Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water....

Australians like to play down danger.

This is no surprise really, given the number of creatures they share their land with which could slay them in one bite or sting. They even have a bird that could kill you, for God's sake.

So, although everyone knows the sharks are out there, it's not stopping anyone from going in the water.

Until now, at least.

Recently we have had 3 attacks in as many weeks, one of them a great white on a beach local to us. There have been more sightings than usual from the spotter planes, and anecdotally, people are reporting far more interruptions to their enjoyment of the sand, sea and surf by the shark alarms.

We are told that improvements to the water quality and the establishment of a number of aquatic marine reserves along the coast are to blame. With the cleaner water come more fish, and with more fish come more predators. It's a feeding frenzy, and if you are looking anything like something tasty for a passing shark to nibble on, you are in trouble.

The people who look most like something worth nibbling on are the surfers. Apparently their boards make them look like seals from below, and there is nothing a shark likes more for supper than a nice, rubbery seal. Most shark attacks are on surfers, who tend to be in the water at dawn and dusk, when they get the best waves. It's also when sharks feed. You'd think then, that surfers would be starting to take the hint....but no. In true Aussie style, when the alarms go off, the swimmers duck out, and the surfers ignore it. And despite the 4 or five beaches surrounding Avalon, where the latest attack took place, were closed for 2 days while the authorities looked for the offending great white - the surfers were still in the water.

And despite the warnings about being in the water at dawn and dusk, it's still the busiest surfing time of day.

For me, it hasn't helped my nervousness about the sea in general. You don't generally get a warning when there is a shark about, unless you are lucky enough to be in the water when the spotter plane goes over. And don't be thinking that you'll see the fin like in Jaws. You NEVER see the fin. Sharks attack from below, and the first you'll know about it is when you feel the bite. Interestingly, once they've taken a few bites and discovered that you are not in fact a seal or any other fish, they will usually discard you - but by then it's too late.

So, should you visit Australia whilst we have these unusual numbers of sharks around, you should remember the following:

Don't do anything that might make you look a bit like a seal. If you look a bit like a seal whenever you put your swimmers on - stay away from the water!

Always swim on a patrolled beach in between the flags. This is where the most swimmers are, and statistics tell us that someone else will look like a seal before you do.

Never get in the water at dawn or dusk, unless you are prepared to be a shark smorgasbord.

Try not to swim with seals. I say this because at the moment there is an advert on TV trying to persuade you to go on holiday to South Australia by showing how you can swim with seals. Are they mad?

This has been a public service broadcast.....

Education, education, education....

Of course, in Australia, the academic year runs alongside the calendar year – which means that the New Year brings lots of new starts and new opportunities.

In our household, then, the New Year brought quite a few changes. Anna moved from the private St Lukes Grammar to Beacon Hill Primary School, which is our local state school. She’s much happier there, so far, and repeating Year 5 seems to be delivering the benefits we had hoped for. Anna is regaining confidence in her academic ability, and making lots of friends who developmentally seem to be much more on her level. Instead of welcoming young women into our house, we are now seeing lots of children once again, and Anna seems less anxious in her friendships.

She has joined lots of extra curricular groups, as it seems that the things on offer at this school are more up her street than the majority of those available to her at St Lukes - a dance group, which will perform at J Rock, a local state school spectacular showcasing performance talents, and one of two choirs, in which she will sing at the Opera House towards the end of the year. This is at a concert of choirs from around NSW public (state) schools, and she is auditioning for one of the solo spots.

It's great to see Anna throwing herself whole heartedly into school life again, and this was never more evident than in her performance at the school swimming carnival the other day. Now Anna loves the water, but she would be the first to admit that she is not the greatest of swimmers, especially by comparison the the Australian kids who start learning in Nazi style swim schools at the age of about 3. But did this stop her from competing in every possible event? Not likely! She kept herself busy all afternoon doing breast stroke, freestyle (what they call front crawl), back stroke and then - the 200 metre medley! This involved doing 50 metres of butterfly, which she taught herself in our pool (less swimming than anti drowning really...), then 50 each of back stroke, breast stroke and freestyle. Only 5 people from the whole school entered, one of whom was virtually a fish, and she came second last, but was she bothered? I don't think so! She was just thrilled to have taken part and couldn't wait to tell her dad about it. What a girl!



Other interesting things are also happening on the education front for George, who is still at St Lukes. His task this year is to get organised and start giving a s**t! I'm told this is a common problem with 12 year old boys, and so far he is responding fairly well to our nagging, managing to get to school most days with what he needs, and producing his first ever 'A' grade piece of work for a project in technology. He has also really pushed himself out of his comfort zone by joining the school debating team, which had its first round of the Independent Schools Debating Association tournament last week. George was first speaker for the negative in a debate on 'the wealthy should be given incentives to donate to charity'. The teams of four are given the debate proposition and then are shut in a room without an adult and with pens, paper and a whiteboard to put together an argument. Given that in George's team none of them actually knew what 'incentives' were, they acquitted themselves quite well! They didn't win, but for a first attempt as a team they did brilliantly. For George, we know this was a real challenge as on the whole he likes to stay in the background, so we were especially proud of him.

And so onto me - who is also enjoying pastures new on the education front. A few weeks ago I started post graduate training in psychotherapy which will, in two years, qualify me to practice. It's all been really interesting and enjoyable so far (particularly in the absence of having to hand anything in just yet!) - especially the group therapy element of the training. We have to sort out our own shit before we try to sort out anyone elses, so this part of the training is very much compulsory. The first session was pretty nerve wracking....I think I am going to find out or face up to uncomfortable things about myself....life's a journey eh?

As part of that journey, and also because if I spend any more time doing housework or drinking coffee I will seriously go mental, I've started volunteering one day a week at a special school - Arranounbai School for Specific Needs. This wonderful school provides for pre schoolers to Year 12 who are physically and/or intellectually disabled, and for children with complex medical needs, and I am working alternatively with a preschool class and a senior class. The 5 children in the pre school class all require one to one help in the classroom, but are cute as buttons and enormous fun. The senior class has a group of 7 children with differing physical and intellectual needs, and yesterday I enjoyed helping Georgia with her Year 7 work. On my first day, the headmaster, Garry, took a picture of me with the gorgeous Zoe, which you can enjoy here....



Everyday in that school, I am reminded of how very lucky I am....

A visit from the parentals

You will recall that the last time I updated the blog, I was complaining about how unbearably hot it was.

Then Mum and Dad arrived.

And it rained and rained and rained and rained. The temperature dropped by over 10 degrees, and we were subjected to some of the heaviest rainfall the region had seen for 35 years.

This has not helped my gut feeling that the end of the world is nigh....

My friends are beginning to get fed up about visits from my parents, as this is the third visit that has been marred by the weather.

'Not your parents again! Don't let them come! They make it rain!'

I'm not sure it's fair to blame global warming on mum and dad, but there might be something in it.

Despite all this, we tried to make the most of the family time holed up in the house that this afforded us, whilst also overcoming the urge to kill one another. We played some good board games, ventured out to eat, and went on lovely walks whenever there was a break in the cloud cover. Dad came and watched George play a blinder at basketball (36 - 6), and we all enjoyed the DVD of Anna's dance concert. Over and over again.

And now I have delivered them to the cruise ship Arcadia at Circular Quay, on which they will sail up the coast to Japan and Hong Kong, arriving home in 3 weeks.

I feel sad.

On the whole I feel pretty stressed when they are here. It's difficult having anyone stay in your house for long periods of time. And this visit comes pretty much straight after Andrew's parental visit. So we've had nearly 7 weeks of non stop visiting. And no matter how much you love them, it's quite stressful. It's not really the entertaining that is difficult, as everyone is very helpful - it's the inability to keep to your normal routine. I like my routine.

Then they leave, and you feel sad, and bad. You know you probably won't see them again for a year, maybe two. And you feel bad that you let yourself be irritated by them when they were here. You are plagued by fears about what might happen in the interim. They are not as young as they were. What if they get ill, or worse? And I argued with them about the washing and getting the meat out the freezer! How trivial all that will seem if this turned out to be the last time I saw them, God forbid.

The thing is, that wherever you live, however far away you are, your relationship with your parents is what it is. Just because you miss them, and love them, doesn't mean you no longer find the things that always annoyed you about them annoying. And vice versa. Absence does make the heart grow fonder, but, it seems, mainly while the absentees are actually absent....

Suffice to say. I love you mum and dad x

Four seasons in one day...

It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes....

We need to talk about heat. Not the magazine....Because it is very hot. Like train track buckling and melting hot. I kid you not. I cannot walk on my deck without shoes on. My swimming pool is constantly calling out to me (and anyone who knows me well will tell you that I am not a person given to getting in swimming pools, unless I have drunk a great deal of alcohol and inappropriately removed all my clothing). I have been doing my housework in only my pants...

I know you are all seeing on the news about the heatwave in Australia and the deaths in the bush fires north of Melbourne. Thus far there have not been any serious fires in Sydney. Which is fairly unusual. The fact that our house backs onto National Park bushland where there have been fires before does not exactly inspire confidence, but you really have to accept it as a part of life in Australia.

By contrast there has been terrible flooding in some parts of Queensland, where a state of emergency has been declared and many people have lost their homes. And in Europe they are experiencing the coldest and snowiest winter for many years.

Don't you sometimes feel like we are watching the apocalypse?

Most of you will know that I am not exactly religious, but if I was, I would be thinking the end of the world was nigh. I might even have to get a sandwich board with that written on it and parade up and down the northern beaches. And I would, you know....if it wasn't so bloody hot.

On a slightly different tack (but still on the general theme of the end of the world is nigh, so allowable I feel), sometimes when I am watching daytime tv (I know...I can only blame myself) I do feel like maybe Sodom and Gommorah is alive and well in some states of America. Do they show the Maury Povich show on UK tv?? This is a show that is entirely about helping people prove who is the father of their child through DNA testing. Some of these women come onto the show up to 14 times testing various dreadful young men, who they swear they are 100% sure is the father of their child, only to hear - again - that he is NOT the father. Are they really saying they slept with 14 people that month? And if you had - would you want to go on the tv and tell the world about it??

Anyway - I digress. It's probably not fair to blame global warming on the loose morals of an American subclass who just want to get on tv.

We are told that the weather in our part of NSW is about to cool down by up to about 10 degrees and that we will be getting rain next week. This will bring the fear of bushfire down a few notches, but will make getting the washing done problematic.

Life is never perfect, is it?

Random Conversation

I am standing outside the kiosk on Shelley Beach with the children and the dog. A man with two youngsters approaches the dog and gives him a pat.

'What a beautiful dog. What's his name?'

'Bronson.'

A pause...

'Is that after Pierce then?'

'Erm no - Bronson. After Charles Bronson.'

We both pat the dog.

'What breed is he then?' says the man.

'He's a Bernese Mountain Dog.'

A pause....

'Is he from Burma then?'

'...No. Berne. In Switzerland.'

I smile. I don't want him to feel silly.

The children watch with interest while we both continue to pat the dog. I'm starting to wish he would go away.

'So,' he says. 'What does he do for mating?'

'I'm sorry?'

'I mean - you know. What does he do - you know - when he mates?'

Is it me.....?!

Christmas and New Year 2008

In contrast to last year, we awoke on Christmas morning to the sort of weather we Poms have always believed to be the norm for the day - blue skies, big sun, high temperatures. Sydneysiders will tell you that that good weather on Christmas Day is, in reality, as elusive as white Christmases in the UK, but for 2008, the weather outdid itself.



We were joined for the day by, of course, Grace and Bob, who were visiting for 3 weeks or so (they left for Perth and Singapore yesterday), plus Nicky and Graham and their brood. We ate a HUGE bbq outside, played a few games, splashed about in the pool and ended the afternoon drinking champagne in the outdoor spa. It was perfect. The children had a great time - especially when competing with the men at basketball!

On Boxing Day, our tradition (such that it is!) is to take the leftovers to the beach for a picnic, and this year Dee Why was chosen. I think there were more people on the beach that day than I have seen on the beach ever before in Australia, but the atmosphere was extremely convivial, the sea clear and the waves perfect. To be honest, both Anna and I were a bit under the weather with some sort of flu-type bug, but it's not too much hard work just to sit on the beach whilst boosting yourself up with paracetamol!

It was lovely, and I think we are getting closer to having established a pattern for this time of year which will hopefully start to feel as familiar and important as the one we had for the previous 38 years....however, I think in a few year's time we will have to come back to the UK for a proper one....



New Year's Eve was a busier affair. During our last few years in the UK, we had rarely done anything to see the New Year in, sometimes even retiring to bed before midnight. However, when you live in the NYE party capital of the world, what you do that evening is a big deal and a big talking point for weeks in advance. We had decided to do the real thing - to go into the city and watch the fireworks from as close to the action as we could reasonably get (taking into account we had the children with us!). Friends Jason and Julie found a Bavarian Bier Keller in The Rocks (right by the harbour) which could accommodate families and had a bit of entertainment to help keep the children going till midnight and a great time was had by everyone - despite all the predictions of doom and gloom about how difficult it would be to get in and out of the city, and what a nightmare it would all be.



In the event, we successfully parked the car in the Wharf carpark (ooo - you'll never get parked for the ferry....), walked on the first ferry (ooo - you'll have to wait ages till you can get on a ferry...) and successfully found our restaurant, enjoying some of the entertainment on Circular Quay on the way. There were - literally - MILLIONS of people in the city, but the police were out in force, it was very well organised, and the atmosphere was very friendly but definitely inebriated. After our meal and a bit of yodelling and traditional bavarian dancing (think lederhosen and a lot of thigh slapping), we left and successfully found a vantage point away from the main crowds by the water, where we felt the children wouldn't be trampled underfoot, and where we could see the Harbour Bridge very clearly, and watched the best firework display in the world. Definitely an experience not to be forgotten!



Getting home was supposed to also be the stuff of nightmares, but we made our way through the throng, and got on the first ferry we saw for Manly (ooo - you'll wait hours for a ferry home...), picked up our car and went on our way. A great night and no worries, mate...

Another Antipodean Christmas

So here we are, getting ready for our second Christmas in Australia. Can you believe that? In some ways it doesn't feel more than five minutes since we came out here, and in others it's as if we have been here for ever. Certainly life has settled down to normality and generally we no longer feel like we are on holiday all the time.

Having said that though, the last couple of weeks have definitely had something of the vacation feeling to them. The weather has been wonderful, and we've spent a fair amount of time either chilling at the beach or relaxing round our rather luxurious pool. That heavy, warm and tired feeling at the end of a day spent in the sun is definitely something which we all still associate with being on holiday.

The strange bit, of course, is that all this is going is going on when we are also preparing for Christmas. Which feels very odd. Most English people out here struggle to feel very festive, despite enjoying the good weather. Christmas here does not seem to be such a big deal either, and I have theory about that. I think that Christmas is such a massive event in the UK because it is a beacon of hope and fun in the middle of months of dark and dreariness. Imagine the British winter without Christmas! Whereas here, it would be still be sunny and the biggest holiday season of the year.

I decided this year that the way forward was to try to make some australian christmas traditions, rather than trying to emulate the jolly season back at home. I started this by revamping my entire collection of tree decorations, moving away from the traditional red, green and gold, and setting a sort of carnival tone. As you can see from the photo, it works rather well with the sunshine. At the same time, we are having seafood and salads again for the main meal, along with bbq steaks and frankly more food than anyone could possibly eat in one meal. We will be joined by Andrew's parents, Grace and Bob, who are staying with us at the moment, plus friends Nicky and Graham with their 4 children - Joe, Jack, Luke and Chloe. Joe and Jack live in the UK and are over for a visit at the moment.

I think that the thing that I liked best about Christmas in the UK was the stillness, the solemnity and the way the season connected us to ancient times. I loved the dark and the lights and the carols. Here, all that is completely lost. Even at the Christmas service at the children's ( anglican ) school, all the carols were jazzed up. I know it's supposed to be a joyous occasion, but to be honest I find the old style carols a lot more uplifting than jigging along to a barely recognisable version of 'Away in a Manger'.

All that apart, the children are of course still very excited and in fact, Anna is already tucked up in bed waiting for the morning. George will be joining her very shortly, and then Andrew and I will wrap the very last presents and then retire ourselves. So all that remains is to wish you a very wonderful Christmas and a happy and healthy 2009. And I am told that a printed version of this blog is sent up to a Manchester collective of the Chaneys and Penningtons and then circulated. As they are not able to comment, and so never get a special message, this one's for you - a shout out to the Manchester people from The Pettifers Down Under - Merry Christmas!