We're on the move

Well we didn't see any other houses worth a second look so Bentleigh it is! As we move next Thursday I decided to book the kids into 'Occasional care' for the first time and start my packing this morning. Occasional care is a great childcare service over here that you just book a week in advance (or two in some places) and you can use it for a few hours whenever you need it. It's heavily funded by the government so it cost $44 for both Celia and Max for 3 hours - loads cheaper than nursery, although funding is due to stop in December - even Australia is feeling the global pinch.
By the time I had settled Celia (not Max - he was fine and it was his first time!), done a couple of errands and had a cup of tea, I only managed to get one hour of packing done - oops!

We have spent the past couple of weeks feeling very relieved that we no longer live in London. I know that the media can blow a few isolated incidents out of all proportion (everyone from Northern Ireland is only too aware of that!) but it really did seem that all hell had broken loose. If it makes those back home feel any better, life in Australia has it's downside too. Firstly there was the incident last week where a lady tried to run me and the double buggy off the pavement with her Doggy buggy (yep, she took her poodle for a walk in a stroller and expected us to move out of its way?!) Even more annoying, her dog was wearing a coat that was probably more expensive than Max and Celia's together and to top it off, it wasn't even cold enough for my children to have their coats on! The 'cold' thing is really starting to get to me. One day it was sunny and 18 degrees and we were on our way to the park in teeshirts when the lollypop lady, who was wrapped up in a fleece and woolly hat, said "oh, I hate those chilly breezes" then shivered....
I took Celia and Max to the beach for a picnic on Tuesday as it was a gorgeous day and the only other person I saw was a woman walking her dog and she also had a fleece and a woolly hat on (at least her dog didn't have a coat!) I started to think it must just be me but when I got back to the car the temperature gauge said 20 degrees??

One final annoyance was last week's Q&A (Australia's version of Question Time). They had the usual political and journalistic types on the panel but I couldn't believe my ears when I heard that one of the panelist was a 'Playschool' presenter - Carol Vodermann all is forgiven.
Doesn't quite compare to riots in your streets I know but all joking aside, I really did despair last week. Things can only get better..............

House-hunting continues.....

The search for the perfect pad down under is limping along and so far only one house has warranted an application but it's in Bentleigh not Bayside (which is a stones throw from Brighton East so only about 10 minutes drive to the sea) however the plus side is that it's got 4 bedrooms so all you potential visitors, get your flights booked!

There have been a couple of milstones regarding the children's development over the past week, the main ones being Celia ditching her dummy and Max walking (like a zombie from the Thiller video but walking all the same). There have also been some not so welcome developments, such as the deafening screeches from Max whenever he spies anyone eating (even if his own mouth is already crammed full of food!) and Celia's obsession with everything having to match from clothes and hair accessories to plates and cutlery and not just her own!

So as a reward for Celia binning the dummy we promised her a toy of her choosing and as Target were having a huge toy sale we popped along last Saturday. Whilst there we spied a lovely kitchen unit which would be perfect for her birthday in 4 weeks time so I duly sent Andy back the next day to get it. Unfortunately it was the last one in the shop so he bought the fully assembled demo which of course was twice the size of the car (he didn't realise until he got it out to the car park apparently!?) So there was no alternative but to walk about 2 miles home with it in the trolley which sounds relatively painless but when you consider he had to get the trolley over the security barrier in the car park, across the Princes highway, over the tram tracks (which incidentally also acted like a security barrier because of the metal) it was no mean feat. Needless to say, I just had to take a photo when he eventually got home. Which reminds me, we still have the trolley in the garage - oops!....