dazefly

Joe is 7 weeks old!

2007-08-09T10:13:00.000+10:00

I can hardly believe it really. Where has the time gone? It seems like only yesterday I had a tiny [ish] newborn who fed and slept; now I have a baby who fancies a chat after his 2am feed and constantly smiles!

It has been far too long since I've blogged but I have had my hands [and at one point, my belly] full!

Someone asked me yesterday; Is all this [by all this, I assume they meant motherhood] what you thought it would be? In a word, no. It is so much better!

In all honesty I thought I would hate being up in the middle of the night to feed, especially with it being the middle of the coldest winter in 10 years here in Melbourne. I thought it would all be so much harder and, when all was said and done I was terrified of what I would do with this tiny person when we eventually got him home!

What people don't tell you is that who you bring home is a person. Now that sounds daft I know but Joe was not a stranger. We know Joe, he is ours and he had been with us since we knew of his existence the day I peed on that stick.

So thoughts of cold and lonely midnight feeds were banished for I was not alone, nor was I cold for I had Joe. Ian is often up, despite going back to work after only 2 weeks, so the wee hours were not solely the domain of Joe and I. Ian and I have spent many hours huddled over our tiny [ish] son utterly gobsmacked at the blessing he is.

So here we are, looking back over almost 2 months of life with Joe Stanley Finn and we both admit we can not remember what it was like before he arrived. He is a delightful baby who keeps us enthralled at every moment. And in the last couple of weeks it seems he is often up for a chat. Yes folks, the kid is most surely mine! Ian has had to accept that his son, like his wife, will almost certainly be an extrovert. I pity the man.

I will endeavour to write more but for the moment I suspect what you are all waiting for are these...

More Pics...

2007-06-30T14:28:00.002+10:00

... on the dazeflypics site here

Introducing Mr Joe Stanley Finn...

2007-06-21T13:36:00.000+10:00

...born via Caesarean Section at 8.14AM at Mercy Hospital, Melbourne this morning, following 13 hours intensive labour and 12 hours pre-labour preceding that...

Mum, dad and bub are all utterly exhausted but doing well.

Weighing in at a healthy 10lbs 8ozs [4.74 kilos], 53cm tall and head circumference of [ouch!] 39cm. Joe [not Joseph] is blue-eyed, with dark curly hair and an instant taste for the boob: clearly a product of his father's genes, though physically does paradoxically resemble his mother rather more than his dad.

They aren't currently accepting any visitors given the recentness and intensity of the event, but will probably have daytime open house on discharge from hospital, at a time to be announced...

Dad is currently stunned, feels jet-lagged and overwhelmed at the fruit of his loins. Not only has he now got a son, he's become both a parent and father. Mum is also reportedly dazed and confused, though the vast amounts of prescribed medication may also be a contributory factor.

More news and pics as things progress. Well, hopefully!
Links to more pictures here

A Very Brief Update...

2007-06-16T14:40:00.000+10:00

4 days overdue and counting...

Thought we were about to have Junior a week ago when C had what we thought were the start of contractions, but... false alarm.

Since then... zero, nada, zilch.

Going in hospital tomorrow [Sunday] for a heart trace, but all precautionary as baby is well, happy and surrounded by plenty of fluid.

If no movement by the end of next week, the discussion about induction begins...
Watch this space!

And 2 bits of news we didn't pass on. Claud got offered a permanent post at 35 weeks or something, which means partial paid maternity leave and a guaranteed job when she comes back. They've suggested she comes back sloooowly, part-time with even the possibility of some work from home. They realised what an asset she was, even at that late stage of pregnancy, and snapped her up! Cool, huh?

And I just got a promotion!
Sort of a management role within the same Community Mental Health Service. So I get to keep contact with my clients etc., but take on more of a clinical lead and supervisory role, and step up when the manager's on leave.

I'm pretty happy, needless to say, as I've only been there what seems like five minutes, and it's also a bit more dosh, which means the mortgage on the new house can definitely be paid while Mrs B is on maternity leave!

Quick Update

2007-03-25T10:42:00.001+10:00

Just to reassure you in the absence of any update for moooonths... [and, um, sorry]

All is well with the bump. No concerns, 29 weeks now and counting.

We've been particularly tied up with baby-orientated stuff, and are also in the process of getting a house built. Yes, we're really becoming proper adults now.

Another year older...

2006-12-28T15:25:00.000+11:00

I am trying to decide if my vanilla milkshake cravings are pregnancy induced or they just taste good and, being pregnant is a good excuse to indulge. Discuss.

Ian says I must blog as it has been ages since I have and the year is almost up. It is hard to believe we have been back in Melbourne for almost 12 months. I really do struggle with how quickly time seems to pass and that I am now 16 ½ weeks pregnant and, according to those in the know, the baby is the size of a pear - or an avocado depending on what you read.

In truth, it feels more like a cantaloupe [or rock melon for those in Sydney] has taken residence in my lower abdomen. It is still hard for me to believe I am pregnant. Yes, I have seen the scans, heard the heart beat and have spent many afternoons feeling queasy, but, with no outward signs to speak of [aside from the growing need for clothes that contain a large percentage of lycra], it still feels so surreal.

We had our first monthly appointment with our Obstetrician, Michael, yesterday. All is going well and according to plan. No scan this time but he did check the baby's heartbeat which was galloping along nicely. Still, while on some level I understand that there is an actual little person inside me, it is just not computing. They say that I should start feeling something in the next few weeks. That should be exciting...

Well, my year has been a rather mixed bag. I have mentioned before that work has not been what I expected it to be and, for some reason, it has coloured almost every other area of my life. When we left the UK, I left behind a great job with a great company where my career path was clear and the people I worked with brilliant. Since being back I have struggled with a growing sense of insecurity about what my capabilities are and here I am, almost 12 months later, still contracting in a department I really do not want to be in. In all honesty, it has been a rather soul destroying experience

There is light at the end of the tunnel though. The bank I work for has a growing number of staff who are seconding between our pacific branches / business units, Indian operations and Australia. With a change in legislation over business visas to Australia, the Global Mobility department's work load and profile has increased significantly.

As I was seconded to London with KPMG to work in Global Mobility in 2000, I have a fair amount of experience and knowledge that the GM team here could do with. I contacted the woman in charge of the project, giving her some background on my career in the UK and she immediately asked to meet with me. Long story short, there is a good chance a position will open up in GM later in January which she hopes she can offer me.

So, on the upside, the waiting around here at the bank may actually [hopefully] pay off. It means I will need to keep the fact I am pregnant to myself for the moment and only say so after an offer is made. I have spoken to HR here and that is the course they have advised. The bank can not reneg on an offer upon finding out that a woman is pregnant so I am hoping for better things in 2007 on the work front.

Now, back over 2006 we go! On every other front the decision to move to Melbourne has been worth it. Despite the homesickness, the heatwave when we landed, the long commute from my brother's before we found our inner-city apartment, Ian's hellish month of night-shifts and the uncertainty around my job, it really has been a good move.

We seem to have more cash than we had in Manchester. We both earn more than we did in the UK which surprises most Aussies who have returned from a stint in England. I suspect that is because they worked in London while we poor northerners struggled on without the hefty London weighting.

We eat out loads, which if you know Ian and I well realise what a boon this is! We live close to most of the culinary hot spots in Melbourne and have copies of The Cheap Eats Guide AND The AGE Good Food Guide which, we always forget to consult and never have with us when remember to. Still, you'd be hard pressed to find a bad meal in Melbourne so eating out is not the ordeal it can be in the UK.

I miss England at times, well, actually, I miss my friends. The people I know well and who know me well. It's funny for that is the exact same thing I missed about Australia when I moved to London. We all want to be known and not having people around who really know you can be hard for you feel that you are not really able to be yourself. Does that make sense?

Ian is homesick at the moment. I think it is partly due to the cricket, and that need to be around your own people when a competition like this is happening. He is, as I type at the MCG watching his beloved England try and save the 4th test from gurgling down the drain.

I decided not to go for 2 reasons - firstly, I can not imagine sitting down all day with a cantaloupe resting on my bladder and secondly, I do not get paid for the days I take off. So in lieu of a tropical holiday somewhere in February, I decided to drag my self into work for these 3 days between Christmas and New Year.

Anyway, that paragraph was supposed to be about Ian not me.

It is hard living in a country that is not your own. At least I have that experience and I can understand how Ian feels. We both know deep down that Melbourne is a better place in terms of lifestyle, opportunities and basic affordability. Also, it is where we want to raise our kid[s].

For me at least I want them to know what a long hot summer is like. I want them to learn to swim and be at home in the ocean. I want them to be close to their cousins, aunts, uncles and grand parents. I want them to absorb the innate optimism Australian’s seem to have which I have always suspected is due to the space, sun and lack of class distinctions.

However, this is hard because Ian's mother is back in Manchester and our children will not know her as well as they will my parents.

How do you balance it all out? I do not know. We will have to figure it out as we go along. On the other hand, I also want my children to know where their father was born and to understand the things that shaped him. I love England for it gave me Ian and that is enough reason to want to go back again and again and immerse ourselves the culture, people and pubs.

I'm waxing philosophical now which I suspect is the sugar in that last vanilla milkshake.

I hope that 2007 brings you much joy and peace.

Happy New Year!

We Have News...

2006-11-30T19:11:00.000+11:00

...and an excuse for being so rubbish at keeping in touch.

scroll down...

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the six and a half weeks excuse

the eight weeks excuse

the twelve weeks excuse.

The email you may have received is as follows... if you haven't it means we have missed you off the list because we have an out-of-date email address, we lost it when our old computer died, or the text message we sent never arrived [a common occurence, it would seem]. It doesn't mean we don't love or miss you! We do. Lots.

Family, friends both near and [very] far,

Firstly, apologies to most of you for the appalling lack of communication from our end. As you will read, we’ve been a little preoccupied.

I can’t actually believe I am using these words but … Ian & Claudine are hysterically pleased [relieved] to announce that we are expecting an addition to our family. Yes, we are pregnant!

Twelve weeks in fact. We had our 12 week scan yesterday and to say it was emotional experience would be a screaming understatement. We could not really let ourselves believe it was all happening until, the moment yesterday, when we saw our baby on the screen, happily lolling about, waving arms and looking right at home. Everything is where it should be and hearing that little heartbeat was one of the best sounds I have ever heard.

We are due on June 12 – but who ever gives birth on their due date – so it will be a long hot [fat] Melbourne summer for me! I have suffered ‘afternoon sickness’ which my friend Anita says is due to the baby being half-English and therefore operating on GMT. I think she may be right.

Apologies to those of you we have not contacted in months. Please know that despite our silence, we think of you all often and miss you all terribly. Given the timing of all this we will most likely not be heading back to the UK before the baby is born but we hope to take Baby Berry ‘home’ to England often in the years to come.

Much love

Claudine & Ian

Will You Just...

2006-11-05T10:11:00.000+11:00

I'm adapting recent emails in an attempt to ease my guilt at my failure to update for 4 weeks, so apologies if some of you have read some of this before. There have been things going on that have impacted on my ability to put down on erm... screen, what's been happening chez nous. But you're not here for excuses, are you? You're here because you're bored at work, surfing the net, and thinking about your next holiday as the loooong November nights draw in...

My new job is fine, and although I was in limbo somewhat for 3 weeks, covering for another Case Manager who was on leave, before taking on my own caseload a week ago. I feel like I'm there properly now, though there's again tons to learn: how to access services, what the limits my role actually are, etc. etc... think I'm gonna like it.

It's nice to have some time out of the office, manage my own time, and stroll down Acland St, St Kilda, sunshine shining down and bronzing my beautiful but oh-so-white Pommy skin, without worrying if Patient X is about to AWOL, punch someone, or get really agitated and make my life a misery. Not that it's like that all the time on the ward but there's a lot of anticipatory stress and I'm glad to be able to... Ah! Chill... Technically, St Kilda isn't in my patch, but I sometimes get the chance to swing that way [missus].

Finally finding my way round Melbourne, as I get use of a car to go and visit clients at home [nice to say "clients" rather than patients - feels much more egalitarian, even if it isn't really that way, much of the time]. Managed to get quite lost on occasion, but it's coming to me slowly. Will have to get a car eventually, I guess, but not a big priority right now.

Saving for a deposit is our main focus, and despite having gone thru the process of furnishing our apartment from pretty much scratch, we're managing to save pretty well, and have maybe about half our deposit. There's talk of the Federal Govt. reducing or even abolishing the accursed Stamp Duty [which would be a minimum of ten grand or so, even on the cheapest property]. The economics of the situation would probably mean that house prices would be driven up by market forces anyway ["hey honey, we can afford ten grand more"]. And the stupid process of house buying here is something I hate. Auctions all over the place, and the often suggested price is usually a deliberate underestimate by a country mile to stir up interest. Hmm, something to look forward to in the New Year, eh?

Still seeing people from work [t'pub, usually] regularly, and they're a really good bunch. Haven't actually got any new friends who aren't nurses tho... in this funny place of not feeling the right age to look at ways to go out and find new ones, but there's only so much you can talk about work, but we can prattle on forever about the politics and erm... mad stuff that goes on in our odd line of business.

Saw Something for Kate again the other week [Forum], then Tim Finn in a nearly-empty Prince of Wales... and each time I went with women that weren't my wife... yep, friends from work. Good job Claud trusts me. She wasn't up to either gig as she was a) tired and a bit crook; and b) much more fan of Neil rather than Tim.

At the first gig, I got so tired with noisy spectators who were yammering on throughout the set - an irritation of Antipodean epidemic proportions at both gigs here and Aussie bands I've seen in the UK - that I did something very un-me-like. I turned to two of the more exceptional offendors and said "Excuse me. Will you just shut the F@%$ up?". They were both oblivious and incredulous - eyes wide and jaws slack: "Are you serious?!?". Yep. My friend, Pieta, appeared to find it hilarious. I found out why later. They were hitting on her at the time, and obviously thought I was acting up as the macho jealous boyfriend... Oops.

Anyway, we keep missing lots of gigs through torpor and tiredness though. Must do better. Harumph. Things may well improve along with the weather as the incentive to leave the house on warm summer evenings may kick in.

Spring is an odd time here... had days when it's been 30-odd degrees, and others when it's 15 or 16, but it's great to see the sun so regularly. We need rain, as Melbourne has had terrible rainfall over the past few years. Most of it seems to fall in Melbourne Cup season, which gives me a degree of vindictive pleasure, as I am sooooo bored by horse-racing. I just don't get it. The whole place is going Racing Crazy at the mo, with lots of tarted/glammed-up shielas and blokes in ill-fitting suits and [often] awful pale faux-snakeskin shoes [you know, the long curly ones - a bit like Sideshow Bob's] wandering round the City, drinking Rum & Coke mixers at 10 in the morning. We do get the day off on Tuesday tho, so there may be an upside. I just wouldn't bet on it [ha ha].

Went to see NZ vs Aus in the Rugby League Tri-Nations at the Telstra Dome... not paying it was an executive box junket via Claud's work which was nice, fully fed and watered throughout the match. Can't say I'm a big Rugby fan in either codes... for Grammar School boys [Union] and people from Wigan & St Helens only [League], I reckon.. I did watch the second half of Aus v GB last night, and blimey! The Poms won it! Should prefer the honest working class roots of League, of course, but the games's a bit of a funny mix of Union and American Football. Always find it funny when a player's been tackled and they do a seizure-like twitch to get the tackl-ers off them. Happy that my w/c roots don't need justifying... I used to live in a Council House, y'know. And everybody knows [prawn-sandwich munchers excepted] the identity of the one true everyman sport.

Yep, still getting my fix of round-ball footy via Melbourne Victory, and well, it's getting better and better. They've switched most of the games to the Telstra Dome and are getting crowds of 27-33,000, with a great atmosphere and I've got to admit, pretty good quality football. Victory have continued their storming start to the season - 9 wins out of 11, multiple sendings off, comebacks [on Friday "we" were losing 3-2, having played the second half with only 9 men, but equalised with 3 minutes to go. It went off, mate. I went off, mate].

In the Member's Section, where I sit, it's all very "woggy" [I should explain. It's a term used here to describe those with, roughly-speaking, mediterranean roots - Greeks, Italians, Middle Eastern. My wife's a wog due to her Maltese ancestry, so I feel pretty comfortable using the term in her company - but it can be derogatory and I'd be careful to use it in context. Not the same as Black America's reclaiming of the term "nigga", but there's been a degree of proud ownership of the term by the Southern European minorities here, often with a healthy dose of self-depracating humour in with the stereotyping], with lots of boys from the Northern suburbs with awkward be-mulleted spiky crop jobs. After the rather sanitised experience of AFL [Aussie Rules] it seems all a bit feral, in fact. So... I feel right at home, and there are quite a few English fans about too [even an Aussie QPR fan or 3 out there - said hello to one in the toilets at Flinders St on Friday – maybe not the best place to make chums, I know].

Although it's getting better, being there supporting Melbourne rather than QPR still feels a little bit like cheating on my wife. And I'm still struggling to cheer on captain Kevin Muscat [angry, yard-dog type - ex-Millwall, Palace, Glasgow Rangers and Wolves - yes, lovable, cuddly teams, one and all]. That takes it to another level entirely, like doing it with Claud's sister... Bro-in-law Stephen doesn't like the image that conjures up, for some reason... O, and he's explained what "bullying" Muscat experienced when he used to go to school with Steph... they used to beat him up in the tennis courts. And we wonder why he's got anger issues...

Your Questions Answered... probably.

2006-10-08T16:42:00.000+10:00

So what was Adelaide like then?

Well, it really chilled, much quieter than Melbourne. As one guy I met there said when I mentioned that Melburnians are pretty sniffy about Adelaide, dismissing it as a "big country town": "Well, we've got better wine, better beer, better food, better weather, better beaches, no traffic jams, cheaper rents, lower cost of living... yeah Melbourne's got it all hasn't it..."

He's right about most of that stuff, although I can't say that I really found the food better [but maybe that's more to do with me being a veggie]. I could live there, sure, but I'm a city boy through and through, and as beautiful and lush and green as it undoubtedly is, it was just that little bit too quiet for me.

The city centre is about 1 km square maybe a little more, pretty much surrounded by parkland, which made it a great place to just hang, to just be... I didn't really do very much of cultural interest; visited no art galleries or museums, not even any of the myriad of old churches [Adelaide has the proud epiphet: "City of Churches", though apparently known to many non-Adelaiders as "City of Corpses" after a particularly grisly series of murders over the years].

As I say, it's a nice place to relax and, given the level of pressure I've felt under of late, that was exactly what I needed. But next time I'd take Claud, as it can be a little lonely travelling alone and staying in a soulless 70s Stalinist tower block /hotel. Am I too old for a Backpacker's hostel? Well, I wasn't last year, so maybe I should consider that as an option if I decide to go away alone again. My older-person wisdom may be just what some of those young whippersnappers need, eh? Might stop 'em listening to that noise they call music... Hmm, maybe I am too old, after all.

Have you started your new job yet?

Tomorrow's the big day. At this point I'm feeling pretty relaxed about it; looking forward to it, but with some reservations of course. It wouldn't be me if I wasn't at least a bit worried about it... I know it's a different level of responsibility, looking after the mental health of 30-40 people, trying to keep them well and out of hospital. But I'm up for it, and I know I have the skills to cope with it. There that's about the most positive I ever get! Savour that moment.

Had the leaving do?

Yep, last night. Had been out to the pub the previous 3 nights which was probably something I'd not done since I was a student first time round. The guys [male and female] I've been working with are a lovely, lovely bunch of people. I could witter on about the ward politics [and often do, but this publicly-accessed site is not the place], but I really can't speak too highly of the staff.

They've made me soooo welcome, been so lovely, positive and encouraging towards me, and many have become good friends. I'll miss them all, although it's a strangely odd feeling to be leaving. I'll be working with many of the same patients, albeit in a different context, I'll still have contact with the ward on a regular basis. And I'll see many of them regularly socially - in fact I'm intending to start this week, going to see Tim Finn with Wendy and Dan.

Anyway... We went to a funky [but very loud - not good with my tinnitus] bar in the shopping mecca that is Chapel Street, Prahran [known as "Pran" locally], a load of people from work turned up to say goodbye to the three of us who have left over the past few weeks - Katie, Dan and myself [Dan shares his name with a well-known "author" - hence the poster design at the bottom of the page]. Then went on to another swish wine bar called "Red Vault", then on to "The Revellers Bar" which was pretty grungey and feral, but a good place to end the party for me [at about 2.30AM, although a little birdie tells me that some of the gang didn't get home till... ouch! 8AM!]. I was going to say that there was no major gossip to report but in the ensuing 5 ½ hours from when I headed home, who knows what may have occurred...

Hopefully, I'll have some pictures to post here soon... I didn't take my own camera as I know that the mix of expensive goods and alcohol don't work well for me...

Work, Rest and Play

2006-09-25T06:44:00.000+10:00

Well, it's been a long time, hasn't it? Too long. Again. So I'll apologise [again] and just plod on with my latest chapter of my life here in Melbourne [again] head slung low.

Work

I'm still waiting to start my job in the community. Yes, stiiilll waiting. Political stuff, leaving the ward short of staff etc., as a result of 3 of us getting new jobs at the same time. But I now have my contract, it's been signed, and I start on the 9th October. Just two more weeks, and I really can't wait to start. The ward has been soooo ridiculously busy again, with little respite from the high intensity and stress that accompanies this role.

I also keep finding that I'm unexpectedly in charge, but this seems to happen only when I've been off for a few days. So I don't know a number of the patients, drop straight into a huge workload to organise, often encumbered with bank or agency staff who don't know the patients or the ward procedures [or sometimes their arse from their elbow but that's another matter].

And you know what? I'm still struggling to get my head round some of the procedures too. There's no time to breathe, no time to learn something inside out, so I've become really really adept at just "winging it" half the time, hoping nobody notices... which they rarely do, cos they're too busy to lift their head up to see it themselves.

I'm not sure if that's a good skill to have [or to admit to], but it's become one of my strengths. My new role will at least give me some time to stop and consider what I'm doing, and why. I don't cope well with having to make quick decisions without having a solid rationale for doing so [yes, yes, it's partly the confidence thing again, but it's also an undoubtedly realistic concern], and get pretty [read extremely] stressed out as a result. I hang on to things, doing "the duck thing", apparently serenely gliding along the water... whilst under the surface my feet [brain] are going like the absolute clappers...

When I stop, I find that I'm so tense, usually holding it all in my neck and shoulders, that I am grumpy and irritable, struggling to communicate as my brain struggles to catch up with my actions over the last 9 hours or so, and in [unconscious] physical pain to boot. The worst day was a couple of weeks ago, when I couldn't even cover the following shift [another of the "in charge" nurse's responsibilities], so ended up working the night as well as the late shift. That's 18 hours straight. Not good for your mental health.

Thankfully, there's a local shopping centre where you can have a nice Chinese man stick his elbows into your shoulders for 20 minutes to take out some of the knots. I am developing an unusually unhealthy and close relationship with him - don't tell Claud.

2 more weeks to go. Sigh. Enough.

Adelaide

I've always had a soft spot for Adelaide, despite um... never actually having been there. I've seen stuff on holiday shows, of course, and it looks lovely, green and leafy, with sunshine to boot. And the food is apparently amazing, and a central part of the daily routine there. And it has what must be the loveliest ground to watch cricket in the whole world, the Adelaide Oval. No gasometers overshadowing you, just church spires, sunshine, trees and a soothing semi-pastoral scene.

So I'm taking a 5-day break to take it all in. It's a solo mission, as Claud doesn't have any accrued holidays, and I sooooo need a break before I start my job, especially given that it's unrealistic to expect that I'll be able to take any holidays in the first few months of my new role. I got a cheap flight, a cheap [but nice... hopefully] hotel, and a week off work.

So that means I get to relax for 9 days without the pressures of work [and the forecast is pretty sunny!], and when I return I'll have just 5 more days of ward-based work to go. I'll report back on my hols in a week or so. I know, I know you've read similar promises before though, eh? Trust me I'll get back on track. Probably.

Football

As Melbourne mourns the dearth of Melburnian talent in Aussie Rules [all 4 semi-finalists were interstate - i.e. not from Victoria], the new kids on the block are Rugby League and proper Football [or "soccer", if you're in the media here and don't have English or Mediterranean heritage]. Rugby League means little to me, but Melbourne Storm are sweeping all before them; and Melbourne Victory, the football team now in their second season in the newly-formed A-League, have now won their first five games on the bounce.

When I refer to the team as "they", I should probably say "we", as I've now become a season ticket holder as I desperately seek a fix of proper footy [although... here teams are regarded as single entities, in the American way, so the correct way of terming it should be "Melbourne Victory HAS now won five games straight". A small point but an important one for a pedant like me].

Anyway, it does rather feel like I'm cheating on my wife or something, supporting a team that isn't QPR. Talking of whom, thank God that we've now got a proper manager after a dreadful start to the season - John Gregory, ex-QPR legend [well hopefully, we've got the right one], pleeeeease don't let me down. Anyway, I'm persisting despite my feelings of infidelity... as if it wasn't already hard enough having to cheer on MV captain and hard-man yard-dog Kevin Muscat [whom my brother-in-law used to bully at school, incidentally].

Post the World Cup excitement, the team's marketing men had a brainwave and decided to switch their second game of the season against Sydney [Melbourne are, of course, destined to be deadly rivals with Sydney in whatever sport they compete] from the 18,500 capacity Olympic Park to 56,000 capacity Telstra Dome. And it worked, as just short of 40,000 fans enjoyed an exciting 3-2 victory, including a sending-off and an elbowing incident. Nothing like a bit of gore and controversy to seal a memorable night.

We went en familia, with in-laws Stephen [also a season-ticket holder and inaugural member, as he wishes to be referred] and Lisa, Stevie J and son [our nephew] Dante, and Claud, of course [i.e. having failed to locate any other shopping opportunities come kick-off time].

The next game at Olympic Park completely sold out, although oddly 900 below absolute capacity [Kev, Our Friend In The North, could only get in by purchasing a full membership package], so they've gone for it big time and have switched 6 more games to the Dome in the hope of building a larger fan base.

They've already got 10,000 season ticket holders [and at about seventy quid for 11 games, why wouldn't you?], and if they continue to win, and entertain like they currently are [with 3 Brazilians recruited in the close season, who are undertaking the required mix of theatrics, ball-tricks and ineptitude], who knows how it may take off?

It doesn't feel like home when I watch the footy, I must say, and the experience varies between venues. The Telstra Dome is more sanitised and family-friendly overall [the retractable roof being closed makes it slightly surreal], but more spectacular, and with a real sense of occasion. Olympic Park feels a bit more "English" or European, with terracing and more unruly behaviour [flares, anyone?] but is stymied by the lack of cover [and consequent loss of noise/atmosphere] and the infernal running track that separates the crowd from the pitch.

It'll be interesting to see what sort of crowd figures "we" get for the next few home games, and what happens when there's a slump in form but there are good signs... we'll see: first game is next Sunday.

Enough for now... hopefully I'll blog again soon...

...and apologies for any bad punctuation - my "comma" key keeps failing to work, so there may be an interminable sentence or two that my proof-reading has missed. Don't think there are any , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , moments though, despite the RSI it's causing me...

Small Beer

2006-09-16T18:21:00.000+10:00

Our bro'-in-law Steve [who is currently on his way to London, funnily enough] works for an ad agency here in Melbourne. This is their latest TV ad...

[and should only be viewed by over 18s, apparently...]

Ding Dong!

2006-09-06T18:04:00.000+10:00

I know it is evil and wrong to sing songs about witches dying when referring to an erstwhile colleague. I do honestly. However it would have taken an angelic visitation to stop me singing like a munchkin on Monday morning.

Yes, my nemesis has finally gone on maternity leave. The woman who I have replaced, who handed nothing over, who lied to get her own way [dropping herself in the poo along the way as our boss found out], whose instructions were minimal and her expectations not at all in correlation - has left the building leaving me in charge.

As I previously sang Ding Dong the Witch is Dead, which old witch, the wicked old witch...!!!

I have had the crappiest few weeks, culminating in the woman throwing a tantrum at me on Friday morning. I came in with a clear view of what I had to do on Friday morning for a meeting she was chairing. Only to find her tampering with my spreadsheet, insisting that I should not leave things to the last minute and ranting about how I should save documents as different versions.

Now if you've worked with me you know how much I DETEST saving the same document in several versions. Basically because one never knows which one is the latest version despite how clever the naming convention is.

I digress.

I had had a gut full by this point so I spoke firmly telling her I knew exactly what I needed to do to get it all done. She relinquished her hold on my spreadsheets and flounced away telling me to do what I wanted. I did. I got them ready, printed them off and sent her packing.

Sheesh. She apologised later. After a glass of wine feigning hormones. Rubbish. She's an anal control freak who, can't let go her job, who does not want to be at home having babies, who was given permission to take her lap top home with her to no doubt, torture us while she is on leave. She left no message on her phone or her email to say that all enquires were to come to me and emailed me today giving me her home number in case someone needed her!

Heaven help me.

I have moved easily in to the space she left. Figuratively of course. In the 3 days we have been free of her [my colleague is happy to be free of the death grip the monkey on his back had on him] there is laughter, hilarity and progress on the things that she had a tight rein on.

The team defer to me easily and the rapport we have developed over the 2 months is great. I have my first ever [shhh] presentation tomorrow which, surprisingly, I am not that nervous about.

I am meeting my lovely friends Greer and Sharia for a meal tonight. Looking forward to a girly night out...

Spring sprang this weekend...

2006-08-22T11:42:00.000+10:00

I heard a fantastic expression the other night. I reckon it rates up there with Who ate all the pies? The other night we were watching The Footy Show which is so jammed full of testosterone bloated ex-Aussie Rules footballers there is no room for high-brow.

They were looking at a photo of someone I forget now but one of the guys nonchalantly asks Who's been in the top paddock? I nearly cried laughing as images of fat cows in footy shorts, carefully chewing the best grass in the top paddock raced through my mind. I guess you had to be there.

Well I digress once again.

So sorry it has taken us so long to update this thing. Can't tell you how busy things get, then time passes and you have loads to tell and less time to tell it in! You know what I mean.

A quick snapshot of life in Melbourne at the moment. Ian moved on from his crisis of confidence with regards to his job and kindly hand balled it to me. I had a minor meltdown at work which, when it all came down to it, was pretty much the result of the woman I am replacing not being able to handle the leaving and the being replaced.

It was quite an awful moment in time where I was lied to and left to believe my performance to date was not up to scratch. When I scratched the surface [no pun intended] and sat my manager down over a coffee things were not as they first seemed. Needless to say things are moving along nicely, I have a better idea of what my role going forward entails and a lovely little salary up ahead.

We had a lovely long weekend at Point Addis at the beginning of August [see link to the lovely cottage in an earlier post - not yet worked out how to link to posts in my own blog!] and felt somewhat rested. That lasted all of ten minutes with the onrush of life, work and all the other stuff that seems to make me so bloody tired.

We've been out with mates for dinners and breakfasts. We had a lovely walk along the beach a couple of weekends ago, ending the perfect sunny day over a meal overlooking the beach at St Kilda - one of my favorite places in Melbourne.

We had our nephew, Dante over for his first official sleepover last Friday which was a blast. We then took the train to our other nephew, Harry's, 2nd birthday party. It was a family affair and a lovely day. The kids are just spectacular fun and keep us on our toes. Constantly.

I am presently waiting for a phone call from a friend I had not, until recently, seen for about 18 years. It has been fab catching up with old friends and filling in the years with our stories.

Someone asked me recently, if a book about my life was written, what would I title it? I thought about it for a moment and then just said It is all about the story really and proceeded to explain that our lives are a composite of lots and lots of stories. We tell stories to share who we are with others and we listen to other's stories to delve into and understand their lives and what makes them tick. So I guess my book would be called ... It is all about the stories....

The phone is ringing ... off to tell some stories.

Spectacular Underestimation

2006-08-03T15:23:00.000+10:00

I have just read Ian's post.

Let me give you a bit of filler to plug the gap between Ian's interview and today.

When Ian heard about the job he told me he wasn't going to apply for it unless he was invited to. So, not only did the manager of the clinic make it quite clear he wanted Ian to apply, Ian's own manager made sure the message was clear; she would fully support his application.

Ian fretted, as one does before an interview but he hung in there. He pushed aside the negative and the fear and focused on the job and how much he wanted it. He even let me coach him on a few potential behavioural interview questions - albeit in the pub over a pint. Straight out of the interview he called me to say his first impression was that he thought he had done ok.

However, as the days passed Ian grew less and less convinced of his performance. No encouragement on my part could defuse the self-destructive exocet lodged somewhere behind Ian's left ear. By Monday night I wanted to detonate the bloody thing myself.

We hung in there together as the days rolled on with no news. Running parallel to us waiting to hear about the job was the fact that I thought I may be pregnant. Tension mounted as the days rolled along with the prospect of a long weekend by the ocean the only reprieve in sight.

This morning I did a pregnancy test which was negative. I was quietly devastated. The madness that surrounds the Am I or aren't I pregnant? question that I thought I had left behind came slamming back with such a force it left me gasping for air. I am okay now but the prospect of going through all this again is almost too much to contemplate right now. More on this when there is more to report.

So I left Ian at home this morning in the knowledge that he would find out about the job on Friday (tomorrow). We had had a great night at home last night as I discovered a curry house not far from us that delivers! We ordered big (or so we thought) as only deliveries over $30 were delivered free. When it arrived however we giggled like school girls when we saw that the naans were a third of the size of those we'd gorged on in England. And the rice portions were hilariously small. It was a good night and wonderful to hear Ian laugh.

Then, this morning at work I was running late for a meeting (that I had neglected to book a meeting room for but had at least managed to remember to pick up morning tea for!) my phone rang. I picked it up quickly as I saw that it was Ian. I explained that I was rushed but Ian managed to tell me that he had heard that he got the job. He seemed to be hovering somewhere between astounded and amazed. However, despite Ian's increasing self-doubt, I never, ever doubted he would get the job.

I am not one to air the family laundry so to speak, despite how open I can be. No, the trigger for this post is the line in Ian's earlier post where he wrote But... I reckon my referees must have done me proud!. I know that is partly Ian being a little self-deprecating but I wonder if somewhere, deep down, he really believes he can't possibly have had anything to do with getting the job?

Don't get me wrong here, this is not about me denigrating Ian in a very public forum. I just want to say how incredible I find it that a man who is so obviously intelligent, capable and truly good at what he does finds it so hard to believe that about himself. What is that about?

Self-doubt and Selfism

2006-08-03T12:16:00.000+10:00

Just had a phone call...

and...
and...
and...

They gave me the job!

Flabbergasted, shell-shocked, gob-smacked etc. etc. etc.
I really am.

The further away it got from the interview, the less well the interview seemed to go, the more crappy my answers to their questions seemed. I really, really, really, thought I had screwed it up. But... I reckon my referees must have done me proud!

No details yet re: starting date or anything, but it's definite!
More news as I get it.

We're off to Lorne tomorrow [Friday], so we'll be packing some bubbly, I'd imagine!

Whoo, and indeed Hooooo!

Playlist

2006-07-29T10:34:00.000+10:00

As if anyone was interested, Ian is currently...

listening to:
Lily Allen - Alright Still
Bloody rude, funny and sassy - ah, it feels like a London summer has come to Oz. Awright, darlin'?
Something for Kate - Desert Lights
Melancholic rock - a tad rawer than previous albums. Jury's still out, actually.
Gomez - How We Operate
Their best album so far? I think so...

watching:
Frasier - Series 4
You can't beat pompous, arrogant but insecure psychiatrists for a good belly-laugh. No relation to any doctors of my acquantance, by the way...
Green Wing Series 1
Like being back at school, but with added smut and omigod-did-he-really-say-that/do-that? funny.
[TV here is really, really crap]

reading:
The Turning - Tim Winton
Western Australian short stories - an evocative but bleak view of my new home.
The Word Magazine
Yikes. About eight quid a throw over here. But worth every cent/penny.

playing:
Far Cry
Better than Half-Life 2? When I'm anxious I do so like to kill things... muahahaha!
Half Life 2: Episode 1
Better than Half-Life 2? Mebbe.

AWOL?

2006-07-28T17:02:00.000+10:00

Well, I seem to have been out of service for a while for no apparent reason. More than a month, in fact. So... sorry, just been a bit slack, and out-blogged by my lovely wif ever since. Hopefully this will change, but we'll see...

Mitigating circumstances? Mebbe. I can only say in my defence, m'lud, that I've been absolutely knackered for a few weeks now. And I've realised two things:

Firstly, my current job is faaaaar more instense and busy than my last one. Not that I didn't work hard in Cavendish, no no no... but there were at least occasional lulls where you could catch your breath. Not so in this job. It's soooooo intense and [as we say here - yes, "we"] full-on, emotionally, mentally and physically draining.

So much so, that at the end of an early shift, when the adrenaline that I've been working on finally wears off, I go into a sort of serotonin rush, if a "rush" is what you can call it - more like a kind of like near-narcoleptic state, in fact. I just stand at the bus stop, desperately trying to stave off the waves of sleepiness, propping up my eyelids with those metaphorical matches I keep in my wallet for just such an occasion. Weirdly, though, by the end of a late shift, when such a stuporific state would come in handy, I'm wired as a speed-freak. Bugger.

When I first started, lots of colleagues commented on a regular basis that "it's not usually this busy, you know..." And you know what, I think they actually believed that. But as the weeks turned into months, I [and they] realised that they were harking back to some way-distant halcyon days of yore, when things were indeed calmer and life was more chilled all round. Or maybe it was just false memory syndrome. No mention of aliens and anal probes as yet, I'm happy to report.

So, by the time I came to post something on the blog [or reply to the myriad of emails rapidly accumulating in my inbox - sorry, sorry sorry to you all!], I'd either be a pile of mush lying on the floor in our loungeroom, or trying to come down and get a good night's sleep.

The other thing I've realised is, as I mentioned a while back, I soooo need a holiday. We're going away next weekend for 4 days, down the coast to Lorne. I can't wait. A lovely view in a house by the sea, surrounded by a pile of books, CDs and my dear wif. We still haven't sorted out the proper holiday yet though, but we will, we will. I hope.

It may be complicated by the fact that I just had a job interview! Remember, way back when [February, actually], I went to see the manager of a community clinic and he advised me to get a job on a ward with a view to go into a CPN post in 6 to 12 months? Well, I'm now 4 months in to my job, and I got the heads-up a couple of weeks back that there was a job vacancy [3, in fact] at this self-same clinic, and my current boss said she'd taken a call from the guy, and that she'd support my application if I wanted to go for it...

I'd gone through my normal routine of vacillation, self-doubt and emotional downers, of course, unable to believe that I could go for it after such a short time in this post / this country. Complicated by the fact that I HATE job interviews with a passion. I get dry mouth, shakes, sweats, and lose the sensation in my legs. And my tongue and hands appear to grow to the size of watermelons. Such was my self-esteemless hell that I set the condition that I'd only go for the job if I got head-hunted. And well, it happened, so I put in my app, and they saw me today.

It seemed to go OK, but I blanked a couple of times, wittered on more than once, failed to understand the question on a few more occasions. But I know how hard I am on myself, so I need to balance that against my job interview ineptness. Net result = goodness knows if I'll get it, if I did well or appallingly. Watch this space.

Now... on to those emails I've been so remiss with... did I say sorry?

Watch this...

2006-07-28T14:35:00.000+10:00

...and be angry but very, very sad.

Fear had many faces today

I was.

The 100th Post!

2006-07-26T16:30:00.000+10:00

I just noticed that we have written 99 posts so far. If you average that over the days we have had this blog it does not look good really.

Blogger calls each entry in your blog a 'post'. I'm not so keen on the word myself. They are more like little windows really. Windows into our life, glimpses into our world as we try to paint a picture of what we see day to day.

I remember being on the train in London once, it was the DLR from Bank heading to Lewisham where I lived. It was winter, early evening and as the train rumbled along I caught myself straining to see inside the many windows of the houses that lined the railway tracks. All those different lives, separated by walls and doors, all carving out a tiny piece of peace and warmth in that cold, busy, noisy city. I felt like I was looking into a bee hive in some ways where inside each compartment there was movement, industry and life.

Its like that when you correspond with people who live elsewhere. Their emails are like pockets of insight into what they are doing, seeing and feeling. I like the immediacy of email but it does lack substance and I am always left wanting more. I guess that is why I leave emailing until I have lots to say. Then of course, I realise I have lots of people to say it to so I cut and paste like my life depended on it.

While this blog is a good way of keeping friends back in the UK in touch with our coming and going, it still does not feel like enough. We've missed phone calls from friends recently and I overlooked a rather important email from another friend, not reading it for 2 weeks. I seems like my efforts to keep abreast of what is happening in the lives of those in England are sadly falling behind.

I've been thinking about how long it took me to settle properly into life in England. At what point did I stop comparing everything I saw and heard to things back in Melbourne? How long before brands in the supermarkets became more familiar and easier to recall than brands I had lived with all my life? It took a while but it did happen.

I was talking to a colleague today about chocolate and she said that they had gotten boxes of chocolates for a work function from Thorntons. I had to think for a moment before I realised that she had flipped back to her time in London and I laughed telling her as much. We then both struggled to remember what the name of the stores here in Melbourne were called (Haigs & Koko Black if you are interested).

I guess what I am trying to say is that I have to start letting go of the idea that I can live 2 lives in 2 places. The reality is that I have left behind a life, a set of wonderful friends and a fairly good grasp of Englishness that will most likely be harder to relinquish. I do not want to. I just think I need to.

Ian and I actually watched telly for a short while last night. It was all utter crap of course (with the exception of the wonderful world TV station, SBS and the BBC looky-likey ABC) but we actually flipped channels. Nothing out of the ordinary but as we did that I could not shake the feeling that we are here, this is it, home, for good.

It was not a hard thing to come to terms with really. For I do love our life here. But as I said to Ian on the weekend I feel like all the things I loved about and pined for in Melbourne have changed and shifted. I think that is because for the past 6 months I have felt like, heck I have been, a stranger here. But as the strangeness peels away I find myself falling in love with Melbourne all over again. And for different reasons this time - reasons that reflect back to me my life in England.

I love the sun in winter that warms my face. I love the people who smile at you when you meet their eye and, if you are lucky, they say hello. I love that sense of space and light that permeates every fibre of my being and allows me to breathe again. I stood in the middle of Lygon Street on Saturday after we had picked up our brunch from the fabulous, Filou's Pâtisserie. Lygon Street at that point is so wide - it encompasses 4 lanes of traffic and tram tracks and standing there in the gorgeous winter sun gaping at the clear blue sky I just had to stand there and take it in.

Yes, I can try and give you glimpses of life here in Melbourne. Tell you tales of what we do and where we go. But each time I do that I realise I must surrender a little more space inside me where England once lived. I tuck away those things I have hung onto in an effort to keep in touch and replace them with another piece of life here.

Like the part of me that knows that the last week in January is when the days start to get longer in Manchester. Well, I need to replace that now with the knowledge that the last week in August is when the days start getting longer here in Melbourne. For as I look out the window here at just after half past 5 I am delighted to see the sky is still light and know that I won't be trudging home in the dark.

Row, Row, Row My Boat!

2006-07-17T10:45:00.000+10:00

I completed my first 2 'Learn to Row' lessons on the weekend.

And.

I.

Loved.

It!

The lessons run for 1.5hrs on Saturday and Sunday from 12pm. It rained pretty much all day on Saturday so I guessed we would just train on the ergos (indoor rowing machines) so I did not bring anything remotely waterproof. My mistake.

There are usually 4 students in each class but two people dropped out during the week. That left just one other girl, Ricky and I. Our coach, Vincent, got us started on the ergos to show us what we should and should not be doing when rowing. He was impressed enough with our natural ability [my paraphrase] that we were out on the water in no time. Well it took a while to get the boat out of the shed, over the grass, down the slippery decking and into the rather rancid Yarra River.

I enjoyed it enough to feel comfortable in the situation and confident enough to think that maybe I will take up the next stage and enrol in the Development Squad. That means 2 training sessions a week for a minimum commitment of 8 weeks - all for the lowly sum of $200. That will bring me to the point where if I want to join the club and row at my leisure I can or if I want to start entering competitions with the squad I trained with I can.

I can honestly say that I wish I had done this years ago. The only reason I actually am rowing is I happened to ask the right person how does one get into rowing as we both stood gazing down at the Yarra one pretty autumn evening. People were already out on the water and in the golden waning daylight it looked like such a wonderful place to be. So I turned to my colleague, Catherine and asked her - fortunately, she had asked someone the same question this time last year and has been rowing ever since. She was actually named Oarswoman of the Year at the Melbourne Rowing Club's annual award's night last month.

I have 2 more lessons this weekend which I am looking forward to and then I'll decide what is next. What with rowing, my personal trainer and a membership to the gym I may actually get fit one day soon!

Seen in places where Italians Congregate...

2006-07-11T14:36:00.000+10:00

It seems we Aussies took this particular World Cup a little more seriously.

Update No. 3 - Social stuff

2006-07-10T15:45:00.000+10:00

There are hardly any vegetables in the vegetable crisper these days because I'm not cooking much. I still can not get into that routine most of my friends seem to be in where they go to the Victoria Market on a Saturday to get their veggies, cheese and seafood. During the week they'll top up at the supermarket and always have store cupboard items to hand to knock up a healthy, scrumptious meal.

Not sure what is going wrong other than we eat out loads more than we ever did in Manchester. A combination of great places to eat outside our door, cheap, cheap bloody cheap meals and utter laziness on my part when it comes to the cooking.

In an effort to rememdy this I'm sure, my sister sent me a link to a website that sells kitcheny, housey stuff at knock down prices. I recently bought a Le Crueset baking dish, a Circulon French Skillet and a Circulon saucepan for just over $100. Now if your maths is good you will have calculated that amount into pounds and realised that is around £43 - in any country that is cheap.

I then bought a lovely Emile Henry [not to be confused with Emile Heskey - further comments removed following legal advice - Ian] salt pig and a gorgeous red enamel milk pan and an oil drizzler and God I could go on. All of it in an effort to spend more time in the kitchen but I'm out of practice and out of synch with the rest of the wives in the world. I just can not seem to get my act together. Any tips welcome!

Anyway, this was a social update. Well, we went to the movies the weekend before last and saw Wah Wah which we both enjoyed. I suspect because the humour was so very British as was the entire cast. It helps with the home sickness, trust me.

As I mentioned above, we eat out at the lovely Vietnamese and Thai restaurants that are literally down the road from us. However a little favorite for eating in (you have to book weeks ahead otherwise you only get a seat at the bar) and for take out is Ladro on Gertrude Street. It is stupidly expensive for a pizza but if Ian will part with $19 for a mushroom pizza you know it has to be sublime.

On Saturday just gone we went to a cocktail party a colleague of Ian's threw at her home. I only realised as we were walking down her street that it was to celebrate her birthday however Ian didn't think it mattered that we didn't even have a card! Men. So we took some beer and a bottle of nice red wine for me. Needless to say the red wine remained undrunk (lets face it, unopened) while I played in the kitchen with the hostess and her lovely sidekick and made copious cocktails, sampling each and sensing a little too late in the night that I should have eaten more and drunk less. I paid for my oversight for most of Sunday. But gosh it was fun!

The best part of the night were the moments where I got collared by Ian's work mates who were constantly speaking highly of him. They already love him to bits and were vocal in their appreciation of his skill, his manner and the calm that pervades when he is in charge of a shift. I had to pinch myself at this point for hearing the words calm and Ian in the same sentence was laughable but apparently it is true! His explains to me that the appearance of calm is akin to a duck gliding across a pond, all well if you look from the shore. However, if you look beneath the surface of the pond you would see that ducks little legs kicking frantically and desperately in an effort to keep moving.

Update No. 2 - Apartment

2006-07-10T15:30:00.000+10:00

We continue to buy little additions for our lovely apartment. We are still sans sofa and dining room table simply because the friends we are buying them from have been waiting to sell their house. The sofa in particular is a trendy little L-shaped thing with a chaise longue on one end and they have needed it to 'dress' the house. Once it sells, the sofa is ours!

I spend my lunch times wandering around house type shops buying pizza stones (they were today's bargains!) and spice jars and storage jars etc etc. All the things we wanted and or needed in the months leading up to our departure but could not justify buying. Just as well really as things here are a lot cheaper on the whole - particularly towards the end of June which is when all the end of financial year sales happen. I love those sales!

Yesterday we wandered around town looking for a VHS player believe it or not. Ian wants to buy a recordable DVD player thingy but wants one with a hard drive. However we left our VHS player in Manchester thinking we'd pick one up here when we landed. We have loads of videos of UK programs we want to watch so in the end we thought we'd best get one now before they become extinct!

So, we love our apartment and enjoy living there. It is nice to come home to our space that takes no time at all to clean and looks so spanking new! I can't wait to get the dining room table as it means we can start having dinner parties again. And those of you who ever staggered home from a Berri Dinner Party will remember them well (or not as the case may be)!

Update No. 1 - Work

2006-07-10T13:54:00.000+10:00

I want to make these updates brief as I am aware we have not been very communicative of late - hence the lack of new words on the blog.

I had a bit of a it never rains but it pours moment a couple of weeks back when I was offered 2 permanent roles within a 24 hours period. And can I say at this juncture that someone offering you a job does wonders for your self-esteem.

So, in short, the COO of the largest NGO in Australia saw my CV and asked to meet me. He wanted me to set up his entire project management space here in Melbourne, pulling in every aspect of the organisation to run out of the one project management office (PMO) run by me.

Yikes.

So we talked it over a coffee one Thursday evening after work and he convinced me of the job and my ability to do the job. I was flattered beyond belief and encouraged that someone looked through the words on my CV, and the lack of degree and declared that I was a leader and someone able to take something in its raw form and make something of it. It was a tremendous boost.

The following morning I had a breakfast meeting with the head of the department I moved to recently, Risk Technology, who promptly offered me a very similar role, albeit on a smaller scale. And so my quandary began. I spent that weekend oscillating between the 2 roles. The pros and the cons. The good and the bad. I have not had to decide between 2 jobs for, well, ever really so the process in deciding was seemingly complex and fraught.

To try and articulate the decision making process here would bore you all to death. I guess it is best left said that I decided to take the role at the bank. Reasons as follows;

* I am familiar with the people, processes and culture of the bank.

* I am comfortable that my colleagues know my capabilities and respect my opinion and experience.

* Despite being a bank, the bank does good stuff in the community.

* I do not have to drive to work. I would have had to drive if I took the NGO job.

* It felt like the right thing to do...

Surreal Moments in Sport

2006-06-24T06:38:00.000+10:00

So the Socceroos made it throught to the last 16 in what sounds like a bizarre match, conducted with [*ahem*] aplomb by our very own Graham Poll. Hmm, so how proud am I?

I had to work that morning, so the 5 AM kick-off and 7 AM start meant that I didn't catch the exciting last 20 minutes when it all happened...

I found out it was 2-2 as Claud had texted me, and the radio on the bus had excitedly announced it too. I was walking through a car park at the hospital adjacent to a construction site for a new building when I had a bizarre flashback moment: a cheer followed by a loud male chorus of " 'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go!!! 'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go-ooo! "

Suddenly I was transported back to England circa 1985 with that o-so-irrepressible [and not a little banal] chant, not heard in the UK since the late 80s... hazy recollections of Everton v Rapid Vienna in the Cup Winners Cup Final, somewhere in Holland.

A very odd start to the day.

Midnight Rambler... The World Cup, and England

2006-06-22T10:04:00.000+10:00

Well, it's not midnight in Melbourne, but it is in the UK , so... in the absence of any inspiration for a pithy, witty heading, the above will have to do.

Lots of talk here about Lazy [sorry, Harry - I still keep remembering his first few years in English football] Kewell's tirade at the ref at the end of the Brazil game, and much relief that he didn't end up getting suspended as a result. Everything else seems to have faded into insignificance Down Under. It's amazing that this was the major news item on all but one of the TV channels here. The Aussies do really seem to have taken the game to their hearts after all, although should they fail against Croatia in 20 hours time, I think the World Cup will again slip away from the Aussie psyche and news schedule. They love winners here, but if you're not, weeeell...

Talking of which... another frustrating display by England.
*sigh*
And you should really try watching that at 5 in the morning, and without the aid of a fizzy beverage or 6. But, it's Ecuador next, and we can only do better, surely? I thought it was a fine first half against Sweden, but oh so disastrously bad in the second half. Anyway, thank goodness we're not playing one of the World powers in the Last 16, and if we get through this next one, who knows? We can beat [or lose to...] just about anyone in a one-off game, I reckon. I live in hope...

I've been trying to keep up with things by listening to Simon Mayo's daily World Cup podcast ["The Daily Mayo"]... aaah, a sweet taste of home! Nice to hear that the England fans are behaving themselves too. Just as long as we don't lose...

Segueing nicely from talking about England and of England, to our current plans. We have contacted a number of you out there to say that we were coming back briefly in September for Paul & Kathleen's wedding. Well, sadly, we've had to change our plans and won't be returning just yet, after all.

Claud's job remains temporary, which means she's not accruing holidays, although I'm slowly doing so [very slowly, it seems], so any time we take off means less than halving our income for that time period. Add to that the limited amount of time we can take off at this point anyway, and the fact that we are absolutely knackered and in need of a holiday, England wouldn't be the ideal thing to do just now.

We know from past visits to Oz that the mad dash around to visit friends and family "back home" wasn't very relaxing at all, and we always came back exhausted and hanging out for another break. Usually, we ended up booking another holiday within a week of returning home, just so we'd have something to look forward to! And the next break never would come soon enough, believe me...

As I've wittered on both here and in emails to some of you, it's been a bloody stressful transition since we seriously started planning to up sticks n' move in September last year [nine months ago - as they say here, croiiikey! OK, as some of them... well, OK, as one of them says]. The organisation involved in leaving, along with the emotional aspect of the process [for both of us, remember - Claud had 6 years of relationships and her new life in England to deal with] was prolonged agony.

Then we arrived here, sunny and optimistic [yes, even me], struggling with the heat and bugs, but happy to have touched down at last. Then there was the small matter of finding jobs, overcoming homesickness [repeat ad nauseum], finding somewhere to live, furnishing the house, saving to buy our own place etc. Most of all, there was the pressing situation of finding ourselves and our sense of place here in Melbourne.

And I think that that is the main reason we've decided to put the return on hold for now. We hadn't planned to come back for 12 months plus in order to give us a chance to settle into our new lives here, but the fact that 2 lots of friends [hello too, Jammy and Clare!] suddenly declared that they'd to tie their respective knots, and soon, threw us into a bit of a spin. Not that we didn't see it coming, but just didn't think it was going to happen quite so quickly, and within such a short period of each other! Those crazy reckless kids!

So, we felt to some extent obliged; but also felt that it would be lovely to go home again for a bit [largely a consequence of the dreaded homesickness], to catch up with our UK loved ones again. Actually, it was a bit of a rose-coloured specs moment in hindsight, but we went ahead with the idea. Until we started making firmer plans... We both independently came to the decision over this last week that we couldn't do it, not just now. It was too much too soon. We'd already told people, got their hopes up, and our brains wrestled some more with the decision. But thankfully, those we've told have understood, and eased our angst. Thanks, guys!

So there we have it. Staying for the time being. We will return sooner or later to see you all, but not just yet. In the meantime, we're talking about a cheap weekend break somewhere in Victoria [down the coast somewhere - Claud's plans always involve the sea, of course!] next month, just to get away. After that, probably late August, we'll head north somewhere - Claud will no doubt provide some links to places we're considering, making you most likely green with envy.

For me, just now, just about anywhere to kick back, chill and relax will do very nicely. I feel like I've been running a marathon for 9 months and still can't see the end clearly, nor know quite where I am in the race - have I gone one mile or 25? Metaphorically out of breath, oh so tired, but just plodding along regardless, taking whatever sustenance I can whenever I can... Listen, throw some water over me, will you?

Ahhhhh, now, that's better.

Jobs for the Boy [Part 2]

2006-06-13T20:16:00.000+10:00

I emailed a few of you last week to say that I was going for a promotion at work, having been encouraged by a number of colleagues, both junior and senior, to do so. There was a sense of foregone conclusion from a few of you, particularly my ex-colleagues who know just how fabulous I am, darlings.

Well...

Although I applied, I withdrew my application on the day of the interview. It's a bit complicated [and this is a public forum, after all], but I decided to spend some more time getting myself settled into the ward, used to the procedures and policies etc. At the end of the day [Brian], I'd have the responsibility for the well-being of 20-odd acutely ill patients. half a dozen staff etc., and I feel that confidence is a crucial factor in that.

If I didn't feel confident in my decision-making [which, I actually do, most of the time], that rubs off and gets picked up on, particularly on non-regular staff or the more vulnerable or potentially aggressive patients. And that's not something that I can fix without being there and learning some more.

The thing is, they're still happy to put me in charge; the vibe is very positive; and I'm more confident already, given that I'm simply acting-up to a role that is not my normal one, which somehow relieves the pressure. Yes, it's all about my head and where I'm at [maaaaan], but I'm happy that I've done the right thing here. Shoulda kept more schtum about the job app, maybe, but that's my only regret.

And... thank you all for your encouragement... it meant a lot, and I really appreciate it.

Aussie Rules... The World Cup?

2006-06-13T18:53:00.000+10:00

Well... it was quite a night here in Melbourne last night. The media here is full of the World Cup, every other ad is for some Socceroo-linked product [Rexona deodorant in gold 'n green, anyone?], but it's struggling to convince everybody.

1 AM in the morning and World Cup fever finally struck. I managed to stay up to watch it, and ended up feeling like I'd been struck with a case of deja vu - long-ball tactics, bereft of any real imagination or ideas... England v Paraguay - again?!? But then... a not terribly-exciting-match suddenly turned on its head into 8 minutes of exhilaration and excitement, and suddenly I remember why this is The Best Game In The World...

The Aussie media types [the ones who give a stuff - more of the other types shortly] have been scathing in their view of England's performance in their first match, just about stopping short of crying en masse "booooring, booooring England!" whilst moistening collective trouserage over the excitement produced by Argentina v Ivory Coast, for instance. Never mind that Paraguay played a poor game, stifling tactically and largely uninventive in attack. England weren't at their best, of course, but it's certainly not the worst game I've ever seen. But, nope, as ever, it was all England's fault, of course... croikey, Bruce, if only those bloody Poms were Saaath American.

Was there a hint of the same critical nonsense regarding the Socceroos' tired and largely guileless performance last night? Noooo... Mind you, when one of the pundits on SBS TV is the infamous-in-West-London footballer Ned Zelić [need I say, ex-QPR?] , should I really be surprised? He's the only Aussie who could make Harry Kewell and Cartman look consistently industrious in the English game. He was clearly too good for our country, which is evidently why he left so quickly without making any sort of mark...

BELOW: Mark Viduka, after 83 minutes, yesterday

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm really really happy for my adoptive nation's team and its supporters [and let out a past-midnight type cheer-cum-squeak for each of the three goals], and I they deserved to get something put of the game, particularly as their opposition were super-negative and ven more unimaginative than Paraguay and England. I particularly disliked Japan's amateur dramatics, which accompanied the slighted hint of physical contact by the bullying Aussies [who, heavens! had the added audacity to be both strong and tall].

I even had some sympathy with humour-free sourpuss Guus after his hissy fit at the suggestion that the Aussies were over-physical [read: dirty fouling bastards] by certain areas of the media. i.e. All the non-Antipodean areas that may be playing them in the World Cup. Hello, Holland!

I've taken to the Aussie "soccer" [sic... as a parrot to be using the "S" word] evangelists, particularly as the game has taken so much stick in the Newspapers, TV and Radio here in Victoria. Now, Victoria is Footy Country, by which I mean AFL or Australian Rules Football, that bizarre mix of rugby, Gaelic Football and the High Jump. The game that non-Aussies think of as "Aussie No-Rules", remembering mass brawls, too-tight shorts, four goalposts and little chaps in white coats and pork-pie hats waving big white flags to signal a goal.

The quadruple posts and scrotum-crushing skimpies still exist, but the butchers outfits and communal fighting have been [largely] consigned to history. And I've really taken to it, to be honest. I go to games whenever I can. It's a great game, and I've now got a much better grasp of the rules, subtleties and nuances than when I first landed. I no longer just stand up and shout "BAAAAALLLLL!!!!" whenever I'm not sure what's going on. Just because that's seemingly what everyone else does, doesn't make it big or clever.

As I alluded above, the AFL ruling body have been getting pretty twitchy about the impact of [proper] football as the World Cup approaches, especially as 95000 people turned out at the MCG for a friendly against Greece [for which I had a ticket but saw a band instead]. Around 60,000 Aussies have gone to Germany, too, which is a pretty impressive turn out for what is universally regarded as a non-footballing nation.

The AFL are countering the threat with plenty of spin, e.g. here ; the newspapers are full of letters and leaders about the "true Victorian sport" and "soccer is boring, nil-nil, one-nil, hooligans" cliche cliche blah blah etc. etc. One guy used the defence that you see more variety in Aussie Rules, given that there are twelve different ways you can move the ball. Yeah, right, excellent point, Sherlock.

Anyway... I reckon soccer may well remain a well-supported National-team game, much like the cricket but where the local and non-Test crowds appear almost as piddlingly crap as the UK.

There's clearly room for both as this is a sport-mad Nation and State [though they remain largely ambivalent about both rugby codes in Vic], with the State League soccer system still playing through winter [still largely divided on ethnic heritage grounds despite losing their previous "Hellas" and "Croatia" suffixes] and the successful new inter-state team set-up, which I've previously mentioned at length here.

Many of the soccer fans of ethnic South European, Balkan and South American heritage here appear to be still following their home countries, though this may change if the Socceroos' success continues. The English expats will probably always follow England, of course. How ashamed are you that we just can't fit in, Mr Tebbitt?

My team, Carlton are excelling [insert your own ironic tone here], have won 2 out of 11 games so far, and only just off the bottom spot, having suffered inconsistency and the obligatory spankings along the way. Just like my beloved QPR, Carlton are under-achieving, financially screwed and with a complicated and troubled management structure. Hmmm. My life is destined to repeat itself even ten thousand miles away, it seems.

As an aside, I'm really very happy for Peter Crouch [ex-QPR] having his 15 minutes of fame, particularly as he's fondly remembered for having given QPR1st [a QPR fans' players fund-raising organisation in the darkest hours of near-administration a few years back] ten grand. Not the normal sort of altruism you see from footballers when they can spend 10K on a nasty piece of "artistic" furniture or a new blingbasstic sound system for their top-of-the-range Mercedes or Hummer.

I know the nice-touch-for-a-tall-man type quotes are predominating, and his robot dancing have been the main content of the headlines, but I've never met anyone from a club he's played for who speaks of him in anything but positive terms. And well, he does have a nice touch...

Finally... as we're on sport-type stuff, I should mention the fact [non-gloatingly, you understand] that we've got tickets for 3 of the 4 days of the Ashes Melbourne Test released so far, along with the 2 one-dayers to be played here. I think we'll struggle next Summer, but I just HAVE to go... couldn't not do, living here, just in case we happen to do something a bit special. We have general admission tickets, so we'll probably end up sitting poles apart rather than prompting the rubbing of hands from potential divorce lawyers...

Football, Soccer, round ball, 10 men ... you know the drill.

2006-06-13T08:50:00.000+10:00

I don't know why I didn't stay up to watch Australia play Japan last night. I guess I have tried to ignore the fact that the Socceroos qualified really. Ian and I only just scraped through the Ashes series with our marriage intact, then the flamin' Socceroos go and qualify. Ending up in the same group as England, I suspect, would have signalled the death knell!

So I watched England play Paraguay in a pretty bland match over the weekend. I had not even made a note of when Australia's first game was. Surprised? I was. Not as much as Ian last night when I said I was going to bed just as the Australian anthem was being sung by thousands of Australians in that stadium in Kaiserslautern.

I admit I popped out when I heard Ian shout after Japan's first goal. He said Mark Schwarzer (goalkeeper) got clattered by 2 Japan defenders. I figured that was pretty much it for the brave Socceroos and went to bed to read.

When Ian climbed into bed just after 1am I asked him how much we'd lost by. He replied that we had actually won 3-1! I nearly fell out of bed.

I can hear people in the office effusing about how amazing the win was. Something about Australian's that irks me - win or die - I find that side of our nation's make-up hard to take. Especially when I see that in myself but that is a whole other post.

I won't go on about it. Really. What I wanted to do was post a few differing views, shall we say, on the game, certain aspects of it and the outcome. Just to set the scene... As I mentioned above, Ian's view of Japan's first goal was that our goalkeep, Schwarzer, was impeded in his defence by 2 Japanese players. When I read The Age this morning, it reported pretty much the same;

Socceroo goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer says the referee apologised for a dreadful blunder that cost Australia a goal against Japan and for 74 minutes looked like derailing Australia's World Cup campaign.

Egyptian whistleman Essam Abd El Fatah spoke to both goalie Mark Schwarzer and captain Mark Viduka for getting it horribly wrong, and thanked God his howler did not decide the match.

The episode had a happy ending, with Australia winning its opening World Cup match 3-1 after a rousing finish in Kaiserslautern, and the Aussies praising the referee's honesty.

But the error could so easily have torpedoed Australia's 2006 campaign, and certainly looked like doing so with just minutes left on the clock and Australia trailing 1-0.

The referee's booboo came midway through the first half when Japanese playmaker Shunsuke Nakamura floated over a cross from the right wing.

As Schwarzer rose to collect it, he was barrelled by not one but two attackers - Atsushi Yanagisawa and Naohiro Takahara - and the ball lobbed into the net untouched.

Schwarzer looked dumbfounded as he sat on the turf and the referee signalled a goal.

I always like reading what the British newspapers write about things like this, just to get another perspective. So I hopped over to The Guardian;

Or rather, they punished themselves. Shunsuke Nakamura lofted a floating ball into the area, where Schwarzer tried to push the Japanese frontline out of the way and succeeded only in knocking himself off balance. The ball dropped into the net above his shaking head.

Now I do not know who Georgina Turner is but if you read the whole article, she seems to have a rather big chip on her shoulder.

The BBC website reported this;

Japan took the lead when Socceroos keeper Mark Schwarzer appeared to be impeded as Shunsuke Nakamura's intended cross sailed over his head.

As with most BBC coverage is spelled out the facts and left the lily un-gilded.

And finally, The Times reporter was a little more passionate!

26mins GOAL! Nakamura dinks in the most unlikely of goals from nothing more than a cross. Schwarzer comes for a regulation catch but is shoved out of the way by Yanagisawa, who has himself been pushed by Moore. The ball sails over everybody and into the empty net.

I skimmed the Guardian's minute-by-minute report as I thought it may have been written by the the inimitable, Georgina Turner however it seems an even more bitter and twisted Barry Glendenning trotted out every cliche about Australians / Earls Court and bar work without an ounce of flair or humour.

My brother just called, yelling down the phone, I'm Aussie till I die, I'm Aussie till I die ad nauseum. He can't believe I didn't stay up to watch the game. How do I explain that after watching England play in every international since 2000 has meant I know every England player's name, rank and serial number? How do I explain that I am more interested in Rooney's foot than I am Kewell's groin? How do I paint a picture of my life in England in colours other than red and white?

All those questions remain unanswered. The only pertinent question remaining however is ... What in God's name do I do if England and Australia both qualify in the group stage!?

Yeah, I guess...

2006-06-07T22:22:00.000+10:00

In response to Claud's post below, funnily enough I saw Diane, who works on nights on my old ward in Manchester, walking down the street towards me this morning. Only it wasn't. In fact, it was nothing like her in stature, facially or even hairstyle. But, for a second, I swear it was her. Till it turned into a 17-year old girl with blonde hair and only one leg [not really, but it wasn't much closer than that].

I also saw a bloke who had Jammy's mouth the other day, heard someone who sounded remarkably like a consultant at Wivvy Hospital, turned a corner and for a split-second saw something in the brickwork that made me think I was back home in Withington, etc. etc. etc. I could go on [and usually do].

So, it's not just you, honey. We both have the dis-ease. It's spelt h-o-m-e-s-i-c-k-n-e-s-s...

Dopplegangers?

2006-06-07T15:55:00.000+10:00

I've been meaning to post this for ages but when I start to write it in my head (which I tend to do before I hit the keyboard) it has always sounded ridiculous.

For a while now I have been seeing people I know well back in the UK, on the streets of Melbourne. (See, told you it sounds mental) Obviously I know these people are not my friends and erstwhile colleagues however, for that first split second I catch sight of someone in my peripheral, for all intents and purposes, they are that person.

It happens at least once a day. For instance, today in the lift well down stairs I saw Brian that used to do all the AV stuff in our meeting rooms at work. I looked again and of course it wasn't him but he stood the same way, he was about the same height and his hair was similar. The thing I have found with these shadowy copies of my life in England is that as soon as I see their face, I instantly know they are not who I initally think they are. (I'm sure I've confused my tenses here!)

The thing is, when you think recognise someone you know it is usually confirmed when you catch sight of their face. Before that however, the thing that draws you to believe you know the person you have only caught a glimpse of is, say, something about the way they carry themselves, their walk or even what they are wearing.

I'm sure this happens to other people. It must. The reason I think it has happened to me so often is because, essentially, I am missing my life in Manchester. I miss the people, the way those people made me feel and the strong sense of belonging that held me in there, helping to make me feel so much like I fit.

I had dinner with two erstwhile Manchester colleagues last week. They are on secondment here and both a little new to the country. I thought I'd be able to word them up on life in Oz and hopefully give them a few tips to help them navigate the strangeness of their new home. However after an hour or so I realised, to my dismay, that I felt as displaced and far from home as they did. Not a great revelation to have almost 5 months on...

I know this will get better. This sense of not fitting in, of feeling like an outsider. I know that for a fact because I overcame it on the other side and that gives me hope that both Ian and I will, soon I hope, feel as much a part of life here as the people around us want us to be.

So for the moment I will make do with sidelong glimpses of the people I left behind, of thoughts of friendships that are separated by at least 2 oceans and of some of my favorite people in the universe.

The Event Queen...

2006-05-31T09:14:00.000+10:00

I organised an event last week. Well, I organised it well in advance of last week so it is more appropriate to say that the event I organised was held last week.

It was the first social gathering of all 6 teams in our business unit. I think I have mentioned before that there is a lot of change taking place across the board here so things are quite unsettled. So my mandate for this event was to make it as informal and low key as possible. No presentations, no pep talks, no long-winded speeches from the leadership. Just an afternoon of food and drink and mingling.

Given this is Australia and, if you believe the hype, we are a nation of great drinkers, you would think that people would look forward to an afternoon off work where their employer pays for the food and the grog. Wrong. Well, maybe somewhere out there this is true but in the current institution I am working for - all very corporate and conservative - the drinking culture is not encouraged.

This just seems mad to me for I am sure it was not like this when I left Australia almost 7 years ago. Either that or just I spent far too long working in the UK whiling away many afternoons and/or evenings drinking alcohol paid for by my employer!

So imagine my dismay and consternation (Can someone let me know exactly what that word means please. One of these days I'm going to use a word I've heard just cause it sounds impressive and get it horribly wrong) when I was informed at the outset that the focus of the event was not to have a drink but to socialise in an informal ambiance where alcohol is available though consuming too much of it is perhaps not the done thing. Coming from KPMG in the UK I felt like someone had turned my head inside out.

So I endeavoured to find a venue where the focus would not just be what we would consume. Not too difficult here in Melbourne. The short list included the Aquarium, the Museum, an art gallery space and the Observation Deck on the Rialto. Given my love of heights (and that I'd spent the last 5 years working on the 4th floor of a building in Manchester where, the view, as it was, was obscured by an opaque film of muck that could not be cleaned because the firm were in dispute with the window cleaning firm and could not contract another firm in while it was going on) the Observation Deck was my preferred candidate.

I digress. I sent out the invitation to 300 odd staff members and the acceptances started rolling in. In my experience of events and numbers for catering (gleaned entirely from my mate Annie the Queen of Events)) is that you probably lose a third of your RSVPs on the night. So, 220 responded in the affirmative and I catered for 130 which I know is less than 2 thirds but I was told this lot are notorious in not turning up for events.

So, at 3pm I am standing at the registration table with my colleague and 2 rolls of sticky lables and a marker pen each. Annie, I know at this stage would be utterly dismayed with me for, apart from the slipshod name badge arrangement, I had no MASTER LIST!!! Still, I devised a way of keeping track of numbers - we counted the empty sticky label backing. Ingenious ha?

Imagine my alarm when during the course of counting our rolls of empty labels we discovered the numbers had crept up to 150. A short while later they reached 170. The final count at 4pm was 195!

My boss congratulated me, everyone around me declared the venue inspired however I spent the next hour trying to make food for 130 stretch to feed 195. There must have been a run on oysters at the market that day cause I've never seen so many in one place. My boss kept mumbling that half the people there would be off work the next day as it did seem slightly dodgy that all we seemed to be getting were oysters.

Anyway, despite the fact that food was a bit thin on the ground - personally I blame the group of people who sussed out where the kitchen was and practically mauled each food waiter as they emerged, tray laden - the event was a rage. It was one of those gorgeous clear autumn days and as the sun set over the city and the mood mellowed, I silently raised my glass to my friends over the seas who, at moments like that, I miss terribly. Cheers folks.

Mad geese and English men ...

2006-05-30T10:01:00.000+10:00

I may have been slightly wrong about the weather in Melbourne.

There Anna - I said it.

It does get cold here in Melbourne. However, as my husband rightly pointed out below I do not seem to feel the cold like others do. So I have not been spouting false propaganda. I'm just slightly misguided. Sometimes.

I dropped off the hire car we had over the weekend this morning wearing only a suit jacket. It was a little chilly but under a clear blue sky and facing a sun that still actually warms, it hardly seemed that bad.

We hired a car so we could drive Miss Jenny around. On Saturday we went to a lovely country town about 100 kms north west of Melbourne called Daylesford. We had a fabby lunch at the Farmers Arms, which we calculated cost us the equivalent of £45 for 3 lovely meals, 2 glasses of amazing pinor nior, a bottle of local ale and coffee. That's £45 for the 3 of us folks, not per head... We were all pretty impressed.

After lunch we mooched around the town centre, wandering in and out of the lovely shops trying hard not to buy for the sake of buying. We missed the sunset over the lake (a running theme with the Berri's - missing sunset : cue Ian & Claud rushing around Oia on Santorini in a vain attempt to catch what is reported as being, the most spectacular sunset on earth, and missing it).

What all but made up for it however was watching a gaggle of mad geese terrorise a small family who, unwisely produced a loaf of bread, possibly with the expectation of letting their young children merrily hand feed them. Realising all too late that this particular gaggle were feral and hungry, they beat a hasty retreat onto the nearest picnic table dragging their hysterical children behind them.

God I laughed. You think that's mean? Ian stood by and took photos - which we will, of course, post in due course.

So what you been doing then?

2006-05-26T08:33:00.000+10:00

OK, well...

I've settled into my new home, my new job, and my new city. Sort of. All three have been not without their trials and tribulations, but I'm getting there, I reckon.

We're settled into our grrrrroovy apartment in Collingwood, just a spit from the city and the funky [and slightly seedy] Smith and Brunswick Streets. We have some furniture, a base to live our lives from, and we do feel like we have a home now. Currently, we also have a waif and stray blown in from the UK living in our lounge - our good friend Jenny, who lived here for a couple of years a while back. Treats the place like a hotel, she does. And she's very welcome to, of course.

The job is really, really busy; really, really stressful at times. But I've learned a lot already, and I seem to be fitting in OK. It's just different from what I'm used to - "Adult" [sic] Psych Nursing is a different sort of nursing to older age mental health, that's for sure. I'd always been kind of dismissive of the people who said that older age is a speciality that is hugely different to "normal" mental health nursing. But I have to concede that they're right - or at the very least that they're two different specilaities, requiring specific skills, processes and a particular kind of mindset to cope with the stresses.

The biggest difference in my current job is the huge co-morbidity of drug use, something that is rarely found amongst the over-65s, but oh-so-prevalent in huge swathes of the younger population here in Melbourne. The anti-social tendencies that this can engender, and the utter madness [and I don't use that term lightly or irreverently] I've seen has been a real eye-opener, horrific in its intensity and destruction. It's not that it wasn't present back in Blighty, but simply that I was a student when I last seriously encountered it, whereas I'm now responsible for the care of these people.

Now, I know that some of my audience here may have inhaled at some point or another and may be a little blasé, but if you'd been susceptible to one of the major mental illnesses this may well have seriously messed up your lives by now [yeah, I know, here I am, Mr Liberal-pot-calling-kettle-black (pun intended), reborn as anti-drugs puritan - who'd have forseen that one?].

Each drug has both its effect and horrible side effect, whether it be cannabis, speed [amphetamnines], Ice [AKA crystal meth], heroin or cocaine... all have differing but often devastating effects on the mental and physical health of so many of my new client group.

Anyway, I'm off at a tangent already, so I'll shut up about this, lest you see me as some new James Anderton-type intolerant scumbag. Which takes my thoughts back to my beloved Manchester... sigh. Funny how even the darkest memories can make me wistful for my home town...

They've given me a load of responsibility at work already - I discovered on my third night shift that I was in charge of the ward... khaki trousers time, especially when we had a medical emergency the very same night [we all survived, patient included].

And last week, my first back on days, guess what? My first [and again, unexpected] daytime in-charge shift. And it was THE busiest and most chaotic day anyone can remember. Which, I hasten to add, was not due to my mismanagement, but a series of coincidences including four admissions, 3 discharges, 2 violent patients, a full ward with a queue of potential clients waiting in the Emergency Dept etc. etc.

Lots of my colleagues are graduates, in their first few months of psych work [you train as a general nurse here, then do a grad year in a specialty], so I'm a senior nurse [with my share of "senior moments", to boot] and a lot expected of me. It's been pretty tough, but I seem to be doing OK. I have my regular bouts of low self-esteem / major crises of self-doubt and self-loathing, but Claud, bless her, does her best to pick me up, pamper me, and talk me back down from my tree. What would I do without her?

On the positive side... it only takes 15-20 minutes to get to work each day, I pass over the Yarra R iver and cop a magnificent view of the city, down past the MCG [dreaming of Ashes Glory next summer], the clock on the silo [and yes, it sometimes says eleven degrees - don't worry if you don't get the reference - it's a Paul Kelly song beloved of Claud and I].

And... talking of which, anyone who seriously wants tickets for the Ashes next January/February should contact us as soon as poss - tickets are on sale on 1st June!

And the city? I do love this city. I will effuse about it further on subsequent blogs, no doubt, but it's good to be here, even as winter rapidly approaches. And I can confirm that it does get cold here, despite C's previous protestations to the contrary. She's finally sussed that she doesn't feel the cold like us normal cold-blooded reptiles do [must be the marsupial gene]. But it's not proper cold... after 20-odd years of driving, I discovered the best windscreen ice-scraper just as we left the UK, and find there is no use for it here unless we head to the mountains of the Victorian Alps.

Going out plenty, now I'm awake in normal hours. The food here is fantastic and eating out is pretty cheap, though somehow I seem to have mislaid around a stone, despite this [if anyone has any information about its whereabouts, all information will be treated confidentially].

Went to Soulmama veggie restaurant for a scrummy meal and top night-time view of the bay last night, followed by seeing one of my favourite bands for the first time [it was also Claud's first time, so we popped our cherries together... aaaaah!]. The band is Melbourne's very own Something for Kate, at the seminal Prince of Wales in St Kilda, along with friends from the UK Anna & Kev. They were, of course, fantastic. As were the band. Boom Boom.

More soon...

Apologies... and then he plods on regardless, sleep-deprived and self-pitying

2006-05-26T07:55:00.000+10:00

Yep, an apology from me too. I've been slack, I've not updated for an absolute age, and you've all no doubt forgotten about me, if you hadn't already.

And I deserve anonymity, of course [commences Opus Dei-like self-flaggelation, then stops abruptly]. But even with an audience of none, I'll continue to spew out my irrelevant nonsense, such is my arrogance and conceit. And mmm, it tastes so good.

Actually, I've just spent a hellish month [that feels like several months] on nights, which has been absolutely dreadful to be truthful, and I've suffered what appears to have been a cross between jetlag, SAD, depression and a dementia, where I've barely been able to communicate other than in the wee hours of the morning. Been sleeping, what? 3 or 4, 5 if I'm lucky, hours a night [day]. Claud reckons I've been absent even when I've been physically present, and is happy to have her husband back now the nightmare [daymare] is over.

And it's good to be back. I'd forgotten how desperate lack of daylight and lack of sleep can be. There's a certain irony in the fact that a large part of my role as a psych night nurse is to ensure that the patients in my care get a good nights sleep, for the sake of their mental health. I have the option of giving them substantial quantities of benzodiazapines to ease their sleeplessness, but have no such [legal] option myself.

And man, it's made me so bloody homesick again too. I guess the yearning for a normal life, whatever that may be, sends my thoughts to my homeland, my previous life, and the people. The friends I left behind, the life I left behind. Emails would be nice, people; phone calls too, now we have a land line and broadband access [didn't realise how much I relied on T'internet till I didn't have it].

So that's my apology and my justification. Not a lot of remorse evident so far [get that fine tooth comb out please], I admit, but I am sorry I've been so slack... can we draw a line under it and just start again? Please? Good. Another ramble will follow shortly...

Still here...!

2006-05-16T09:20:00.000+10:00

It has been almost a month since I last wrote. Sheesh. Where did a month go? I remember the days i had time to at least open internet explorer at work. These days? Nuh.

The major thing for me at the moment is work. I'm in a temporary role covering an EXTREMELY busy position working for an even busier bloke. I feel, in some ways, like I am in a holding pattern which at times is fine, especially since the pay rise a couple of weeks ago, but at times is incredibly frustrating and, if I'm honest, a little scary.

I have been looking outside the bank for another position. It seems I'm either too late at finding the role or I am not successful. I am not as bothered by the rejections as I thought I would be. You know me, I don't like losing. I guess somewhere deep down I still carry around that innate sense that everything will come out in the wash. I know that I will find a job I like that will be right for me. I just want it to happen now.

If I set aside the work chunk of my life there is, thankfully, a whole lot more left! The list of things that bring joy to date are thus;

Ian
Nephews & Niece
Siblings
Extended family
Mates
Melbourne
Coffee
Enrolling in 'Learn to Row' classes in July*
A sense of feeling at 'home' in our home
Eating out loads
Weather
The beach
The blue sky in the middle of May
The Fitzroy Gardens I walk through each day
The prospect of folks visiting from the UK
Getting the internet at home
Getting a landline at home
Getting a washing machine
Renewing friendships
Making new friends...
Catching up with work mates from Manchester who have been seconded to Sydney & Melbourne

We had a hectic Saturday just gone as it was Dante & Lucia's "Five / One" party. Dante turned 5 and Lucia turned 1 and, given Lucia can't talk right now Dante decided the theme. It was, of course, a Thunderbird party and as my reputation for baking preceeded me to Melbourne, he commissioned me to make a Thunderbird 2 [T2] cake. Lord help me.

Had it been T1 cake I would have had it easy. No fancy wings or rounded nose. But no, Dante's tastes run into green space craft with tail fins and rounded thingies along the ship which entailed extra pieces of cake. Now I'm not great at details, but thank the heavens Ian is. I basically baked the cake but Ian cut it to the right dimensions, I iced it and again Ian smoothed it down, added the scroll work and even helped me with the extra large marshmellows we used a clouds. It looked fabulous!

Given it was a kids party, and that Dante helped me bake the cake and he is obsessed with colour, we added green to the cake batter. A lovely irridescent green it was. It stained the kids fingers and mouths and it was even reported back the next day the even as it left one child's body the colour remained a vivid green...

I'll post pictures of the party and cake here soon.

* My desk overlooks the Yarra River and the 7 boat sheds that sit along its banks. Each day I see people out on the water, gliding along gracefully. It looks so peaceful from up here. I offhandedly asked a colleague how one gets involved in rowing down there and, as things in life go, she replied that she rows on the Yarra and that she would send me joining instructions. So for 2 weekends in July, an hour and a half each day, I'll be learning to row on the river. And I'm so excited!

Autumn days...

2006-04-20T15:02:00.000+10:00

As I look across at the various shades of golden tree tops in the Botanical Gardens, through the rain that is rolling in off the bay, I am a little more sure that Autumn is well and truly happening.

My experience of Autumn, for the past 5 years at least, has been a cold affair. Melbourne is Autumn, is not. Ask any local and you get a different story but as most of you who know me understand, I do not feel the cold as much as most.

I walk to work these days. Pretty impressive huh? It takes me 20 odd minutes to walk briskly across a main road, through pretty East Melbourne, across the Fitzroy Gardens to Spring Street then up the lift to the 30th floor of my building.

I get quite warm walking so I usually shed my jacket well before the gardens. So it always makes me smile to see people wearing heavy coats and a scarf when the temperature is hovering around 20 degrees and I'm warming up. I guess it is all relative. When you live through a few summers where the temperature reaches the high 30's, a 10 or 15 degree drop is going to make you shiver. I hope.

Work is going okay. Picking up more and more responsibility which is keeping me busy and, for the moment, interested. I have the odd momentary crisis of confidence where I find myself wishing I was back at KPMG in Manchester where I was known, loved and respected and not here having to prove my credibility all over again. I know things could be a lot worse but you know me and my insatiable need to feel special!

Our apartment is such a treat! I love the fact that while it is only a one bed apartment, we have a hallway that is almost the size of our old kitchen and, twice as long. I love that I can look out our lounge room window and see the tops of the skyscrapers on the cities skyline.

I love that the sun rises in our kitchen window and sets in our bedroom one. I love that it is brand new and, any dirt I clean from here on in is ours - so it's not that disgusting!

I love that we are tucked away at the back of the complex which means we are away from the main road traffic. But if I am still I can hear the trams rumbling along Victoria Parade in the distance. And if I am up before 7am I can hear the odd magpie warbling away somewhere beyond the concrete.

It is great to be living in Collingwood too which so happens to be my Aussie Rules football team. Carn the Magpies!

The only downside is that our neighbours lounge room wall is the other side of our bedroom wall. All well and good except we suspect their playsation is hooked up to their surround bloody sound system. Again, not a great disaster except that when it rumbles on after 11pm [yes, we've turned into old people overnight] I get a little stressed.

Ian tends to be able to fall asleep regardless but last night I got myself up out of bed, got dressed and went down to the foyer and rang their intercom. Nobody answered however but when I eventually got back to bed the noise had thankfully stopped.

Last Saturday morning, at 6.30am I was rudely awoken by the same God-awful noise. I figured for that hour of the morning the only polite thing to do was bang on the wall, rapidly and loudly. That seemed to do the trick. However if Ian falls asleep before I do, while this would probably stop the noise it would inevitably send Ian crashing into a right state. So I refrain.

I may need to just write a kind and diplomatic note and drop it into their mailbox tonight. The last thing I need is a war with our neighbours through the bedroom wall!

Springtime... and Autumn

2006-04-06T14:25:00.000+10:00

Well, I've been in my new job for nearly two weeks now, and our new flat for, ooo, 4 days. So it's time for an update from one of the Hospital Library's strictlyonlyforacademicorworkuse computer. So I'll talk about work first, shall I?

[Beware that some quite technical stuff follows, that may be a little boring for those without a mental health interest!]

So... how's it going? Good, actually. Bloody busy for much of the time, as the ward is, as we sometimes say in the industry, erm... mad. Not a terribly PC term, I know, and not one advocated by most mental health professionals nor used when addressing clients or their carers, but sometimes it's the only adjective that fits. It's the place that's mad, and the patients are ill, OK?

It now takes me just 15 to 30 minutes to get to and from work, once I've negotiated the two exceptionally busy 6-8 lane roads that separate home from the bus stop. Yes, in the city of trams I catch a bus to work. But we don't want the extra expense of a car if we can possibly help it, and my bike doesn't arrive till next week [yes, our stuff will finally be here!]. Plus the fact that it's quite nice to veg on a bus rather than have to think, especially at 6.30 in the morning or 10.30 at night before/after shifts.

For Claud, it's even closer and quicker to work via tram, even at peak hour, and we could probably walk into the CBD [or its fringes, anyway] in 20 minutes or so. This has yet to be tested, but my reknowned penny-pinching [I prefer the terms frugality and cost-effectiveness] means that this estimate will be tested sooner rather than later.

We were talking about my job, weren't we? The staff have been very friendly and supportive, or as much as they can be in the midst of the seat-of-the-pants stuff that has characterised my first few days. The living on the edge of chaos feeling is a familiar one to most nurses, particularly in mental health [the more apposite term psychiatry is used more commonly here, so I'll use this from now on], but it's been extremely busy by any standards.

I've been welcomed, given lots of orientation and a little training, though also thrown in the deep end on occasion too. It's all a bit bewildering, to be honest, as I try to get my head around new systems and practices as well as the new environment and people who speak funny. Yes, there are a few Kiwis here, as well as Aussies, another Brit or 2, a few Irish nurses, and a few strong regional or mixed Australian-European accents.

Moving back into adult work [old people are no longer adults, apparently - as I've previously ranted] has been pretty seamless, although the huge doses of antipsychotic and anxiolytic [sedative or relaxant] meds that are given has been a bit of a wake-up call for me compared with the tiny older age measures. And still the young manic and/or aggressive patients keep on their feet despite what appears to be enough drugs to zonk a small elephant.

The level of verbal abuse that you take in these units [and the erudtion that often accompanies it] is also bit of a surprise, and the language can be more than a little spicy. There's a pretty much zero tolerance approach taken to threats, and whereas in the UK you were pretty much left to your own devices if a patient becomes aggressive [in this hospital at least], security are called to assist.

As a consequence, the incidence of restraint appears much lower, albeit at the expense of reinforcing the oppositional perception of the cruel psych nurse maintaining a institutional and punitive detention service. Not a good thing if you already have a paranoid psychotic patient on your hands. Having said that, many of the primarily young people in the system who have a history of violence are quite used to the way things are done here, and I've seen little in the way of negative impact on clients' mental state thus far.

There's also a much more cautionary, proactive and interventionist approach to any [perceived or actual] threat, with generally higher doses given at an earlier stage than in the UK, although I'm told that the State of Victoria is actually pretty conservative in this respect compared with, say, Western Australia. Nurses seem to have more leeway in using prophylaxis [preventative medication] here, rather than allowing patients to escalate to a more dangerous and distressed state.

It's a thorny issue, of patient choice and their Rights, benefit of the doubt, safety etc., and the care, rights and safety of others. It does seem a little incongruous when you consider that the Right to be cared for least restrictive environment is enshrined in the latest revision of the Mental Health Act here, and not made so explicit in the UK equivalent. I guess there are semantic issues in that "environment" is seen as simply the physical environment rather than the extended interpretation encompassing manner and means of treatment, but I think it could be argued that the broader sense view is equally valid. Not sure if it's been tested by case law here, nor the effect of local or international Human Rights legislation.

It's all so new and unfamiliar that I'm not sure yet what I really think about all this, and I obviously can't go beyond a deliberately vague description of events on a public forum such as this, so I won't be commenting at any point on any specific things I've seen. But I have to say that I've felt safer here generally than on the adult wards I've worked on in the UK, though the severity of illness is pretty similar.

Patients are also allowed leave much earlier and with less restrictions than in the UK, although the use of Community Treatment Orders on discharge means that the terms of ongoing care is potentially more restrictive here. And it's something that has held up the UK's new Mental Health Act, as both MH professionals and service users have united against the proposals, arguing that they are both too restrictive and unworkable in practice. It can be argued than a psych nurse could abuse his/her powers in these circumstances, in effect saying "Do what I say or it's back to hospital for you...". Not exactly the basis for a sound therapeutic relationship...

I now have the unexpected, terrible and onerous task of saying a positive thing about John Howard, anodyne and personality-free Prime Minister of this fair country. He may be politically conservative and pro-free market, but he's announced that he's going to chuck a load of money and resources at the mental health system here. Well done, John! Now I have to go wash my hands.

So, it's looking good overall... I'm happy, and even my closest in-laws have commented that I seem like a different person now that I'm working: more relaxed, chilled and... dare I say it, more Aussie [The horror! The horror!]? The whole thing about contributing to society, of being valued and of value is something that I guess I'm subconsciously in dire need of. Maybe it's my protestant work ethic made flesh*?
[*though I've long since stopped protesting]

The only dark cloud on the horizon is the fact that we really do seem to have hit Autumn now. The trees are turning golden in tiny incremental steps and the wind has a little more bite; and even the perma-tan is fading fast. Yep, it's been less than 20 degrees for about 4 days now, and this looks set to go on till the weekend at least, only high teens. Read and weep, England, read and weep for us.

We are in like Flynn!

2006-04-04T09:27:00.000+10:00

This is not our apartment exactly, but we do look out onto the courtyard and our kitchen is similar. Well, our kitchen is set in a corner, and has no breakfast bar but the cabinets are the same colour. Oh and we do not have a balcony but essentially you get the gist of it...

Last night was our first night together in our new home. We had a bit of a scary start in that there was no power until 6pm. The electricity company sent someone over to connect us but they could not access the building. Apparently, anyone who comes to service any part of our building gets a security fob which gives them access. However the blokey that came last night did not - apparently.

Ian got home at 5.30 and called me to say there was still no power. Cue Claudine's stern phone voice she carefully cultivated over the years while dealing with NTL, United Utilities and Virgin Train staff UK wide. The guy who answered explained the situation. I explained ours, utilising my stern phone voice [i.e. no power so no lights, heat or hot water!!] and he moved up a gear, contacting the local power supplier. They say they will add our job to the 'night shift' crew but do not give us a time they will be there.

Excellent news. Not. So I leave work just before 6pm, explaining all to Ian in a calm, soothing voice while waiting for my tram to arrive. Mid sentence however the intercom at the apartment rings announcing the arrival of the power blokey. Hoorrah! We have lift off!

Lisa and Stephen told us to take what we needed from the pantry before we left. I feel Lisa meant staples i.e. cans of stuff, olive oil etc. However, Ian grabbed a jar of pesto, some pasta, coffee and a cask of wine. I can hear you all laughing from here. I do not need to wonder what Ian would eat if I am not home - you have the menu right there folks.

Anyway, I boil the water and unpack the last of my stuff while Ian wanders downstairs to redeem a voucher for a free bottle of wine that we received when we moved in. The City Vineyard, if you can believe it, is at the bottom of our apartment block. Basically, this establishment sells only boutique Australian wines, all of which you can sample. Yes, you read right. God help us. He was gone ages and when I asked him why he says he got chatting with the owner. God help me.

Ian brought back one of the scrummiest bottles of Sav Blanc [with the exception of Oyster Bay] I have ever tasted, which we polish off over our pasta and pesto. After we had finished the bottle and started on the cask of merlot, Ian confessed, that while chatting to the owner and sampling half the wine stock, he had used 2 expressions in his descriptions.

One of them was one-dimensional. ::raises eyebrow:: Is it me or has he just become the wine snob of the century? In his defence he was quite sheepish as he told me and he even blushed. Still, not enough remorse for me to think twice about telling the tale here!

So folks we are home I feel. It has been a long time coming, but as I look back at the journey over the past 12 months, I realise that in no small part, you have all helped us get here. Which brings me to nicely to ... where the bloody hell are you?! We want dates from you all as to when you will be arriving in Melbourne and how long you intend to stay. So don't just sit there - call a travel agent!

The Berry's have moved!!

2006-04-03T15:33:00.000+10:00

Firstly, profuse apologies for the slackness in blogging but we have good reason. We have moved into our own apartment (can you call it your own if you rent? Discuss.) much closer to the city and we are pretty damn excited about it!

Looking for a place to live is a pretty exciting prospect if you are Claudine. If you are Ian however, its slightly more fraught. I had complete faith that we would find what we wanted, where we wanted and that it would all work out. Ian, was not so full of faith so relied on mine which was just as well.

We spent Saturday before last viewing a few places and found one we liked. It was not open for viewing but we drove by anyway to see where it was. We happened upon the owner who was moving out and she kindly let us look around. It was a ground floor flat in a secure block which had been completely renovated.

Ian fell in love with it but I have to confess I was not that enamoured. I mean it was lovely but being on the ground floor while Ian worked late shifts was not comforting. We applied for it on Tuesday but I kept looking.

I had circled an apartment on a busy road not far from the city centre. It looked okay but the main road location put me off slightly but I decided to give it a go. So, on Wednesday lunchtime I hopped on a tram to inspect the apartment. After I got back to the office I applied for it on line. Later that afternoon the estate agent called to speak to my boss to confirm I did in fact work where I said I did. She also informed me that the owner was quite 'keen on us'.

I had a momentary panic for Ian had not seen the apartment and was going entirely on my recommendation. Now I was fraught! So, long story short, we found out on Thursday we got the place, on Friday we collected the keys and took our friend Anna around to see it. Ian loved it by the way and my fraughness dissipated.

My neice, Lucia, turned 1 on Sunday so the family gathered for a loud, chaotic although somewhat comforting afternoon tea (sans Ian sadly who was working a late shift) then all hopped into cars stuffed to the roof with more of my belongings that my parents carted from their place that morning, and we convoyed to the apartment, only a 15 minute drive away from my sister's place.

I'm sure the neighbours thought 15 people were moving in as Dante (4.5yrs), Harrison (1.5yrs) and Lucia (1yr) ran, squealed and tumbled down the corridor to our new home. It was hilarious. My brother Stephen and brother-in-law Steve (yes, that does get confusing) carted boxes, an ironing board, telly and our recent IKEA purchases while Nan, Lisa and I unpacked some of the scariest crockery you have ever seen.

Let me explain. I had left a load of stuff at my parents place when I left for England six years ago. As my sister and I unwrapped glasses, plates and bowls I had to ask myself What were you thinking?! Let's just say I'll enjoy getting rid of that Mexican wine glass and thank the Lord I only ever had one!

So tonight is our first night in our new home. It is a lovely 1 bedroom apartment on the second floor in the original warehouse section of the complex. This means it is set back from the main road, it is solid brick, it is quiet, elevated and light. We have no outside space but we are surrounded by parks, restaurants, cafes and the city is a 4 minute tram ride away. And when we feel fit, a 20 minute walk.

We still need a fridge and a washing machine and we are still waiting for our stuff to arrive which we know has cleared customs, so is not too far away. In time we will be completely set up and at home. It was worth the wait.

We enjoyed living with Stephen, Lisa and Harrison and I was quite teary leaving Hurstbridge this morning. I looked in on Harrison just before I left, who sleeps on his face with his bottom in the air, and whispered good bye.

Although we are only moving half an hour away from them, the wrench I felt surprised me. And it made me realise that I would probably not have been able to say goodbye to my family again had we only come for a holiday this time. My thoughts then turned to all the friends we left behind in England and how hard it was to leave them.

As we sat in our favorite haunt, The Terminus Hotel (which I am sure will become our 'local'), with Anna on Friday night she declared she would love to drag her entire family, and all her friends from England to Melbourne. We all heartily agreed that if they all moved here - they would love it.

So, I am left wondering... if all the people we loved lived in the same city - would the world be a better place?

Reasons to be Cheerful [Part 2]

2006-03-28T11:06:00.000+11:00

"Hello-o, Ian speaking."

"Hello, Ian mate, moi name's Ralph, 'aht in Reservoir. We're havin' a few probs, about thirty pigeons stuck in our canopy. Just wonderin' if you'd be free to pop over an' give us a hand?"

Somehow, strangely apt to get that phone call the day after I'd re-commenced my career as a Mental Health Nurse. Getting pigeons out of canopies a speciality. I think it was a wrong number rather than a cryptic cry for help, but you never say never, and expect the unexpected in my job...

So, anyway, my first day was fine. People were nice, friendly, and easy-going. Good place to work, professional, good attitudes. It helped that I was supernumerary and had no specific role, which allowed me to float, observe and take it all in. Good job too, as it was all a bit baffling at times, with different systems, new practices etc.

But I soon realised that people are the same wherever you are, and more specifically, psychiatric illness is the same the world over too. Some confrontational behaviour/conversations, but by and large the place is prett calm, and very much patient-focused, collaborating with the patients in their care as much as possible.

It's looking good. Got to go, as I've got my next shift starting in 2 and a half hours, and it'll take me a good portion of that to get there. Back home for midnight, up at 4.30 for my early tomorrow. We really do need an apartment soon. In fact, I'd even tolerate a few pigeons in the canopy at this point.

Melbourne Art

2006-03-24T15:15:00.000+11:00

I've mentioned graffiti [and Melbourne's attempt to clean it up] here before, and have included a link to Banksy, whose sometimes breathtakingly witty and political stencilling has both inspired and amused the anti-establishment part of my character.

I can understand the arguments against graffiti and have some sympathy with them, but there's a real beauty in some of the stuff [mindlessly repetitive "tagging" is both boring and irritating, to my mind]. I also really struggle with "zero tolerance" attitudes against things, especially when there is a real alternative - such as sanctioned graffiti-permitted areas in this case.

Yes, probably part of me is simply kicking against the pricks [you mean you didn't realise that that was from the Bible? Shame on you!], but I think it's also pretty darned pragmatic. Let's face it, zero tolerance is usually used as a political statement for the Daily Mail reader mindset, but rarely works. Why? Because it gets people's backs up, is often ill thought out and practically unenforceable. But it makes a great headline and the powers that be are "seen to be doing something". Even when they're not.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that The Guardian has today combined the two here, as Banksy comments on Melbourne's street artists and the recent Commonwealth Games "clean-up" [or throwing a ton of money down the drain, depending on your viewpoint].

Reasons to be Cheerful [Part 1]

2006-03-24T09:20:00.000+11:00

A few things we're looking forward to over the coming months...
Lots of links to click too, Bridge!

1. Aussie Rules footy ["AFL"] starting in the next month. Hopefully Carlton [my team] will fail to pick up the wooden spoon this season, unlike 2 of the last 3 seasons. And as for Collingwood [Claud's team], the most positive thing I can say is that they were in "The Club", seminal 1980 Aussie flick directed by Bruce Beresford [nearly a nice name there, Bruce].

2. The Whitlams in May, at probably our fave venue in Melbourne, The Prince. Claudine thinks we may be eating at their fabulous restaurant, Circa, some time soon too... best get the budget sorted out then, wif...

3. Our friend Jenny returning [only to visit, sadly] in May

4. Australia v Greece at the MCG in May [proper football]. Yes, The Socceroos [sic]. Quite why every national team in Australia has to have a silly animal-related nickname I'm not sure - Wallabies, Kookaburras, Wallaroos, Opals... well, mainly animal-related. Good job there are lots of obscure marsupials here... so, anyone want to join my over-40s 5-a-side fat and lazy footy team, The Kwokkas?

5. Split Enz at the Rod Laver Arena in June - third row seats, whoo hoo!

6. Rugby at the Telstra Dome - England v Australia if tickets are forthcoming...

7. A visit with Claud's siblings and associated family to the Victorian mountains in Winter [UK's summer] to show the kids the snow for the first time... And yes, it does get cold in Melbourne too - just not that cold.

And if you needed further confirmation of Melbourne's status as one of the world's most liveable cities, just ask the Commonwealth Games Athletes. Well, these ones,if you can find them...

Catch-up

2006-03-24T08:14:00.000+11:00

For those of you who are occasional visitors and/or a trawl through our typing loggorhea is too daunting [Hi Bridge!], this is a quick update re: our lives here in Melbourne so far. Keep tuned, things may change fast!

* We're settled generally, acclimatised and happy. I'm even wearing long trousers when I don't need to, rather than my usual shorts, so my body's core temperature must have acclimatised too.

* Claudine has been working as a temp at a large Bank here in Melbourne for 4 weeks now. A large Advertising Agency were very interested in recruiting her, but the timing was a bit off. Hopefully, something permanent will come out of the Bank job soon. Watch this space.

* Ian starts his new job [finally!] on Monday next, working in the psychiatric adult department a large hospital in a funky part of Melbourne [are there any other parts, I hear you ask?]. I'm really looking forward to starting, getting some regular routine, some of my own friends etc. Time to start crossing those digits, touching that wood, lighting those candles or casting your eyes heavenwards that he likes it, folks... your supplications have been pretty successful so far, thank you!

* Our stuff from the UK is now waiting for customs clearance in Adelaide, and will be delivered as soon as they've sniffed/torn apart/burned/laughed at whatever they need to check out. At this point, everything bar essentials will be living in Anna & Kev's garage [friends from the UK] as...

* ...we're still living in Hurstbridge with Claud's brother & his wife, Stephen & Lisa, and their 19-month old, Harrison. Hurstbridge is about 33km from the city, a little bit country ["bush"] and a little bit feral and hippy - in fact, it's so hippy-dippy-la-la [click the link above or here and you'll see what I mean] that when I saw an ad for "Atom Welding" a few weeks back, I naturally assumed that it was some sort of Alternative Therapy. Turned out it was a welding firm with the motto "No job too small". Oops. My mistake. However...

* ...our living arrangements may be changing soon... we're simply too far out from the city - an hour to by train on a usually-packed train [those of you in London may remember the name "Connex" and nod in understanding and pity when we say they run the train services here now...]. I'll be leaving for work at 5.15 AM to start work at 7 and won't be back home till 5.30 PM, and can't even get to work by public transport on a Sunday. My late shift means I leave at 11.15 AM and won't be home till midnight. Claud's day is often 12 hours door to door too. So...

* ...we're now looking at renting somewhere closer to the city [in fact, possibly in the city] for 6 months,with another 3 months of house-sitting already arranged after that]. We've done the sums and can still save for a deposit despite paying rent. As much as we like it out here, and love being with Stepehn & Lisa, we need to look after our needs and get our own headspace too. We spend a lot of our time in and around the city, so the prospect of leaving the city in the evening with an-hour-plus journey if we manage to catch the hourly train isn't exactly a thrill. And there are some groovy pads to be had for not much money... going to view a few places over the next day or 3, so again, watch this space.

Big in Zambia?

2006-03-22T17:12:00.000+11:00

Whilst waiting to watch Tim Freedman from The Whitlams play in a cental Melbourne music store, I noticed a Zambian Official [surely not an athlete unless a weightlifter or shotputter?] in full shiny-tracksuit-with-flags-and-logos, seeking out choice DVDs to take home with him...

His choice bizarrely included old-school British sitcom "Keeping Up Appearances"... Yes, the Hyacinth Bucket thing.

Now, that's not something I'd imagine would translate terribly well to Zambian life [or any civilised society, for that matter, but that's my snobbery coming through again], but it clearly has some transcendental qualities hitherto unidentified...
Blimey, that sentence was a bit of a mouthful, wasn't it? It's staying in though, as I quite like it...

Perhaps it was some sort of a bribe for a Games official with British heritage?

p.s. Don't miss Claud's 2 new posts which have just appeared below my Whingeing Pom one... Here and here.

Whingeing Pom Mode

2006-03-22T16:19:00.000+11:00

Seems like a loooong time since I last posted. The Commonwealth Games have, of course, taken over my life as I try to fill the time before I start my proper job, rather than simply Manchester's Cultural Attaché to Melbourne.

So what have I been doing, you ask?

Well...

I got to the second day of the Rugby Sevens, which was again pretty entertaining, though I've been struggling more than a little bit with the prevalent Australian attitude to the English. This was most apparent at the Rugby when the only team out of 16 nations that not only didn't get any applause, and in fact were booed when they came to warm up, was... guess who? I would previously have said there was anti-British rather than anti-English feeling here, but it's patently a cricket thing that allows what could under other circumstances be described as prejudice to prevail.

When interviewed after his Gold Medal on Channel 9, the most one-eyed and biased TV coverage you could ever have the misfortune to see [as one letter-writer in The Age sarcastically asked of Channel 9: "The other nations in the Commonwealth Games? Where the bloody hell are they?"], Wales' David Davies commented that the Australians had been gracious in their reception of him in beating the local heroes, but that he thought that they were just happy that it wasn't an Englishman. Robert Barone lookalike Nicole Livingstone responded in amusement that yes, indeed that was the case. Ha ha ha.

Yes, I probably am being too sensitive as I try to settle in here, but my second day at the rugby was again spiked with more anti-Pom vitriol from the crowd who were otherwise appreciative and supportive of other nations, of good play, and of victory. No such grace for the English, nonono, and it was actually pretty uncomfortable at times.

It reminded me of one of the darker days of football in England [in Stoke or Sheffield, say], when ignorant and prejudiced opposition fans try to provoke a response as you sit there to simply enjoy the game. As I say, it may be 95% my perception of the situation, but there's definitely an undercurrent of hatred out there, and it was little surprise to me that an England fan was both threatened with being thrown from the stand and given a beating at the hands of 2 other supporters at the Finals of the Sevens.

I found myself, backed into a corner, becoming more English, more vocal, and more one-eyed... it felt like injustice, to be truthful, and made me close to reacting in ways I didn't particularly like. There's a fine line between supporting the underdog, of humour and banter, but I felt it was repeatedly crossed, and that it's actually socially acceptable to do it... Grrr. Rant over.

Thankfully, the Athletics has been free of any sort of bias and hostility on the two days I've been to events at the MCG, and the crowds have been supportive overall, appreciative of battlers and winners, albeit a little complacent if there's not an Aussie involved in the race. But that's something that would probably happen anywhere, though I'm wondering whether Australia's fixation on sporting excellence is a good thing in the longer term. This is an area I'll no doubt return to, but there was one example that I found a little unpalatable [yes, I really am in my Whingeing Pom mode today, aren't I?] on Monday.

The Mens' Decathlon was drawing to its finish, the last event of the morning, when news came through that the 20km Mince... sorry, Walk, was coming to a close over in Docklands [i.e. well away from the Stadium] and that there was a likely "Aussie Trifecta" [yes, it's a new word to me too... it means 1,2 and 3] so they cut to the event on the big screens. They then proceeded to show and commentate on the Walk, which was by this stage a foregone conclusion anyway, whilst the Decathletes continued to plug away at their shot put event.

I felt this was really disrespectful to the athletes who were still in the stadium, not to mention pretty blooming distracting for them, not to mention the spectators who remained in the ground. It simply reiterated the fact that many Aussies only seem to be interested in sport where they win, not in sport itself. Discuss...

More Later... not moaning, hopefully.

Edward Gough Whitlam

2006-03-17T14:02:00.000+11:00

I met one of my heroes today.

It is not every day one can say that.

I arranged to meet my friend Liz today for lunch. I met Liz when I started working at ANZ Trustees many moons ago. Liz is one of those people you meet in life and are eternally gratful that you did. Liz gave me the self-belief I lacked at 23 and mentored me through the next 10 years of my career. She is a wonderful woman. While she is one of my heroes, she is not the hero I speak of now.

I was waiting for Liz in an old Melbourne institution called, Pelligrinis. Being the coffee snob that I am it embarasses me to remember my first Pellegrinis experience. Liz took me there for pasta and coffee one day when I was still buying my coffee from McDonalds. (Yes, I know. Forgive me for I was once young and stupid. We sat down and I mentioned quietly to Liz that I'd never been to Pellegrinis before. Well, Liz thought that was hilarious and although quite diminutive she managed to alert the entire place that I was a Pellegrinis Virgin. Thank you and good night...

So, roll forward to today I am waiting for Liz as the place is quickly filling up. I nabbed 2 stools along the back counter and order a latte. Sisto, the owner, is rushing around in a flap and I over hear him say When he was Prime Minister he used to stand here and drink his coffee. Today he is 80 something so I need to seat him at the table in the back! My ears pricked up and my brain whirred into action and deduced that the only person he could be speaking about, in fact, the only person who would illicit such a reaction in an Italian cafe owner in Melbourne, was Gough Whitlam.

I admire and respect Gough for many things. He was a dynamic man who, in my everso humble opinion, in the early 70's, dragged Australia from a the backwater, small-minded, post war colony that was still entwined in England's apron strings into the stirrings of a nation in its own right.

He introduced free Univeristy education for he felt that a student's merit rather than a parent's wealth should decide who should benefit from the community's vast financial commitment to tertiary education. And more, it's time to strike a blow for the ideal that education should be free.

Many baby boomers benefited from a free university education and no doubt, payed through their noses for their children's university education as the next conservative government, unsurprisingly reversed Gough's policy and re-enstated fees which are in place to this day. Shamefully the next Labour government did not reverse that policy, or many others that the Whitlam government had tried to push through in the early 70's.

He abolished conscription and dropped Australia's controversial White Australia Policy and to be honest, if that was all he managed to do I'd still applaud him. Vile piece of legislation, that.

These are a few of the Whitlam government's other accomplishments;

* established formal diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China;
* cut tariffs across the board by 25% and abolished the Tariff Board;
* established the Schools Commission to distribute Federal funds to assist non-government schools on a needs basis;
* introduced a supporting benefit for single-parent families;
* abolished the death penalty for Federal crimes;
* reduced the voting age to 18 years;
* introduced language programs for non-English speaking Australians;
* mandated equal opportunities for women in Federal Government employment;
* appointed women to judicial and administrative positions;
* set up the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee;
* amalgamated the five separate defence departments;
* instituted direct federal grants to local governments; and
* established the Order of Australia, Australia's own honours system.

Not bad eh?

When I think of Gough I find the story of Vincent Lingiari is the first story comes to mind. Vincent Lingiari was an aboriginal rights activist whose plight got the attention of the Whitlam Government and in 1975, after a 7 year struggle, the Commonwealth Land Rights act was passed.

This was the first time indigenous Australians were recognised as the true owners of ancestral land and gave them freehold title to traditional lands in the Northern Territory and, significantly, the power of veto over mining and development on those lands. An important and symbolic event in Australian History history occurred when, during an emotional ceremony in 1975, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam poured the local sand into Vincent Lingiari's hands and handed the Wave Hill station back to the Gurindji people.

It's a great story - for a precis of it see Paul Kelly's lyrics From Little Things Big Things Grow.

On November 11, 1975, Whitlam's Government was sacked by the then Governor-General (the Queen's representative and Australia's figure head of state) Sir John Kerr. You can read the background andt he lead up to the dismissal here rather than plagerise then entire wikipedia entry.

I believe it was a sad day for Australia but Whitlam had his detractors too. I admire him cause he was gutsy, he wrought sweeping changes to Australia at a time when it was stuck in a parochial, jingoistic furrow and which looked to continue for years had he not stepped up.

Anyway, all that said and done I had the great honour of meeting Mr Edward Gough Whitlam and his wife Margaret in the kitchen at Pelligrini's today. Liz introduced me to him, I shook his hand and he smiled at me. I told him, trying hard to sound articulate, that it was an honour to meet him. And it was.

I have in no way done justice to the man but I can only write so much. One of my favorite bands, The Whitlams, went a step further and wrote a song, named themselves after him and brought him to life for a whole new generation.

The only original band member is Tim Freedman. I love his music and his style. Oh, and I met him on Monday as well...

While I was out...

2006-03-17T09:48:00.000+11:00

Many things have changed since I last lived in Melbourne. So much so that even after 3 months (to the day!) since we arrived and 4 weeks of work in the city, I still feel a little bit like a newbie.

Obviously, there are things that have not changed. Coffee for starters. Yes, yes I know but this is my lonely furrow so bear with me. As I rode up the escalator at Parliament Station this morning, the heady aroma of fresh coffee wafting around me, a thought leapt into my head ... What if I was told I could never drink coffee again? I shuddered, threw up a quick prayer and headed with purpose to get my morning strong, skinny latte, deftly ignoring every side-effect that prolonged caffeine consumption induces.

*Twitch*

So, things that have not changed. Women in their droves still trot around before and after work in their sneakers (trainers) which makes an amusing accessory to their corporate attire. Eating out is still affordable. You can still spend a day wandering around town and find lots of free or cheap things to do. People are still friendly and happy to help although I can't help but perceive a very slight paranoia that seems to have seeped into the national psyche but that is fodder for a whole other post.

The differences are slight but obvious. Here's one. Australia seems to have become a no-plastic-bag zone. If you go to the supermarket here without your own green bags (in colour and in purpose), you get the feeling that those around you, checkout chick included, are frowning subtly at your environmental ignorance.

These bags are fabby really, provided you get into the habit of taking them with you when you go grocery shopping. Which we have. Sort of. Anyway, these bags (which I should explain are made out of some sort of strong but light fabric) are not just picked up from supermarkets where you pay from 99c - $1.00 each. No, many clothing stores use them in lieu of plastic bags and even places like hospitals design trendy tote bags and sell them for a dollar each. So not only are you being environmentally responsible, you are supporting a charity. Well done you!

So on the train this morning I observed many well heeled women, suited and sculpted carrying lovely leather handbags that matched their shoes who also carried a variety of these enviro-happy bags. Each of these bags were loaded up with all the paraphernalia needed for a train journey and the working day ahead. For example, books, magazines, spare pairs of shoes, make-up bags, lunch boxes, snacks, water bottles etc. etc.

Methinks designers and makers of handbags have missed out on a huge opportunity here to create a bag-for-the-things-that-do-not-fit-into-your-ridiculously-small-and-outrageously-expensive-handbag. For let's face it ladies, there is NEVER enough room in your handbag for everything you need and plastic carrier bags are so, well, baglady-ish.

Okay, enough waffling. Back to coffee. Again on the train today (I have a lot of time to think as it takes an hour to get from Hurstbridge to the city) I was thinking about my first coffee of the day. I had been buying a large skinny latte but found it was too milky even if I ordered a strong. So I went to Cafe Alcaston as per usual and the guy there pre-empted my order and asked if I wanted a large. I said no, as all that milk took away from the taste of the coffee and he heartily congratulated me on coming to my senses, seeing the enlightened path to true coffee drinking and had he been on my side of the counter, I am sure he would have slapped me on the back.

Told you people here are a bit mental about coffee...

Damn!

2006-03-17T08:02:00.000+11:00

Just composing a nice lengthy but pithy blog about the Rugby and what happens? Weird stuff happens and the whole lot goes *poof* Gone! Autosave? No such thing. Bugger. Start again.

Suffice to say that England beat the Aussies 14-12 at the end of a thoroughly entertaining day at the Telstra dome. The Aussie coach predictably whinged about it in a "it's so unfair" Kevin The Teenager stomp after their overly-physical approach resulted in 2 yellow card sin-binnings, but the real highlights were the battlers from Tonga who mugged South Africa, only to find themselves overrun by a willowy and previously ineffective Uganda team to earn the hugest cheers of the day.

Great that the crowd got so behind the underdogs throughout, roaring them on when they flattered to deceive - Spirit of the Games and all that. Pity the poor Sri Lankans though, pointless and inept, largely due to the genetic lottery that meant they can't build sufficient muscle and also seemed to cede a good 5-8 inches in height to most of the other teams. They still got a rousing send-off by their audience for their sheer pluck.

I bumped into some Aussies at the end. Young, anti-English and chock-full of booze, but thankfully not so concerned with Pom-bashing that they couldn't enjoy a bit of banter. Compare with the vitriol and bile from some of the older Aussies in my earshot, hateful and graceless even before a ball was kicked. England could have peed gold and sent them each home with a million quid and they would not have given even one us a bit of credit for anything. Ah well, welcome to my home. A real home from home, at times.

Anyway, one of the guys saw my QPR badge and shouted his mate over, whose family were originally all from West London and all QPR mad. A soulmate? A brother? Er. Nope.

"I f@#$ing hate soccah [sic]," was his opening gambit, "and I hate the f@#$ing English even more." O good. "In fact, can you take the f@#$ing Queen home with you and tell her not to come back?". Uh huh. "And while you're at it, take the f@#$ing abos and the f@#$ing gays with you too?".

Telling him that I wasn't actually responsible for her majesty, and was actually rather hoping that, as so many Aussies seemed so keen on Queenie [see Claud's post], that they might offer to have her settle over in Perth with the other Poms, didn't really seem to help. Or maybe Queensland, that sounds perfect for a monarch, eh?

More invective resulted from this approach, so cue gracious exit. I moved on to trying to persuade his mate that his idea to streak on the pitch wasn't perhaps the best idea at this point. There was a fine of $6000 to consider [don't ask me how I know that], although he may strike lucky and they may charge by the inch. Thankfully, my distraction technique hasn't waned whilst I've been off work, and though this took his mind off the naked dash idea, this was then replaced by lots of talk about his more sensitive regions and their similarity [or not] to ladies' more private areas. Ho hum.

End of game, whoop, celebration, quick shake of hands and a dash for the train.

They spotted me at Southern Cross Station as I waited for my train, shouting to everyone in earshot [good-naturedly and to general amusement with no actual physical reaction, thankfully], "Oi! He's a bloody Pom! He's English! Bash 'im! Bash 'im!" Trying to acknowledge their engagement with a witty response, whilst not drawing attention to the fact that they "knew" me was a little difficult, but I was saved by a bloke next to me, in his luminous work gear:

"You beat the Aussies, did you?" Erm, yeah, the Rugby. "I f@#$ing hate the Aussies!" Noticing his Australian accent, I asked where he was from. "Here. Born here." Okay. So the whole Aussie mentality thing, is that what you hate? Cronulla and the riots , all that? By his features, I guessed he may have been Lebanese or middle eastern in origin. "The South Africans beat the bastards at cricket too. I f@#$ing hate the Aussies!"

Well, I do seem to have struck a rich vein of erudition this evening. He then lost his [ahem] train of thought, as his train was announced to be delayed by 10 minutes. Shouting down the platform, "F@#$ing shit trains! I want to go home! Why are the trains f@#$ing late?" This was repeated every couple of minutes or so. My shoes became very interesting for the next few minutes until my f@#$ing train arrived.

Whilst still on the subject of the Games [yes, yes, ploughing my lonely furrow again. I'm unemployed, okay?], there's a great article here about the opening ceremony in HERE, and a potential alternative that maybe should have been considered. I really do like The Age.

And finally, after all the complex chatter... I think I heard the most damning evidence for those who curse mobile phone technology and advocate a ban on their use in public places. A young girl chatted to a friend and, as I like to do, I eavesdropped:

"Wow, cool. So erm, what flavour doughnut are you eating then? Woooow, cool."

And, just like his previous blog, *poof* He was gone.

Open for Business

2006-03-16T17:12:00.000+11:00

Well they have begun. The Games that is. What is it about Opening Ceremonies that elicit such diverse reactions in people?

As Ian mentioned in an earlier post, we watched the proceedings from the 30th floor of my current place of employment. To be honest, we could have charged $2,000 a pop for the view we got and people would have paid with impunity*. It was nothing short of fabulous.

We had a large screen on which to view what was happening at the MCG, which we could just make out the corner of if we crossed the floor and crooked our necks, but below us lies the Yarra River where the metal fishies live. And, unbeknownst to us, on the roof tops of the half a dozen buildings around ours, was loads of black exploding powdery stuff that goes BANG when lit.

The advantage to being up so high is that we got the total picture which included the fireworks on the river, the fireworks across the roof tops of the skyscrapers around us and the reflection of it all it the glass building in front of us. It was smorgasbord for the eyes!! Apologies for that rubbish euphemism but I am extremely brain dead

Sadly however I made the mistake of sitting near a woman who exuded that special kind of cynicism that made me want to stuff her head into the chilli cream cheese dip. I hate it when people are cynical simply because they can not accept that something that means nothing to them (or they refuse to accept that it could) could actually hold meaning for someone else. So what if the duck seemed a little obscure at the time.

Had she shut up for a moment we would have heard Michael Leunig explain what it all meant and how wonderfully engaging it all was. I love Leunig's cartoons for they are always simply profound. See for yourself.

Anyway, aside from Leunig's duck the rest was over pretty quickly and the fireworks continued. It was a pretty good night but I found myself wanting to speak to my friends in the UK. I wondered if any of them were watching the ceremony. I also threw my mind back to 2002 when Manchester had the Commonwealth Games and I could not work out where the last 4 years had gone.

We tried a whole host of friends (you all know who you are) and we spoke to a lot of voicemail. Only Annette was at her desk and sounded as excited as I did to be speaking to someone halfway across the world. I felt a little more centred after our chat - I so miss my mates in England...

We got a cab home with 2 of my colleagues which was thankfully paid for by a nifty little piece of paper called a Cabcharge. Firms use them a lot as they are a cheque book type system where no money changes hands, so employees are not out of pocket. Great when used on a trust system - not so good when your work experience students get hold of some and take a cab to Perth.

It was a fun night and a great start to what Melbourne is finally realising might actually be, an enjoyable few weeks.

We will post some photos from last night later this week.

*not sure if impunity is the right word in that context. If I've erred can someone let me know?

To Queen or not to Queen...

2006-03-16T16:39:00.000+11:00

Well now the opening ceremony is over, and people stop bickering over should we or shouldn't we play God Save the Queen (we didn't if you must know and HRH did not seem particularly bothered. I'd even argue that she did not know which corner of her Commonwealth she was in last night but that is my uneducated and heavily biased opinion...) some Australians still seem to be intensely interested in whether or not we should finally become a Republic.

In a refreshing, and to be honest, alarming turn around, our PM, Little Johnny as he is unaffectionately referred to here, has been reported as saying that he did not think Australia would remain in the Commonwealth when Betty's reign ends.

Well turn me over and paint me purple! According to reports Little Johnny is an astute reader of the mood of the Australian people (and I'm a quietly spoken, demure debutante folks) and apparently told two British newspapers in separate intervies, that he did not know if Australia would cut its ties with the monarchy if Prince Charles became King.

I always knew the fawning little bastard had a thing for old Betty.

Sorry.

I told you I'm not demure.

I digress.

Again.

Well, it seems Johnny will have at least one person to convince of that if he ever tackles the issue with another referendum. The woman in question was seated beside my friend Carolyn and I at lunch today. I had just finished explaining to her that Ian was at the Rugby 7's and finding the Aussie fans a little [sic] vitriolic in their unappreciation of the English. The woman, obviously missing part of my explanation, interrupted by asking if it had anything to do with the Queen's presence last night.

I explained to her that no, my English husband was presently at the Rugby and the fans were give the Poms stick. And besides, he is not a monarchist himself as he feels they should be put out to pasture and their wealth distributed to those who actually need it.

She then asked if his feelings (and ours for by now Carolyn and I were freely expressing ourselves regarding the monarchy) were solely related to the fact that she was a rich old lady. Well I spluttered something about irrelevance in today's society and Carolyn (who is a bit like me but without the filter between brain and gob, if you can imagine that) flung around words like inbred and ugly to which the woman, in a clear and pronounced Australian accent declared that she had British ancestors.

I wanted to say so what, I sleep with a Brit but even in my head, that sounded a little crass. She then packed up her things and left, much to the amusement of the remaining diners at our communal table. I confess I felt a little bad for a fleeting moment however, as Carolyn rightly pointed out, she was earwigging on our conversation and if she invited our opinions, should have had to grace to accept them even if they differed with hers.

Yes, we have a long road to go before we stand on our own Republican feet. I just find the fawing and adoration certain elements of the Australian population offer old Betty a little nauseating. I know I have probably offended at least one of you who actually read this but hey, its my blog! If you violently disagree with me - post a comment!

It's Heeeeeeere!

2006-03-15T15:52:00.000+11:00

Yes, the Paranoia Games have begun!

Choppers are circling the CBD, more police than you have ever seen in one place are patrolling the city [or stood around in packs looking slightly embarrassed], and there is that weird hush about public spaces that you get when there's just a hint of unease about... along with an irritability at the sheer numbers of people on the streets. Melbourne is usually a pretty laid back city, with its inhabitants having a carefree and welcoming attitude, but the anticipation of transport chaos as people make their way to and from work is almost certain to shorten a fuse or two.

There were one or two at the Ticketbastard® Office in Federation Square too, as people turned up to collect their tickets with apparently neither reference number or credit card for the online tickets they'd bought. D'oh! I got mine, of course, because I was both organised and retrospectively smug.

The sense of anticipatory dread was the same around the time of Manchester 2002, although that was a lot closer to 9/11 of course, the potential that some group of lunatics could be tempted to try to make some spectacular statement for their cause, using some means of explosives or gunfire.

It is nice to see so many different nations mingling together about the city though, and there is also a sense of anticipation, excitement and joy around, with people chatting, laughing and giving each other a helping hand. There are a lot of accents, a lot of national flags and logos on tracksuits, bags and assorted sports/casualwear, and so much so that I keep finding myself stopping and staring at them, trying to suss out where someone is from.

As an aside, I think I've been here long enough now to say I think I'm pretty acclimatised, as I can now pick out the Kiwis amongst the Aussies without resorting to asking them to say "fish and chips", which NZ-ers pronounce as "f'sh 'nd ch'ps" to the amused delight of the obviously far superior [sic] Aussies.

Actually, I loved Viggo Mortensen's quote from Peter Jackson [Lord of the Rings & King Kong director], that there really was no need for him to visit "The West Island" i.e. Australia, as opposed to NZ's North Island and South Island. Geddit? Many Aussies seem to generally regard their nearest relatives over the Tasman as a bunch of sheep-shagging inbreds and that they are like some sort of mere Antipodean colony, a runty cousin; so that was a nice rejoinder by the beardy one.

Viggo was on Rove Live to promote A History of Violence, which has inexplicably only just been released here, several months after its US and UK release. Rove is one of the few shining lights in an otherwise pretty dire and sensationalist TV output Down Under, a subject to which I will no doubt return to as Autumn unfolds into winter and rugged-up nights in become more frequent.

I've also started to see store logos and my first reaction is "O, they've got them here too!" before realising that they've only got Officeworks, for instance, here in Australia. Perhaps I can now call Australia home? Perhaps brand recognition is the o-so-modern requirement for accepting a place as your home in this globalised age...

So where was I? Ah yes, the Games. I'm off to Claud's workplace shortly, to watch the opening ceremony from the 30-oddth floor of her building, which they've kindly opened up to friens and family as it overlooks the River and [with a squint and a serious crane of the neck, so I'm told] the MCG, where the majority of the action will be taking place. They're providing a big screen, a ton of food, and plenty of gratis booze. Always nice to have a freebie, of course, though I'll have to take it a bit easy if I'm to make it safely to the Telstra Dome for the Rugby tomorrow at 10.30.

And just while I remember, I'll leave this with a quote from a couple of Canadians [not Athletes, by the look of them] that I overheard on the street today. They're clearly a couple of people who are not totally enamoured with this city, and I was dying to stalk... erm, follow them to find out what they meant, but ultimately quite liked the mysterious aspect of what they said, or didn't say:

Woman 1 : Gah! Again! If I stay in this country any longer, I think I'll become completely stupid!

Woman 2: Yup, there is something abood 'ett, isn't there?

The Language Barrier

2006-03-13T11:55:00.000+11:00

Apparently, the UK have banned the ads for Tourism Australia previously linked here, because of the offensive language in "Where the bloody hell are you?". Pretty strong stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. Errrr.

The language here is quite different at times [e.g. my reaction to "we shat it in"], but I do find it quite funny that the laidback attitudes here mean that, other than in more genteel circles [largely old-money Aussies with British ancestry], the use of mild swear words is totally acceptable and in everyday use almost eveywhere.

Australian TV has a number of ads that are cheap, cheerful and decidedly no-frills. My favourite was a TV ad for a big heavily-discounted carpet sale that was on just after we arrived. The final tag-line was:

"90% off!?! Bugger that! Prices start at just ten bucks!"

I felt eversobritish all of a sudden.

Update [Part 94] - Jobs & Games

2006-03-13T11:26:00.000+11:00

Well, I was due to start work tomorrow [Tuesday] after the Public Holiday today, but it's now been delayed for another two weeks as the staff member whose shoes I'm stepping into doesn't start their community job till then...

I may get a bit of work on the "Bank" [i.e. reserve staff to cover for sickness, illnesses etc.] but I'm not holding my breath. Still not signed my contract, but it's coming, I'm told.

Ah well, it does at least give me the chance to catch some of the Commonwealth Games. Although it would have been useful to know I wouldn't be working at an earlier stage, as all the good days of athletics have sold out, other than the expensive seats. Bum.

I've already snaffled cheap tickets for the Rugby Sevens qualifying rounds and quarter finals, though the semis/final is sold out. I'm not really a rugger bugger as I prefer my balls to be round, but it's an exciting experience, by all accounts. That's at the piddly* 53,000-seater Telstra Dome, formerly known as the Colonial Stadium. Don't you just hate it when a venue is named after a sponsor? Like the MEN Arena (formerly Nylex), Arsenal's new Emirates Stadium etc. etc.

Also seeing the athletics a week on Monday - no finals, just qualifying stuff, but Claud and I really enjoyed the experience when we saw a couple of sessions in Manchester 2002. Might take in some hockey too, and then there is the marathon, the cycling time trials, triathlon etc. And it'll be in the newly-refurbished MCG [Melbourne Cricket Ground], which seats 100,000 [*piddly is relative, isn't it?].

In fact, they're updating their ticketing in half an hour, which may mean that more tix will be released for other events... here's hoping [update 45 mins later: Nope, I didn't get any!]

There are still allegedly around 400,000 tickets available, although they seem to be mainly for the top-priced seats at the weekday morning sessions, so it's not really the flop that some people seem to be making out, althoughthe number of overseas visitors expected is being constantly challenged in the media.The statistics remain pretty impressive:

Nearly 400,000 more tickets to the Games have been sold than for Turin's Winter Olympics.

More than 1.3 million tickets have been sold so far.

More tickets have been sold here than at any other Commonwealth Games, and in fact nearly double the amount sold at any previous Games.

Interestingly, I recently read that Manchester is now the third most-visited UK city [after London & Edinburgh], a fact that local tourism/council people attribute in no small part to the increased profile Manchester attained following the 2002 Games. They reckon that Manchester is now getting an extra 300,000 visitors per annum. I'm not sure how many of those are international visitors, rather than Brits on day/weekend trips, but that's still an impressive figure.

It's also believed to have contributed to London getting the Olympics, having proved that the UK can hold a successful international event, and do it really well. Dunno if that's a proveable fact, but those in the know seem to think so, which is pretty amazing.

Melbourne is actually currently talking Manchester up, saying that they're looking to build upon the revitalisation job that Manchester did on what had of late become the struggling Commonwealth Games "brand". I feel strangely special, and inordinately proud of my home town.

Now, just make sure you watch the Games on the BBC, and check out Melbourne. You'll be impressed by both the venues and the city, I promise you. O, and do look out for some bloke in a red-and-black hooped QPR shirt, sitting way up in the cheap seats, dreaming of Manchester. Well, maybe.

We have grey days too...

2006-03-08T11:05:00.000+11:00

I got an email today from Anita. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you will know Anita and I enjoyed many pointless, multitudinous and hilariously random email exchanges during working hours. It is sad to think that the instant gratification of emailing each other during working hours, whilst in the same time zone, brought is no longer... Alas, I will have to make do with lonely, solitary emailing knowing that Anita will not read my often funny emails for at least another 10 hours. *sigh*

So, Ian says I should blog as this has turned into a cross between a David Attenborough nature doco and a twisted version of A Place Down Under... Not that Ian is half as crass as that one English woman who moved from London to Queensland then proceeded to slag off everything about the place from people who went about barefoot (shock horror!) to the fact that Australian's swear (Good God what is the world coming to!?).

In an effort to stop myself ranting at her seemingly unending ignorance I tried to understand why this woman bothered to move here if she could not accept anything at all about the people, or the place with any grace at all. I came to the conclusion that living in another country successfully is not about accepting the differences in culture, food, language (although that does help). No, it is more about leaving those things you draw comfort from behind successfully. What do I mean? You've heard it before - the Aussie in London who craves Tim Tams or the Brit in Sydney who would give their right arm for proper fish, chips and mushie peas.

The things we miss when we live in another country are not intrinsic to our survival - however, if we let them, they can ruin the reward that a search for an alternative can bring. I spent the first year in London trying to find a decent coffee. Six years along I can not honestly say I found one in all of England. Especially now I am back in Melbourne and coffee here is just simply the best. Well, except for the coffee in Spain which is truly scrumptious. Having said that, I drink more tea now than ever before and people, the English do it best.

Living in another place should be an adventure where you go from one exciting discovery to another. I know my main focus in terms of differences between places tends to be centered around food. It may be something completely different for someone else. But what we draw comfort, a sense of familiarity and belonging from is important to recognise if you plan on living somewhere else for a long stretch of time.

I watch Ian with interest as he navigates the things around us that I easily accept. I got a text from him yesterday which made me laugh. A Labor politician called Simon Crean, who won a preselection vote to retain his seat declared his win a shoo in using the expression "we shat it in". Ian's comment was "Your country is not like my country" True. It would be unlikely to hear any British MP speak a similar sentiment in language like that. Then again, would a British MP have been the head of a major union at one time in his career? Who knows?

The guy who sits over the partition from me at the moment is training a young woman from Bangalore. I overheard him declaring that to use terms like 'Dear' or 'Yours sincerely' in any form of written correspondence is outdated and old fashioned and while we in Australia stopped using them some time ago that practice seems to have continued on in India. The undertone there was that we, over here, are a little more enlightened and relaxed.

I had to stand up and gently say that terms like that are certainly not outdated and that during my time in England I found they are used constantly and generously. She was overjoyed to have a little support and he looked rather sheepish and simply dropped the subject. I have no idea what that was all about but it struck me that perhaps Australians are just a little too relaxed for their own good. And is that, in and of itself a good or a bad thing?

I could go on but I won't at this point for if anyone still does read this blog I want our life here in day to day terms to be what you read about. Not my opinion.

I am having lunch today with my friend who works here and helped me get the job and a colleague or hers. I am looking forward to some girly chatter but also for a little advice and direction regarding the potential role I may have here. I have a meeting tomorrow to discuss what part I could play in the new structure and I do not want to sell my self short or take the soft option. Too many friends would kill me if I did that!

It was actually a bit grey out there when I started this post but it seems to be clearing up. I can see a lovely sail boat on the bay this morning, white sails aloft against the blue of the water. Melbourne looks pretty from here. Pretty and silent. I can see the trains, trams and cars moving but can not hear them. Its an easy perspective from up here you know. However I know the ugly side of Melbourne is there, the more I dig the more I see. I'm glad I set down my rose coloured glasses a long time ago, I think I would be very disappointed in my hometown if had not done so.

As it is I know Melbourne, Australia is like every other city in the Western world. Full of promise and excitement for those who can afford to partake. I do not like what the present government is doing to my country and I hope that one day soon, there is an alternative for at the moment there just isn't.

Not Quite The Olympics - Part 2

2006-03-07T20:41:00.000+11:00

Sorry, ran out of time on the Library computer I was using, so got caught short. Which leads me nicely to...

Accompanying the fanfares, the rebuilding and restructuring, and the cynicism, there are scare stories emerging, such as emergency blood supplies not being sufficient [those discuses have sharp edges, you know... and as for the javelins...], transport inadequacy [despite the fact that the venues are public transport only, with no public parking in an effort to reduce the potential congestion], not enough taxis... and most bizarrely, not enough toilets. Melbourne is having to import portaloos from overseas, screamed the headlines over the wee-kend.

Now, public toilets are a bit of an area in which I have expertise, although not in a George Michaelesque way, of course. Holding on [ahem] to the adage that, having attained a certain age, it is foolish to turn down any opportunity to use the facilities when they are available [safety first, fun last], I can confidently say that public loos are easy to find here, with lots of shopping malls, train stations and other places having adequate [sometimes spectacular] and abundant venues with which to powder one's nose or other protuberances. And, as my ever-wise spouse rightly commented, if Manchester can manage it...

The gentrification process has included spending something in the region of a million dollars [£420,000] on cleaning up graffiti. This follows Australia's recent banning of a Playstation game that encourages players to "tag" a fictional city, lest it encourages its advocates to take up the physical challenge and get out their aerosols. The counter-argument is, of course, that shoot-em-ups and driving stolen cars very fast [GTA etc.] are all sold here, as its consumers are presumably too smart to try to do the real thing once they have a taste for guns/speed. Perhaps a more symbolic ban of a niche game with a limited market than something that is consistently maintained against what is deemed anti-social behaviour.

Now, Melbourne has a thriving and well-organised alternative / anti-establishment culture that does not trust, and actively opposes, "The Man" [i.e. governments, rich people, or anyone who has disproportionate power at their disposal], and part of that includes graffiti artists. The laneways of Melbourne have an abundance of often witty and creative [although, it must be said, not always so] "urban art", that eschews much of the random and repetitive "tagging" [kind of like marking your territory with your name or initials] that appears around much of the world's major cities. See Banksy for really fantastic examples of a [UK-based] graffiti artist who challenges the status quo with his political art. His book is also recommended, and available here [ah, but you have to pay The Man to get it. Tricky business, anarchy].

So, can you guess what their response is to the clean-up, or more specifically to the Victorian Government's trumpeting of its zealous "zero tolerance" to any form of urban art? Yep, they've declared war, of course. More specifically, they've declared a competition called the "Graffiti Games 2006" [can you see what they've done there?], with [presumably symbolic, or perhaps painted] medals for stencil, slogan and graffiti works about the city centre, particularly rewarding complicated, humourous or daring art, including caricatures of... you guessed it, local dignitaries. "The Man" has, quite inevitably, gone utterly ballistic, describing the artists as "Neanderthals, losers, mindless idiots". Oo, get her.

The fact that the quite appalling, tacky, sanitised and terribly 70s-retro brown-and-beige-with-a-bit-of-glitter [and actual no glamour] monstrosity that is the Crown Casino, the star [piece] of Melbourne's South Bank, continue to exist, makes you think that perhaps these graffiti chaps may have a point after all. A carbuncle, a blot on the landscape, a vision of hell - none of these descriptions captivate the sheer appallingness of the place.

So I say, and I think I'm unanimous, not to say unilateral, in saying this, Let The Games Begin!

Not Quite The Olympics - Part 1

2006-03-07T16:51:00.000+11:00

Melbourne is currently being shaken by Commonwealth Games Fever!

Well, sort of. Like Manchester, the local populace seem to be taking their time to be impressed with the millions of dollars being spent, the proactive gentrification of venues and major landmarks, and the likely huge disruption that is anticipated. Like Manchester, restrospectively they will probably view it as a good thing, but at the moment not everybody is convinced.

It doesn't help that within months of the Sydney Olympics finishing the fabulous new stadium had seemingly gone to rack and ruin [a fact that was somewhat overstated, but there was some truth in this], and they were struggling to find something to do with the thing. Maybe Manchester got that bit right, even if the running track had to be sent to Birmingham [What did it do to deserve that?].

As well as my bushwalking, I've been doing a fair bit of walking around the city centre, usually in an effort to find something that has been affected so utterly by the public works currently being underatken that it's the proverbial needle in a haystack. After a curious runaround from venue to venue, I did eventually manage to get my Split Enz tickets from the Games area [various venues around the MCG] today. I also had serendipitous meeting that produced a mask of Bert "moonface" Newton, with which I frightened Claudine when I met her after work. I think the man's bloody funny and self-deprecating, but opinions seem to be divided in a sort of Bob Monkhouse kind of way - comedy genius or a bit of a dick? You decide...

So... there is absolutely tons of work going on, including the totally remodelled and newly renamed Spencer Street Station - now known as Southern Cross Station unless you actually use it, in which case it's still called Spencer Street , or "that building site with a leaky roof that cost millions and why couldn't they get it right first time or certainly get it ready in time for the Games as it's supposed to be a world class transport interchange Station".

The MCG does appear to be taking shape, the Yarra River is once again full of fish [albeit metal ones that spout water - see I'm getting Melbourne-cynical too now], Flinders Street Station looks not far off, and local politicians have been trading heavily on the Commonwealth Games "Brand" by including the logo illegally on various publicity bits and pieces ["I brought the Commonwealth Games to melbourne, everybody! Well, sort of..."].

Oink, Oink Too...

2006-03-06T11:40:00.000+11:00

Mine's here. Not giving up my day job.

Oink, Oink...

2006-03-06T11:12:00.000+11:00

Silliness on a Monday...

It's Official!

2006-03-06T09:57:00.000+11:00

My references have all come back positive, so I got a call from my prospective boss at 9 AM today to say that they can now formally offer me a job. Yes, it was really a technicality, but it's quite a relief to know that in about a week's time I'll be officially employed.

Start date is provisionally Tuesday 14th March, the day after the Labour Day Public Holiday [subject to the paperchase that will now ensue].

A BIIIIIG Thank You to my referees for their positive feedback and support.

I'll obviously keep you abreast of the job as it progresses and give you some more details. At the mo', I won't spill any more beans other than to say that it's at a large teaching hospital, and the facilities, staff/patient ratios, and [apparently] opportunities, appear excellent.

The only minor fly in the ointment is that the Commonwealth Games start here the day after I'm due to start working, which means that I can't plan to go to any of the events at this stage, and that the city is likely to be gridlocked as tens of thousands of visitors descend.

More about the Games later...

Get Yer Blunnies On!

2006-03-02T18:15:00.000+11:00

This week, I've been mostly walking in the bush [countryside] around Hurstbridge, given my lack of routine /incentive to get off my fat arse, and the subsequent risk of one day finding that I can't get up unless I get some exercise.

And, well, it's been quite a revelation. I now realise just quite why the bush around here is so prone to suddenly erupt into fire. The amount of bark, branches and leaves that drop from the gum trees is quite phenomenal. Add to that the arid-dry grasslands, sun and frequent temperatures in excess of thirty celsius, and it's a literal tinderbox.

One of the eucalyptus trees is known as the "strinkybark tree" [in fact, a few varieties] as it's bark strips itself off, leaving a nice bit of dried-out, thin wood, just ready to burst into flame. And some gum trees actually rely on the burning-off process in order to begin a new stage of re-growth. Another of God's funny little jokes for humanity...? "Don't even think of living here, whitefella"...

One of the ironies is that many bushfires begin when the hot weather actually breaks and a thunderstorm ensues. Despite the rain that usually accompanies it, it is the lightning strikes that often create the spark for the tinder. The fire soon takes, overwhelming the rain's effect, and given that it may rain hard but rarely for sustained periods, and the flames are off and running.

The picture at the top of this may show the result of a lightning-strike, or it may just be a tree design fault, as some trees just sag under their own weight [rather like myself] and their top half falls off [hopefully not like myself].

Even more bizarre is the fact that many of the fires are apparently started deliberately, presumably with people with some sort of latent attention seeking behaviour, but that's a story for another time. I'm off on a tangent already.

So, back to the program: I'm communing with nature, remember. My walk follows the creek that leads from Hurstbridge down to Diamond Creek, about 6 km away, towards the city. And once I've made my way through the crap that's fallen off the local trees, shrubs and grasses, I get to large open areas of grassland, gently rolling hills with wattle and gums in the distance, not a house to be seen.

And suddenly... I feel like I'm breathing again [and breathing quite heavily as I climb those same said hills]. I'd forgotten what it was like to be in the countryside. I've always been a city boy: I love the buzz of cities and its infinite distractions; and although lacking in incentive to initiate my own walks in the UK [more to do with my fear of getting myself lost, unable to read an Ordnance Survey map and compass], I also love the wildness of the great outdoors.

There's such a peace here, and a different type of wilderness to that back home, with the concerns of heat, dehydration and being bitten by something nasty being the terrible alternatives to freezing cold, creeping damp and hypothermia.

I've already confessed to an ornothological bent, and here I am in a country full of largely exotic and colourful birds, sparrows and pigeons notwithstanding. And it's been fantastic to see some of the blighters at fairly close quarters. The parrots and cockatoos are particularly tolerant and friendly, putting up with the leaden-footed oafs that disturb their peace. As long as they can sit in their bush or tree, tearing it apart whilst feeding on the fruits and berries, they don't really seem to mind how close you are.

Multi-coloured Rainbow Lorikeets, beautiful pink Galahs [There goes Alf's voice in my head again, although Galahs make a sort of creaking sound], Sulphur-crested Cockatoos and the pseudo-punk Gang-Gang Cockatoos [yes, really - apparently because of the sound they make] are only too happy to cock ['scuse the pun] a knowing eye to me as they playfully act up for me. Well, perhaps they're just oblivious to my presence and are just playing, but it's not uncommon to see the cockys [as they're known] hanging by their beaks from a branch, or upside down with one claw holding on with apparent ease.

In fact, a couple of weeks ago, Stephen suddenly pulled up sharply as we drove along a main road, only to see that the bird he thought was hanging by its neck from a telephone wire, was in fact just acting the fool and gripping the cord in its beak. Yet more attention-seeking behaviour. Maybe the little buggers like to set fires too?

As well as that, there are so many bellbirds out in the bush too. If you've been taking notes, you'll know that these are the birds that sound as though they are pecking at a bottle [click here for the sound]. The effect is quite spectacular when there are 6-10 birds all doing the same throughout the bush, in apparent call and response, making a weirdly-echoey and strangely pleasing single-note melody.

I was also lucky enough to spot the Eastern Yellow Robin, the White-Browed Scrubwren and the delightfully- named Superb Fairy-Wren, the male of which is three shades of blue. And yes, I do have a book.

After a while, it did strike me as I walked through an area of grassland that I was perhaps foolhardy in my choice of walking shoes, as I heard various rustlings in the undergrowth. Most probably the noises were emanating from small birds, large insects or lizards, but round here there's always the possibility of a snake.

In my imagination, of course, each movement I heard was most definitely a brown snake, a violently poisonous and aggressive beast that is both neurotoxic and can make you bleed like a stuck pig. I had to use a touch of CBT to think myself out of that particular state of mind, as, rather than walking, I was now prancing daintily like a show pony. Mental note: wear your Blunnies next time. And yes, to my former workmates, those are the Chelsea-boots-on-the-cheap that I always wore.
Once my mind was off the alleged snakes, I became aware of other sounds. The alternatives were also a bit worrying. Was that creaking sound a galah, the gently swaying gums, or one about to split in half and fall on my head? Boots and helmet next time, maybe? Yes, you could say things can be just a little bit different Down Here.

A Great Galah, yesterday

Do you wanna be in my Gang-Gang?

How to Divide Your Friends and Irritate People

2006-03-01T08:10:00.000+11:00

On the day that the State of Victoria bans smoking in "enclosed workplaces", which includes bus, tram & train shelters [though bizarrely, you can move a few feet to a uncovered part of the platform and be exempt], I thought I'd share with a snippet from the Guardian which tickled me this morning. It's an article in which poor old British American Tobacco tell of the injustice [sic] of the impending smoking ban in UK pubs and clubs:

"...it will not invest in China after an announcement that no new cigarette factories, including joint ventures, would be allowed"

Well, it made me laugh.

It's not yet part of the law in Victoria, funnily enough, although restaurants and shopping centres have been smoke-free since 2001.

And I can't tell you how refreshing it was to spend time in Ireland and be able to sit down in a pub and enjoy a pint, free of fumes. It has been suggested that pubs there are having to close down or build "lean-to"s, due to the huge financial impact of the ban there. Friends in Ireland poo-pooed this idea, but they are non-smokers, which seems to determine which "truth" you want to believe...

[You can click here for an interesting article by George Monbiot for some interesting stuff about some research into the effects of smoking, and its influence on the media]

Anyway, I'm looking forward to a pint in The Crown in Didsbury next time I'm home, long since abandoned as a drinking-hole due to the "swallowed-a-box-of-razorblades" throat the morning after the night before.

No doubt some will see me as upholding old, outmoded ideas about the "nanny state", a viewpoint I can understand. But where does one draw the line about what consitutes "fair" legislation, particularly if you consider the health benefits?

What is perceived as "freedom" for one person may feel like a violation for another, and frankly, that's how it's always been for us non-smokers. Being told "well, you have a choice - you don't have to drink there" has always been seen as somehow fair for us, but now not for smokers - well, it's "undemocratic".

If my non-smoking does impact on your health, please do let me know. I can't promise the same for my drinking, of course. Stand well clear after I've had a few beers... just in case.

The Honeymoon is over, baby...

2006-02-27T16:02:00.000+11:00

I think the honeymoon is almost over for me.

I am now living and working in Melbourne.

I am in the same time zone AND hemisphere as my family.

I have infinite coffee at my fingertips.

Great, cheap food is everywhere.

Sushi hand rolls cost me $2 a pop and 3 of those constitute lunch.

I am slowly catching up with my lovely girlfriends and rediscovering again what good friends I have.

Unlike Ian, I have a routine, a job and the promise of income for the time being.

So, I am here. The place I wanted to be for almost a year. And it is good to be here. Don't get me wrong. I am so very that all of the above, trivial as some of these may seem, have helped me settle back into Melbourne.

However it is a very different Melbourne to the one I left. I too feel slightly unsettled and I am not sure why. Let me say from the get-go that it could very well be hormones. Those inscrutable little bastards that can turn a sane, level-headed woman into a raging, snorting dragon-headed beast from hell in the blink of an ovary.

So, with that aside let me consider the other possibilities for my apparent unsettled-ness. As Ian pointed out, the all too real feeling that where we live at the moment, whilst being a wonderful home living with wonderful people, is not ‘our’ space. And if you know Ian and I you will realise how important having ‘our’ space is.

I guess the other thing bothering me is the travelling to and from work. Given I’ve only worked 4.5 days at this point, it is more the prospect of all the travel to come.

I catch the 7.30 train which gets me to Parliament Station at 8.22. I walk to Café Alcaston, grab a coffee then cross Collins Street to my building. I am usually at my desk at 8.30. I finish after half 5, usually 6. The trains on my line run every 20 minutes. If you catch an express it takes just under an hour to get home. If you get a ‘stopping all stations’ it takes an hour and 10 minutes.

So I get home in time to see Harrison for about 10 minutes, get some tea, sort out my stuff for the next day (so I am not fossicking around in the morning and disturbing Ian) and go to bed.

The next day...

It is now Tuesday and I am re-reading what I wrote yesterday. I think maybe it was hormones. I feel so much better today. I also I feel infinitely grateful for all the good things in our lives right now. We have a lovely place to stay, a wonderful family around us, jobs, money and endless opportunities. Sometimes I just get stuck in a bog.

Give me a stick I'm off to kill me a dragon-headed beast.

Weekend Blues

2006-02-27T08:56:00.000+11:00

And so... another weekend draws to a close.
If you're in the UK, you'll be savouring those last few hours of freedom, but it's now 9 AM on Monday morning. Not that I've got work to go to yet, but you get my drift.

In fact, it's getting to be a little frustrating not to have some routine in my life. Never thought I'd be saying that, but it's definitely exacerbated by the fact that I'm in a new country too, and need some permanence, some roots. Something I can call my own.

Friday, as Claudine had already mentioned, we went for a meal in St Kilda, which is such a cool place: a bit grungy with a distinct seedy underbelly, but that somehow adds to its charm. It's Melbourne's version of the seaside [although technically it's a bay - Port Phillip Bay - but it has sea in it, so... it's the seaside].

Saturday was spent food shopping and preparing for Stephen's birthday party. It was a weird sort of Melbourne day, overcast to start with, some sun, and then intermittently bucketing down with rain. So much so that the kitchen window gave up and let the flood in. Fortunately, the rain eased sufficiently in the end, but others in Melbourne weren't quite so lucky. It continued overnight too, as we woke up intermittently to the sound of what appeared to be the roof [or the sky] falling in.

We're on a slope, so thankfully the water drains away onto the road pretty quickly. Though when I say road, I mean "creek", as the road is largely an unsealed dirt road, and the rain makes a series of channels as it seeks lower ground. It all sounds very exotic and hillbilly, but we're actually only about 200 metres from a main [tarmac] road.

The party went with a swing, although Claudine and I "piked" about 11 PM, as they say here: "A person who does not participate or unreasonably stops participating is known as a piker. A piker, by definition, pikes." We both simultaneously realised that, as welcome as we feel, and settled as we are here, it's not our home, not our space. Yes, there's an element of control-freakery about it [in that we couldn't tell people to bugger off as we wanted to go to bed], but we'd not met anyone before, it was Stephen's party, and as nice as the guests were, they weren't our guests. Having re-read that, it sounds pretty ungrateful, doesn't it? But I hope you can see what we mean.

We retreated to our bedroom, a little grumpy and fed up, yearning for a place to call our own. Realistically, that's some way off as we have not a bean to throw at a deposit, and renting would delay the buying process considerably. We were feeling a little claustrophobic, a little trapped.

So we did what all good people do in this situation: we looked at the ceiling and told each other what we could see in the knots in the wood. A sort of indoor-nighttime version of cloudwatching. We ended up pissing ourselves laughing, and felt considerably better as a result. Aaaaaaaah, siiiggghhhh, as the serotonin kicked back in. And, in case you're wondering, we have ducks, a giraffe, fish, aliens, and one or 2 other creatures. Our toilet has E.T. and Jar-Jar Binks.

Sunday started with another melancholy, homesick moment, as I checked the football scores and discovered that QPR had beaten second-in-the-table Sheff Utd 3-2. Great news turned to much rumination on the fact that my footy mates would probably now be in some pub in Sheffield or Manchester [The Lass! Maybe even in The Lass!], toasting the victory, revelling in it, and by now suitably toasted.

I thought of the journey over to Sheffield by train, which, although not one of the world's great train journeys, holds a special place for me. Going through the Pennines, into tunnels and out into glorious green and brown hills and dales, woodland and scree; never knowing whether the sun would show itself or not; and / or whether the brooding, ominous clouds would deliver a torrent rain... I so love the hour or so it takes to get there!

It was also the scene of QPR's last great moment, the city where we got promoted 2 years ago [albeit at Wednesday on that occasion], a highlight amongst a catalogue of ignominious events over the last decade. I remembered that great day, the train over, the beers before, the amazing atmosphere as 7000-plus QPR fans took over the Leppings Lane end for a party. Forget the fact that the Wednesday fans were less-than-welcoming, it was such a memorable and great day, and one, I realised, that I don't think I'll ever experience again.

Sure, if we were, by some quirk of fate, to get to the Premiership or FA Cup Final, I'd negotiate my way over to the UK. But I wouldn't have shared in the anticipation, the build-up, the 40-something often ragged and frustrating games with the occasional spark of brilliance. And I'm missing that already somehow, dammit. The great news of our win lost its shine, appearing lacklustre by the mere fact of my absence.

I managed to pull myself [kicking and screaming, it must be said] out of my fug of melancholy, and spent the rest of the day chilling out. We knew Stephen & Lisa were going out in the afternoon, so Claudine and I were left alone in the house for a few hours, some space together at last.

So we did what every married couple does when given some time together, free from distraction and obligation. Yes, we watched TV for 3 hours. Battlestar Galactica, in fact. I'm not a sci-fi buff [as Claud & Stephen both are - I call it one of nature's amusing little genetic tics], but this is one show [actually, there's also Firefly - yikes, what have I become!] that I enjoy, and that we can both share, two spods in a pod. Bliss.

And so, now we're now back to Monday morning. Yin is happy, yang is happy.

View from the 30th Floor

2006-02-25T00:19:00.000+11:00

We did a silly thing today.

Ian came into town this afternoon and I made him head to a part of Federation Square that I could see from my window. I then called him so we could chat. He looked so little from way up there!

He then worked out which window were mine and I stood in front of it, surreptitiously walking this way and that in the hope he'd see me.

I can not describe how childishly happy I was when he said he could. It was brilliant!

TFIF!

2006-02-24T23:46:00.000+11:00

Ah, Friday nights. I do love them.

My favourite part of the week, a whole 2 days before I need to roll out of bed on Monday morning. I know, I know. Some would say that this was only my first week back at work after a month off but I feel I deserved it. There.

Ian and I went to a tapas bar called Pelican in St Kilda tonight and it was nice. We sat out on the decking and munched through some lovely saganaki, fabby chargrilled octopus (me, not Ian), rocket salad with caramalised onion dressing (divine) and patatas bravas that my unpretentious husband declared was inauthentic. Ponce. He also necked two 750ml bottles of his new favourite tipple, Coopers Sparking Ale, so his pretension had fairly good basis...

We then wandered along the Esplanade to Acland Street which was fairly busy. The temperature was still quite warm and muggy with absolutely no sea breeze to bring relief. So we sought relief at 7 Apples for gelati which was, as usual, scrummy. We walked past all the cake shops that at one time, defined Acland Street wishing I'd skipped the tapas and just gone straight there.

For a fairly popular strip, Acland street still houses a few cake shops / cafes that have not changed in the 50 years since they opened. My favourite one is called Monarch, which it actually opened in 1934 and still has the original old fashioned glass cake cabinets.

Monarch are famous for their chocolate kugelhopf which, for those of you who don't know, is a kind of pastry layered cake type thing (articulate aren't I) which gets better the longer you leave it. Monarch actually sell their's by weight which is brilliant cause the heavier it is - the more chocolate is in it.

However I bypassed the Kugelhopf made a beeline for the decadent looking Polish Baked Cheesecake. I promised I would make my brother a birthday cake for his belated birthday barbie tomorrow. So I asked him what he would like and to my dismay he said Cheesecake. Not that cream cheese concoction. Proper, dense, crumbly baked cheesecake.

Bollocks. Trust him to want the only thing I've never made and therefore never perfected. I scrounged around for recipes until my sister came up with a foolproof one. So she says.

But let's be honest here. The temperature tomorrow, the day of the barbie, is going to be in the mid 30's. Plus, the ingredents alone would cost me almost as much as what the ready made article before me would. As my mind churned through my options I confess that I snapped. I did what I have spent years ridiculing other people for doing. I bought a ready made baked good in a moment of weakness.

I am truly sorry to all of you...

A Few More Things

2006-02-24T10:51:00.000+11:00

Some more largely animal-base observations that just popped into my head...

1. Kangaroos still make me smile. After inexplicably not seeing a 'roo on my first 4 visits to Australia, I now see them quite regularly, even if from a distance. They are the weirdest creatures, so apprently serene and innocuous, barely moving for long periods [in fact, the first ones I saw from a distance led me to exclaim, in all seriousness: "O no, they're only cardboard cut-outs". D'oh]. And then they suddenly bounce off, usually en masse, usually in the same direction. And then I can't help but crack a grin.

2. All Wombats are Dead. Well, all the ones I've seen are.

3. Possums Scream. You do get used to it, but I've had a few sit-up-in-the-bed-and-say-what-the-xxxx-was-that moments. Not sure what they're screaming at, but I'm glad I can't see it.

4. White Tail Spiders are here! Well, one is. One scuttled out of a sheaf of papers that Lisa was ruffling through a couple of days back. So not only do they hang out in linen, they like piles of paper. Grrrreat. But more research seems to point out that they're not actually terribly poisonous unless you have an allergy-type reaction to them. That's OK, then. Claudine doesn't like them because they have "pointy legs". Well, quite.

5. Humans - what are they like?
Conversation heard recently at South Bank. 2 middle-aged couples appprently from somewhere other than Melbourne. The two husbands said precisely nothing during the 20 minutes this "chat" took to evolve, whilst looking at Melbourne's Yarra River...

Woman 1 : Sydney Harbour is beautiful.
Woman 2 : Yes, beautiful.
[Long pause]
Woman 1 : Not that many hobos, not that I can see.
Woman 2 : No, not as many as you might think.
[Longer pause]
Woman 1 : I'm hungry. Shall we eat?
Woman 2 : Yes.
[Cue exit]

Well, Claudine and I feel a whole lot better about our relationship [and relationships] now. Nothing to worry about., oh no no no.

6. Grape Grazing, which we did last Saturday, is aptly named. At the end of it you end up on your hands and knees with your nose in the grass, looking for something, anything, to drink. A civilised version of the pub crawl? Errrrr... No. If I ever recover that day's particular braincells, I'll tell you all about it.

So ...

2006-02-24T10:26:00.000+11:00

Where the bloody hell are ya?

Happy P.O.E.T.S.* Day!

* piss off early tomorrow's Saturday

Observations on Down Under from on high...

2006-02-23T12:25:00.000+11:00

Happy to be here...

I guess the one thing that I have not said here is how happy I am to actually BE in Melbourne. I do not know how many of you have lived somewhere other than your home town. I guess many of the English among you, who have gone to University, will all know how it feels to be away from a place you know intimately for a few years.

Unlike most Aussies who leave for the adventure and excitement of a life abroad, leaving Melbourne was not an escape. True, I was bored and needed a challenge but I did not leave shaking the dust of my shoes hoping never to return. I even spent the last few months of my time in Melbourne relishing everything from the way the late afternoon sun shimmered and danced on the bay to radio personalities that almost seemed part of my circle of friends. Leaving all that was a wrench I was not prepared for.

I know this is some kind of reverse nostalgia that overcomes one as they prepare to leave a place. So I am under no misguided illusions regarding Melbourne. What I am trying to paint is a picture of my town that I loved, left and missed terribly.

There were times I would wake up in our bed in Manchester and my immediate thought, upon opening my eyes, would be that I was in the house I grew up in. I could see in my minds eye the willow tree in our front yard, the houses across the street and sometimes I would have to physically open the curtains to convince my head that I was in Manchester, not St Albans* sometime in 1984.

Does anyone else have those split second ‘wake dreams’ where you find yourself seeing, in your mind’s eye, a place you are not actually in, but for some reason have recalled? I do that often. I can be watching telly and for some reason the unbidden memory of a side street in the Barrio Gotico in Barcelona flashes through my mind. Why does that happen?

I digress. Again.

Back to my love affair with Melbourne. As I sit here looking out my window where I note the blue of the sky blurs nicely with the blue of the sea (although that could just be pollution) I can not help but get excited. There are so many things I want to do and even more places I want to go.

The weekend...

I am toying with the wonderful feeling invoked by the prospect of a weekend in Melbourne. We are having a barbie for my brother’s birthday on Saturday which should be fun. However, that still leaves Friday night and all day Sunday to indulge. We could go for breakfast to any number of excellent café’s in and around town or save ourselves for a late lunch somewhere near the beach. We could even drive down the coast and admire the view back to Melbourne from Rye or Sorrento even.

Although we are some 30kms from the city, it is not really uncommon to head clear across town for a latte / gelato / souvlaki or even a view. We Melbournians will drive anywhere to sample fare that is hailed as ‘the best ever' or an experience 'not to be missed'!

So if the weather is fine I may drag Ian out for a lazy brunch and the Sunday papers. We could then go for a mooch in St Kilda as we’ve not done that yet. We can take in the Sunday market along the Esplanade and grab another coffee (I confess I have been tippling too often of the dark liquid which is keeping me awake and twitching till the wee hours) and maybe, if energy is not an issue – walk along the beach for a few kilometres.

Shopping...

As I am now working in the city, I am scouring the laneways for new places to eat and shop. Melbourne is a bit like Barcelona in that there is a plethora of shops where you are sure to find that one-off (affordable) handbag / pair of shoes / necklace and know that at least one person will exclaim Where did you get that?!

Unlike the UK where a quick look along the high street you find all the shops are churning out the same fodder. You just know that if you are female and you work then inevitably, a colleague will roll up at work in your exact same top (3 sizes smaller even) from either Next, M&S or Topshop**. Of course if you earn upwards of £50K you will most certainly find many one-off items but you will pay through your teeth for them.

I do not want to be dissing the UK now I am here but I did have gripes and those of you who knew me, knew what they were. Surely you did?!

Anyway, speaking of shopping I’m heading out now to look for another jacket for work. Much to my dismay, most of the corporates here are still stuck in bloody ‘corporate’ attire which means I needed to rush out and buy, at the very least, a jacket last week. Which, it has to be said, my husband most graciously paid for. It also has to be said that he was fairly trollied at the time!

*Not St Albans in Hertfordshire but the St Albans of Western Suburbs Melbourne fame – or Snorbans as it is affectionately referred to here.

**Apologies to my girls in back in the UK who disagree but I promise to take you shopping when you get here – especially you Miss J, you know who you are!

She speaks from on high...

2006-02-22T16:27:00.000+11:00

So it’s my turn to update!

As Ian wrote I have taken a temp position with a major bank. A dear friend of mine called me last Monday, the day before my interview at the ad agency, and mentioned that one of the business unit heads was looking for a new Executive Assistant* - with a bit of nouse - so she gave him my name.

The interview at the advertising agency went really well and the guy who saw me was keen to have me on board. Unfortunately (or fortunately, only time will tell), the client they pitched to before Christmas gave the work to a smaller agency in Perth, so what would have been my job, does not, at this point, exist. (That was one badly punctuated sentence [until my husband corrected it], folks!)

So, when I found that out on Friday I called my friend and arranged to start work here yesterday – Tuesday. Can I just say from the outset that I am typing this from my desk on the 30th floor of a tower in Melbourne’s CBD. My desk faces a HUGE window that allows me a clear view of the Yarra River, Southbank, the Docklands and out to Port Phillip Bay so if nothing the view is absolutely stonking!

I digress.

The guy I am working for has ushered in a major restructure of the operations in his particular business unit. Lots of toe-cutting will ensue, I am told. However, he has asked me to review this position and let him know how much of the job is just supporting him (minimal – I could do it standing on my head and be bored with it in a nano-second) and what other tasks could be added to the job description. So, I am to liaise with other department heads to get their feedback and basically create a role from scratch.

Even then I don’t think I would want the job. However, he has told me not to cancel out the fact that there may be another "interesting" role for me here. He hired me on the strength of my CV and my mate's recommendation, and as she is highly regarded, that bodes well for me.

So who knows where this will lead, really. What with Ian getting a job today, I can take it easy. And let’s face it, as I really enjoy telling people what to do, I am in my element…

*Fancy name for glorified, overpaid Personal Assistant.

I Ain't Superstitious...

2006-02-22T15:14:00.000+11:00

...but I have to admit to feeling a little cautious in writing this till everything is completely sorted... [anal, me?]

But...

I GOT THE JOB!

I just had a call from Manager of the Ward I visited yesterday, and, subject to good references, they want me to work there! No need for further interview as two Managers have seen me and HR are apparently happy.

So, please, Sue, Martin and John - check your in-boxes! They'll be asking for references over the next 48 hours.

Not sure when I'll be starting as it's a bit complicated: other people taking up jobs elsewhere etc. So I may be a man of leisure [although I do prefer the term "kept man"] just a little bit longer.

Money's no great shakes to start out with, and I've knocked back another Community interview offer today [Panic, panic... don't panic! Breeeeaaathhhhe...], but I reckon it's the right move for now. I think. Maybe. Errrr...

More details to follow...

Jobs For The Boys... and Girls? Part 2

2006-02-22T07:27:00.000+11:00

Claud started a temp job yesterday [Tues] working at one of the large Australian Banks. Sort of PA stuff but with a bit of room for manouevre in the marketing area. I'm sure she'll tell you more about it, but she certainly enjoyed her first day...

I had my proposed "chat" with a really nice Manager at a Melbourne clinic on Monday, following my application to work there as a CPN [Community Psychiatric Nurse]. Basically, he explained that I wasn't likely to be offered a job there at this point, as I had the three-fold disadvantage of not having worked in the community, having worked solely with older age since graduation, and the fact that I'm British...

Actually, the third one isn't quite true - what he said was that I hadn't worked in the Australian system, so legislation, procedures, Mental Health Act and so on were quite different here, so it would be a real baptism of fire to drop straight into managing a caseload of 30 or so patients in the community.

Having said that, I have an interview to do just that on Monday, albeit in a different area of the city... although, given his caution about this, even if I got the role I probably wouldn't, or shouldn't, take it at this point. He was really helpful in explaining how the system works in Oz, and Melbourne in particular; suggesting areas of the city that I should look at working in; and some subtle advice - areas that he couldn't recommend [one of which is where I have the CPN interview above!]. But, given 6-12 months in the system, in a ward-based role, I should be able to take on a community role quite easily. It was fantastic that he took the time out of his day to go through this with me, in full knowledge that I wouldn't be working with him.

I think the fact that he originally comes from the Mother Country influenced him, having experienced the baffling and apparently impenetrable mental health / hospital system here. Easy once you get your head around it, but looking at it for the first time...

If I wanted to continue to work in older age, I should be able to become a CPN even sooner, even immediately, but at this point I've decided that I want to broaden my experience, with a view to working as a CPN or similar community-based role in "adult" mental health.

It's one of those weird nursing things that if you're over 65 you're no longer termed an adult, but instead take on whatever the currently fashionable politically correct term for such a person happens to be [not geriatric, not over 65, not pensioner]. Is it just me, or does that seem patronising, implying that all people ultimately end up reverting to a kind of pre-adolescent or baby-like state once they hit 65? That perhaps the term "adult" is the word that needs to be modified in this context never seems to enter the equation. Or maybe I'm just being too politically correct? Anyway, continue...

In light of the "chat", I emailed my CV to a Melbourne hospital he'd recommended to me. Within half an hour the Ward Manager was on the phone, inviting me in for another "chat". It crossed my mind that I could maybe spend my career having chats whilst remaining perpetually unemployed, but within 20 minutes I was on my way to visit her [By the way, I'm not naming names or places as I should be a wee bit discreet at this point]. She had already spoken to the "Clinic Guy", had perused my CV, and thought she should take the opportunity to show me round and talk through my previous experiences.

I wasn't actually particularly nervous, which was a relief as I hate interview situations and frequently sweat, shake and lose the feeling in my limbs. I'm serious - I just get so stressed about it. But this time I felt I was on familiar ground, it was all very informal and easygoing, with no difficult moments. It was particularly straightforward as it felt like she was selling the ward to me rather than selling myself to the ward...

The ward was fantastic, very well furnished with excellent facilities, lots of programmes for patients, and a really chilled atmosphere [and thst didn't appear to be down to over-medication]. The end result is that I was then invited me in for a more formal interview on Monday morning.

At last, things seem to be moving...

I'm now in the odd situation that I have two interviews in a day, one in an area that I didn't really want to return to but that I now really like the look of, and another in a role that I really want to undertake but don't actually want to do just yet. But it's nice to have some options.

A Rude Interruption

2006-02-17T17:22:00.000+11:00

Could John Mac & Martin K please email me?
I'm not sure that the email addresses I have for you guys are working... and prospective employers may soon [hopefully] be using them to contact you for references...

Pleeeeease email me to confirm your addresses. Or the kitten gets it...

Ta!

Victory is... er...

2006-02-17T14:29:00.000+11:00

As I mentioned a while back, Australia now has its own nationwide [association] football league, the A-League, a title which nicely avoids the question raging here: "so... is it soccer or is it football?" by not mentioning the sporting code in its name.

Previously, Australia had a series of State and City leagues [and still do, in fact], but they are just about to complete their first season of the national league, albeit comprised of a measly 8 teams at the moment. O, and did I mention that one of those is actually from New Zealand, the NZ Knights, who bizarrely seem to have Charlton Athletic as one of their sponsors.

There is currently some dicussion about adding a number of teams in order to extend the season, as they currently play just 21 games, although the original decision to play so few matches was perhaps partly influenced by the hope/promise that the league winners would subsequently be eligible for the Asian Champions' League. At the moment, they're not allowed to compete, so there's no little disappointment here.

In the meantime, there's the odd situation [to British eyes, at least] that the "Minor Premiers", Adelaide United, who won the league over the 21 games played over the summer, are now competing to be "Major Premiers" in a play-off system similar to that employed in Aussie Rules...

You sure you're ready for this?
The top two play in "major semi-final", the winner of which meets...
The winner of a play-off between the winner of the "minor semi-final" [3rd and 4th teams] and the loser of the major semi-final, known as the Preliminary Final...
So the losing team in the 1st v. 2nd game gets a second chance to play in the "Grand Final" against the team they originally lost to in their first play-off game, providing they beat the winner of the match between 3rd v. 4th.
Hope you followed all that.

And in the meantime the Victorian Premier League [or VPL - insert your own joke here], has just kicked off, as they play through the winter [it's late summer here now]. These consist of long-established teams who are determined to a large part by their ethnic roots [hence team names such as "Hellas" were prevalent], and some teams remain capable of achieving low 5-figure crowds. Melbourne Victory (sic), Victoria's only A-League team, averaged a respectable 14,000 for the season, with the national average was a touch under 11,000.

The A-League has allegedly scooped the cream of the VPL along with a number of Aussies returning from a career in various European Leagues. They're joined by assorted European players who've reached the twilight of their careers and are happy to play out their time at a 2nd-division level in the sunshine - known as "Marquee Players". They are paid outside of the otherwise-sensibly-applied salary cap, their wages paid by eager sponsors.

One such person is Dwight Yorke, playing for glitzy Sydney FC, or "Bling Bling United" as they're less-than-affectionately known down Melbourne way, managed by ex-West Germany winger Pierre Littbarski.

Other returnees include such venerated names as Carl Veart [Sheff U, Palace, Millwall], a strangely goal-shy-now-he's-home Danny Allsop [Notts County, Hull], scrapping yard-dog Kevin Muscat [Palace, Wolves, Millwall, Rangers] and one of the worst players ever to pull on the famous hooped shirt of QPR: yes, lazy-arsed waistrel Ned Zelic [Who, inexplicably if you ever saw him play for the Rs, had just won the German League with Borussia Dortmund].

And 3 poms have set up shop over the Tasman Sea in New Zealand: Sean Devine [Barnet, Wycombe & Exeter], Neil Emblen [Millwall, Wolves, Palace, Norwich, Exeter] and Simon Yeo [Lincoln City & errr... Hyde United], although as they managed just one win and three draws all season, they may well be heading home very soon.

As if the disadvantage of being from New Zealand; Kiwis not being terribly highly regarded here; was not enough, their inept performances have led to the legitimacy of their presence in the A-League being seriously questioned.

I managed to get to Victory's last game of the season, freshly-arrived and missing home. Unfortunately, by the end of the game I was more homesick than ever. The football was poor, 2nd-division standard at best, and the crowd [at least where I was standing - but at least you can stand here!] appeared to have been time-travellers from 80s England, foul-mouthed, pissed-up and one-eyed.

OK, OK, maybe I've been spoilt, hanging out with the good bunch of blokes that make up the Manc Rs [who have probably at some time or another been guilty of all the above sins], but perhaps it all seemed so odd as it also felt that their passion was a little forced.

Strangely subdued other than when being encouraged by the shaven-headed pom leading the "Cheer Squad" [no pom-poms, no short skirt, just a pom] in a series of delectable songs such as "O Melbourne is... so wonderful, o melbourne is so wonderful... it's full of..." If I need to finish that song for you, just be thankful that I didn't. Let's just call it a little peurile and sexist.

Every time the NZ players touched a ball, several hundred people cried "baaaaaa" and then sniggered at their amazing wit [New Zealand = sheep, geddit? Ho ho, ho hum], and the Second Half was characterised largely by verbal hostility and a little confrontation with the police, who had enforced the removal of their banner protesting at the Victory's lack of... well, victories, although the football was a little better, though no goals were scored.

My poor old brother-in-law, Stephen, who had been bigging up the game for me, desperate for me to take to the club, kept asking me if I was enjoying myself, only too aware of the lack of quality on the pitch, and the neanderthal element that surrounded us off it. I tried to smile, I tried to enjoy it, and I did in a funny sort of way, but it was a strangely dispassionate and sanitised experience, despite the foul mouths and rage that emerged from time to time amongst members of the crowd.

I'm hoping to make the Socceroos' [Australian Football Team] impending pre-World Cup game with Greece at the MCG on 25th May, with probably around 80% of the 100,000 expected consisting of those with Greek heritage. As Oz is made up of so many people of European origins, loyalties are divided between those who will support Australia [thus passing the old Tebbitt Test], those who will support their "home" country [thus failing it], and those who will support both, at least tacitly.

Croatian-Australians' true feelings will be tested should the meeting of those two nations on 22nd June ultimately decide which team makes it through to the next stage. Ooooo...

I really want to experience some VPL football, where I'm hoping that, by virtue of the clubs being long-established, and consisting of a disproportionate amount of European immigrants [largely Greek, Italian, Serb, Croat - o, yes, it's quite an interesting mix] who grew up with the game, that there may be more of an identity with the clubs, a passion and a real heart for football, and make it more of a familiar experience for me.

That's not to say that the 10,000 or so who made it to the game I saw weren't all of those things, at least in part, but that there was something that was just not quite there for me. It was like watching the Milton Keynes Dons playing another Milton Keynes Dons [albeit from Poland or somewhere distant], with little history and desperately seeking some real experience, but so poorly served by the football on offer.

I'm aware that you can't judge a whole league by one game played out by two under-achieving teams, and it was a hot 25+ degrees too, which made it a little peculiar. I will no doubt go along next season, hopefully with some local "ethnic" football under my belt, but hey, it's not like seeing Crewe v QPR. No, really, it's not. And maybe that's really the heart of it. Maybe it was the homesick blues rearing its ugly head again in another form.

O, and by the way, Melbourne won 2-1.

Jobs For The Boys... and Girls?

2006-02-16T15:47:00.000+11:00

I'll let Claud tell you about her interview etc. herself, but I just got asked to go for a *ahem* "pre-interview chat" at a Clinic down in Armadale. It's very near to where all the rich people live [hmm, see my previous comments about rich people, and wonder... God's sense of humour again?], an area called Toorak.

Actually, the clinic covers a wide area of inner-city Melbourne [Malvern, Caufield, Elsternwick (part of), Gardenvale, Armadale, Carnegie, Murrumbeena, Chadstone (part of), Ormond, Glenhuntly, and Prahan] for those of you familiar with the geography of the place. Soooo, that may be just the two of you then.

I've been holding out only applying for good first jobs, rather than get stuck on Bront... errr, some awful godforsaken in-patient unit. I sent off about 10 applications this morning, to go with the previous few I'd already sent, and got a phone call within an hour or so. They're nearly all community based jobs, which is what I really, really want to do . Not all are 9-5, with some requiring on-call duties, on what they call CATT teams [Crisis Assessment and Treatment Team], which is like a sort of a cross between CPN, Approved Social Worker and Superman, flying in on home visits at times of crisis.

It is a bit of a drag to Armadale from where we are... well over an hour on the train, but if it's a good role, and it appears to be on the face of it - lots of assessments, community treatment and case management [i.e. a bit like a CPN], it would certainly be a good place to start.

I'm actually a bit excited about it, if truth be told, although it's not an interview, just a "chat", as I keep reminding Claud as she tells people my " news". Anyway, if you have fingers, do cross them; if you have a half-full glass, top it up for me; and if you have good contacts with higher powers, please... have a word with them for me, eh?

Ladies and Lentils, Man

2006-02-15T13:25:00.000+11:00

Had a quiet, low-key sort of a birthday last Friday, going out with Claud to her ex-boss's farewell cocktails at the Ian Potter Centre [Modern Art Gallery] in funky Federation Square, dontchaknow...

Rubbing shoulders with the hoi-polloi of Melbourne's Philanthropic community i.e. lots of seriously rich people who give it away [well, some of it]: "Lady this-that-or-the-other", who were lovely, but, to my Pommie ears, sounded exactly like Dame Edna, which really did make it a bit difficult to concentrate during the speeches. Goggle-eyed in wonder, yes, but concentrate? Noooo.

Annoyingly, whenever I encounter Philanthropy, I'm always forced to rethink my backward-thinking old-school slightly "Class War" perspective, dammit. Nice and generous rich people? Hey, don't challenge my hard-fought preconceptions, OK?

We then went out for dinner with one of Claud's other ex-colleagues, Scott, which was lovely, though somehow didn't feel particularly birthday-like. But we're going out with Claud's siblings tonight, as a sort of belated do, to the blessedly cheap-as-chips-but-healthier Vegie Bar. That's one of the nicest things about being here... Being able to eat out cheaply, and the food being generally brill [though surprisingly I've had one or 2 klunkers food-wise, so far.]

Applying for lots of jobs, although not sure if I'm aiming too high or not, as the system's a bit impenetrable and getting lots of different answers to questions about what I can apply for, pay rates etc. Getting towards the bottom of our safety net now, so will have to start temping soon if nothing perm. comes up.

Though... Claud has an interview this afternoon, which will take the pressure off if she gets it. If she doesn't, she has another option of a probable 6 weeks work, though it's kind of PA stuff so it'll feel a bit of a backward step for her. But it's temp. and it's money.

Still desperately trying to hold on to my Pommie accent, although have caught myself doing the cursed end of sentence lilt-up thing when talking to strangers. Dammit, not so soon, not so soon!

I've been PUBLISHED!

2006-02-15T11:59:00.000+11:00

Okay, it's not that exciting but it is to me.

I posted this on the Guardian's Been There site in the Travel section before I left the UK.

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from my friend Catherine who told me that my tip had been included in that Saturday's Travel section in the Guardian! In the paper bit!

So needless to say I was chuffed.

Oh, and before you offer, Catherine has kindly offered to send me the paper so I can attach it to my CV.

Just kidding.

Not really.

4 Weeks Today

2006-02-14T23:00:00.000+11:00

Happy Valentine's Day one and all!

Ian and I spent the morning pottering around the house then headed off to Greensborough Shopping Plaza for a bit of lunch and a movie. We saw Walk The Line, the Johnny Cash biopic starring the fabulous Joaquin Phoenix and the surprisingly vocal, Reese Witherspoon. It was a great film with one of the most romantic marriage proposals I have ever seen. Go see it!

I have not blogged for a while now and it’s not really due to anything other than wanting to be anywhere other than sitting at a keyboard. Time has flown however and things have been happening so I'll try and do an Ian and list things out;

Job Hunt

I have an interview tomorrow at an ad agency I will name if I get the job! My brother-in-law works there and felt that due to my experience and sheer force of personality (my emphasis not his ;O)) that I would make a great account manager. Well, after reading my CV the general manager felt I was too senior for the position so wants to interview me for a job as a SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER!

So at 11pm the night before the big interview when I should be in bed I am up blogging and watching the cricket highlights. Which leads me nicely to...?

Cricket

It has been so much fun being back in Oz and supporting Australia in the cricket. I am so looking forward to the Ashes later this year which will bring a few of you over to Melbourne for the Boxing Day Test. We hope to be in our own place by then with space aplenty so get your flights booked folks and let us know how many tickets you need cause at this rate, we will be the only one's able to get you them!

Oh, and keep an eye out for Ricky Ponting's absolutely MAGIC catch taken today in the final against Sri Lanka. We won that too by the way...

Summer

I love summer. I love the bright sunlight and big blue skies that typify summer in Australia for me. I love everything about summer, the sounds - the crickets and cicadas in the early evening, the magpies churdling and cooing whenever they feel like it. The smells - suntan lotion, bbq's, jasmine, gum trees and the odd moment when a bushfire is burning somewhere and the smoke is hanging around...

There is just such a great sense of space that I only ever feel when I am here.

I just love knowing this is going to last for a while and not just stop being warm one week and then it be time to drag out the winter coat the next. Apparently last year it was still warm in April - bring it on I say!

Home

As Ian mentioned this is my home. Home. An interesting word and a rather complex concept. England was my home for 6 years and it became more so as the years went by. But as I always knew my life in England was finite I did not have to relinquish too much of my life in Australia for I knew I would return to it eventually.

Now it has not been a simple matter of picking up where I left off. For starters I am married and my brother and sister are parents! Melbourne has changed greatly since I last lived here and Australia has endured a conservative government for the entire time I have been away. Enough said.

Then there are friends who have moved on or left the state which obviously alters dynamics in those relationships. Having said that I have simply picked up the phone and seamlessly continued with where we left off with the special few. That has been such a blessing.

The most wonderful part of returning to Melbourne however has been regaining that sense of belonging that I only recently realised had gone. I come from a very large family. I have 40 cousins on my mother's side and as many again on my father's. This makes for a rather large safety net of people and places to stay and shoulders to cry on and hugs on tap and the odd cash loan and the occasional meal ... you understand what I mean? So to leave all that behind was rather scary but I survived and Ian and I built a life of our own.

What I did not realise though was that I lived with an underlying sense of loss during my time away. Obviously I was not alone - I had Ian, I had wonderful friends and colleagues and my life was full. However it did not replace the fact that my people were so far away.

You see not only am I Australian but I am Maltese first and always was. When I got to England people heard me speak and declared me an Aussie. I know that sounds odd but growing up in a very multicultural city, meeting people my own age always entailed that conversation around what nationality you were. We all knew we were Aussies but most of us were first generation so our roots were not that set and I guess we were all figuring out who we were and how we fit in. So my answer to the inevitable so what nationality are you? was always I am Maltese but I was born here.

With all that in mind I lived in England, in South Manchester among the English. It was rare that I heard anyone speaking Maltese or Greek or Croatian - the languages of my youth and the ones I can swear most profusely in.

I digress. This essay was about home and belonging so I'll get to the point.

Our friends Anna & Kev lent us the DVD series of an Australian program called LOvE my WaY which Ian and I watched compulsively over about 4 days. It is some of the best telly I have ever seen but aside from that it moved me deeply. In case any of you ever catch it, I won't spoil it for you with details however, towards the end of season one there is a death. As I watched each member of the family unit, shambolic as the relationships were, for this family were not all bound by blood, I found myself sobbing.

Ian asked me what I was crying about as he realised is was not just a reaction to what was happening on the screen. Perceptive husband. The thing is he was right, I was not crying because a character had died. It was slowly dawning on me that as I watched each person drift in and out of their own private grief, they remained strongly bound to the unit they called their family. No matter how badly they behaved or how far they flung themselves from each other, they were still part of that unit and therefore, always connected to it.

And there it was. I was suddenly reminded again how badly I wanted to feel that I belonged. Then I realised something. I already did. What I had been missing and searching for was here. My family and my people. I knew then that no matter how crap life got, I belonged somewhere and to something and that made it all okay. I cried because I had missed that so much and I was so happy to be back.

As hard as the wrench from England has been for Ian, my hope is that he will one day he too feels that he belongs here. Not just to this place, the land and its culture, but to the people here. My people.

Ten Things

2006-02-13T10:16:00.001+11:00

To make up for the fact that it's been ages since we posted anything, here are a few things to tell you about our time here that you may or may not know...

1. Australians like "spruiking"
[nothing to do with Ricky Ponting this time]

To speak in public, usually at length and using overly elaborate language, to promote a product or a service.

(Verb) Slang, applied mostly to salespeople, marketeers and such.

There are a few Arthur Daley-type blokes who stand outside their stores in the centre of Melbourne, equipped with a little P.A. and a microphone, giving it all their patter in order to persuade you to buy their tawdry goods...

2. ...which may include, "Manchester"

Manchester is the word they use for linen, cotton goods and the like.
It's a bit weird to see shops that just say "Manchester" on them, wi' nowt else, luv.

According to the esteemed Macquarie Dictionary [the Aussie equivalent of Oxford Dictionary], Manchester [adjective] is also:

"pertaining to a type of indie dance music coming about in the late 1980s and originating in Manchester, England. Also, Madchester."

Makes me a little bit...

3. ...Homesick?

I can't help it, but that's what I've been feeling the last few days.

The people are lovely, the weather's ace, the whole place is fantastic and I've been made soooo welcome, but I still find myself wistfully longing for a place of familiarity, of safety, of refuge.

I just don't have anywhere to got that is mine, to run to, to hide, to relax. Not properly. That sense of familiarity is missing here, although I know that will come, in time. It's actually worse because Claud is from here, and it is and always will be her home despite her 6 years in the UK, so we can't share in a mutual homesickness, and never will do. And that makes me sad.

4. And we're disappointed that we haven't been asked to pass the Commonwealth Games baton on to the Aussies [or even carry it through Hurstbridge, which is due to happen next Sunday] from dear ol' Manchester on March 15th The city is expecting a hundred thousand visitors or so, and there are predictions that the city will grind to a halt under the weight of 'em.

There are some dissenters, mainly due to the word "commonwealth" and the bitter taste that causes for pro-republican Aussies. Just like Manchester did, they're shipping out their homesless too, although apparently they're going to re-house them in suburban hotels for the duration of the games.

The biggest fuss, however, seems to be that, due to crowding and safety issues during the Games, Melburnians now won't be able to meet "under the clocks" at Flinders Street Station, breaking a Melburnian tradition that seems to have been in place for aeons.

5. Had a birthday last Friday. Thank you for the emails, texts, and calls I got to wish me a happy gmpfnnfnffth birthday.

6. We're due to meet some more Mancs soon. We celebrated the birthday of another Ian, husband of Sharia, a couple of weeks back, and had a nice leisurely Sunday lunch with them. Some of their friends have other friends who are from Manchester, and apparently "like meeting other Mancunians". I know the feeling, guys...

7. We're also catching up with Anna & Kev from the UK again soon. Saw 'em a couple of weeks ago, in their plush band spankin' new house in Narre Warren, about 35km south-east of the CBD.

We persuaded them that Melbourne was the place to come if they wanted to live overseas, and after some initial reluctance to commit [the homesickness thing again], they're now loving it. Although they're stopping short of saying they're here forever [a psychological trick that makes it easier to live somewhere that isn't your original home], they'll be away from Northampton/Newcastle for a long time, I'm sure. And it's great to have some English people to relax with...

They were very excited that the pub by the beach in South Shields where they had their reception is featured in the new film "Goal!" too.

8. We took the very exciting opportunity to visit Fountain Lakes Shopping Centre, just up the road from their new home. For those of you who know your beeswax, this is, of course, the spiritual home of Kath and Kim. For the excited Brits, watch out for it on BBC Two soon... no need to endure Living TV! Hurray!

Embarrassingly, when I said I couldn't find the website, Claud told me that it's actually called Fountaingate. And I've been merrily telling people that I'd been to Fountain Lakes. No wonder they were looking at me funny.

Even more exciting is the fact that Claudine actually saw that great hunk o' spunk, Kel, walking towards Flinders Street the other day too... sadly, I was out shopping for a copy of the Mental Health Act, so I missed out... I did once see that Greek actress from Home and Away [wearing a pink velour tracksuit - eek], but still not spotted Kylie. But hey, watch this space, I'll keep my eyes peeled... exclusion orders allowing, naturally.

9. Lincolnshire... Fair Dinkum?

Apparently the phrase "Fair Dinkum" [adjective], which, staggeringly, is used pretty frequently, originates from the backwaters of England [just kidding, Ruthie]

1. true; genuine; dinkum: Are you fair dinkum? --interjection
2. Also, fair dink, fair dinks. (an assertion of truth or genuineness): It's true, mate, fair dinkum. [from British dialect North Lincolnshire, from dinkum hard work]

10. We're going "Grape Grazing" this weekend, just up the road in the Yarra Valley. There are lots of wineries [vineyards] here, and Grape Grazing is a kind of up-market version of the British pub crawl [sigh... homesick again!]. How cool is that? There maaaay be some advantages to living here, then...

Trouble in Paradise #2

2006-02-13T09:05:00.003+11:00

You may have seen the headline along the lines of: "Shark Frenzy Closes Beaches".

O bugger, you say. That's what I've always said about Australia... etc. Well, rest assured, that's nowhere near us. We're a thousand miles away from there.

However...

I had my own close encounter with one of more serious elements of Australia's wildlife population yesterday too.

I'd spotted a little spider in the loo a few days back, but it had scuttled behind the cistern when I tried to swat it. Yes, despite being a wildlife-lover and saviour of Pommie spiders [they always ended up in our garden, despite Claud's protests that they have some sort of a homing instinct and would somehow find their way back], Ian has been cautioned to take no prisoners with Aussie creepie-crawlies and had drowned a humungous cockroach that emerged from a box of tomatoes only last week.

Anyway, I mentioned it to my arachnophobe wife, but hadn't succeeded in locating the brute, until it again showed its belly to me last night, hanging upside down on a new web it had created. Learning from my previous encounter, I swatted it towards me this time, and it then landed the right way up on the floor just a few inches from my bare foot.

You can see what's coming, can't you?
Well, no. It didn't bite me, but just sat there looking at my ripe, succulent big toe. I think it was my big toe it was eyeing up.
It sat there for a while as I took in the markings on its back. Red markings. A bit like this:

Hence its name, the Redback. [not actual size. The one I saw was only about 3-4 cm]
Only three Australian insecty-type critters are capable of killing you, and only two of these are spiders. And one of these is the redback:

"Redback spiders are not aggressive, but their bite is very poisonous and potentially fatal for children or the elderly. After a bite, the onset of pain may be delayed for five minutes then increase in intensity. Subsequent symptoms vary but have included nausea, vomiting, abdominal or generalised pain, sweating, restlessness, palpitations, weakness, muscle spasm and fever."

And I particularly like this bit [excuse the pun]:
"If abdominal pain occurs, it is worse when the lower extremities or genitals were bitten, probably due to lymph node involvement."

No shit, Sherlock?
If you consider the bits I was about to expose, it was a worrying experience. Although I had the distinct advantage of presenting a small target, of course.

What sort of warped sense of humour does a deity have when the two most common biting spiders in Oz have a reputation for either hiding in your bedlinen [the White Tail, which apparently makes your skin necrotic, although some contest this conclusion] and under toilet seats [the redback]? The theological subtext is that we should have left the aboriginal peoples in peace, I reckon...

There's even a song about the redback in this vein [bum-bum], by Aussie country legend, Slim Dusty, inevitably entitled "Redback on the Toilet Seat":

"There was a redback on the toilet seat, when I was there last night
I didn't see him in the dark, but boy I felt his bite.
I jumped high up into the air and when I hit the ground
That crafty redback spider, wasn't nowhere to be found."
(and so on, in an equally duff manner)

Where we're living is apparently the edge of "Bush". Well, after last night's experience, I think it could do with a Brazilian at the very least.

Trouble in Paradise #1

2006-02-13T07:41:00.001+11:00

Australia score their highest one-day tally ever.

"Aw no, not again! Last time it was a stand-in who ran me out and made me look a berk. Now some would-be bloomin' stand-up does the same..."

And that was even after starting off at 10 for 3 wickets... Yes, king-of-the-sledgers' captain Ricky Ponting shrugged of the pain of his humourless whinge after having the mickey taken out of him by gurning England buffoon Phil Tufnell, by helping crank up 368 against a Sri Lanka team that had humbled the Aussies just a few days earlier [lots of links here, if you're interested]. If there was ever a reason to caution against the use of illegal substances, Tuffnel is it, but poor old Ricky just couldn't see the funny side, could he? This is what Tuffers (sic) actually said:

"Evening all. And I'm thrilled to be in the presence of such great men. The cream of Australian cricket, or the cream that's just slightly curdled a little bit since last summer.

Boys, where did it all go wrong? Losing to Bangladesh wasn't a great start. Now, they're a good side but you lost, probably the biggest upset in world cricket. But that didn't stop old Pigeon McGrath from predicting a five-nil whitewash against the old Poms in the Ashes. Hey, Pidg, give us a tip in the 3.30 at Ascot. Not. And I hope the ankle is a little bit better since that nasty accident before Edgbaston. And you can take some consolation because you did average with the bat more than your wicketkeeper did.

Talking of Edgbaston, Punter, what were you doing? You won the toss and you stuck us in - 407 we scored that day and they've even stuck a plaque up commemorating that fact at Edgbaston. Thanks mate.

Warnie. The legend that is Shane Warne, batting like a maestro, bowled like a magician - zooters, wrong-uns, they were all coming out. But just because you're a mate of Kevin Pietersen didn't mean on that last day at the Oval that you had to drop him twice. Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and thought you might have dropped the Ashes? I've got Herschelle Gibbs' phone number here if you want some counselling.

Anyway, about 50,000 of us Poms are coming down to Australia this summer to watch us retain the Ashes. That will 'Crown' it. Have a great night."

A big fuss here, of course, although most commentators appear to have rolled their eyes in embarrassment at poor old Penfold's rant, who squawked:

"I probably wouldn't have minded so much if it had been someone who had actually played in that series, but for someone that has never really done anything against Australia in any game he's ever played, it was a bit hard to swallow, I guess.

It certainly got under my skin a little bit . . . here we are sitting at our Australian Cricket's night of nights and we've got to put up with some of that stuff that he had to say."

And suddenly; and I never thought I'd find myself saying this; Phil Tuffnel skyrockets in my estimation... even though he apparently believed he was being recorded for a satirical Aussie Rules show rather than the prestigious Border Medal awards show.

The shame is that Penfold's 124 and last-seen-hitting-six-cold-ones-in-Tesco's-in-Didsbury-beer-aisle, Andrew Symonds' 151 may be used as justification for Ponting's pissiness: proof that they are really "up for it" after the bloody Poms' sarcasm and arrogance... Yes, yes, pots, kettles, all that.

But lovely that he's still smarting over his decision to put us in to bat at Edgbaston, all the same...

Fit to Work!

2006-01-31T23:04:00.000+11:00

I had to go into the city today to give the local nursing registration body a piece of paper that they neglected to request in the first place. I did suspect that perhaps their mission was to make the NMC [UK Nursing Registration body] look like they're ruthlessly efficient.

I spoke to them yesterday to find that, after 9 weeks of "processing", they'd sent letter to me in the UK a week ago [despite having explicitly asked for email contact, and having told them I was now in Australia on at least 2 occasions].

They were writing to notify me that the NMC hadn't sent verification of my registration in the UK. I asked them to re-check as the NMC had written to me mid-December to say that they had indeed done it.

They phoned me back a few minutes later, meekly apologising in a quiet voice, "Ah, yes, we do have it, after all... sorry." And if I could bring the other bit of paper in they'd issue my registration over the counter, unless they happen to forget in the meantime and insist on sending it to the UK via Uzbekistan. I may have made that last bit up.

I went in, they were disarmingly pleasant, polite, helpful and efficient, and in 15 minutes I was registered and able to practice here as a nurse.

So the job quest can now start in earnest. There's a community job in South Central Melbourne, so I'm applying for that, and have a few agencies applications on the go too. More news as it comes...

If anyone would like an email, please email us first as we can't access our address books at the moment - the back-up DVD won't work on our drive here for some reason. And we do like emails to find out what's happening in your lives. Just use the "comment" option and we'll get the message! And don't forget that there are some party photos on the pics site. Our broadband connection has maxed out on bandwith too, so we won't be uploading any photos till next week - sorry!

The Wee We Update: Where are we up to?

2006-01-29T11:14:00.000+11:00

No Jobs...

We had decided to have a couple of weeks to settle in before taking up jobs, but the process of getting to that point has proved a little more tricky than anticipated.

Ian has to chase up his professional regulatory body [the Nursing Board of Victoria] again this week, to find out quite why the original quote of 3 weeks needed to register to practice has been extended to 9 weeks so far... and counting...

He also needs to chase up a couple of possible links that may give him a job [friends of friends, agencies etc.]. Rather than take the first job he sees, he'd prefer to suss out the system, good places to work etc., and focus on getting a community rather than hospital-based role.

Claudine is to see HR at KMPG Melbourne and also discuss potential role with Advertising Agency early this week. A prospective Cafe manager job seems to be diminishing.

Driving Licences...

After being stopped and breathalysed 3 times in 3 days [her reputation clearly goes before her] and being severely reprimanded by the policewoman for not carrying her licence with her [required at all times here], Claudine was compelled to get her Victorian State licence back... Ian got one at the same time to avoid future complications. We produced the most hideous photos you've ever seen, but we're now legal for the next 10 years!

Amid the confusion about UK licences and their eligibility in Oz, the first cop that stopped us gigged: "What!?!" when we said Claud's UK licence would expire in 2037... "Yes," we explained, "in Britain, you can even drive when you're dead ..."

A Bank Account...

We've joined the Bendigo Bank, the closest thing to The Co-op Bank to be found in Oz.

No Deposit...

Although the houses are generally cheaper here than the UK, it's not quite that simple. We'll need about AUD$35,000 [about 15 grand sterling] to even get a 95% mortgage here, as they insist on $5,000 insurance [which covers the bank rather than us, of course] if you haven't got the "normal" 20% deposit! The fact that they have the house as collateral for the loan doesn't seem to enter into the equation for some reason. Add to that the $15,000 we need to cover obligatory Stamp Duty... and you see that the actual deposit is dwarfed by the other charges.

The ironic thing is, that based on our potential salaries and the fact that we have no debt, the bank would happily lend A$500,000. You gotta laugh eh?

We are looking at possible new build homes as you only pay stamp duty on the land price in that case, which could reduce our costs by 40% or more. But most of the new builds are way out of the city or in areas we don't want to live. The research will continue...

See, the sun doesn't always shine here!

Somewhere to Live...

So... we've decided to stay here with Stephen & Lisa in the meantime in order to maximise out ability to gather together enought to cover the deposit/fees etc. as soon as poss, although how long this may take us is anyone's guess. And it also depends on when we get jobs too...

[sorry, that was all a bit boring, wasn't it?]

Fire update: The worst appears to be over

2006-01-28T19:06:00.001+11:00

We've had lots of rain over the last 24 hours, and things are under control again north of us. Other areas, notably parts of the Grampians, haven't been quite so lucky, but Lisa's sister & her husband have now thankfully been able to return home to Kinglake safely.

For pictures of the fight over the last few days, see The Age [highly recommended Melbourne-based newspaper, owned by Fairfax, Antipodean media nemesis of that lovely even-handed Mr Murdoch ].

From the CFA Website:

"The continuing damp and humind conditions last night and today have greatly assisted firefighters as they complete and consolidate the 14 kilometre control line around the Kinglake (formally Burgan Track) fire.

There is no immediate threat to residents. Rain and stable conditions today have given crews the chance to strengthen control lines. There is currently no running fire edge, and fire crews will continue to control hot spots.

Residents who have evacuated from their homes could consider returning as the threat to the area has greatly reduced."

Scuba diver found in tree after forest fire?

2006-01-27T13:54:00.004+11:00

Whilst on the subject, just to clarify a story you may have heard about forest fires [this one's for you, Chad... been watching Magnolia too often?], this link explains that it is indeed a myth.

Snopes is a great site for debunking lots of the stories you get via email... You know, the scare stories about date-rape drugs, missing kidneys, people accessing your phone at your expense, George Bush being an utter idiot [o no, hang on...] etc. etc.

The search engine works a treat. Check it out here.

Wanted to clear that one up as it popped into my head.
Thank you!

A New dazefly Pictures Site

2006-01-27T12:01:00.000+11:00

We've posted some pictures of the Farewell Do's Here:

Leaving Do #1 [Saturday Night]
Leaving Do #2 [Thursday/Cavendish]

This will be updated with pictures from time to time, and is on the links on the main dazefly site.

This Week's Recommendations

2006-01-27T11:16:00.004+11:00

Film of the Week

As good as the apparently increasingly-controversial "Munich" was, its slightly less-focused and clunky final third means that the honour of my film of the week goes to... "Good Night, and Good Luck". If the words "A Film by George Clooney" may initially send a shiver down your spine, take comfort in the fact that Time Magazine describe him as "Hollywood's leading lefty"; so relax, sit down, watch, and be absorbed into an utterly engrossing un-Hollywood movie.

It's shot in black and white, perfectly capturing the 1950s era in which it's set, and focuses on CBS News' attempts to counter the reactionary threat of anti-communist witch-hunts. The two main protaganists are Edward R. Murrow, a superb performance by David Strathairn; and Senator Joseph McCarthy himself via authentic newsreel footage. The tension it builds as their weekly show "See It Now" broadcast goes out live is phenomenal. It's also much funnier than you'd imagine, with a stream of dry one-liners between members of the news team as they attempt to ease their paranoia and tension, whilst reassuring each other that what they are doing is right.

The parallels with the US's current "War on Terror" [sic] has been well-documented, although Clooney has distanced himself from that particular debate. It can't be avoided, however, so I'll end with a quote from Murrow himself: "We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

Breakfast Cereal of the Week

Since arriving here in Melbourne, I've become started eating breakfast most mornings. Usually, other than on weekends, I avoid breakfast completely [the 7.15 starts helped with this], but I've changed. And it's all thanks to Weet-Bix®. Yes, that's right, Weet-Bix with a dash, not an "a".

Along with the Weet-bix I've had to take a good dose of humble pie after asserting my view that the Aussies had clearly stolen the idea and name from good ol' Weetabix. But, as I hang my arrogant Pommie head in shame, I have to tell you, dear friends, that the Aussies did it first in the early 1900s, with the Brits 'bix following-on languidly in 1932, when Weet-Bix was sold not only as a breakfast cereal but [bizarrely] "also as an alternative to bread." Jam or vegemite on that, dear?

Anyway, they hold together better than Weetabix, are crunchier [not something I usually go for in a breakfast cereal, believing the soggier the better], but are, along with the British version, the only cereal I have to put sugar on.

O, and it's made by a company called "Sanitarium" too, which makes me smile every time I see it, although that may just be due to something they put in the Weet-Bix rather than a childish sense of humour.

Language of the Week

So, I've been here barely 5 minutes and I'm already changing. BUT, I'd like to reassure you that I am maintaining a rearguard action on my Englishness by not giving in to an Australian accent. I already have a magpie-like ability to take on the accent of the person that I'm talking to at any given time, and whatever Mancunian I once had, had been assimilated into a vague "northern" accent over the years, but I'm determined not to give in to their ockerdom.

Sure, I already tend to drop in a "no worries" now and then, but that's a product of my status as unemployed when Neighbours first hit British screens, leading to my twice-a-day fix of Kyli... er, Antipodean Soap.

I'm asking for YO-gurt rather than yog-urt, and will say "Can I GET a beer" rather than "I'd like a beer please" or the rather more pleading "Can I HAVE a beer, please?" but I don't think I'm on the slippery slope. Mind you, I'm asking for zucchini rather than courgette, and aubergine has been dispaced by eggplant, but that's not going too far, is it?

Anyway, better go. Got some hard yakka to do, like making the bed as the doona's gone totally cactus, and I need to find my thongs [you really DO need to click the links for this one]. See ya's later.

Quick Update...

2006-01-26T22:58:00.000+11:00

Well, so far all seems okay in Kinglake. Except for the 134 firemen who will be working tirelessly through the night to keep houses and people safe. God bless them.

We will know more in the morning for that is when the full extent of the damage will be known. Apparently, the fire front is not the thing that causes the most damage. The radiant heat from the front is dangerous if you are standing in the vicinity but the danger to property is what is called an 'ember attack'. This is why people stay in their homes and wait for the front to pass. They then man the hoses, buckets etc. to put out any spot fires caused by falling embers.

Do not think I would be brave enough to stay put while a fire raged past my house. Then again it would be hard to leave knowing I could do something after the worst had passed. I dread the news in the morning.

Hazy Daze...

2006-01-26T20:02:00.000+11:00

I wish I could type something of note today but we have not been doing a whole lot, the weather has seen to that. It hit 38 today - Australia Day - so we took it in shifts to head to the air conditioned comfort of the cinema. They boys went to see Munich this morning while we stayed with Harrison then Lisa and I pootled off to see Underworld: Evolution. I would have happily watched any old thing today as it was unbearable to be anywhere but under an air-conditioning unit running on freeze.

There is one thing however that is worrying us at this point. The bushfire that is raging about 15 kms up the road. As you know we are living in Hurstbridge with my brother Stephen, his wife Lisa and their lovely son Harrison. Lisa's sister and her husband live further north of here and therefore in a far more rural bush area called Kinglake. They live in a beautiful, one of a kind house on 20 acres - Lisa's sister designed the house herself and oversaw the building of it. A lot of love went into that house.

At the moment however, they are not at their house. They are at Lisa's parent's place a couple of suburbs away waiting to hear if the fire front, that is at this moment on their road, has left their lovely home standing.

A bit unbelievable really. We are also waiting to hear if the fire will be contained or, if the wind changes again as it did earlier today, will it head our way. We are not scared. We have just ordered pizza for dinner. It only seems real on the telly however it is happening 20 minutes down the road. After almost 5 days of fires only today can we smell smoke. Probably because there are a few high hills between Hurstbridge and Kinglake. These hills could mean the difference between the fire burning back on itself or it heading straight for us.

The pizza has arrived.

Prozac Nation? ...in a good way

2006-01-26T08:09:00.000+11:00

Happy Australia Day!

Yes, today's the day that [I think I got this right] Australia celebrates the fact that Captain Cook and his crew arrived in Oz, murdered the natives, raped the unique ecosystem of indigenous plants and animals by bringing in their own "superior" ones, strangled the English language, and made a nation suited for a halfwit like John Howard to be PM. So, lots to celebrate then. O, and I think it's also to recognise that Britain still owns their beautiful land.

But seriously, it's a great place. There's a feeling that people are just generally happier here than in the UK [yes, yes, sweeping generalisation, I know, but please, indulge me]. Claud mentioned something yesterday that I'd already noticed, which is the fact that even people in the most mundane of jobs seem to be relaxed, happy, and enjoying their work. The surly youths that serve you in the supermarket, clothes shop, petrol station etc. in the UK, just don't seem to exist here. It's not that working in retail is intrinsically destined to be mundane, but simply that in the UK so many people seem to be fed up to be doing what they're doing. I'm not a sociologist, and the reasons are probably multiple and complicated, but the difference is so striking that I always find myself slightly bewildered by it.

As an example, going into the local bottle shop [off licence] a couple of days ago [the only solution on a roasting hot evening is a bottle of Carlton Cold], the guy serving me asked, "How you goin'?" This is the less formal version of the normal Australian question as you go into a shop/restaurant/public place of, "How are you?" in a very sincere and apparently interested way. He added to this with a "So how was the weekend then?" I resisted my initial reaction to think that he had me down as an alcoholic who probably had a raging, drunken weekend that was either entirely fantastic or that I would not be able to remember in any detail, but still only struggled to mumble, "Yeah, alright thanks."

In the past I've occasionally been rather more surly and sarcastic in asking back in their bright-as-a-button way "I'm good! So how are you doing?" which always seems to baffle them somewhat. But I've learned that there is a genuine degree of sincerity, of politeness, of general perkiness and ease with doing their jobs which is generally pretty alien to us Brits. I've said to some of you, when asked about moving to Oz, that I'm a different person here, and I think that's true. My normal disposition is to see the glass half-empty, despite whatever facade I may be able to construct at the time. But I am more gregarious here, more full of energy and interest, less negative and bored. And I think that's largely down to the people, I really do.

That the climate plays a part in that, I'm pretty certain, but there's more to it than that. It's like the country has never suffered really bad times [though it has], and as a consequence is not anticipating more bad times. There's no residual depression here, it would seem, and there's always something good to look forward to. Not only is the glass half-full, some bugger must keep filling the thing up.

From our Special Correspondent...

2006-01-25T09:46:00.000+11:00

For anybody ever thinking of moving to Aussie to live...

August 31st
Just got transferred with work into our new home in Mount Isa, Queensland!!
Now this is a city that knows how to live!! Beautiful sunny days and warm balmy evenings. What a place! I watched the sunset from a deck chair on the veranda. It was beautiful. I've finally found my home. I love it here.

September 13th
Really heating up. Got to 35 today. Not a problem. Live in an air-conditioned home, drive an air-conditioned car. What a pleasure to see the sun everyday like this. I'm turning into a sun worshiper.

September 30th
Had the backyard landscaped with tropical plants today. Lots of palms and rocks. What a breeze to maintain. No more mowing lawn for me. Another scorcher today, but I love it here.

October 10th
The temperature hasn't been below 35 all week. How do people get used to this kind of heat? At least today it's kind of windy though. But getting used to the heat is taking longer than I expected.

October 15th
Fell asleep by the pool. Got 3rd degree burns over 60% of my body. Missed 3 days of work. What a dumb thing to do. I learned my lesson though. Got to respect the ol' sun in a climate like this.

October 20th
I missed Kitty (our cat) sneaking into the car when I left this morning. By the time I got to the hot car for lunch, Kitty had died and swollen up to the size of a shopping bag and stank up the $3,000 leather upholstery. I told the kids that she ran away. The car now smells like Wiskettes and cat sh*t. I learned my lesson though. No more pets in this heat.

October 25th
The wind sucks. It feels like a giant f*ckin blow dryer!! And it's hot as hell. The home air-conditioner is on the blink and the AC repairman charged $200 just to drive over and tell me he needed to order parts.

October 30th
Been sleeping outside by the pool for 3 nights now. Bloody $300,000 house and we can't even go inside. Why did I ever come here?

November 4th
It's 38 degrees. Finally got the ol' air-conditioner fixed today. It cost $500 and gets the temperature down to 25, but the bloody humidity makes the house feel like it's about 30. Stupid repairman!
I hate this stupid f*ckin place!!

November 8th
If another wise arse cracks, "Hot enough for you today?" I'm going to f*ckin throttle him. F*ckin heat! By the time I get to work the car's radiator was boiling over, my clothes are soakin f*ckin wet, and I smell like baked cat!!

November 9th
Tried to run some messages after work. Wore shorts, and sat on the black leather seats in the ol' car. I thought my f*ckin arse was on fire.
I lost 2 layers of flesh and all the hair on the back of my legs and my F*ckin a*se. Now my car smells like burnt hair, fried a*se, and baked cat.

November 10th
The weather report might as well be a f*ckin recording. Hot and sunny. Hot and sunny. Hot and f*ckin sunny. It's been too hot to do anything for 2 damn months and the weatherman says it might really warm up next week.Doesn't it ever rain in this damn f*ckin place? Water rationing will be next, so my $2,000 worth of palms just might dry up and blow into the f*ckin pool. Even the palms can't live in this f*ckin heat.

November 14th
Welcome to HELL!!! Temperature got to 44 today. Now the air-conditioner's gone in my car. The repairman came to fix it and said, "Hot enough for you today?" My wife had to spend the $2,500 mortgage payment to bail my arse out of jail for assulting the stupid f*cker. F*ck Mount Isa! What kind of a sick demented f*ckin idiot would want to live here?

December 1st
WHAT????? This is the first day of summer???? You are f*ckin kiddin!!