We own a house!

It’s happened, we finally own our own bricks and mortar here in Australia.

We got the call from our conveyancers that the settlement had been completed just after lunchtime yesterday. What a relief that was!

We picked the keys up and it felt so great unlocking the door and setting foot in our very own home for the first time.

The in-laws who are over from Sydney helping the missus out, post caesarean section also came to have a look and gave it the big thumbs up!

I know at the time it was an absolute pain in the arse but despite the masses of forms that had to be filled in for both the mortgage docs and also the conveyancers we found the whole thing a pretty straight forward exercise. Read more

Popularity: 14% [?]

Hey Hey it’s settlement day!

Well, the last 6 weeks of stress and form filling should culminate today in the settlement on our new home.

I know it should be a relatively straight forward process but it’ll still be really great to finally get the call telling us that we now own our own bricks and mortar here in Western Australia.

Since arriving here in Perth in November last year we’ve lived in Mindarie keys, the suburb of North Perth and Finally our current spot here in Kinross.

All have been pretty nice houses but because we were renting these properties you never could really call them home. Read more

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Becoming an Australian Citizen - New resources available

Once you finally made it down under the next thing that many folks will want to do is gain their Australian Citizenship so that they can become a ‘real aussie’

Getting Australian citizenship has recently got a little harder, not only do you need to be a permanent Australian resident for four years instead of two, from the 1st of October 2007 you also need to take the Australian citizenship test.

To help support this, The Australian citizenship website has launched a number of resources that will help those in preparing for and taking the new test.

The first is a new resource book

The resource book, creatively titled; ‘Becoming an Australian Citizen‘, is supposed to help you prepare for the citizenship test. Read more

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Inspecting our new home before completion

Well, it’s been a while since I last wrote about the new house we are buying up in Quinns Rocks.

Despite being a little busy recently having a baby, things have been progressing well in the last few weeks. Forms have been filled in and duly returned back to our bank and conveyancers and we are still on track to ‘complete’ this coming Tuesday.

Today we have a final inspection. This is something a little alien to me as it’s not something that really happens back in the UK but like many things Aussie it makes perfect sense. Read more

Popularity: 9% [?]

Junk Week

The towns and cities in Australia by UK standards are pretty spotless.

Rubbish is kept to a minimum and there seems to be quite a large army of street cleaners that help keep the places looking nice and tidy.

This applies to the suburbs to. You don’t see blokes riding along on their ’super sucker 2000′ street vacuum cleaners but they must exist in some form as any rubbish spied on one day is quickly tidied away by the next.

An interesting sign appeared on our street the other day. It was erected by someone from the council and simply had ‘Junk Week’ written on it in big bold letters with some simple instruction advising the local residents to leave their junk out for collection. Read more

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The Bub has landed

Well, its been 5 days now since Junior number 2 and the missus came home.

Although the missus had a cesarean section, she was thankfully able to come home after only two days.

Although Joondalup Hospital was great and the staff were friendly and efficient it still didn’t beat the comfort of your own home so it was really good to welcome the latest addition to our family back home.

The check-out procedure from the hospital was straight forward enough. The midwife completed the last bits of paperwork and we were free to go. When Junior was born in the UK we were escorted out of the hospital by one of the nurses so we didn’t become suspected child snatchers. Read more

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Having a baby in Australia - A review

Ok, so it’s not quite like a book review but I thought I should write down a few first impressions following the birth of our beautiful, gorgeous, gushingly perfect daughter yesterday

Two words :- Dogs bollocks!

Ok, that may not mean to much to our Amercian visitors but let me just say this, the quality of the care and facilities we have found in Australia compared to those experienced in the United Kingdom has been fantastic!

Sure, the Joondalup Health Campus is still a pretty new hospital but the people who work there have been fantastic.

Ironically, I’d say there were more English people working at the hospital in Joondalup then there was in Halifax in the Uk which is the hospital where Junior number one was born. Read more

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It’s a ‘Shiela’!

Well folks, since my last post I’m am ecstatically happy to announce that junior number two turned out to be a girl (we have one of each now)

Baby daughter (hee hee) and mum doing really well!

I feel so completly knackard as it has been a veeeeeery long day! I promise I’ll provide more detail later (once I’ve had a sleep) Read more

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Baby really on the way - ish!

OK, 6 days ago we thought that it was time for baby to make an appearance but nothing ever happened.

This time I can say with all certainty that this time tomorrow junior number two will be here.

Unfortunately during the check up that the missus had today, they found that she had early signs of Pre-eclampsia.

As a result she has been booked in to Joondalup Hospital for the night with the expectation being that she will have a cesarean section at approx 2:30pm today, Australian time.

When junior was born, even though it took nearly 18 hours he still ended up being born via an emergency C section.

This time around the missus was really hoping to go the natural birth route but it really looks like it’s not going to happen (unless something happens in the next few hours).
There are benefits to going the Cesarean route though: Read more

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Wanted Down Under - Applications wanted by the BBC for second series

I’m really not sure how current this news is (it was passed on by a friend of mine) but it transpires that the BBC are going to be doing a second series of Wanted Down Under very soon and are looking for candidates to join them.

I’m not sure if this second series of Wanted down under will be as popular as the first as this new series looks like it will be concentrating on folks looking to emigrate to New Zealand.

Still, the official line from the BBC is as follows: Read more

Popularity: 19% [?]

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