Well it's been a long stint between updates so I thought I'd best get something down.
We've now been resident in Australia for 8 months and have pretty much got the hang of things. Milo is settling in at school and is working hard at establishing a bad boy reputation- we get regular briefings from his teacher after school and Jeannette has even had a live update with the school on the phone bringing her the real time action. The latest being Milo and two friends having a bollock kicking competition at playtime last week. After some discussion we have agreed that it's kind of to be expected (and proof positive of the existence of karma) seeing as both Jeannette and I were total shitehawks as kids. No doubt my mum will be laughing her arse off reading this. We're trying to come up with a cunning plan to address this unwelcome new turn using a carrot and stick approach. Left to me it would be mostly stick I think.
Health wise I've been Tower Bridge mate, up and down up and down. Soon after we arrived in October 2014 I developed turbo cataracts in both eyes which very shortly made the school run a bundle of laughs, luckily the kerbs are really high here so once I got the offside wheels of the Pajero locked in the gutter I was away, had to wing it a bit at corners and traffic lights, but anyone who knows me will readily testify to the fact that me blind driving isn't that much different to me normal driving. Had the cataracts operated on in Feb (right) and March (left) respectively total cost $10,000. Our health insurers are trying to weasel out of paying citing that it was a pre-existing condition (my arse) so meantime paying for the operations has pretty much used up all our contingency cash. I'm compiling various bits of evidence to counter their bullshit and will keep this blog updated.
I've had a couple of bouts of CMV and my latest new passenger is the Norovirus, the symptoms of which mimic CMV - ie vomiting and the runny bot bots except on a biblical scale. It's bloody frustrating to spend 6 or 8 weeks gradually building up some body mass only to lose it all in a week. Last time I managed to shed 7 kilos in 10 days - a very effective weight loss program but not one I would recommend unless you have a Titanium/Teflon arse, plenty of spare time to spend on the loo - oh and a skipful of wet wipes. Normally norovirus brings it's sparkly magic to your life for only about 48 hours, but to someone with a suppressed or compromised immune system its yadda yadda yadda - you know the rest.
We're renting a nice big house with a pool out in the boonies but will probably look to move at the end of our lease (December) as things are a little too remote and 'banjo plucky' out here for our tastes and it will also reduce my travelling time to St Vincent's (Hospital) if we move back towards town a bit. Somewhere like Lane Cove would be nice but neither of us is relishing re-entering the fray of the Sydney property market where prospective renters clamber over the houses and each other like puppies in a basket. So we'll most likely get no pool, smaller garden and less bedrooms for more money (probs about $800pw) but our thinking is wtf, we're here for a finite amount of time, better to have a crappy house in a great area than a great house in a crappy one.
Some locally gathered pearls of wisdom. Vegemite is in no way equivalent to Marmite or Bovril, that is unless you like the taste of Bovril that has already made at least one trip through someone's alimentary canal. As a lover of both Bovril and Marmite, I really wanted and have tried to like it, but it has the consistency of the globs of black oil you used to find washed up on the beach back in the good old Torrey Canyon and Exxon Valdez days - and an aftertaste like skunk sweat. However, steak and fish here are bloody cheap and very good - the prawns would scare a lot of UK shoppers if you came across them unawares -huge buggers. There's a fish here called Barramundi which is like a meatier tastier cod, I can't recommend it highly enough - I once even passed up the opportunity for a rib eye to order it - and of course petrol is criminally cheap I can put 80 litres of unleaded in the Mitsi (local vernacular) for the equivalent of about £46. Oh and new cars seem to be pretty damn cheap as well you can get a new Jeep Patriot for $25,000 - about £14500! Maybe less import duty or summat.p
Bottoms and dream catcher fleeces for everyone
There is a clothes shop here called Lowes that specialises in couture for the well turned out bogan (imagine Top Man for chavs in the UK, - no hang on scratch that, - just imagine Top Man) and no- one apparently ever shops there or owns up to it at any rate. We unknowingly ducked in to buy some long school trousers for Milo and I walked around trying to find a single solitary pair of adult trousers that did not have an elasticated waist - not a chance although if you are in the market for a black fleece hoodie adorned with Wolves or Native Indians I can see you right, no worries.
There is a clothes shop here called Lowes that specialises in couture for the well turned out bogan (imagine Top Man for chavs in the UK, - no hang on scratch that, - just imagine Top Man) and no- one apparently ever shops there or owns up to it at any rate. We unknowingly ducked in to buy some long school trousers for Milo and I walked around trying to find a single solitary pair of adult trousers that did not have an elasticated waist - not a chance although if you are in the market for a black fleece hoodie adorned with Wolves or Native Indians I can see you right, no worries.
Apologies for the slapdash insertion of the images but I'm doing this on an iPad and it's a massive dong ache.
All in all having a damn good time so far and there is still so much of this incredible place left to see.
