Spring Marches On

Well, it’s been a while since either one of us have updated this – how very remiss! So I’ll be posting a couple of updates in relatively quick succession to bring you up to speed on our life down under...

After the sporting extravaganza of the Australian Football League (AFL) Grand Final at the beginning of October (think FA Cup Final), the next event on Melbourne’s social calendar is the Spring Racing Carnival. Aussie horse racing at its best – well, that’s quite a big statement so I’ll caveat it with a maybe. I’m not an expert, but I’m sure one of you reading this might well be (Holl or Macky feel free to jump in here and post a comment to correct me). The Spring Racing Carnival is a week long event held at Flemington race course with four key days of race meetings. Now this is HUGE in Melbourne, possibly even in Australia. People fly in to Melbourne all suited and booted just for the day so they can attend a race meeting. I can only equate it to Royal Ascot, without any royalty in attendance. And despite SJP, Scary Spice, Philip Treacy and various other celebs being there, I don’t think they quite pass as royalty, although some teenagers may beg to differ. So when I say this is huge, it’s huge. The weeks running up to it create Spring Carnival fever in Melbourne, as the city becomes full of people shopping for new outfits. The full ensemble includes a fascinator or a hat, complete with new handbag and shoes – and that’s just the blokes. On Race Days the city and suburbs are full of well heeled Melbournites drinking, eating and generally enjoying the merriment of it all before or after Flemington. However, there are rules which must be followed... Each race day has a colour theme and a flower all of its own, some of which I haven’t quite been able to fathom just yet. Here goes my attempt to explain the form...

·         The first Saturday of the Carnival is always Derby Day – dress code is black and white (howay the lads) and the flower is (I think) a purple crocus.

·         The Tuesday is Melbourne Cup Day which is a public holiday here in Melbourne (maybe even Victoria) – dress code is brightly coloured and the flower is a yellow rose.

·         The Thursday is Oaks Day, now colloquially renamed as Blokes Day. Officially this is Ladies Day of the Carnival and was originally created on the precept that wherever there are women, the blokes will follow. What a way to increase attendance! I have no idea what the dress code or flower is for this day, as quite frankly I was at work so couldn’t watch the TV to continue with my “Integrating into Melbourne Life” curriculum.

·         The second Saturday is always Stakes Day. This is family day so the focus is on well dressed kids. There were some pretty good examples of Tantrum and Tiara style kids, but in the main, they were very cute and very snazzy.

I went to Stakes Day, which meant that Cup Day morning (pre the racing starting) was spent in the only two stores which were open on that day, the two department stores in Melbourne – Myer and David Jones – to update my wardrobe and get myself a fascinator. As it was spring and I like a challenge, I’d decided to avoid black at all costs, which was easier said than done. As a result, my fascinator, bag and shoes were all different colours. Most unlike me and it gave me the jitters just thinking about it! However, I went on the word of Madison magazine (a bit like Marie Claire only Australian) which was all about mixing up the colours of your accessories for the Spring trends. If at this point you’re thinking that I must have too much time on my hands if this is top of my worry list, I’d be inclined to agree with you. Except that it isn’t. Top of my worry list, that is. But my worry list wouldn’t make for a very entertaining blog, so you’re stuck with this for now. Any letters of complaint should be addressed to the Editor and they will be duly dealt with...

I should probably mention at this point that Mr S wasn’t having any wardrobe concerns at all. This was mainly down to the fact that Flemington doesn’t have any water, boats or sails, so he’d declined to attend. What Flemington did have was bright sunshine in a cloudless sky, great views of the winning post from our Hill Stand seats and even better, most stunning views of the Melbourne city skyline (see pic).

If any of you are thinking of visiting us next year, I’d strongly recommend coming for this Carnival, whether racing is your thing or not you’ll be gripped and swept up in the atmosphere. “I love a pardee with a happy atmosphere...” etc etc.

I’m starting to feel like this blog is dragging on a bit now, so to cut to the chase, I was spray tanned, manicured, pedicured, heeled, fascinatored and with a betting app on my phone, I was ready to go. After a rather cavalier start to my betting (only placing bets to win) I only won on the second race, so by 3pm the vice like grip of the fascinator on my head brought me to my senses and I started to bet each way. Not that it made a jot of difference, as I didn’t even get any other horses placed! For those of you that have never been to the races with me, it’s worth mentioning that I select my nags through a very technical study of the horses names and I pick a horse whose name I feel drawn to. Failing that, I look at that colours worn by the jockey and pick the ones I like best. Oh well, you have to know how much you can afford to lose at these things...



What did improve matters somewhat was the brilliant company of lovely Scottish Karen and Geordies Nessy, Macky and Olly. Yes, we like our “Y’s” in Newcastle, or should I say “why eyes”. After a hard day at the track, we meandered back into the city utilising the exemplary public transport system which was boosted for the day by express trains to and from Flemington every 4 minutes at peak times. It put the UK public transport infrastructure on FA cup day or at any large arena concert, or in fact in London at rush hour every day(!) to shame. After a very European evening of Pimms and Pasta we headed to a proper pub, The Sherlock Holmes, to watch the Toon v Everton game which had an 11.45pm kick off – AEDT. Luckily, as it was a proper pub, it also had seats (unlike most Aussie pubs which are cavernous and usually standing room only) so Nessy and I kicked back, whilst the boys sang/shouted rather loudly at the screen. It was just like the Akenside back in the day. There were some vague reports about a Gooner trying to become an honorary Toon Army member for the night, but they were never substantiated. I’m sure they’ll crop up again as The Toon coasts into a place in the top four at the end of the season. I’ll keep you updated....

Ciao for now x

It’s been a long time coming, but here it is!

Well I don’t know how long it is since I shared what I’ve been up to so I’ll just go straight in and if I miss anything you won’t know anyway.

Since Mrs S arrived I don’t think we’ve had a moment. Moving to our new pad on the lovely Beaconsfield Parade (the background pic is our view – how great is that?), Mrs S sorting out all her employment stuff, my work and of course the sailing (more on that later).

We’re really settling in now. We have our lovely sofas, pictures and possessions (Oh and Mrs S has here clothes :). It really feels like home at last. You know, socks lying around the place and shoes cluttering up the hall by the front door. Only joking!! But it really feels so much better with our personal stuff in here (Thumbs up!) By the way if you need to ship anything around the world – Mrs S is your woman – she really did a stunning job of sorting out our stuff – it went like a dream. Thanks babe, I really appreciated you doing this.

So work is moving along very well now. I’m beginning to be seen as a major part of the Melbourne office here for Eclipse. It was quite difficult at first – No personal network and no knowledge of the business landscape to speak of, but I’m getting to grips with it all now and things are definitely moving in the right direction now. I was third in the league table at last months sales meeting - not too bad when you think there are 14 of us across the company. Anyway, onward and upward…

So, last week saw Mrs S’s birthday, so we decided to go all out. We got a take-a-way, put Sex in the City on the TV and opened a bottle of pop…. …. Naaa, not likely - we celebrate birthdays differently around here. Firstly, we had our first 2 of 5 Kite Surfing lessons before trooping off in our new car to the Grange at Cleveland Winery on the edge of the Macedon Ranges for a romantic evening, followed by a sunny trip to Hanging Rock (yes - of the film fame). The day

started with the obligatory breakfast in bed. Pot of tea (refilled as per KJ’s instructions), Juice cereal etc. then the inevitable search for the wet gear (Now which box was it in?), just in case we did get to the “in the water” stage; Down to the Kite Surf Centre for noon. It was raining and v cold so Mrs S put a stake in the ground almost straight-away “I’m NOT going in the water today mate, OK?” Well, Joel our Canadian instructor was so happy to hear this it was definitely not an issue. What fun !!%&#@

Bring on the warmer weather and we’ll be there with bells on; can’t wait. So after a nibbles lunch in front of the ALFGF (No, it’s not the Australian Loosers Farting and Grunting Final) it’s the Aussie rules Grand Final… Collingwood v Geelong, Geelong won 119 to 81 - a close game - Whatever… yawn yawn. So, Mrs S and I jump in the bat mobile and head off to the wine country.

So: the Bat Mobile: Yes we have a car: For all those of you out there who care… it’s a Mazda RX8 (it’s got a Wankel Engine - steady) and very nice it is to.

Anyway, Cleveland is a boutique winery that covers about 4 hectares just north of Melbourne (Stella there are loads of these places very near to us, so you’ll be sorted). They produce Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. Don’t I sound like I know what I’m talking about? Anyway, it was really nice to be able to drive out into the country and chill. The next morning after a gourmet breakfast we headed out to Hanging Rock. So, who of you remember the film?? Yes, that’s it, Picnic at Hanging Rock. I think I called it Massacre at Hanging Rock. Mrs S didn’t really like the sound of it, but we went anyhow. What a beautiful place and such great views. Note to self – must do more of this…..

Less than 12 weeks to the big race. The Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race that is and I’m going to be in it. We’ve been working extremely hard, repairing and preparing the boat and training to get the core crew to a standard so we can all cover each other’s position such we need to. I’ll detail who’s who nearer the race. Most importantly, all you lot need to know is that I’m trim, looking after the heady and spinnaker. We’ve had a great breakthrough over the past couple of weeks with regards to sponsorship. One of the crew has Multiple Sclerosis (yes MS) and so we have agreed to enter our boat Beyond Outrageous in the race as Kiss Goodbye to MS in support of Multiple Sclerosis Research Australia and their campaign to raise awareness of MS in Australia. This should secure us new sails which will hopefully help us to be competitive. Please do take a look at the websites.

Would you believe that in 23 days I would have been out of England for a whole YEAR! Yep I left on the 28th October. So, I’ll try and update you all again before the year is out.. Laters

A Pick and Mix September

Wow, I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last blog entry. The plan was the next installment was to be written by Mr S the following weekend so he could tell you all about his very exciting sailing trip out into the Bass Straight, but I'll let him tell you about that...

September has been a real mixed bag. After the Gripper incident I was struck down with a mystery illness (coincidence?) and was confined to my bed for a week. Fortuitously, I had been for a job interview on the day that illness struck and despite being called back for a second interview the following day which involved lots of drugs and dragging myself from my bed, I was somehow offered the job! Woo hoo! I started my new job last Monday working for Coles supermarkets (the Aussie version of Tesco) at their Store Support Centre (Head Office) in a place called Tooronga which is to the east of Melbourne city centre way out in the 'burbs, so it's a bit of a schlepp when it comes to the commute. The place is huge and has the nickname of Battlestar Galactica due to it's size and black glass windows. There are 800 people in the IT department! The more I find out about the company, the more it reminds me of the way Tesco operates in the UK (courtesy of work tales from Sarah and George). It's all worked out rather swimmingly really, as Coles is a household name in Aus and I'm working on their customer loyalty programme (Nectar, ClubCard etc) so it's a pretty high profile thing to be involved in. What an introduction to Australian working life!

Last week our Big Shipment was finally delivered to our apartment. Absolutely brilliant. Bloody hard work. Very emotional. The guys arrived at 8.30am and by 10.30am 71 of the 72 pieces were in the apartment. The 72nd item was the 3-seater settee. I was called to the first floor by the guys to assess the situation of the settee which hadn't fit in the lift and they were attempting to carry up the stairs. The message I'd received was that it was stuck on the roof. How did they miss the 9th floor, I was thinking. Turned out to be Chinese whispers. It was in fact only slightly cosily snug between the floor and the ceiling on the first floor landing. Call themselves removal men?!?! Despite their defeatist attitude "This isn't going anywhere", I insisted that the settee would fit up the stairs and around the corner of each of the nine flights of stairs, so I proceeded to make them carry it back down to the ground floor so it could be turned around to the right angle and begin it's journey upwards again. It is worth mentioning at this point, that Mr S, very conveniently, had a business meeting in the City on Thursday morning, so was no where to be found when the hard work was to be done. Did I mention we live on the ninth floor? After my insistence that the settee was going up to the flat come hell or high water, I thought it only fair to lend a hand with the grunt work, so Brendan, Dylan and I got to work and within what seemed like no time at all *clears throat* the settee was in the flat. There's nothing like a bit of Friends style pivoting to make the floors pass by quickly (David - that one's for you). Just call me the Fairy Spatially Aware Godmother.

After the excitement of Thursday's unboxing extravaganza, "Eee, I'd forgotten we had that", Saturday afternoon was our housewarming drinks. It was planned as late afternoon sunset cocktails, but we couldn't resist waving the British flag (not literally of course) and having Pimms as the welcome drinks (thanks to Kevin's most delicious Pimms recipe from the Hunters BBQ's - happy days). The plan was for a few casual drinks, then sometime around 7pm head out for the evening. As my project management skills were off duty, mainly due to excessive early intake of Pimms, the evening didn't quite follow as planned. The sunset cocktails merged from afternoon to evening, the nibbles morphed into a late night pizza order and the sensible chat degenerated into talking absolute rubbish with fuel added to the fire in the form of a bit of Irish craic. The result was a truly hilarious evening of memory making in our new pad.

This coming weekend will be another busy one. We're booked for an afternoon of learning to kite board on St Kilda Beach, then with a bit of luck the subtle hints will have worked their way into Mr S's psyche and I'll be whisked off for a wonderful evening of yummy food and quaffable wine to celebrate another year of getting older. Happy Days :-)

A Day of Firsts

Well today has officially been a day of firsts for us here in Aus. It’s now September and to the Aussies that means Spring (think Easter Bank Holiday fever). Thankfully the weather got the “Spring is Here” memo as it’s doing us proud. The sky is cloudless blue and the sun is mega bright, so my sunnies have been pretty much permanently stuck to my face – even indoors. Seriously people, I’m struggling to function without them.

The day of firsts started at 8.15am, when Mr S. had his first ride in a real life bona fide Aussie Ute. I say bona fide, because it had a rather large crowbar in the passenger footwell. I didn’t ask. Less than twenty minutes later the Ute Fun Ride was over and we were the proud owners of our first Aussie ebay purchase, a lovely dresser for the bedroom. Well, it will be for the bedroom when I refurbish it into shabby chic heaven. In the meantime, it’s taken pride of place in our living room and is looking rather fetching behind our borrowed sofa, but at least it fills the room out a bit. To use the word sparse to describe our apartment right now would be an understatement.

The Gripper

The second first came in the form of my spring cleaning. When we moved, in the apartment came complete with a couple of breeding pigeons who insisted on cuddling right in front of me on the balcony, and their nest which was tucked away in the far corner of the wrap around balcony outside our bedroom window. The nest was in a bit of a state and the contents of the two eggs had been and gone, probably got sick of the old paint tins which were next to them. So the entire length and width of the balcony is pigeon nest free, has no more cobwebs and beautifully clean decking. If I rudely awoke one spider, I woke up twenty. Some of them were HUGE! Now I will just qualify this when I say that I am not normally bothered at all by creepy crawlies or flying creatures of any kind, however… I was quietly emptying out the bucket when I felt something gripping my thumb. I looked down and saw what I can only describe as a leg - because that’s what it was. Much shrieking, jumping and flicking of my hand later, my thumb was freed and the leg, along with its owner, was nowhere to be found. Maybe it wasn’t a leg after all, I thought. Until I saw it mountaineering up my very special tea cosy (yes, yes, I have a tea cosy, but it’s very trendy I’ll have you know). Anyway, Mr S. dutifully took a picture as my heart was beating so much it was causing the camera shake. If you are an expert in indigenous flying insects of Australia, please identify the said creature and confirm if it is at all venomous (it's approx. 2cm long from head to tail). As my thumb is still the same size as it was before the gripping incident, I would suspect not, but when something has red and black iridescent stripes under its wings you can never be too careful. So after all of this excitement, I decided not to clean the windows and made a plan to look for a suitable subcontractor. Hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day and I wouldn’t want to put anyone out of a job. Plus, there was by now, tea to be drunk.

The third first was my new Flexicar membership which passed user testing today. If you’re reading this and you live in a city and often think it would occasionally be handy to have use of a car, I would strongly recommend looking for a car share scheme. It was easier than an easy thing on an easy day and Lewis (our lovely navy blue Toyota Corolla) was a cracking little drive. We even managed to squeeze into it our new balcony furniture which we’ve just purchased in Bunnings (another first, our trip to Bunnings). The prize of the day goes to the clever people at Bunnings who thought it would be a good idea to offer van hire direct from the Bunnings store, so you can take your oversized items home with you immediately, then bring the van back and drive off in nippy little car. Those clever Aussies have thought of everything.

So, after a very exciting and most productive day, I’m now typing this from the comfort of my new bar stool and table combo, on my very clean spider, pigeon and gripper free balcony, in the late afternoon sunshine. Sunglasses and tea are of course obligatory.

Now We're Starting

In today's world of online, in yer face, instantaneous knowings of goings on, we wouldn't be on the map if we didn't have a blog. So in an attempt to be right on man, here's our bright, shiney, new blog. The idea is that we write regular updates about the small stuff and you don't have to hound us for emails. So, if I can prise myself away from my cuppa, I'll crack on and actually write something that is blog-worthy.

I could be some time...