G'Day!

Welcome to our blog! It's our way both of keeping a record of getting to know our new home, and also of keeping everyone at home in touch with what we are doing.

Love Wendy, Andrew, George and Anna xxx

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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Home....

This time tomorrow, we will be well on our way back to the UK. Assuming that the present strike action by Qantas engineers does not delay us....

The children and I will be in the country until the 22nd July. Andrew is leaving on the 15th for Paris and then Hong Kong. How glamorous he is these days. I will make do with Sway and the odd trip into Lymington.

If we don't make it to see you, please don't be offended. I've got an itinerary printed up and we are pretty much run off our feet visiting for the duration of the trip. It's really hard getting the balance right, and I've a feeling that I am going to be plagued with guilt about people I didn't visit. We love you all! It's just that there is a limit to what can be achieved even in the time we are over!

We are all starting to be excited, but it's hard when the flight is looming over us. Well - it looms over me and the children, but not Andrew. I'm trying to see it as an opportunity to catch up on some sleep, but it's difficult to sleep when my concentration is required to help keep the aircraft in the sky. Of course, it isn't helped that the children are nervous too - I have to pretend that I have absolutely no problem with it, in order to reassure them. I think it's possible they've seen through it.

So what are we looking forward to? I've done a list!

- taking Charlie for a walk
- going to Waitrose
- buying clothes in TK Maxx
- having some really good sausages
- walking along the cliff top at Milford and the lanes at Keyhaven
- seeing Lewis!
- going to Emily's birthday party
- buying books at a reasonable price
- having a decent curry
- getting to inspect our house with the tenant

Obviously we are looking forward to seeing family and friends, but you already know that!

So - we'll see you all at the end of the week!

Monday, June 16, 2008

Words



I've been having a think about how the use of English differs in Australia. Winston Churchill once commented that England and America were 'two nations divided by a common language' and it's not much different here. First there are the nouns - those I can think of are listed here

red and green peppers - capsicum
courgettes - zuchinni
aubergine - egg plant
crisps - chips
clingfilm - gladwrap
ill - crook
chicken - chook
playtime - recess
trainers - runners
flipflops - thongs
trousers - pants
polo neck jumper - skivvy
sun proof tops - rashies
vest - chesty
duvet - doona
off licence - bottle shop
red head - bluey
spring onion - shallot (I need to check and see what they call shallots...)
Sky TV - Foxtel (exactly the same product with all the same equipment)

Then there are the different uses of other words. Australians like to start a sentence with 'look'. They also like to say 'how are you?, as a sort of multi purpose greeting.
Everyone is familiar with the Australian tendency to end every sentence on a high pitched questioning note, regardless of whether their comment is a question or not. I've read that as a result of Australian tv, young people in the UK are starting to develop the habit.

It will be interesting to see whether people back home perceive that our accents, or the way in which we construct our sentences has changed at all. Anna certainly does have an accent, but I wouldn't say the rest of us do. Of course, you can't avoid using their words - there is little point turning up at the greengrocers and asking for an aubergine as they will look at you as if you were talking a foreign language. Which you would be. There are other problems with pronunciation as well. Asking for a croissant at the bakers is a bit excruciating. The word has been made Australian to the extent that if you say it correctly, they have no idea what you are asking for. It feels very contrived to put on an Aussie accent and say 'quasont' through your nose, just so you can have one, but if you don't you will leave the shop empty handed. Don't even get me started on 'pain au chocolat'...

Having most of my life been a southerner living in the north, then a northerner living in the south, I am aware that when you change areas, even in the UK, you end up having an accent which is acceptable to no one. As I child at school in Doncaster, I was constantly accused of having a posh southern accent, but when we visited relatives in the south, they would comment on how northern we now sounded living 'Up North'. I'm sure a similar thing will happen now.

The scary thing is....what sort of an accent will a southerner/northerner/Australian end up with??

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Sex and the City


Nicky, Maria and I with Sharon at the back

It's been a while eh?

As always though, we've been having fun, including a girl's day out in the city where we had champagne high tea at the Queen Victoria Buildings in honour of Sharon's birthday. We've also been out for cocktails in Manly, had people over for Sunday lunch 2 weekends in a row, and participated in the St Lukes Grammar Trivia Night (where I appalled everyone on our team by knowing not only how old Paris Hilton is but also the name of George Clooney's current girlfriend, who is inexplicably not me). There were prizes for the best themed table so we went as Sex in the City. The photos record us looking as New York New York as it is possible to be on the Northern Beaches! I was disappointed not to be wearing Manolo Blahniks, but I did wear my most outrageous shoes, which have only ever had one other outing - to Kate Palmers 70s themed 40th birthday party, which should give you some idea of what they are like!




The Sex and the City men - Richard, Kenton, Andrew, Graham and Ian. We weren't sure which one of them was Mr Big..


Speaking of which, today was George's birthday party - tomorrow he will be twelve. We've taken four of his friends to the cinema to see Prince Caspian, and then fed them Domino's pizza and birthday cake. Jack and Andrew are staying overnight. Interestingly, in a quieter moment, one of the boys pointed out that each of them had a different racial heritage - Jack has an English (although Ozzie now) mother and Slovenian paternal grandparents, Andrew had an Australian father and a Brazilian mother, Borja is Spanish and Lewis's parents are Scottish. This is a common feature of society here and it certainly goes a long way to making sure that you never feel that you are alone in your experience of changing countries. Amongst Anna's friends there are Korean's, Thai, French, Dutch, American....of course all of the children speak fluent English with Aussie accents, including Anna. Mum and Dad had a bit of trouble understanding what she was saying when they were here!



Borja, George, Jack, Andrew and Lewis at the back

I don't think I've mentioned on here that George has been signed up by a talent agency. It's not really my style to be involved in such a thing, but he is enjoying drama immensely, and the agency saw him when he visited their offices with another friend, and they asked me to get in touch. It seems that red headed young men are somewhat in demand for commercials, catalogues and even films, and they liked George's 'look'. We rather like George's look too, and especially when we saw the pictures they took for his webpage - one of which is here. Judge for yourself, but if you ask me, that is a very beautiful child indeed. And I am not at all biased.





Andrew and I are now waiting for all the money to start rolling in, so that we can retire...

So...it's now only 18 days until we fly back to the UK for a month. To be quite honest, I feel a little apprehensive about it. It's difficult to articulate what it is that concerns me about it (apart from being trapped for 24 hours, close to dying of boredom, in a metal tube thousands of metres above the ground...), but I think it will be a very important trip in terms of clarifying where exactly 'home' is these days. Having moved about a lot in my nearly 40 years, I have a slightly different concept of where home is to other people really. In the UK, I still referred to where my parents live as 'home' despite the fact that I never actually really lived in that house and have now been making a home with Andrew for 18 years. I've tried to avoid constantly calling the UK 'home' as I think it psychologically prevents you from making your home here - which you must do if you are going to emigrate successfully. I'm aware that lots of things will have changed when we go back - some of it will just be geographically disorientating - new shops, junctions, places gone for ever and new stuff in its place. But also relationships will have moved on - friends we had will have shared experiences about which we have no knowledge and other people will have migrated into our groups to replace us. I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone, but I'm also afraid of feeling like an outsider.

Of course, the children do not share these concerns at all. They are just looking forward to spending time with their grandparents and with their friends. Life is so much simpler when you are a child, isn't it?

But then again....someone did once buy me that book called 'Women Who Think Too Much'...