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August 2nd until August 8th 2004

Daily life

Monday 2nd August 2004

Last night's rain was so hard that Thomas was woken up a few times, and was quite scared.

This evening, Linda and Marie came over, so that Marie could scan and print some pictures for school in colour. Marie is full of energy and she and I had a bit of a giggle in my office, whilst Ann and Linda chatted over coffee. Marie was still in her slippers, and whilst we were inside it started to hail - and on the metal roof the noise was deafening.

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Tuesday 3rd August 2004

More rain today. There have been reports of wind damage in some regions that are close to us here, and in some ways it is frightening that it could happen to us. We have both been looking around for trees that could fall over our house - on the radio they have been advising people in low-lying areas to pack ready to be evacuated. The rain woke us up a few times last night, and the house feels very cold.

Thomas has started to play a new game. When he is on the floor playing with his toys, he will pull out all the toys from his toy basket, and either toss them around, or place them on the top of the upturned toy basket. Then, when Ann tries to pick up the toys and put them back in the basket, he starts pulling them out as quickly as Ann is putting them back in.
Tonight Ann bathed Thomas by herself whilst I made the curry. Ann made sure that she was at the head end of the bath, to prevent herself getting soaked when he kicks and splashes in the tub. He really enjoys the bath, but hates being taken out of the warm soapy water.

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Wednesday 4th August 2004

Today we got our new car. It's a Renault Megane Scenic, and we bought it at the weekend, and the dealership spent the last two days treating the upholstery, the paintwork and putting tint into the windows. The car has that great "new car" smell, and everything is so clean and crisp. The salesman who delivered the car also fitted the baby seat for Thomas - but the problem is that we have to put it on one side, not in the middle as it was in the last car.
Ann is obviously quite excited, as it is the first time that she has had a new car, and the car is primarily for her use during the week. Thomas is still at the stage where he does not really know the difference. I hope that the treatment on the upholstery lasts out through any little accidents that he may have. The car has lots of little storage places, which will be great to put all those little bits and pieces that we need to have when we have a baby.

The rain has still been really heavy again - apparently there has been massive flooding in the hills, and due to the high tide there has been coastal flooding, particularly the older parts of Glenelg. The Kangaroo Creek reservoir is apparently near to overflowing, which makes a change from when we drove up to see it, and we could nearly see the bottom - it must be millions of litres of new rain that has fallen in the last few days, which should be really helpful for the summer. The other reservoirs are also nearly full.

Thomas started to learn how to play with his ring stacking toy. He will pick up a ring and place it over the post, but then he wants to take it off again before putting the next sized ring on. Again he has been tetchy in the afternoon, so Ann was a little drawn today.
We were both hoping to surprise everyone with the purchase of the new car, but Liam and Shirley ruined the suprise that Ann was going to land on them, by visiting Ann in the day. Ann was really hoping to turn up on their doorstep as a suprise.

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Thursday 5th August 2004

Today I decided to tell my work that I wanted to quit. It just seems like the job is not right - it's a gut feeling and it's difficult to put into words the exact reasons for me leaving.
It's a difficult decision to become unemployed when I have Thomas and Ann to look after, but at least this way I will have more time with them both. Money is not really a problem at the moment, we are still living off the money from selling our cars and home in England, but still it is a concern to ensure that we are not getting into trouble. When it comes down to it, the main reason that we decided to move to Australia was to get a better way of life, and if I am in a job that I am not enjoying, and each Sunday I am tense because I have to go back to work, then I could be back in England, and not here in Australia. I only hope that the next job I get will give me more happiness and of course more money.

I have (finally!) put up some more pictures of Thomas on the website, and some pictures of our home and the surrounding area (have a look in the Slideshow directory). Now that I am out of work, I will have more time to put more pictures up, and do some more work on the website.

I have created some more discussion groups in the forum for our larger families to chat and exchange information with each other. I have also created an area so that if you have a joke or a funny website, you can put it up on the discussion group for everyone to see, instead of emailing a big file to people. I hope that people will use the "family" groups to put up their own news, announcements and chatter that will be of interest to all of our family members. So, Mary - put all your news up, and Elizabeth - we want to hear all about the wedding...

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Friday 6th August 2004

Our furniture has been in Australia now for just a week. We have finally managed to get rid of most boxes, and almost all of the packaging materials. After a long weekend of unpacking and unwrapping, we managed to get most done within the first few days. It really astounded us when we were unpacking to see how much each item had been wrapped. There were plastic bottles that had been wrapped in three sheets of paper that were each the size of a Telegraph/Times sheet. This meant that most of the space taken up in the boxes was just paper. Once we had unwrapped each item in a box, we had a small amount of crockery, and a full box of paper. Even though there was a lot of packaging on some items - others were not wrapped at all. Our bedside lamps were pulverised and our chrome linen basked was almost flattened. Luckily, there was nothing vital that was totally destroyed, but it was upsetting to find broken items that were not wrapped after spending so much time unwrapping plastic spoons and measuring jugs.
All of our stuff from the UK has made us feel much more at home, but there have been a few items that we needed to buy before the stuff from England arrived, so we have duplicates. This is particularly true of the kitchen stuff. We now have 4 plastic turners, and about 7 big ladles/spoons. So what we have had to do is pack up all of the items that we don't want to use right now, and put them away for when we buy our own house - they may suit that house a bit more.
After spending days unpacking, we put all the empty boxes and the wrapping paper in the garden shed. Ann was chatting to Linda and talking about how it was going to be difficult to get rid of so much paper and card - and Linda has talked about it at work. So, then the next thing we knew, people were calling Ann and asking if they could take some of the boxes and paper away so that they could use it for their own moving. So, two families have cleared out all of our rubbish, so that they can use it - they even took the polystyrene that was used to ship the television to us! I have no idea what they are going to use that for!

Talking about televisions, we brought over a TV and two videos from England. Not a problem with the power - we just snipped off the UK plugs and put on an Australian plug. Not a problem with the TV standard - but the UK and Australia are PAL (and both videos can do both PAL and NTSC). The problem is with the tuners - the Australian broadcast frequencies are slightly different, and so we can't tune in the channels. It's not too much of a problem with the main TV, as we will only record off the Digital cable (Foxtel, just like Sky) and play all of our old tapes, but we can't record one channel and watch another. And the little TV that we brough over can only watch pre-recorded videos. Ann has asked Liam if we can have his old TV, so we should get that any day soon.

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Saturday 7th August 2004

Now that all of our furniture has arrived from the UK, it has been so much easier to feel settled and "at home" in our new home. Just having our own stuff around makes it seem more familiar. Now we are able to sit down to dinner at our own table and chairs, which we spent so much time and effort choosing and buying back in England. It is the little things like that which make life so much more enjoyable.
We were amazed at how much crap we had brought over from the UK. There were clothes that were too small for us, ornaments that we don't like and paperwork coming out of our ears. Before we packed up in England, we went through as much as we could and were 'ruthless' with getting rid of everything that would not be required - but it seems like we did not go far enough, because we have had to fill the bins here several days...

Thomas now has his old high-chair back, which has a central pillar between his legs. Now he can no longer slide down the seat and end up lying almost flat. It makes it so much easier to feed him when he is sitting upright. Other things that we now have for Thomas make it seem so clear that there is always something that you leave behind that you really need.

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Sunday 8th August 2004

It is amazing how much of a difference it makes to have broadband Internet at home now. It was a bit of a battle to get it installed, as first they cancelled my order because the phone number had not yet been activated (we hadn't moved in yet), then they delayed the order because the telephone exchange needed more equipment to support the number of ADSL lines in our area. Then I plugged in my Wireless Access Point, and the power adapter exploded, so I was spending ages trying to work out where to put cables and wires so that I could get all my computers on the Internet. I ended up buying a new Wireless AP, and then buying a new power supply for my old Wireless AP, so now I have two - which is great. All the Internet hardware (like modem, firewall etc.) is stuffed alongside the television, and I have one Wireless Access Point there - then, there is the new Wireless AP in my study, where all the other computers are plugged in to. To cut a long and complex story short, this means that there are no wires around, but everything can get on to the Internet. At least Thomas can't pull on a cable, and Ann can go anywhere in the house and still read emails and get on the Internet.

Now that my server is back on the Internet, I am going to put the streaming videos back up on the Internet so that you can all keep up to date with Thomas and Ann's activities. It will take a bit of configuration, and the videos may be a bit jerky, but I will get it up and running soon.

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