#1 of x

19 days, it's taken me. And I jumped as much as usual.

I saw my first Australian spider today (first of this visit, anyway). It was not small (although I've seen ones of similar size in the UK). Unfortunately, I had to walk past it very close by in order to get to the gas meter, so I could get the serial number for it to be connected. Not fun. I was quite glad the serial number is only 6 characters long!

I was also the victim of bad timing today. I had the first call to my recently-acquired Aussie mobile while I was wrestling with an overly full sandwich. Sadly, my voicemail was set at the most hypersensitive setting (and try as I might, I can't change it), so it only rang twice and then switched off, by which time I'd managed to throw chicken and salad all over the table and drop teriyaki sauce all over my T-shirt. I'll just have to speak to them later instead!

I've bought my fridge, but it isn't in the flat yet. It will be delivered "some time in the next week" - I'm slowly learning that Australians have no concept of urgency, which in general is a state of mind I have a great deal of sympathy for, but not when I need a fridge! So I guess I'll be living on takeaways and non-refrigerated food till next week, then. That's not so easy here, not when days can get up to the mid-30s! There's quite a few snack bars and takeaways just round the corner which I will be frequenting. There are also a load of antique stores and wedding shops, for some reason - Armadale is the place to be if you want something old, new, borrowed or blue, with the emphasis on the old.

On Flat-hunting

The property rental market in Melbourne is decidedly a seller's one at the moment. To the extent that, of the 12 properties my relocation consultant had yesterday arranged to see today, 5 had gone by the time we set off this morning, and another one after we'd seen it during the day.

So of the 6 that we saw, there was a fair amount of variety. 2 very new flats, one with only one bedroom and the other really nice and very central but far too small. 4 flats in reasonably old buildings - these were all very good. As seems traditional with Australian housing, each of them was totally different from the others.

So I've put my name down for one in Armadale - fingers crossed (the back-up is one in South Yarra that I'd be just as happy with). It's slightly further away from the city centre than I'd originally planned, but it's 100 yards from a tram stop, 200 from a local train station and half a mile from a supermarket. Google Maps says it's 2.3 miles from work, so walkable at a push, but it'll probably be a tram. It's totally unfurnished, though, which is a small stumbling point - means I will need to rent some furniture and make use of one of the bits of my employment package I thought sounded a bit funny when offered it.

I really have to start getting my head round this metric system!