Christmas is coming, we've got the goose fat

"Ooh, it'll soon be Christmas", my Mum always says. In August. But sure enough, it's nearly Christmas, and our first summertime one.

It was a bit difficult getting into the idea that it was Christmas, as the weather started getting warmer. I was walking down Rundle Street (our equivalent of Market Street, but without the hoodies or Primark. You still get goths, Emo's and Big Issue sellers though) at the start of December wondering why on earth Christmas Carols were being piped through in late spring, before I realised it was me, and not Adelaide city council who was out of sync.

Anyway, I think we consciously decided a hot Christmas was going to be a positive thing and we should just get on with it. I always pump up the x-mas atmos with my 74 track mini-disc full of Christmas cheese. It's the same one I've used for about 4 years, so got me right in the mood. I love all that rubbish, and was pleased to pick up a couple more Cd's in Target for $4.95 (about 2 pound fifty), which include the little known outside Australia track 'Santa never made it into Darwin'. Ho, ho, ho.

Our first Christmas event was our Church's Christmas Carol service. Trinity Bay meets in a community centre, so the carol service was in the local high school. It was fantastic. About 400 came along to see a full choir, band and beautifully transformed hall. It was very professional but accessible. Best of all though, after the service we had fun and festivities on the lawn - a barbecue, bouncy castles and slide, a mobile climbing wall, a gourmet coffee van (not much happens in Australia without the presence of coffee) and the ministers old VW van available for anyone to have a go at painting. All for free!

We also had 2 Gingerbread house making events - one for just women, where Sharon did a bit of a gospel talk, and one for families. Everyone tells me Sharon did really well.

Christmassy words that are different in Australia

1. You don't got to your work's Christmas 'do'. You go to a Christmas 'show'. I couldn't make ours, so I don't know what it is you show, exactly.
   
2. Christmas crackers are called Bon-bons.  But, confusingly, you can still get round sherbet covered sweets that you or I would call bon-bons. 'Lollies', I mean, I must remember, sweets are called 'lollies'.
3. A 'Secret Santa' is called a 'Kris Kringle'. But they've never heard of a Chris-dingle orange with sticks in thingy.

We visited Lobethal, a town in the hills renowned for it's Christmas lights. The number of houses with lights was impressive, and it reminded me of driving through Blackpool Illuminations. We arrived just in time to see the living nativity, complete with a real baby, an uncomfortably over aged Joseph, a heavenly host of children and traditional nativity scene Alpacas.  No donkeys, but a couple of Alpacas.  To be honest, I think I've been spoilt by the unbridled tack of the Christmas lights that festoon houses in Burnage, so this lot seemed a bit low key to me.

We've got Gareth, Wendy, their 3 children, Aunty Bo and Uncle Andy, and our next door neighbours Helen and Adam coming for Christmas dinner. I'll let you know how we go on. One thing's for sure - come hail, rain or shine, I'll be visiting the beach on Christmas day. Just because I can.

People I have been likened to over the years

I've never been particularly flattered by who it is people say I look like, but things (if not my hair growth) are looking up. At work we have name magnets to go on the whiteboard, and my colleagues have attached to mine a picture of a B-movie action hero.

Previous lookey-likies have included:

Robbie off Grange hill


Stan Laurel


Wilfrid Brambell (Albert Steptoe)


Snooker ace Stephen Hendry


and now, a vast improvement, Jason Statham


You may have your own suggestions. Who are you told you look like?

Birthday Boy

It was Robert's 9th Birthday on 11th October.

No, I know it doesn't seem 9 years ago he was born, but 9 he is.

I was on a trade union course at MANCAT. We'd just started the afternoon session when the pager I'd borrowed off Sara Barker went off. "they are injuicing me, come now" it said, the BT operator who sent the message clearly not having the best grasp of spelling. I got up and announced to the class, 'Sorry I've got to go, my wife's in labour'. I got lots of best wishes, a few pats on the back and several predictions that ' that's it now, life will never be the same again'. I got in a taxi outside and I think made the drivers day by giving him an excuse to drive significantly faster than he should have done to St Mary's, via some city centre back streets I never knew existed.

Robert was 4lb 14oz when he was born. You can see from the photo he's had a bit of a growing spurt since being here, and we're always trying to get him to eat more, as he's pretty skinny. He's developed a strong Australian Questioning Inflection, and calls water 'warder' and butter 'Budder'. This is as opposed to Owen, who seems to be more Manc (specifically, Levenshulme) than ever.

They've both settled really well here. They miss people of course, and talk nostalgically about St Andrews, but they enjoy their schools and have made loads of friends, both at school and church. It was them settling in here I was most worried about before we left, so it's been great to watch them get stuck into it, sometimes better than us.

Wish you were here

 I came across this postcard when thinking about Bobby Dazzlers for my last post, on a Levenshulme blog site. It made me chuckle, but also strangely nostalgic for these highlights of the 197 route. Not so nostalgic I'm in a rush to catch it again, you understand.  You'll never see a pet shop with a better name, though.

Sparrow Wars

A great added bonus of our house here is the pergola on the side of the house. It can be closed off each end with transparent cafe blinds which, when it's warmer, makes it like another room.

However, plans to use it as such were threatened by the arrival of sparrows who built 3 nests in the very top of the pergola. I didn't mind that so much as the detritus they littered all over the place, along with the gallons of droppings.

I thought I didn't have the heart to remove them, bless the little creatures. Actually, it turns out I just didn't have the stepladders to remove them. As soon as I'd bought some ($39 from Bunnings), down they came. Thankfully, they were empty.

The sparrows returned the following day looking most put out and with that urgent look you have when you need a really big poo but can't get to the loo. Sure enough, one laid an egg on the beam where the nest used to be, and this just rolled off and smashed.

I felt a little bit bad about that, so when they returned and began rebuilding their nest, I didn't remove it. In the meantime, Sharon had purchased from Cheap as Chips (like Poundstretcher but with less style - if Bobby Dazzler was a chain store, this'd be it) a pair of large plastic crows. We had heard fake snakes might scare the sparrows off, but the crows looked really menacing.

I was dismayed the next morning to find the sparrows mockingly plopping away on our plastic pals.

Harmony broke out when I took the decision to let them be and simply catch their poo and nesting materials with shade cloth draped over the beams of the pergola, which has done the trick.

Sharon persevered however, moving the plastic crows of death to the outside bathroom and toilet windowsills. This certainly had the effect of scaring the life out of me, faced with a scene from Omen II or The Birds when I go for my morning tinkle. Time will tell, but I haven't seen the loose bottomed sparrows lately, so the crows might just be earning their keep.

In any case, bird muck has ceased enough to allow me to put up a hammock ($20 from Bunnings), with which I'm rather chuffed.

Lah de Dah

Jo Hardy (see Jo Hardy's African Adventure link on the right of this page) has something in common with us in that she has left Shawbrook Road to live in a far flung corner of the globe, and is writing a blog about it. She has fantastic tales of building schools and improving communities' self sufficiency in Zambia.

I'm afraid all I have to tell you is about how we went touring wineries in the Barossa Valley. It's Australia's most famous wine region, about an hour and half drive out of Adelaide. It's the home of Jacob's Creek (that's actually a place, as well as a brand), Wolf Bass and Penfolds, along with a few hundred others. There's also a pretty good German pie shop in Tanunda, if you get hungry.

The region is spectacularly beautiful, and worth driving around even if the wineries weren't there. But there they are, and most of them have a cellar door where you can taste their wares, usually for free, and usually along with a minibus load of women on Hen weekends in matching T-shirts (I could swear I saw the Rotund Pink Ladies from my City to Bay Run). This will help inform your decision as to what to buy next time you are in Thirsty Camel, Liquor Land, Booze Brothers or whatever other Bottlo you end up in. Don't buy them at the cellar door, because they'll be $5 extra.

Ben and Sarah from church took us in their big car, with the boys happily tucked away in the back watching DVDs. Sharon and Sarah would do the tasting, mostly of port, whilst the rest of us explored the grounds of wherever we were. Most of the ones we visited had beautiful grounds with Barbecues and picnic areas. There are fields full of purple wildflowers at the moment, and these next to row after row of vines was amazing to see. Seppeltsfields was particularly impressive, with avenues lined with 2000 palm trees. We also had a brief visit to the Whispering Wall, which really is impressive when you stand 100m away at the other end and can still hear Robert whispering, "Dad smells of trumps". Civil engineers may be interested to know that it was the first concrete arc dam, built in 1901. Or something.

I'm no connoisseur of wine, and would rather go on pub crawl for beer, but I can see how you'd easily get into it, and Sharon and Sarah certainly had a good go at improving their knowledge of fortified wines. This was because Sarah had bought a barrell in which to age her port, and was trying to decide who's 15 litres to buy.

Anyway, we didn't buy anything (except pies) and so, whilst Jo can share heroic tales of Majority World development, all we contributed to this already rich area was fuel emmisions and a pile of pine cones at Seppeltsfields winery from playing throwing them at a tree.

Now we've been, we can add the Barossa to our list of places to take people when they visit.

For truly impressive stories, see Jo's Blog.

City to Bay

On 21st September I took part in the City to Bay Fun Run. The title refers to the route: we started in Adelaide City centre, and ran 12km to Glenelg, which overlooks Holdfast Bay, i.e. the seaside. As for the 'Fun' bit...well ok, I did enjoy it, in a coping with pain kind of way.

28,000 people either ran or walked it. For us runners, it was a bit crowded all the way along, and I thought they should have split us in to waves like they had done in Manchester. Also, with there being the option of doing the event as a walk, I really couldn't see why 20 metres into the start of the run everyones way was blocked by 5 rotund ladies in pink t-shirts ALREADY WALKING.

I ran it in 1 hour 6 minutes and 28 seconds.

I was a bit dissapointed that I had to stop and walk a couple of times, really because I was getting too hot. I felt a bit nauseous and started getting goose pimples, which made me worry my heat regulation was going up the swanny. I didn't want to embarrass myself by collapsing and pooing all over the place, as the patient from a half marathon who came in for a ct scan a few weeks ago had done.

Still, I was rather pleased that I managed to beat Dan from work, who is 12 years my junior, about twice as tall, and had tried, in true Aussie fashion, to transform a low key 'let's have a bit of fun' event into some sort of olympic trial.

Another glorious victory for Team GB

Geocaching

During our weekend away, whilst Sharon was discovering tea shops, Robert, Owen and I joined about 10 others for the modern equivalent of a treasure hunt. It's best described by the website:

"Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by
adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden
containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online.
Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of
community and support for the environment"

A couple of the blokes from church had GPS devices, and a list of co-ordinates from around the area we were staying, so off we set, nerdalator in hand. The locations took us too a place near the beach (we couldn't find that one), a cemetery, the bluff and a surfing beach. Apart from the first one, at each we found a little plastic container with a log book and little trinkets - McDonald's Happy Meal Toy level of value. Apparently you can track your trinkets as people remove and swap them around, logging the movements on line.
It was a really good thing to do, taking us to places we wouldn't have normally gone to (who goes tramping around an abandoned cemetery on a church weekend away?). It was actually quite exciting, giving each bit of walking an adventurous purpose. The GPS get you to with 5m, and then you have to find it. Robert was really chuffed when he found the last one.

If you've got a GPS device, I'd thoroughly recommend it

Weekend Away

A few weeks ago we went on a weekend away with our church, Trinity Bay, to Encounter Bay, about 45 minutes drive from where we are, and where my Mum's cousin Sue lives.

We weren't quite sure what to expect. St Margaret's weekends away back in England were always a rather laid back affair, with the emphasis very much on the fellowship side of things, which was great. The blokes would cook breakfast and there was a bit of a walk on the Saturday, with plenty of time for tea shops, laughing and joking and a few drinks. Sometimes more than a few. The only planned formal time of fellowship was on the Sunday morning.

So it was with some trepidation that I read on the program for Trinity Bay's weekend that there would be 4, yes, 4 talks/times of worship through the weekend. When would we have time for Singstar? And what's more, as the weekend would be held in a Salvation Army conference centre, there'd be no alcohol allowed. On the plus side, it was to be fully catered, Scripture Union were going to look after the children during the adults sessions and, as far as we knew, all water supplies, toilets and showers were fully functional, so there'd be no repeat of St Margaret's dirty weekend. I felt like I'd overdosed on Christian books and talks during my commuting leading up to the weekend, and honestly didn't feel like listening to another 4 talks, but, go with the flow I thought, and tried to go into the weekend deciding to enjoy it.
I didn't have to try very hard. The dorm we were given had the nostalgic smell, look and poor thermoregulation of a Butlins Spring Harvest chalet circa 1988, which with the spring air, made me feel like I was back in Skegness. The food was great, with Tea and Coffee (or 'Christian crack' as Dave from church called it) on tap. The boys had an ace time in their sessions, even if I did manage to spill their crystal making solution they'd made. The worship group (or 'Musos', as John, our Minister, refers to them) were really good. And those talks I'd been dreading were exactly the breath of fresh air I needed - really good, back to the heart of things stuff.

It was really nice just to hang out with people from church, too. In these post Madeline McCann days, I went to bed when the boys did, but Sharon stayed up late, teaching anyone who would listen how to cheat at cards. The boys played an awful lot of table tennis and could generally just run about the venue. I did a 6:30am run down to the bluff (not in the buff, to the bluff, a rocky prominence on the coastline) with one of the men in preparation for the city to bay 12km race I was doing the following weekend. I'd intended to do 1okm, but had to give up after 8km, unable to keep up with Paul's 1hour/12km pace. We saw a baby whale in the bay whilst we were out, this being a prime nursery site for whales coming up from the south pole. On the Saturday afternoon we did the modern form of treasure hunting: geocaching. More of that later.

All in all, we had a fantastic time that really boosted us all. Well done to the Young Adults Group who organised it all for us.

Royal Adelaide Show

A few weeks ago we, like most people in Adelaide, went to the Royal Adelaide Show.  This annual event lasts about a week and is a bit like a mixture of an agricultural fair, an ideal home exhibition, and Blackpool.  They're much more relaxed here about you bunking your kids off school, which we did. For 2 days.  Many schools have a dedicated 'show day' for this very event anyway.

We watched sheep shearing, Pig racing/diving and woodchopping competitions.  There was formation stunt Ute driving, Ute racing and some really spectacular motorcycle stunts, followed by fireworks.  We went on the ferris wheel, the ghost train and the big dipper.  Robert was particularly chuffed to be big enough to go on the Big Dipper, which went upside down and everything.  I observed that fairground ride staff are much the same the world over - just rough enough looking to worry you about their ability to run a safe ride, but too scary to actually approach for any other reason but to give them your money.

A highlight for the children and, erm, some adults is the show bags. It's the tradition that everyone buys a goody bag from an enormous hall selling an enormous variety of themed showbags.  robert and Owen opted for Wall-e ones. They could have had Ben 10, Superman, Spiderman, Hanna Montana, anything really.  I couldn't resist the 'Don't Hassel the Hoff' David Hasselhoff  theme bag, complete with T-shirt, mug, air freshener, medallion, sweat bands and, the crowning glory, a Hoff wig.  I had great fun embarrassing everyone I was with by sporting as much of the garb as possible immediately, although I did keep under wraps the Hoff Glow in the Dark Love Dice. Ace.

We spent a fortune, but all in all it was good value and we had a really, really good day.

Not being there - clarification

I've given the wrong impression on my last post when I said, 'you have to get that sort of information 3rd hand'.

This reads like I'm saying we're not kept in the loop.

That's absolutely not the case, and not what I was trying to say. My family and everyone have been great at letting us know as much as they do, when they do.

What I meant was Mum, not wanting to bother anybody, always down plays any suffering she goes through. Even when we could call in in person regularly she'd say, "ooh I'm alright". A couple of weeks later she might tell you how rotten she was feeling.

One of the dangers of the written word I suppose.  It was a pretty downbeat posting I wrote, but there is a down side to being here, and I thought that should be reflected in what I write.

In the next one I hope to share with you pictures of the David Hasselhoff wig I bought at the Royal Adelaide Show.

Not being there

We always knew a difficult part of moving to Australia would be missing our families, especially when they're ill (Sharon's Dad, my Mum), giving birth (Sarah in November), getting new glasses (William) or generally bungling around (Emma Beddows).

Sharon's Dad had a vertebroplasty recently (cement injected into a back bone to strengthen it and reduce pain), and now my Mum has just had fairly major abdominal surgery. It was difficult knowing that if we hadn't left, and I was still working at Manchester Royal Infirmary, I could have been just down the corridor from both of them during their hospital stays. Instead, we're 24 hours of travel and a few thousand dollars away.

When we did leave it was knowing there would always be very good reasons not to leave, and to some extent there's a selfish element in us having decided to go anyway. I sometimes feel a bit guilty, and pretty helpless. I'm aware I'm presuming in the rest of my family to 'be there' for Mum. It's even harder for Sharon, as she's an only child and Brian has less people to look put for him.

Thankfully, Brian is in less pain now, and Mum is reportedly recovering well at home. Not that she'd ever tell us if she wasn't so well - you have to get that kind of info 3rd hand off the rest of the family.

Get well soon.

Middle Eastlands

I don't know, I'm out of the country 10 minutes, and overnight Man city become the richest football club in the world.

I can't help thinking that if anyone could stuff up and under perform when backed by trillions of oil dollars, it'd have to be City.

However, I had the misfortune of living in Blackburn when they had millions of pounds pumped in. I had to suffer the indignity of previously oblivious glory hunters pretending to be life long rovers fans as Shearer et al won them the premiership. Crap town, crap team, but several million quid later, the investment paid off.

So one can only hope Robinho, Jo and Yohoho or whoever can adapt to Manchester and bring home some silverware.

Incidentally, it's interesting to note that Australians, who are generally relatively ignorant about 'soccer' automatically presume you're a blue if you are from Manchester, fully understanding that most Utd fans are poxy southerners.

Anyway, the last word on the subject should go to Noel Gallagher, who has clearly retained his
Burnage sense of humour. He told BBC 5Live:

“It’ll be nice to know that every gallon of petrol a Man Utd fan buys will be
going into City’s transfer kitty.”

Read his full comments here

Look a like gag

from Private Eye magazine.

These aren't as good of course as Rob Graham's lookey-likies, which you can see on facebook if you look for photos tagged with his name.

New link

I've added a new link on the right, to 'found magazine'. I've been occasionally checking in on this for a few years now, usually on quiet nights at work. People send in scans of photos, hand written notes, shopping lists etc. I don't know why, but they're fascinating, often funny and sometimes disturbing. I think it's because each entry gives you just a little glimpse into someone else's life, leaving you to imagine the circumstance or what happens next.

I've been spending some of this set of nights trying to find out what has been going on at the Olympics that doesn't involve Australians. Watching Channel 7 here, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Olympics was simply a swimming gala set up for the Australians with a few other sports happening on the side.

Another time killer we played the other night was to Google your own name and see what comes up. I was disturbed to find there's a Colin Taylor on the run in Europe for the worst of crimes, but rather pleased to find out there's a Colin Taylor Band. I wonder what they sing? I bet they dance badly. You can also try searching "Colin likes to" (with the speech marks) and see the top 10 of what your namesakes get up to. Only do it if you're not of a sensitive disposition, though.

I'm off to pen that Number 1 hit for my band.

More tea, vicar?

Sharon has developed a bit of Friday morning routine, which I try my best to gate crash as often as possible.

We go with several of the other parents of children at Owen's school to McDonald's McCafe in Reynella. This is on a corner of a big main road and is referred to locally as 'junk food corner', it having a KFC, Hungry Jacks (Australian version of Burger King), Dominos, Fasta Past (urgh) and of course Maccas, as the golden arched fat fest is known here.

I'm sure the staff at Maccas really look forward to Friday mornings when about 10 of us and what feels like 20 toddlers turn up, asking for coffees which have to be just-so and asking them to turn the heating up/down and generally being a nuisance. I have to hand it to Maccas though, they do really good, relatively cheap coffee. And they've given us key fobs that gets us a free slice of cake with every coffee purchased. Until 2010. That's potentially alot of cake. After the 12k run, naturally.

After that, we go next door to the 'Salvos Op shop'. I'll translate: that's the Salvation Army Charity shop. The sense of adventure is hightened by cutting through the palm tree bushes between them, which makes it feel like you've stumbled upon an abandoned enclave. I've only ever really been to charity shops for fancy dress before. You know, a dress or skirt for a game of football at camp. But this has actually got really quite good stuff, and I've picked up some good shirts. Sharon says they're from the designer boutique 'Sal-vos'. Equally as important though is having a good laugh at some of the crap they have too. Hideous crockery sets, a salt and pepper pot set that say 'atishoo' and 'bless you'. A Barry Crocker album.

It all adds up and has helped us make some good friends.

Hide behind the sofa

Telly in Australia is absolutely bobbins.

When there is something good on (usually an import from England - Gordon Ramsey, Ladette to Lady) any modicum of drama or suspense the program makers have managed to build is completely dissipated by the 72 adverts, which are inserted liberally throughout the program at precisely the wrong times. Adelaide, it would seem, always has a rug shop which is closing down and has 15% off everything this weekend only, every weekend. They continue here to use the bloke who owns the shop to advertise it, some of them even sing. At least they have some comedy value. We have had to train Robert and Owen to mute the TV during ad breaks. That's because they'll show a rather graphic trailer for Big Brother or CSI in the middle of a morning showing of Pokemon.

So hats off to Keith Chalk, who has rescued us with regular parcels of DVD recordings of Dr Who and Heroes. We've been very self disciplined and watched one Dr Who a week on a Friday or Saturday night. All 4 of us sit on our settee with the lights off, making a big event of the latest screening. It seems to have paid off. Robert and Owen both hold a cushion to hide behind when they watch it. As we started the latest episode, Robert said that he gets butterflies in his stomach when the theme tune comes on. We've just watched the ones with Alex Kingston, and our theory is she'll turn out to be Donna's daughter. Or something.

Now we can look forward to Channel 7's exclusive HD olympics coverage. With hundreds of bloomin adverts.

Get those knees up

I'm the kind of person that needs a deadline.

All through school, college and Uni, my assignments and revision were usually completed in the small hours of the morning.  I remember trying to print an assignment on what seemed to be the world's noisiest dot matrix printer, putting a pillow over it so as not to wake the whole house.

So it is that I've signed up for Adelaide's City to Bay Run. It runs from Adelaide's city centre to the coastal suburb of Glenelg.  And it's 12km long.  Inexplicably, it's described as a 'fun run', not 2 words I'd usually put together.

Still, my belly isn't getting any smaller and, like with the Manchester 10km run, I'd just like to know I can do it.  I'd also like to improve on my pace.  First time I did the Manchester 10k it was in around 53 minutes.  The second time I trailed behind in 55minutes. My time wasn't helped by having to stop for a pee in the bushes 2km in.  I don't think I'll have that luxury in Adelaide, as the course follows the tram route. Also, I've anged to talk the rest of my shift group into doing it. I'll let you know how I get on with my training leading up to 21st September. Don't expect to see me coming 37th like our Richard.

It's really hard to get our heads around the fact that it's the summer holidays in UK now, not least because it continues to be wintery here.  We even bought some electric blankets today.  I put on my Minidisc (old school, I know) of Christmas songs as the weather had me feeling all Christmassy.  We talked to Angela and Alessio, our Italian friends, on Skype last night.  They were so hot, we could see sweat dripping on their foreheads. 

Sharon put a scarf on.

What a clever boy

I made this flyer at work the other day, and was quite pleased with it. Just thought I’d share it. Nerd. We’ve got 20 signed up already

Holidays!

A great thing about my shift system is that when I finish a set of nights on the Wednesday morning, I'm off then until Monday morning.  Woo hoo!  It's even better when you and the other radiographer you're working with coincidently nod off for most of the night on alternating nights.  Nod off on a trolley. With blankets. And the lights off.

And so it was on Wednesday morning, bright as a button, I picked up a hire car from town ready for our epic journey to Melbourne, via some mountains called the Grampians.  We got a nice big Toyota Camry as our little Ford Festiva, whilst I'm sure would have kept working, would've just been tiresome.  It's rattlier than a rattle snake inside a rattle at a rattle convention in a rickety shed during an earthquake.  'Festiva' is of course ancient Navaho Indian for 'noisy slow beast'.  Nor has it got power steering, and most crucially, cruise control.  The decision to live with just one low budget car I've taken with the idea in the back of my mind we'd hire a good one for long trips.  As it was, it was only $33 per day for a full size car, which is significantly cheaper than I recall car hire in Europe being.

You see, it was a very long way.

We drove for 1850km. That's 1,150 miles in old money, and certainly the furthest I've ever driven in 2 goes.  We knew it would be along way, but have just accepted that's part of living in Australia.  It's big, so things are far apart.

To break our journey, we stopped the night on the way there and back in Halls Gap, in the Grampians. It's a stunningly beautiful place with mountain ridges, waterfalls and forests. Raw nature - usually with a convenient car park and toilets a short walk from the best bits, which was great for us.  It's a unique time to see the landscape there.  2 years ago, most of it was burned in huge bush fires.  All the forests are recovering now, but nearly every tree trunk is charred black.

We stayed in a cabin in caravan park that a friend had recommended which was next to a lake and surrounded by sandstone cliffs.  I felt like Dr Doolittle or Mary Poppins in the morning when I came out to find wild kangaroos, a kookaburra and cockatoos (no rude gags, please) hanging around our cabin.  Robert and Owen got to feed the Rosellas too, which they loved.

After Halls Gap it was on to Melbourne to stay with my Uncle Charlie and Aunties Linda and Anita, and 3 of my Australian cousins.  It was really good to see this side of our family again.  Last time we saw them was 2 and a half years ago when we came on holiday, so it was good to catch up.  We took the boys to Melbourne Aquarium, which was well worth a visit.  We took Sharon to Pin Oak Court - otherwise known as Ramsey Street! I was too embarrassed to get out of the car - at first. I could hear my Mum's voice in my head, "Ooh, you can't go noseying at peoples houses".  So I let Sharon do the dirty work first, and once I saw her chatting to the security guard and that it was ok, I joined in and got disturbingly excited.  It seemed much, much smaller than on TV, and it was really strange to see a place that's always been there in the televisual background for over 20 years, in real life.

I'd booked the Monday off work too, so we could stop over in Halls Gap again on the Sunday night.

If it makes any of you in England feel better though, a persistent feature of the holiday was the weather.  It was brass monkeys.

Velly Funny

Here's a typical example of the kind of stuff you'll find on Engrish.com, on the link at the right side of this page. We saw similar kinds of stuff when we were in Hong Kong.

Not hilarious, but good for a gentle chortle.

Four goal posts and a funny shaped ball

Ben, after eating too many lollies (sweets)

Always keen to immerse ourselves in the Aussie culture, we were really pleased when Ben and Sarah from church offered to take us to an Australian Rules football game. It's huge here, at least as popular as proper football is in England, which is really annoying when you can't make head nor tail of what on earth is going on. So we were thrilled at the chance to be initiated by our local guides at the AAMI stadium, home of the Adelaide Crows.

For starters, the pitch is oval, and so convex for drainage purposes FIFA football matches can't be played there. I can't begin to explain the rules, but there's a combination of kicking and hand passing, and the obligatory rough tackling. It's an unusual game in that you still get a point if you miss the goal, or hit the post. Bonkers.

Once I'd had enough explained to me, it's actually a really exciting game to watch - fast paced, end-to-end stuff, albeit without the finesse and control of football football (I'm resisting the local habit of calling it 'soccer'). The atmosphere in the 40,000+ crowd was great. Bizarrely, in a country where Gordon Ramsey can be heard saying the 'F' word at 8:30pm on the telly, you can get thrown out of the stadium for swearing at a footy match that goes on til about 10:30pm. There was still plenty of 'barracking' as they call it here, but no rude chants, no song about how the referee might spend his spare time, all very family friendly.

Apparently, the match we saw was a really good example of really good team play - by Geelong, the opposing team, who whooped Adelaide by nearly double their amount of points. They got thrashed, and Ben said he'd never take me to a match again, as I was a jinx. I explained that, as a Man City supporter, this was all very familiar. Both teams are capable of great things, build you up to believing that they can reach the top. And then play like a bunch of amateurs, just when your hopes are up.

Go the Crows!

Adelaide Festival of Arts Northern Lights

In March they turned the old buildings near where i work into works of art every night. It was very, very cool. Somebody tell Manchester to try it.

Work, Work, Work

I’m really enjoying work at the moment.  I was thinking about this today, as I sat in a meeting where they were telling us how we’re all (probably) going to get our jobs re-classified.  As far as I can tell, this means we’ll get paid more money for doing the same thing, which is entirely fair enough, as radiographers in this State are currently badly undervalued.  We are the lowest paid radiographers in Australia.  

The usual argument for this is that the cost of living is lower.  It used to be, but has pretty much caught up with the other states.  It’s much the same now as in England, in that newly qualified radiographers can’t afford the mortgage on an averaged priced home.  It’s just that an average home here is much bigger. And only one storey high.  And made of wood, plasterboard, and a bit of superglue.

Anyway, in this meeting, I realised that I haven’t been all that bothered about the fact I’ve been given a role very similar to my Clinical Tutor job back in Manchester, but am being paid 2 grades lower than I was.

I still enjoy radiographing people, and there’s lots of it to do.  The people I work with are, on the whole a great laugh, pleasant and interesting.  I’ve always enjoyed training students, so it’s great to be heading that up again.  I’m also in charge of Continuing Professional Development.  That’s new to me, and a bit scary.  I’ve been given a blank slate really, the role is mine to run with to see what I can squeeze out of it.  It’s all a bit nebulous and airy.  At least when you’ve got an x-ray request card in your hand, you know exactly what is expected of you, and get instant feedback on if you’ve done a good job or not.

We are rostered (on the roster, which I prefer to call a ‘rota’, which is what we called it in Manchester, although I can see the benefit of ‘roster’ when you come to try to make a verb of it in the past tense - it’s easy to say someone was rostered somewhere, but rota-ed? roterd? rota’d?) in shift groups of about 6, who you work with all the time unless you are doing a side job for some of the rota/roster like me.  Mine is a really nice group, all.  We’re making efforts to be more sociable too.  We’ve been 10-pin bowling (I came last. Twice. I think there are different gyroscopic forces in the southern hemisphere), had a Barbie, and have plans for monthly pub visits.

I really like the shift pattern too.  Never a fan of routine, it’s nicely varied in a repeating kind of way.  I do 5 daytime shifts, weekend off, 7 daytime shifts, then Monday - Wednesday off, then 7 PM’s (15:30-23:30), with 4 days off after.  Sometimes the 7 PM’s are replaced by 7 nights, but at only 7 and half hours long, they are a piece of cake compared to the 12 hours I did at MRI.  

It’s still a long way to get there. I currently cycle 9 km to the train station, where I have to buy my bike a childs ticket to cramp up in a corner way to small for me, the bike and the 3 commuters who are worried about me getting oil on their suits to stand in for the 45 minute journey.  I’ve become very adept at sleeping, reading or listening to my ipod in various contorted positions.  Still, I’m glad we live where we do, as it’s near the better beaches, the hills and the wineries.

What's in a name?

Owen has an assembly parents can attend on Monday mornings.  They sing the Australian national anthem (I'm still uncomfortable having to stand up for it) and, much more entertainingly, classic children's Christian songs we used to sing at Pathfinder camps when I was a young teen.  'I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N', the J-O-Y song, and the arky-arky all get a run out, with actions.  I try not to perform them too enthusiastically, so as not to embarrass Sharon.  And they don't sing the cheeky verse in Arky-Arky about the animals who went in two by twosey-twosey coming out three by threesey-threesey.

Owen's teacher, Miss Cummings, usually does the singing with her huge, tuneful voice. However, when she is off sick, the music teacher takes over. And the name of the music teacher?

Mrs Chorus.

No, I'm not kidding.  That's the best one I've heard since the Chiropodist we used to have in Burnage called Mr Sillitoe.

Whilst we're on the subject, the other day I x-rayed a bloke called Polek Curten.  He pointed out his comedy name when you say his surname first.  

I was caught out hook, line and sinker when I first worked at Manchester Royal by one of the comedy fake request cards we used to make.  I went into the waiting room and shouted full blast for, 'Dan Sinqueen.  Can I have Dan Sinqueen please.'

Our local florist always make me chuckle though.  Austin Flowers. Along with an ace number plate on their car.

My sister, the hero

On her way home from a hard days work recently, our Rebecca was disturbed to find 100,000 Rangers fans rioting in city centre Manchester, following the UEFA cup finals and Manchester City Council's inability to find a big telly that worked.

She got chatting to a young man who had lost his phone, his mates, and his knowledge of where to catch his bus home to Glasgow.

Now at this point I'd have said...well, I'd have muttered...well, to be honest, I'd have avoided talking to him at all.  But Rebecca is more kindhearted and fearless than I am.  So what did she do?  Offered him a place to stay for the night.  The poor lad was from a rural area and clearly traumatised by the violence he'd seen, and very grateful for the help.

Mum told us about this, Sharon told her friend about it, who spoke to someone else we all know who had seen a letter in the Manchester Evening News from a grateful Glaswegian dad, thanking "Rebecca and her family in Burnage", who told Sharon's friend, who told my Mum! 

It doesn't surprise me that they hadn't spotted it themselves.  Every night after tea, Mum falls asleep with the paper on her knee.  If you try to take it off her, she wakes up and says, "I was reading that".  Oh aye.

Just goes to show: news travels fast and far and back again; and acts of kindness are still appreciated in this world.

Nice one Becca bonce.

Strewth!

A great contributor to the English Language

As Australians speak English, differences in language take a while to notice, and can still sometimes suprise us. Robert and Owen already refer to 'heaps' of things, instead of 'lots' of things, and they will tell you that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Maze (or whatever it's called) was 'heaps good'. They also ask for 'Yo-ghurt'. Crisps are 'chips'. Chips, in case you were worried, are 'hot chips'. By the way, don't 'mither' an Aussie for any 'scran' as all you'll get in response to either word is a blank look.

It's also essential to shorten words wherever possible, with the letter 'o' at the end. Need to register your car? You need Rego. Need to fill your car with petrol? That'll be done at the Servo. On Tuesdays, when it is inexplicably cheaper. Fancy a beer after that? You need the bottle-o. Thats what they call off-licenses here. They have drive-through ones. You can't buy alcohol in supermarkets, but that's ok, because you don't have to get out of your car to purchase your carton of Coopers Pale Ale.

What has been difficult to get used to, and avoid joining in with, is the swearing. Pi** and Sh** can be heard throughout the day on radio and television, and seem to be considered much softer words here. I nearly dropped my cup of Lipton's Tea when Aunty Susan, my Mum's cousin who is about her age, said 'Sh**'. Gordon Ramsey, who called a French chef the 'C' word on telly the other week, is broadcast at 8:30pm, early enough for little Bruce or Kylie to learn just how to speak aggressively in the kitchen. Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares is in the top 5 most watched TV programmes here.

What brought all this to mind was the Sermon I heard at Trinity Bay yesterday. John Warner, the Minister, was talking about how we can kid ourselves that it's so much harder to resisit Sin than it used to be. 'Friends, I'm here to tell you that's Bollocks,' piped up John, without a flicker or flush of embarrassment, 'Paul says that's Bollocks...'. Whilst slowly closing my agape jaw I looked around to see everyone elses reaction. Nothing. A yawn here, a stretch there, but certainly it wasn't controversial.

So there you have it. Bollocks in the Bible. It's the only place in there you'll find it!

No wonder they win the Olympics

Robert and Owen had their Sports Day at the end of last term. It wasn't how I remembered Sports Day. For starters, they started their day with an inspirational talk from a genuine Olympian (I forget who she was) and a chance to hold the actual olympic torch from the Sydney Olympics. All we had to motivate us was earning house points for Hillary, Chichester, Scott or Churchill. Ooh.

The sports themselves, as well as the usual sack race and egg and spoon race, were proper athletics events. The school was divided into 4 teams of different colours. Siblings were put in the same teams, Robert and Owen in the greens. Parents, teachers and children all really threw themselves into it.

And the main difference? None of this namby pamby, "it's the taking part that counts". It was all good natured and a lot of fun, but make no mistake; they were all trying to win.

Brass Monkies

Autumn is setting in here which, to our sensitive Northern Hemisphere sensibilities, is a bit strange.  It does feel like it should be Autumn, but it doesn't feel like it should be May.  There are lots of European trees around to go brown and red to make us feel at home.  The photo above is from Hahndorf, Australia's oldest German settlement, where the main street is lined with trees like this.  There's even a brochure giving the route of a tour around the hills just to soak in the colours.

At the same time as going cooler, there's been quite a lot of rain, so suddenly all the scenery that was browny-yellow is green, and flowers are starting to bloom. You can smell autumn, but it smells of spring at the same time too.

Our house has only one built in heater/cooler, which is fine for the main living area, but means the bedrooms are freezing at night.  Especially our bedroom, which has 2 walls to the outside.  Houses here are generally pretty flimsy compared with the UK's.  It's very unusual for the actual structure to be made of brick.  They're usually a wooden or steel frame with a brick veneer.  Nobody has double-glazing.  In fact, lots of people have genuinely never heard of double glazing.  To be fair, it will only get as low as 5 degrees C in winter, so there's not much call for it.  

So, in response to the chilly weather, we did what any good group of Taylor's would do: went to the beach.  With my mum's eternal phrase "I've sat on beaches in worse weather than this..." ringing in my ears, we decided to drive to the beach which is the very closest to our house.  We hadn't bothered with O'Sullivan's Beach before as it's next to an oil refinery.  I had visions of oil covered birds and washed up plastic containers, like they always seemed to have on John Craven's Newsround, just before the final article about how Pee-Pee the Panda moved one leg slightly towards Ding-dong from Beijing zoo, who they were trying to mate it with.

It's actually a great beach, with sand dunes ace for doing stunts on, and choppy seas that produce a foam which Robert and Owen spent a good hour chasing.

All we needed to make it the full Taylor beach experience was a picnic in blue plastic boxes from Dad's work, an orange, yellow and blue windbreak, and Dad's turquoise trunks, which he must have worn each year for at least 20 years.  Maybe next time.

Things that are different in Adelaide #1

South Australia is the only state in Australia in which Coca-Cola is not the top-selling soft drink. 'What could outsell the mighty Coke?', I hear you ask. What has managed to penetrate the public's consciousness more than the world dominating corporation, one of the most recognisable brands in the world? Another Cola? A power drink? The elixir of life?

No. It's cold coffee.

Farmer's Union Iced Coffee, to be precise.

Available in light, regular, Mocha and Extra Strong, South Australians sup on this like no other drink. Everyone has it. Workmen, Doctors, housewives, business execs, it's all pervading. Goodness knows why. Hot coffee in whatever form you like it - Flat white, Soy Latte, Long Macchiato etc. - is widely available everywhere you go, the espresso machine having been as much the norm as in Italy here for ages.

I've tried one, at the insistance of my colleagues and in the interest of soaking in the culture. The verdict? It's alright. Just a bit, erm, well, cold. Personally I'm not into milky drinks, so I'm not the best qualified to comment.

So instead, I just enjoy the fact that the world isn't completely homogonised by the big brands, and order a cappucino.

http://www.farmersunion.com.au/

The story so far

I'm not sure who knows what about our Australian adventure so far, so forgive me if you already know any of this.

After making everyone cry at the airport, we left on 12th January, stopping off for a few days in Hong Kong, where we saw the city, Disneyland, and a giant Buddah. Next to Starbucks. Neon signs, skyscrapers, smelly dried fish and ferries. We arrived in Adelaide 15th January, just 4 months ago. It feels like a lot longer.

 We were made very welcome in the home of Sharon's cousin Gareth and his family, who really helped us out and we'll be forever grateful to. Sharon had a brief trip back to England for her Grandad's funeral. We found a really good church, Trinity Bay, on our first Sunday and have been going there ever since. That has been fundamental to us feeling settled here. The boys enrolled in the Primary school near Gareth's, and I stated working at a Hospital in February.

At the end of March we bought our own home in Woodcroft, a

bout 30km south of the city centre. It's a modest (by Australian standards) 3 bedrooms, one bathroom single storey with a big garage and an outdoor all weather entertaining area (although, how you entertain snow I don't know). We Aussie-cultured-up to the max by buying all our furniture from, erm, Ikea. Owen has started a new school here, which he loves (his teacher at his 1st Aussie school was truly awful). Robert has stayed on at that school until the end of the year (his teacher there is truly wonderful).

Last week our 55 boxes of personal effects arrived from England, so we're now busy cosying up our house and making it home.

The verdict so far? We love it here. There is so much we miss about England - people (the most), places, events. But this still seems to have been the right thing to do. It's been difficult sometimes, and sometimes we're just plain old homesick. But it's been exciting. It's been so good for us to be stripped of all our security blankets. We've learned to enjoy the present with all it's inconveniences, rather than getting stuck in the 'everything will be ok when...' mindset.

We miss you. Come and see us!

Alterations as usual during business

Thanks for taking the trouble to sign in to be able to view this site.  We just thought we could have more freedom in what we post if we know it's only invited people viewing it.  I know I've cringed at some of the things our Richard has written in his blog, worrying about the trouble he could get into if the wrong person read it.

I think I've set it so you can post comments now.  Let us know if you have any ideas about what you'd like to see.

In the meantime, here's a video of Robert and Owen at work in our kitchen.  It demonstrates perfectly a difference between them - Owen is all dive in and get your hands dirty, Robert is much more controlled and precise.  Watch his reaction after putting his hand in Owen's mixture...

The Taylors all used to live within a 3 mile radius of Mum and Dad's, before Rebecca went to Mansfield, Cath moved to Cheshire, Sarah moved to York and Richard moved to Scotland just so he could write a blog. We've taken it to the extreme by moving to Adelaide, South Australia 10146.93 miles Southeast of Burnage.

We hope to use this blog to let you know how we're getting on. There's so much day-today stuff that all adds together to make up our experience here. It's probably best captured a bit at a time. If nothing else, it'll be something for us to look back on.