Europhile

We may be living in Australia, but this weekend had a distinctly european, if slightly untrendy, flavour to it.

On saturday night went to see Bjorn Again, an Abba Tribute band. They say they're the closest thing to being able to see Abba live. That's probably overstating it a bit, but they were pretty good. We went with some couples we know from church (Sharon and I were the youngest, woo hoo!) who could remember Abba first time around. they played all the old favourites with the right mix of parody and affectionate tribute. I've still got the songs jangling in my head. And, rest assured, I memorised their dance moves as much as possible ready for the next wedding disco I go to.

One thing we thought we would miss when we came to Australia was the annual cheese-fest that is the Eurovision Song Contest. We always had a bit of a gathering for it each year, to listen to Terry Wogan's laconic wit and rants about block voting. We needn't have worried as, bizarrely, it's nearly as popular here as it is in the UK, and we had no trouble at all finding 5 people to come over and watch it with us. One of them brought a Ukrainian flag, despite having no connection with that country whatsoever. The show it on SBS (Special Broadcasting Service - it shows foreign language news during the day and the rest of the programming is from the rest of the world, or is about the rest of the world, earning it the nickname 'Sex Before Soccer') one night later than it was on live.

This year of course, Terry has retired. The 2 Aussie comedians SBS sent instead were actually really good. And the show itself didn't dissappoint. In true Eurovision style, the winner (Norway) was truly awful, and there were some genuine 'what were they thinking?' moments. My favourite was Albania's green gimp and midget breakdancers.

Come to Australia

Something from the Australian Tourist Board to convince you to come here...

It's been a while

Ok, so this is going to be a downbeat posting, but it's real and it happened, and I feel like I need to get it out here before I post anything else.


In February, we had a miscarriage.


It was awful. Having hardly had chance to get used to being pregnant, at about 10 weeks in we lost the baby. I don't think we'd realised how much had grown attached to this invisible person until we lost her (all babies start out female). This was hot on the tails of our dear friend Bev back in England dying of Cancer.

The friends we have made here and people in England proved to be of tremendous support. We didn't have to cook for a whole week, with friends from church dropping off meals and offering practical help. We took plenty of time out to mourn. I found I was trying to walk a line between letting it all out, but not wallowing in self pity. Now, we are getting on with life, learning to live with this very sad time. We are ok.

There. This blog isn't usually this miserable, but I didn't want to pretend this didn't happpen, and now I've got it off my chest I think I'll find it easier to write more.

Happy New Ears

Happy new year, and I hope you had a great Christmas.

Ours went really, really well in the end, although of course we missed all our family and friends in the UK and Italy a great deal.  I missed Manchester, the Christmas markets, Christmas parties and meals, and even the weather a bit.

It was undoubtedly very different having Christmas here, but really nice.  It was good to be able to have Gareth (Sharon’s cousin), Wendy, their 3 children and his Mum and Dad around, especially as they so kindly put us up for a few months when we arrived.  We also has our next door neighbours, Helen and Adam around.  They turned up late, and in a 70’s TV sitcom story line kind of way, we strongly suspect they hadn’t realised they’d been invited to eat and had already had a big Christmas dinner. Helen at least had a good go at finishing hers, and it was good fun watching Adam squirm as he politely declined.

Of great concern to me at 7am on Christmas day was the plan to roast the Turkey in the Webber, a sort of barbecue with a lid where the charcoal goes at the sides, so you can use it like an oven.  Several liberal applications of fire lighters and half a bottle of kerosene later and the briquettes and my eyebrows were well ablaze.

In the end, the Turkey was perfect. In fact, thanks to Sharon’s hard work and military planning, it was all perfect. The weather was great - warm, but not to hot, so that t was really nice eating outside.

Boxing day was really hot, so we went to the beach with our friends the Davies, and did a bit of snorkeling.  It was really gorgeous. Sharon discovered that if you leave your alice crocs on the back shelf of the car on a 35 degrees day, they curl up and shrink by about a third.

I was working in the afternoons in between christmas and new year, but in the mornings we did the traditional getting up late and not getting dressed playing with new Lego. Robert and Owen both got huge Star Wars Lego sets off their Grandma and Grandad, so we were all in our element.  They also got scooters of their Taid (welsh for Grandad) which they had a go on the skate park near our house each day.  There’s usually lots of skater dudes there, and I thought they might have been a bit resentful of two young beginners cluttering the place up. As it turned out the other kids were all so nice - showing them tricks, asking about their scooters, saying things like, ‘go ahead, it’s your park as well’.  This is one Australian stereotype - the friendly, helpful strangers - that we have been very pleased to find out is generally true.  The kids all swore like troopers, mind, but they were very good hearted.

I was working until 11:30pm NYE, so Sharon and the boys went to a friend of a friend’s pool party in their back yard. The boys had a great time swimming, their lessons paying off, but Sharon didn’t really know anyone, and isn’t a big NYE fan anyway.  I was on the bus home at midnight, being entertained by dozen or so drunk, but pleasant enough teenagers screeching half-minutely time checks, accompanied by a quiet chap at the back who seemed to smoking South Australia’s biggest and strongest spliff.  All public transport in Adelaide is free from 11:30pm onwards on NYE, with services running all night, which is a great idea.

Now into this new year, we’re starting with getting some key home improvements out of the way - I’ve tidied the shed (moving a few poisonous Red Back Spiders whilst at it) and we have ordered a new solar hot water system and a ducted air conditioning system. Air con will add to the value of the house much like central heating does in England. We are forecast a hotter than average summer. Bring it on!

We still miss you all very much and we think of you often. We hope you have a great 2009.

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.