Turns out that we wont have to put anything into storage as our shipping allowance is 45 cubic metres which is enough to handle anything we want to take with us. The packers are coming on the 26th, 29th and 30th September - apparently they descend on the house like a horde of soldier ants. the shipping container is being dropped outside on the 30th for 3 to 4 hours during which time the entire contents of our house will be transhipped.
...which is exactly what happened. Fast forward 3 weeks - we are now ensconced in our temporary apartment in Baulkham Hills and settling in nicely. Huge amount to catch up on.
We are house hunting and are currently waiting to hear back on a lovely house in a suburb called Beecroft. There is huge demand for decent rental properties and the north western burbs (Pymble, St Ives, Beecroft, Turramurra) where we are looking attract quite literally dozens of viewers on open days. If we wanted to live around here (Baulkham Hills) you could get a dirty big new 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom place probably with a pool for about $650 pw - but I'd contrast it as choosing to live in Milton Keynes rather than Tunbridge Wells.
So what with me being the house bitch and all, I have wasted no time in getting the low down on the supermarket situation here. There's alot less competition here than in the UK, - I've only come across three different places so far Coles, Woolworths and Aldi. Woolies is the winner- Aldi is just as pikey as in the UK and Coles is more expensive than Woolies but the quality is about the same. Bit more expensive over here as well, but a canny house bitch is always on the lookout for bargains.
Milo reduced nearly a whole aisle of people to tears of laughter the other day - we were walking past the deli counter next to a partially used wheel of Swiss cheese when he piped up incredibly loudly 'Look Daddy they've got holes with cheese in it!'. He's also made a new friend - as we walk through the park to meet Jeannette for lunch or to go to the shops we see an incredible range of wildlife. There are eels and giant carp in the pond, weird birds and ducks, loads of wild rabbits and reptiles. In particular there is a very large very dead lizard by the side of the path that we have been seeing everyday for the past two weeks. Milo has decided that he's called 'Dead Ben' and I get an update on how things are progressing as Milo shoots off ahead to cop a look and then jogs back to report. It started off as 'Dead Ben has got flies on him daddy' then 'Dead Ben has got really fat' to more recently 'Dead Ben has exploded' and 'Dead Ben doesn't have a head anymore'. After we've stopped looking and move away he sometimes signs off with 'Bye Dead Ben - see you tomorrow'
Just heard we didn't get the house. Bollocks. Jeannette isn't so pissed off because she didn't get to see the place, so she doesn't know what we've missed out on. I think I need to grow a pair and not get so invested in these places when we view them. I've been trying to see about 6 properties a day so far this week and its boiling down to great house - shit location or vice versa. luckily Jeannette's work aren't going to pressure us out of the apartment but it would be nice to get it sorted as living here has a definite tinge of transience or weirdly being in limbo. once you find one you like (we now know) things get dirty, there are instances of people offering above the quoted weekly rental to secure a property or offering x number of months rent up front. We've checked the finances and we can afford to put up a bung of about 3 months rent to help secure a place if necessary - but it fucks me off massively to have to do it.
Have seen doc and had blood tests - all seems OK at the moment, no recurrence of CMV yet but as long as I'm on such high levels of immuno-suppression, it's really just a matter of time before something kicks off.
I had to take Milo in with me for the consultation as we haven't got child care or school sorted yet and the first thing the Doc said was 'Milo eh? My dog's called Milo'.
Jeannette's had me in stitches with tales of her recent business trip to Perth. On her flight was a large group of what I am going to term 'God's Special People' who I suppose due to vagaries of airline ticket booking, were salted generously among the general pop rather than seated altogether with their carers and medics.. Jeannette had reserved a window seat and as she approached her allocated seat she noticed that it was already occupied by a middle aged lady.
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| It's my window seat I tells ya! |
She later told me that the general background cacophony of yelps, howls and gibbers should have alerted her to the fact that this was no ordinary flight - but she pressed on and asked the woman if she would mind moving as she was in the wrong seat. Big mistake - the woman started barking and howling at her bug eyed- and just as Jeannette was thinking no-fucking-way-aye-ay am I sitting next to this fruit loop for the next five hours, a woman from a couple of rows back came forward and announced that she was the carer and would happily swap seats - job done. It was apparently one of the funniest flights ever, with any passenger who wanted to use the loo having to bob and weave running the gamut of random flying arms and legs or being barked at - a bit like Indiana Jones trying to get out of the Temple of Doom. At one point the plane hit some turbulence which triggered a noise like the entire occupancy of an ape-house being electrocuted.
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