Monday 6th September 2004 Ann popped out to do some shopping today, and it seemed like she was gone
for hours - I dressed Thomas, put out the washing to dry, gave Thomas his lunch,
played with him, and even had some time to put some more 
links
on the website. Thomas had been playing up at lunch, blowing a raspberry whilst
his mouth was full, and spitting out food and then laughing. As soon as he started
playing up, I just walked off, so that he could see that he had no audience.
I don't know if it had any effect.
When Ann finally came back (only two hours after she left), she had something secret that she had to take past me and put into the bedroom. My imagination was tickled, but I have learnt now that it is better to wait for the real surprise, than it is to have the satisfaction of knowing what the surprise is beforehand. I also told Ann not to read my email for today, as I had bought a surprise over the Internet and did not want her to see the confirmation email.
This evening I managed to see the moon. The strange thing was that I had a bit of a difficulty in working out why it looked different. There were clouds around, but I still could not work out what was wrong. Then I finally realised - it's upside-down! Of course, I am seeing the moon from another point of view, and so it is difficult to see the man in the moon, or even the rabbit in the moon.
Linda popped over for coffee and a chat - and complained that we had been out yesterday... I carried on working on the website, and Linda and Ann chatted over biscuits and Thomas.
Comment
on this entry
Second Wedding Anniversary
Terrible rainstorms all night and all day - no chance of looking at the moon and stars tonight (boo...) and no chance of putting out any washing to dry (horay...).
Just two years ago today, Ann and I got
married
in England. We would have never imagined that we would be in Australia, with
a son, and in such a short time... We are all happy, but we just need to get
me back to work and earning money...
I bought Ann some flowers - her favourites are Gerberas, and the bouquet was delivered through Interflora. It's great to have a name that I recognise, so I know what is going to happen. Both of us had bought each other cards, and it was good to just spend a day together and not spend more money on going out or fancy meals. Instead, I made my usual chicken curry, with fresh ingredients of course.
I am getting in to my homebrew project. Thomas bought me some homebrew lager concentrate, and so I went out today to buy the brewing sugar and other ingredients that I will need. I frightened Ann by putting the pressure barrel (used after fermentation instead of bottling to carbonate the beer) in the kitchen and saying that it should stay there. It holds 5 gallons and looks like a white plastic beer keg (that's because that's what it is...) so, I will go out and get some bottles instead.
Comment
on this entry
Very successful day, as far as jobs goes. I got 4 calls today from people saying that they have had a job come across their desk that is applicable for me. One is very exciting, two are really good, and one is a little strange. The strange one is a three week contract, working within a project that should be over a year's work. Anyway, hopefully one of these will result in some success - things are really slow here, so I will need to choose my future position carefully. I don't want to leave again and be out of work for another month whilst I wait for jobs to be advertised, CVs sorted, candidate selections to be done, and all before interviews are done.
We all went out to Harbour Town - a discount 'outlet' shopping centre, with factory direct discounts. We were just browsing, but it's a place with plenty of bargains. It's strangely in the middle of nowhere - it's on the edge of the Adelaide Airport, overlooking a nature reserve - so it's surrounded by open land.
Terry (my father, for those of you who don't know) called this evening, to talk about his visit to Australia around Christmas time. We previously asked if he wanted to do anything specific for New Year's Eve, and today he said it would be good to see what was happening in Sydney. Of course, there is lots going on, and so there is plenty of choice. The problem is that almost everything is booked up, and the prices have been doubled. Along with higher prices, most places have a minimum stay period of 4 days, if you are staying on the night of 31st December. Some places have a minimum or 14 days over that period, so we will have to keep looking. I am of the opinion that we should stay in Adelaide this year and do it in a few years' time.
Comment
on this entry
More rain today, but there was a gap long enough to get the washing dried. Thomas and Ann went to Physio today, and did some exercises to get Thomas walking. Whilst Thomas was out, I did the cleaning and sanitisation of the brewing equipment, and then mixed up the brew to make the beer. When I last brewed my own cider, I read that the more sugar you add to the mix, the more alcohol is produced - so as a student I would add double the recommended sugar, to get a super-strong alcoholic soup. Now I am a little older and wiser, I am adding slightly less sugar than specified - only ¾ of a kilo of sugar.
I got a little over-zealous with the sterilisation, and decided to use Thomas' microwave bottle steriliser on the smaller components of the fermenter and pressure barrel. Unfortunately the temperature was too high, and the pressure barrel lid is now melted, and the fermentation bubble-lock cracked. I had to go out and buy some new parts, but the pressure barrel is from England and I can't get the parts here, so Ann will get her way, and I will have to bottle the beer instead - at least I can refrigerate it now!
Ann went off to get her driving license today. She had 3 months from Arrival in Australia to go in and surrender her UK license, and get a South Australia license. Ann had been studying the book in preparation for the written test, but then last night had the brainwave that all she needed to do was prove that she had had a license before so that they would renew it. So, off she went to the Transport SA office, Australian passports in both names, and all her name change documentation. Ann also took the "highway-code" style book that has all the bits that she would need to be tested on. But, it all turned out OK, Ann just paid the fee and had her photo taken, and her new license will arrive in the post in a few days. I can wait for 2 years until my visa is permanent before I need to get mine sorted.
At lunch today, Thomas had some of last night's risotto that I had made. We had put aside some smaller helpings for him, and he actually quite liked it. I think that it's a good way to get rid of left-overs, it saves having to get a dog.
Comment
on this entry
I had a job interview today with the agency Hudson in their new offices. Because the Adelaide Olympic athletes were having a parade today, I arrived really early so that I could get a parking space, and ensure that I was not caught up in crowds. It worked out well, but unfortunately the interviewer could only give me 30 minutes of their time. The interview went well, and I really want this job - but I think I got the wrong end of the stick, because all through the interview I was saying how much I enjoyed 'doing' the technical work, as well as planning and managing it - and then near the end of the interview, they said that this job was very hands-off. I had mis-interpreted the job description, and so I had to back-track and say that I enjoyed being hands-off too.
This morning, the rubbish bins are normally
collected.
If you have read earlier parts of the blog, or are from Australia, you will
know that what happens is the rubbish truck drives alongside the house, a robotic
arm pops out, and the bin is picked up and tipped into the top of the truck,
much like a hoon
downing a stubbie.
But this morning, the truck turned up really early, and because the bin was
not on the kerb and pointing the right way, the robotic
arm could not pick it up - so, I had to go out (in my pyjamas) and put the
bin on the other side of the road, so that it could be emptied. As I strode
out, I noticed another person in their dressing gown, frantically trying to
shove more rubbish into their bin before collection.
Comment
on this entry
More rain last night - almost every night it has rained, with the days being 'changeable'. Ann went out to do the shopping alone, as we had decided that it would be more convenient without Thomas to look after. Thomas loves to sit in the shopping trolley, but he also wants to grab everything within reach...
It was so cold last night that my home-brew had dropped close to the minimum temperature required for yeast growth, so I had to go out to the shed, and rummage through my home-brew equipment to find my heating belt. It's a mains powered belt that wraps around the fermenter, and gives off a gentle warmth to raise the wort by a few degrees. I had to chop the UK plug off because it was rusty, and put an Australian plug on it, then run an extension cable across the floor so that I could save my beer. It worked, and now the beer is nice and comfortable, making more alcohol for me.
As soon as Ann came back from shopping, I rushed out to go and find a homebrew
shop where I could buy some more hoses for bottling the beer. The hoses that
I had brought over from the UK had gone slimy, and so I wanted to get some new
stuff. The shop
is just at the bottom of the hill in Stanbel Road, and only opened 3 weeks ago.
Anyway, it's a well appointed shop with everything I need, including stuff that
is not available in the UK - distillation equipment. The distillation equipment
would allow me to make spirits, and they even have all the mixes to allow home
brewing and manufacture of whisky, gin, brandy and vodka.
I think that I will hold off that for a little bit...
They only had one size of piping, and my equipment needed a slightly larger
size, so I ended up going to the garden centre to get the tubing - I will just
need to sterilize it all before I use it.
For some reason, television was really terrible tonight, there was nothing interesting on, but lots of rubbish like Australian Idol. Ann really likes it, so I went elsewhere, to do some changes to the website. To my horror - I could not make any changes to the site, because I had exceeded my disk space allocation on the Internet web server. I had purchased a package where the www.wickham.id.au website is on their servers, with 55 Mb of disk space allocated to me. Somehow, all the slideshows come to 105 Mb, so I had really exceeded my limit - the hosting company had just not prevented me from exceeding my limit. So, if anyone has had problems getting to the website in the last few days, then the reason is that I had to delete lots so that I could put the index page back up!
Whilst sorting out the website, I had a look at my
stats
for August, and this website got 13470 total hits! That's quite good...
Comment
on this entry
Ann's brother Paul came over today with his wife Julie. They had left the kids at home - saying that they were ill (but then had to leave early to take one of the kids to a party...). It was good to meet them, but a little awkward as we did not have anything much to talk about, apart from children.
Once Paul and Julie had left, the afternoon dragged on, and
we ended up watching the DVD of Ice Age that Thomas gave me for father's day.
We were wanting to go out, but the day had been cut in half, and so we could
not really go out to anywhere like
Morialta
Falls, or up to the
Barossa.
I was watching the TV adverts, with film breaks, and noticed how many of the adverts were the same as in the UK, only with a different product name. Then I started thinking about all the things which are the same, but under a new name -
I found it interesting, as so many products that I know from England are the same here, but with a very different name. It makes you wonder if the world is just one global village.
Comment
on this entry
[Homepage] [Blog] [Slideshows] [Links] [Migration] [Search] [LogoTest]