Sunday, August 31, 2008

Jason and I are almost settled in our new place, with the exception of a few boxes still needing to be unpacked...I didn't realise we had so much stuff!
Our move went pretty smoothly. We were up early to pick up the van, poor Jason having to learn to drive it with me in there, not an easy job....we only nearly applied for a divorce a couple of times ...well I do get a bit stressed! When we got back, our lovely friends were there waiting to help us move all our stuff, with their help, we were done loading the van in a couple hours!
We grabbed a quick coffee and a cake and then Jason, Mark and I said goodbye to everyone and set off on our way. It was a bit of a journey as we were in a big van piled up with our stuff, but we eventually got there. It was about 3pm when we finally had unloaded the van, then Mark had to shoot off, so Jase and I were just left with the horrible task of unpacking everything. We got a fair bit done on Saturday evening, then we just had to sit down and chill as we were so tired.
The next day it was a 6.30am start to drop off the van back and clean our old flat. Now, in hindsight, I would have hired someone to do this, I did think about it, but I wanted to save the money, so decided against it. It ended up taking us 6 hours!!! We were exhausted, my poor back and shoulders were killing me. I said to Jason that I didn't think it would have taken that long, but he said he knew it would cos he knows how fussy I am about cleaning...cheeky! He seems to think I enjoy it...well I guess I do, as long as it's my own place and it's just maintenance cleaning...I find it really rewarding to sit back afterwards and see how lovely it looks!
We got back to our new home in time for dinner which consisted of the left-over pizza from the previous night. I must say, I love our new place, it's sooo nice, I don't miss our old flat one bit, this is in a different league, we have so much more space, and of course it's newly renovated which is lovely. I love having a shower there, for a start the bathroom is huge, but the best thing is we have a really big water heater here, so no more 3 minute showers trying to rush washng the conditioner out of your hair before the water turns cold! Plus no more fighting with the shower curtain which had a habit of sticking to your body, we have a proper cubicle...big enough for about 10 people!! probably not so great when it comes to cleaning, but I haven't crossed that bridge just yet.
I had the day off last Monday, so it gave me a chance to get things more sorted. I had a bit of a walk around our new neighbourhood to find some food, and I got such a nice feeling about the place, it's actually a fair bit bigger than I originally thought, and everyone seems so friendly, which is good.
So getting to work takes a fair bit longer, but with a newspaper or book, it does fly by, it just means getting up a bit earlier and getting home a bit later, but it's not so bad. Talking of work, can't remember if I mentioned before that I've got to apply for my own job, because of the Bupa takeover, there is a whole new restructure, so because I'm a contractor, I have to apply which is a pain. I put my application in on Friday, and if I'm the only applicant, then my boss has said I don't need to interview for it, which is great, because they've an external consulting company doing the interviews, so fingers crossed!
So back to our new place, we had a busy day yesterday buying lots of things. We bought a couple of bar stools for our breakfast bar, so we've got somewhere to sit while we eat. We want to get a couple of bedside tables too, but then we thought we may as well wait and buy a bedroom set, inc bed so it all matches. We have also seen a dining table which we just need to measure our room to see if it will fit, it's great, we've got that much room to have a dining room table!
Last night, Jason and I went out for our first meal out in the area, we went to a small Thai restaurant, was funny, there was only 3 other groups of people in there! After that we thought we'd check out our new local pub. There was a live band on, who were actually quite good, all the locals were dancing and having fun, it was very different to your city bars, was very funny to watch! I said to Jason I keep getting paranoid when I walk around here, I think everyone is looking at me and saying, "she's new to the area!" as it is such a small community. I was half expecting for the music to stop when we walked into the pub last night and everyone stop what they were doing and start staring! But of course they didn't.
Anyway, must get on, we've got some more domestic stuff to do today.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Well, it turns out I was disqualified from the City to Surf!! I can't believe it! I wondered why my result wasn't in the newspaper with everyone elses, so I phoned up the organisers, just to check that my timing chip hadn't got mislaid (as you get charged $50 for it), anyway, she tells me that I was disqualified because I started in the wrong colour section...oops! For some reason my work had organised me a different colour bib to everyone else (there are 4 different colour start sections) the one I was given was at the back of the pack, so I thought it wouldn't be noticed if I snuck in with everyone else....little did I know that it would mean that I didn't get an official time! Everyone at work thought it was highly amusing, and they were all calling me a cheat, and I'd be relegated to right to the back next year, while Jason would be in the front section! I mean, it's ridiculous, it's supposed to be a fun run!
Really getting into the Olympics at the moment, I'm happy to say that at the time of writing, Great Britain are in 3rd place in the medals table (above Australia..hehe!). I know anything can happen, but we seem to be doing much better than anyone had thought...go GBR!!
Just had a call from Jason, he's just been to pick up the keys to our new flat. I had to ask him lots of questions about the flat as I'd only seen it once and that was a few weeks ago and I've forgotten what it looked like. I had a horrible dream last night that it was really tiny and we'd made a big mistake..but Jason has confirmed it's bigger than where we are now, so that's great!
I'm really over packing now, our flat is a mess, it looks like a bomb has hit it, I didn't realise we had so much stuff! I hope it doesn't take long to settle into our new place!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

I am getting very slack at my updates now. I just don't seem to get a minute to log on! We've a bit of news, Jason and I are moving house. We've sort of been checking out an area a bit further south and away from the city, thinking that if we do want to buy a place, that would be the only place we could afford to as the prices are ridiculously high where we currently are. Also, we just received notice that the landlords are putting up our rent.
So we drove down a couple of weekends ago just to get an idea, and while we were there, we found a place available to rent. We had a look, and the flat was lovely, all new paint, new carpets, new kitchen, bathroom and doors, a far cry from where we currently live, so we made a spot decision to put in an application. Found out last Tuesday that it was accepted, and it's been all go since! I must say, I'm feeling a little dubious, it's just under an hours train ride from the city, which means that we will be further away from all our friends, and planning a night out will prove a little more difficult, but if we want to buy there, we must live there first to see if we like it, plus I think it will do us good not being in close radius to all the pubs etc....after all we are getting on a bit!!
The area we are moving to is very nice, it's close to the train station, it's a very family orientated community, we are still within 30 mins drive of the sea, plus there is the second oldest national park (1st being Yellowstone in the US) closeby, and it is massive, it's 132sq km, so there will be lots of nice walks there (oh my, I can't believe what I'm saying!) But really, I am looking forward to it, especially to living in a nice clean place where everything (hopefully) works. Just out of interest, I checked the internet to see the advert for our current flat, thinking they'd have put the rent up a bit more...couldn't believe to find out that they've bumped it up $70 a week more!! what a joke, but that's how it is at the moment, any rental properties just get snapped up there is so little around.

So, what else have we been up to...well I went to see Mamma Mia again with the guys from work, then I managed to persuade Jason to come with me to see the Rocky Horror show at the theatre, which I have to say was brilliant!
On Sunday, we did the City to Surf (14km walk/run) I wasn't going to run it as I hadn't trained and didn't want to further injure my knee, but of course as soon as I was there I got swept away with the crowds (70.000 plus) and my competitive streak came in, so I ran most of it, apart from the big hill half way through! A bit silly of me, but I couldn't help myself. Jason did extremely well, his time was 72 mins, mine was a more modest 1hr 40mins, not bad considering I walked some and also didn't train!

Well, I've gone on enough now! Until next time