Getting into the swing of things...

Well, we may be on the other side of the world (to those of you who are reading in the UK), but it doesn't take long to create a routine that looks suspiciously like the one you always had before. There is something both comforting and disappointing about this. Life, in all it's mundanity, goes on - regardless of whether you have recently emigrated. So Monday means Gravity Youth for George and Anna, and a dash in the car from Dee Why to Narrabeen in time for the 4pm start time. Wednesday is a late pick up for after school Indonesian, Thursday a dash to swimming and Saturday our regular date at Samurai Park Riding School. We are about to add both basketball and cricket into the mix.

Maria and I have decided that we mustn't let ourselves slip into only school runs and pick ups and then lingering about at home doing bits and bobs and drinking cups of tea. In order to guard against this, I'm going to the gym everyday in the week - so far this week I've done boxing and pilates. Tomorrow is weights, Thursday will be Bodyjam and Friday weights again. I'm in my skinniest jeans (and have the full range of movement - even sitting down. C'mon ladies - you know it doesn't count it you can only stand up in them). And we are going to go and explore something new each week. Today I plan to join the library in Mona Vale (which is open on a Saturday and a Sunday and has this big post box outside where you can return books out of hours - imagine that in Lymington!), and next week we are going to 'do' Avalon, which apparently has great shops and restaurants.

I've met a couple of new people too - both called Jo and both English. The first Jo is a GP who lived in Lyndhurst until 3 years ago, so lots to talk about there (don't get me started....) and the other Jo is from Essex and has been here for 2 years. I was drawn to the second Jo in the school playground by her gorgeous 8 week old baby. I could almost have felt a bit clucky.

A bit of excitement this morning - our boat had disappeared. Eventually we caught sight of it beached on one of the islands in the lagoon. Not sure whether it drifted there or was nicked, but one of our neighbours (who was inexplicably launching his boat in his PJs...) took Andrew over to it to collect it. They've recently moved in, and his wife is from Hitchin. Is anyone here actually Australian???

Sigh....

Still nothing from George Clooney. V disappointing.

More adventures on the high sea...

The tide is still very low on the lagoon, exposing even more of the sandbank opposite the house. The children have been fascinated by this and after school, as it was such a beautiful sunny day, I agreed to take Anna and her little friend Georgie from across the road over in the boat to have a closer look.

As you can see from this photo, they rather enjoyed it. And so did I until I realised I couldn't get the motor started up again, and I didn't have a my phone with me and my husband is in Abu Dhabi. Fabulous. The girls were irritatingly unperturbed. Eventually a nice young man (who turned out to be one of our neighbours, age 13, called Simon and goes to the same school as George and Anna) came by in his kayak. He offered to help, attached the tinnie to his vessel with a rope and towed us to shore. Slightly embarrassing I admit, but all good fun. And the children have someone to talk to on the bus!

I spent most of the day helping out at the school canteen. In common with most Australian schools, the meals service is largely run by volunteers. It's open at morning recess (that's first play to you and me) and at lunch time, and sells an amazing array of freshly prepared HEALTHY food. At recess the children can get snacks ranging from tubs of rice, fresh fruit, frozen fruit, icecreams, sushi - just loads of stuff. And lunches are two hot choices a day (today a thai style hot noodle dish or a chicken strip roll with sweet chilli and sour cream) plus lots of wraps, paninis, sandwiches, salads and toasties. I enjoyed being involved and meeting a few other people (largely English!) and couldn't help making comparisons with the woeful state of school lunches at home.

The end of lunch duties gave just enough time for a girly chat in my garden with Maria, lapping up some sun, and putting the world to rights like only us women know how.....lovely.....

On the buses...

You will all be relieved to hear that we did successfully manage to drag ourselves out of bed this morning and make it to school on time - in fact I was back home again just after 8.30am. Today was also the day that the children used the bus for the first time - for the journey home.

I think on the whole it was fairly successful - if you ignore the panic attack I had waiting at the bus stop to meet them. The bus was soooooo much later than I had anticipated and the children had been told to text me to let me know they were on it and all was well. But they didn't. So I phoned and they didn't answer. And I waited. And waited. And waited. School buses came and went - including one that had St Lukes children on. No sign of them. Then I asked the driver of another bus when the 789 was coming, and he told me it didn't stop at our stop. And then, just when I thought I could stand it no longer and would have to start my emergency plan (whatever that was), the bus turned up. The children were nonchalant. Just wait till they are parents....

As you will have noticed, I took a few pictures of the local pelicans this morning on the sandbar opposite our house. They were quite a long way off, so it is difficult to give you a sense of the size of them, but they are enormous. When in flight they resemble a light aircraft, flying disconcertingly low over your house. They look like they have no business being in the air.

Much to my disappointment I didn't manage to meet up with Andrew for lunch. His flight was severely delayed and eventually he was put on a plane to go direct from Brisbane to Dubai, which was what he had wanted to do in the first place. This meant that I had a quiet day at home making the house all gleamy clean and lovely. It looks great and I have made a pact with myself not to go all psycho when the children mess it up. Watch this space.

And just to amuse myself, I have added George Clooney to my Skype list. I feel sure he is going to accept me onto his list and we will become great friends, before he realises that I am all he wants and that the reason he has never got hitched is that he has been waiting for a slightly flabby, housewife and mother to come along. What would he want with young starlets and models when he could have my scintillating stories of laundry, school runs and floor washing? I do wonder how many thousands of saddos add him to their list everyday. Of course, I am not one of those saddos.....no, really...I'm not....

Happy Birthday Andrew!

Andrew was 42. I like this time of year because he is briefly 4 whole years older than me. Being still under forty, I allow myself to feel particularly smug about this. We celebrated by trying out an Indian in Manly. It's quite difficult getting a good curry here - they seem to think that curry is synonymous with runny. Although they kind of rhyme (there is a word for that sort of rhyme but I can't remember what it is), we English prefer our curries with more meat than sauce I think, and not vice versa. However, it was all fine and the restaurant was clearly very popular. We will continue our search for the perfect Indian restaurant in Sydney and let you know when we have found it.

Actually, the search for such a dining experience will take on a new urgency now we know that Alex is planning to visit us around this time next year...

Of course the other thing we had to do on the 21st July was collect George's copy of the new Harry Potter. George is an avid reader and has been waiting impatiently for it to be published. He's very excited and I suspect will finish it in record time!



So today is the last day of the winter holidays, and we have survived the full three weeks. It seems like aeons ago that I last did the school run. I am desperate to properly clean the house (and have it stay clean and tidy for a couple of hours) and to hear myself think. I suspect that in the last 4 months I have spent more time with my children than I did in the previous 4 years....and on the whole it has been lovely. As it was a nice day today (19 degrees - that's more like it), I took the pair of them to the pitch and putt up the road. It was rather fun. George won, but I made my own day by getting a hole in one, not once but twice and the first one on the first hole! I'm usually utterly crap at that sort of thing.

I'm feeling a little bereft though - as Andrew went away yesterday and will not be back until next Saturday - Brisbane and Abu Dhabi. He will be passing through Sydney briefly tomorrow, so I will go to the airport and meet him for lunch, then he has a 14 hour flight to UAE. I never used to mind him going away when we were in the UK - it was a good opportunity to have full control of the TV remote and not to have to cook so much. But here, I feel very isolated when everywhere he goes is such a bloody long way away and I don't have the same support network. However, I'm sure that over time I will get used to it.

Right - I'm off to bed for an early night. I'm seriously concerned about my ability to get up at school run time after such a long time! I had the kids in bed by 7.30pm and should have gone off myself then......

You cannot be serious...

I forgot to mention yesterday that at supper we had a bit of a chat about everyone's personality. According to the children, Andrew is the funny one and I am the serious one. Hmmmm....I think that may come as a shock to some people....

PS It's Andrew's birthday tomorrow - don't forget to leave him a message!

Waves...

We went on a bike ride today, around the lagoon on the Pelican Path and down to Narrabeen Beach. It was another bright and breezy day, and the waves were big, but not good for surf. I know this because there were no surfers there - it was one of the very few days that I haven't seen a single board on the water. I believe that the expression for what the waves were doing was 'dumping' and this is not good for surfers.



It's difficult to really capture the majesty of the waves here, but wave watching is a popular pastime, and many times at Dee Why beach I have been able to see very clearly from where the inspiration for that wonderful Guinness advert came. The waves really do look like fabulous white horses.



There are surfers in the water virtually all the time. I don't know what these people do for work, but it seems to me that any day of the week, if the surf is up, they are there. I have heard it said that it's not a good idea to bring your children up on the Northern Beaches for this reason - they are likely to turn into beach bums. Oh well...



And here we have another in my occasional series on local birds! There are lots of these about, and they wait to get the scraps of your picnic. Don't know what they are though!

A Family Outing

We had a day out as a family in the National Park, as Andrew has this week off work. We made our way up the West Head Road stopping along the way at the Basin path to see some Aboriginal engravings in the rock there. We were all very keen to do this, particularly George, but in the event, they were a bit of a disappoinment. This was partially because they were carved into horizontal rather than vertical rock and were therefore quite difficult to see, but I think we were all expecting something a bit different. Not sure what though....it felt a bit like when Andrew and I visited the Picasso museum in Barcelona. We were all set to really like it and feeling good about being so cultured, but when it came down to it we realised that actually we are heathens, as we were rather bored and left after 45 mins. I'm ashamed to say that a similar thing happened at the Louvre, although this was largely because the 19th century art section was closed and that was what we particularly wanted to see, and partially because we got lost in the part of the (absolutely huge) museum which was just bits of Grecian pot. Yeah, I know...we are very low brow. We like America's Next Top Model for goodness sake. However, I digress....



The weather was clear and brisk, and this apparently is what we should expect from a Sydney winter. Clear skies and sun but not necessarily warm. It had been the coldest winter morning for 30 years, so we are still getting some unusual weather, but it was lovely when we were protected from the breeze and in the sunshine. The views from West Head looking across Pittwater back to Palm Beach and up the coast to Umina Beach were wonderful, and we then went down the steep path to the West Head beach, where Anna was brave enough to have a paddle.







We are so looking forward to when the weather warms up - we are still very cold in the house in the mornings and the evenings, and we now realise that this is to an extent to do with this particular house - most of the other houses we go into are not so cold, so this is something we will be careful about when we get our rental property next year. I've also learnt from this house to never have a black granite worktop! All useful stuff...

Fun on the water (not for the faint hearted...)

Well it's been a busy couple of days.

Andrew took George and his friend Jack out for the inaugural trip on the boat. I didn't go as I've had some weird virus type thing that was making me lose my balance (or at least I'm presuming that is what it is, and not a brain tumour or something...). Anyway, after they left I snuggled up on the sofa and must have fallen asleep.

You can imagine my concern when I woke up some hours later to find it pitch dark and with our happy sailors not returned. I went outside and surveyed the darkened lagoon. No sign of them. I tried Andrew's mobile - switched off. Just as I was wondering who you phone when your husband, son and his friend have disappeared in the dark on the lagoon, the boys came in the front door.

It seems that they had run out of petrol in the middle (won't be taking the boat out again without the petrol can methinks). They had had to row to the shore with the one paddle that was in the boat (I had pointed out previously that if there was a problem, just one paddle might not be all that helpful...), then walk around the lagoon to home to get the petrol.

However, they were all in high spirits and appeared to have thoroughly enjoyed their adventure!

On Sunday we had friends Paul and Lydia and their children Jack and Will over. There were several uneventful trips out in the boat and lots of fishing from the back garden. Paul caught a beautiful bream which is shown above (minus head and guts). I cannot tell you the tale of this fish's demise at Paul's hands for fear of reprisals from the Animal Liberation Front, but suffice to say that I did not eat it in protest. The others tell me it was delicious.

And I meant to say - have I told you that we have an orange tree, a lemon tree and a mandarin tree in the garden? I can't tell you how lovely it is to start the day with an orange you picked yourself...

What a wonderful world....

This really is an extraordinary place. Here we are in our home, overlooking a beautiful lagoon and a few minutes from a great beach - and yet we are 40 minutes by bus from the central business district of the most important city in the country, down the road from a cinema, shops, hospitals and everything we need for modern life.

And then - under 30 minutes away - there is this....






We've spent the day up the road in the Ku Ring Gai National Park with Maria, Molly, Luke and Sam, eating lunch by the water, enjoying the spectacular views and soaking up some rays. It's been wonderful.




As you can see from my photo, I'm feeling pretty relaxed these days. In fact, when I went to the gym to have a first session with the personal trainer he asked me to write a list of the 5 biggest causes of stress in my life, and do you know what? I couldn't think of anything! Not many months ago I could have written an essay on the subject, and I wouldn't have known where to start.

Coming here has definitely been a great decision. However, this is not to say that I don't miss countless things about home. I frequently think for a fleeting moment that I have seen someone I know - the other day I thought I saw Gary Watkins (hi Gary!). There is a short flicker of excitement, followed by the realisation that you have made a mistake and then inevitably, disappointment and a stab of homesickness. I miss the certainty of my old life - which is ironic, as it was exactly this certainty and lack of excitement and newness that had given me itchy feet. I miss my family, my friends and most painfully the opportunity to spend precious moments enjoying my nephew Lewis.

But what do I miss the most - the most consistently?

Sitting in the car chatting with Nugs after dropping off the children for school.

Love ya xxx

How's it hanging?

Oops. I seem to have neglected this blog just lately. However, you will all know that school holidays are a bit manic, and I literally have barely had a moment to myself.

So...where were we? I think I left you with our hopes for a day on the water with our tinnie and kayak on Sunday. Naturally, this didn't happen, because it rained. Again. And its been a bit miserable ever since. However, we haven't let that hold us back! Monday we had a day mainly at home, running a few errands and Anna playing with the girls across the road. On Tuesday, Lydia and her boys (Jack and Will) came over, and after we had exhausted the possibilities for playing here (ie when the boys got tired of chasing the girls), we bribed them all with money and promises of time spent in Galaxy World (an arcade) so that us women could have a quick shufty at the shops at the mall.

I was unable to persuade Lydia that she should buy the fabulous red dress I picked out for her, which she looked absolutely gorgeous in, and actually no purchases were made in the end, but we had a good time!

Then, very exciting, I went out for the evening! It was so wonderful to be out without the children and relaxing. I met up with Maria at the gym and we chatted on the bikes, the rower and the stretching machines. We did work up a sweat and were feeling very virtuous until we spoilt it all by going to a bar in Dee Why and sharing a plate of nachos...

Today we've been to an aquatic centre - you know, slides, waves, inflatables. The children had a great time, but Anna has been showing signs of being desperately overtired, and this usually manifests itself in being extremely rude and particularly to me. I think that because she was only discharged from hospital the day before the end of term, she's been pretty much on the go ever since with sleepovers and activities and now she is starting to fall apart. The other issue for her is that with the girls across the road she seems to be in a sort of heightened state of excitement, bordering on hysteria, all the time, which I think is to do with wanting to be accepted. It makes her kind of anxious and unable to tolerate any setbacks. Am I making any sense? Or am I making excuses? Anyway - I decided she needed some quiet time to calm down after swimming, as to be honest, she had been absolutely objectionable all day. I sent her to her room at 4.30pm and by 5pm she was fast asleep on the floor. Vindicated.

Why does parenting have to be so hard?

Answers on a postcard please....

PS Everyone should go out and by a Daily Mirror today - there is an article about my nephew Lewis in there today. And reading it should make us all remember that for most of us, no matter what challenges we face each day with our children, we should thank God they are able to be rude, objectionable and unreasonable.....You can read more about him at www.lewisjeynes.co.uk

Like fish to water

The week of torture by swimming lessons is over. And guess what? George has been promoted. This is excellent news of the highest order. It's no wonder that the Australians seem to churn out so many world record breaking swimmers. Swimming here is hardcore. I've never seen such attention to technique in children's swimming lessons. George and Anna are being taught how to swim front crawl with the most perfect breathing. George fair glides through the water now, and Anna is getting there. I'm starting to think that they might eventually be safe in the water.

At the moment, everyone (except me) is watching Many Sea Eagles play, along with our neighbour John and his 4 daughters. Manly Sea Eagles is the local rugby league club and it's in the top division (or something. I'm a bit vague about it all). Anyway, George really likes it, and John from across the road used to play for them. He also played league in England - for Widnes and for Castleford. The poor man was born in Queensland - how he coped with the cold I really don't know, but when he talks about those years, a certain haunted look comes over him. Anna likes it because there are cheerleaders (imagine that in Castleford!) and lots of opportunities to eat rubbish. I decided not to go because David Beckham doesn't play for them (the only possible reason for watching any sport) and I thought I might go to the gym. Although obviously I haven't gone.

I'm a bit tired you see, as our friends Richard and Sharon and the kids came over for the evening to eat cheese with lots of wine, and then, when we were absolutely stuffed, to get a thai takeaway. We spent most of the evening watching the Princess Diana concert thingy, which was shown in its entirety, and eventually Joel was asleep on the sofa and a fair swap of George for Zoe had been done. Richard and Sharon are off ski-ing tomorrow in New Zealand, but they are bringing over their kayak to keep here before they go.

This means that a day of water sports is on for tomorrow. We've bought the engine for the boat (I tried to buy one yesterday, but the man in the shop started to go on about transams and two stroke versus four stroke and my eyes started to glaze over), and the plan is to go off and explore the lagoon before stopping for a picnic. Luckily, Dad has chosen this weekend to send me an article about the drought causing sharks to be seen much further into the river system than usual. Apparently, sharks have been seen in the lagoon in the past, but a very particular set of tidal conditions would need to be in place for it to happen. A quick search of the internet revealed also that once a pod of dolphins got caught in there. I"m hoping for the dolphins.

Promise to try to remember the camera AND the memory card!

Saving Lives

Today I saved a life. Two actually. Those two ducks who starred on this blog a few day ago, somehow got lost in Woolworth's car park (local supermarket). Course I'm not sure it was the actual same two ducks, but they were white with orange bills and they quacked a lot. And they were quite stupid. So even if they weren't the same ones, they were certainly related.


Anyway, we had just popped into Woolworth's after swimming to pick up some milk and there they were, quacking manically and wandering around the car park. I spent the next 15 minutes trying to herd them back to the lagoon, whilst flapping my arms in panic in front of every 4 wheel drive that threatened to flatten them. Eventually they were on the road, where the three of us made quite a spectacle of ourselves stopping the traffic and risking life and limb. I have to say, ducks are rather difficult to herd. They go in really any direction, including back towards you, and show no fear of great big car wheels. Much to the local drivers amusement, at last they were back in the lagoon and paddling about as ducks ought to. I've no doubt that the moment we had gone they were back at Woolworths. I think someone has told them where we buy the Sunblest.


Thanks for all the comments. Keep 'em coming. My sister mentions that I should internet shop, which reminds me that I have been meaning to mention the quality of the shopping out here for a while. Whilst there are only really 2 supermarket chains - Woolworths and Coles - neither of which can hold a candle to Waitrose or even Tesco, the local economy seems able to support the full range of independent food stores. This means that I have a huge choice of local butchers, greengrocers and bakers, all of which sell goods of fantastic quality. Also, of course, there are great fishmongers. The other thing that is wonderful is the range of take aways, many of which sell healthy food which you don't have to feel bad about serving to your family every now and again. The best example of these are the chicken shops, which sell roast chickens (and lots of other versions of chicken), along with all the trimmings for a roast or a selection of really beautiful salads. At many of the shops the chickens are either organic or corn fed, free range, antibiotic free birds, so you don't have to feel bad about that either.


So if you do visit - you'll know what to expect food wise...

Another perfect day

I'm afraid it was hot today. Proper summer in England hot. And it's winter. Hurrah! I was beginning to think that the stories of summer all year round in Sydney was a myth propagated by the Australian government to attract unsuspecting Europeans to their shores.

Andrew and I slept with the curtains open, so that the first thing we saw when we opened our eyes was a view of the lagoon, still as a mirror, not a ripple in it. Beautiful. It's interesting how much the lagoon changes from day to day. On windy days it is quite choppy and all the windsurfers come out. One day last week we even saw a kite surfer out there. On calm days like today, the surface of the water is only broken by kayaks passing by and the odd tinnie.

After a visit to the physiotherapist, where my rubbish sacroilliac joint was manipulated and I was given pretty excrutiating massage (which actually has made it all feel much better), we came home and went for a bike ride around the lagoon, as far as the concrete cycle track goes. It was lovely. I spied a lovely and unusual (well - to me!) water bird and was so pleased I had remembered to take the camera. Wasn't quite so pleased when I discovered that I had failed to take the memory card - AGAIN. Never mind. Hopefully we shall see the bird again.

The rest of the day was taken up with the children playing with the locals and taking George and Anna for their swimming lesson, which we achieved without too much fuss.

Here's hoping tomorrow is as good....

That's more like it!

Today was a beautiful day. Sorry about that, for those of you still suffering with the rain and the floods, but it was. The sun shone all day, there was not a cloud in the blue sky, and the temperature, according to the internet was 19 degrees.

Now that is what I signed up for.

Temperatures and a sky that could have been an English summer day - but in the middle of winter. An excellent start for the school winter holidays. Which are 3 weeks looooonnnnnggggg........did I mention that before?

We spent most of the day with Sharon, Eben, Zoe and Joel enjoying the wonderful views of Pittwater from The Newport Arms pub - until we had to rush off for the first of George and Anna's daily swimming lessons as part of their intensive swimming course.

Which was cancelled....unsafe levels of chlorine in the water.

George and Anna could not have been more thrilled. Getting them out of the Newport Arms and off to the pool had been accompanied by plenty of moaning and unpleasantness. I'm not sure why they hate swimming lessons so much, when they love being in the water so much. But they do. And when I say -ok, no swimming lessons, no going in the water - they always call my bluff and say they won't go in the water then. Kids. Do they think I like dragging them kicking and screaming to the pool every week, then sitting on a wooden bench in what is just about a sauna for 45 mins, fully clothed? I'm only doing it in the hope that they won't drown. But you try telling them that! Anyway, tomorrow lessons should be back on so we'll have to go through the whole rigmarole again. Oh, happy days...

When we got home, George and Anna played in the garden without arguing for some time. This is a miracle. Even though Anna is sporting a large bruise on her cheek where George nutted her by mistake on the trampoline, they remained friends. Until I mentioned that we needed to go to the supermarket, whereupon all bets were off and everyone hated each other again (I caved in and have just got back from doing the shopping at 9.45pm. Thank god the supermarket is open until midnight). The arrival of two rather cute ducks in the garden made everything alright again though, and they devoured the last of our bread (making putting off the shopping until tomorrow impossible). Apparently the ducks could not fly, so George and Anna had to open the gate for them to get back to the lagoon.

Frankly, I think they were just a little lazy. And a bit full, given that they had just eaten half a loaf of sunblest each....

Gone fishing.....

This is Andrew fishing from the end of our garden about 10 mins ago.

Now that, my friends, is relaxin'.......