Home

We're in. Picked up the keys on Sunday and our landlord was running around the place trying to fix everything that had broken in the last couple of years, while finding more things to fix all the time. Not major stuff. I think the inventory included things like a leaky tap, a broken window winder, some cracks in the walls that needed filling and repainting and some blinds coming loose from the window frame. Oh, and the front screen door handle is broken, and it is locked shut. That one defeated even our handyman landlord, and a locksmith should be coming some time this week.

On the plus side, the carpet and blinds are only a year old, as is the programmable gas heater, it has gas cooking and the master bedroom is huge (fortunately for our king size bed).

I drove down to the house first thing Monday morning, and the removalist arrived a couple of hours later. There wasn't too much problem, only a large bookcase that used to be in Scott's shed wouldn't manoever around a corner in the hallway, so another room had to be found for it.

There came a point when the house was full, but there were still another 20 boxes or so to be unloaded. The removalist looked knowingly at me: "Moving from a bigger house to a smaller one?" Well, we don't have a huge garage to stash stuff in anymore. I'm glad I got rid of a lot of stuff. Wishing I got rid of more. "Stack it up in the backyard. Once I get some of these boxes empty, it'll all fit" I said, optimistically. Thank God it was fine weather.

And so it began, sucking up my stomach so I could fit down the hallway, I began finding boxes marked kitchen and unpacking them, in the hope of being able to boil a kettle some time that afternoon. I started around midday. Didn't find the kettle until 2.30. Empty boxes with only wads of packing paper left in them began filling our backyard. Made my way to the bedroom. Found bedding. I have my bed back! (At the apartment they pushed two single beds together and called it a double!)

At some point I decided I needed some music and my eyes lit upon a box with the word "stereo" on it. After unpacking about 50 obscure Asian ornaments and wooden puzzles, I found one speaker. Scott came home from work and started flatpacking the boxes which appeared to be growing at an alarming rate across the backyard. We made a carbonara for tea and sat in the backyard with a bottle of bubbly. mmm.

Yesterday more of the same. Our clothing came out of boxes and I was reminded how badly I need a new wardrobe. (The contents, not the furniture). Then the books- arrgh. Spent the afternoon lugging books back and forth between bookcases and tossing more boxes into the backyard, which kept getting blown around. Scott got home early and joined in the fun.

By 8.15pm we'd had enough. Walked around the corner to the takeaway to find it shut at 8pm. Jumped in the car and drove down to the next suburb and got our first feed of fish and chips here.

Anyway, it all fits. Just. I showed you, sceptical removalist man! The place looks nice, heaps of character now we have put our eccentric touch on it. Now I just have to do something with those Asian ornaments....

The countdown

Well, we are more than ready to leave this little apartment behind. The only thing I will miss is the airconditioning- and the proximity to Manuka shops and restaurants.

We are collecting the keys on Sunday and the removalist is coming Monday. Scott will be working, he is trying to organise a conference in Indonesia. At least, that's what he says, lately he just seems to be going to christmas parties during his lunch hour that take all afternoon. He came home very merry yesterday, having had a christmas lunch followed by about 20 minutes of work before "D.A.W.s" started. Canberra is the city of acronyms and this one, for the uninitiated, means drinks after work. It's a tough life.

The social life hasn't been bad lately, met quite a few new people. We're looking forward to hosting barbecues in our backyard again.

I've been working on my thesis, and going slightly batty. This week has been all about working out who the local gas, electricity, etc suppliers are and organising connections, as well as doing the change of address things that have to be done immediately. This actually means sitting on the floor beside the phone listening to classical music, while a voice interrupts intermittently to say "We apologise for the time it is taking to answer your call. If you would like to leave a message, and have one of our representatives call you back within 24 hours, please press 1 at the tone... or you can continue waiting". Eventually you give up, press 1 and leave your message. Then, 24 hours later, when they have failed to call you back, and you are beginning to worry that the gas won't be connected and you won't be able to do any cooking in your new house, you call them back and the whole process begins again. The thing that cracks me up is that the greeting message is something like "Welcome to Actew AGL, the service that can connect all your utilities with just one call!" Hmmmph. I only wanted them for their gas, anyway. The electricity, phone and internet services they provide are overpriced.

Apparently my cat has completely forgotten us and has now transferred her affections entirely to my mother. This is still not without the occasional hiccup, however. Apparently, the other night, mum was reading in bed with Pippa, the dog, curled up on her legs, when Coffee, the cat leapt up onto the bed, landing straight on the dog. After that, she continued her flight off the other side of the bed, while the dog nearly fell off the bed with surprise and shock, having been rudely awakened from her slumbers. Yep. It should be a fun christmas.

A tiny apartment and bad tv

We couldn't stand the apartment any more last night. It was a lovely warm evening so we walked down to Kingston, grabbed an outdoor table at a little Italian restaurant and ate some fantastic gourmet pizza. Tonight a friend is having a house warming bbq, so we are going to grab the cask and some beef steaks and sit in her backyard. We don't have all our stuff around us, let alone our circle of friends, so other than watching tv and playing games on the computer, there isn't a lot to do in the evenings. We bought books last weekend at a second hand bookstore, but we've already finished reading them. We are becoming strangely obsessive about "deal or no deal". Last night we watched it with the sound off and predicted what the host Andrew and the contestant would be saying at every stage of the game. Andrew: "The banker thinks you aren't going to be game to go any further..." Contestant "Well there's still a lot up there... What does the audience think? Well, I might just go one more...."

But for the best in trashy reality tv, a new series started late Thursday night. It was like watching a train crash. You can't look away. The premise of "The beauty and the geek" is to pair up half a dozen bimbos (all models and cheerleaders, with low IQs) with half a dozen geeks (socially inept and unattractive young men, with high IQs and prestigious jobs) and make them teach each other their skills, to perform in tests to avoid being eliminated. The guys, including "has never kissed a girl" and a guy who kept getting nose bleeds, had to learn to dance, and perform the dance on stage with their assigned "beauties". Then the girls had to answer questions based on the grade 5 curriculum. After watching them misspell tattoo and calendar, and say that to the East of West Virginia was Dakota (as opposed to Virginia), the clanger was the answer to the question "Who was the President during the American Civil War?" The response, I think was "Hoover", and when she was informed that it was actually Abraham Lincoln, she nodded sagely and said "oh yeah, D-Day".

We went and signed the lease on Tuesday night. Moving in 9 days time. We will have about 3 days to unpack and then we're going down to my Mum for christmas. In the new year we will drive back up and the cat will be freighted up to us. Can't bear the thought of 8 hours in the car with that monster. She will like that. She will get to travel by plane while we drive through the sweltering heat. It will be good, because she will have a big garden to come to, although she won't be able to call it entirely her own as there are two cats living in the apartment upstairs. That should be interesting...

For anyone who is interested, we are planning a house warming party for Australia Day weekend.

Woo hoo

We got it! We got it!

The lady who owns the apartment rang back at 4pm today and said the apartment's ours if we want it. We're very relieved. We have a home. We will probably move in just before christmas. That's so cool. We can move out of this shoebox. Scott is looking forward to having a whole backyard. Unfortunately for him, the garden shed is only big enough to fit a mower in.

Hitting the town

Hope you enjoyed Scott's little outburst. I certainly enjoyed having a night on the town last night and coming home not smelling of smoke and not having red, stinging, eyes. One of Scott's friends from work heard that his poor wife was stuck in an apartment with only Scott for company. So she invited me to go on a girls night out. We met in a very cool bar called Hippo that is in Civic (the city centre). Fantastic cocktails, mellow music and lots of low padded stools to sit around on. The girls were very nice and a lot of fun. Then we went to the much less classy "King O'Malleys" where a band was playing such hits as "oh what a night" and the 21 year old blokes were trying to pick up. According to my new female friends, there are no attractive blokes in Canberra, and they suggested that it was a wise move for me to have imported my own. We had a bit of a dance, which was fun... but no one goes off on a dance floor like Zosia!

This morning we went to see an apartment that we have been getting excited about all week. It is in the inner south in a nice suburb, close to where we will be working. When I spoke to the landlord over the phone earlier this week, he indicated that a cat would not pose a problem. It is across the road from a cricket oval and has a large leafy garden. It is a red brick duplex, and we were looking at the ground floor apartment. It was very us. Older style but clean and large. Plenty of light coming in, good heater and gas cooking. Now we have to wait...

Hubby's Comment Number 1

Hi, I'm the Hubby, Scott.

You have all followed wifey's exploits across three continents now and would have some idea of the influence she has on people's lives. In particular mine! I know it is my own fault because I did marry her, but I had no idea to what extent Laura would go to in encouraging me to quit smoking. A law comes into effect today in Canberra banning smoking in pubs, clubs and bars, basically anywhere I would like to go have a drink except for the backyard. Hell, I currently don't even have a backyard. I do have a front step which I share with the neighbouring apartment. Comments have been made by local businesses about fears of extending the bans to other areas, including education facilities, where I might go to hangout, not to study. If this situation gets out of hand, I expect the students of ANU to light up. If not smokes at least some text books.

That's my comment for today. It could be awhile before I comment again, it is a bit of a walk from NSW, at least 10 minutes.

Scott the Hubby

The house hunters

We've been scanning the websites for weeks now, know all the suburb names by heart and enjoy sitting around with the calculator trying to figure out whether we can afford the townhouse in Waramanga that comes with gas cooking and a dryer. During the day, at seemingly random times, there are inspections, so I drive off to look at apartments. Beginning to give up on anything around the $240 mark. It is either complete shit, or nicish but incredibly tiny.

Going to see a granny flat for $250 this afternoon. Have strong misgivings about the idea of living in a granny flat. I'm guessing that means that the owners live in the house in front of the granny flat. If that is the case, I will feel very uncomfortable. I will see how private it is and whether it has separate access and outdoor area. Don't want to feel like I'm sitting in someone's garden. Couldn't they at least have called it a unit?

Don't know yet whether we've been accepted for the places we applied for on Monday, of course. Drove out to Hawker today to inspect an apartment. People were still living in there, though not home. Thoroughly depressing. Got lost driving there and got lost again on the way home. I decided to try a different way back to where we are staying that I thought would be quicker. Now, I'm not quite sure how this happens, but it seems to happen to me a lot here, but I take a turn off, follow the signs in what appears to be the right general direction, and end up exactly where I started. Today I jumped off a major road (built like a freeway with exit ramps, etc), took the bridge over the top of it, took several rights and several lefts, and came out.... entering the very same freeway a couple of hundred metres further along- I didn't even know I crossed back over (or under it) again. Then I jumped off again at the next exit, went under the freeway again, and finally found the road I was looking for.

Yesterday it happened to me too. I was looking for a petrol station, missed the turn off I wanted, took the next one with the intention of going around the block, ended up driving past the Dutch and German embassies and pretty much back on the same road, without having located the petrol station. All the roads twist and curve around so much that I lose all sense of direction.

Well, see you, better go inspect the granny flat...

Chaos theory

Actually I know nothing about chaos theory, but it seemed to reflect how I feel about the last few days.

My internet server was down for about 24 hours, and when I finally got back online on Friday, there were two emails there from my mum. The first said that my brother Leon was almost arrested as a burglar after prowling around the streets in a ninja costume for his end of year 10 hi jinx. It also mentioned that my cat Coffee, who is temporarily residing with Mum, hadn't come in that night. The second email said "Coffee is still not back, haven't seen her for two nights, have called the microchip people and given them my number, and will put up posters around the area, and notify local vets to keep an eye out for her. Has she ever disappeared for this long before?"

Actually, I don't think she's ever disappeared for more than a few hours before, so I was feeling pretty frieked. Although she is independent spirited, and distrustful of strangers, she likes plenty of affection from people she knows (and she's stayed with my mum for long periods before) and doesn't stray far from home.

That afternoon I picked Scott up from work and told him that she was missing. We had been planning on going to inspect an apartment, so we drove down to Mawson around quarter to five. In Canberra, they don't give out keys or give guided tours. They advertise on the internet "Open house: 5-5.15pm" and you have to rush through the place with a dozen other people or you don't have a chance of getting it. It was a very attractive top floor (level 4?) apartment with a balcony and I was quite enamoured of it. However, when I asked the real estate agent whether they would take pets, she said no. I took a deep breath and admitted that I wasn't actually sure whether I still had a pet.

We got in the car and drove about 100 metres before it conked out. We were actually in a slight hurry, because we had to get to the electoral office to vote in the Victorian elections (where we are still registered) before it closed at 6pm. That was our last chance. Scott looked over at me: "Did you put in any petrol?". oops. Petrol gauge only works about a third of the time, so I usually just fill it up regularly. Unfortunately, I depend on driving past petrol stations and thinking "that's a good idea" but in Canberra, petrol stations seem to be hidden away in back streets that I haven't yet had the fortune to drive through.

We had spotted one down by the Mawson shops (but we'd been on foot at the time, so hadn't dropped in to fill up). So, we walked down the hill to the petrol station, bought a can of petrol and walked back up. Looked at the can, looked at the car, realised that all we were going to achieve was to slop petrol down the side of the car without a funnel. Scott was about to head back down the hill to the servo, but I said "wait" and opened the boot with vague ideas that there might be something I could use. All that was in the boot was an xray of Scott's knee. It doesn't normally live in our boot, but the removalists had failed to pack it, so it got shoved in the boot with the rest of our junk, and ignored when we unpacked the boot. In case you ever find yourself caught in a similar situation, an xray, rolled into a funnel, is excellent for putting petrol into a car.

Drove back to the servo to return the can and put in more petrol, then drove to civic in a race against time to vote in the Victorian state election. We lost the race. We failed to vote, in the full knowledge that our vote doesn't count anyway, as we are registered in the safest labor seat in Australia. If they try to give us a fine, do you think they will believe us about the petrol and the xray?

Went home in exhaustion and waited for the phone to ring. Would our pet reappear?

Saturday morning we went out to Queanbeyan to inspect a place, as we'd heard that rent was much cheaper. We walked around the smelly, musty apartment, observed the two person (standing room only) balcony, the miniscule bedrooms, depressing view, the funky, disgusting kitchen and the stained bathtub and shower nozzle that would only come up to Scott's chest. Scott looked at me and raised his eyebrows "No brainer?". I nodded, refused a rental application form from the agent and went down the stairs. It was $180 per week. The same as our gorgeous house in Reservoir. I was gutted.

Back to Mawson to look at another place. It was pretty depressing too, though bigger, and with a courtyard. On the other hand, they will apparently consider people with pets, and the carpet, paint, stove, bath, vanity and curtains are all going to be replaced with new ones by next week. So we are going to apply. Wish us luck. ($270- ouch).

Spent the afternoon snoozing through the cricket. I had not slept well, as I had been plagued with dreams about my cat and woken at 3am and not been able to sleep. In the first dream, we were inspecting an apartment when a dying, emaciated Coffee came through the door. She also had a clone, so there were two of them. Although the apartment rules were "no pets" I raided the cupboards and fridge and found some food to feed Coffee and the Coffee clone, and they quickly gained energy and curled up to sleep on the couch. I worried that the owners might complain about the cat fur.

In the second dream, my friend Emma came over and asked that if Coffee didn't come back, could she have first dibs on the left over pet food for her cat Rain. I was very upset with her and ran very quickly down a mountain.

All day Saturday there was no more news, she hadn't been seen for three nights and hadn't touched her food. We contemplated the possibility of her attempting to go home from Mt Evelyn to Reservoir, being catnapped, lost or stuck in a tree or hit by a car and dying in a ditch. I was very upset, and by 10.30pm, Scott needed a break from his crying, distraught wife, and begged to be allowed to go to the pub. 20 minutes later, a call came from my mum to say that Coffee had just stalked through the door, looking a little dusty and skinny, but none the worse for wear. She apparently scoffed down a plate of food Leon gave her.

I called Scott, he cracked up laughing and then I washed my face, got changed and went down to the pub to join him.

Moving into our nation's capital

"Our nation's capital"- Sounds very impressive for a largish country town I think. Mind you, the other day I had to quickly pull over to answer my mobile, and suddenly realised I'd parked smack inbetween the US embassy and the French embassy.

We got here Monday at 1pm, and are staying in a tiny apartment that is across the road from Parliament house- one street south of there, actually. If you remember, it was stinking hot that day, (as it has been every day since- weird to think it was snowing last week!). We went grocery shopping, had a nap and settled in that afternoon. In the evening we went for a drive to one of the suburbs we've been considering moving into- it has lots of blocks of flats, is comparatively cheap, and close to work and the city. We drove past the shopping mall (Southlands), parked the car to take a look around and what do you suppose we found??? A baseball ground. (Picture Scott in seventh heaven). Actually, there is quite a bit of nice parkland around, which is particularly handy if you are living in a block of flats. The shopping mall was nice too. Two second hand bookshops, discount liquor, far too many hairdressers, little outdoorsy cafes, a cheap greengrocer, etc. Also found that meat and veg in the woolworths there is a third of the price of the supermarket in trendy Kingston that we shopped at yesterday.

Tuesday, Scott started work. The Commission is only a five minute drive from here, 7 minutes in peak hour traffic. I did some study in the morning and in the afternoon I went down to Woden plaza. Apparently, at these apartments, their idea of "internet access" (as advertised in the brochures) is limited to the presence of a phone jack in the apartment. So I had to find a prepaid dial up internet starter kit. I thought I'd try the telstra shop and get a bigpond one, but the guy there said they didn't stock them (although they do apparently exist), raised an eyebrow at me and asked scornfully why I wanted dial up. I put him in his place by saying I was only going to be living in the apartment for a month, so I wasn't too keen on a 24 month contract. He said to try Dick Smiths.

Last night we went for a drive up Red Hill, where there is a beautiful view of the city. There was a couple sitting up there drinking glasses of red wine. We thought: "What a good idea! We just bought a cask and it's in the boot." Then realised we had no glasses. I don't mind drinking from a bottle when the occasion calls for it, but even I couldn't come at the idea of drinking directly out of a cask. Came home and sat in the garden (a big garden with picnic benches shared by all the apartments) and had a glass of wine, read the paper and ate a green Thai curry. Very nice. I could get used to this.