I cannot believe it has been three weeks since I last updated the blog. We have been enjoying the last couple of weeks of the school holidays and making the most where we can of our weekends. I will try and upload our latest photos on the left.
The weekend of the 17the Jan, Alex and I went away to Secrets on the Lake in Montville, a lovely tree house hide-away for two nights. It is the first time we have had two nights away on our own since before Sophia was born. We have only snatched a night away on our anniversary each year so it was lovely to wake up somewhere and realise you haven't missed breakfast and you don't have to check out and go home! This break was my Christmas present and it was beautiful.
The tree houses are all built on stilts and have lots of carved wood along the themes of each house. We stayed in Possums and there was even a possum carved into the toilet roll holder!
We were quite high up and possums and birds come and join you on the balcony when you are having your breakfast and bbq.
I read in the visitor’s book of a guest who heard rustling in the kitchen and went to investigate and found a mother and baby possum that had come in the window and was helping themselves to the bread. Another guest wrote of the possums coming in and going straight to the two wrapped chocolates next to the spa bath and finishing them off! We went out the first night and the second was raining so we didn't have any visitors, but we did enjoy sitting in the spa bath, drinking champagne and watching a DVD.
Our friends Mike and Bec came and stayed here at the house with the kids. We ended up coming back here on the Saturday to pick up my phone charger as the battery died. When we walked in, Sophia started to get really upset and said "you are meant to be away for two nights". So we picked up our stuff made a swift exit! They all played games, made pizzas, went for a walk in the rainforest swam and Mike I think enjoyed a bit of the Xbox and PS2! So a huge thank you to them for enabling us to go away and relax.
Last weekend was a bank holiday weekend with Australia Day being on Monday. It rained a lot so it was just like the UK Bank holiday weekends!! Over the week, our friends measured over 30mm on a couple of days and just under or over 20mm on the other days which totalled about 130mm of rain in a week. So the pool was topped up, the water tanks were overflowing and the tree frogs decided to mate, so the noise was incredible! We planned to go away in our 4WD and drive up the beach above Noosa to Rainbow Beach and then stay overnight in a bay where you can feed dolphins in the morning, but with there being so much rain, I didn't want our first 4WD adventure to become a real 'adventure' and end up with us getting stuck in the sand, so we postponed that for another time and went and got a load of DVD's and went down to the coast and did rock pooling when it was dry.
On Australia day we went to Caroline's house for an Aussie Day meal. Caroline lives down the road and has 4 kids from 12-18 and she is lovely. There always seems to be loads of children there, plus various mums, dads, dogs, flowing beer and wine! There must have been about 20 kids there from Sophia's age up so they had enough to play softball on the sports field behind and they all seem to look out for each other which is lovely. We turned up with our contribution for the table as did the other mums and dads and had a lovely evening. It wasn't too late an evening either as all the primary school children started the next day and that included Madeleine and Sophia.
Madeleine is now Maddy and has already made best friends with two other girls and just loves school. She thinks it is the best school ever. Sophia is in Grade 1 and plays with Charlotte, Angelique and Milly. We are doing her birthday invitations this weekend as it's her birthday on the 16th Feb. Her teacher said her reading is really good and quite advanced compared to all but a couple of her classmates. Sophia is also an extremely good swimmer. She is in the pool as much as she can be and is under the water most of the time, diving down for leaves at the deep end (6 foot) and can do three somersaults without coming up for air!
Harvey started school on Thursday looking very smart in his school uniform. He doesn't want me to put the photo I took of him on the blog, which is a pity because he does look good! Along with his core subjects he is doing Indonesian and Travel (1 subject) and metalwork. Although I would have loved him to do Drama and Music the last thing I want is to make him do something he won't enjoy.
Alex is enjoying his work. He is challenging his grey matter designing a very large complex building in a new academy. He is trying to get to grips with the sun shining from the north as after 20 years of designing buildings to be south facing, trying to keep a building warm and not drafty, he is now having to do the opposite, designing buildings to make them the coolest possible. He has made a few mates at work and Fraser, who sits opposite him and his wife Jess came up a few weekends ago which was lovely. They are also fellow Brits, but Jess was born in NZ, so it means they can both work here. They arrived a couple of months before us and live down in Brisbane.
On Thursday once I had packed off Harvey and the girls to school, it suddenly dawned on me that it was the first day I have had on my own since we arrived at the end on November. It was really weird. Harvey left school in England on the 27th November and was off until he started here on 29th January. I used my newly found time to call Sue in England and talk for about 2 hours (thank you Sue for staying up until midnight to chat to me!) and then do the ironing on our worktop (ironing board is in the container) whilst watching Mamma Mia. Yesterday I caught up with Michelle in East Bergholt in the morning and then went over to Nicoles where we sat and chatted and put the world to rights until I had to go and meet the girls from school. The housework and paperwork on hold until next week!
Our container has arrived in Brisbane. It arrived on the 15th I think. It takes 10-14 working days to first unload the ship and then get through the customs process, so we should be getting a call next week to say when it will be delivered.
We are off to Nicole and Ed’s tonight for a drinks party and we will probably just potter round the house today doing odd jobs. Harvey is at the beach with some mates. He just rang to say the lifesavers had advised getting out of the water as quite a few Portuguese Man o Wars (jellyfish) have been washed up and their stings can be quite painful. He stayed up until 3am the other night, on his Xbox (online games console). He can hook up with his school friends from East Bergholt and has a head set microphone so he can talk to them as well. On Sunday he found Sam Brown, his mate from primary school in Ardleigh playing and then met up with Sam Lowe, who moved from Ardleigh to Canada a month before us. So the three of them, thousands of miles and few continents apart, 10 and 14 hours behind us, were all playing the same computer game and chatting. Isn't technology fantastic?!
Harvey is working tonight at the Pizzeria, where I have been working too. He is working with Caroline’s oldest John and they are doing washing up, take pizza orders, cut up pizzas etc. I have done 5 shifts waitressing but as it is a 5pm start and 9.30-10pm finish, on a school night, it means I either have to ask Nicole to sit with the kids or leave them to have tea and play until Alex gets in at 7pm. So I will find something to do during school hours as that suits the family better.
I have just realised it is lunchtime, so I best go and look in the fridge to see what we have before the girls complain they are hungry! I won't leave it so long to write next time so it shouldn't be such an essay!
Saturday, 31 January 2009
Sunday, 11 January 2009
Top Ten Plus Points
Reasons we like it here
1. Petrol is 45p a litre
2. Strangers ask you if you need help
3. Staff in the local supermarket know your name
4. Direct number to Anne in the local branch of our Bank
5. Free parking at the station
6. Weekly commute to Brisbane costs less than 1 days parking and return train from Colchester to London
7. Going for a swim in the pool in the morning to wake up
8. Staff pack your bags at the supermarket
9. It's normal to have a beer fridge
10. Spontaneous BBQ's
There are other things such as low utility bills. We collect and use our rainwater so no water rates, have a wood burner to warm the house in the winter so we only pay for gas for cooking and electricity.
On 'A Current Affair' two nights ago (which is a weekday programme at 6.30pm covering all sorts of public affairs) Mapleton was voted the best 'tree change' place to live in Queensland. People talk about Tree Change and Sea Change which means moving out of the city to live by the coast or countryside. Of course we are delighted to have picked a place which has such a good reputation but it's also a place which some of the locals want to keep as their secret!
I have put some photos of the house on the page and having had the last week sorting out the house, will hopefully manage to do a few more summer fun things with the kids as they still have two weeks holidays left. Australia Zoo is beckoning as are a few more days at the beach and discovering the area a little more.
Alex has a car now, so I have now been relieved of my duties as a taxi driver every morning and evening.
Off to bed now as it's 11pm. We had a spontaneous BBQ last night to christen the new barbie (bought from a charity shop!) and beer fridge (bought from someone moving to Tasmania) which turned into quite a late evening for us all, so bed is calling!
1. Petrol is 45p a litre
2. Strangers ask you if you need help
3. Staff in the local supermarket know your name
4. Direct number to Anne in the local branch of our Bank
5. Free parking at the station
6. Weekly commute to Brisbane costs less than 1 days parking and return train from Colchester to London
7. Going for a swim in the pool in the morning to wake up
8. Staff pack your bags at the supermarket
9. It's normal to have a beer fridge
10. Spontaneous BBQ's
There are other things such as low utility bills. We collect and use our rainwater so no water rates, have a wood burner to warm the house in the winter so we only pay for gas for cooking and electricity.
On 'A Current Affair' two nights ago (which is a weekday programme at 6.30pm covering all sorts of public affairs) Mapleton was voted the best 'tree change' place to live in Queensland. People talk about Tree Change and Sea Change which means moving out of the city to live by the coast or countryside. Of course we are delighted to have picked a place which has such a good reputation but it's also a place which some of the locals want to keep as their secret!
I have put some photos of the house on the page and having had the last week sorting out the house, will hopefully manage to do a few more summer fun things with the kids as they still have two weeks holidays left. Australia Zoo is beckoning as are a few more days at the beach and discovering the area a little more.
Alex has a car now, so I have now been relieved of my duties as a taxi driver every morning and evening.
Off to bed now as it's 11pm. We had a spontaneous BBQ last night to christen the new barbie (bought from a charity shop!) and beer fridge (bought from someone moving to Tasmania) which turned into quite a late evening for us all, so bed is calling!
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
Moving and Grooving
Hi it’s Tuesday and on Saturday we moved to our new home in Mapleton.
We have had a great time staying at the house in Montville which is about 10 minutes from Mapleton. Our highlights here have included a BBQ on the veranda, having possums, wallabies and goanna’s in the garden, bird watching, cooking on a lovely range, a beautiful spacious bedroom and lovely comfy bed and of course the spectacular views.
We bought a Toyota Prado last week. Thanks to Mike for tracking down one within our budget with good mileage and then giving it a good looking over and test driving it for us. We were able to give the car hire back that we have had for over 4 weeks and now we are on the lookout for a smaller car to run Alex to the station and back.
We packed up our stuff on Friday and did the final bits on Saturday morning. We took down our tree and decorations and Sophia was quite sad that “Christmas is over”.
However, sadness was short lived as by 1pm, we were at our new home and Sophia was in the pool! We went for a dip at about 11pm on Saturday and ended up shooing frogs out as we swam about! The house is fabulous and was built just two years ago by and English couple. It is huge by comparison to houses in the UK and has been built in a clearing of a 4 acre rainforest plot. We are surrounded by high trees, including palms and gums, and a heap of wildlife, hence the frogs. We have been woken to birdsong of a completely different sound to the UK, kookaburras, lorikeets and perhaps a spangled drongo or two!
We have borrowed heaps of stuff from Ed and Nicole, including mattresses, cutlery, sofa and chairs and a tv, so we can comfortably live here until our furniture arrives in a few weeks. My back is aching from the last few days of packing, moving, unpacking and shifting furniture about, hopefully it will recover before we have to pack it all up and give it back!!
Our phone line was reconnected today but we have been given a new number. Our internet won’t be connected until later in the week and once it is all hooked up I can apparantly request my old number back. So please don’t panic if you don’t hear from us for a few days and thank you Nicole for letting me update you all from her PC.
I hear it is -5 in the UK at night and you are going through a cold spell. Just let me know if you want to pop over and warm up!!
We have had a great time staying at the house in Montville which is about 10 minutes from Mapleton. Our highlights here have included a BBQ on the veranda, having possums, wallabies and goanna’s in the garden, bird watching, cooking on a lovely range, a beautiful spacious bedroom and lovely comfy bed and of course the spectacular views.
We bought a Toyota Prado last week. Thanks to Mike for tracking down one within our budget with good mileage and then giving it a good looking over and test driving it for us. We were able to give the car hire back that we have had for over 4 weeks and now we are on the lookout for a smaller car to run Alex to the station and back.
We packed up our stuff on Friday and did the final bits on Saturday morning. We took down our tree and decorations and Sophia was quite sad that “Christmas is over”.
However, sadness was short lived as by 1pm, we were at our new home and Sophia was in the pool! We went for a dip at about 11pm on Saturday and ended up shooing frogs out as we swam about! The house is fabulous and was built just two years ago by and English couple. It is huge by comparison to houses in the UK and has been built in a clearing of a 4 acre rainforest plot. We are surrounded by high trees, including palms and gums, and a heap of wildlife, hence the frogs. We have been woken to birdsong of a completely different sound to the UK, kookaburras, lorikeets and perhaps a spangled drongo or two!
We have borrowed heaps of stuff from Ed and Nicole, including mattresses, cutlery, sofa and chairs and a tv, so we can comfortably live here until our furniture arrives in a few weeks. My back is aching from the last few days of packing, moving, unpacking and shifting furniture about, hopefully it will recover before we have to pack it all up and give it back!!
Our phone line was reconnected today but we have been given a new number. Our internet won’t be connected until later in the week and once it is all hooked up I can apparantly request my old number back. So please don’t panic if you don’t hear from us for a few days and thank you Nicole for letting me update you all from her PC.
I hear it is -5 in the UK at night and you are going through a cold spell. Just let me know if you want to pop over and warm up!!
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