From moving in till Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you are having a nice day. I certainly have overeaten, and I consider that to generally be a pretty good indication of a successful chrissy. In our mid-christmas delerium we have decided to go in a triathlon which is being run in Newcastle on the 3rd of Feb. Plenty of motivation to keep any new years resolutions there!! 500m swim, 18km bike ride, and 4km run. January will be a big month.

We are currently down at Mum and Dads in Sydney for the day. Hopefully will have the phone and the internet on up in Newcastle by the end of the week. We will see how we go.

Here are a couple of photos from the last little while for you all. Hope you enjoy.


This is a Blue Tongue lizard in the garden at the folks place. They like to explore.


In Dads garden


Another Blue Tongue on a bit of a mission after I left the door open accidentally


A different kind of little lizard in the garden at the folks


Spider in his house, in the garden at the folks


Bug.


Our furniture arrives in Carrington.


The elaborate setup for Ava's first bday last Sunday


Ava, her daddy and some bubbles


P & L & A


Unpacking. Donny sees the house for the first time. Thankfully she approves.


More unpacking


More unpacking


This is what you get when you combine the pub across the road from our house, 5 christmas parties, and dickheads. Exciting. 17 cops in 6 different cars called in to stop a fight.


The guy in the singlet with his arms out was having his eyes washed out after being pepper sprayed. He was later arrested and put in the wagon. These photos are from our front verandah upstairs


More people being attended to after copping a bit of stray pepper spray


Taking a statement.

It was actually pretty cool. While we were out watching everything happen, we actually met our neighbors and ended up spending the rest of the evening having a few drinks with them in their backyard. Nice people. The pub owner came over as well and explained that this doesn't happen very often, so we know him now too.


Our bedroom, nice and big. And getting tidier, slowly.


The spare room for any of you guests.


Lounge room


Kitchen


Kitchen

Backyard. We have drafted a letter to our landlord asking if we can have a puppy or two, and will be putting it in soon. Cross your fingers for us.

That is all for now. Will be putting up some christmas photos soon.

In the house - off the air.

We have moved all of the furniture into the new place, and are currently sifting through the contents of our lives. That is not a metaphor, we are really doing it.

It is nice to see everthing fall into place, but we have to make a big mess before the tidiness comes.

Merry christmas to all, it is unlikely that we will be able to use the internet again until christmas day at the folks place. The phone lines wont be back up until at least the 27th of Dec, that is a pain, but we will live.

OK, plenty of christmas good vibes to all, and if you want to come and visit we have a freshly unpacked guest room waiting to go.

See you soon.

Dr. House

Well, the lease is signed and here it is. This is as much for Madonna as for the rest of you, she gets to see it first hand on Monday probably at this stage. Furniture arrives Saturday.

It will be a comfortable place, and is quite big. I dont think we will have enough furniture to fill it out. I did purchase a new bed for the second bedroom today though, so we will be able to host anyone who feels like dropping by.


That is him, the one in the middle. I wont tell you the address so that we can avoid being hassled by the papparazi


The house has a 'blue" theme all the way through, including the carpets, tiles, kitchen, and ceilings? Thankfully it is mostly quite subtle?


The kitchen looking through to the first of the downstairs loungey type rooms (both with fireplaces) and the stairs. The kitchen has a dishwasher and gas cooking, both very high on our wish list.


Looking out to our little back porch and backyard. There is even a fully functioning, recently renovated outhouse out there too for those who enjoy the odd outdoor adventure!!


Stairs, kitchen and a bit of the lounge room


The view out the double doors in the main bedroom which has a little balcony, across the road to the pub directly opposite. Hopefully it isnt too loud, but it should be one that closes by midnight.


The view from the balcony to the south


The view from the balcony to the north up the street

There you go. Come on round when you are next in town!!

It's go time.

Today we have finalised a removalist to move our stuff into the new place, and it was much sooner than I had expected. I would have been happy to be in by Chrissy, but instead we are going to be in by Saturday!!!!!

The removalists will pick up our stuff on Friday evening in QLD and head down and drop it off at the house on Saturday. Just as well I decided to sign the lease pretty quickly, I am heading up there tomorrow to do the business.

So, from having nowhere last Saturday morning and expecting an absolute sh$t fight to find something suitable, fast forward 1 week and we are in a place that should turn out to be next to perfect with all of our furniture!! Within a week!! Winner.

Donny is heading back down on Sunday and it will be excellent to have her back. We will be able to head up the Newc on Monday morning and begin the process of making a home. I have definitely missed my little possum, and it will have been the longest by far we have been apart since we got married almost 4 years ago. Love you Donny.

Sunday is Ava's first birthday, so hopefully the weather holds out for her party, which is in a park up near Pete and Lisas place. Ava and Lisa were around here at the folks place for most of the afternoon, and she is such a little cutie. You have to work to get her to warm to you at first, but once you do she is a little ball of fun.

We are just starting to investigate the last major piece in the current puzzle, which is a car. Work have offered a leasing arrangement which we will probably accept, so we may even end up with a new car as well. Currently looking at the Ford Focus, which seems to be a winner, especially for the price.

Speaking of price, I was definitely not expecting the variation in quotes that we got to move our furniture. When we moved it up to QLD from Sydney 2 years ago it cost us about $1200, and that was a pretty good deal at the time. This time I asked for about 6 quotes in the end, and I will list for you their value in the order I received them.

1. - $4770
2. - $1640
3. - $4000
4. - $3200
5. - $5300
6. - $6100

Can anyone hazard a guess for me as to the one we chose???? Anyone??? What a bunch of wankers. I think that really says it all. All of the stuff is already packed, and stored in a garage, and they dont even have to unpack for us. Its not like I was asking them to build the new house first, and then fill it. Wankers. Except for #2 of course.

Watched Liverpool beat Marseille this morning. Congrats Alan. They looked very comfortable, I reckon they could go all the way. Torres was great, and even Harry had a pretty good game. Just hope he doesnt pull a groin and disappear again.

So, off to Newcastle again tomorrow for the 3rd time in a week. Have to sign the lease, dump off a bit of stuff that is stored here at the folks place, and then go shopping for a mattress for our bed and perhaps also a second bed for the other bedroom so we can begin to accommodate visitors. We already have our first visitors booked in for New Years Eve so that should be fun.

I am absolutely knackered, so time for some ice cream, a bit more white wine and then bed.

Catch you later kids!!!!

Quotes from those around me

"I don't know what he is doing, but he certainly isn't very good at it." - Anyone who sees me running around the park with my hurley

"Is that facial hair?" - Anyone who actually notices that I havent shaved for a week or so

"I'm sorry, I was temporarily blinded by a glint off your rapidly increasing forehead." - Thats a bit mean

"I'm sorry I think I just dozed off. You were saying something about travelling..." - That is pretty well justified

"Are you drunk?" - Anyone at any time

"Oh, so you are moving to Newcastle. We will have to come and visit...... Note to self: Never go to Newcastle." - Thats a bit mean too

"No." - Madonna

News

We have a house. Yay!! Actually we have 2, but I had to turn one down. I spent all day Saturday doing rental inspections in Newcastle, and went to about 7 or 8 different places, most of them crap. However, there were 2 potential candidates, and one of those was a clear frontrunner. I decided to put in an application for both, and by 11.30 this morning I had been offered both. Not a bad result for a days work.

Our new place is in Carrington, which is a suburb just to the north of the main part of Newcastle, kind of on an island. I went up there again today with the folks to have a snoop around and to put down a holding deposit on the place, and even on second inspection I am happy with it. After all of those open houses I was struggling to remember which one was which, but this was def the one we wanted. When I say "we", I hope it is actually "we" because Madonna hasnt seen it yet. Hopefully she will like it.

It is about 8 mins drive from the house into the centre of town, and is definitely a possibility for consistently riding my bike into work, which should be about 15 mins max. It even has a backyard, so when we are settled in we will formally ask the landlord if we can get a puppy or two, which we have been wanting to do for aaaaaaaages.

I saw Munster beat the Scarlets on the weekend, nice one. Not so good for Liverpool though hey Marshall? Not even Harry Kewell could make the difference. Or maybe he did.....

I went down to the local park with my Dad on Saturday to attempt to find my first suitable hurling partner, and he turned out to be a bit of a natural. Despite a somewhat unorthodox style (he only uses one hand on the hurley the whole time) within a few minutes he was consistently knocking them back over my head, and controlling the ball coming to him well also. So, that is step one in enabling the continuation of my hurling experience.

I am missing my little wifey who is still up in QLD. She is making good use of herself and doing alot of painting for her mum. Hopefully she will be back for Ava's first bday on the weekend, but it might depend on the timing of our removalists, which we are currently trying to organise.

Ok, that is about all for now. I am pretty knackered and off to bed. Until next time.........

Soft

Sorry about the long absence from writing.

We have been in QLD, and things just seem to operate differently up there. Things move a little slower, and they have a different version of the internet that doesnt work properly. It is all very interesting.

I am back in Sydney now so that I can spend Saturday up in Newcastle looking for houses to rent. Hopefully the process is as painless as possible, but these things rarely are. Fingers, toes, and other appendages crossed for that one.

Madonna and I both had a great time up in Warwick staying with her folks, so much so that she is still up there for another week or so. We spent most of our time helping to prepare the folks new place that they are moving into when it is ready. There were "professional" people doing the interior renovations, so we decided to attack the outside to make it all a bit better.

The first task was to remove a couple of tree/shrubby type things that were in the back of the house, and both blocking the glorious view and also acting as a bit of a haven for the local undesirables. And by that I dont mean teenagers with cheap cans of beer, I mean Snakes and Spiders.

It was a slight adjustment mentally to get back to our naturally ingrained instincts to watch out for little baddies that can kill you whilst working in the garden, but after a few encounters we were back in the zone.

The worst part about the whole manual labour thing was how disgustingly soft we have become physically (not to mention mentally), but I guess a 5 month holiday will do that to you.

After the shrubs were gone we moved onto dismantling a retaining wall made out of old railway sleepers and telephone poles, and also mowing 4 acres of lawn. This only served to reinforce the level of softness. We even needed a day off in the middle to feel sorry for ourselves, and sat down and watched the entire season of Summer Heights High in one go. It was funny.

Below as always are some photos of our time "helping". Until next time - later!!

I promise it wont be so long again........



Getting ready to attack!!!


Revealing the view


Oh yeah, we went to the Warwick races. Only lost a bit of money. I love this sign - Betting, Office, Bar, Food, Loo. All anyone could ask for!!


Donny checking the form


Steve also checking out the form, of the VB. And guess what, the form was a bit patchy.


The homestead, the scene of our efforts to "help"


Arty shot - the back fence


Donny mowing the lawn. There is 4 acres of it, and it takes about 6 hours to do.


Still mowing, with the nice view in the background


Aussies skies in Summer, sunny......


..... and then raining 5 minutes later


This is the view from my bus ride this morning just past Cunninghams gap, the pass over the mountain range. Pretty.

A Big Weekend

Well.... where to begin.

Friday was my little brother Marty's wedding. It was a brilliant day, but more about that later.

Step one in the big weekend was on Thursday night when everyone was around at Mum and Dads for the wedding eve. We were all sitting around trying to keep Marty as relaxed as possible (yeah right - the guy was basically asleep he was that relaxed) and then Ava decides to take her first steps (about 2 of them) right in front of all of us. She is a little star that girl, centre of attention.

Friday was wedding day, and unfortunately it was a bit grey when we got up, and it all looked a bit shaky given that it was supposed to be an outdoor event. Thankfully as the day continued to progress the rain held off, and everything went ahead as planned.

It was all happening at Balmoral beach, which is one of the Sydney harbour beaches. Marty looked sharp, Sacha looked amazing, and everything went off without any dramas. There were a bunch of folks there that we hadn't seen for ages, so basically a good time was had by all. There are photos a bit further down, but we will save those for last.

Saturday morning was hangover free, and we were off to vote!! Federal election day. In what was a bit of a surprise result given the extent of the thrashing, the government was kicked to the kerb. What is great about Aussie elections is that the result is pretty much always known a few hours after the polls close. None of this Irish malarkey where Enda Kenny still reckons to this day that he can find the numbers somewhere to form some kind of dysfunctional coalition and usher in the Fine Gael golden years.

Basically John Howard lost. Bad. Kind of like the political version of every tag rugby final I ever played in.

Today was super lazy, but tomorrow we are off to sunny Queensland up to Madonnas folks for about 2 weeks. Tomorrow I will also be formally accepting one of the job offers that I have up in Newcastle, so it will be another reasonably momentous day.

Given the acceptance of the job offer, it is a definite that we will be moving to Newcastle. We have been up there a few times in the last 2 weeks, and found the vibe to be quite acceptable. So goodbye Sydney with her traffic jams and non-existent public transport, and hello Newcastle with a 10 min bike ride to work, and equally non-existent public transport. ...and cheap rent, and 5 mins from everywhere to the beach.

OK. That is all for now. Please feel free to peruse the photos below at your leisure.



Marty in his wedding suit.... Almost. Well just the tie actually



Donny getting ready. It turns out that I am very bad at helping to straighten hair


The 3 of us bro's


Marty and Mum and Dad


Marty at Balmoral, waiting for the bride to appear


Marty, still waiting. It wasnt that she was late, we were just early


The 2 best men. I will leave it up to you to guess who is the better of the best's. (it is me)


Donny and my brother Pete's wife Lisa


Yours truly - looking good!!! And a bit bald.


Us


Us again!!


The kids, signing their lives away. (but in a good way - they are so cute and happy)


Me and Jesus. The guy had a ways to come, but all credit to him for turning up.


The Jamo boys and the Day kids. Basically our defacto siblings


The bro's and their lovely ladies


The stars of the show.