from the tip of Africa to the edge of Aus

APIA

2012-01-14T19:24:00.001+11:00

Carmen and I taking an evening out tonite to watch the APIA International at Sydney Olympic Park. Been raining so the guys are drying the court low tech with towels and blowers instead of Tennants - silly billies!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Nottinghill Rd,Berala,Australia

End of Phase I

2011-10-16T18:10:00.018+11:00

Ok so I am calling this end of Phase I - the garage floor still has to be coated and the garden is still short a few shrubs, cladding is to be done and skylights put in but this is part of PhaseII so this will be last post on the house for a while - I can get back to normal day to day stuff and hope to do some touristy stuff. We are really happy in our house - I know there are many bigger and fancier, but it is really home for us and thanks to Gideon of Plantastik http://plantastikservices.com - even the garden is better than I could ever have imagined - cos I am hopeless at that! Here goes:

Hey we have grass!

Still waiting for last 2 shrubs by postbox.

2nd garden bed.

Carmen's cabinet - finally arrived - weighs an absolute ton! The laser combo scanner doesn't fit in the cabinet!!! So this is how it is going to have to stay :-(

Wires tidied up as much as I could. These desks make it difficult.

Our Bedroom suite - not everybody's taste I know, but at least we have draws!

The wires to the right of Carmen's pedestal have been sorted - no more clutter!

En Suite - don't have wide angled lens - so not great shot. Soap dispenser holds 1.8Litres so good for a month or 2!

Guest room - ready for our first visitors T&S

Lounge skirting under fireplace last thing to be finished.

T&C talking about life love and everything else in the Dining area. Both bins to the right behind are sensor bins - no touch - the large is for recycled the smaller for general waste. The box in the middle is just a carton from a gift that sneaked into the photo awaiting disposal - oops!

Alfresco - screen sliding doors fitted.

The back garden - interim but done for now!

The garage -still in dire need of attention - next project!

Death of Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T17:04:00.013+11:00

Like a great number of people and given that he was a complete stranger, I was - perhaps strangely - saddened, when I heard the news of the death of Steve Jobs this week. I kept hearing commentary on the radio about how he had changed the world and people's lives etc. and initially I thought of Henry David Thoreau. In Walden, Thoreau wrote about how the invention of the telegraph had radically changed the way that people communicate but simultaneously questioned whether its invention had actually contributed anything to humanity at all. What was it that people were using these new means of communication for? Had it elevated the level of discourse? Or had it just increased the volume and speed of idle chatter? I must confess to viewing Steve Job's accomplishments with the same jaundiced eye and had no thoughts of blogging about his passing.

And then as I (an expat South African) sat at the traffic lights here in Sydney with my iTouch on the dash, in the German car next to mine sat a young Asian guy and he was scrolling through Apps on his iPhone. And it struck me, not only the global impact that his company has had on communication, but that it had in fact, affected my life - and profoundly so. Between my wife and I we own 2 ipod shuffles, an iMac, 2 iphones, an Apple TV and an itouch. Still I wouldn't describe myself as an Apple fanboy - Apple's censorship of Apps that are at odds with its political or social agenda has never endeared me to the company. By all accounts, Steve Jobs was a ruthless and self-centred man who had a singular vision that drove him to eventually achieve the success he attained in business, but whose personal life was... well less admirable. Whether or not he could have achieved what he did any other way is a question, I don't know the answer to. Could he have been successful if he had paid the makers of his products a just and living wage instead of shipping those jobs to China? Am I not complicit in that decision by owning and utilising his products? All hand wringing aside, as somebody who constantly travels as part of my job, I am now able to listen to podcasts and talks from all over the world and pray the Divine Office through apps on my iTouch and phone. I am instantly in touch with family and friends all over the world in an immediate way I would otherwise not have been able to be. I have learned things and heard speakers I would never had had the chance to hear if it were not for Steve Job's contribution to technology.

I am just sorry he experienced life as isolated as he did. In one of his more well known addresses at the Stanford commencement in 2005, he said that Dogma is a trap of living with the results of other people's thinking. I was recently doing an assignment in Canon Law and tracing the history of one of the laws of the Church that dated back to the year 252. It made me aware of the rich treasure and privilege it has been for my life to be part of a community 2000 years old - I felt the hands of my older brothers and sisters reaching across the millenia to guide me in my search for truth - not a fossilized Dogma, but a dynamic engaging Dogma of Aquinus, Augustine, countless Bishops and theologians that meant I never had to reinvent the theological or philosophical wheel but could explore world's infinitely further than I could ever have reached on my own. How sad it is that Steve could not acknowledge the debt he owed to those that informed his own journey - and even his business ideas - whatever he could see was a result of standing on the shoulders of those that went before him. Rick Warren perhaps put it best: The problem with self-made man is that he usually worships his maker.

In human terms, Steve Jobs was a technological visionary and a man of immense creative talent and I tip my hat to him in gratitude for the way his inventions have enriched my life. But I can't shake the fact that his lauded vision was ultimately comprised of technological trinkets. In entrusting his soul to the mercy of God, I pray that he may experience the wonder of the Beatific vision that simply dwarfs to an infinitely exponential degree, his own.

Phase I nearing completion

2011-10-02T23:23:00.007+11:00

Just a quick interim update on the house. We will post final pics of Phase I next week when our furniture is in. But here are some for now. Bye till next week!

The front garden. Final turf and flower bed will be put in next week.

Our back garden looking from the Alfresco - we had finished the deck design and were about to purchase the wood, lighting water features and pumps, but have decided to grass instead as we will be saving up and putting in a swimming pool when finances allow.

Carmen's study now has a little 'kuier' corner.

My study is the only 'completed' room in the house - no more furniture to be added - only files and books to be sorted properly, arranged and labelled. On the left of the picture through the bookcase, you can see my writing desk - I do no work there - it is my hobby corner used solely for writing.

The library end of my study - also with its own 'kuier' corner where you can curl up with a book.

Kangaroo Valley

2011-10-02T23:02:00.005+11:00

About 88 km from where we now live, is a picturesque little town called Kangaroo Valley (appropriate for Aus I guess!)We took a drive out there today but I never took any shots of the town. I will ask Richard to do so next time with his new fancy lens. The road on the way there is the Kemblawarra road and having travelled extensively throughout NSW as a result of my job, I have to say it must rate as one of the State's most beautiful areas. The vegetation is lush and the scenery simply breathtaking. I tried to take some photos, but it is impossible for me to capture the beauty of this part of the world.

The mist rolling over the hills

So dense and lush and green - feels like you are in a tropical rain forest.

The road is tight and twisty - Richard longed for his AWD quattro :-( !

Garden

2011-09-19T22:17:00.014+10:00

So if you've been wondering what I've been doing for the past few weeks, the answer is sweating over a garden. I hate gardening at the best of times, but this was ridiculous. A landscaper friend, Gideon and my brother basically whipped me along making sure the garden got done properly. The clay here is insanely hard -we used a pick and you were never sure if you had struck a hidden concrete outcrop from the building or clay - it was that hard. We hired a rotovator - like a mechanical plough to help us, but this was heavy work. About 9 cubic metres of compost later and 5 cubic metres of granite and bags of gypsum to break up the clay and the preparations are done. Gideon and R also put in drip and normal irrigation. The fence is up at last - already one of the neighbours complained to the Estate because it is dark not light as per the guidelines - seriously how sad is your life that the major issue in your life is the colour of your neighbour's fence? Get a life! Anyway... I will have some internal shots hopefully by next week. All my bookcases are in but labelling the bookshelves and setting them out is a work in progress and I am too embarrassed to post work in progress pics! Till next time -bye for now!

I should have gone with my first instinct and put down astro turf!!!

Endless moving of soil.

The rotovator aka Gideon's exercise machine.

The back of the house - awaiting decking, lighting, water features and grass. May not look it, but boy was this hard graft!

Ready for plants and turf

Taking shape - we chose the colour to match our garage door and gutters.

I better mention - Carmen and Kerry built all the flat pack stuff while little Abi 'helped' them. The long hall table on the right is actually an adaption - I removed the wheels - it is supposed to be a rolling table that goes over a queen sized bed so you can eat in bed or whatever.

Moved in - Phase 1

2011-08-21T21:41:00.017+10:00

I know that this is going to sound like an excuse, but because of commitments and trying to squeeze the unpacking of our stuff into our new house into what has been a hectic time we have had 8 hours sleep in 2 days so am feeling slammed! I never had a chance to take proper photos. By the time I did - we had people pop around for dinner - I had like 3 minutes to quickly snap a few so excuse the quality. This is Phase I - just moved in, nothing is finished yet back at work tomorrow and still a heck of a lot to do!
Good nite!

The hallway -some paintings hung but others we can't until we know exactly where furniture is going.

Carmen's study -awaiting a white gloss cabinet before we hide all wiring and her printer will also disappear. The painting in the background has still to be hung - but needs to be centred on cabinet so will await that.

Again some furniture changes due - bookcases are out of the picture to the right and once supplementary bookcases arrive, I can hang the painting centred to my work desk. Scale difficult to judge from a photo, but the room is a nice size - for term of reference the monitors in the pic are 24 inch ones.

We are very happy the way the kitchen turned out. Excuse the clutter - Carmen was preparing supper.

You can't see it very well in this photo, but the oven is really cool - no buttons :-) Our convection microwave was our existing one and fitted in nicely- only a pity the display is green, and not white like the oven's.

The hob looks better in real life than when we chose on the net. And yes there on the right of the picture is the star of a previous blog - Toaster himself! Have not test driven yet. Will do so this week.

The sink - that is a real flower and I wished it could stay like this, but we are going to have to clutter this picture with a soap dispenser for practical reasons. :-(

Looking out towards the Alfresco - still awaiting timber inserts and the old barbecue which has started to rust will be replaced with a more permanent one.

The dining table set for our first dinner - no lights in the Diningroom - we have the fittings, but need to fit them still - on the list to do asap.

Driveway

2011-08-14T20:31:00.004+10:00

Ok surely the internet or this blog has reached a new low when the most exciting pic I can post is of my driveway, but it is finally finished. The aircon covers are on and the fireplace is gyprocced up. The tradies go in on Tuesday and the carpets on Wednesday so on Thursday and Friday we move in. Phase I is the move in. Phase II will take about another 6-8 weeks to get the furniture and other stuff sorted and Phase III when everything is done should be within about 8-12 weeks. We spent the weekend packing, my brother and fam moved into his rental as they prepare to commence building so it was a busy weekend. I will post a full summary pictorial next week of the result of the end of Phase I. And with Thursday and Friday off, that makes it a 3 day week! All good!
Cheers!

Toaster

2011-08-06T17:50:00.004+10:00

Ok, so I get excited about well-made stuff - even kitchen appliances :-). Our current toaster is one that we bought about 12 years ago and somewhere along the way, a plastic bread packet brushed up against it in the midst of toasting operations and melted onto the metal side. It didn't affect the performance but old toasty was known to be a little bit temperamental and the bright red birthmark on his side didn't improve his appearance. Anyway he still worked so I couldn't justify getting rid of him. Somebody however just bought us this machine below - I hesitate to use the mere word 'Toaster' for this marvel of modern engineering. I don't know if you are up with the latest technology in these bread crispers, but this surely has to be Toaster - the very definition of what all toasters dream of being:
1. First of all you will notice it has 4 slots - no more jostling for position between Carmen and me.
2. The slots are extra wide and go extra deep to accommodate oversize slices.
3. Do you see the gap between the top of the 'depressers'? that is so that if you have a small slice of bread or a crumpet, you can lift it that extra bit higher so that you don't have to waste time digging around with a knife (which is unsafe not to mention frustrating as your toast gets cold (sacrilege) while you poke around and hack the blasted elusive thing to pieces.)
4. Independent temperature controls for left and right pairs of slots! I know! - awesome, hey? I mean can you believe how civilised that is? Cars have independent left and right climate controls - so why not toasters? Imagine - you and your wife chatting happily, relaxed, sharing a lovely breakfast, no que for the toaster and each one able to perfectly toast slices to their own taste to perfection, side by side without interfering or disturbing the toasting of the other. This has to be, at the very least, part of the secret of a long and happy marriage! Sheer genius! I don't think I am overstating it, am I?
5. A special crumpet button
6. Of course the standard temperature settings as well as a defrost function
7. Personal opinion, but boy she looks good.

As you may have gathered, I hate clutter and appliance clutter on kitchen counters is no different, but I am seriously giving consideration to allowing this technological masterpiece to grace our counter tops...

Showers in and Driveway prepped

2011-08-06T16:24:00.009+10:00

Well it looks like I am going to have to have a whine at the builders - they seem to be losing speed towards the end. This week the driveway prepwork was finished, reinforcing laid and the actual concrete will be thrown on Monday. The fencing will also be completed next week. They put the shower frames in and the study floor went in this morning - we have booked the carpets for the 16th so as close to moving in as possible. Apologies for the quality of the pics - I forgot my camera and these are taken with my iphone.

Shower in main bathroom - we went with semi-frameless as opposed to frameless as I have never seen a frameless shower that doesn't leak water. Function here over aesthetics.

Mirrors are in as well and place is beginning to feel more 'finished'.

Ensuite shower - the builder and the shower guys really didn't like my idea of sliding doors as they said it is old-fashioned, but a swing door always drops little bits of water when the doors swing out - frameless or not - which irritates me. In Sydney all bathrooms I have seen are wetrooms with floor drains so even if you get a lot of water on the floor, it doesn't matter, but it makes a mess so I honestly just don't see the point.

Shower door sliders slide from both sides fully open so the tracks at the bottom can be cleaned very easily and there is no place for any soap buildup to occur. No soap dishes or recesses as we have mounted dispensers for shower gel, shampoo, etc.

My study - floor looks really nice in real- life - not a great pic. It is quite textured giving a rustic effect. Cannot wait to give the place a proper clean!

Till next week. Cheers!

Quick pic

2011-08-02T19:29:00.002+10:00

No not the lotto - I was on the way back from Wagga Wagga today and popped in at the house - the driveway has been started and the alarm is in - it is a free inclusion on the golf estate. The decking on the patio Alfresco was also done so I took a quick pic with my trusty old Nokia phone so apologies for the quality! Cheers.

Sydney big day out

2011-07-31T17:56:00.013+10:00

Well we have a final date now - the handover of our house will be on the 18th August. One of the faults was the sliding door lock which they replaced and hence my key doesn't work so no update pics this week. Only the retaining wall has gone in and our internet connection 100MBps is live :-). We opted for the 60Gig monthly cap.

We took a day off the house and went into the city for a day out:

There is a ferry terminal called Circular Quay - it is like a little bay / harbour between the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. It is to the left of this little park called Herald Park if memory serves. Nice water feature though no park as such.

We had some lunch at a restaurant we've eaten at a couple of times before called Rossini, which is on Circular Quay. I took this shot from inside the restaurant looking out. Good food and well priced.
Waiting for lunch... The little fingers on the right reaching for another rice cake. Ours was a bit more flavourful!
There was a coffee festival going on - called The Rocks Aroma Festival (the area under the Sydney Harbour Bridge is called The Rocks) and featured all sorts of spiced coffee. As a non-coffee drinker I never tasted any and managed to keep the others moving along. Apologies for those who would have liked a report. That is the Sydney Youth Orchestra on the stage.
A small part of the large crowd. You can see the public recycling bins on the left - all garbage is separated here in Aus and people by and large do the right thing.

Not a great pic, but just showing the bridge on the left and the Opera House on the right.
This is the iconic Sydney Tower. I feel like a tree hugger, but they have mounted an ugly, garish red sign on top. It reads Westfields -which is the name of a large retail group of shopping centres here who have recently built a shopping centre under the tower. It is money gone nuts - I don't know how they could mar a landmark with that ugly sign! It really is jarring. If I had the time I would start a petition or Facebook site to have it taken down. It seems money can buy anything.

Just a shot I took from the train station at Circular Quay of 2 buildings I thought were quite striking.The domed one has glass all the way to the top. I really think Sydney has one of the world's prettiest skylines.

Cheers till next week!

Painting weekend

2011-07-24T18:15:00.007+10:00

The past week has been unreal weather wise! We have had the wettest July in Sydney for 61 years so the plot is a mud bath! I should've taken photos, but didn't think of it at the time. When we move in, on the advice of G our landscaper friend we will work about a ton of river sand into the garden which is mostly clay as well as a chemical that breaks up the clay before we churn in the compost. We spent the weekend cleaning up a bit and painting the 2 studies. I vacuumed all the bedrooms and the one study where carpets will be laid down as I suspect that most times, the carpet guys give the room a perfunctory sweep and then throw the underlay and carpets down.

Carmen's study turned out really well - I am not sure if you can see on the photos, but it is in a textured paint called Suede and the colour is Sage green. Apart from the house, the other finishes like the fence and blinds etc. look like they are going to end up being around 35k so we had to make a call and decided that sadly the plantation shutters would have to wait. This room will now have white blinds for the time being and we'll save up for the shutters. :-( My study is more controversial - it is really dark - with the high window as you will see below it is what I was aiming for - I have heavy dark furniture and will have dark bookcases - I like the old look so as I have told those over here who have raised their eyebrows, give it until the paintings and furniture are in before final judgement. However, though I would like other people to like our house in general, my study is the one place where it doesn't matter what people ultimately think - it is the one piece that is entirely mine (and partially the bank's for now) on the planet - if I felt like putting in a purple polka dot ceiling, I would! Anyway. The rain prevented the fence or driveway from being put in, but the tiling is done. More shots when it is cleaned up next week.
Have a great week!

PS: Please don't mention the rugby...

Carmen's study. Although too 'girly' for me, I think it will look really nice when the carpet and her furniture is in.

Nice view of the portaloo from the study. On that subject, we have to pay $350 per quarter just for the privilege of having recycled water for the garden on top of our water bill! Time to vote the green nuts out of parliament. Can't wait till we can vote!

The entrance to the study - it was a lot of work. Photos of painted walls are not exciting, but it was so labour intensive, I am taking a moment to just appreciate our handiwork :-)
My study - awaiting the dark wood (actually bamboo cos it's harder) floors and furniture. I have to confess Carmen was a little bit cheesed with me - she painstakingly took over half an hour to put the special masking tape on the skirting boards in preparation for the painting and I even popped in to check she was doing it carefully enough, which didn't impress her. After she had finally finished and her butt was almost asleep from scooting along the hard floor, I remembered that I was painting the skirtings the same colour.... I was not popular. Ooops!

Somebody mailed me and asked for a shot of the top - here it is - en suite basins.

Wet areas almost done

2011-07-17T17:21:00.014+10:00

So we arrived back from SA and the house has progressed a little. Bathrooms are tiled, though the mosaic inlay in the main bathroom was left out, so they will have to rip out the tiles and put that in. The power is now connected and lights are in but the 8 dimmer switches are not in (I don't like harsh lighting) so those will also have to be replaced. Excuse the place - everything is still covered in grouting dust and the main tiled areas have yet to be done though the tiles are on site. Still, we're getting closer..... it looks like they will be throwing the driveway slab this week and the fence will be done as they commenced work on that as well. Back to work tomorrow :-(.

Looking down the hallway towards the front door (tiling not done yet). The red dot on the ceiling is the temporary cover for the smoke alarm. You can clearly see in this shot the 2 dark spots - the skylights will be installed directly above these to eliminate them.
The en suite shower. Not big, but 3 heads - 1 for Carmen and 1 for me - we never shower together as we fight about the water too much so this should address that! The middle one with the hose is mainly to make cleaning the shower easier.
The double basin in en suite - another place of grumpy morning battles. The handles are still inside the draws to protect them for now. The cabinet doors and draws are soft-close - for if we have little ones later on.

Hmmm - this blog is going downhill. Back to wall WC's so no dust behind - one of life's little irritants gone. The supplier threw in soft close lids as well - apparently toddlers love to slam WC lids so nice to have in case!

The guest WC off the main bathroom. Some people questioned why we put in a separate basin and WC from the main bathroom, but if we one day have kids or overnight guests and somebody is in the bath or shower, the WC is still available for use.

The bath - which we will never use but is essential for kids I guess. The waterfall spout was Carmen's request.

Window's a little too big for my liking....

Laundry. Yes it is small - I wanted basically a Laundry walk in closet size area, but architect convinced me for resale had to have one. I grudgingly gave space. Taps are normal not Grohe like the rest of the house. Probably most unloved space in the house.

Shot from other side of laundry. The bowl is over sized to allow for scrubbing of braai (barbecue) grids and pots so kitchen sink does not get messed up. Broom cupboard size designed to take vacuum cleaner and ironing boards so no clutter. One of my cheapest purchases but most rewarding were the wall bracket mounts that will be mounted inside the cupboard from IKEA to hold the irons and the vacuum cleaner hoses and pipes to avoid clutter in there as well. We have draw organisers for all our draws in kitchen, bathrooms and bedrooms and draw and cupboard shelf liners as well to try and keep things tidy.

Grotto Bay

2011-07-13T03:03:00.008+10:00

I don't know if it ever happens to you that you occasionally wonder about what your life would have been like if it had taken a different path. Today we took a drive out to one of my favourite places in the world, Grotto Bay, outside Cape Town. It is an estate on a nature reserve right on the coast. There is a brand new house (photo below) that is not quite finished and that has been for sale for a while and it always reminds me of the pictures you see in books of Cape Cod in the US. If Carmen and I had stayed in SA it is what we would have bought. This house has a fireplace and nestles in the wild unspoilt fynbos of the West Coast, with nothing but beach sand between you and the sea about 75 metres below on a pristine white beach. And then my aunt who lives there told us of a spate of of break-ins that had been occurring in the reserve - mercifully unknown up until relatively recently. Once she started outlining the upgrading of the security arrangements that had become necessary in the wake of these incidents, I remembered again that we had considered purchasing houses similar to this one prior to our move to Aus, but realized the futility of trying to outrun the blight that the scourge of criminality has brought upon this land. It makes no difference anymore if I am angry or sad at it all... it's just the way it is... and in a few days I go home to Aus...

If you click on the image to enlarge it, you can get a sense of how special this place is.

05-07-2011

2011-07-05T06:21:00.005+10:00

It’s been 3 years. Just 36 months. The time it takes to do a degree. The length of the warranty on a car. The length of time to perhaps pay off a lounge suite.
How far have I travelled in 36 months? 150 000km by road and 50 000 by air?
How many meals have I eaten? 3285?
How many sunsets have I looked at? Not seen. Looked at. Maybe 3?
How many sunrises over the water have I enjoyed? Maybe 2?
How many harsh words have I spoken and written?
How many kind?

How has it mattered that I lived while you died?
Did I think that because it was you in the accident and not me Kirst, that it somehow matters? That I survived and not you? How has it mattered? That I escaped Fate’s cruel blow and you didn’t? When Plato spoke through Socrates about those that avoid death at all costs, he said: they think it will be a dreadful thing to lose their lives; as though they would be immortal if you did not put them to death (at that time)

Truth be told, I have not being worthy of this gift. I have wasted and squandered minutes and hours and days. Were you here you would have chastised me to suck in the very air I breathe, greedily and with vigour, knowing that every breath is a second chance.
And so I ask 2 things now: forgiveness from you and then the God who every moment of every day gives me life and holds me in being. That I may recall your memory and His presence which call me to account, especially in the midst of my distracted forgetfulness. As Boethius put it: we earthly creatures dream of our origin, however faint the vision.
And secondly that you pray for us that we may always head towards that true Good, the source of our life and its journey’s end. Rest in peace, dearest Kirstin. You are so very deeply missed. Until we meet again.

What's behind the grey door?

2011-07-02T15:27:00.004+10:00

We went to the house today to take shots of the tiled areas, but the door was locked and the cylinder missing so I could not use my key :-(. Well the front door and the luandry side door was painted so that's about as exciting as it gets this week. Should be somethings to see on our return. I am taking my camera with to SA and will see if I have a gap to blog here and there.

PS: those mysterious white blocks in my lounge last week are what they use to 'brick' the bathtub in, instead of using normal bricks. Still weird.

Cheers for now!

Counters on

2011-06-28T17:55:00.010+10:00

I had to travel near the house today for work so on the way back home popped in to check if anything has happened. Well, the tiles are there at last! The counters are in and they look nice in real life. Apologies for the quality of the photos - I didn't plan to go past the house so didn't have my camera - I took these with my iPhone and the light was fading fast. So the counters are good. BUT. I saw that they had screeded the bathroom shower floors and this is one of my bugbears. I don't care if I have to stand on a ski slope or I am old one day and slip and break my hip. I absolutely hate flat shower floors. I don't just dislike them, I hate them with a passion - you know the ones where the water slowly meanders down towards the drain? I specifically told the builder that I don't care if my ankles and feet are at 60 degrees to the horizontal, please slope the shower floors. He promised he would get the tiler to call me before he screeded which of course he didn't. I shall be making a call tomorrow. We can send men to the moon and build Bugatti Veyrons, can't we build shower floors that drain properly??? !!!

PS: there is a pile of stone blocks in my lounge (see below) that I cannot, for the life of me, work out what they could be for? Any ideas?

The hob will go in there.

The sink.

The sink window - not so much a window as a feature like a painting. Will have water running down on the outside with a flowering creeper for colour.

The island is the most expensive traveller I know - I'm not kidding. To move it 200mm to the right cost us $280!

View across the Dining room which will overlook the blue ponds.

What are these? Made out of a light stone? Not as heavy as our counter tops though- weird?

One of those blasted shower floors!!! Look how flat it is! Seriously what is wrong with these people? Yes I am quite finished now. Thank you.

Painting begins

2011-06-26T16:31:00.008+10:00

The painting began this week as progress moves at an agonisingly slow pace! We are ready to move in now and get on with our lives! C'mon Mr Painter, plumber and sparkie! We leave next week for a visit to SA so will try and get some shots next Saturday before we leave and then will be a few weeks before we will post any updates again. Maybe it is a good thing - the tiling will definitely be done by then and the bathrooms in. Anyway, here are some shots. Some of the rooms that you see here are going to be painted another colour before we move in. It was just too complicated and confusing to try and get the painter to do it for us so I told him I would do it myself. Let's leave it at that. Deep breath. Till next week. Cheers!

From the front door down the passage. The house is starting to look almost liveable with some paint on the walls. The front door will be the same colour as the garage door - monument so still has to be painted obviously.

The garage. At the bottom where you see the unpainted raw cement, I am going to extend the grey epoxy floor coating up to the height of the white skirting as it is more resistant to scuff marks than the normal house paint.

Carmen's study - this paint will change completely to Apple Green Suede - a textured light green paint with white plantation shutters and have a glass and steel desk, polished white low filing cabinet below a painting behind her and cream carpets for a modern, light, uncluttered feel. She has a 27 "Mac, with the white and aluminium wireless keyboard and mouse so the aluminium backing of the screen will fit nicely.There will be no wires visible. Period.

Looking down the passage to the front door. The passage is long and dark, though if you click on the picture to blow it up, you will see it is not that narrow. Once building is done, we are putting in 3 skylights to lighten it up and break up the 'tunnel' effect. I have already seen a long narrow hall table that will also break the space.

Looking towards the dinning room - again that wall will be painted a textured buckskin sued colour to offset the dark plantation shutters in the 3 windows. If you look through them, you should see the deep blue of the ponds out back. It is also the only place in the house that doesn't have downlighters - 3 hanging lights above the table.

Towards the lounge. Am not 100 percent decided on colour here - difficulty is that we have dark leather furniture and coffee table. Am thinking about putting in white shutters against darker feature wall. We''ll see.

The Hermitage Mittagong

2011-06-25T17:50:00.018+10:00

Around an hour and a half from Sydney is a small town called Mittagong. ( Visiting these little rural New South Wales towns seems to be becoming a habit for me.) I am here for a Youth Ministry leadership weekend run by the Diocese of Wollongong and it is being held at the Marist Brothers' farm out here called The Hermitage. It is a place where anybody looking for a time out can stay - there are private cottages etc. and it is great for retreats or just a quiet getaway. The photos below just don't do it justice, it is so pretty out here. You can visit it online at:
http://www.thehermitage.org.au/ Here are some shots:

As you drive in to the entrance - I love these trees - don't know why but they remind me of the film, Gladiator.

Another shot of them looking down the road.

Standing amongst them shooting across the paddock - they line most of the entrance road - ok I'll stop photographing them now! Just such clean and neat trees. :-)

There is a stream running through the farm with a large duckpond.
Looking down from the top of the hill.

There is the pond on the right. The field I walked up as you can see is not manicured lawn but 'mowed' by the cows. Uneven and with large dung piles. When was the last time you walked through a field on a farm? Made me wish I had a pair of dungarees, a straw hat while chewing on a piece of hay. And then the city slicker came out in me as I started speculating what cool state of the art features and gadgets today's modern tractors must have and if they have ipod docks? I never captured it, but I saw 2 of the religious brothers who work the farm, fly by on their quad bikes .

Just space everywhere. The house where we had our meals and sessions.

Looks like one of those country living adverts.

This Crucifix used to live in a church but was moved outside in 2008. Great view from there and so peaceful on a hill in amongst the trees. One of the Brothers who lives here, Brother Andrew said that there used to be 17 congregations of religious orders that lived in the area at one time. This farm used to be a dairy farm, but with the decline in their numbers, it is now a cattle farm - apart from the retreat / guesthouse business of course.

Cheers for now.

Kitchen in

2011-06-17T19:00:00.007+10:00

We had to meet the guys on site today for the measurement of the blinds so took some shots. The kitchen cupboards are in. The sink is at the stonemasons for them to get the measurements exact to fit into the stone tops. And tiling is next. That will be it for this week. We need to move the island a little closer to the sink by the window as it is a really large gap so will see if we can do so. You may not be able to see from the pics but the front of the island pointing away from the kitchen has no handles - the doors are push release because I thought handles would clutter the look. Our stone tops will be white. One issue is the kitchen window which you can see looks onto a fence unfortunately. I know it looks odd at the moment, but that fence will be stained dark and we will be running stainless steel wire along it with a flowering creeper to give lots of colour through the window and additionally are running a row of water solenoids on the outside of the window to turn it into a water feature so that as the water runs down the width of the window it will create a kaleidoscope of moving green and colours from the creeper. Again another chance we are taking and it could look kitsch, but given the space restriction, there were few alternatives especially given that we want to grab as much light as we can. Also not visible are the four integrated LED light sets that are recessed into the cupboards. They are wafer thin and don't protrude into the cupboards. I am debating putting dark blue LED sets in them to create a warmth to the lighting, but again will have to see about the fine line between striking and kitsch! Cheers for now!

Berry

2011-06-13T15:45:00.022+10:00

Well nothing further happened with our house this week :-(. The guys I think are waiting for the tiles to arrive so I am really hoping the kitchen and tiling will be done this week - bar the appliances of course. Apparently patience is a virtue...

Today, June 13, we celebrated the Queens birthday in New South Wales so it is a public holiday. It is kind of strange being in a country where, for example, at Mass yesterday we prayed for the queen as head of state - nice to still have the connection to the old empire! :-) Since we were off from work, we took a drive down to a picturesque little town called Berry, about 153 km from Sydney in the Cambewarra mountains which we have passed through before but have never had time to stop. We had lunch at a pub and walked to the main street - it has restaurants everywhere. Carmen and I had huge ice creams at a local ice-creamery - chocolate ripple and then we stopped off at arguably Berry's most well-known icon: The Famous Berry Donut Van. I had been told by a colleague that if we ever pass thru again, we had to stop. So we did. You have to wait for them as they don't stock any donuts but make them fresh while you wait. They were awesome - even though I am not a fan of cinnamon on donuts and prefer the old fashioned plain ones, I will concede that it hardly mattered here. It was a chilly, wet day and they were hot and luxuriant in your mouth, the soft dough wrapping itself around your tongue until it simply... melted away. Hmmmmm. Here are some shots of our visit, but as I have admitted before, my photography is a bit dodge. Go to http://berry.org.au/ for better pics. Cheers!

The main road of Berry.

Down one of the many little alleyways sprinkled with coffee-shops and bookshops.

Kerry my sister in law and my niece Abi in one of the sweet shops - Abi has not discovered sugar yet.

The pub where we had lunch - the face brick building. It was a little embarrassing - you're in a pub in rural Australia -not the Outback bush pub, I grant you but still, its rural Aus. And my fellow city slickers order Chai Lattes with their pub lunch! Seriously people....

A small town staple - one of the antique shops.

Same shop closer - apologies for the poor photography - I don't know if you can see how far back it goes - not small.

The Berry Museum - across the way from the pub where we had lunch - Abi and her dad heading over.

Another pedestrian area with shops all around - lots of these alcoves to discover and bric-a-bac shops to explore.

Abi meets a sheep - (a model for sale in a shop) and found him hilarious for some reason? I don't understand toddler humour yet! :-)

The Famous Berry Donut Van. Great Donuts! 3 Billion calories! Though it is well-known, if it was that famous surely you wouldn't have to state it in the name?

Down the main street - again you can see the hills in the background - one time when I wish I was a better photographer! Just to communicate visually how the town nestles amongst the mountains.

4pm on a public holiday and bumper to bumper traffic on the way to Sydney after the long weekend. We were soon to join them.

This is one street away from the main road in the photo before. Imagine this is your house: Home from work, kick off your shoes, glass of red wine, a comfy chair in front of the fireplace.

Finishing starts slowly

2011-06-05T11:19:00.006+10:00

After the dramatic change inside by Thursday, a lot of finishing happened. From here on out, it will go less dramatically so may not make for much material for photos -also difficult to get good interior shots. Here are some from earlier today.

Garage door is only major difference.

In Carmen's study - went for door and a half to open it up a bit. Bright sun-filled room.

In main bedroom looking towards door. Cavity sliding door on right to walk-in closet.

Towards kitchen area -that is the next step - installation of kitchen. The electrical wire sticking out of the ground is because we are having power to the island. We decided against a salad sink in favour of an uninterrupted counter top working space. The main sink will be like 2 feet away in any case. We didn't put a scullery in as we never leave dishes in the sink anyway, so for those who may wonder about it looking cluttered, our dishes get rinsed immediately and always go straight into dishwasher.

Cornices finished ready for lights. Just a note on that. We are having 50 downlights throughout the house. The sparkies (electricians) here charge $100 each for them! It cost us $5k additional just for downlighters! It is insane, but that is Aus -some things are expensive without any real reason.

Alfresco ceiling is in.

C u next week!

PS: Oven

2011-06-02T23:03:00.005+10:00

If money was no object ... this is surely Oven. Not an oven but the picture that should be next to Oven in the dictionary: all ovens dream of looking like this one. There may be more expensive ones, but more beautiful? (they retail for about $4k - so not monstrously expensive but pricey enough on top of everything else - and you need two if you need a double oven like this picture.)

Gyprock

2011-06-02T22:41:00.011+10:00

Progress pictures courtesy of Carmen :-)

Our front door - green is the colour of the primer - still to be painted.

Carmen's Study

Main bedroom

My study

Lounge looking towards study

Fireplace - gas powered.

Towards kitchen

Towards front door - the gap in the wall is for the cavity slider door to the study.

Garage door hung! The place looks like a tip!

Tomorrow the carpenters hang doors. Next stage is installation of kitchen and then tiling.
'bye for now.

A pink blankie for the house

2011-05-28T21:14:00.005+10:00

Ok so this week ends on a warm and fuzzy note after a frustrating start with electricians who can't think outside the square and delayed the Gyprocking. If you want something done, easiest to do it yourself. Anyway, I am too tired to go into that. Moving swiftly along. Not much has changed outside - some more wiring and the insulation is almost all up with the Gyprock now all onsite and ready to go. S by next week, it should look like a proper house inside. Even though the ceiling insulation is not in yet - just the walls being insulated made the house warmer. Hopefully look forward to leaps and bounds in internal changes next week. Goodnite!

The garage with its pink blanket - it only comes in one colour I believe...

Down the main hallway - the insulation on the right is because this part of the hallway backs onto the garage sidewall.

Gyprock stacked and ready to go.

Looking through the ensuite wires and pipes everywhere!

The pink all around makes you feel like you are the inside of a slipper.

Housewife stuff

2011-05-22T16:46:00.008+10:00

As the time comes closer for when they start fitting out the interior of the house, I am getting a little nervous - Carmen has raised her eyebrows but has let me have a go at being a little daring to try out a few things that could backfire. One of them is the sink we -(or I) have chosen - it is a black quartz sink by Schock (Model 200B) and I thought it was so beautiful I would've built my kitchen around it- ignore the tapwork - we have another type. But the thing is, we saw it after the kitchen was designed so I kind of threw it in and hope it will work with the colour scheme - I even changed our hob and oven etc. to black to complement it -see below, but there is no guarantee that that will help. If it does flop - I offer you this shot so that you may understand why I simply had to. If it doesn't work, well, we'll just have to change the cupboards! :-)

Wiring and ducting

2011-05-22T16:02:00.013+10:00

So no major external changes this week except for the pillar out front that was put in to support the portico. The electrical wiring and data cabling as been done and the solar panels fitted on the roof for our solar boosted gas hot water cylinder - very tree hugger stuff that we had to do as per the rules of the golf estate. This week should see the insulation and gyproc commencing and I think doors as well.

Pillar supporting Portico is the change -we are now debating leaving as is instead of plastering it.

They also sealed under the eaves - not a dramatic week but a lot of detail done.

And the pillar finally gone!

An inside shot. Part of aircon ducting visible top left.

How the actual pillarless roof stays up - may not look it on photo but quite a serious metal brace.

Electrical cabling through to garage

Part of the data cabling - although we will run wi-fi network in house we still have 6 hard data points in bedrooms, studies and for the TVs - no aerials or dishes allowed here - all TV will be via Fibre Optic.

Extraction point for aircon. In summer, Wilton gets really hot. Even with the reflective sarking and maximum thickness insulation in walls and ceiling, aircon is a must. Sydney's humidity while it may be less here further from the city is still for us as ex-Capetonians unbearable without it. Durbanites wouldn't find it as bad I guess. Brisbane and really the whole of Queensland would be more to what they are used to. Melbourne by all reports is more akin to Cape Town weather as it shares the same Mediterranean climate whereas Sydney's is Oceanic. On the plus side - and it really is a plus - we very rarely have any strong wind here which is heaven! C u next week.

Roof on bricks cleaned

2011-05-14T19:24:00.011+10:00

Ok so they cleaned the bricks and the colour scheme doesn't look as bad as I thought - well maybe somebody on the other side of this internet may disagree - maybe my taste has become Aussiefied! Anyway, I don't know if we should have gone with darker window frames but it is done now so too bad! With the roof on, it is beginning to feel like a house inside and we are starting to get excited. This coming week, all the aircon ducting goes in, the electrical wiring and data cabling gets done (we will have a 100MB Telstra Fibre optic line to the house -the fastest in Australia) and the gas fireplace is to be installed. Just had a question: the 'antennae looking' things on the roof are safety rails so the roofing guys don't fall off when tiling. Yes safety is ridiculous here!

From front right

From front left

From rear left

From rear right

Doors closed to Alfresco

Doors open to Alfresco - still waiting for them to move that temporary pillar! :-)

Tumbarumba

2011-05-14T19:06:00.006+10:00

I had to take a trip to Tumbarumba (about 6 hours from Sydney) for business this week and on the way back I took a couple of shots from the car. Beautiful part of the world - near Tumut which I blogged about before. Yes that is snow. :-)

For those of you who may or may not be curious about the type of Tennant gear I sell, this last pic is of one of our units. Though I get to see large scenic parts of New South Wales, my journey always ends up on some large industrial site - not the prettiest places to be. This particular site is the largest timber mill in the Southern Hemisphere.This Tennant Sentinel sweeper boasts a Turbo charged 4.41Litre Caterpillar Engine and can pickup about 2.6 cubic metres of dirt. It has 2 x 11.2kW vacuum fans that make sure no dust escapes. The vacuum hose mounted on the back of the machine is so strong it can suck up a brick easily. Tennant. Don't buy toys.

Brickwork done. Gutters on.

2011-05-08T10:54:00.015+10:00

The brickwork is done but the major thing that happened this week was that the gutters and facia boards went on in preparation for the roof which will happen this week. I will be glad when that is done since we won't be at the mercy of the weather so much anymore - not that it has been bad so far, thankfully. I will be the first to admit that I may have gotten the colour scheme not 100% right outside - we'll see once the roof is on so before anybody squints a bit if it comes out looking a little dodge, I am aware of that! I believe that we have got the inside decor right if nothing else - but we can poll on both once it is finished - everybody's taste is different so we'll see. Why face brick and aluminium? Well firstly maintenance-free but more importantly rendering (plastering) is hugely expensive here because labour for anything is high. I guesstimate it may have added 20-30 000 dollars to the house at the end of the day if we had plastered and then you still have to paint it. If you think South African houses are better built - yes they are more solid but less well insulated. South Africans do tend to have better colour co-ordination - most houses in Aus look like the old railway houses in South Africa from the 70's with red or cream brick and cream aluminium window frames. Melbourne is, I hear, slightly more modern in their taste. You still get a lot of oak finish here in NSW in kitchens and 'Biggie Best'and 'lace' steel decor on stoeps and patios. Anyway to each their own I guess. The thing is if you go too far away from the norm, you will never be able to resell, so you have to be aware of that. And yes the stacka doors etc. were left over a few days and weekend onsite with no security and the fence wide open as in the pics! See you next week!

From right front

From front left

From the rear left of the house into the Alfresco

A view from the rear right of the house.

Looking out onto the Alfresco. The gaps in the wall will have decorative timber slats in them initially but will be replaced with aluminium louvres to allow for variable light in summer and protection from the weather in winter when we do the Alfresco aluminium weather shutters - expected to be in total around$10k so we decided to hold off for a while on those. The supporting timber pillar in the middle will be removed once the roof is on and should open the room up a bit. The built in barbecue will go below those slats. The type of effect we are aiming at is something similar to this below which we got from a brochure we saw once - apologies for the poor quality:

The 6 stacka doors waiting in the garage ready for installation on the Alfresco. If they look short, it may be because our celings are 2750 high and the garage ceiling with the stepdown from the house will probably end up being around 3 metres.

The kitchen window is finally in! At last! (The gap was bugging me.)

All the roof tiles stacked at the back ready to go on. They will be on by next week.

Brickwork nears completion

2011-05-01T21:17:00.008+10:00

Posting this late as I was watching online the awesome liturgy of the Beatification of Blessed John Paul II - what a great event that was! Well, as expected, the Easter break delayed building somewhat, but still some progress has been made and the brickwork is almost done. See you next week!

Brickwork early beginnings

2011-04-25T19:09:00.009+10:00

It has been great to have time off over the Easter break, but it has really slowed things down with the building. Also the granite Termite proofing took some time to do so you will see there has not been much progress. With a short week, (Monday and Tuesday are holidays here) we are not sure how much next week's pics will bring. Ciao for now!

From front right looking up the driveway

Front looking at entrance and to the left Carmen's study

From front left

From left side

From rear left

From rear right

Mount Annan Botanical Gardens

2011-04-19T19:06:00.011+10:00

A brief break from the building posts. About 2 or 3 kilometres from where we live, is the Mount Annan Botanical Gardens. Nothing special I suppose in terms of Sydney - there are literally hundreds of parks around the city. Anyway, with the new Liberal State govt now in power - (thank heavens those Labour clowns are not in power anymore even though we have to suffer them and the fanatical Greens on a federal level, but that is another story) entry is now free to these gardens - we paid about $9.00 previously. Every year they have a gathering with a concert in the gardens and where the local restaurateurs sell their fare and thereby promote the local businesses in the area. The weather was a little overcast but not too cold and the day was very mellow. I guess one can't help but compare how nice it was when you looked around as it got later in the afternoon and the lawns were still clean as everybody put their lunch wrappers and litter in the bins provided - so unlike the picnic spots in South Africa.

The lawns by the lake. The tent 'domes' in the background are the stalls for each restaurant.

No I don't know who they are either. Just random people.

The foot sticking out from underneath all of that belongs to my niece Abi. Lights out.

The little tent is a stage where the bands played from.

I would love to have this view from my study... imagine!

Check the bench on the hill - so evocative - Jane Austen?

No update

2011-04-18T18:23:00.004+10:00

The plumbing and gas works are being put in at the house so no pics this week for changes. I am hoping that we will have some brickwork to show by the end of the week.

Unrelated this prayer was found in Auschwitz concentration camp. (Almost 2 years ago I visited Dachau - see: http://fromthetipofafrica.blogspot.com/2009/05/day-11.html) so it really struck me. It is unclear if it was written by a Jewish person or a Christian:

Lord, remember not only people of good will
but also people of ill will.
Do not remember only the sufferings
that have been inflicted on us,
but remember too the fruit we have bought
as a result of this suffering:
the comradeship and loyalty,
the humility and courage,
the generosity and greatness of heart
that has grown out of it
And when they come to judgement,
let all the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.

Er... 4 weeks 2 days

2011-04-12T18:27:00.014+10:00

I am only supposed to post weekly, but I received an email today advising I should pay the next progress payment - which is at frame. I was like - but we were there on Sunday - and if you see the pics in my previous post - 2 days ago - well it didn't look like they would be up till next week. Well .... see below. This builder - hy vat nie kak van kabouters nie! It is difficult to try and navigate through the house on a post like this but if you refer to the plan, it helps. Here goes.

Front looking up driveway into garage

From front left

From rear left

From back right - vertical windows are diningroom windows

Ok inside now - view from front door.

Standing in kitchen looking towards lounge left and alfresco (patio) - there will be no pillar in the middle.

Looking in from patio across to kitchen - diningroom on left, lounge on right.

Outside view across patio

From patio down hallway towards front of the house

From edge of lounge looking into kitchen - diningroom area on left

Dining area - you can just see the step down to Alfresco / patio on left.

I hope you can follow all of that!
PS: the windows aren't blue - it is just plastic protective covering.
C u later.

Week 4. Trusses delivered

2011-04-11T19:26:00.010+10:00

Well no advance on the building front, as the slab lay to cure, but at least the frame and trusses are there, so hopefully next week we'll be able to show you some progress. Till then. Bye!

From front right looking up the driveway

Midway from the front

From the left front

From right at rear

From left rear

Tumut

2011-04-06T22:08:00.008+10:00

A couple of weeks ago, I had to go to a little place in the South West of New South Wales called Tumut - about 4.5 hours from Sydney, West of Canberra. It is a really pretty little place and is at the foothills of the snowy mountains where you can go skiing in winter. Our truck driver, Pete told me that it is where the legend, The Man from Snowy River originated. I never had my camera so apologies for no pics. I got the picture above from another website, http://www.australiantraveller.com/ When I go back there in a couple of weeks, I will take my camera with. Anyway, Pete was telling me that he took a large street sweeper out there for a demonstration with my predecessor - this is only about 2 years ago and while they were busy with the demonstration in the main road of the town, a hearse turned into the road followed by a funeral procession. The rough, unshaven council guys asked Pete to turn off the noisy machine and they stood quietly on the side of the road out of respect as the funeral cortege passed. Once it was safely out of sight, they indicated that Pete and the salesman could proceed with the demo.

Pete, thinking it was somebody important, asked him: 'Who's funeral was that?'

The council guy shrugged - 'I don't know.'

The people of Tumut and so many other little places in the more rural areas here in Aus still pay their respects to the ones of their communities who pass away. Regardless of their status in the community, their loss is felt. It is just so poignant and .... I don't know... civilised. What it must mean to the grieving family to see the people of the town / village pausing in such a visible way to mark the passing of their loved one. This country is not without its faults, but there is so much to appreciate here.

No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own Or of thine friend's were. Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee. (John Donne)

Week 3 Slab laid

2011-04-02T21:34:00.008+11:00

From right front looking up 'driveway' into garage

From Left front

From left rear - the step down at the back slab - is the covered braai area - called an Alfresco.

From the right rear

Today we went to check on progress and the slab was laid. The last photo - across the slab -looks impossibly small until I asked Carmen to walk towards me and pace it out. Not huge but confident we can now at least fit our bed in the bedroom! If you look at the last photo again on the left bottom you see the slab ends and then the concrete ledge one brick wide - this is for the external wall - you have the external brick and internal timber frame, insulation and Gyprock. No double brick walls here - well there are, but it is not common. We have the thickest insulation possible in walls and roof to keep aircon bills down. C u next week!

Week 2 - foundations dug

2011-04-02T21:32:00.001+11:00

Weird humps -looks like a whole lot of graves - creeped me out! A foam of some sort gets poured on this and then the slab. We have mines within 50km so certificates have to be issued for all builds by the mine subsidence board. Slabs cannot be over a certain size so that is why some people have garages separate to their houses. Luckily ours is small enough not to worry about that!

From the front right looking up driveway

View from left front

View from left back corner

View from right back corner

Week 1 - Cut and fill

2011-04-02T21:18:00.010+11:00

View from front left of plot

Also front left

Left of plot near rear

From left rear

We arrived on the Saturday after the commencement of the build and the guys were hard at work - 6pm on a Saturday evening cutting and filling - finally we are underway! No labourers - just the operator and the surveyor. Yes this is a big unit but all their smaller units were apparently busy - the operator handled the big beast very gently though- reckon the neighbours must have been a bit nervous :-).

Week prior to commencement of Build

2011-04-02T19:22:00.011+11:00

Apologies for the technical glitch on the previous post which has now being deleted. This will only really be of interest to those who know us - or maybe to somebody contemplating a build in Aus. We are building a rather modest house on a golf estate near Wilton, South West of Sydney. We have had outstanding service from Rodney (good name :-) Macdraft http://www.macdraft.com.au who made numerous amendments etc. without any issues. And then on numerous recommendations decided to build with Hilton Homes http://www.hiltonhomes.com.au though would also have been happy to go with Urbanstyle homes as well: http://www.urbanstylehomes.com.au All the other large companies have huge numbers of complaints against them. My advice would be to search whatever service or product you are contemplating at the site: http://www.productreview.com.au Makes for very interesting reading...

As soon as the guys were ready to commence building the heavens opened and we had quite a bit of rain - Murphy's law. But some progress has been made:

Below is an overview plan and shots from the site ptior to start and then week by week - I will try and post updates on a weekly basis:
Quick specs: Plot 450m2, House 261.65m2 Building expected to take 5 months.

The plan of our little house in a quaint town called Wilton outside of Sydney.

View from front left of plot

From rear left of plot

From rear right of plot

Going 'Home'

2010-12-13T19:58:00.006+11:00

Feeling a bit random tonite...

This evening I got into my wife's car to park it for her. Carmen is Afrikaans and when I started her car there was a Christmas CD playing and it happened to be Theuns Jordaan, an Afrikaans singer. I was instantly transported back to SA and the times when a whole group of us would go out to Tygervalley or wherever in the MPV for a movie or family gatherings and the comfortable familiarity that was home for us. Though I am not Afrikaans, I missed the nearness of the culture, much as you may miss a neighbour who you live next door to for years and don't know too well, but greet sometimes and then one day see that they have moved out. Do we feel the loss because they have gone, or because we never got to know them and now that they are gone, never will?

In about a week, we head back to SA for our first visit since we moved to Aus 16 months ago. We have settled into our new lives over here, but cannot and probably will never quite leave our 'old' lives behind because our 'old' lives contained and contain so many that we love. There is an ongoing, sometimes heated discussion between expats about the wisdom of immersing yourself in your new life and country on the one side but not forgetting where you came from; and on the other, those that say it is best to cut all ties. Some flock to expat gatherings and buy stuff at the South African shops. Others never look back. There is no easy answer here - some people find that when they give up smoking, cold turkey works; others need to wean themselves off it with patches and the like.

When we moved here, we made a decision that returning to SA (apart from Holidays) was not an option and that has enabled us to be committed through the stresses and difficulties that anyone who has emigrated will know. But the irrevocability of our decision has also meant that as much as all the negatives about South Africa are behind us now and we enjoy levels of freedom and security one could never dream of in SA, the losses are just as real - and in many senses, permanent. Friendships change and it is nobody's fault: experiences shape who and what we are and when you don't share that with somebody, the overlapping circles that bind you to another and strengthen your community, grow smaller. Does it weaken the connection? I can't answer that, but it certainly narrows it. It is an odd phenomenon that those expats who choose to honour the traditions of their mother countries tend to be very true to the historical traditions of those countries - more traditional than the people who live in those countries because in real life, cultures change and morph over time. The celebrations,I guess it could be argued, are fossilised versions of a culture from a particular time. It is why though I do miss the familiarity of home, I tend to avoid expat gatherings - I have fond memories from South Africa, but I want to see it as it really is, not as I remember it.

The Eastern worldview, if I can generalise for a second, appears to me to have far more in keeping with the individualistic view of the world that Western Capitalism espouses as against the traditional Catholic Christian worldview that views community as intrinsic to our nature. When Jiddu Krishnamurti held that 'Truth is a pathless land' he revealed how individualistic, narrow-minded - and ultimately lonely a world of one is. And so now 'communities' are often little more than groups of individuals who happen to share an interest - much akin to Facebook 'friends', shallow and inauthentic.

Our experience of moving here is still an ongoing journey in the sense that until we have moved into our house which we will shortly begin building, we probably won't make any real investments or commitment to the people we meet and engage with, and it leaves one feeling a little lost even 16 months into this journey. We are born in and for community. It is one of the reasons we baptise children who cannot express yet a personal faith. The faith of the community is the soil which both births and into which a child is born and fed - or not. I do not miss South Africa as such. But I do miss the community we left behind and in a way the timing of our visit now is significant for us as when we return, we hope to start our family and build our home. This holiday will be a final farewell. You can - and with Thoreau - I would argue you should look back, often, but know that you cannot go back. It is a comfort and a call at the same time.

Safety first

2010-09-15T19:55:00.004+10:00

I know you guys think we exaggerate about the rules here. Well here is an actual sign on a walkway - this is along the scenic walk - i.e. a wooden boardwalk in amongst the trees in the Blue Mountains. Apologies for the quality - I took it on my cellphone and it was an overcast day and in the forest so the light made it difficult. OH&S is a huge industry here:

Woronora Cemetery

2010-09-02T22:49:00.004+10:00

I have always wanted to be cremated when I die, but I had to spec some equipment as part of my job the other day and had chance to visit Woronora Cemetery (pictures above). It was so peaceful and beautiful there, that I wondered if I shouldn't change my mind. I know that many Sydneysiders would disagree with me and say that the historical Waverley cemetery (below) which sits on the edge of a cliff is more scenic and perhaps they would technically be correct. All I can say is that Woronora is truly a place of rest. Their motto is apt: Where beauty softens grief.Whilst my colleague and I were waiting at reception for our appointment to arrive, a middle-aged woman who had just lost her mother was in front of us making arrangements for her burial. She told the receptionist that she was an atheist and as she left, she cut a tragic figure. I wanted to tell my colleague to go ahead with the meeting without me and follow the woman out into the parking lot. I wanted to just touch her arm and say... well what would I say to an atheist? I guess, I wanted to say to her:
'I'm not an atheist and I have never doubted the existence of God, but I often struggle with the concept of heaven. And it is irrelevant in some senses because I would still strive to live as a Christian even if there was no heaven because I believe it is the most authentic way to and of Love. You may not believe in God, but you must believe in love because you loved your mom. If you think of the concept of 'God' as even just that and nothing more, we share, however small, a faith in the unseen and unmeasurable. Know that I will be praying for you - to the One I believe to be the Source of that love and through the witness of my Christian vocation that drives me to embrace you in this very painful moment in your life, may you come to know in the first instance that you are loved. And ultimately, loved by Him.'

But I didn't move. She may have, in any case, just dismissed me or rejected my approach out of hand. Even taken offence. But what if all she needed was somebody to reach out to her with a kind word? I am haunted by the vision of her back, as she walked out of the office, into the sunlight, alone and hunched in grief.

2 years / 24 months / 730 days

2010-07-04T23:05:00.003+10:00

I think it was about 18 months after Kirstin died that it began to happen that there were some days when I never thought of her at all. Then out of the blue, I would be taken back to the 5th July 2008 in an instant, not as a memory, but the past made present:

I had just arrived home from gym when my mom called and asked me to come as there had been an accident. Carmen and I headed along the West Coast Road. On the way, we phoned my brother, Richard and then phoned my mom back and she and Carmen had a conversation and I realized something was wrong that she didn’t want to tell me. I asked her if my sister, Karen was ok and she said ,' yes, Karen and Joel are alright 'and I said: ‘and Kirstin?’ And she said: ‘Just drive’, and I repeated, shouting at her: ‘Tell me? Is she badly hurt?’ (In that moment it was simply unthinkable to imagine or contemplate that Kirstin was gone. It simply couldn’t be. Just couldn’t. Defied plausibility or comprehension. She simply said, her voice flat: ‘Rodney, Kirstin’s dead.’ The shock hit me in the whole of my being – I would use the cliché, 'gut', but it seemed more like an energy pulse that resonated through to my soul. I had to focus as I was still driving, but my insides turned to slush. I rode carefully, as quickly as I could, obeying the speed limit. When we arrived, there were some police vans and a fire truck, I seem to remember in the confusion, and I crossed the busy road carefully and then saw a light blue blanket covering a body in the grass, damp from recent rain, down a low embankment and I knew it was true. I stared at her body thinking that at any second she would cough / splutter, wake up and battle to breathe, be very hurt, but somehow, would fight through it and be ok. I even prayed that as Christ raised Lazarus from the dead, that He would raise her right then. I know now He did, but not in the way I asked Him to.

Carmen and I have been married for more than a decade, often tell each other that we love the other, are aware of that love, and take it for granted in day to day life - which is itself a gift. But even so, sometimes I need her to stop me and really make me hear her tell me that she loves me and I need to do the same for her. It is similarly important to honour anniversaries and birthdays - in gratitude sure, so that we don't forget the graces that we receive/d from those whose lives have brushed our own, but also that in stopping to think, remember and reflect on or with those close to us, we stop our lives to say: You are a part of my life. I know I take you or your memory for granted sometimes. But you hold a place in my heart that surpasses in meaning all the other distractions, deadlines and demands that clutter my life; And I would let go of all of them in a heartbeat for you. Wherever you are. And I love you.

God keep you close Kirst. Until we meet again.

Boet and Melissa’s wonderful adventures downunder. Part 1. Day-1: If it exists he’ll find it.

2010-04-25T12:27:00.002+10:00

I was going to start blogging when Boet and Melissa actually arrived, but as often happens when Boet is involved, not everything went according to plan. Their flight to Sydney was booked for Saturday, but at around 10am on Friday they received a phone call to say that that flight was cancelled and could they catch a flight later that evening. After rearranging their local flights to Jhb, and much stressing and low flying in motor cars, they made it.

On the way on the Qantas flight, Boet had kicked off his shoes and was dozing off when a movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. In the poor light of the cabin, he could just make out that the movement was in fact a cockroach! At 30 000ft! The insect scurried down the side of the cabin past the window and disappeared into the darkness under the seat in front of him. O gross! - but ‘o well, somebody else’s problem’, he thought. A little while later, he realised that he had removed his shoes, as is his wont, on long flights. They were slipped safely under the seat in front of him. Now in economy class it is not that easy to double up his 6 foot plus frame to get hold of them and check that the cockroach had not taken up residence there, so he decided to go to the bathroom in his socks. As he stepped into the bathroom, a cool sensation, like a fresh mountain stream washed over his feet – actually seeped through his sock onto his toes. Somebody had partially missed the toilet bowl and he had stepped into the resultant yellow pool. He proceeded to remove 300 metres of toilet tissue and place it on the floor to dry the area and then gingerly laid down a new layer of basically wall to wall carpet of toilet tissue on the floor, upon which he proceeded to jump so that it would dry his socks. But he did not want to walk back on his bare feet. So he thought he would try and call out to Melissa quietly across the sleeping cabin to bring him his shoes and he could remove his socks and place his cleaned feet directly into the shoes. Standing on his mat of tissue, he opened the door a crack and hissed: ‘Melissa!’
No answer. Sleeping tablets working.
‘Melissa!’
A presence made him glance left. A woman waiting to use the bathroom stared at him, then at his feet, then at the mat of toilet paper which now plastered the tiny bathroom and finally back at his face. Her expression was that mixture of puzzlement and pity reserved for those unsure of whether she was dealing with a mentally challenged person with OCD or just a garden variety nut. She said nothing, just stared at him. He stared back blankly, opened his mouth to say something and wisely, for once in his life, decided not to try and explain everything, backed up gingerly, closed his mouth and the door. He cleaned up as best he could and tried not to cringe the rest of the way to Sydney. I would love to know what she thought he was doing. I really, really, dearly would love to know.

Tour of Sydney and NSW

2010-04-12T21:16:00.002+10:00

From the 25th April to the 14th May, my brother-in-law Boet, and his wife will be visiting us here from South Africa. We will be taking them around Sydney and NSW. Since this will be our first time playing tour guides, we will try and run a daily blog (especially between the 30 April and the 9th May, when I will be with them fulltime, recounting their experiences and views of Aus with pictures of course. So join us then as we travel through our new home. Look forward to your company then.

Better response

2010-04-12T21:14:00.001+10:00

This link sent to me by Norman S. I wish I had the patience to write like this guy:

http://www.fallibleblogma.com/index.php/a-catholic-response-to-the-sex-abuse-scandal

The Catholic Church abuse scandal

2010-03-28T08:02:00.007+11:00

Before anybody thinks I have any delusions of grandeur, I am well aware that neither the Vicar of Christ, Benedict XVI, nor the Catholic Church needs my 2c defence, but as somebody who has always been quite outspoken about my Church, I would like to go on record with regards to the latest revelations of paedophilia that have been reported so shrilly in blanket coverage by the media lately.

Firstly, the hypocrisy of a media portraying itself as an outraged neutral reporter of the latest scandals is quite ironic: they are the self same media who have virtually canonised the deviant and arguably the most famous paedophile in history, Alfred Kinsey.
Secondly, the figures have been grossly overstated by typical media-speak: 'it has been reported', 'studies show', 'it is expected that revelations will reveal', all evidence of hyperbole and / or exaggeration so typical of sensationalist gossip tabloids uninhibited by evidence that allows mere accusations to be portrayed as gospel. The problem is also that the media itself has no moral ground from which to preach on this as they do not hold the inviolability of the human person as sacrosanct anyway and are all (bar a very few) almost universally in favour of abortion and infanticide (partial birth). So those in glass houses...

Should the Church have reacted differently in a number of cases? Absolutely. Any alleged criminal act should be investigated by the criminal justice system. Period. Those who have committed these evil acts, should suffer the harshest judicial penalties and we should not be squeamish with regards to castration, chemical or otherwise - much as gaol removes from a person the right to their freedom because it has been abused, so I would hold that an argument could be made that those that abuse or violate another persons right to bodily inviolability, have forfeited the freedom or right to the gift of their sexuality. This applies equally to common rapists.

The fact is that less than 1 percent of all priests have been accused - let alone convicted of child abuse. Does it make any single case less objectionable and evil? No, but it helps us maintain some sort of reasonable perspective on the whole thing.

The frenzied media is hysterical that the Vatican or Benedict won't respond to them? My view is that the Vatican's position is correct. Why should they? The Church is neither answerable to the media and - given their history for their distorted portrayal on so many of the Church's teachings and aversion to facts - could hardly be trusted to accurately convey any message. So the Church has rightly chosen to respond to the people directly affected by means of pastoral letters to be read out in all parishes. I expect that we will therefore see one soon for the German Church following on the Irish example.

Priests should be held to a higher standard than rest of the faithful and humanity, as their vocation as leaders and the trust that is placed in them is immense and so at the Judgement the Bible reflects that they, as elders, will be judged more harshly than the rest of us.

This whole tragedy again reveals though the misplaced - understandable perhaps - but nevertheless misplaced and unrealistic view of clergy and pastors in general. They say people will leave the church in droves because of this? Maybe the immature. On one level this is no different from those that left the Christian faith when Bakker and Swaggart were found wanting and all of us know of many other local examples of scandal etc. by those entrusted to lead us. Somebody once remarked to me that the 'problem' was that we have had too many holy popes and I now know what he meant. It is a blessing to be sure to have been led by the likes of JPII, but our model is ultimately Christ. I am loathe to quote him, but just this once, to paraphrase the theologian Hans Kung: ‘I believe. Not in the Bible, but in the one to whom the Bible bears witness; not in the Tradition, but in the one whom the Tradition hands down; not in the Church, but in the one whom the Church proclaims.’

Or even, since I am being all ecumenical and inclusive, the Zen proverb:

Do not confuse the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.

When a picture is worth a thousand words... hmmm.

2010-03-23T18:31:00.003+11:00

Wallaroo

2010-03-21T10:44:00.019+11:00

I recently had to go to Canberra for business and left it a little late to book accommodation, forgetting that with Parliament in session and the Golf Masters accommodation was really at a premium and I battled to find a place to stay for under $600 which would probably not have looked good on my business Amex expenses I reckon. Even the B&B's were full. Eventually I found one that had a spot. After I indicated that I wanted to book, the owner manager paused and said: 'You do know that these rooms are in railway carriages...?'
It was my turn to pause. Memories came flooding back of Knysna on the Garden Route of the Western Cape in South Africa where there is a place called The Caboose and where the whole motel / hotel is setup like railway compartments - impossibly small and where you stand on the toilet to shower.. I had little choice here and he assured me that you had a whole carriage to yourself so I accepted.

The actual place is called Last Stop Ambledown Brook which is in keeping with the railway theme and is set among wine farms overlooking a truly spectacular view of the surrounding vineyards: http://www.laststop.com.au
The restored carriages were moved there, the owner told me using 60 ton cranes and then restored by him and his wife. My carriage was decorated in the theme of old movies and there are pictures and posters from old movies all over the carriage. It was immaculately clean and neat but a little unnerving. The first picture below is of the entrance to the carriage - a mannequin fully dressed like a fifties movies star welcomes you and then the bedroom is to the right and the rest of the lounge, dining room and kitchen to the left.
The bedroom really freaked me out. It was decorated like a star's dressing room with a fully set dressing table and everything was pink and frilly. Not pastel pink, you understand, but screaming pink. The bed reached almost to my chest and I climbed up and into it with a little difficulty, the sheets a darker brighter pink than the walls of that was possible.

The next morning, when I got up and walked through to the kitchen, the mannequin's high heeled shoe had fallen off - and I couldn't remember if had been on or off when I arrived. I bent down to pick it up and then thought better of it, thinking that I would rather ask the owners if the shoe was off or on. I ultimately decided against that as the whole thing was just too weird for me: what if they though I was kinky and had interfered with their mannequin? So I just left it off. When I looked at the photos I took when I first arrived the shoe had been on! O well whatever, I would never return to this place.

That morning as I packed up, about 20 to 30 Kangaroos with their joeys (baby kangaroos) on the hill nearby overlooking me, watched intently, their heads moving back and forth as though they were watching a tennis match, as I and walked back and forth from the carriage to the car, a few of the joeys running around in between them like kids bored at a show.

If you are looking for a different experience and a relaxing spot, a great place to stay and the couple who owns it is really lovely and very welcoming.

Time and Birthdays

2010-03-03T21:05:00.003+11:00

I recently had my 21st Birthday. ;-) and I found a quote a friend of mine, Amy, had sent me last year, but which I had forgotten about. As I am getting older now it means a lot to me:

... we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless. ( Paul Bowles.)

Classic!

2010-02-19T21:08:00.002+11:00

In South Africa, we used to moan about the call centre people and their ability to communicate in English. Well over here in Aus it is little different. I had to share this absolute classic blog of another expat, check it out: http://snotblock.blogspot.com/2010/02/tanjooberrymutts.html

It's not often that I'm wrong... but I'm wrong again.

2010-02-18T22:29:00.008+11:00

So I am back from my trip into the rural areas of New South Wales. The scenery was great most of the way. Lots of rain has fallen so everything was green. Not much to report to be honest except 2 things: Fruit and Griffith.

I had heard that in some places of Aus, when you travel interstate, you are not allowed to transfer fruit between States and have to dump it in specially marked bins because of the cross contamination danger of fruit flies. Ok, understood. But within the same state? Well, in preparing for my cross-country trip, I knew on the Wednesday that it would be Ash Wednesday which for us Catholics is a day of fasting and abstinence, so I had planned instead of a normal lunch, I would have an apple and nectarine in the fridge in my car chilled nicely. Well about 350km in the middle of nowhere, I suddenly start seeing these huge road signs with fruit flies: DO NOT BRING FRUIT INTO THIS AREA. FINE: $200. DISPOSE OF IN THE BINS PROVIDED. Well I thought, I'll take my chances, I mean my fruit isn't sweating in a car: it is in a sealed fridge in the boot - no fly would live in that temperature. But the signs became more frequent and I started to get more concerned and feel more and more guilty. Breaking the law - on Ash Wednesday nogal! So to still my conscience, I got angry and started practicing what I would tell any cop who dared pull me over. A one man heated argument happening in my car: ' Besides, Officer, which bin should I put them in? - the signs are there, but there are no bins!' (It was true, there were no bins) About 15km into this tirade, the signs became angrier and then I saw it: a bright yellow bin clearly marked and above it the sign read: FINE: MAXIMUM $11 000. I pulled over and tossed the perfectly chilled nectarine and apple into the blasted bin.

Griffith. Now as the title says, It's not often that I am wrong, but boy was I glad I was wrong again. About 600km West of Sydney in the middle of ... well, nowhere, lies a town called Griffith - for those in South Africa, think Beaufort West or perhaps Fargo for those in the US. Now online I saw a couple of pictures - how bad could it be: The Grand Motel. (Better than The Royal Motel? who knows?) But you know the image it conjours up? Synthetic carpets, a dodgy character at reception, some stains on the carpets and sheets - Roach Motel. And Griffith is remote - it is supposed by all reports to be Hickville. And on the way, there are some real backwater towns with signs:- 'Come and see the largest playable guitar in the world! The largest stone sheep....etc.etc. But boy was I wrong! Immaculate Chinese porcelain tiles, double volume room airconned, natural stone counters, Wrap around frameless glass showers, free Broadband - I was gobsmacked - it really was better than a 4 star hotel in Sydney! The third photo is of the room but doesn't do it justice - I suck at photography. The top 2 - excuse the camera-phone quality was of our meal - the pudding was my colleague's - I was a good boy and just had the fish and chips - in the motel restaurant - the ambiance and furnishings and the presentation and quality of the food could have been in an exclusive waterfront restaurant in Sydney, it was so good. I only also realised afterwards that I had ordered fish - 600k's inland, but it was good. No website but the next time you are in Griffith: http://www.wotif.com/hotels/the-grand-motel.html

Pictures don't do it justice.

Roadtrips and Rednecks

2010-02-13T08:32:00.006+11:00

I am psyching myself up mentally for a road trip this coming week. I will be doing a couple of thousand kilometres in 3 days - down to ACT, Wagga Wagga and Griffith to install some machines. The 'psyching up' is not for the long drive - the drives around here are normally quite picturesque - though Griffith is certain to be dry, but because this is the heart of Australia in some senses - and I am not sure what to expect - or perhaps I have an inkling...

In the week, I had to travel South to do a presentation on one of our more complex units and took a technical expert with me for support - he is an Aussie. We arrived at the place which was a large mine and after the initial presentation were ushered into the maintenance offices where a group of their technical personnel peppered us with questions. About halfway through this session, a rather large guy wandered in and collapsed into a chair, eyes puffy, hair kind of greased / combed to the side, tattoos in evidence and at least one or two missing teeth. He looked familiar, but only in an iconic kind of way: the redneck sitting in a faded deck chair on a porch with a rifle on one side, a mongrel called 'Killer' at his feet and the remnants of some rusted vehicle a few feet away peeking out of the jungle that is his front yard. (You see this often over here in Aus by the way - in the city nogal!) Anyway, this character beetles in and the skinny (also heavily tattooed) man who had gone to call him plopped himself down in a chair nearby, grinning for no apparent reason. I heard later from their colleague that 'the missus' had kicked the big guy out of his house after some domestic altercation (I didn't ask) and he had taken up residence in an old caravan behind the workshop. At lunch time he would go 'home' for a nap and that's what he was doing when we arrived, so skinny, his sidekick had shot off to go and bang on the outside of the caravan to call him when we city slickers had arrived.

And then he really got stuck into us with the most obtuse questions he could muster - which to his credit, my technical expert was able to respond to very well. In the middle of all of this, when we initially tripped over an answer, I heard a maniacal cackle from behind me that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I turned and saw that there was what looked like a twin of this big guy sitting in a corner nearby who we hadn't noticed as our eyes had taken a while to adjust to the gloom after the bright light outside. He had a sneer on his oily face and laughed as his brighter buddy tried to trip us up. When my partner finally concluded with the correct answer, he slumped back, obviously disappointed and amused himself for the rest of the session by glaring at us and chasing his two brain cells around his not insubstantially sized head in stony silence. What gave the whole redneck thing away was when we were talking about ongoing support for the equipment we were discussing. These guys had owned some of our equipment before and most agreed that our after sales service was really good, but our interrogator ventured that 5 years ago a technician had come around who wasn't an Aussie. He began: 'I'm not trying to be racist, but... I couldn't understand a word that that guy was saying!'
I looked at him non-plussed. Racist? I had met all the guys and we happen to have no Black or Asian technicians in NSW so I sort of blurted out without thinking: 'It can't be one of our technicians. We actually only have white guys working for us?' I could see he was uncomfortable that this was now been expanded on - I think he was hoping to make his point and let it rest.
'No,' he answered, 'as I say I'm not trying to be racist, but the guy had a funny accent.'
'But he's white!' I launched undeterred. (come on I'm from South Africa, if you are racist, it must be a colour thing). And then I clicked: 'O you mean, you're not xenophobic! Sorry, mate - I think we had a language gap there!'
He tilted his head at me - not sure if i had just sworn at him...
My fellow technical expert jumped in to rescue me and try and limit the damage: 'O you mean Viktor! (he is Romanian), yes don't worry', him and I both laughed, 'nobody understands what he is talking about half the time at our company but he is a highly qualified engineer... did you guys not get good service from him? Did he mess something up badly?'
'No, as I was saying', he said testily, 'I am not being racist, I was just saying he wasn't an Aussie and I could hardly understand his foreign accent. The new guy (who is an Aussie) is much better.'
Mercifully, one of his embarrassed colleagues threw another question at us and we moved swiftly along.

Afterwards, I asked my colleague about it cos I had never met anybody who disliked Romanians. He said not to worry about it, and that every country has them and then asked how come my Aussie accent had gotten so broad all of a sudden for the rest of the meeting?

I will try and blog next week about my trip to the deep Outback and let you know what exactly is out there...

Medibank 2010 Women's Final

2010-01-17T08:58:00.017+11:00

One of the advantages of living here, is that you get to see international tennis which has been so rare in SA over the past 20 years. A warm up tournament for the Australian Open that takes place in Melbourne, is the Medibank International played here in the Olympic Park where we live so for Christmas Carmen bought me tickets to the men and women's final. Unfortunately Justin Henin pulled out before the tournament due to a light leg injury, but it was an experience nevertheless. I was able to walk onto one of the outside practice courts from where i took some shots. the main stadium is the Ken Rosewall arena which seats 10500 people. With regards to the actual match Elena Dementieva crushed a really off-form Serena Williams and returned 178km/h serves. While I was disappointed with Serena's form as we never got to see a really good match, I was glad Elena cleaned up the arrogant world number 1 who at the post match interview on court feigned confusion as to what to say as she 'is so seldom in this position' - losing she meant. Maybe she should try and remember the only reason she is number 1 in the world is because Henin retired (she was number 1 at the time). After that final I stayed for the women's doubles final which featured Cara Black (a Zimbabwean player, so I cheered for her and Liezel Huber, her partner - they won! I will upload all pics to my Facebook.

13/01/2010

2010-01-13T19:45:00.005+11:00

(Kirstin Amy Mackrill 13-01-1990 to 5-07-2008 - pencil drawing by Kendal Kluge)

A few days ago, I heard something that reminded me of Dana Niehaus. He was a presenter on the morning show on what was then called Springbok Radio, many years ago. I googled his name but couldn't find any real info on him. Springbok Radio fell silent on 31 December 1985. There is a society that preserves the station archives and it is apparent that many people still look back on that popular station nostalgically. Even as a teenager, I remember listening to the station on my mom's old black radio that used to stand on the kitchen counter in Sprigg Road. My dad had given it to her on our first real family holiday in Oudtshoorn. When the station went off the air, Kirstin wasn't even born. And now she is gone. In the blink of an eye. She would have turned 20 today and been in the second year of her degree in Journalism at Stellenbosch University.

That we can only live life forwards is the obvious mercenary reality that is life. I do try not to look back too often and reminisce about the good old days because I am always conscious that as Benjamin Franklin prophetically put it: The golden age never was the present age. But. As much as our past is part of us in the sense it has shaped who we have become, so I would also submit to you that it contains many of the seeds for who we not only will be but even want to be. And all those we have lost are part of that. I had life before Kirstin and I still live. My memories of her are still vivid and stark. My love for her calls me to remember her and create future memories worthy of nostalgia. But she doesn't live in my memory. She lived as fiercely differently from me as any other person can and she lives now in the light of eternal life. My memories of her are part of the residue of her earthly life - no more accurate or important than the old photographs of her in an album or hard drive. I wish she will never be forgotten but she will. When I tried to tell her about Springbok radio, she could appreciate my affection, (ok, she rolled her eyes!) but could never share it. When I talk about her, people may sense by the way that I talk about her, how much I loved her, but again they cannot share that experience of her, anymore than I can share knowledge of their loved ones - even though I can see and sense their love. And so at the end of the day all that remains to be seen of our lives is love. And that, I like to think, is almost like a prism where we, after we are gone, are merely reflecting back to those we leave behind the light of Love of the One in whose presence we then live.

‘Soon we shall die and all memory of those (we have loved) will have left the earth. We ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough….. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.’ (T Wilder:'The Bridge of San Louis Rey')

Avalon and Balgowla?

2010-01-03T21:09:00.008+11:00

Ok, so my timing is a bit out - I published today's trip before yesterday's one. Anyway. Yesterday, we took a trip up to Avalon Beach and an adjoining beach as well - i think it is Balgowla or something - one of the Aussies who reads this can correct me. Anyway the first photo is across from Avalon beach and the second I just wanted to show you just 2 of the very many bays that surround Sydney- there are literally hundreds of them. You should see them at night - each bay its own little crescent of dancing lights - and as I say, hundreds of them!

Schoenstatt

2010-01-03T20:57:00.005+11:00

Today we took a drive out to a place called Mulgoa and a shrine at a place called Schoenstatt, which means Beautiful Place. It is a retreat centre and place of pilgrimage set on about 50 acres of lush farmland and is really idyllic. Schoenstatt is a Marian movement originally founded in Germany that is dedicated to the nurturing of family life. They have shrines like this all over the world - in Cape Town where I am from, they have 3 if memory serves - one of which is in Constantia and in which I was baptised. It is quite freaky to see it over here in Aus, as inside and out, these little chapels of prayer are identical wherever they are in the world.

An outing to the city Part 4 & Happy New Year!!!

2009-12-31T22:46:00.007+11:00

The last part of our day in the city was to catch the monorail to Darling Harbour to grab some lunch before heading home. The monorail runs a small circular route through a portion of the CBD from the Exhibition centre and Maritime museum, but is not a must do thing. At Darling harbour though I don't have a pic here is a restaurant which we would like to try one day called The Meat and Wine Company with apparently very good steaks - owned naturally by an ex Saffer!

The last pic is of part of the Sydney CBD skyline: when I have spent a week or two without seeing it as my sales territory is South of the city, it is so good to see the familiar skyline again and know I am in Sydney! It is not home - yet, but it is growing a place in our hearts and one day will be -once the rest of the clan is here. That concludes our little touristy interlude - I have decided as part of my new Year's resolution to carry my camera with me as I travel - there are some very pretty little towns here and take shots - even though my photography skills are not great to show those of you who are in the process of also making this journey what this place looks like. My blogs will not be that regular as I am studying as well, and have a couple of other projects on the go, but may you and your loved ones be much blessed in 2010 and for those still in SA - stay safe - the journey to Aus is long and even here at times very painful - the personal loss of those you leave behind cannot be overstated, but you do get here eventually! Life is lived forwards not backwards and there is no going back - for us anyway. Once you have tasted freedom, it is a jealous lover, I guess.

Take care - see you next year.

An outing to the city Part 3

2009-12-31T20:25:00.007+11:00

After St Mary's and the aquatic centre, we made our way to the historical Queen Victoria Building shopping centre. This is an old shopping centre with wooden staircases and lots of expensive places. I never took a photo but they have a writing shop in there with quills and everything! Ahhh.... a writer's dream. In the middle of this centre that goes up 3 floors is a massive Christmas tree decorated with Swarovski Crystal, I kid you not! Next, the monorail and Darling harbour.

An outing to the city Part 2

2009-12-31T20:08:00.007+11:00

When you stand inside or outside St Mary's you could be anywhere in Europe - flying buttresses, beautiful stained glass, huge pipe organs, etc. It is awe-inspiring and Kerry has said that she wants to have her child baptised there when it eventually makes an appearance.
Anyway, so what would you expect next to a Cathedral? A bookshop? Ok. A coffee shop? Yes - actually there is a really yuppie one just to the right of the picture underground. But an underground aquatic and sports centre? Just weird!

In the first picture is the sign which is visible in the mid ground in the photo on the piazza in front of the church. In the third photo, Richard took a closer photo of the side of these granite ponds - look at the windows along the side. The last shot is what you see if you peer through the glass. Underneath this plain granite area / piazza going down about 8 metres below the street is a whole aquatic and sports centre with basketball courts, gym, Olympic sized racing pool, and other pools with families playing etc. Cool hey? Next stop: the historical Queen Victoria Building shopping centre.

An outing to the city Part 1

2009-12-31T19:03:00.005+11:00

Last Sunday, after Mass, we caught a train through to the city and had coffee and hot chocolate at our Starbucks on York Street. I must take a photo from there when we go again because across the road from the Starbucks is an old large sandstone Presbyterian Church - like a cathedral almost, but if you look up, over this old church they have built an office block. The foundations on these old churches are massive so a brilliant idea - that way the Church gets income to support its upkeep which must be quite hefty and it is saved from being turned into a pub like they have depressingly done with many ancient disused churches in Europe. I wonder why the evangelical Churches don't buy these up and spruce them up as they would be cheaper than the huge K-mart size churches they build from scratch. Anyway I digress.

Anyway, after Starbucks we headed across to St Mary's Catholic Cathedral through beautiful Hyde Park (yes like UK!). I heard this busker singing music - and boy what a voice! We stood and listened for a while and I bought a CD of his. His version of O Carolina, just blew me away. He is the guy in first picture. His voice is a mixture between Neil Diamond and.... actually the thing is he has that rare gift - a really unique voice. The CD doesn't do him justice - live he is really so good. His name is Gerald Renger: http://www.gerald-music.com/ I would pay to see him play live. We initially made a donation, but after listening paid the difference and bought the cd and as with the guy in Venice with the glasses, I could see it was appreciated. At the edge of Hyde Park is St Mary's and it is large and impressive with the strangest neighbour I have ever seen - more on that next time.

Kiama & The Grand Pacific Highway

2009-12-31T18:47:00.003+11:00

Yeah, I know it's a weird name, but last Saturday we took a drive down to Wollongong, a city about 85km South of Sydney and then down to Kiama -a little further on. The first shot is down below at Kiama Beach and the second photo of the same beach from the top of a hill overlooking the beach and the Grand Pacific Highway. If you look closely - maybe click on the pic to enlarge - you can see that the highway extends into the sea. We drove across it on the way up to where we shot the second photo. It really is pretty. We don't know why they built it like that, but I think it was probably safer than trying to stick a road to a cliff with rockfalls etc. - maybe an idea for Chapman's Peak, hey?

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T08:12:00.013+11:00

This was out first Christmas Eve in Aus - sweltering weather - thank goodness for Aircon! Food was good, company was great and there were presents. So notwithstanding that we are all missing family and friends terribly, it was a good start to our Christmas. Since our dinner didn't finish too late, we decided to go to Midnight Mass and it was all Christmasy with the manger and gifts for the children, and reminded us of our home parish. As I write this here on Christmas morning, those in SA will be singing Carols before Midnight Mass begins. To paraphrase an old hymn: As the Church unsleeping, while earth rolls onward into light, through all the world her watch is keeping and rests not now by day or night. The sun that bids you rest is waking us here beneath the eastern sky and hour by hour fresh lips are making the birth of God's Son known on high.Here are some shots of the food - from the starter and the table setting to our tree (actually taken at Richard's place) to the last one where with S&T we greet you all with a toast to a very Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!!! (all pics courtesy of http://capetwony.blogspot.com)

Technical delay

2009-12-13T09:31:00.001+11:00

Apologies for not blogging. I don't have an iphone and am waiting for Richard or Carmen to forward me pics... again.

Guy stuff

2009-11-27T17:40:00.013+11:00

HMAS Vampire, destroyer.

The Submarine moored alongside. It was closed to visitors shortly after we left, due to the intense heat. It has a crush depth of 300ft, but in an accident some years back went to 400ft almost hitting the ocean floor - the sailors said that the stuff you hear in movies - the groaning and creaking and straining are real. He said there was a queue for the head (toilet) afterwards!

These are the torpedo tubes - this class of sub carried 25 torpedoes.

A close-up of the prop of a torpedo.

The engine room (diesel) enough to power a small town.

Weary / cheesy smiles to show the scale of the size of the engine.

The Helipad at the rear of the destroyer.

Over the past few weeks, it has been cooking in Sydney. Luckily we had a couple of cool days this week, but otherwise it has been sweltering. Last weekend we went to the Maritime Museum in the heart of Sydney and adjoining the Sydney Conference and Exhibition Centre in Darling Harbour. Ladies, you can make some tea. Guys, they have a destroyer from the 70's and a Submarine also post WWII. This is where the photos were taken. It was over 40 degrees so if we look less than enthusiastic and the smiles forced - it is just the heat.

Why the Mona Lisa isn't in Aus

2009-11-26T20:04:00.005+11:00

The Aussies are not big on security here. My state manager travelled with me yesterday and because he had to leave early for another meeting, we parked his Landcruiser, hooked up to one of our open trailers with a scrubber on it (a small one but still about $ 25 000 worth of machine) on the side of a nondescript street in an industrial area and travelled in my vehicle for 4-5 hours. I then later dropped him back off and went on my way. It never even entered my mind that it was a wonder that the machine and trailer was still there when we returned, until later when I thought about it as a South African.

But the one thing they obviously spare no expense on is the security of their books here. Carmen popped down to our community library, ID in hand ready to register because she wanted to take out a couple of books. So she walks in...'Hello...? Anybody here....?' No answer. Place is open but deserted. So she walks across the road to our gym and asks our local gym instructor:
'Do you happen to know where the librarian is, by any chance?'
'Who, Jim? Yes he's on holiday in China, but don't worry I open up for him in the mornings before I open the gym.' He frowned: 'Is the library closed - did I forget this morning...?'
'No, it's open, but I want to take out a few books: Jodi Picoult and...'
'O, well look on the table, there's a book there. Write your name in it and the books you take.'
'But they trust me to bring it back?'
He regarded her for a moment: 'Well you look trustworthy. Aren't you?'
'Well, yes, but... O, ok. But how many can I take out?'
'How many books can you read at one time?'
'Yes but how long - it doesn't say how long I can take them out for?'
'Well then you bring it back when you have finished.'
'You sure?'
'No worries.'

Ok then, No worries.

The South Pole

2009-11-25T22:59:00.004+11:00

Last month my brother and his wife flew to South Africa for her best friend, Sam's wedding - a real space cadet. But I digress. Their Qantas flight on the way back to Aus flew over the South Pole - I suppose it has to do with the air tailwinds or something. Anyway, my brother took this photo as they flew over it and I thought I would share it - as I'd never seen it before.

The Blue Mountains

2009-11-25T21:57:00.006+11:00

About 8okm West of Sydney is a range of Mountains called The Blue Mountains and this range separates the greater coastal Sydney from the interior. They are more like a range of hills compared to what we would really call mountains in SA, but there are some spectacularly beautiful views from up there nevertheless. They are called the Blue Mountains because of the blue ephemeral haze that hangs over them. I thought that it was largely atmospheric, but apparently it is caused by the vapour from the many eucalyptus or blue gum trees that cover the mountains. I heard that in a fire, this vapour can actually ignite and spread the fires frighteningly quickly. The photos looking out from Echo point show a rock formation called The Three sisters - reminiscent of Drie Susters in SA. Anyway, there is a legend attached to them which i suppose you can google, but basically, as I understand it, there were 3 brothers from one tribe who fell in love with 3 young women from an enemy tribe and when the tribes went to war, in order to protect the 3 ladies from harm, the witchdoctor cast a spell on them to turn them into stone for the duration of the battle, intending to return them to life after the battle whereupon they could be reunited with their lovers. Unfortunately, the witchdoctor was killed in the ensuing battle and the poor ladies have been stuck in their rock formation ever since. The first recorded case, to my knowledge, of there being evidence of Afrikaner chicks in Aus before my wife. :-)

Advice on Dating

2009-11-06T23:04:00.002+11:00

Work has drained me of any creative energy, but I came across this advice to a young girl on dating and I thought it was just so - O I don't know - all warm and fuzzy in a first crush / love kind of way- hopefully just to lighten your day as it did mine. Bye for now. :-)

Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will lie under the stars and listen to your heartbeat, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep... wait for the boy who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends, who thinks you' re just as pretty without makeup on. One who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky he is to have YOU... The one who turns to his friends and says, "That's her..."-- (Author Unknown )

It's a Sonim

2009-11-02T18:39:00.004+11:00

This is a bit of an odd post but I had to share. I have a thing for well built products. Today so many manufacturers of goods build down to a price that there are very few genuinely good consumer goods - craftmanship in other words. People simply don't want to pay for quality. I guess probably because we live in a throw away society. So when I come across good things, I love it! You want the best earthmoving machine in the world? Buy a Caterpillar. You want the best drill in the world? Buy a Hilti. The toughest industrial cleaning equipment? Buy a Tennant. The most accurate watch in the world - as well as the toughest? A Tag or Rolex? No - buy a Casio Gshock Atomic Solar. The toughest cellphone in the world? Buy a Sonim. I did (and I own a Casio Gshock and Tennant as well and am saving for my Hilti.) But the story is about my Sonim.

I look after my stuff generally pretty well, but I destroy cell phones - just the way it is. So I googled for the toughest phone in the world and ordered a shock proof, waterproof, dust proof Sonim online. As can happen, even with these tough buggers, I had a software glitch. But these guys have a 3 year unconditional guarantee. The thing is, the online shop I originally purchased it from, had in the meantime gone under and I had also moved countries so I emailed their international warranty guys with the details asking what I could do. They mailed me back saying a replacement phone had been despatched to me and would I send my one back to them when I had a chance via DHL on their account the number which was attached!!!

Yes I do not apologise for this advert on behalf of them: If you want a phone, don't buy a toy. Buy a Sonim. The guys are legends! I attach a picture above to show you what these things look like.

Bombs and Lionel Richie

2009-10-23T23:58:00.003+11:00

Life has some odd coincidences... As part of my job, I had cause some weeks ago to visit the facility where the Australian Special Forces train near Sydney. Many of the soldiers who train there are on their 2nd and 3rd tours of Afghanistan and Iraq and are the tip of the sword of the Allies fighting the Taliban. During this past week, I heard on the news that one of them had been tragically killed here in South Australia in a live-fire night training exercise and another seriously injured. It brought home a little more starkly the reality of what is happening, unseen, many thousands of miles away from us.

A couple of days later, I happened to be downloading an old Lionel Richie song , 'Just for you' to my ipod and I wondered what had happened to him so I googled. I discovered an article that had been written by a journalist called John Berman from ABC in the USA, about the fact that apparently Lionel Richie is a huge phenomenon in the Arab world and Iraq specifically:

I have been to Iraq nine times since the American invasion three years ago, for a total of about 10 solid months. (My wife is counting.) During that time, I have seen bombs and blood, I have seen rebuilding and restructuring, and I have seen death and democracy. So what have I heard? That's easy: Lionel Richie.
Grown Iraqi men get misty-eyed by the mere mention of his name. "I love Lionel Richie," they say. Iraqis who do not understand a word of English can sing an entire Lionel Richie song.
This is the same Lionel Richie who wrote "Say You, Say Me." This is the same Lionel Richie who is the father of some young woman named Nicole. Yes, that Lionel Richie. Could he really be an Iraqi icon?
I decided I had to investigate, and not just investigate, I decided I had to ask Lionel Richie himself. So I called him from Baghdad. Actually it was a formal interview. It was the first interview with Lionel Richie ever on the subject of Iraq and Iraqis.
I asked Richie if he knows just how big he is here. He said, "The answer is, I'm huge, huge in the Arab world. The answer as to why is, I don't have the slightest idea."
He has performed in Morocco, Dubai, Qatar and Libya. There is obviously something up there. The more we talked, the more he theorized as to the reasons his music might be so popular here. He thinks it is because of the simple message in his music: Love.

Richie says he was told Iraqis were playing "All Night Long," on the streets the night U.S. tanks rolled into the country in 2003. (http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=1974794)

How different are we as people? Actually?
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. (H. W. Longfellow)

Back after a little bump in the road

2009-10-14T21:55:00.003+11:00

Over the past week and a half to two weeks, we have received our container with all our 'stuff' and even put a deposit down on a plot on which next year we hope to build. All this was exciting and distracting as being busy has a tendency to do. In spite of that, as many people had warned me may happen, I experienced immense moments of isolation here. In a 'normal' job, you tend to have the opportunity to get to know the people you work with and to a greater or lesser extent work within and as part of a team or group of people. When you are on the road as I am, you meet new people every day and though, ostensibly it appears to be a sociable career, you rarely form any deep relationships, as you move on to the next deal. In the context of all that is still quite unfamiliar, the continued superficiality of human contact can make the isolation feel even more apparent; and though I am adjusting better now, I just didn't feel up to blogging I guess - so apologies! I am sustained by my faith, but on a human level it has also made me realise that I could not have made this journey alone - as big a mouth as I may have. S&J - friends of my brother and sister-in-law are getting married this weekend and it got me thinking about how I have so much more deeply begun to appreciate the gift that my wife is to me and the grace that the sacrament of marriage is. Sure we still have moments of real anger and disagreement and conflict. But, in earthly terms, we are home for the other. Knowing our own shortcomings, it is more than anything we could naturally give or be for the other. At our wedding, our love was blessed by and is now sustained by the One who is Love and I am so very grateful for His gift of love and for her.
Once in awhile, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale. (Author Unknown)

George and the Dragon

2009-09-27T07:20:00.003+10:00

I think I suffer from a mild dyslexia. Seriously, I am bad at remembering telephone numbers and I haven't been able to accurately memorise my cell yet. I actually realised this the other day when a prospective client asked me for my number. Afterwards I realised I think I gave him somebody elses... O well he now has my card and he will think he probably misheard me. :-)
But yesterday being a Saturday, I went into work to get some stuff done. And the place has an alarm. But knowing myself, when I got my alarm code, i typed it dutifully into my phone. SO I unlocked the front door and swung it open with a flourish and punched in my code. Then at the bottom of the key pad, there are 2 buttons - one is 'stay' and the other 'away'. yes should be obvious, but the Admin / logistics Director who is the only one who issues the codes, when he gave me my code said that it is setup that you punch the same one in and out. So i stared at the keys. 730 on a saturday morning... if I set this alarm off, they will be rousing my boss's boss and his wife from their slumber, so let me not get this wrong... Well never mind that anymore... you know at those massive oil refinery sites or industrial sites where you have those outdoor horn sirens that summon people to work? Our helpful alarm company had installed it in our reception area of about 30m2 and mounted it, give or take about 900mm from my right ear. I can't be sure, but I actually think I felt the wind from the sound waves as it hit my ear and all hell broke loose. I punched at the pad frantically. She screamed at me. #### stay. ####away. ####stayaway ####awaystay stay####away away####stay. The screaming of the blasted thign just seemed to get louder. So I phoned the director directly from my cell to get the overide code, stepping outside where it was marginally quieter. O great, my cell is dead!..o no wait I just can't hear anything out of my right ear... try my left...? Hi... George... (to the groggy voice)... really sorry to wake you and your sleeping wife, sorry about this....and I vanquished the alarm with 4 malicious angry stabs.

Red Dawn

2009-09-23T17:44:00.005+10:00

Sydney and as far north and South as a few hundred kilometres awoke this morning to a blanket of red dust caused by a massive duststorm that blew in from the Western regions. It was hectic. The 2 photos above don't do justice - the air was thick with dust and contaminated everything. We luckily slept with our ensuite bathroom window open and not our sliding doors as we normally do, but the dust taste was everywhere even so. The proportions were reminiscent of the biblical plagues - it is estimated that the amount of dust being moved across Sydney was 75000 tons per hour and the air was 20 times the hazardous rate. Most Sydneysiders had never seen anything like this before, so it is not normal, thankfully. The iron ore content from the soil is what gives it the red / orange glow. Excuse my poor photos, but I didn't want to open the door to let the dust in. They have lifted water restrictions here until Monday to allow everybody to wash down there houses. Sydney Airport was closed most of the day to international air traffic, ferrys were stopped and traffic was chaos. One odd thing, the sheep in the countryside were red as well and the problem is that once contaminated, their value decreases as the ore stains their sheepskin irreparably. Most of it had cleared by afternoon, so life is returning to normal. Except for the poor sheep and their red jumpers. They must be like so embarrassed.. Anyway.

Hearth, Home and some dirt

2009-09-22T18:35:00.004+10:00

I have been working and looking at plots and houses and not much else. Before we came over, I had worked doing the same job for pretty much 11 years and so the comfort zone was entrenched. Apart from moving countries, and all that that entails, changing to a corporate from an entrepeneurial environment has been a huge change. When I was back in SA, I often wondered what day to day life would be / was like in Aus and my view now is that it really depends. It is similar to SA or anywhere else for that matter in the sense that some people work long hours and others not. The biggest difference is the size of the middle class, so whatever job you have, you generally can own a house and car and go overseas on holiday once a year. I seem to remember that the median age of Sydneysiders is under 35 so it is a young city: the fire / smoke alarm inspector looked like a kid out of school and the truck drivers hardly look old enough to have their licence. Up the road from us is Sydney Olympic park where the main stadia are that were used for the 2000 Olympics. We are boring people, but if you are into concerts: e.g. the other night Beyonce was there, Britney Spears is coming, Fleetwood Mac as well as Nickleback, Green Day etc - tons of International acts come here often which we missed in SA. This is truly a world city. I have to commit to get you guys to hold me to it, otherwise I will procrastinate, but I will - or rather I will get my brother, since he is good at photography, to take some photos of the stadium area at night - it is a stunning sight! The lighting is groovy, baby! So that will be our little project for this weekend and we will post on the blog.

We have kind of, sort of, decided that we will most probably live South of Sydney in an area called Bingara Gorge. This is a golf estate which is a relatively new concept here in Australia compared to SA. Not that either of us play golf, but we can try. It is like living in the farmlands which is great to raise kids, not that we have kids but we can keep trying. :-) The place is: http://www.bingaragorge.com.au/llweb/bingaragorge/main.nsf And we were assisted by the saleslady who is an ex Saffer from Benoni!

Ok so much for the land. Well after walking through close on 100 display homes altogether - some a few times, we settled on a design, but are a little bit unsure of the builder. If you want to buy anything in Aus - you can check the supplier out on: http://www.productreview.com.au/ and if you search the builders, almost all have people moaning about them. So yes something similar to SA, and you choose the one who has been least sued, pretty much. Will let you know, but from the time you put pen to paper and the builders handover, it is not like SA - it takes 12 months to build a house here. Sometimes longer.

Other than seeking a habitat, we almost became a cautionary tale. We had been on the lookout for a retirement village for when the folks eventually come over and we almost put their names up on the spot as a certain development looked stunning and the display homes excellent, but my eagle eyed mother in SA noticed something, googled them and discovered that the scheme is under investigation by the Australian securities commission. We had been warned by ex Saffers not to get too blase about crime here, just because it isn't violent. Perhaps we had not been as cautious in our approach as we should have been, so we learned that lesson just in time. In such a regulated society, when you think nothing bad could happen, it easily lulls you. Investors are out $25 million on that scheme so we'll see what the investigation yields. I saw the name Kebbel on the docs, can you believe it! Not sure if there is a connection. Anyway.

And yes, (sigh) still waiting for our container...

Hunting

2009-09-14T20:38:00.002+10:00

Not Kangaroos but houses.
This past weekend we went househunting - well actually plot and house hunting. We want to have a new house so have decided to buy one of those house and land packages. I thought I would give those interested an idea of prices here: North West of Sydney is the Hills District and there is a place there called 'Homeworld' which is a semi-permanent display of 120 homes by different builders. All the homes are finished and furnished and you can spend the day (or 2) going through all of them. Plots are around 300-400k and the houses similarly priced. A basic house (+-240m2) is listed at say 225k but then once you add the essential things like tiles and carpets, etc. you are up another 100-150k. The land is the most expensive part of the whole exercise is the land. So 650 to 700k gets you a nice house of around 340m2 depending on finishes. If there is a slope on the land, you could be looking at 120k extra, so level plots are essential. Next week we will be looking South of Sydney where land is about 30% cheaper in a similar area and not as crowded. So we'll see. Houses here take about 6-8 months to build. We are leaning towards Eden Brae homes as they have the nicest finishes we've seen. Here are 2 links to give you an idea: http://www.edenbraehomes.com.au/homes/The_Eden_Brae_Series_of_Homes
http://www.avjennings.com.au/NSW/HomesToBuild/SearchResults.aspx

Canberra

2009-09-10T19:56:00.002+10:00

I know its been a while. Been busy. My brother and his wife arrived and kept us busy hunting for cars etc. And been working, working, working. I took a 3 day trip down to Canberra this week for work and it was interesting. The trip takes about 3.5 hours and for the last day I drove an additional 3.5 hours to Wagga Wagga (pronounced Wogga Wogga), which is a bit in the middle of nowhere.

I was told that Canberra was a dump by the Sydney guys, but was surprised. It is a manufactured city with its whole economy dependant on the government offices. It is estimated that 2/3 of the people that work there commute from Melbourne or Sydney on a weekly basis. But it is really a pretty place - tons of parks everywhere and the roads are wide, immaculate and fast. Well ok if you were allowed to. Compared to Sydney's horrific roads which are really 4th world, it is a real pleasure. Just a word of advice, do not stay at the Canberra Rex - looks really great on the internet, but... well just don't go there. Trust me on this.

I saw my first kangaroos. Ok so they were dead, but it still counts doesn't it? Let me explain. A freind of mine who lives in Melbourne but works in Canberra says that these kangas are nibbling on the grass in the mornings when he gets to work - sounds idyllic? He says they aren't aggressive and will generally run away if faced with a human. So what's the problem? Well he said he was cycling to work the other morning and a baby kangaroo (locally called a joey) was happily hopping alongside him. At 40km per hour. He warned me to watch out for them. Adult Kangaroos can grow to over 2m and are big buggers. You can't fence them in because, well they clear 2m in a normal jump and at full tilt - somewhere maybe between 50 and 60km/hr they will jump much higher than that. Again, so what? Well they appear not to be too bright. So imagine you are driving along at 110km per hour and a kangaroo doing 60km/hour clears a fence and meets you halfway across a road? Needless to say I drove the whole way down to Wagga scanning either side of the road as far as I could see. So thanks to my buddy Tony scaring the heck out of me, I was a total wreck by the time I reached my destination! There are special whistles you can fit to your car that emit a high pitched sound that they don't like and keeps them away, so I will get some and post a picture soon.

By the way, still waiting for our container - it is here apparently, but been checked by customs... so we wait...

Elizabeth

2009-09-02T18:54:00.006+10:00

My brother and his wife arrived on Monday this week to settle here in Aus as well. They are staying with us for a couple of days until their apartment is ready for them to move into. I left home yesterday just after 3am to be onsite for a demo, so things have been busy - hence my tardiness in blogging.

I am starting to recognise streets and some things are even beginning to look vaguely familiar. On Saturday we went to the RTA (Road Traffic Authority) to transfer registration of Carmen's car into her name. You take a number from an electronic dispenser, take a seat and wait in the que until you are called. Elizabeth (not her real name) (well that is what her nametag said , but since she was Chinese, I seriously doubt it) helped us. When we got to the counter, Carmen and I exchanged glances - this appeared to be another Margaret - albeit the Asian derivative. Whilst she typed away busily on her Apple - yes certain government departments have Apples it appears!!! Anyway, as she typed, I asked her where to get the etag that fits on your windscreen and that automatically pays your toll fees. Silence. Type, type, type, Enter. Type, type, type.

She stapled the necessary, handed it over, her face still an impassive blank. I repeated my question.
'Forms at the flont.' she gestured vaguely in the direction of the entrance, her expression deadpan... I momentarily wondered whether she had ever tried her hand at poker and briefly thought of asking her, but thought better of it..
'And then where do we go?' I ventured.
'Then you take number.'
And rejoin the que she forgot to add, i thought to myself - if we end up back at her counter, I swear...
And of course we did.
Type type type, Enter. and then.... the unthinkable happened. She smiled and said 'thank you!' Is smile an exaggeration? I want to say she was almost cheerful - am I going too far, did I imagine it? It was almost as though in that instant she had remembered about some or other motivational customer care course she attended a few years ago in a hotel with red carpets and slightly faded curtains and a loud speaker in a louder tie. Whatever it was, at the end of the day, Margaret retained her title safely.

Waiting...

2009-08-28T23:04:00.009+10:00

Last weekend we took a drive up to the Hills District and saw some very reasonably priced and lovely homes. You have to buy a piece of land seperately of course - but the homes are stunning. They have about 20 fully built showhouses fully furnished so you know exactly what you are in for: www.clarendon.com.au Then during the week I went with a work colleague to vist a council up in the Blue Mountains and we stopped for a bite of lunch and he showed me a view overlooking the valley from echo point - we were up there for business so I never took a camera, but it is truly spectacular!

To say we are looking forward to our container arriving is an understatement! Our butts are calloused and really sore from these hard fold up chairs and the novelty of pumping up our bed every evening is wearing off! Here are some pics of what our flat looks like - the furniture as they would say back in Afrikaans - power! When it finally arrives next month - holding thumbs, as so many others have said, it will be like Christmas in September! Since we started this emigration procedure 18 months ago, the waiting has been a constant companion - and we still suck at being patient with it! No worries - stuff that! Hurry up and get here already!

Home

2009-08-26T20:13:00.005+10:00

We have been here for 3 weeks in Sydney, but it feels longer. Maybe because we have changed living places 3 times, but SA feels a lifetime away. When I think back on the year and months before our departure, we had so much optimism for life on this side of the pond. I guess we were idealistic and that needs to rightly be brought into line with reality, but there is an old saying: 'Where you go, you will be.' I have been working long hours to try and get a handle on things and a grasp of this market. Everything I do seems to take forever and I long for the comfort of the familiar, because the disorientation one normally feels in leaving a job is compuounded and magnified by emigration. You really start from scratch with no network of people to call on and no safety net in a sense.

I guess that I long for a sense of routine because it creates a context within which and from which one can happily explore. It is not the same as being on holiday where everything new is exciting and wonderful and you can just appreciate it for what it is. The sensory overload here is tiring as you have to begin to find patterns to things - consciously endeavour to make roads and goods familiar so that it becomes a known and given to counter the seemingly insiduous ever -new. Certainly, as much as I love travelling the world and seeing new things and am awed by it -as you may have seen in my earlier blogs, at the end of the trip there is a feeling of belonging and affection and even release when someone says: 'It's time to head home.' Just the word: 'home' conjures images of a fireplace, good food and wine, family and friends laughing and teasing and even just sitting talking nonsense together, a messy mix of random memories! I do know that I am deeply blessed that the word evokes such memories and images as many people have never known that. It is not an easy thing to build a home and I think that more and more I have come to appreciate that like happiness, it is almost always a by-product of a lot of other things. As corny as it sounds, I really look forward to the day when this is not just our permanent chosen place of residence, but truly our home.

Not a bear

2009-08-22T22:13:00.002+10:00

I haven't had a chance to google this, but apparently our Aussie buddies from Sydney's Northern Beaches insist that a Koala is in fact not a bear, but a Koala. Well, ok if they say so.. We have named our Koala that they gave us on arrival, Kobie Koala, to reflect his heritage as well as that of his parents. And here he is with a piece of chocolate fugde cake type thing that Carmen bought today and that miraculously has survived all of 3 hours. I am not betting it will see tomorrow morning though...

Car for Car men

2009-08-22T20:55:00.003+10:00

Today we made an offer on a car for Carmen at a Toyota dealership. It is an odd thing here that even if somebody has registration papers, the car could still be stolen or under finance or whatever and can be repossessed. So buying from a dealership is your safest bet. SA's system is better in that the bank retains the reg docs until the car is fully paid up. Anyway, the test drive was a little different. The first thing you notice when you walk onto the lot is that all the car doors are unlocked. Test drive?
'No problem', says the salesman - here are the keys. And he turns around and heads back inside the dealership - I'll be at my desk when you get back.'
'Err, you aren't going to come with us...?'
'No,why?'
'O Ok.'
So off we went. Just a run of the mill 2008 Toyota Corolla 1.8 Auto with low k's so I think we have a deal.
Dealer: 'So you guys starting out here?'
'Yes, hoping to make Aus our home.'
'Ok tell you what, at no charge, I'll throw in an extra 3 year warranty on top of the manufacturers warranty on the car so you are covered for a total of 5 years and you can relax and get settled here - one less thing to worry about, ok?'
'Er, ok thanks!'
Then they called over the service manager - this is who will be looking after you etc. and it wasn't even a new car. Anyway, they all made us feel very welcome. But boy their interest rates are high if you wanted to finance a vehicle. A friend recommended that we finance part of the vehicle and not buy it cash as it helps to build a credit record for when you buy a house, but though the prime is at around 5% or so, rates begin for corporate deals at 9%! and vary all the way up to 17%! So whilst the prime interest rate in SA is higher, your actual rate there may in fact be lower than here! Weird. Also even if they promise you lower rates - like some advertise 2.99%, they hide the real charges in monthly admin fees or whatever. So your payments may in fact be the same - very sneaky little buggers!

Another happy experience of Aussie service: Earlier in the week I had booked a time slot for today with a mobile tinting company to come and tint my car windows darker, because, as I am on the road, my vehicle is kitted out with an inverter that powers all my electrical gadgets,a phone kit, hard drive, GPS and car desk mount for my laptop and with the darker tint,I wouldn't have to remove my laptop from the desk all the time as it wouldn't be a temptation for an opportunist thief. Anyway, the guy rocks up as arranged, takes one look at my car and says: you have the darkest legal tint allowed, so I can do it, but you will get a fine if you get stopped. So on his advice, I decided against it. I offered to pay the call out fee as I should have checked on the level of tinting but he refused in typical Aussie fashion: No, no worries, mate.I wasn't too far away anyway.'

O and we finally visited a wonderful guy shop today called 'Bunnings'. Like Builders warehouse, but rougher and twice as many tools! They have like 50 different types of work gloves! I needed some safety gear for work, but we also decided to get a Dustbuster - those rechargeable little hand held vacuums as our proper vacuum in the container only arrives in a week or 2 and we couldn't face sweeping / brushing the carpets of our flat manually all the time. This is going to be a real test of the little unit - we'll see if it lasts the 2 weeks...

Tomorrow we may be spoiling ourselves and going to movies: $16.00 each and if you want the fancy chairs: $33.00 per ticket on Saturdays and Sundays! Missing our cheap Vitality R14 movies big time! Cheers for now!

In SA we would call it a bit of a k*k day...

2009-08-20T21:20:00.003+10:00

Today the honeymoon feeling was punctured somewhat. I guess I missed family and friends, my parish community and had an 'off' day at work. I suppose that reality would inevitably bite, and day to day routine take over, but I thought it would take longer. I miss my family and friends and perhaps the familiarity of knowing where everything is, while at the same time, I am glad to have been given a chance to start a new adventure. Australia is a country of great physical beauty, much like Cape Town and Knysna - without the litter, crime and beggars. Funny enough, I saw a young student being booked by a traffic officer at the traffic lights here in Sydney for trying to clean people's windscreens. My Australian companion remarked: 'Shame she is only trying to pay for uni", until I took him 5 or 10 years down the line if they allowed that and stopping at traffic lights becomes the running of a gauntlet. Though I am certainly enjoying the many freedoms that physical security gives you here, there are also some freedoms that are missing here and that SA had, although they were also beginning to fade - freedom of expression would be one: it is difficult to have the robust debates that one could have in SA without offending, as all speech is sanitised and you have to be very careful not to offend. Sure it makes for politeness and great courteousness, but it also means that society in general doesn't share on issues of the heart - be they politics, religion or whatever, and so, sharing superficially, except for those most close to you, means that in the main, wider society appears shallow and soulless. Australia is not perfect - it has never claimed to be and I guess I also want those reading here to know that I am not blind to her faults. But on the balance, I still choose it, as the right to life of every human being, necessarily underlies all other rights of our shared humanity. At least even if this country does not respect that right to life with regards to the unborn, unlike SA, it at least does so with regards to those ex utero.

Day number...and where the heck am I?

2009-08-19T20:53:00.004+10:00

I am losing track of the days... Any new job is disorientating, I guess, but moving countries and doing it doubly so. I suppose at least they speak a variation of English here, which makes it somewhat easier. I asked the other day for a koki and was met with a blank stare. So basically if I'm not sure what things are called, I read the label of the item concerned. 'Permanent marker' therefore produced an instant and helpful response.

I just have to vent about the traffic here and more specifically my Garmin GPS.

I have been fighting the whole week with my blasted GPS. It is not that it is faulty. It does things just to cheese me off. It works a treat when it works and I especially bought a fancy one with bluetooth and traffic reports and the only thing that makes me restrain myself from dropping it in acid and hammering it repeatedly with my car jack is the fact that I believe I would get lost more often than it does. But it has been a close call sometimes ... The skyscrapers in the city sometimes make it disorientated and it has taken me around in circles more than once. I can deal with that: I normally look for the Harbour Bridge as I would have used Table Mountain as a reference point and it somehow comforts me and - more often than not - the Garmin as well, and then it is able to lead me the rest of the way home. The problem is when it is been bloody vindictive. I will be cruising happily along, settling into the rhythm of the traffic of my new home city roads and then out of the blue the little cretin on the dashboard will say in the sweetest female British voice: 'Take the next exit' - completely ignorant or more likely, unconcerned that I have to negotiate 4 lanes of traffic to get there. And then.... as I near the top of the offramp and am faced with choosing a lane going left or right, she will be silent. Dead silent. I can scream at her and threaten to rip out her innards; I can slow down to a crawl and watch old couples in walkers pass me on the pavement, as I wait for her to say something but it doesn't help. Until I am finally forced to choose a lane and commit to it and turn right, immediately after which point, she announces decisively: 'Turn left' - I swear there is a note of sadistic pleasure in the voice sometimes. The she will say: 'recalculating' and feign myriad calculations to find another route and proceed to tease me for half a dozen blocks announcing that I turn left or right on such and such a street just after I have passed each successive street. I have stopped shouting and swearing at the GPS, because my apoplectic shouting and gesticulations at the stupid device were attracting attention from other motorists. The damn thing is taking years off of my life. Anyway, I am thinking of nicknaming her Margaret...

Day 6 actual day

2009-08-11T21:54:00.005+10:00

On Sunday, after Church, we went and bought a whole lot of stuff from K-mart - the basics that we will need while waiting for our container. Then off to Coles (not Margaret's one - another branch) we went and saw that they have stuff in a special section: Ghost pops, Wine gums, Provita, Pro-Nutro,etc. All the SA stuff you can't normally get over here that easily- at a price of course. But I looked above it and it was listed as Mexican food? Go figure! As we were warned, it does take a while to get used to new brands and shopping takes a while longer. Afterwards, on the way home, I spotted a little shop called Argyle’s Shop and Rentals so I swung into a parking bay in a street nearby. From Friday, when we move into our new unfurnished apartment, we can do without most things, but we need a fridge until our container arrives, so Carmen and I decided to get a small secondhand one in the meantime. So we popped into Argyles and all the appliances were lined up but not a soul in the place, so we went back to the front and on the door there was a notice: ‘If this shop is unattended, please come 2 doors down to number 26.’ Like, huh? Imagine this in SA! Anyway. We walked 2 doors down and entered. Behind an old desk sat Mr Argyle, thousands of papers in piles around the large back office. He was at least 82 years old and had owned the business for over 30 years. We decided on a bar fridge and he slowly,.... excrutiatingly slowly, wrote out the invoice by hand, and advised us solemnly that even if we lost the invoice, he would still honour the 3 month guarantee. He then nodded to himself and disappeared to the back. We stayed where we were, unsure if the deal was concluded or not, but after a minute or two of rummaging through one of the piles he shuffled back over to the desk, collapsed into the chair and began to write out a certificate of guarantee for us, while our frozen food melted away in the car. I told him it wasn’t necessary but he insisted. I didn’t doubt his word that he would honour the guarantee if he was alive. I just thought he would expire before the guarantee. Anyway, certificate safely in hand, he offered to help us to the car by using a tip trolley to take it to the car for us, but I didn’t fancy having to explain away how I as a South African passport holder came to be holding dead Mr Argyle, a venerable Australian citizen, so I lifted up the fridge in my arms and we headed down the road as casually as we could, ignoring the studious non-stares of the pedestrians and hoping that nobody who had witnessed our public trolley spectacle, saw us now.

Day 6

2009-08-11T20:21:00.004+10:00

Before I get to Sunday, I forgot to mention that on Saturday when we went with the ferry for our scenic little trip from Manly to Circular Quay, I had one of those moments... After taking a leisurely walk down to the terminal, the first alarm sounded to indicate that the ferry was about to leave, so we rushed up to the booth, tossed our change under the glass into the booth and the friendly assistant quickly issued our tickets, which we grabbed and ran towards the ferry. The terminal works like a tube turnstile - you slip your ticket in a front slot as you enter and it releases the turnstile and pops the ticket out on the top. Tony, Mira and Carmen slipped quickly through, the alarm growing more and more urgent, while my turnstile rejected my ticket, I vaguely aware that the assistant in the booth had shouted something at me, which was muted because of the glass. I thought she said: 'The ferry is leaving!' so I threw a flitting, desperate smile of acknowledgement and frantically thrust my ticket into the machine which again and spat it out, and I heard the women shout something again - louder but still muted. 'Yes, I know, you freaking moron,' I swore under my breath at her, as I frantically stabbed my ticket repeatedly at the stubborn turnstile: 'The ferry is leaving - I can also hear the 300 decibel alarm!' I glanced for a millisecond and saw Tony and Mira and Carmen looking out at me, puzzled, through the windows of the ferry? I had a momentary flashback to Paris. Then I heard the woman in the booth throw open her window and shout loudly:
'Hey!'
'What?' I whirled on her.
She dropped her voice and said simply:
'Turn your ticket around...'
So I did. And the turnstile opened and I boarded the ferry just in time not daring to look back.

Day 7 - Back to the Grindstone

2009-08-10T21:34:00.002+10:00

So what happened to Day 6? I started work today - only 1.5 hours each way in traffic, because I go agianst the flow of traffic, but am really tired - very nice bunch of people that I will be working with which makes a difference, but a funny thing happened when I walked in this morning: Our company utilises trailers to tow our smaller equipment around that does not need to be transported on a truck. Since our units have low ground clearance, they are special trailers and custom made. Well 2 of the 3 were gone this morning - stolen over the weekend! Welcome to Sydney! Will let you know if they catch the buggers! By the way, I did rub Saturday's win by the Springbok's in their faces over here :-). Funny enough they respect our team, but hate losing to the kiwis more! I will try and post about day 6 - it was quite an eventful Sunday, but I need my bed so goodnite from downunder.

Day 5 - Manly - Circular Quay

2009-08-08T20:18:00.011+10:00

Another of those Aussie names - Manly - where we are staying has a ferry terminal and today we got the ferry from Manly to Circular Quay which is the terminal right alongside the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House together with a friend of mine and his girfriend up from Canberra, who spent the day with us. The weather was clear and skies blue. I have attached pics of the view from our flat looking over Manly Beach and you can see the ferry (green ship) heading out across the bay. Then a shot of Tony and Mira (weird name I know - she is from Croatia originally) with us at Starbucks :-) and finally one of Carmen outside the opera house. Felt like real tourists today. Never took a photo of it, but we also had Krispy Kreme donuts - evil stuff! Carmen wouldn't let me buy a green hat with corks :-( but I will get one soon anyway when I am alone... Cheers!

Tourism Website

2009-08-08T08:28:00.002+10:00

Got this forwarded to me from my Aunt Gwen and couldn't resist: These were posted on an Australian Tourism Website and the answers are the actual responses by the website officials:
Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia ? I have never seen it rain on TV, how do the plants grow? ( UK )
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.
Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? ( USA )
A: Depends how much you've been drinking.
Q: I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the railroad tracks?(Sweden)
A: Sure, it's only three thousand miles, take lots of water.
Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in Australia ? Can you send me a list of them in Brisbane , Cairns , Townsville and Hervey Bay ? (UK)
A: What did your last slave die of?
Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Australia ?( USA)
A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe . Aus-tra-lia is that big island in the middle of the Pacific which does not .... oh, forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Kings Cross. Come naked.
Q: Which direction is North in Australia ?( USA)
A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions.
Q: Can I bring cutlery into Australia ? (UK)
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do...
Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule?(USA)
A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is oh, forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Kings Cross, straight after the hippo races. Come naked.
Q: Are there supermarkets in Sydney and is milk available all year round?(Germany)
A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of vegan hunter/gatherers. Milk is illegal.
Q: Please send a list of all doctors in Australia who can Dispense rattlesnake serum. (USA)
A: Rattlesnakes live in A-meri-ca which is where YOU come from. All Australian snakes are perfectly harmless, can be safely handled and make good pets.
Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Australia, but I forget its name. It's a kind of bear and lives in trees. ( USA)
A: It's called a Drop Bear. They are so called because they drop out of Gum trees and eat the brains of anyone walking underneath them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.
Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in Australia ?(USA)
A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather.
Q: Can you tell me the regions in Tasmania where the female population is smaller than the male population?
(Italy)
A: Yes, gay night clubs.
Q: Do you celebrate Christmas in Australia ?(France)
A: Only at Christmas.
Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? (USA)
A: Yes, but you'll have to learn it first.

Day 4 - Misery has a name. Margaret.

2009-08-07T23:34:00.002+10:00

Today we paused to catch our breath and tried to do some washing. The coin-operated laundry next to our holiday flat only takes 1 dollar coins and since we needed a couple of things from Coles, we decided to kill two birds with one stone. With long queues at the other counters, Carmen and I glanced at each other, braced ourselves and lined up in front of the till manned by the cloud of darkness who had refused to serve us the previous day. Ok, admittedly, we are cowards - Carmen and I both counted the items in our basket twice to make sure we weren’t over the 12 item express checkout limit and after briefly debating whether Darth Vader would count a sealed pack of 6 hangers as a single pack or say that technically they were 6 items in a pack, we proudly placed our items on her counter. With my most winning smile, determined to rouse some semblance of humanity from this rock of misery, I stole a glance at her name tag:
‘Exactly 10 items – see we remembered, Margaret!’ I announced proudly to her, even using her name for dramatic effect.
Stony silence and a blank hostile stare as though I was from the moon.
‘What?’
I swallowed hard. I was not going to let this bastion of blackness deflate my happy mood today. I was in sunny Australia and everyone we had met except this wretched creature of gloom had gone out of their way to be friendly and welcoming:
’Only 10 items!’ I repeated cheerfully, and pointed upwards at the small sign above her till,
‘Remember yesterday…we…’ I trailed off as my eyes searched in vain for the sign which was nowhere to be seen..
She shook her head with an impatient sigh as she threw our items into a bag muttering under her breath:
‘Somedays I don’t know why I bother!’
I don’t know what she meant by that and I didn’t ask.
My wife was only slightly less intimidated than me, especially since I was safely between her and Attila the Hun’s clone. I froze, as she piped up, tentatively from the rear: ‘And if possible, could you include a couple of dollar coins in our change, please?’.
Blackness flung open the till, shaking her head: ‘I don’t have any – they leave me the whole day without any change!’ she announced loudly, the other cashiers studiously ignoring her.

We exited quickly through the doors, still short of half of our objective - coins for the laundry and now unable to muster the courage to ask for change without feeling obliged to buy something. Then we spotted a little Italian ice-cream shop (Gelatari) - any excuse for an icecream!
The friendly shop assistant handed us the tiniest ice cream I have ever seen, (Bambini’ ice creams are delicious, but, and again, I do not exaggerate, they are the length of my index finger including the cone.) (I do not have large hands either). As she took the 20 dollar note, we asked for dollar change.
‘O no, so sorry’ she gushed apologetically, in typical open and friendly Australian fashion, ‘but we have none – it has been a busy day.’
She tried to help by offering us 2 dollar coins but we thanked her and declined.. Thoroughly underwhelmed by the day’s lack of success after all of our stellar achievements of earlier in the week, we headed home. The jet lag now beginning to really make itself felt, we tried - again not very successfully - to catch up on some much needed sleep and recharge our batteries. O well tomorrow is another day. No worries.

Day 3

2009-08-06T23:56:00.005+10:00

I collected my phone – for those who care a Nokia E51 and my car a black Ford Territory and was pleasantly surprised – it been a Ford – they make some nice cars, but well have the reputation of being big American gas guzzlers but Aus make their own cars and don’t suffer the reputation of their American counterparts and this one is very well finished - I had had my heart set on a Toyota Kluger, but must admit, am happy as can be with this one. Automatic – a must in this insane Sydney traffic! And 4.0l V6, a Bok van Blerk cd playing, arm out the window – who’s cool now! J

Carmen and I sadly parted with T and S at my offices feeling like fledglings abandoned by their foster parents and the security and home cooking of Avalon and headed out GPS engaged to begin the next part of our wonderful adventure. Then we went to do some grocery shopping.

What is up with these Aussies? Seriously, they will look you dead in the eye when I point to a popular range of shops and are puzzled when you stare in disbelief at the names of these places. A discount shop – like the cheap crazy stores in SA are called Willy Wonkers – I swear I am not making this up… I mean? Anyway we go to Coles (like Pick ‘n Pay) and take one of their blasted trolleys that are impossible to control – all four wheels move so you kind of wrestle them down the aisles. Loaded up about a quarter trolley we head to the cashier. Their were about 3 cashiers working as it was quiet and about 4 other customers paying. So we headed to the one that had no one in the queue – a miserable old women who glares at Carmen and points upwards to a small sign above the till: 12 items or less. Now we are one of those obedient couples who never try and ‘cheat’ by taking a trolley to a basket checkout, but the sign was really small so we missed it. Anyway, we backed off and she turns around and bellows out to the empty shop: ‘Next customer please!’ I turned to Carmen and then to my trolley and then looked at the cashier. There were no other customers in the store. I silently wished her painful bunions and we queued at the next till. Our car was parked 2 streets away so we asked the cashier (a nice one) if we could possibly take the trolley down the road and offload into our car and bring it back. She helpfully said ‘no problem’ so we headed out into main street Sydney pushing a full shopping trolley down the pavement. Carmen turned to me about 5 metres into this and said: ‘You know Rodney, I don’t see anybody else doing this. People are looking at us’ And she was right. They were. Everybody battled with their bags, but nobody else had hijacked a trolley. There was a good reason for this. Outside the smooth pavement of the shop, it was fine. The errant trolley was controllable – with difficulty – but it was achievable. Then you cross the road and hit the paving of the car park road and all hell breaks loose. The trolley bucked and kicked like a rodeo pony. Eventually, we took one end each: Carmen pulled it viciously from the front while I shoved and kicked it along mercilessly from the back swearing like troopers and wishing all manner of plagues on the manufacturers of the trolley and the miserable cashier for good measure.

But by the time we got back to the flat and had eaten our supper, and we were finally able to link up to the internet again with 3G - $200 later and a world of frustration, our mood had markedly improved. I must say, you guys in SA are in for a bit of trouble when the new law for prepaid comes into effect over there, where you have to register your details when you buy a prepaid cellphone. We had to give passport numbers and addresses etc. Remember FICA at the banks? Similar process.

Anyway – here are some pics of the temporary holiday flat we are in for the next 9 days before we move into the long termer. Or on the net: http://stayz.com.au/31504

Will try and post again soon.

Cheers.

Day 2

2009-08-06T23:49:00.002+10:00

We stayed for 2 nights at S&T place a cousin of mine in a beautiful leafy suburb near the beach in Avalon north of Sydney. We had arranged to view a long term (1 year) rental place while we were still in SA – a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 garage apartment in Homebush Bay – right near the water with tennis courts, a proper multi lane lap pool, gym, running tracks, cycling tracks and right next to the Awesome Sydney Olympic Park with unreal facilities. If you love sport, this is heaven. I have attached some pics of the place. If you want to have a look at the actual unit we are renting: this is the link to it:
http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&cc=AUSTRALIA&id=404008796&ag=&cu=fn-rea&c=30711405&p=10&s=nsw&t=ren&tm=1248982308

When we went to see the actual unit it was a nice size – difficult tot gauge but probably 100-110m2 and well kitted out with piped gas 2 balconies – one piped for a gas braai and just very civilised. As I was walking through to the bedrooms, I remarked in passing to the agent that there really was a lot of cupboard space and waved my hand in the direction of a set of double doors. ‘O that’s not a cupboard he said flinging the doors open to reveal a laundry room perhaps 6m2 with a tumble dryer mounted on the wall, space for a washing machine and its own sink – it was so cool, Carmen said she thought I was going to demand the papers right there and then to sign – I almost did. To cut a long story short, we loved the place and so within 28 hours of our arrival we had found a long term place to stay which we love!, signed the lease, paid the bond (deposit), got approval, collected our car and phone, bought and updated a Garmin and been feeling altogether very chuffed with ourselves – knowing of course there is a Somebody watching over us and for some unknown reason, smoothing our path.

The Move: Day 1

2009-08-04T23:08:00.003+10:00

After boarding an SAA flight to Jhb, we had an uneventful trip via Qantas to Sydney. As the wheels lifted off from Johannesburg International, I felt nothing. We had said our goodbyes in Cape Town and that was so hard because we have left people behind that will only join us in a while, but of SA there was no sense for me of loss. We landed in Sydney and S & T collected us with a real Aussie welcome and the gift of a cute, soft Koala bear toy and after dumping our bags at their house, we took a stroll together in the gathering twilight down towards the local Woolworths. Mom's were walking with their kids in prams, there were no beggars with their bibs and implicit threats in the car park or loiterers outside the shop. The shelves were quite confusing as we searched for different products, but it was such a sense of freedom to walk out and home in suburbia without any concern for safety or negotiating a gauntlet. For any who read this blog, let me put this out there: I have no intention of ever trashing the land of my birth, but I also have no intention of not sharing the things that I appreciate in this new life either. We walked by Avalon beach and it was peaceful - some surfers (there are always surfers out on the water) catching some small waves. This is the life I want for my wife, my parents, my siblings, my family and friends and my future children. It is what a home should be.

The Move: Prologue Day before leaving

2009-08-04T23:01:00.003+10:00

After days of packing, wrapping up bank accounts and basically wiping out any traces of our hitherto existence, it was the final evening before our flight out. I have attached some pics of the chaos that was our flat that was taken over by Kings removals – they were methodical and if all our stuff arrives safely on the other side in Sydney, it would have been as painless a process as one could ever have hoped. Excuse the picture quality - was taken with a cellphone.