just a short one

This is an interim blog to announce the release of a brand new concept.

Michelle has done a blog and it can be found at:

Doing it upside down

My new one is coming soon, and it should be a beauty.

Now I don't want you folk just reading her blog and posting comments to it when you thought it would be funny to read mine and leave me no feedback. By the way I count "no comment" as not leaving feedback.

Mine are still available, just click on the archives on the right hand side.

Just gone silly now

This episode brought two ewe courtesy off thee Microsoft spill chequer

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Eye found that Eye cant dew a gnu blog a ferry phew daze hit wows two much add work, sew Yule get theme wean eye can mange them.

These hiss fairy add work dune these sew I mite stop soon.

Henna weigh hive taken moor pitches that eye thought ewe wood like. This thirst won hiss off a bud. These hiss watt thee low culls call a crow. A pair ant Leigh they are African Mina Birds. There sound hiss like a knotting ewe herd be four.

They luck like crows, a part form they’re highs witch hark leer hand they ark white a bit boulder than ewe Kay birds. They will work rite up two ewe.

As usual, click on the picture for the full size version.

Today wee went two luck four a how’s their war swan outing thee bush that wee liked the luck off sew wee …..Actually, I’ve had enough of this, it’s taking ages to get the words to make sense, at least I think they make sense, if you have read this far, then well done. I shall re-type what I’ve written so you don’t have to decipher it any more. If you’re interested the only thing the spell checker flagged up was blog.

This episode brought to you courtesy of the Microsoft Spell Checker.

As there seemed to be so much debate about the last blog, I thought I would clear up any errors with the spell checker.

I found that I can’t do a new blog every couple of days, it was too much hard work, so you’ll get them when I can manage them.

This is fairly hard work so I might stop soon (as indeed I did)

Anyway I’ve taken a few more pictures that I though you’d like. This first one is of a bird, this is what the locals call a crow, Apparently they are African Mynah Birds. Their sound is like nothing you’ve heard before.

They look like crows apart from their eyes which are clear and they are quite a bit bolder than UK birds, they will walk right up to you.

Today we went to look for a house, there was one out in the bush that we liked the look of so we….. Actually, I’ve had enough of this, it’s taking ages to get the words to make sense, at least I think they make sense, if you have read this far, then well done. I shall re-type what I’ve written so you don’t…..perhaps I should stop there and continue with the story.

So we went to look at this house, it was a 4x2x1 property, which means 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and 1 garage. This is how they sell and rent out properties, using such shortcuts. Now this is the kind of house you think about when you talk about an Australian house, when the car reached the drive it took us another 12 minutes to get to the house. On reflection, I really should fix that car. What the 4x2x1 designation doesn’t say is how big the property is, it is 7.5 acres, and has a huge workshop. So this is where I’m going to be spending a lot of my time. Of course I said this before I saw the spider web in the workshop. You’ve seen Indiana Jones I presume where he is always going into old buildings with huge spider webs covering the room. Well, obviously they weren’t that bad but I just like to add a little drama. Anyway I thought with Michelle doing the design and technology course that perhaps she might make better use of the workshop than I would, so I made a supreme sacrifice and said that she should have the room, see, I’m not in the least bit territorial.

That’s almost it for this week, sorry there’s only 1 picture this week, but I’ve been busy looking for a job. I’m still waiting for my electrical license (I’m not even going to start on the bureaucracy involved here, needless to say they have a very relaxed attitude to anything that you might want to be done quickly.) Dee had her leaving prom dinner at a place called the Burswood, which is a very posh place and she got dressed up in her prom dress, so I will email a picture to any family or friend that is interested, for obvious reasons, I’m not posting a picture on the open blog.

Till the next time, when hopefully I should have a temp job.

I’ve taken the comment moderation off the blog, so anyone can add a comment, Please though if I can ask that if you post a comment at least you put your name in somewhere so I can see who it is as the last few got me very confused..

Thanks.

Settling in

4X4 motor Show (This episode is sponsored by the Asterisk, for all your footnote requirements)

How lucky I am, Australia's largest motor show is Here in Perth for 3 days. The Fortunate thing is that the show happened to be on the end of our road, well actually at the end of our road, turn right come to the 'T' junction and it is just behind Bunnings (*1). So realistically about 10 minutes walk. Well, wanting to get into the Ozzy way of life I decided that we would take the car, what with it being a hot day. The decision was arrived at in much the same way as we decided to get an air conditioning unit in the last episode, my god it is beginning to sound like a soap.

So we trotted off in our own 4X4, I thought I would use this opportunity to show off our big rig. So we went to the end of the road and turned ri........ Actually, you don't need the directions, I've given them to you earlier. Also you don't really need to know as it would only make sense to us because of where we lived, if you didn't live here the directions would be worthless and would probably end you up in Woollies(*2) or some such. So we end up on the road behind Bunnings(*1) and we are directed to a free car park, now imagine this, the Ozzies are so thoughful that they think that if you were going to visit somewhere the least they could do is to offer you free parking as an incentive to visit(*3) A few English tourist places could learn a ot from this.

Now Perth is quite a big place, about 2 million population, it seems that they all thought it would be a good idea to visit the car show on the same day. This means the car park was full, no worries mate, just follow the line of cars into the next field, and the next and the next. When we actually got a parking space in the designated area, we were actually further away from the expo than we would have been if we had walked (*4)

Actually I have to say that the Expo was probably the most awesome thing I'd seen since (Insert some really funny awesome thing in here so that it looks seamless and it looks as though you are a really funny guy, but make sure you do it before you publish the blog otherwise it will look contrived and it might put people off reading it.) As soon as you entered there was a stand offering free sunblock from a gallon barrel. Now being a pale skinned Englishman who had previously only heard rumours about sunshine I thought I would partake of their generosity and lather myself in the stuff(*5)

I won't bore you with too many pictures of the stands, just a couple though:

I'm not sure what they were selling here, but being patriotic, I thought I'd give the Land rover the flagship position.


This is a Hi-lux showing off it's(*6) famous axle articulation

Other stands were caravan companies, or caratent exhibitors and off-roading clubs, (Which we intend to join solely for the purpose of getting interesting stories to tell and fabulous pictures to take for the blog.)

Then I really fell into tourist mode, because I bought a hat. a leather outback hat as well, so that I could look like a proper Aussie.(*7) Went back to King's park for a twilight shot of the city landscape, here I am preparing for the shot in my new hat and thongs.Click on the Piccies for a bigger version.

Meanwhile: the next day. Michelle took me to a place called Ocean Reef, this is where we are going to be getting our next house rental (still only renting until we know where we will be working permanently, so probably for a year or so.

Had a look at a few houses, then went to the beach, again this was about sunset so I sat down and waited for the sun to set, this was about 8:00 at night.

I might also add the small tale about Michelle getting in one of the 4X4 to test it out, only to realise that it wasn't an exhibition vehicle and how she got some very strange looks form some people who thought that their truck was being stolen.


1* Bunnings: this is the Ozzie version of B&Q, they all have the orange overalls and the aisles are laid out the same way, except the contents of the aisles are completely different. There are no patio heaters for one thing, for another they have a range of barbecues that you wouldn't believe, some of them have preparation areas and kitchen sinks, although I suppose you couldn't call them kitchen sinks, mainly because they aren't in the kitchen some had ovens, some had microwaves, there was one aisle dedicated to barbecue accessories, you know knives, fluids, spatulas etc. Another aisle was dedicated to hot tubs *9

2*Woollies: Short for Woolworths, which is nothing like the UK woollies, this one is more like a Tesco's, but it isn't anything like a UK Tesco's because the staff are helpful and polite.

3* Or they are so stupid that they don't realise the money making potential of cashing in on all those poor saps who simply must visit the 4X4 exhibition

4* You simply couldn't make this stuff up could you?

5* Still managed to get burned though.

6* Yes, I did it on purpose to see if you were awake, if you didn't notice it, then either you were too engrossed in the story, or you missed my lesson on apostrophes or you couldn't care less, in which case see me after class.

7* No, it didn't have corks dangling from it, I've not seen one of those yet, I'm not sure they exist it might be an urban myth brought about by Paul Hogan. I will make it my Raison d'etre (*8) to find out.

8* Reason for living (*10)

9* That remids me, on the way to TAFE there are 2 shops that sell swimming pools, they even have about half a dozen of them set up in the front of the shop

10* are you tired of the asterisks yet? 'cause I am.

First Week

Home From Airport

Well, first things first, let's get home from the airport. The first thing I'm going to do is show you the car that Michelle bought while she was out here on her own. This was my ride home.



I was so proud of Michelle for getting a car that mean business, it is tough and mighty, a car that is worthy of the mighty Batfink himself (well look him up then). I think Michelle might have realised what I would think of the car and the fact that I would want to drive it more than she would, so she had bought a couple of Ian deterrents, in the shape of Pink Panther seat covers and seat belt restraints.


Can you see the corrugated roofs in the background? well about two thirds of houses are capped like this, tiles are quite rare, not sure why yet, may be a cost thing.
Gets home from the airport at about 4:30 in the morning to a house full of boxes and furniture, the household goods from England had beat me to it.

I went to bed quite quickly and awoke even quicker, I think I had about 2 hours sleep. as everyone else in the house was asleep, I thought I might watch some TV. In Australia, the appliances seem to have a mind of their own, before you think it, NO this does not make them my intellectual superior. The washing machine for example starts up with several loud beeps and then, when you start to wash, it plays a tune. The damn thing actually makes music while you're washing. WHY?? it doesn't make sense. It's not even a nice tune and it sounds like a loud digital watch from the seventies, remember the LCD alarm watches with melody alarm? OK perhaps I'm rambling a bit, but that is what it sounded like. Any way the TV has a similar "feature", I say feature in inverted commas because I am trying to get my head around what the hell were they thinking when the designers came up with the idea of the TV starting up with a reveille DA DA DA DA DA DAAAAA. I think the idea was that if you turned on the telly in the morning it would wake the whole house up. Any way my hearty congratulations to the designers, that is exactly what happened, first response was Michelle, with a hearty, "Turn that bloody telly off."

I'm not going to go into too much detail about the everything else that happened that week, as the bulk of it was pretty similar to what happens for everyone, every week, anywhere such as going to the shop, remembering that you forgot something once you've started to unpack the shopping, arguing about whose fault it was that Michelle forgot.

The first couple of days were unseasonably hot, hovering around 38 Celsius, that is just over 100 Fahrenheit for you folk still dealing in bushels and measuring the speed of light in furlongs per fortnight. That is quite a change from having to wrap up warm to get to work because the car doesn't warm up for the first 5 miles, to having to dress down because the air conditioning doesn't get cold enough by the time you have reached the shops. However this is one discomfort I'm prepared to tolerate.

Obligatory picture from King's Park

apparently it is the law that if you visit Perth, you have to take a picture from this vantage point in King's Park. Just to prove a point have a look at Google images and type in King's Park Perth and see how many pictures there are which are very similar.

The final thing I'm going to describe today is an event that happened whilst out shopping. The fact that the temperature was so high made it difficult for Deanna to sleep as her bedroom faces the sun through the day. We talked about this and as a pair of grown adults we came to the decision that it would be in the interests of everyone if we went and bought another air conditioning unit, The conversation went something like this:

Michelle: Ian we need to buy another air conditioning unit
Ian: OK dear


So off we trundled to have a look round a few shops. I like this because it gives me a chance to practice my English Toff accent, Now the Australians are a bit like the Americans in some respects, but the respect I'm interested in today is the fact that they are rubbish at accents, they have a fine accent of their own, which is unique in the world. I start off in an upper class accent, then my accent wanders around the English counties, swerving from East end of London to Geordie at the drop of a hat, I visit Scotland, Yorkshire and even over the hills into lancashire. I then end up talking in the worst possible welsh accent which to an untrained ear sounds very like a Pakistani accent. In truth it doesn't matter if the ear is trained or not, my welsh accent is the worst of all my impressions. In fact I think even the best of my accents don't really have anything to brag about. the point of this little paragraph is that even though the accent wanders the Ozzies don't notice. This is fine until you come to a shop assistant that is from the UK, which happens too frequently as the immigrant population is largely UK derived. This is something I have now stopped doing for reasons of personal safety and for the fact that I'm sure they charge me more for things than other customers.

On our route around the various electrical and electronic shops Michelle gets a phone call, now this isn't a major occurrence as pretty much any time we are out Michelle gets a phone call usually asking if Deanna can go to the shop and buy a magnum (the ice cream lolly, not a .45 calibre handgun) or if ben can go round to his mates, they are having a barby. Now I know what happened in this conversation because as I'm writing it, it happened 2 days ago,so what I'm going to do is give you a transcript of what I heard of the conversation, merely for the purposes of keeping the dialogue interesting.

Michelle: Hi Dee, what do you want, I've only been gone 15 minutes
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: He's done what?
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: Well,lay him down on the couch
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: Well, can he get up
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: The Drum pedal?
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: His Knee?
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: His head
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: OH MY GOD!
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: Well don't say that in front of him
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: Now repeat after me
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: never mind why, just do it.
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: No mum it doesn't look that bad.
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: Because I want Ben to think it isn't that bad.
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: Right, listen to this carefully, this is important. I want to to go near him and say it, the point was I wanted him to hear it.
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: what do you mean there's a hole in it.
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: what right through?
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: Well we'll just have to replace the door then.
Dee: muffled sounds
Michelle: right well give him a cold cloth for his head we'll come straight back.

So to tell the story straight, Ben tripped over his double bass drum pedal, grazed his knee on the floor and put his head through the door. He's fine by the way, just a little bruise on his head and his ego.

That's about it for this week, I'm going to go now and visit the Western Australia Off road Exhibition, apparently all the 4X4 manufacturers are descending on Perth to show off their wares and hoping to sell some into the bargain, I'm just going to take some fab pictures (I hope)

I'm thinking of doing this blog daily rather than weekly, so that I can do shorter stints, but remember more of what happened, so you might see this updated more frequently but with less info in each bulletin. Also look out for Michelle's blog, i will put a link to it on this page when she has got it going so that you can compare the Ian and Michelle perspectives of each story. Should be a laugh if nothing else. keeps the comments coming.

The Journey

Last Day At College



Well, the time came round quicker than I thought, my last day at College. I had a bizarre last week, it seemed to go really quickly, but the embarrassing part was when I was telling a group of students off for using the printer, in a lesson that I knew didn't need any work printing out. At the end of the lesson, they presented me with a homemade card that they had made and printed in the lesson, so apologies for shouting and thanks for the sentiment girls, you know who you are. I also got a couple of cards from individual students and tutors, including one card that was the size of my briefcase, which was very touching and filled with nice sentiments. 1 friend even took the time to go and buy me a book that he thought I would like, so far I do like the book and really appreciate the thought and effort. The staff had a whip round and signed 2 cards for me, which I haven't completely read yet, but will do so when this stupid jet lag clears. I'm writing this at 5:15 in the morning. Any way the whip round came to a substantial amount of money which I thought I would use to buy myself something to remember the college by, can't be too difficult to buy for me I thought, I wonder why they didn't.

Manchester Airport

At the airport, it was announced that my first flight to Dubai was delayed by 2 hours ARGHHH!!!

They have this scheme at Manchester Airport, whereby if your flight is delayed by 2 hours or more, the airline will give you a voucher for a meal or refreshments, 7 pounds and 50p which I splashed out on a baked potato and a cup of coffee, My next dilemma was: "What to do with the change" eventually I decided to put the 2p into the charity box, just to show the kind and gentle nature that I have developed.


I then realised that this was a perfect opportunity to look round duty free and buy myself something from the college. The problem was that most of the shops in duty free were shut, I could have bought a load of magazines and books, but once they were read, they would just sit on a shelf and not get looked at, what i wanted was something i would use often. No problem, I thought, Dubai has an awesome duty free shop, full of electronics, which would suit a geek like me down to the ground.

Time for the flight (Emirates Airlines), the first flight was supposed to be 7 and a half hours, not a problem, the seats were comfy and the seat next to me was vacant, so I could spread out a bit, there were 350 film channels to choose from and 500 TV programs and 150 audio channels playing full albums, radio shows interviews etc. The food was awesome and the seats were really comfortable, for anyone that knows how big I am, then you will appreciate that this is no mean feat.

Arrival at Dubai Airport ( or should that be Arrival @ Dubai Airport)

Early morning in Dubai, step out of the plane into baking heat, onto the cattle bus that takes us into Dubai Arrivals, I have a couple of hours to look around the airport, which has an abundance of shops but I headed for the electronics shop, did I mention that I was a geek? (if you don't believe me have a look on my front page of Myspace for my geek score.) Well, they had everything a geek could possibly want, digital cameras, lenses for digital cameras, cases for lenses for digital cameras, backpacks that housed cases with lenses for digital cameras, camcorders, MP3 players, laptops, portable hard drives, the problem was that this geek had already got everything he needed in that department. I'm beginning to see why they just gave me the money, I realised just how hard I was to shop for.

So insatiable appetite for electronic consumer goods unsated, I boarded the flight, this was a 10 and a half hour hour flight to Perth, this wasn't a problem, I was tired not having slept on the previous flight, I would just sleep for most of it. After watching a full length feature film that challenged my thoughts and ideals about how we treat the planet on which we live, I thought it was time to have a kip (UK time would be about 8:00 in the morning making it 24 hours without sleep to this point) just then they came around with the meals, I know I've sung the praises of Emirates before, but these meals were amazing, I could have inserted the usual tirade of banter against the quality of airline food, but I really would be doing an injustice to Emirates, their food was lovely, they also had a complimentary drinks service, any drink except champagne was free. So after the meal, time to put my head down and have a kip. The only problem was I had the recurring image of Homer Simpson singing "Spider Pig-Spider Pig: does whatever a spider pig does" That'll teach me to watch the Simpson's Movie just before I got to sleep.

So, a quick re-cap, get on board - watch a movie - have a kip, I woke up feeling totally refreshed, maybe with a little crick in my neck, but considering i was traveling peasant class on the airplane, I didn't think I was doing too bad. One of the TV channels on the airplane is a rolling status report on the flight, it displays where we are now, outside air temperature, ground speed, time and distance to destination, you could choose to watch this on the TV screen in the back of the chair in front of you or watch it on the big screen overhead in the aisles. I was watching this as I woke when I saw something I didn't like, it flashed up with time to destination of 7hrs and 20 minutes. Let me just repeat that, even though you are reading this in the form of a text document, I think it needs clarifying, I had watched a film, eaten a meal and had a kip and there was still about the same flight time as my first flight left to go.

Words cannot possibly describe how tedious the last portion of the flight was, but I will give it a go. Imagine, you have to sit in a chair, comfortable chair admittedly (did I say how comfortable the emirates airline's chairs were) then imagine you cannot wheel around on the this chair to other parts of the room. (note this applies to any of my students who are constantly told not to wheel about on the computer chairs, but somehow completely manage to ignore my requests) then you have to stay in that position until 7 and a half hours have passed, work out what time it will be in 7 and a half hours time (see I'm still making you do the maths) then realise that the person next to you is asleep, the person on the other side of the aisle to you is Arabic and doesn't speak English and imagine that the most exciting thing to happen to you is that you get to go to the toilet and hear the load crack as the water is sucked away into the bowels of the aircraft. The word Tedium doesn't even come close.

Arrival at Perth Airport

Yay, I've done it, I'm here at Perth International Airport, very little sleep, a couple of films watched, a bit of my book read and a few visits to the toilet and I'm here. When the plane comes to a halt all the passengers immediately get up out of their chair and rush to get their belongings from the overhead racks and sort out their clothes, hit the kids and generally do whatever they can to be off the plane as soon as possible. This is a behaviour that has always struck me as odd, because what happens is that people get squashed in the gangways, as the plane is never ready for immediate disembarkation. So they are stood in the gangways, looking flustered, I am sat in my chair waiting for the people to disperse then I casually get out of my seat and put on my shoes and grab my belongings and meander down the gangway to the plane exit, there is always a wait for the baggage to come round the carousel.

Australian Customs

I don't mean wearing cork hats or singing waltzing Mathilda, I mean the Immigration department. This is the third time I have entered the country so I'm feeling a bit Blase about the whole affair, I picked up my bag and head towards the immigration lines. I have with me a wooden pepper mill, which was a wedding pressy, this pepper mill was one of the things that got left behind when the removal men came and took the lot (well almost the lot). Each time I had been through customs before, I had not had any issues, so i wasn't expecting any this time, even though I was going through the RED CHANNEL I was of course declaring my wooden pepper mill. I was quite cheery as the red channel was very short, only about six people in it, and the GREEN CHANNEL had everyone else off the airplane. this would be a doddle, I thought, as about 100 green people went through to every 1 red person, Oh dear I thought, have I made a big mistake? as I saw people being lead away from the main customs desk to little room to the side where I could hear the sounds of rubber gloves being snapped on.

I was one of the last few people to the desk and showed the guy the pepper mill. He said, "Oh is that all." he had a quick look through the case and wished me a pleasant stay in Australia.

My last step was to enter the arrivals lounge where I would be jumped on and adored by my wife and kids, the doors slid open..........
I went though...........
I waited..........
I coudn't see anyone running towards me to give me my due adoration, I could just see the very blurred outline of my wife who had tried to get the kids up to come to the airport but failed miserably, apparently I wasn't a big enough draw to them to warrant disturbing a good nights sleep at 2:30 in the morning. Michelle, the greatest wife I've had so far, has been an inspiration, she has come here all alone, 9 months ago to start the adventure without me, she has sought a house, started her career, bought an awesome car, took the kids on board, fed them, schooled them, entertained them and generally been an all round super human while I've been back in England doing none of that, I just thought that at this point in the story it is worth pointing out that I owe so much to Michelle for starting this venture. So there I was wife in arms about to embark on the single greatest adventure of my life (I hope) becoming an Australian. Time now to stop blogging and go and check on my Emirates shares.

Click on the picture for the larger version

Taken very early in the morning, overlooking the bonnet of my car and the swan river.
Till the next Blog, when I'll hopefully be putting some more pictures up, and if anyone has any ideas about what I could buy with my leaving present money, then suggestions will be welcome.
Ian