

2. As much as we despise the large corporate owned, farmer bashing supermarket such as Tescos and Sainsburys . . .I miss being able to buy a nice sandwich, or some prepared fruit, or some pre-packaged meals for the oven and the range of tinned beans from cannellini beans to heinz baked beans. Coles and Woolworths don't even come close to providing the experience gained in Hackney Tescos.

3. Corner shops and supermarkets that sell booze. . . .it is bloody impossible to buy booze in this city without having to drive somewhere and get it! Supermarkets are not licensed so you have to stop at two places. Whipping down Aisle 5 in Bow Tesco and throwing in a couple of long necks of San Miguel and a bottle of Vodka on top of your rice crispies and sausages was a real bonus. Or whipping over the local cost cutter and buying a 3 quid bottle of red wine to throw in the tomato and basil sauce being whipped up for your veggie friends who have invited themselves over for supper . . . .I miss that! They call it grog here. Sure, you can drive right into the bottleshop (bottleo) and never even get out of the car when purchasing your slab of Cascade Premium,but the carbon emissions left by Kylie are pretty hefty every time I want a cold tinnie!

4. Speaking of Tescos, I understand from Hackney Council press releases in February this year, that all those chinese people selling illegal DVDs in the carpark have all been arrested! Well. . .. as you can imagine I was very pleased with that . . . but on the other hand . . .shopping there will never be the same again without them. . There is no-one here selling illegal DVDs. Everyone just downloads them! Aussies love a bit of technology!

5. Public Transport - people love to hate the tube and London buses - those bendy buses are crap right! BUT. . . .in comparison . . . .they don't even compare. In Sydney we get some air conditioned trains on hot days but that is about the best it gets. Ask Sheldon - he gets the train everyday!

6. A little moan from sheldon: I also miss the BBC. Australia may have beautiful beaches and weather, but it has nothing on good old British television and radion. The term 'Boob-Tube' must have been invented during a holiday in Oz. Put it this way, Home and Away is one of the bareable program options. I also miss Grazia Magazine, Rain, Muji and Broadway Market.

I love and miss you all, xxsh

Well, we won't moan anymore. There are lots of great things here that I wouldn't even begin to tell you about for fear that you will all jump on a plane to join us! (fingers crossed)

As for us. What has been happening, you all impatiently ask?
Well, work carries on as it does for moi. I start my first shift of nights in a weeks time! Youch. So many of you might see my Google account logged in at some hours that look good to you all!

We've also had a few of our favourite Londoners visit us here...

Sheldon is in his second term at college and loving in. He has now actually got scissors in his hands - so watch out Sydney, Sheldon's got a blow dryer, scissors and the need to give everyone a little of that Sheldon style!! He's even given himself a major new look as you can see.

We are close to getting the first structure on The Highbury. We have plans approved and deposits paid to build a 6x9m shed ready for our returns for sanity breaks. Can't wait to have it up soon.

Love to you all. We Miss you.

The road map of life leads to Sydney

G'Day

We are now quite a few miles along the fork in the road that we confronted in Tasmania. It has been a pretty simple journey thus far but we occasionally hit a few tight curves but generally have been getting on the straight road pretty soon after.

We are now residents in the Artarmon suburb of Sydney, NSW (if you click on the link it will take you to Google map of Sydney where we are located - zoom out to see where we are in relation to Sydney Harbour).

We live in a two bedroom townhouse next to a leafy park surrounded by tall tress with a palm tree in the front and the rear. For those who don't know what a townhouse is - in Australia, a townhouse is a two story dwelling within a complex of around 40 others alike in design. In effect they are like terraces but only a small number actually front the street. Ours is end of terrace set back from the road. There is a primary school close by so in term time the sounds of kids playing in the park and in the grounds is a pleasant distant murmur. It has been summer holidays since we moved in, so we are not really certain as to the full extent of the sounds - we shall soon find out! We have a lovely uncovered terrace that is sunny for most of the day, but shaded by the trees when it is so hot. My sister, Sal her partner mike, bought a worm farm for my birthday so we care for 500 or more hungry worms waiting for our organic waste to munch on thus creating perfect mulch to put into the pots that we intend to decorate the terrace.

We arrived only a week before starting work/study so we have not had much of a chance to even catch up with many friends here. We are still living out of some boxes and just today (three weeks here) got our broadband sorted. So we look forward to chatting with you all soon. I have almost completed a second week at UBS and am settling in quite well. The work and people are similar to the people I worked with in London. I walk 20 minutes to work (about 1.5K) which is great. I think I may get a bike as well and ride when I can.

Sheldon catches the train 30 minutes door to door to study hairdressing at the Carrick Institute which is located in the Centrepoint Tower - the tallest building in Sydney. So Kylie Raylene sits in the garage most of the week much the same way Elkie the blue Volvo sat on Graham Road. Sheldon is enjoying the student life as he texts me from boring lectures on Occupational Health and Safety lessons but he knows it will get better when he gets some scissors in his hand and some hair products close by!!

I am working shifts so do not start work till 2pm and finish at 11pm - this is known as working the EMEA shift - ie London and Europe. I get home to find Sheldon passed out on the sofa or fast asleep in bed. He gets up at 6am to go to college and I manage to mumble a few words on his exit. So we don't see much of each other. I have started to go home for my hour "lunch break" so we can at least get a bit of time together during the week. Soon I will be working the US shift which means starting at 10pm and working till 7am. I guess then we will get to spend some time every evening together. . . Just not in the bedroom!!!

So we now set course on this part of our journey for a few years upon which we will probably come to many more forks in the road where we will have to make hard decisions in planning our future. Tassie is still in the radar. We plan to get a shed built there in the next couple of months so that we can spend holidays down there with our Tassie friends. It will also be a good place to plan what we are going to do in order to finally live there permanently.

There are many miles (or kilometres here in Oz) left in our journey although it seems we have travelled an eon. But I guess that’s what life all about really. . . Comments can be made at this stage!!

Love to you all

N and S

Change of plan . . . and Season's Greetings!

Well we all come to forks in roads every now and then and have to make a decision as to which road to follow. Sheldon and I recently pretty much slammed into the fork, and have found ourselves heading to the Harbour . . . Sydney Harbour. This was not the route we expected to take considering the title of this esteemed blog is "TASMANIA BOUND". We are still Tasmania bound. It may just take a little more time. Let me take a few moments to explain this rapid directional change. . .

Three months ago, we wrote a blog called - "We have a home again". Last month we should have written another one entitled - "Nick is employed again". I started working in IT Support at the Mercury newspaper, based in Hobart. In brief, things didn't work out there the way that I expected. After 4 weeks, I approached a Sydney recruitment firm and within one week, I was offered a position working at another Swiss investment bank in Sydney. Sheldon has made enquiries regarding a well regarded Hairdressing Course in Sydney to add to his fashion styling bow!

SO. . . after discussing the options, we decided that on the whole, a temporary move away from Hobart to Sydney would best suit the needs we have right now.

We have not abandoned our plans for The Highbury. We have merely put them on hold whilst we re-establish ourselves in a place where we are both comfortable. We discovered that living and earning money in our much beloved East Coast is a very different experience than being wage earners in Hobart city; a city too small to be cosmopolitan and too large to be rural. We won't explain the whole experience suffice to say that we now know why some mainlanders are critical of Tasweigens from time to time ;-)

So, we leave Tasmania as our home for a little while and make Sydney the place to get our Australian life started. We intend to return as often as we can to tend to our piece of paradise in Swansea. Sydney will be enjoyable for both of us and an interesting twist in Life's highway.

We are now Sydney Bound in the new year of 2007.

Keep watching for an update on how we get on in Sydney.

Best wishes to you all for the holiday season. We are thinking of you all during the festive season as we spend our first Christmas in Bicheno, Tasmania with some other special "family" friends.

Love N and S

We have a home again. . .

Hi everyone.

Finally after many months since we were in America and then Sydney, Sheldon and I now have a place we can call home. We have set up camp in a place called Carlton which is about 35 minutes from Hobart city centre. Carlton is part of a small community of towns (4 of them) that used to be beach shacks. It was FAAAAR to far away for them to be commutable to town - 35 minutes. Over the last few years it has changed and become fashionable because it is so close to the beach and such fabulous views!

See the google map for it - you should see a cluster of 4 houses - two with red roofs and two green. We are the smaller of the two green roofs. Zoom out and you will get a better idea geographically of where we are situated locally and of course globally!

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Tasmania,+Australia&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=-42.87366,147.641492&spn=0.001604,0.005364&t=k&om=1

We are right by the beach - so if we surfed and if it was warm enough we will be in just the right place! I think I will get into Kyaking soon as we are also right next to the mouth of Carlton River which is absolutely stunning on a sunny afternoon with still waters!

Here is a picture none of you thought you would see. Sheldon on a motor bike! Our friend Kerry rides one and took Shel for a hoon up to Freycinet and LOVED it. Just one of the many new experiences that we are having in our new life here.



We received all our goods from the UK a week or two ago and should receive Sheldon's stuff from the US sometime this week. All went well with the move short of a few broken bits of fabulous china. . . hey, it can be replaced.

So having a home with a PC and broadband, and our stuff and a couple of local friends gives us the basis to start working out all our options with work, study, yurts, plans, details etc etc. A myriad of options are opening up to us day by day.

We think of you all left behind us in the US and UK. Lots and lots.

Kisses

Nick and Shel

Do you trust this man? ?

Slack slack slack.

There will be an update from us in our new home, on our new broadband connection, written while sitting at our old UK furniture (which arrived today!!) . . . . . .

very very very soon!!


Trust us!!

The Stories of UA 859 to Sydney via Hell . . . And Kylie is Christened

It has been a while since the last blog. Apologies.

We have finally made it to Tassie and now with limited web capacity - therefore this blog is for stuff that happened a while back . . . sorry. We have found a place to live an hour north of Hobart and an hour south of our block of land. . . . we shall soon have broadband capacity again.

Sorry for no pics this time - think I may have exceeded my quota!

The Story Continues. . . .

After a week more in NYC and Sheldon spending the majority of time sorting out his storage unit in New Jersey, we (and 1 Cubic Meter of Sheldon's stuff) departed NYC for LAX then onto Sydney on UA 859. For people that not done this journey before - it is not pretty. For one - LAX does not even begin to compare to Singapore or Hong Kong. Also - travelling on an airline that is still in chapter 11 should be carefully thought through. Essential items such as; complimentary eye masks, an alcoholic beverage, something that looks like edible food or even a pleasant smile from a flight attendant are items that are no longer available in a UA flight across the Pacific. Thankfully Shel and I had enough airmiles to purchase an upgrade to Business Class from NY to LAX so we managed to get the eye mask and a sparkling wine without too much trouble! We now have no loyalty points with UA so we can now move onto another preferred supplier! Apologies to JHJ who woks with UA, but he would understand . . . I think!
We are in Sydney now that we are over than journey. It is the end of Winter and the sun is shining and the temperature is around 21 during the day. We head straight with my parents to The Gong - or the city of Wollongong - which is where my sister lives. Actually they live on the Northern Beaches of the Gong in a place called Coledale. It is a small village that sits between the pacific coast beach and an escarpment. It I stunning. My sister and her partner and nephew have a lovely cottage which overlooks the sea. We were very lucky to be able to spend a week with them adjusting to the new time zone and discussing future plans and the past that we have missed over the years.

One of the first tasks whilst in Sydney was to purchase a vehicle. I spent a long time at Sal and Mikes surfing the used car ads all over Sydney. We new what we wanted - and that was a 4WD, dual cab (for all you friends that will come and visit), something with a ute or tray section at the back, and something economical! We achieved all that after the first week. For those greenies out there you must be thinking how is it possible that you could get a 4WD that was "economical". Shel and I were so dead set against Chelsea tractors in big cities. . . . But we have found here a 4WD ute that runs on LPG. It is a cleaner fuel and is much more economical to run than petrol. So we are very pleased with the purchase. It is also very butch! A little different to baby Elkie that we used to run in London. We have christened the ute - Kylie Raylene or Kiki for short!!

We spent a week in Sydney proper the last week of August. Most of the week we spent minding my friend Robert's unit in Bellevue Hill. . . . an apartment with beautiful views over the Eastern Shores of Sydney Harbour. We pretty much spent the week at Roberts enjoying the luxury of not having to share a house with other people - this was the first time since we moved out of 77 at the end of July. Aaah Bliss. We also used this time to visit family and friends around sydney who all seemed very pleased to have us back on the same continent!

LOVE TO YOU ALL FROM BOTH OF US.