My working week....

Well, the holiday is officially over and I am officially back to work! Started my new job at a city council on Monday and have had a really good week so far.

I was really nervous on Monday but the nerves soon disappeared once I got there, as I knew they would. Within 45 minutes of arriving, I was in a meeting with the Chief Executive who presented me with a welcome mug and a scroll containing the values of the organisations. Ahhh, I thought! Nice touch! And to think in some recent organisations I worked for (ahem, a-nhs-hem) I didn't even know what the CEO looked like, let alone get given a mug from him! haha

The job seems to be ok. Was all a little daunting on Monday but my brain was just a little dusty and once I'd brushed away the cobwebs I got into it and understood everything a bit better! By today (Thursday) I'm really into it and am ready and raring to add some 'Becky style' to the place...

The highlight of my working week has been yesterday, coincidentally Dan's birthday too (Happy birthday Dan!). We had a corporate induction and as boring as these things usually are, I actually really enjoyed it! It's so cool to learn all about how a council in a different country operates, and things like super (pension) - but that's the nerd in me! The best best best bit of the day was being taken out on a bus trip around the council boundaries (which includes the ocean...) with a little packed lunch! I was in my total element and was desperate to get my camera out and take some snaps but managed to retain a level of professionalism whilst surrounded by engineers, planners, environmental health officers and asset management consultants! haha.

Today was a beautiful day and I took a walk at lunchtime and found a great little park (known here as a reserve). The sun was shining, the sky was blue and there were little parrot like birds in the trees! Just ignore the sirens in the backgroud - it's still a city you know! I just felt so happy to be there and yet again felt all of our hard work over the last couple of years has paid off!

My lunchtime 'reserve'- (sorry you need to tilt your head)


The place I'm working has what they call a great 'culture'. There's a new Chief Exec and he seems really dynamic and approachable. He did a full staff briefing this morning and you should have seen the pile of muffins at the end! Oh, these aussies love their cakes. Following my chocolate muffin this morning I had a slice of the call centre's black forest gateux this afternoon!

So far the place seems great, and of course, I'm still in the real world and can already see problems arising or areas for concern but that's only normal. It's nice however to work in an environment where everyone is so friendly, complete strangers in the office say a friendly 'g'day' at the photocopier and there is a just a good vibe.

And even though work has started for me, the lifestyle is still great. Where else do you get to go for a drink after work and get this kinda view -



















All in all, a good week. It was of course Dan's birthday on Wednesday and we had a nice evening out but I will let him tell his own story! But here's the sunset on the way home on his birthday. Winter is sooo tough here....

My perfect Saturday...

Written on Saturday evening (a relaxed evening at home)

I’m not sure if it’s because I start work on Monday, or because we’re are starting to slow down and settle in but today I woke up, experienced our new lifestyle, and loved it!

I mention work on Monday because it is something I am feeling a little nervous about. I’m not nervous about the job itself, the Council for which I will be working, or even the people I will be working with… I’m just nervous about getting back into a Monday to Friday routine! I last worked a full time week in February (what with clever use of annual leave entitlement followed by some consultancy work which financially enabled me to work part time) and it will be a shock to have to get up and go – not just once but FIVE times a week! It will also be strange to start working in this new environment. So far, Adelaide has been a place to explore, discover, make plans for and has felt a bit like a holiday! I relate our lovely little house to lie ins, cups of tea in bed, followed by leisurely trips to the library for internet access. What a shock work will be! I know I’ll be fine once I’m back in the routine.

So, today. It has been by far my favourite day so far.

Let’s start with yesterday actually. Dan and I caught the train into the city and we went our separate ways so that I could have a bit of ‘me’ time in the shops to spend my birthday money (I think we both appreciate the odd few hours apart as we have been pretty much joined at the hip since, ummm, over a month ago!). We opted to catch the train to a) save on parking costs (not that it is that expensive, but we bought a multi-ride ticket last week so it makes more financial sense to catch public transport!) b) so that we don’t lose that sense of public transport adventure we had in London (?) and c) so that we could have a few drinks (actually, that’s the main reason)

After a successful shopping trip, I met back up with Dan and we had a stroll by the river. The sun set as we were walking and I just love the way the sunset turns the city and its buildings orange. Stunning.

To be honest, we only went for a stroll because we were half an hour early for happy hour at The Cavern. Yes, Adelaide has its very own Beatles themed bar and we attended its ‘Tight Arse Friday’ which gave us half price drinks between 5.30-7.30pm! $20 later (yes, that’s the equivalent of something like £8) we had consumed four red wines and four pale ales and fell for the whole marketing strategy by staying beyond happy hour and ordering that oh so delicious smelling food.

We woke up this morning full of life and got straight into the car and headed for Central Market. We love Central Market as it is just a huge buzz and we love buying ourselves some lovely food to take home. Today’s shopping list included ingredients for a Dan and Beck’s special barbecued breakfast and a kilo of prawns for lunch!

After we’d barbecued our breakie and enjoyed the sunshine in our little morning suntrap, we headed out for a drive east to the Adelaide Hills. We drove to Mount Lofty summit, which only took about 20 minutes from the city or 40 minutes from our house. The views were just breathtaking and we could see the whole of Adelaide, its suburbs and the sea. The weather was glorious sunshine (though a little chilly) and I think we are both a little rosy this evening as we have caught the sun!

Following a lovely drive through the hills and past several Adelaide Hills vineyards, we headed back ‘down to earth’ and headed in the homeward direction. We spent an hour at Grange on the way home. Grange is a lovely little seaside suburb with a great jetty, stunning beach, small café, and a few other bits and bobs. Today it was amazing to see so many people on/around the beach playing games, walking dogs, fishing or just sitting. We had a nice stroll on the jetty and just couldn’t believe our luck to be here.

To wow us even more, following our barbecued prawns and Semillon (life doesn’t get better) we wandered over to ‘our’ beach for sunset. After such a stunning day the sunset was equally stunning and again, we felt our 20 months of hard work to get the visa had paid off.

Weird how only today it has just sunk in what an amazing lifestyle we are living. I think it’s because it was the first Saturday where we haven’t had a big list of household jobs or things to do. We had time to just explore and enjoy! We’ve still got lots to get for the house but that is all on hold until payday comes.

Ok, so the negatives. Um, there really aren’t any at the moment. It does get dark early which makes the evenings feel long but we’ve just had the shortest day so it gets lighter from now on! The weather has been chilly (though the blue sky and sunshine is lovely!) but now we have extra heaters in our house we are happy! (Aussies don’t have heating as standard as it’s only really needed for 2-3 months a year – a bit like the UK with air-con!)

The worst thing is knowing how far away we are from our family and UK friends but every time we find somewhere or something nice we say ‘we must bring people here when they visit’! Communication feels hard at the moment as we have no internet at home, though having a phone line installed has meant me and my mum have been able to reinstate our weekly hour long catch ups!

There’s still a lot to get for our house to be home, but for now we have the basics – barbecue included!

Life is good.

Becks
x

New photos added...

June - Arriving in Adelaide

PIES, WINE, BRUNO & CHARLENE

Apologies for the delay in updating the blog, there are two reasons for this, 1/ it is my turn (DAN) and I have been side tracked by all the goings on which is 2/.

So let’s rewind to the last time you lucky people were updated about our escapades. The good news is that we have started drinking now and had our first night in Adelaide on Saturday. It was for our friend Philly’s birthday and a lot of alcohol was consumed and good fun was had by all, I am actually writing this update from the toilet as I have the runs!

The first story is about our new house. For those of you who are aware of how our life works, it generally happens around drink or food. On this occasion it was food and in particular the pie (yes, even back in Aus I am still the pie master). So we spent Thursday 7th June searching for houses, they were either to expensive or to far from the beach or just plain rubbish, then it was lunchtime and we went for a pie in Semaphore. We got chatting the nice lady behind counter, “Two Steak Pies please and a recommendation on a house for rent, about $295 a week, 146.26 metres to the beach, nice wooden floors and a lovely front garden, plus can it be near to public transport”. Believe it or not the Pie Lady new exactly the place and recommended us a nice place she used to own. So off we trott to the realestate agents and book a viewing and low and behold it is available and we are suitable tenants and we moved in on the 16th June So the moral of this story is that Pies are healthy for you!



Now we needed a car. Where better to find a car than through a friend. A classic old banger (Toyota Corona for all you car connoisseurs) that has done very low kilometreage (they use Kilometres here, so I made a new word up). Becks had done all the arrangements and then announced that we had to do a 4 hour coach journey to pick it up (about the same distance as going from London to Newcastle)! Great, so we had a road trip on our hands. We got up early on Saturday morning and caught the bus to the coach station where we joined the local inhabitants of Port Augusta on a trip north, mmm what a lovely looking bunch they were. As seats are pre allocated we had the joyous position of sitting opposite the local tramps and what a delightful odour detramp they had, a mix of tropical fruit juice, stale bread, unwashed, cigarette smoke and of course the classic finishing touch of stale beer. And off we went. The scenery and views were stunning all the way up, especially as we neared the Flinders Range which will be somewhere to explore later on. We reached Port Adelaide and were met by the owner of the car (Philly’s boyfriends sister) Sue. She was wicked fun and gave us a cup of tea and a detailed history of the car. 3 owners, air con fitted (woo hoo), slight oil leak and an 80’s tape collection. Now the 80’s is a significant time for both of us as it was our growing up years so what better name to give the car than an 80’s institution… Neighbours and in particular Charlene, yes we have named the car Charlene after the one and only Kylie Minogue character. 31/2 hrs later and Charlene had done well in getting us back to our Bed & Breakfast.

The first trip in Charlene had been good fun; the second was to be even better as it involved food & wine! We headed south to the McLaren Vale for the Sea & Vine festival. Basically an excuse to have a big drinking session and lots of fantastic food, you have got to love the aussie attitude towards life. The first vineyard we came to was Wirra Wirra wine estate and we left $60 lighter and a little tipsy (sadly Becks was unable to drink as she was driving as I had conviently left my drivers licence in the UK). Next we went to the Information Centre in McLaren Vale so that Becks could get her designated driver badge which turned out to be a bonus as it entitled us to 20% off wine at some of the vineyards (we now only visited those who offered this discount; see marketing really does work). We had lunch at Woodstock Vineyard which did a really nice Riesling so we purchased a bottle of that, plus they were doing some great food offers. I had the classic battered Whiting & chips and Becks had seafood paella, plus some further wine sampling. Another 4 vineyards later, $200 dollars spent and Dan now slightly drunk and Becks very sober we headed back home. The really nice thing about the day was that everyone was relaxed and friendly, nobody gave any agro and the service was fantastic, god we love living here! Plus all these vineyards are only 40min drive from our house. If anyone comes over and stays from the UK you must go there.

Becks has cleverly got herself a job and I am debating on whether to become a kept man. She starts work next Monday at the City of Charles Sturt working as a Community Engagement Officer (I have no idea what that means, but sounds good, guess you go around the community getting people engaged, a bit like Blind date used to be). Hopefully things will work out and all will be fine, although she did have to do a Pysco test (I could of told them how Pysco she is) so we will see if that affects her future development.

The other good news is that we have another new addition to the family alongside Charlene. Bruno has joined us, he comes from Barbeques Galore in Mile End and is an absolute beauty. He has four big burners (lit by flame throwers), a side burner and the nicest silver hood you have ever seen. We have already cooked some amazing food on him and we hope that at some point you will all have the opportunity to do the same.

A reflective piece
We have done so much and have finally got rid of the jet lag, life here is hard as you can imagine but we will struggle on.

That’s the update for the moment; keep tuned Becks & Dan fans for more fun and frolics as we settle in.

P.s. We went and saw the Adelaide Crows which was wicked, although they didn’t allow you take alcohol to your seat, very selfish of them I felt and the Crows lost, but still a wicked game and thanks to our hosts the Schatt family

Testing our new webcam

A new feature to our blog!

I hope you like the new 'dan & becks favourite adelaide places' column on the right - thought we'd share some of our top places, as we discover them! It also helps us keep track of places to revisit!

Becks

Busy but productive day

Well, we've now done two full days here in Adelaide and things are going well.

This morning I did my 'psycho test' (as Dan calls it) for the job I am going for and I think I did ok. It involved personality profiling plus some general literacy and numeracy tests - arggh, hard with jet lag still hanging around! And though relatively easy, weird to be working out sums with dollar signs for money and the Goods Service Tax (VAT!) at 15%!

Looking good on the job front though as I've just had this from the agency - "she wanted me to pass on how keen she is to take your application further. She will be conducting ref checks tomorrow - hopefully you'll have an answer tomorrow, if not on Tuesday!" Hurrah! I won't celebrate just yet, but looking good!

Dan came with me to the test and sat in the adjoining library on the wireless internet. We keep getting really thrown by how friendly everyone is - infact a couple of times today we wished people would just shut up and get on with the matter in hand! All overwhelming when we've come from London where people don't even have eye contact!!

Dan has found a potential job he wants to apply for and is going to register with an agency tomorrow. He's flaked before me again tonight (I'm winning the dealing with jet lag competition) so I thought I'd do a quick blog update as I know a few of you are following it!

This afternoon we viewed three houses - all really nice, though each had some aspect that we weren't sure about or didn't like. They were in Port Adelaide (very trendy apartment on the water front); Largs Bay (we really like this sleep seaside area) and Grange (another seaside area). We have another viewing lined up for tomorrow morning.

We also did a bit of car shopping during the late afternoon and test drove a little old banger. Really nice, though we are toying with the idea of spending a little more than planned to get something a bit more 'sustainable' and that has more of a safe feel to it! That's another job for tomorrow as the hire care goes back on Saturday!

Tonight we ventured out into North Adelaide and had $10 burger and beer! We really liked North Adelaide and see it as somewhere we might frequent a lot - but don't fancy living there as we want a bit more laid back suburbia living for a while!

Enough for now anyway. I seem to be making a habit of this blog business at the moment but it's kinda theraputic at the end of each day to sit down and write what we've been up to!

Becks
x

Day two - hey, don't expect a post every day!

We flaked yesterday afternoon and I think Dan managed to spend 17 hours in bed until this morning! I woke up in a bit of a panic at about 8pm as it was so dark and I don't think I quite knew where I was! I must confess to having a little weep and a bit of a 'what on earth have I done' moment - but quickly remember feeling this when we arrived in places like Sydney and Perth several years ago. Things always seem worse in the night (or at 8pm, when you've been asleep since 5pm!) and I was back to chirpy Becks this morning.

After forcing ourselves to stay in bed until 7am (weird being wide awake so early!) we had a leisurely breakfast and did various bits and bobs such as request our tax files online. Later on, we headed back into Adelaide where we had an appointment with the Welcome manager at Commonwealth Bank - wow, soooo friendly. Can't say I've ever experienced such chirpy banking before!

We popped into SA Immigration as we'd read there was a welcome pack on offer. After filling in a short form, we got a great pack full of info on various bits and bobs. Again, wow, what a welcome!

The arvo was dominated by a job interview which I had arranged before I left home. All seemed to go well and fingers crossed I'll hear some good news. Felt rubbish when I arrived there with the jet lag but the adrenalin kicked in and I was fine! Gotta go back tomorrow for some kind of psychological testing! Argh - let's hope I don't fail that one!

Dan has now flaked again and I'm not far behind but am extremely proud we've done the whole first full day without a nap or too much of an early night! Reckon we'll have this jet lag sorted in time for the weekend!

House hunting tomorrow afternoon. Fingers crossed.

New photos on our Picassa site! -

Arriving in Adelaide!

We have arrived!

Wow, we've done it! We're in Adelaide!

The last 48 hours (or so, I've lost count) have been the craziest most surreal hours in my life so far! It seems like such a long time ago that we had our emotional (but managable) farewell with Mums and Dads, Sam and Trev at Heathrow, yet we haven't had a proper sleep since!

As I say, the farewell went ok, though a fair few tears were shed. It was horrible to walk away from everyone but equally really exciting and I was crying with both sadness and excitement.

I'm proud to say we had a whopping 96kg of luggage, which even exceed Singapore Airlines generous allowance of 40kg each for our visa. Luckily they let us take it all - and free of charge at that!

Our flight from London to Singapore took a bizarre twist as John, who I have been doing consultancy work for over the last couple of months in London, was randomly sitting in the seat in front of Dan! We said goodbye to John at Singapore as he continued his regular trip home to New Zealand!

Other blips included one of my fillings coming out as I munch on a packet of nuts at the beginning of the flight (no drama, it isn't painful!) and quite a bumpy ride the whole way. Generally good though, and the 13 hour flight did go quite quickly.

Had a great time at Singapore Airport with four hours to kill! We had a massage and showers, followed by pizza! Dan wasn't happy when his brand new bottle of Molton Brown shower gel purchased in Heathrow duty free was confiscated in the departure gate at Singapore.

The flight from Singapore to Adelaide was great, but did seem to drag! The worst bit was once we knew we were over Australia it seems to take (and it did take) hours to get to Adelaide! We watched a glorious sunrise as we were appoaching the south coast which gave me quite a lump in my throat.

Flying into Adelaide was amazing. The city was lit up by the morning sun and the long shadows along with the stunning Adelaide Hills as a back drop made it look like something in a dream! The city itself looked like lego but really amazing - that's a view I won't ever forget! And then a huge rainbow (yep, it had been raining, which remember is a good thing down here) appeared as we got to the airport. Magic!

So then we had to queue to get through immigration and were one of two parties migrating in our queue! The 'getting in' process was quite daunting but compared with others stories ours was very straight forward! We've now got the 'arrived' stamp in our passport! It's done, we're permanent!

We picked up our hire car and set off for our bed and breakfast which so far seems ok. A few aussie guys laughed at Dan for being in shorts and actually, it has been pretty chilly today! We soon changed into jeans, hoodies and scarves! Weird to see autumn colour leaves on trees too! Though when the sun shines it is lovely and warm!

We decided to deal with the jet lag/lack of sleep head on and just kept going for as long as we could (Dan has now crashed which has therefore left me trying to stay awake by writing this blog!). We went into Adelaide and got ourselves mobile numbers - I don't know how we managed it as we were both on another planet by then!

Before crashing into bed, we decided to mark our arrival as we always intended and have fish and chips on the beach! We went to Henley beach which was huge, open, empty and glorious and had Baramundi and chips. Lovely.

So now Dan has crashed, I am desperately trying to stay awake to get my body ready to be alert and awake for my first job interview tomorrow. I figure that if I can stay up a little longer, then maybe I will just sleep through the night and wake up refreshed in the morning... watch this space!

First impressions of Adelaide so far are:
1) It's Autumn! Sunny but a little chilly. Autumn trees and huge blue skies!
2) Big wide roads - very easy to navigate around the grid system but a lot of traffic lights which always seemed to be red! (and I was struggling to stay awake as I waited)
3) Much greener than I expected - loads of trees! Beats London any day! Also much flatter, not that I'd ever given that much thought!

We really haven't been able to take it all in yet - even the fact that we are here! I hope that tomorrow we will wake up with some energy for exploring...

Becks
x

Arriving in Adelaide!