Category Archives: General Mumblings

a very Fyne house…

By | | Diet and Weight Loss, General Mumblings, House Stuff
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Two whole years again, but now it’s time to start blogging again. Why? because some pretty incredible things have happened…

The first was being diagnosed with a life-changing condition, and suffering a fairly rapid decline in my health, the second was purchasing a lovely wee house on the shores of loch fyne.

So, the illness. I have a gene which is carried by about 17% of the UK population – a version of the Human Leukocyte Antigen called HLA-B27. Combine that with the common gut bacteria Klebsiella Pneumonia, and I get my spinal bones slowly fusing together and an excruciating level of pain… it’s called Ankylosing Spondilytis, and it is not fun.

Facing the prospect of only being able to work for 3 or 4 more years (if I was lucky), we set about finding somewhere good for the spirit to retire to – a bungalow somewhere by the water, with a nice view. We had a short list – waterside, with a forest nearby for walks, and a nice view of the mountains.

That, as it happens, is one bloody expensive list if you want it within a reasonable commute from Glasgow… so we cast our net a little bit further… and found St Ronans; a lovely wee bungalow right on the east shore of Loch Fyne.

We bought it in January 2013, and have been gradually doing it up ever since.

Oddly enough though, the AS diagnosis is actually a good thing – because after a decade of worsening pain and gradually decreasing ability to move around, I have two things – an answer to what is happening, and a method of control and treatment. Turns out there is way to block the activity of the Klebsiella Bacteria – by eliminating Starch from my diet, I have been able to completely recover in a little over six months… by locking out rice, potatoes, bread and pasta, I now have no pain, and essentially the prospect of a normal healthy life.

So, suddenly, our retirement home with the slightly negative undertone has become the chance of a lifetime to build a grand design. We’ll be turning it into a two storey building, adding a viewing deck, and possibly a hot tub… it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

And what did they do Next?

By | | General Mumblings, House Stuff
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Two years since our last post! You would almost think that nothing had happened in between…

…and nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, we emigrated (back) to Scotland in April 2010, moved back into our old house, and got new jobs. It’s been the busiest 18 months of my life, working on an epic project of great epicness. Jen has been working away in the health sector, gradually plotting to take over the world (as indeed, we do every night)

The blog here is geting re-animated for a couple of reasons – firstly, there’s a need to get the house cleared out a bit. After learning the lessons of living “lighter” by traipsing around the globe, we are feeling the gunk starting to pile up again – and I don’t feel like either giving everything away on freecycle, or the hassles of ebay. Going to try a halfway house of “make me an offer” from the blog here.

The other reason… well, the feet are getting itchy again. Not sure where to this time. It might be Boston, or Sydney. Maybe San Diego, I hear it’s nice this time of year…

Christmas on Bondi Beach

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, Uncategorized
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It’s been a pretty eventful couple of months. I have handed in my notice at RMAP, and it is probably a surprise to nobody that we are moving back to the UK!!

We are not there yet, but at this point, it looks like there isn’t a job for me back in Scotland (only Oxford) and as the whole point of moving back home is to be with friends and family… ending up 400 miles south isn’t what we had in mind.

Anyway, it seems that there will be enough interesting stuff happening to do some more blogging again (unlike back in Dullsville Perth), so it’s time to kick off the blog again.

We landed in Sydney yesterday (xmas eve) and are now prepping up for Hogmanay out on the Harbour. This is real bucket list country – yesterday we wandered down to the harbour to see the iconic bridge, and of course, the sydney opera house. The feeling of standing beside such an iconic, recognised the world over building was something else – almost as big a rush as seeing the pyramids.

A magical evening of cocktails sitting in the elegant bar, as some guy played christmas music on the piano, and a nice long lie.

We hit the gym for an epic session (not bob), got ready and headed out – Sydney’s public transport was largely running, and the train out to Bondi Junction was reasonably busy – then the buses (standing room only) out to Bondi Beach.

So… it’s basically like Irvine, or burntisland. Very much like burntisland, in fact, with the same fine white sand. And the way people are huddled around windbreaks trying to keep warm. In the rain.

As with many of our experiences of Australia, the weather has played a large part in making it entirely average. You can see even more so here than usual that the tourism people here earn their money ten times over by carefully picking which footage is used in advertising.

Anyhoo, the rain is likely to last until Thursday, so we may have a single good day out of our eight day holiday to enjoy the beach.

At the moment, we are sitting relaxing in our gorgeous hotel room waiting to head down for dinner – which will hopefully be rather nice, especialy after the “bondi burger experience” of lunch. shudder.

Water, water everywhere…

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, grrrr
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It’s been some time.. and as usual, our blogging has been somewhat erratic.

Almost everything in our lives seems to be about water right now – whether that’s keeping water out of where we don’t want it, or keeping it in where we do want it..

The last major disaster was when the rain got a bit harder than usual (for anyone who still believes that Australia is warm and sunny most of the time, remember that this is a lie, and australia is very, very wet.)

We heard odd sounds from downstairs – either we were being burgled by some man sized frogs, or there was a lot of slopping and splashing going on… that would be the water peeing through the ceiling, soaking the spare PC, and a bunch of stuff on the table. In typical blog style, we made a video:

That behind us (but not fixed of course – our letting agent is waaaaay to slow to let a little something like WATER COMING THROUGH THE CEILING get them all flustered, oh no…) we move onto the latest nightmare.

I came home to an odd noise (there’s a pattern here). this time, it was a sort of muffled rushing sound.. y’know in a movie when the good guy presses his ear to a wall, to more clearly hear a distant rumbling – only for the distant sound to burst through the wall?

that didn’t happen – which is a shame, as my life would be a darn sight easier if it had! Turns out the agent didn’t think that the rushing sound (and the fact that our hot water remains stubbornly lukewarm, despite consuming more gas than essex) was enough evidence of a leak.

They wanted to wait until we could actually see water damage.

After much (angry) conversation, I decided another video was in  order:

Of course, by this point, we have probably consumed around five THOUSAND litres of water – all of which has been dumped fairly directly into the foundations of the house here. I am sooo glad this isn’t my house – but my sympathies are with the owner. Can’t imagine he’ll be too happy to see that the agent wanted to actually see his property damaged before they would call a plumber..

Can you say ‘underpinning’ ?

the End of Summer…

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, grrrr
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And when they say ‘end’, they mean it.

It’s been noticeably colder in the days since the weekend when Alan and Penny flew back. last couple of days it’s been a wall of cloud again – which hasn’t happened for a few weeks… then the weather erupted on us yesterday.

Driving rain, howling winds and bitterly, bitterly cold.

Perth is confusing – it always has been for us. I look at a temperature gauge, and it’s reading 20 degrees, yet I am cold to my marrow, more bitterly cold than I have any recollection of ever being in Scotland.

I can remember back when Jen and I first moved into Windmillhill Street in motherwell – back in 1992!! – we didn’t have any working heating, and the windows were single glazed. At the time, i thought they were the worst windows you could ever have… the temperatures were down in the -5 range, and you could see your breath in the air when you woke up in the morning… and it *still* feels warmer than a 20 degree day here.

I just don’t get it. Perhaps your mind see the brilliant sun and sets some sort of internal expectation, I don’t know..

Just that it’s back to being cold. really cold.

Helen flies out on Friday, and we are seriously looking forward to seeing her – but I am thinking that she won’t get much (if any) use out of the swimming pool. I tried it a couple of days ago, and had to get out because I was shivering so badly.

We are heading up to exmouth for a chunk of the stay though, so that should help a lot – it’s *much* warmer!

I’m Special. Oh so Special.

By | | General Mumblings, grrrr
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At least Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs thinks so.

Back in 2005, shortly after the company folded, I had a fairly unpleasant letter from HMRC telling me that they had lost my details. This isn’t the same incident where they essentially lost the whole country’s tax records on a couple of CDs, but a more targeted one.

They lost details of Standard Life pension customers (which includes me). They told me that I shouldn’t worry, because they had put precautions in place to make sure that my records would remain safe.

It got weird, and eventually, I wrote a flaming complaint letter:

Dear Sirs,

I am shocked at the appalling level of incompetence and poor customer care that you have shown towards me.

I received a notice of outstanding payment from you (around £40) for tax year 05-06.

I contacted you to make payment, and enquire about whether this meant I needed to complete a self assessment (I had previously been told that this was not the case). The letter said that I should contact the Cumbernauld Office if I had any queries.

I called the Cumbernauld office, using the number on the letter.

The number held a recorded message indicating that this office no longer handled these enquiries and that I should phone a generic 0845 number.

I called the 0845 number.

Your assistant asked me if I was someone famous. Which was incredibly odd. It’s not the case – I work in an ordinary job for a PLC. They asked me if I worked in government service. Also not the case. They even lowered their voice and asked me if I worked in the military. Which would have been funny, if it wasn’t so creepy. Eventually, they said that I should phone Centre 1 in East Kilbride, as they could not access my records.

I called Centre 1.

They asked me if I was famous. “no, and I don’t work for the government either” I said. They said that they could not access my records, as they had been moved to Cardiff. They said I should call Cardiff.

I called Cardiff.

Guess what? They asked me if I was famous. Then they asked me if I worked for the Government. After much tapping of keys, they insisted that they could not access my records, which were held at Centre 1 and that I should call them. When I explained that I had just spoken to Centre 1, they said that there was nothing that they could do, and I should phone Centre 1 back anyway.

I called Centre 1 (again).

I explained, and the assistant went and found a supervisor. The supervisor came on the phone and asked me “Are you a celebrity?”. I swear I could almost scream at this farce. Instead, I politely explained what I had been through that morning. She then explained that my records must have been lost. Not the “lost down the back of the sofa on two CDs” lost that your organisation seems to be so good at, nor indeed the “lost en route to Standard Life” lost that you wrote to me about a few months ago.

Just the plain old fashioned incompetent sort of lost. She insisted that there was nothing she could do, as the all powerful “system” showed that my records belonged to Cardiff and she couldn’t access them. “Perhaps you should call Cardiff” was her suggestion.

I called Cardiff (again).

Explaining to the assistant, he sought a supervisor. Explaining the joke of an experience that I had had, she said that the records were somehow lost in transit between the two offices, however she would check into this and call me back. She carefully took all of my details – and I mean *ALL* of my details. Address, dob, NI number, bank account my wages are paid to, employer, employer’s payroll number and most importantly, my home and office phone numbers.

She said that she would look into this and call me back. Perhaps because I was so beaten down by the process, I didn’t get a note of her name – which I regretted by the end of that day when I had not been called back.

When I had not heard anything for a week, I called back to Centre 1 again. They once more launched into “are you a celebrity”, then explained that they could not access my records which were at Cardiff.

I called Cardiff.

They said that my records were still not accessible, and that I should call Centre 1. I asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor apologised that I had not been called back, told me that they would look into this… and call me back!

The next day, when I had not been called back, I called Cardiff. Yet again.

This time, the very helpful man on the phone said that the records could take a couple of weeks to sort themselves out if I had just changed job (that happened about 9 months previously).

He then suggested that I simply make a payment and post it in. I asked where I would post it, given that my records were “somewhere in the system”. I also explained that I needed to confirm whether or not I needed to do a self assessment for the coming year, as I had two letters – one saying that I should, and one saying that I didn’t need to. He said “I’ll look into this, and call you back” – he then took my details.

So, would you like to take a guess? Was it third time lucky in the HMRC call back lottery for me? Was it stuff. I’m still waiting for my call back, as far as I know my records are still lost somewhere in god-knows-where, and you just sent me a blooming LATE PAYMENT NOTICE?????

I am a tax payer. I have paid every penny that I am due in tax. I would happily pay you what I am required to. I’ll complete whatever forms I have to. What I am not going to do is pay a blooming penalty notice for the sake of your muck up.

You wouldn’t take my money when I tried to pay – in what world does that make me to blame?

My daytime phone number is: 0xxxxxxxxx

My evening home number is: 0xxxxxxxx

Now, can you please, PLEASE, find where my records are, have someone call me and explain what it is I owe, or what it is you want from me, and settle this matter? I am waiting for your call – just as I have been for the last three months.

They got back to me. It seems that after my records were lost, they moved me to PD1 – which is the super secret tax office for celebrities, the politicians and ninjas. probably.

They sorted it out – basically, I have a ‘phantom’ tax record in the normal system, where I am still a Self Assessment person, and my ‘real’ record in the secret system, where I am not. easy, huh.

The hassle is – PD1’s not listed on the HMRC website (because they don’t really want to go shouting about the fact that footballer’s wives and the good and great get special treatment from the tax man).

And I just got a demand for my (overdue) self assessment. again. Complicated by the fact that this year… I actually should be doing a self assessment, because I am an NRL1 (non resident landlord)…

so, after finally doing the right handshake to get put through to PD1 (and another half hour of “I’m Sorry Sir, but I can’t access your records”), they inform me that the forms for self assessment are only sent out in April (when I was a PAYE employee in the UK, and didn’t qualify for self assessment), but I should somehow have just known that I would have do one now…

It’s great being special… sigh

One Down, One to Go …

By | | General Mumblings
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We had two loans left over from “the lost years”. They both have defaults on them, and they have refused to remove them, so we refused to pay any more than a pittance towards them.

One is due to clear from my credit record in June next year, one Jan 2012. The 2012 one was for a relatively small amount, so after much discussion we finally decided to pay it off. And I just did.

We are hoping that after a few months they remove the default, if they don’t we start the campaign of harassment – REMOVE THE DEFAULT, HAVE YOU REMOVED THAT DEFAULT YET, IS THAT DEFAULT GONE NOW?

If that doesn’t work, we have a new tactic open to us once the account is closed where we harass Experian to remove it as its old information.

Neither of these tactics may work, but its worth a shot. The worst that happens is in June 2010 I am left with one default that was settled 18 months before. Hopefully its better than still having a default.

Besides, between not paying them their cash, and the bank of england repeatedly dropping the interest on our mortgage rate, we might keep some cash in our UK account 😉

I’m gonna need a bigger boat…

By | | Australia, events, General Mumblings
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Mel and Rudy were great hosts over chrimble and new year, but serously, these guys are crazy. It must be something about the heat, or the water, or goodness knows what… but yikes.

let me explain.

After the shark attack in Port Kennedy, they were non plussed, and to be honest, I can see the point – back home if you heard about a climber falling to their doom in the grampians, you would just shrug your shoulders and accept that this is what happens sometimes. I guess the aussies view being eaten by a large carniverous fish in the same light.

So, yesterday, we spent an incredible day at Penguin Island. Sounds nice and safe, penguin island… complete with fluffy penguins. At the end of the day, and after much cajoling/emcouragement, Jen and I kayaked back across from the island to the mainland.

major achievement – as most of you will remember, I can barely swim. heck before I came out here, I couldn’t swim at all. but hey, there’s us –

basking in the glory having kayaked across. (for what it’s worth, we beat the ferry 😀 ).

As it is, we did much better than the poor asian girl who tried to *walk* across the sandbar – and swallowed a stack of sea water when it got rough. The ambulance was just arriving for them at the jetty when we landed in the kayaks.

So today, when Jen spots the story we have a read, and flick through the comments, to find the guy who says ‘what, no comment about this being just round the corner from the shark attacks?’

one quick visit to Google maps, and it all becomes clear – these Aussies are downright certifiable. not only do they choose to go boating a couple of days after a shark attack, they go to to the same damn bay.

So, once more, a Happy 2009. I’m kinda glad to be in one piece to say it!!!

Whats Black and Blue and Red all over

By | | Australia, events, General Mumblings, grrrr
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My legs!

I am going around like an eighty year old woman at the moment.

We were taken 4×4 off roading, which was fun and enjoyable, we went along the beach at Preston Beach, and then around a reservoir further inland. Up rocky roads that the 207 would get swallowed up in. We also rescued another 4×4 that was up to its wheel arches in mud, it was surprisingly easy to do.

See that white 4×4 in the picture (if you click on the picture it will show you it bigger), thats not us, but thats what we were doing.

It is fun, but its damn difficult on the spine. My back is killing me now!

We also did some kayaking on the reservoir.

The kayaks are pretty stable in the water, and it was also fun. Me and my clumsiness however meant that when I was trying to get out, I fell over, skinning my knees on the gravelly ground, and bruising my leg on the edge of the kayak.

The reservoir was also pretty bad with flies

This is apparently “no flies”. There are “no flies” this year. Given that we spent the entire time doing the aussie wave to keep the flies out of our faces I have to say I am mighty glad there are “no flies” this year. I did get mozzie bites on the leg that wasn’t kayaked. This time though, they are looking worse than before, with the red itchy bit spreading and being damn itchy. The flies seemed to like it too. Blearg.

There were also (I think) march flies. When mosquitoes bite, you don’t feel it till usually the next day, certainly it takes a while to appear. A march fly bite you feel. It hurts. And I got a march fly bite on the back of the bruised leg. It stung like buggery. It took a few hours to surface and now half of the back of my right calf is red and sore to the touch.

On the same leg, one of the dogs, Minnie (who looks very like Misty), launched herself at me to try and bite one of the march flies, leaving me with another bruise!

So, in the space of two hours, I ended up with a sore back, mozzie bites, a march fly bite, two separate lots of bruises and a skint knee.

*sigh*

This was a couple of days ago now, so I am starting to heal. In time for the new year 🙂

less than three feet of water…

By | | Australia, General Mumblings
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See that picture I posted yesterday, of me standing in less than three feet of water, about 5-6 metres from the shore? That’s quite a thing for me, being a bit of a woos when it comes to sharks – that’s the second time in Australia that I have actually set foot in the ocean.

This fear of nature is something that causes great hilarity for the aussies – and I have taken an almighty ribbing about it. I purposely don’t say that I have a phobia about sharks (that’s selacophobia, btw) because, as far as I am concerned, there’s nothing irrational in the slightest about having a fear of what is essentially a self propelled mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. I think that’s a quite healthy fear to have actually.

on this morning’s news, this took on a more serious note, when some poor bugger was ‘taken’ by what is believed to be a 4 metre long pointer shark off the beach at port kennedy. that’s here:


View Larger Map

We were staying down at Preston Beach, 40km down the coast (and will be again for hogmanay), Perth is about 80km to the north. The beach is closed, and they are out hunting for his body.

The guy was snorkelling for crabs with his 24 year old son when there was a ‘violent disturbance in the water’ and lots of blood.

I think that, on the whole, I am going to maintain my healthy fear of the coastline, and not adopt the more relaxed attitude that the aussies have. Statistically, you may well be more likely to be hit by lightning than eaten by a shark, but I’m not about to start playing golf in thunderstorms either…

Why things feel a bit weird

By | | Australia, General Mumblings
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We have come to an understanding as to why things feel a bit weird here.

Basically, we arrived in Autumn, the leaves were falling from the trees, well, from the trees that lose their leaves in the Autumn. We mentioned way back, a lot of the trees here dont lose their leaves, they lose their bark.

During winter, there continued to be a steady stream of trees losing their leaves.

And through spring. When the trees that had held on to their leaves grew new ones and ditched the old ones.

And now its summer, there are still leaves on the ground.

I took these pictures this morning.

You can see the green all around in the background of the second, but the leaves are on the ground.

Add to this that the latest the sun goes down is 8:30. Tonight sundown was 8:17pm, and it gets dark pretty fast – no hour long twilights here. (and thats only this year, they are most likely to refuse Daylight Savings in a referendum next year and wont change the clocks, so it will be dark at 7:30pm at the height of summer)

So….. it gets dark fairly early, and there are leaves on the ground.

It feels like the longest autumn EVER! It feels like a seven month autumn with some really cold and wet days and some really dry and warm days.

Its all a bit strange!

Yogurt. Where you can find the most culture in WA.

By | | Australia, Food, General Mumblings
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This is Joondalups Sunset Market …

http://www.joondalup.wa.gov.au/cms/templates/coj2_business_grp.asp?id=498

Yeah.

I had wanted to go see the Sunset Markets since we arrived in Joondalup and I googled what this place has to offer.

I bugged Ian for the last few weeks about this. Between one thing and another we hadn’t made it down to look at it. So… tonight … as we are watching Back! To The Future! and I am skimming through the Joondalup Times I spotted a Sunset Markets photie from last week. So, with all haste we paused the movie, and went to sample Joondalups Kulcha.

Yeah.

So, it was kinda like 8 stalls at the Barras. Of which 4 were selling donuts and hot dogs. And one selling what they called “scottish tablet (fudge)” so, we got two slabs. And its definitely tablet 😀 So, thats the high point of Joondalups cultural events for the year. Condensed milk and sugar. Not complaining about the tablet. Just the marketing of the tablet ….

Top of the World, ma!

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, Interesting! (Well, for me)
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I am quite careful not to say too much about my work on the blog (even though I know that a few of the readers are co-workers). It’s just professional not to say anything in such a public forum that might cause people to look at the company as if I spoke for them (on anything more than techy things) or, conversely, that I was somehow responsible for them.

But then, sometimes things are so cool you have to say *something* So, without giving too much away…

I have been in Melbourne, working on a huge government tender – how huge? well, the solution has over 340 Tb of storage space, over a hundred servers, and costs more than any of us are likely to see in a lifetime (barring a big lottery win). absolutley exilirating, to even be involved in this is cool, but to be playing a key role… it’s incredible… and off the back of that one, I’m now involved as the solution owner on another big tender. I am one happy, happy bunny right now.

So much so, that I didn’t even mind that much spending my birthday in Melbourne whilst jen was stuck back in Perth. We tried not to think about it.. but here’s the thing. Australia is so big that Jen and I were further apart than we have ever been before in our entire lives, even before we met.

I took this from the top of the Rialto tower:

dont jump. no, seriously.

The rialto is one of the ‘great towers of the world’ – and was the tallest in the southern hemisphere until recently. Being in Melbourne was pretty cool – it reminded me of being in a vibrant city again. I have considered myself glaswegian ever since I went to University (hell, you gotta do something to lose the stigma of lanarkshire, right Scott? 😉 ) but even more so now. Glasgow is one of the great cities of the world, and I don’t think I’ll ever look at it in the same jaded way again…

What this did do though was through Perth into sharp contrast – so I have a new video too:

that’s all for now, I need to sleep – I have work in the morning, and I can’t wait.

The adventure continues.

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, grrrr
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Yup, time to pick ourselves out of the doldrums and get on with it. Australia is a pretty big dissappointment but that’s not going to change – we have resolevd to make the best of it for the time we are here.

We are seeing a bunch of adverts about Australia the movie with the first actress I ever had a serious crush on, Nicole Kidman. quite surreal to see what is portrayed (sunny, blue skies, wide “red dirt” country) comapred to what it’s actually like – very cold (there was snow in New South Wales this week – and remember, this is supposed to be summer!!), unbelievably wet (according to the government website, Perth actually gets more rain in a year than Edinburgh) and quite lush and green (from all the rain!).

It’s odd that weather plays so big a part in this for us, but really, that’s the one thing we were looking for. we reckoned being far away from home would be sufferable, and missing everyone would be tough… but hey – at least the weather will be better, right? anyways. positive. upbeat.

We have a plan!

We basically have about twenty to thirty hours a week with absolutely nothing to do (basically, every week day night, and at least one day of the weekend). Perth is essentially a waiting room for a mortuary, so there’s plenty of free time (seriously. there’s more night life under a plant pot.)

Plan A hasn’t worked out too well. That involved easing the boredom with alcohol (we have got through a frankly terrifying amount of the stuff since we got here – I am sure everyone remembers that I am an incredible lightweight: 2 pints and I am anybody’s. In one month, I put away 2 CRATES of strongbow.)
So, Plan B involves using the free time to get in lots of exercise, get the diet back under check and cut back on the sauce. It’s going rather well – Jen’s Wii Mii is looking decidedly more active now, and she has lost a good 12 pounds: I’m down a good 6 pounds (I started later).

actually, we have two plans – the other plan is for coming home. It won’t be until 2010 at the earliest, so don’t get the party hats bought in just yet, but we have started the plans – sorting out stuff to ship back to the UK now (so we don’t have to lug it around when we move house here!) and the stuff that needs to stay with us.

We have mentioned the plan(tm) to a couple of you, but here goes: we are coming back to scotland.  As I say, this won’t be happening right away, but we will be coming back when our Visa runs out (if not before). The reason this has now become something we are looking forward to is…

RTW tickets.

A few of the big airline groups (like the Star Alliance with BMI etc) offer round the world tickets – you have a maximum distance, and number of stops, and they work out at only a grand or so more than the cost of actually flying directly home!!

The plan includes Singapore, Tokyo, Beijing, Los Angeles, Florida, Washington and New York so far, with a few days in each. Should be fun. let’s face it – after Perth, anything will be fun!!!

if you don’t have anything good to say…

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, grrrr
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Don’t say anything. That’s how it goes right? it explains our lack of posts for a while unfortunately.

This is apparently all normal, and what happens when people emigrate – a sort of culture shock.it’s biting pretty hard at the moment, which is probably down to living through the longest winter of our lives.

in the big scheme of things, we have very little to complain about, and we need to keep reminding ourselves of that.. but sheesh. every time I wake up and the weather is cold, wet and miserable (and it got down to 3 degrees above – with no double glazing, no central heating and no insulation, remember) I just slump.

So, here’s the latest video – not my cheeriest..

After that, we needed to cheer up… so we went to the range… and the the day improved 😀

Seriously – Get Skype !!

By | | Australia, General Mumblings
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One of the things that makes being on the other side of the world less of a big deal is the easy access to webcams and stuff.

We are using my laptop webcam for now, and it’s magic – I have been chatting to my Mum most weeks for a bit on the webcam, and it really does make it seem much less of a deal to be so far away.

I also took part in a podcast interview about home automation with a guy in England, and another in Northern Ireland on Sunday there – again using Skype.

I have been a bit of a misery about Skype in the past (it’s using a closed protocol, and not ‘open’ in the slightest), but to be honest… what more do you want for free?

So c’mon folks – get Skype installed. It’s a free download, all you need is a set of earphones and a microphone (cheap headsets from PC World are about a tenner). A Webcam is better, but not needed… and give us a shout online.

Apocalyptic Weather!

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, grrrr
4 Comments

So, one of the reasons we came here was the weather.

Dont believe it….

There is currently a severe weather warning for Perth. Thunder, gales, HAILSTONES!
Thats right …. HAILSTONES! Balls of ice falling from the sky. Not an unusual occurence for Airdrie, but we were led to believe that Australia was warm and sunny.
Arse!

The houses have no insulation (so much so they sell a tool that helps with laying wires by shining a laser inside the wall so you can see it from the roof space down the inside of the wall coz they havent anything in the way) The bathroom windows have an open bit about 2 inches thats only got a fly screen on it, so just now when its cold wet and windy, its helluva drafty, so we have taped up the one in the en suite.

We got a load of stuff for the garden at the weekend, a lemon, orange and keffir lime tree. Peppers, tomatos, strawbs and so on. Hoping it all survives …..

Anyways. Enough of my stream of conciousness ranting.

I am fighting off a flu, but still went into work today – you only get 2 weeks of sick pay here, so I figured I would prefer to save the sickpay in case I get really sick. Blearg.

So, our big news was *supposed* to be that the ship with all our stuff had arrived in the port of Freemantle, just a couple of miles south of Perth. We had been tracking it across the world, and it was scheduled to arrive yesterday. Yesterday morning we checked the tracking and it was past Perth. Way past Perth. Past Perth enough that there was *no way* it had been in, and back out again that fast. One phone call to the shipping company later, we find out that the ship it was supposed to be on from Kelang in Malaysia had left without our stuff. And without the stuff of a load of other people, in fact, it had decided to leave everything for Perth in Kelang, so they didnt have to stop there.

So, our stuff is stuck in Malaysia. Hey, at least it isnt getting tossed around in the extreme weather…

But most importantly, MY WII IS STUCK IN MALAYSIA!

I WANT MY WII!