A winter's day....

Today has been a good, productive day! Me and the kids went to visit Glendale School this morning, and it's just perfect. R&G loved the place and seemed really confident being there. The principal was a really nice guy and really put the kids at ease.

The Preprimary was a lovely area. The max class size is 24 which is great, and the teacher was really nice too.

We went down to Kindergarten and Grace and Ruben ran off playing and just getting to know people.

All in all, a great place for the kids to start their education in Perth - am very pleased that's one more hurdle over.

The photos were taken today at Hillarys Boat Harbour today - glorious sunshine, lovely behaved kids and a picnic to boot. What more can a mom of 3 ask for? (a manicure and facial would be nice!)

And the award for the funniest dog goes to.....

Hamish the westie. His owner, Lizzie, is the wife of my husband's boss (still with me?). We, i.e. me and the rabble, went over for coffee today, and Hamish kept us all very entertained.

In no particular order, he ran off with:

various small person socks
various small person shoes
a dummy
an empty catfood can

He knew exactly where to hide with his treasures too - just behind the sofa where no-one could quite reach him - very funny indeed. The children all thought he was hilarious. Agatha insisted on having him wrapped in a large furry blanket, which he didn't object to in the slightest.

The kids had a lovely time, were well and truly spoilt with lovely donuts and biccies, and a generally lovely time was had by all.

The afternoon was spent cooking chilli for tea and just arsing about with the kids. We played libraries, which was a new game, and just meant littering the house with books whilst Ruben ordered us all around, telling us our books were overdue.....

Have also found out that there is a supermarket which stocks lots of english products....will be checking this out in the near future. However, due to Paul not leaving me any cash and me not having a bank card yet, I didn't stock up on starbars and bisto gravy today.

Dogs, Koalas and the cost of food

We visited the dogs in quarantine again this morning - I sorted it a bit better logistically and we all had a lovely time. The dogs are due out in just over a weeks' time - woohoo!

As you can see from these, pics they were pretty happy to see us.

We then visited the koala park that's right next door to the quarantine place. Lots of sleepy koala bears, looking unbelievably cute, and kangaroos that you could feed with popcorn - how cool is that?

Ruben was like a little zookeeper, feeding and stroking the kangaroos, very cute indeed.

There were also a couple of shetland ponies roaming loose and a donkey who followed us round hoping for a snack or two.

All in all, it was a lovely day, the kids were nicely behaved - apart from in the car when they attempted to kill each other as usual.

We've had some good news today, in that the people who own the house in Greenwood have accepted our application, and we will be moving into "the house with the pool right by the park" in the middle of July. Woohoo!

My blog has been all really positive, but I have one major gripe about like in Perth - the cost of food! It really is shockingly expensive. I haven't found one item that's cheaper than the UK. Supermarkets are limited to Woolworths and Coles, and it has become clear pretty quickly that they are certainly not the best way to do your shopping. For example, a sliced wholemeal loaf is around $4 which is about £3. At the local (lovely) bakers, an unsliced wholemeal, freshly cooked loaf is $3 - go figure? Chemists are cheaper for all toiletries and cleaning essentials, and there's a range of Wilkinson type shops that are cheaper still.

Nappies are eye wateringly expensive and baby wipes are the equivalent of £2.50 a packet, and that's the shops own brand.

So, it appears that the best and cheapest way to shop is to go back 30 years before we were all brainwashed by supermarkets and start shopping in the grocers, the butchers and the bakers.

I think I'm going to have my work cut out feeding a family of 5 for even a generous weekly budget - the kids go through fruit like it's going out of fashion. Today they've eaten 6 apples, 5 satsumas and 3 bananas between them. All good for their 5 a day, but probably around $10 in cost.

Any tips on shopping on a budget will be much appreciated!

I'm mobile again....

In a very shexy Toyota Echo from the local rentals place. It is perfectly adequate for what I need it for this week, and must be quite reliable as it's done 199,000km!!

We've not done alot today really, been to sort this rental car out, then bobbed to the shops to get the kids some arty stuff as they love to colour and draw and we've been really lacking in stuff like that since we arrived. They're currently colouring in masks as I type.

I've been looking through my camera so thought I'd post a few randoms just to keep myself entertained.

Aggie and her little bessie friend, Molly.

Christmas in Cannock Chase.

The Agster having some daddy love.

Just because I love her

No car, boohoo!

I've taken my lovely little car back to the airport today, so am transport-less. However, a lovely lady brought her PT Cruiser to show us this morning, and it's just lovely.

Have never been a massive fan of them but am loving the fact that they're quite unusual over here. It's a great price and in lovely condition, so we're going to get it for me to taz around in with the kids.

This pic might be an estate and mine is a hatchback, but you get the picture.

We spent the day today at Hillarys Boat Harbour, a lovely mix of shops, restaurants, play areas and, well, boats. The harbour is only about 4km from where our new home will be. It was pretty busy there today, but we still had great time.

I think the kids are officially over their jetlag - they've all slept through the night 2 times in a row now. At last we'll all start to feel human again!

The hunt is on next week for a school for the 2 big kids. Primary schools are very complicated over here - a mis of government, and private, and local intake and non-local intake.....it's a mine field.

The two nearest schools to our home haven't got any space this year in Kindy or Preprimary, so I'm having to look at non-local intake schools a few km away. I really wanted to be in a position to walk them to school but looks like this won't be an option.

Anyway, wish me luck on the big school hunt, this week could be quite taxing!

Walking in a winter wonderland

Yesterday, Perth suffered it's second coldest day on record - ever. It went down to, get this - -0.65 degrees!

Wild, eh? This is such a big event, it made the evening news. To be fair it did feel a bit nippy when we went to bed last night, but you know us hardy Brits, we hardly noticed it!

Today, it was around 16 degrees and gloriously sunny. We saw people in winter coats and gloves. Yes, gloves. Bizarre.

We finally managed to get inside the house in Greenwood that we wanted to view and it was P.E.R.F.E.C.T. Everything we wanted in a house EXCEPT it has no aircon. Hopefully this won't be too much of a problem as it's a very shady plot and has sun tinted windows, etc.

So we'll be putting in our application and keeping our fingers crossed. I'd be grateful if you do the same!
We also went into Fremantle (Freo to us locals) today which was just lovely. We sat on the harbour side, eating ice creams in the sunshine, just sheer bliss.

The kids played on the little beach there, it was just like being on holiday. Except we're not - we actually live in this place! Amazing eh?

Fremantle is a very bohemian town, with lots of backpackers, little markets and quant boutiques. Very different from the towns north of the river, which is all fairly new, and green.

We had a wander round the shops in Freo and purchased a lovely black polka dot teapot and matching mugs - our fiirst home purchase.

We've also been car hunting today. The other half is completely nonplussed at what to get. We lurch from a new Jeep Wrangler to a 3 year old Mondeo. Fingers crossed my PT cruiser is cool when we view it tomorrow - at least I'll be sorted!

Busy, busy!

Today has been a verrrry busy day! We visited the dogs in quarantine this morning - sounds simple doesn't it? The logistics of taking 3 very small children into a place with loads of very loud barking dogs isn't simple. AND i had to try and get the dogs out of their kennel, down the corridor and into their exercise yard with the kids in tow. Ono did a runner and escaped as soon as I opened the kennel door. I stood screaming like a fishwife to try and get him back in again - to no avail. Twas all very interesting. Anyway , the dogs are fine, look very healthy and enjoyed seeing us all.

Then we had lunch at Maccy Ds as a treat for the kids - they actually eat very little except the fruit bags, but they like the plastic crap they get.

We joined the local blockbuster and are at the moment watching The Princess and the Frog. It's 10pm almost - we're hoping by keeping the childrenup later that they might sleep through the night tonight - the jet lag has been a complete nightmare.

We had a bit of a disaster with the house viewing- the agent turned up without any keys. So we had to view the house like a bunch of burglars i.e through the windows. I felt like we were casing the joint. However, we're going back in the morning, hopefully she'll have keys then!

We're seeing a couple of cars at the weekend too - I'm possibly going to end up with a PT Cruiser, which is quite exciting (compared to a Scenic or a Corolla!). AND it has heated seats which are obviously a must in this arctic winter we are experiencing.

You'll have noticed I've not added any photos yet- please be patient, and they will follow! Love to everyone in the uk, esp my bessie Bek.xxx

A great day!!

Obviously this is not a photo I've taken as we hired a Toyota Corolla at the airport and not a helicopter. However, it is a picture of Scarborough beach, one of the closest beaches to the house we took a peek at today.

Me and the kids took a drive "North of the River" today to check out some of the suburbs that we've shortlisted as favourites. We looked at a house in a suburb called Greenwood and to be honest, I've totally fallen for it. Which is very unlike me. At all.

It backs onto a huge park where we'd be all to walk our repatriated dogs, and the kids will be free to play. It has a pool (yay!) and enough bedrooms so that none of the kids have to share. Oh, and a dishwasher.....

We also went to Ikea. I know, very sad, but Aggie needed a highchair. They were all out of the stock of the famous WHITE PLASTIC HIGHCHAIR so we came away with 2 packs of coat hangers and a hot dog each.

All in all, a very good day, apart from the lack of highchair, and I'm starting to feel my feet nicely - I even had a text off a real Australian Person! Go me!

So, tomorrow brings a trip to the quarantine station to visit Jess and Ono, and a visit to see the inside of the above house. Paul has told me to just "do it" if it feels right as he can't make the viewing, so watch this space!

Rain, rain, go away, go and rain on some other poor shmuck.

It hasn't stopped raining all day - and all night. It started last night at around midnight and is still raining now at 8.30pm. Bonkers.

So, me and the kids haven't done a lot today - we went out to the local shopping centre, called the Phoenix Centre, in Spearwood. The kids were very excited to see the luridly iced donuts so we had to indulge after tea tonight.....

Tomorrow I'm doing a typically british thing and heading off to find Ikea - we need a highchair for Agatha as she's in danger of falling off the pile of cushions that we've been propping her up on. And we need coat hangers - where else can you get those two things at the same shop?

18 hour flight + 3 small children =

an interesting experience. To be fair, Ruben and Grace were superstars and only started being nuisances in the last couple of hours of the flight. Agatha, however, at the grand old age of 19 months was more, um, interesting. She screamed for the last 1/2 hour of the flight in a full on "I'm being adbucted, please help me!" manner - it was truly awful.

We landed at around 1am and had to collect me a hire car whilst Paul collected his work car. We then had to rendevous on the airport ringroad - cue me being apprehended by a security guard as I was apparently parked right under the control tour (hadn't noticed). He was very understanding though, maybe due to the fact he sounded like he was from Souf London.....

Today was our first full day in oz - we went to visit our dogs in quarantine this morning, which was lovely. They were fine, and obviously very happy to see us. 2 weeks and we can repatriate them - woohoo!!!

First differences I have noticed between Perth and the UK:
1. drivers stick to the speed limit
2. kitkats are like two british pounds each
3. there is just no traffic - at all. Anywhere.
4. there is a creature here, apparently, called a bandicoot - like the xbox game!

Tomorrow me and the nippers are off to look at a house, so will report back on a) driving on the freeway and b) how I coped by myself with the 3 kids in Oz!

The day before the rest of our lives

So, we're sitting in my best friend's house, drinking wine on the night before we finally make the move to Perth, WA.

It's an odd feeling - a mixture of nostalgia for the things we'll miss (family, friends, good curry and Britain's Got Talent) and looking forward to our next big adventure.

This blog will follow our adventures in Perth, feel free to join in and follow it.x