Yes - I’m still alive

G’day all. Work wise, life down under has been ridiculously busy recently which is why Getting Down Under hasn’t been getting much love and attention recently.

Still, - I know there’s a small pocket of you who probably wonder what we’ve been up to when you wake each morning (not) so to appease these small few I’ll use this time on the train with my ridiculously small blackberry keyboard wisely and give you a quick heads up on what’s been going on down under.

Firstly where is Jeff? It’s been a very long time now since we saw Charlie’s feline brethren so all I can say is we hope he’s in a safe and happy place.

We got his annual vaccination reminder through from the vets yesterday so if he is out there he better keep away from all those bugs!

Something we never thought about was the fact that Jeff liked to jump into the back of open Vans and Lorries so he’s probably chilling out somewhere around Sydney about now.

Or, perhaps he just got hit by a car and we simply couldn’t find him. Either way, no more Jeff

I know its Mid May here in Australia but by UK Standards we are half way through the equivalent of November.

The mornings and evenings are now starting to get cold! We’re not talking freezing though. This morning at about 7am it was just a touch over 9 degrees Celsius. Perhaps ‘fresh’ is a slightly better way to describe it.

Certainly not short and t-shirt weather, well, not first thing in the morning. During the afternoon we are still seeing temperatures in the low twenties so not bad for late autumn.

I quite like this time of the year actually. Being the sunniest capital city in the World were still getting lots of sunshine here in Perth, just not the sort that melts your skin within 5 seconds of stepping into it.

In other news the missus has started back at work. Not quite full time but 30 hours a week. This meant we had to source child care for junior number 2 and after school care for junior number 1.

As child care in Australia will be quite an important subject for many of you then you might be interested to know that I’m working on a article on the very subject which I hope to post in the next week or so watch this space

The missus is working in the city so it’s nice to catch up for our regular coffee in the morning without the distraction of kids. You forget how important these times alone are sometimes when you’ve been surrounded by a little person (and now people) demanding your attention all the time.

Speaking of Coffee, Aussies love the stuff. You’ll find Starbucks in abundance in Sydney, although none in Perth for some reason. Perth still has several coffee shop per head of population so you’ll never struggle to find somewhere for your early morning caffeine fix.

Speaking of which, I”m at the station now so time for work. More Blackberry updates soon.

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Is it Autumn Already?

Autumn in Australia and the second time we’ve experienced the autumn season since moving here

I really have no idea where the time has gone. I can’t believe that we’ve got back around to autumn so soon.

Last year I made the revelation that here in Australia, the leaves fall off the tree’s during autumn. This year I’m going to make another awe inspiring one.

Ready?

Ok…..it rains!

I know I know, maybe not the greatest revelation at all and I have written about rain a number of times since moving down under but we seem to be getting quite a bit of the wet stuff of late.

I do like the rain though. Strange though it may sound after spending quite a bit of time in what is officially the sunniest capital city in the world. A little bit of the wet stuff is a welcome relief!

I’m not the only one who like’s the rain either. The new plants in the garden are enjoying the stuff to. I’d almost go as far as to say that they are flourishing but I won’t get to excited just yet as I’m sure there will still be amble opportunities for them to die

We are sill seeing plenty of sunshine though. I might have mentioned already that when it rains here in Western Australia it throws the stuff down solid for about thirty minutes and then the blazing sunshine comes back out.

That’s pretty much the forecast today, scattered showers and plenty of sunshine!

It’s still nice and warm though. Today we should be looking at temperatures in the mid 20’s The weekend is forecast to be sunny with temperatures in the 28 to 30 degree Celsius range.

Not bad for Autumn I guess, not bad at all

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Jeff Update

Ok, well the update on Jeff is that there are no updates

It’s been over two weeks now since we last saw him and we’re now starting to get used to the fact that the last time we saw him really will be just that!

Junior is gutted and to be honest, we’re all pretty down about the whole thing.

Loosing a pet is always going to be a difficult time however literally loosing a pet is turning out to be even worse.

At least if Jeff had past away and we knew about it then we could do something about it and then move on.

The concept of Jeff just disappearing is a pretty difficult one to grasp for a five year old and is an even more difficult thing for a mum or dad to explain.

At the moment, Jeff has gone away on ‘holiday’, there will be a time when we’ll have to think of something a little more creative but the holiday thing is holding up pretty well so far.

In a way the last year and a bit in Australia for Jeff has been a massive holiday and I’m still glad that we brought him.

Back in west Yorkshire in the UK, Jeff was found as a kitten inside a plastic bag on a rubbish dump.

My sister got him from the local RSPCA shelter where he enjoyed the first three to four years of his life until she got a dog which didn’t get on that well with Cats.

So, it was time for the missus and I to adopt Jeff and bring him home to our place where he was introduced to Charlie (our other cat) and the wonders of outdoor living. (Jeff was an indoor cat at my sister’s place as she lived in an apartment at the time).

Jeff always enjoyed the sunshine and we never doubted that he’d love Australia and we were right.

There were times when he got a little to warm and had to come back inside or find a shady spot to cool off but all in all Jeff loved the sunshine here.

Jeff lying on our lawn or by the pool, his eyes half open, half shut in pure contentment will be our lasting memory. If he is on ‘holiday’ then I hope he’s having a damn good time!

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Where’s Jeff?

Our regular readers will know that as well as dragging the missus, junior and I out to Australia, we also decided to bring our two cats; Charlie and Jeff to Australia to

Many people find the thought of spending literally thousands of £’s on moving two cats abroad a concept that’s difficult to grasp!

I don’t share this view though. At the end of the day they were part of our family (although a bloody big selfish sulky I want my own way part) and I also think that as a responsible pet owner it’s only right that we brought them with us instead of dumping them on another family member who had neither the time or inclination to look after two cats.

So nearly 15 months later, the older of the cats; Jeff has gone missing. No idea where either, the last time we saw him was Monday evening.

We always bring the cats in at night as it’s during this time they represent the greatest risk to Australia’s native wildlife. There’s also the chance that during this time they’re more likely to get into scraps with the rougher ‘outdoor’ cats.

On the rare occasion they don’t come in they’ll always be sat by the patio door first thing in the morning, meowing their displeasure at the fact they had to sleep during the night on this strange foreign object called the floor!

So, Jeff’s been outside for 2 nights now. We’ve had a look around the local streets and can’t find any signs of Jeff as a ‘road traffic victim’ so the only thing we can surmise is the fact that he might be locked in a garage or a garden shed somewhere.

If he doesn’t come home today then we’ll probably need to do a letter drop down the street tonight asking residents to check their garages! This in turn will probably add another day as peoples letter boxes here in Australia or normally located at the bottom of their driveway so seeing a letter on their front doormat before turning in for the night probably won’t happen.

To be honest, we are getting a little worried. He’ll be fine without food for about a week or so but will need water pretty soon if he is locked in somewhere!

He’s also getting on a bit and last time he was at the vets we were told he had a slight heart murmur.

Hopefully, if he is roaming the streets, his collar and the fact that we had to have him micro chipped as part of the process to move him out here will help him find his way home!

Here’s hoping anyway

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300 Posts - Bloody Hell

I forget sometimes that I’ve been updating Getting Down Under since January 2006 and it’s good to see that the site has developed during this time.

So I’m sat here this morning just messing about with a few things on the site and whilst doing so I checked out the ‘dashboard’.

The Dashboard gives me a number of snippets of interesting info but amongst other things it details my Blog Stats: Read more

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Gardening in Australia

I’ve always enjoyed gardening. Back in the UK I’d spend many a happy hour in the small garden at the back of our house and after living there for about 7 years we were getting the garden just as we liked it.

Gardening in Australia was a completely foreign thing for me though and moving to Australia brought with it the opportunity to start from scratch with a new gardening project.

Thankfully, although our house is 4 years old the garden was still very much a blank canvass so I was really looking forward to getting my hands dirty!

It wasn’t going to be that straight forward though. A quick trip down to Bunnings showed me that the plants you pick up here in Australia are a little different to those that you’d find at your local B&Q in West Yorkshire.

Sure, you’ll see plants that you’ll recognise from ‘back home’ but you really could go crazy choosing some of the many exotic variety’s available.

As an example. Fruit bearing plants. Sure you’ll find your apple trees and your pear trees but here in Australia you’ll also find Lemon trees, lime trees, Kiwi Fruit plants, passion fruit, grape vines, the list goes on!

The stuff you stick your plants into appears a little different over here to. Doing a little research it appears there are many soil types here in Australia, but the two extremes appear to be clay and sand.

I’m familiar with the sticky, easily waterlogged and compacted clay which sets like stone when it dries out. Here in Perth however (especially near the coast) we have sand and lots of it!

Sure, it’s free draining, but it can’t hold moisture or nutrients. So I needed to do some work to improve the structure so I had something half decent for growing plants.

‘Some work’ involved our back garden smelling like a farm yard as I mixed in bag upon bag of ’soil improver’ (aka cow poo) which was great for the flies but not so great for alfresco dining.

Then I had to add a few bags of soil wetter (to help retain the moisture) and buy a couple of hundred weight in Mulch to add to the top of the soil once the plants had been put in.

The scary thing was, even after adding what felt like tons of soil improver, the soil still looked like something you’d find in a child’s sandpit (Click the thumbnail above and you’ll get the idea). It obviously it didn’t smell that way though.

Our Garden here is a little bit bigger then the garden back inthe UK and the flower bed I’ve put in stretches along for about about 40 meters.

This meant a fair few trips to Bunnings but $1000 later I’d managed to collect together a nice collection of shrubs. I went for plants that will look nice and grow quick so a collection consisting of Hibiscus, Bougainvillea, Yuccas and a few other flowering variety’s seemed to do the trick.

I also picked up an Orange, a Lemon and a lime tree (for future Gin and Tonics!) and a really beautiful flowering Magnolia tree which holds pride of place in the corner of our garden.

Once all the shrubs were planted (about 30 in total) it was then time to pop back to Bunnings to buy even more plants to fill the gaps.

This time around though it was time to go for a few more recognisable flowering variety’s such as Geraniums and Iris’s. I also bought a few plants which I’ve never hear of before so goodness knows how they’ll go but hey, thats how you learn right?

Once all the plants were in it was time for the Mulch. Not only will this keep the roots cool (which is a good thing apparently) it’ll help cut down on weeds and retain some of the millions of gallons of valuable water I’ll likely be pumping into the garden in the years to come.

Back in the UK I’d say that I had pretty green fingers. Over here though it’s a completely different experience and it’ll be interesting to see how things grow (or not) in the months and years to come,

I’ll obviously keep you guys posted on how the garden grows so keep your eyes open for future blog entries. I Can’t wait for our first lemon!

Useful Resources : http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/

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How to Apply for your Australian Driving License

Applying for my Australian Driving License is something I have been meaning to do for some time it’s just that I haven’t had chance to get around to it.

The timing thing was starting to worry me though. If you are a just a visitor to Western Australia then your allowed to drive for a period of 12 months.

If you intend on becoming or are already a permanent resident of WA (like me) then your supposed to obtain your WA drivers license within 3 months!

So 15 months later I thought it was time for me to get myself sorted! If I got stopped by the police then I think I’d probably get the book thrown at me.

What implications not having a valid license had on the validity of my car insurance goodness knows but if I wrote my car off I’m sure the news wouldn’t be good.

So, I trundled on down to my local licensing centre and got myself sorted. Read more

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Australian Suburb Profiles - Now that’s Handy

I’ve written recently about the little poll we’ve been running and the interesting results that it’s showing us (615 votes at time of typing).

However identifying the state in which you want to live is one thing, choosing which suburb you want to move into is another.

Getting first hand advice from people living in your shortlisted suburb is going to be a great way to get a view of what living in a suburb is really like.

A quick post in our Australian Real estate and where to live forum might well be a good start however there’s a lot of suburbs out there and waiting for someone who ‘just-so-happens’ to live in the same suburb may not be the most effective use of your time, especially if your looking to settle in one of the more remote areas.

It was whilst doing some research on Suburbs in an attempt to help out a couple of our forum members that I stumbled upon a pretty useful site.

The guys over at Domain.com.au have a handy little section on their site which provides suburb profiles of every suburb in Australia (well, I’ve not been able to find one which isn’t profiled yet).

They provide details of public transport, surrounding suburbs, house price data and a handful of other demographics which are compiled from a variety of sources including the Australian Bureau of Statistics and research by Australian Property Monitors.

So, to search for what might be your future Suburb then Click Here (Link opens in a new window).

Hopefully you’ll find the info pretty useful

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So where are you heading - take two

Back in October I talked about the poll I’d added on the left hand side of the ‘page’ in an attempt to identify which Australian state folks were thinking about settling in.

At time of typing and 569 Votes later I thought it would be useful to give a quick update.

Not surprising (for me); Western Australia is still heading up the top of the poll with 28% of the votes, however Queensland is still proving particularly popularly popular with 22% of the vote with Victoria coming in a close third with 21%.

The back markers are South Australia 15% and last but not least New South Wales with 14% of the vote.

I’m still surprised that New South Wales is lagging back in last place but it goes to show that the Sydney Opera house and harbour bridge aren’t the be all and end all for everyone

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Wanted Down Under Series 3 - How to Apply for Wanted Down Under

I had an email from Helen Crawley the researcher at the BBC who helped find the ‘contestants’ to appear on The BBC’s Popular Wanted Down Under Program.

She was writing to remind me that the advert I posted a little while back is now out of date (I’d imagine she was getting a little tired of the phone calls and emails so sorry Helen )

She has asked me to update the contact details. So if any of you folks are interested in appearing in the Third Series of Wanted Down under then you need to email the BBC at: wanteddownunder@bbc.co.uk.

Helen was a little none committal though saying the BBC ‘may still need applicants for series 3 should we make one’ so keep this in mind when sending your emails off. Read more

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