Important Living In Australia Milestone Reached

I have met someone called Sheila.

I would like to gloss over the fact that she is in fact Irish.

Important Living In Australia Milestone Reached

I have met someone named Bruce.

It's all takin and no givin

I am feeling a bit bereft of interesting ideas for blog titles just now, hence the repetitive dolly references. Sorry about that.

My first week at work went well, and since they have allowed me to return today I will take that as a good sign. Everyone here is very nice and chilled, and it seems like a great place to work. We have a casual dress policy, drinks every Friday and whatnot. They treat everyone like grown ups here, basically assuming that you will manage to do your work and in return you can do what you like around it. Which is a very nice refreshing change from some recent office policies I have worked under! I have even done an actual piece of work which has gone to an actual client, which was quite a nice change from the usual first week fish out of water feeling that you get. Also there's a possibility that I might have to go to Canberra this evening with the MD, so they can't think I'm a total numpty. In response to queries about the coffee machine it looks a bit like this:
and I am now quite the expert at frothing milk and whatnot. Should it all go horribly wrong here I can now pursue a career in Starbucks.

Not a massive amount of other news though. Had quite a quiet weekend, as we are poor and tired, but we're starting to get really itchy feet now and can't wait to get some money together so we can actually get out of the city! I have become a bit obssessed with this website which is an excellent way to while away some time and get ridiculously overexcited at the thoughts of seeing this great country. I can't wait! Oooh I tell a lie, there is an event today which is very newsworthy down here - rain! I don't know whether you know but there's a massive and very serious drought in Australia at the moment, so in a bit of a role reversal from the UK whenever there is rain forecast everyone gets really excited, and it goes straight to the top of the news broadcast. I'm not sure whether it'll be enough to get us out of level 5 water restrictions, but hopefully it'll stave off unprecedented level 6, where presumably you can't wash at all. This will not help us stave off the general opinion of poms being a bit bath shy.

What a way to make a livin

Just a very quick one today to say that early indications suggest that new job and new company are pretty good! First day today, and they seem like a really good bunch of folk, with a really chilled ethos. My new boss seems pretty cool, and the offices are dead nice. They even have a proper barista style coffee machine there, although I am far too scared to try it. I think it's going to be quite hard work, and they have pretty high standards by the looks of things, but I think that'll do me good. I've had far too much opportunity to indulge my lazy side over the last couple of years.

I'll keep you posted obviously, but tonight I am far too brain drained to write a big fat blog.

x

Today is a GOOD day

So today is a good day. And why? well this morning we took delivery of a sofa. I now no longer have to sit on the floor. The simple pleasures in life are amazing - I am sitting on a sofa watching telly. It's great. I am enjoying my view, although I don't think I'll have it much longer as there are a shedload of diggers in the site over the road, and I have a feeling there will be a new 50 story apartment block there before very long. They don't hang about over here - when Stu gets up at 6 am they are already in the diggers digging away, and they only stop when it gets dark, so I don't think that we'll even have the luxury of watching it go up slowly and not impeding our little patch of sky before too long. Reckon we might open the curtain one morning to find it built, and folk moved in.

Also today I have got a job. It is for that company who turned me down, then invited me for interviews etc. Apparently they were very impressed with my homework, and as of Monday I will be an analytics consultant. I'm not quite sure what that means, so I'll have to update you on that another day. I am quite excited about it, as they seem a good bunch, have a casual clothing policy and the work seems interesting. However I also have not worked for nearly 3 months, so I think it's going to be a bit of a shock to the system.

However, every silver lining has a cloud. It turns out that our stuff is still in England, as Pickfords just haven't quite got round to sending it yet. So another god only knows how long til we get it over here. Also we have somehow managed to puncture the airbed (that sounds really dodgy, but I don't think it is) so every night we pump it up and go to bed, and every morning we wake up lying on the floor. Not quite sure what we're going to do about it - we're only in a one bedder so we can't buy an interim bed til ours gets here, and our budget doesn't really stretch to it anyway. Hey ho.

In other important news, I have changed campaign of the week (more like campaign of the arbitrary amount of time til I decide to change it). I recently saw some footage of professional kangaroo hunters over here. Picture the scene - a kangaroo is shot and wounded. The hunters pull the joey out of her pouch and stamp on its head. As she struggles to get up, they cut holes in her legs and hang her upside down next to a few other corpses on the back of her truck. They drive away with her still alive, and you can hear the wounded but not dead joey crying in the background. This is so they can make pet food, and Adidas can make football boots and footballs. If like me you think this is a bonkers way to treat any animal, let alone one which is your national emblem and graces your national airline and government sponsored tourism adverts, please visit campaign of the week for suggestions as to who to write to to protest.

Payday!

And what a relief that is. We have some money in the bank - although not for much longer as we still need to pay the bills at home, and at the end of the month I have to pay Reed £500 for the pleasure of making me redundant (deep breath in, deep breath out).

Just thought I'd do a very quick update with some piccies of our flat, and some other bits and bobs we've pictured in the last couple of weeks, like bathing Buddha etc (oh and if anyone's interested, apparently it is OK to hate Buddhists because they have a cancer in their souls and it's OK to hate cancer. So there you go).

Our little gaff and other stuff

Still waiting on feedback from my homework for that job I want. Also starting to really worry about whether we will ever see our stuff from the UK again. I contacted the removals folk yesterday through their website with our moving reference to tell them we have now arrived in Brisbane and want to give contact details for delivery of our goods when they arrive. I got a message back saying that they were pleased I wanted to use them for my removal needs, and should contact them to book a time to come round and do a quote and book a date for removal.

Oh and I almost forgot - we now have a credit card, so I'm off to buy a sofa today. YAY!

Happy Hammers, Horrible Hangovers, Holiday Homes, Hollywood Hotties, and um... Hemployment Hopportunities

Well well well - where to begin? Feels like bloody ages since I've been on here, although it's only 2 weeks.

SO - first things first. We have moved into our new little pad. We are officially camping out in our own flat - sitting on bean bags and sleeping on an air bed. I cannot wait til we can afford to buy some furniture - getting up and down off the floor all the time and having no back support at all is an ergonomic nightmare I tells ya. At least our relationship has survived enforced conversation and spending time together. The flat is grand though - nice and central, very pretty, good facilities etc. There's a gym onsite and I have been going very regularly - me! I'll do a proper blog about it another time when I've uploaded some pics and stuff.

We're on a bit of a poverty trip at the minute as I am STILL not working, and Stu doesn't get paid til Weds, so a strict diet of 2 minute noodles is called for just now. We've managed a few trips out in the last fortnight though.

The weekend we moved in here we went to a meeting of the Brisbane British Club which is an expat group who meets on the last Sunday of every month in the Pig & Whistle (Stu's favourite pub as we know). It was very nice, and we met some nice folk. Of course we got completely totally and utterly shit faced, and neither of us remember getting home. One of the folk we met emailed us the next day to say that he'd had to throw a sickie that day as he had practically puked up a lung when he got home. Another bloke who neither of us remember at all emailed Stu to ask whether he could pass on the details of Naylor recruitment as discussed. Neither of us have ever heard of Naylor recruitment. Hopefully we weren't having some sort of fantasy conversation and making up a load of nonsense to this bloke. I'm just hoping we're allowed back next time. I don't know how Stu made it to work on the Monday as I just wanted to die all day.

Last weekend we went to the Bathing Buddha Festival over on the South Bank which is rapidly becoming one of my favourite parts of Brisbane. It was a really lovely day, loads of great food stalls, all very educational. It was only slightly marred by the fact that on our way in someone gave us a leaflet which I assumed was information on the event - but no. It was in fact helpfully pointing out that all Buddhists are going to go to hell because they worship an idol. I will let you know how the author responds when I email him to ask him how he would feel if a load of Buddhists picketed his Christmas or Easter celebrations - but then it wouldn't happen as they seem to generally be nice open minded people!

Afterwards we went to the Jade Buddha for a few scoops as it seemed appropriate under the circumstances. (It turns out that Pat Rafter owns Jade Buddha, so I fully intend to stake it out at every available opportunity from now on). Anyway, there we were minding our own business when a bunch of too cool for school folk traipse in with some kind of minder bloke in big shades and a bluetooth headset. They all settle down to a table, and one of them gets out a camera and starts filming one of them doing such riveting things as ordering and eating food, etc. Being a naturally inquisitive person I gawped at them, til I figured out that it was Jared Leto with his band. So check me right out, rubbing shoulders with Hollywood A listers. Barnes verdict: Very very very pretty, but a bit of a knob.

As I said above, I'm still not working but things are kind of looking up on that front. I'm in what I hope are the last stages of an application with an HR consultancy firm. I originally applied for a job as a business analyst, which they turned me down for. I emailed them and said please keep me in mind etc etc, then they invited me to apply for an HR admin role. Better than nowt I thought, so I trotted along and got invited back for a second interview. Half way through this interview it turns out that they were interviewing me for an analyst post - the one they originally turned me down for. Very confusing. I have to do a case study thing this weekend, then hopefully I'll get a decision. So fingers crossed and positive vibes down under please, as I really want the job!

I think that's it for the minute. I've got a load of emails to catch up on this weekend, so hope to be in touch soon!

Oh yeah - and have a look at where I'll be spending Christmas.