OK. So now I know it’s spring…. As i got off the train this afternoon look who greeted me ….

I also spotted these guys… I LOVE these little birdies. As I have said in previous posts I actually have no idea what their official name is but I have dubbed them ‘Sea Chickens’ because they kind of move like a super model like chicken and live in the water… (Makes perfect sense really when you think about it.. .honestly!) Anyhoo, when I got off the train I noticed 5 little mini, fluffy babies and a sea chicken mummy!  Yay! I’ve never seen baby ‘sea chickens’ before and they are ultra cute! I went and grabbed some bread and look what happened! Isn’t cool the way mum holds the bread in her claw to feed the little ones?

The last animal related story I have to offer involves my classroom at my new job. The classroom I’m teaching in is on the top floor (as usual!) and has an older Promethean Activ board with a projector in the middle of the ceiling (as usual) none of these Ferrari type short throw projectors for me

I usually like being on the top floor because it means the projector doesn’t wobble around when people move about above me.  Instead, it usually sits, steady and controlled and I don’t have to keep orientating the board all the time… That is unless you have a possum in your roof.  Now, that’s something new!  Yep… I have a possum living in the roof! Yay!

So, it would seem that things have gone a little crazy here in the ol’ southern hemisphere. By now, no doubt, you have seen the news stories about how New Zealand’s Christchurch has been hit by an earthquake. Quite rightly, probably, you didn’t hear about what was happening here in SA.  To us ‘poms’ to be honest, it was just a sever October storm (think that one what happened when I was a kid in the 80s).  The only difference is, we’re not really supposed to get such weather types down here in SA – or at least that’s the impression I’ve been given.  At the very least, it was very obvious that the infrastructure wasn’t up to dealing with it!

42,000 of us were left without power last night as the winds raged outside.  What’s really strange is that Friday, in my opinion, seemed to be a much more dramatic weather day. The storm started at about 9am – thunder, lightning – the works and didn’t end until tea time.  When I got off the train after work I was watching the lightning strike over the sea.  It was awesome – if a little scary.  It also worked very well during a lesson I was teaching about murder mysteries (tee hee)

Yesterday’s weather was grey and windy. We lost power at about 4pm – Half way though “The Prince of Persia -Sands of Time” (worth watchin’ that!) – and it didn’t come back on until way after dark.  Matt and I busied ourselves with our won little candle-lit jamborie.  I called Mum and Dad to let them know that I wouldn’t be on line and that I was safe.  I was convinced that Mum would see the news about New Zealand and think “oh my god are they alright!!”. Amusingly she did warn me not to go to the beach – for fear of tsunamis…. LMAO!!

Anyhoo.  Last night was fun!   BLACK OUT! ooooh

Today it’s quite sunny – a few rain clouds about.  Nothing too interesting to report… Oh unless you count Matt’s discovery of  Thebarton  FOODLAND’s Butcher:

Champion of the Beefy World!

Last weekend we were invited to a BBQ at a friends house.  Very cool Whilst we were there Matt was introduced to the idea of the fabled Thebarton Foodland.  Now, those of you who know my lovely husband, will know that large portions of cheap meat (that tastes good) is a very important part of his spiritual being.  I believe his religious denomination on face book actually reads “The Church of Beer and Steak”.

We were actually in Coles (think Sainsbury’s) when we began to hunt for some bacon. At this point I remembered the meat from the BBQ last weekend and suggested a change of store. Everything in the trolley was promptly returned to the shelves as Matt’s eye’s lit up.

Proud to be Beefy

And… boy… look what he found.  That’s nearly 5 Kg  (just over 11 pounds)

/ 176 ounces) of porter house steak for $24.00 (£14.25).  I’ve never seen him happier. It’s taken him nearly 30 mins to cut it up into 21 steaks. He also found a large bag of Chicken breasts and chicken drumsticks (about $7s each)

I just hope he likes Beef that much!

On the way home we were joking about how the scenario might be  a little different in the UK. How, if we owned one, we could chuck the whole slab of meat on the BBQ and invite Adi, Jack, John, Adam and all the other greedy meat eating beastly men around to just sit with steak knives and gobble the whole thing up.  Alas, he’ll just have to do it all by himself.  Poor thing!

I hope there’s not another black out… Otherwise that’s a whole lot of meat to eat in one go if it were to defrost!

First of all, an apology.  I haven’t posted for a while.  I’ve been having such a busy, busy time of things recently and I haven’t had the time / energy to post! lol  BUT I have soo much to catch up on.. So… get comfy my pals and read along

The last, rather brief, mostly video, post I wrote was an announcement that Mini and Ad were in Australia and were engaged!  All jolly good news Since then I have been busy entertaining them.  They left me on Monday morning to go on an adventure down the Ocean Road; they should be flying somewhere over Pakistan by now as they are going to land Friday evening (UK time).

The funniest thing about having people to stay is you’re never quite sure what kind of activities they’ll want to take part in or at what pace they will want to do them.  Whilst they were here I learnt that it is best not to expect to do very much at all until about 11:30 at which point they will have managed to get up and dressed and will be ready to step out and do something interesting.  Nothing wrong with that at all – after all they’re on their holidays.  It gave me the morning to check emails and do work related things  anyway

Koala spotting at Morialta

So, what did we get up to in those afternoons? Well on the Saturday after their arrival we all trundled off to Morialta conservation park to do a bit of koala spotting.  We saw at least 5 before we made it to the waterfall at the centre of the park.  There was some debate over which walk we would endeavour to complete.  You see Adam and Matt had consumed a little bit too much beer the night before and I had a cold… then it started to pour down… proper, torrential CAPITAL R Rain!

Rain at the Waterfall - Morialta

So that was that!  5 Koalas and a short sprint back to the safety and shelter of  the car!  Adam, upon feeling the rain falling down the back of his neck,  immediately recovered from his hangover – Miracle cure!

Sand Whale Building

During the week, whilst Matt was at work, Mini had to visit the beach. It was sunny and lovely and after a cuppa at the Jetty Cafe she set to work on collecting “special shells” (still not sure what that means) and then making a sand castle.  When Adam put his foot in the middle of it, it turned into a whale.. Not sure how… Not sure why a whale has a large hole in it either but it kept Mini entertained enough.. She even dragged Matt back that evening to have his picture taken with it.  I think she was concerned that the sea, a dog, or a happy child may come along and get rid of him.  Rather over protective of that “soap dish” style whale she was!

Whale Watching at Sunset

Garden Time

In the afternoon, whilst waiting for Mr W to return home from work I put Adam to work on the garden… MOAH HA HA!  No really, I was going to do it and he insisted. Possibly because it was an excuse to just put his Ipod headphones in and get some Me time!! Lol.  He did a very nice job too, whilst Mini found one of those fluffy caterpillars from previous posts and made it  a house out of a leaf……. lol I’m sure it was very comfortable and very happy when it realized it could eat it’s house…

During the next day we stayed in.  Adam wasn’t feeling very well so we just ended up chilling in the house.  When Matt got home we headed off to Glenelg though and visited the chocolate cafe and the pier. I think Adam was particularly impressed with Glenelg and all it’s cafes and bars

Aboriginal art Adam

The following day meant a visit to Adelaide’s city center in search of a large koala pencil case for Mum, amongst other things.  We also visited the SA museum.  Do you think Adam chose his “life” circle T-shirt on purpose?

Cleelands park was the order of the next day.  That place where you can cuddle a koala and feed the kangaroos.  Unfortunately, that was all we managed to do.  It began pelting it down with rain and we had to retreat to the cafe and home again!

Koala group shot!

Adam and his new Kangaroo mate

Wii boys

Several evenings were taken up playing games on the Wii. I attempted to convince Matt that we NEED Wii Guitar Hero but it’s not happening yet.  Need Pete to work on him a bit more! lol He and Adam played a lot of the real thing (as in actual guitars) all week anyway so I guess that’s ok..!

The final weekend was very busy too.  Pancakes at the port, dolphin tours, tennis, dinner at Redpoles (It was Matt and I’s 2 year wedding anniversary!) It was all going on!  Finally, we had to go and pick up the hire car for Mini and Adam’s trip down the Ocean Road.

It was a very busy, action packed week and a bit   I think they had fun.  We certainly kept them very busy I hear that they have met Carl Kennedy on the set of neighbours though.  I’m pretty sure that that would top anything else they have done the entire time they’ve been here!!

Here are some more piccies…. just in case you haven’t seen enough yet!

On the Dolphin Tour

At the Warrawong Sanctuary doing the night walk

Tennis Anyone?

Snogging on the beaches- EURGHHHH!

Beach Posers 2

Sea Side Piccies

Beach Posers 1

On a serious note.  I loved every minute of having Mini and Adam around and it was so hard when they left.  It made me remember how difficult it can be to be on the other side.  It’s not the wrong side of the world but I miss my lil’ sis when she’d not around.  I’m really glad she made it over for the “summer” … Hope she can make it again for the actual Summer one day. Then she can have her beach holiday!

They’re here and they’re running a muck!

and getting engaged!  — OOOOhhhh!

The ring!

The Location - Day Dream Island's Jetty

We’ve been here longer than six months now. Crazy. I can’t believe how quickly that went or how much easier this has been the second time around. Perhaps, it’s been easier because there is no uncertainty, no deadline for decision making and in a lot of ways that makes it so much easier to just ‘be’, to settle and enjoy. The last 4 years have been fraught with form filling, decision making and the weight of what felt like an awful lot of enormous decisions.

It’s funny how, once you’re here – decisions’ made, it doesn’t feel like such a big deal anymore. How easy it is to forget how much has been achieved, how much you put yourself through. Perhaps it’s just my natural tendency to over think and over analyse that created the tension in the first place? All I know is that this time I’m happy. I really am.

I do miss friends and family. I get jealous of what I’m missing and then get annoyed with myself because it was, after all, my choice to move here. I feel guilty when something happens and I want to be there and can’t… Perhaps I then over compensate with Skype, Facebook, emails etc. (Sorry!)  I hope that all my friends know they can call anytime and I’ll listen and give my usual brand of slightly dodgy advice!

A few days ago mum asked me whether I ever felt homesick. I wasn’t really sure how I was supposed to answer that one. I know honestly is the obvious answer but is it insulting to those you love if you genuinely don’t? I haven’t once felt like I need to be back in England, not had the urge to return to my house in Studley. I’ve never, once wanted to move back forever. I’m happy to just “be” for the moment. To be still, without the stress of form filling, packing boxes, solicitors, goodbyes and hand overs.

I’m happy to live 5 blocks from the beach with regular ducky visitors on my lawn, to see the sun everyday – even if it must rain in winter. I’m happy drinking coffee rather than beer in cafes rather than pubs. I’m happy to be able to go for long walks along the beach or in the hills. I know that I could have done more of these things in the UK. The weird thing is I never chose to. For what ever reason, the UK didn’t inspire these things in me. Maybe I’ll get bored at some point and Australia will stop inspiring me too. By that point, hopefully, I’ll be driving my kids crazy by trying to get them to appreciate what they have. We all know how ‘ungrateful’ the youth of today are It’s really nice to inspired. That’s what this place does.  It gives you the space to expand (no not just with ice-cream and cakes and coffee ), to reflect and push yourself.

There’s no way I’d have been brave enough not work full time. We couldn’t afford to do that in the UK.  This time we made  decision to live off one wage.  Future proofing for when I’d be with the babies.  I have Matt to thank. It’s been hard for him to take all that responsibility and it’s weight.   He’s learning things about his career and his direction too. I hope the events of the next few days help him with that a little more.   I hope he gets to a comfy place, an inspired at work place – there’s certainly opportunity for him

Running a business has been different. Not as busy as I’d like and I’m finding myself being slowly being drawn ever closer to the classroom.  An interesting thing.  I thought I’d move away from teaching but I can see so much potential in this education system. I want need to be a part of that – Shenley has created a bug in me that needs to be fed.  It will be interesting to see where I end up with that.  Educational Career paths that seemed un-appealing in the UK suddenly seem very exciting here. I guess I need to get inside the door properly before I’ll know for sure.  I definitely, need to get inside a classroom though.

I wonder where what we’ll be up to in another 6 months? Apart from playing host to the Clarkes (senior) and Athersmiths of course!