Hot nights, cats and bikes

It’s been a while since I posted any Blog updates but I’ll use the excuse that work has been pretty hectic recently.

Life in Australia is still great although we’ve had a couple of sleepless nights due to some very warm weather we’ve been experiencing recently.

During the daytime the weather has been in the 100’s which is no big deal (well, actually it is but it’s kinda nice), but during the night the temperature hasn’t been slipping down to much lower then 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

Normally this would be almost manageable but in addition to the high evening heat, the humidity has also been pretty high which has resulted in a few sticky nights.

The new house we moved into in Kinross has air conditioning in the main living area only (Kitchen, lounge, Dining-room) but nothing in the bedrooms.

We thought about this when we went for the house but decided the house itself offered us more in other areas. We also remembered that when we spent a month in Perth during our Rekkie last February. The house we stayed in in Sorrento, only had a ceiling fan to help dissipate the heat and we managed pretty well.

This was the warmest night we’d experienced whilst staying in Australia and although a couple of fans in each room helped a little it has taught us that when we rent or buy our next house we’ll need to make sure that air con in all rooms is a prerequisite

Cat News….well well well..exciting news on the cat front. Both boys have been released into the ‘wild’.

A good thing about the back garden is that 1) It’s not a bad size (think on the lines of a couple of large tennis courts and 2) it has a large 7 foot high corrugated metal fence all of the way around.

We weren’t really sure if this would keep both cats in but after being in the new house for just over a week we decided to let them have a sniff around.

Letting the cats outside for the first time took me back to the days when we let Charlie out in the garden for the first time when he was still effectively a kitten (remembering that Jeff came to us as an adult cat from my sister). It was a pretty momentous occasion as both cats came out through the back door, blinking in the bright sunshine.

The older cat, Jeff was pretty happy just sniffing around. Charlie on the other hand seemed pretty intent on escape, prowling around the perimeter of the fence looking for weak spots.

Now remembering that we had once seen Charlie spring (and I think spring is a good term here) from the floor in our kitchen to the top of our Fridge freezer in one giant leap. It wasn’t a surprise to see Charlie walk down the side of our house one minute and then return about two minutes later taking his first tentative steps across the TOP of the fence.

We saw him disappear amongst the palm trees in the next door neighbours garden but were happy to see him reappear some ten minutes later.

Jeff on the other hand remains in the back garden, his springiness has obviously subsided with age although as an ex house cat he’s obviously happy enough taking it easy, enjoying stretching out on the grass with the sun on his back.

Funnily enough, now both cats understand what the big wide world looks like, they very rarely venture outside. Both cats will pop out for a couple of minutes. Realise how warm it is and then come back inside to lay down on the cool tiles in the Kitchen.

No ‘presents’ have been brought back yet although I did see Charlie trying to grapple with a grasshopper the size of a small family car the other day.. no fatalities yet though.

Travelling to work has become an experience. As its a good 25 minutes walk to the train station and the busses appear to arrive at random intervals I have invested in a bike.

Yes I am turning into a right eco warrior, you’ll be hearing stories of me tying myself to tree’s some day soon. The bike journey to the station takes me just under 10 minutes. They have ‘bike lockers’ at the station where I secure my trusty steed during the day.

All I need to do is buy myself a helmet. I wouldn’t have been seen dead with a cycle helmet in the UK but it seems to be all the rage over here. It’s not a law or anything but pretty much all of the health and safety conscious Aussies wear them…just common sense I suppose.

I am a little concerned that even the extra large cycle helmets appear a little tight on my head so I think it’ll be time to pop up to the local cycle shop this weekend to get a proper fitting!

More news to come

Update: Kirsten kindly pointed out in our comments that it is actually against the law to ride a cycle in Western Australuia without a helmet.

So as well as being an Eco warrior, I’m a law breaking rebel as well… Looks like I’ll definately be getting the helmet this weekend then

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Yorkshire has pigeons Perth has parrots

These little guys still amaze me.

We went for a trip to Lake Joondalup which is about ten minutes drive from our new house in Kinross.

It’s quite a popular hang out for families and due to the size of the lake, and the fact that it’s now so close to our new house has been one of the places I’ve wanted to see for some time.

When we arrived we got out of the car and something caught my attention.

About 100 yards from the car park we could see a carpet of white birds hanging around under the shade of a tree near one of the barbeque areas and as we approached we realised that we were surrounded by parrots. The little dudes were pretty tame too and were happy to hang around whilst we took a seat to watch.

There was obviously something interesting going on as the little guys chatted away to each other in their own little parrot way and even though I’ve mentioned previously that vocally, parrots can be a little on the loud side; at this more reasonable time of day it was pretty interesting to listen and watch how they interact with each other.

Some of the parrots even seemed happy to lie on their backs whilst playing with little twigs or eating the small pine cones that had fallen off the tree.

Before we came to live in Australia, I think its fair to say that I never really fully appreciated the size of the parrot population but now we are here I can honestly tell you that you will find parrots almost everywhere!.

Even in some parts of the Central Business District it’s not uncommon to find the odd Pink and Grey Galah hanging around in the upper branches of a tree.

The little guys in my photos (after a little research) are called Western Corella (please correct me if you’re a little more ornithological then I am) and are one of the more common Parrots that you’ll find in and around the parks and areas of greenery in Western Australia.

The born and bred Aussies don’t even blink an eye when a parrot fly’s overhead. Some parrots like the Rainbow Lorikeet are even classed as Vermin in some parts of Australia due to their extremely healthy appetite for fruit.

Me? I think they’re just great!

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Perth Bushfires result in a smoking weekend

I thought I’d write a quick note to complement the photograph that I took of the city from the other side of the Swan River a couple of weeks back.

The first question that might spring to mind is ‘what city?’ Click the thumbnail for a larger version which opens in a new page, if you look REALLY carefully you might just be able to make out the outline of a couple of the larger skyscrapers.

Not very clear is it? Well, let me welcome you to the world of Australian Bushfires

Bushfires are something that I had read about before moving out to Australia. I also remember the big bushfires experienced in and around Sydney that received quite a bit of airtime on the news back in the UK.

This was the first time that I had experienced the side effect of a bushfire first hand though.

The fog that you see in the sky, blocking the view of the familiar Perth Skyline is actually smoke which had blown into the city from a fire at a place called Mundaring Weir, just east of Perth.

This fire had burned about 150 hectares of bush at the time and the amount of smoke generated by the fire was pretty amazing.

When I first looked at the city from the window of our house in North Perth, I seriously thought that it was just foggy. Then when we went outside we smelt the familiar smell of bonfires.

It was pretty worrying as I had no idea where the smoke was coming from although in hindsight we were pretty safe as Mundaring is some way away and it was simply the wind which had blown the Smoke into the city.

The bush fires in and around Perth did have their victims though. Apparently a women died as she tried to flee a bushfire and 16 houses were also destroyed.

Dangerous stuff eh?

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We have sold our house - no really!

It seems like an absolute age since we put our house on the market with The Halifax (to be known soon after as the Crapifax). In fact, it HAS been an age. Nine months in fact!.

In this time we have had numerous offers made, accepted and rejected.

We’ve had offers from people really short of the asking price and offers from folks who, after having their offer accepted quickly found out that they couldn’t get a mortgage to pay for the house

Then we had the couple we wasted over two months of our life with. We were really confident that this really nice couple was going to come up with the booty. We had the surveys done and all was looking well until we found out a month before we were due to fly out that they couldn’t proceed due to ‘marital issues’.

Thankfully, the last couple who showed a real interest in our house who made an offer that we accepted just prior to moving out to Australia have come up with the goods.

This weekend, we exchanged contracts and finally completed the sale of our house. The relief associated with this sale is huge!!

It would have only been a matter of time before the cash we left in the UK to pay for the mortgage ran out resulting in me paying the rent and living expenses associated with a house in Australia, plus a mortgage for the house back in the UK out of the salary I’ve been earning in my new job over here.

Although manageable, I think it’s safe to say that this would have ultimately, left things a little tighter on the financial front then we would have hoped so the sale signifies the lifting of a big financial burden for us.

I think the lesson to learn here is when you get your permanent residency visa, make sure you allow an appropriate amount of time to flog the house before moving down under.

We always had this romantic view that we’d get the Visa’s in July, sell the house in August and Move out to Australia in September.

In hindsight we should have put the house on the market as soon as we knew that we had the Visa’s, Instead we waited over six months before putting our house up for sale naively thinking that it would get snapped up in a couple of weeks and then, off we’ll go!

In our defence it was the first house we had ever sold but you could still save yourself a bit of time by doing a little bit of research on the housing market in your area.

Speak to the local estate agents to see what the housing market is like in the area where you live.

Find out how much houses on your street selling for.
Are your expectations realistic?
How long are houses staying on the market for before selling?

If you have answers to half of these questions it will make the planning of the timings for your move down under a much easier exercise. In theory anyway.

As for us…More money for beer and barbies…..Happy days

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Cats picked up and a closer look at their transport

Well, as promised yesterday, here’s a quick update on the cats arrival.

When we picked the cats up from Byford yesterday we received an official AQIS receipt for each of them.

The receipt looks like it followed the cats through the whole process since arriving in Australia and includes an official ‘release from quarantine’ notice and AQIS stamp which is good to have as it proves that both cats have been ‘through the system’ before release.

I think we’d be safe without it though, unless of course someone picked up on a meow with a slight hint of a Yorkshire accent. It’ll be reet tho.

In addition to the cats import certificates, we also had another bill to pay, the cost of the quarantine.

The total bill for both cats at Byford was a pretty reasonable $1067 (about £426 by today’s money). Remember though that this doesn’t include the cost of actually getting the cats over here which was the bill settled with Airpets before we departed.

Included in this cost and in addition to the cats ‘rent’ was 2 x vet checks per cat ($71 each) quarantine entry ($10), Audit of veterinary certificate ($27), recovery of the airline handling charge previously paid on our behalf by AQIS (33) and conveyance of cats and dogs (picking them up etc – ($95).

The 30 days lodging was charged at $13.55 per day for the first cat and $10.55 for the second. Keep in mind that both Charlie and Geoff were sharing accommodation. I’m not sure what the charge would have been had they not got on so well

When we got home? Well, let’s just say they were slightly cuddly. Even at time of typing (some 30 hours later) it’s like having two little shadows following us around.

Both boys are still in excellent condition and it’s obvious that they have been well looked after.

I must say though, they were still carrying (and shedding) a large amount of fur when we got them home which makes one wonder how frequently they had been brushed (although they are short hairs and not one of the more exotic longer haired felines requiring more attention).

Still, once we got them home, a good brush for each and they were looking as good as new and about half a kilo lighter.

Their little claws needed a trim to, we did see lots of scratch pads for the cats when we originally visited them at Byford but these appear to be have been very rarely used.

Both cats seemed delighted to try out the leg of the sofa in the house we are currently renting though; a habit we will need to get them out of before our new sofa arrives this Saturday at the new house in Kinross.

It was actually quite funny but having a wooden floor, we could hear both cats walking around during the night.

At one point it almost sounded like Charlie was walking around in a cat sized pair of high heals but somehow I don’t think he’s into the cross dressing scene just yet.

As for the cat boxes prepared by Airpets…Have a good look of the pictures above and below (each opens in a new page – click the picture in the new page again to see the full sized version):

As I mentioned in yesterdays post I was pretty interested to see what the quality of these boxes were like and I must say the boxes were excellent!

Not to big and not to small and the quality was great to (all of the boxes are made by staff on site at Airpets and they obviously take great pride in their workmanship!

Although, being confined to such a space for over 24 hours would have been a pretty significant bind, on the basis that both boys would have slept for a good part of the journey over to Australia I’m sure it wouldn’t have been too bad.

As you’ll see in some of the pictures, Charlie (the cat lying down with the white paws) and Jeff (the all black cat) have done a good job of modelling their transportation boxes.

Make a note of the funnel attached to the front of the boxes for the addition of water during the journey. Also, see the two small ring’s on either side of the rear door? This is how the box was sealed apparently).

There are also plenty of extra locks and catches on the back of the boxes to ensure your loved ones don’t escape en-route.

You’ll notice in the pictures that both cats look pretty chuffed to be back ‘home’. If I really think about it, I don’t think there’s been a minute when I’ve not heard them purr.

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The Cats come home

Well, it’s been a very long time without them (nearly three months) but today we’ll be picking up the cats from Byford.

Since we originally visited the cats we’ve made a conscious effort not to make any additional contact as it didn’t seem fair to get their hopes up (if cats are capable of such a thing).

Still, in the meantime they have still be in our thoughts and we’ve been busy getting together lots of new stuff for them; ‘Ant Free Double Dinner’ bowls, toy mice, balls, streamers, tunnels and scratch pads (in the hope that these will use these to keep their claws in trim instead of attacking the new sofa). Oh, and about half a hundred weight of kitty litter (my job!)

The cats will be coming back with us this afternoon to the house we are currently renting in North Perth. They will remain here until this Saturday when we all move again to the new house we will be renting for at least the next six months in Kinross.

They’ll have to get used to being house cats without the freedom of the outdoors for at least a couple of months but comparatively speaking, the amount of space they’ll have in either house will seem positively palatial by comparison to the holding pens they have both called home during the last couple of months.

It’ll be quite interesting as we’ll be bringing the ‘boys’ home in the same pens that they travelled out to Australia in. I’m keen to get an idea of the type of boxes Airpets used to send the cats here and will of course report back with any interesting findings.

I’m sure the cats will be looking forward to the comforts of Air conditioning to. Both of the cats where in fur shedding overdrive pretty soon after their arrival in Australia and its forecast to be a muggy 36 degrees today! Pool little blighters, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were half bald by now!

That’s all for now

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Hillarys boat harbour the Mcnaught comet fireworks and lightening Australia day 2007

Now, for those of you who visit GDU regularly, you’ll remember the sense of wonder and awe that I managed to capture in my Australia day fireworks photo’s.

OK, perhaps blurry, out of focus snaps might be a better description but you still got the idea.

This morning, an email hit my inbox with the picture attached and I’ve gotta say, the guy who took this photograph did a slightly better job of capturing an Australia Day scene then I did.

As I’ve mentioned before in a previous post; apart from the main Skyworks display on the Perth foreshore that I took snaps of, there were also a number of smaller displays at Freemantle, Hillarys boat harbour and Mindarie.

If you click on the thumbnail to have a look at a larger version of the image (opens in new window), what you’ll see is a picture taken during the fireworks display at Hillarys boat harbour.

The panoramic picture shows people just to the North of Hillarys boat harbour enjoying the display from the beach. You’ll also see the fireworks themselves to the right of the photo, the Mcnaught comet floating through the sky in the centre and just to the right the lightening storm that hit Perth on that very warm and muggy night.

The photograph was taken by a 17 year old Finnish guy by the name of Antti Kemppainen. Many punters have been claiming that the photo is a fake, suggesting that multiple images were taken and then sliced together to create the picture you see here today.

There’s also the view that the photo turned out so well just by sheer luck!

Apparently if your technically savvy enough with your camera, you can lock the shutter on your camera open and then uncover the lens when you want to capture a particular scene.

This can give a long exposure for the comet when the lightning and fireworks were not visible and a shorter exposure to capture the lightning and fireworks and people sitting on the beach.

Sounds a little like to much hard work to me and I’d imagine your reactions would need to be pretty sharp to get such a short exposure using manual means.

With all that said though, I don’t really care. Even if the photo is multiple photos taken at different times and sliced into one big picture, it’s still pretty bloody impressive.

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Surviving the worlds biggest shop

Well, most folks will know that blokes are not the greatest when it comes to being particularly good shoppers but today I really recon that I earned my stripes ..

First thing this morning we went to the Holden dealership to complete the paperwork for the new Astra; that we should be in a position to pick up early next week.

In the end we didn’t need an Aussie driving licence to register the car, proof of our existence in the form of our passports proved sufficient enough.

Next stop was the Ikea on the way to Scarborough beach. I had read; before we came out here that going to Ikea in Australia was a positively delightful experience compared to the hassles back in the UK.

Well, its not. It’s just like the UK Ikea experience (or at least this store was).

Crap car parking, too many people and a VERY warm store.

This particular Ikea store wasn’t air-conditioned which when it’s touching 100F outside leads to a particularly uncomfortable browsing experience.

Especially when you’re carrying around a large crockery service, various pots and pans, a set of 18 glasses, spatulas, bins, kitchen clocks, kitchen trays, and a apple corer (yes I know…every good home needs one) in one of the Ikea bags shoved over each corner.

After Ikea, we packed up the car and headed to our next shop.

Here we bought a really nice and very large suede corner sofa with matching foot stools and a very snazzy dining room table with 9 chairs…

Next stop was subway (eat fresh!) for a couple of very nice sandwiches

Then, onto our most expensive shop – The electrical store.

Here the shopping list consisted of a new:

Stainless steel Fridge Freezer, front loading washing machine, vacuum cleaner, microwave, kettle, toaster, iron, and a very snazzy 42 inch High Def LCD TV (aka my new baby) .

Final stop was a short hop next door to shop number three where we bought a new bed for me and the missus and a bunk bed for junior and his soon to be visiting mates.

I don’t think I have ever bought so much stuff in one day. We just hope that delivery times work out when we move into our new house next Saturday!

I have to say though, for the last three years we’ve been putting up with sub standard stuff because we’ve known we’d be moving to Aus and didn’t see the point in buying new stuff just before we were moving down under.

It’ll be nice to be in a new place for once, with lots of nice stuff that we actually own.

As for the prices….well relatively speaking, its not that bad.

Just to summarise, as far as the main stuff we purchased today; specifically ….

Large Sofa
Large dining room table and 9, very funky/modern looking chairs
Large (American sized) stainless steal fridge freezer
Front loading Washing Machine
Microwave
Dyson vacuum cleaner
Toaster
Kettle
Iron
42 Inch, High Def Sony Flat Screen LCD TV
Digital TV Receiver
Double Bed
Two matching bedside cabinets
Large matching set of draws
Bunk beds for junior
All associated Linen, duvets and all the other good stuff we bought at Ikea…

Final price for the lot – About $12,000

Now that sounds like a lot of money but if you were to go out in the UK with £4800 and buy all this stuff (and all good quality, well known branded stuff too!) I recon we’d all be hard pushed to get so much stuff for this much cash.

Certainly from an electrical perspective we saw some good deals and its safe to say when you have a big shopping list there are good deals and discounts to be had!

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Time to move very soon

Since securing the property through my work in a blind pre Christmas panic, we have been looking for a longer term rental in an area nearer our little lad’s school in Duncraig.

Finally, it seems we have managed to secure a nice place in a suburb called Kinross.

The house is completely unfurnished so we need to go on a big shopping spree before we get the keys (hopefully) next Saturday.

As for the house…well it’s a Four bedroom detached, nice big enclosed back garden for junior to play in, great kitchen with dishwasher and a few other bits. Just need to get the keys now. Oh, and we need to buy the furniture, electrical stuff, beds etc to put in it. Read more

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Time for someone to start Kindergarten!

Well, junior started kindergarten yesterday and damn, was he excited!

We heard the sound of tiny feet running at great speed across a wooden floor towards our bedroom door at about 6:25am. The door bursts open and junior shouts “It’s time for big boy school’!

Kindergarten personifies growing up for our little boy and to be honest I think he’s got bored of spending so much time with his mum and dad over the last few months. Back in the UK he used to attend ‘nursery’ three days a week which he absolutely loved.

He’s always been pretty confident with other kids (a little to confident sometimes) and playing and learning stuff with his mates became a pretty big part of his weekly routine which he always looked forward to.

We also found the interaction with other kids really helped build his confidence and the curriculum the nursery offered helped support us when we came to teaching the ABC’s, colours, numbers and all that other good stuff. The routine is something that we didn’t really realise we’d all miss.

As I started work within two weeks of arriving in Australia getting into a routine was pretty easy for me. For the misses and our little boy however, it’s been slightly more difficult to get out of ‘holiday mode’ and into a daily or weekly routine because every single day has been different.

Don’t get me wrong. The missus has found plenty of fun stuff to do; the beaches are fantastic as I’m sure you’d imagine, the parks are great and the Zoo and Aquarium make a really good day out but for junior. It’s the interaction with other kids that he was missing and the routine of having regular interaction with the same circle of friends is something that has really been missed.

I’ve mentioned in previous Blog entries that our 4 year old little lad was always one of the main drivers for moving to Australia when we did.

We wanted to give him the quality of life that Australia has to offer as well as getting him into the Australian School system from the very start.

We didn’t really appreciate that at four he would be close enough to his little buddies for him to miss them when we moved down under. Even now he still has wistful moments when he talks about his chums back in the UK.

Things will get better though! Now he’s started ‘big boy school’ he can start to develop a new circle of mates and the added bonus of a routine is great!

He loved his first half day at Kindi and although there were one or two kids who didn’t want to leave their mum or dad (or ‘screamers’ as the missus describes them) it sounds like the other kids did to.

Kindergarten, pre-primary, and the final two years of High School (Years 11-12) are optional but we recon the experience will be an educationally valuable one.

Aussie children can attend kindergarten for four half days per week, or two full days, depending on individual school programs.

Initially our little one will only go to kindergarten between 9am - 12 for the first term, and then he’ll progress to two full school day (9am - 3pm).

I’m unsure for how much longer he will relish the thought of getting up in the morning to go to school but for now, we’ll all enjoy it!

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