Miss Understandings

The last 2 weeks have been pretty awful. I'm vying with Iasonas for who can work more hours - I've worked at least 4 hours on every single day of 2007 so far. As usual, I'll get through things somehow, I'm just not sure exactly how, or what state my head will be in at that point. So apologies to several people I've been largely ignoring the last couple of weeks - Sunday is the day, I promise.

One thing which has helped is, after a rubbish 12-hour day at work, tracking this down - that certainly cheered me up this evening. As did her dress - I wasn't paying full visual attention to the TV when it was on, and I hadn't noticed the bottom third of it!

The other little grins that have got me through the last few days include :

Which kind of mustard? We've got Dijon or French.

What type of cheese? There's swiss, cheddar or tasty cheese.

Oh, is that what the meeeeeeeemo meant?

There's that annoying American counterintuitive phrase too, "I could care less," that I've started to notice quite a bit this week.

And finally, just over the road from work is one of the Australian Open practice grounds - haven't seen anyone I recognised yet. As it's mostly been populated by women, all either identikit Russians or identikit Chinese, I haven't much of a hope. We're also only about 200m from Lleyton Hewitt's house in Melbourne - no sleep lost over not seeing him around, though.

As I Mean To Go On?

I hope not. I've been into the office every single day of 2007 so far.

Much as with last year, January's going to be a bit of a hideous month, although with the following three saving graces :

(a) we're due to finish a very big chunk of work on 19/01, rather than 27/01 like last year.
(b) I can have the Net scoreboard for the Australian Open on while I'm working this year.
(c) one of the lead accountants has tickets for the tennis on 20/01 (as do I!) so she's all for making sure we're finished on 19/01!

I reached my 2-month anniversary yesterday. In many ways, it's been quite a hard 2 months (not least understanding the jarringly different regulatory rules here in Oz), but I'm enjoying myself, even if not quite as much as I'd like to be.

A Young Rascal (10 letters)

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it? Little shit."

Our family friends' neighbour Jo, demonstrating her skill with crosswords. She's a Kiwi. This concludes my explanation. (Except to say that I haven't yet got the real answer.)

We all finished work early on Thursday for another Christmas party (seems to be in keeping with Aussie style to have lots of parties) where we had to walk for 20 minutes in mid-30s heat, only to find that at the restaurant the aircon wasn't working! Not good. Peter and I had a pretty involved discussion about sunrises and sunsets that led me here via a roundabout route - I'd forgotten how

I managed to get all but one of my presents last Friday, but managed to swap that one with one my parents hadn't been able to get for someone else. Possibly my best ever for buying presents. Friday night was quite thundery, and, looking back, I think that might be the first time it's rained in more than just a shower in the 7 weeks since I got here. It was still raining when I went to bed, and, while it remained dry till I arrived in Sydney on Saturday afternoon, it started up heavily again on the drive down and didn't let up till Christmas Eve lunchtime.

I've then had a pretty relaxing 4 days in Kiama. A bit less hectic than my visit last year, despite the general Christmas rush. Christmas Day highlights included a barbecued turkey with homegrown roast potatoes (and non-barbecued shrimp), enjoying a warm, sunny but very windy 26C day (I was very glad to be away for Christmas - Melbourne reached just 14C, its coldest 25/12 ever, and some of the skiing resorts in Victoria had a white Christmas!), the most idiosyncratic playing of The Name Game I've ever been involved in (one name repeated 4 times, 4 others repeated at least once, and one of the names being a bottled beer rather than a person), and finding an adequate replacement for Fentiman's.

Other events included a walk over the cliffs on Boxing Day (photo below), an afternoon trip to Helen and Steve's to see their new pool, some of Christmas Eve afternoon spent fixing Steve and Jo's PC (10,000 miles from home and my reputation precedes me - first evening I was there Pauline started to ask me a question that I somehow knew was going to be PC-related!) without seeing any of their resident redbacks and generally enjoying being able to wear shorts the whole time.





In Sydney airport today, I decided that, just in case, I wouldn't repeat last year's mistake of taking a photo of the city centre from the airport. Yes, the risk of being stopped by US Customs on arrival at Tullamarine is probably a bit lower than at LAX, but once bitten, twice shy. I think the cabin crew may have been at an office party the previous night, as they were still in quite high spirits, including the announcers calling each other names during inflight announcements, one stewardess swearing at her lifejacket when the whistle got caught in her belt and the final "Thanks for flying with us etc." speech being rounded off with "Last one off's a rotten egg."

TODO : find a copy of "Your Grace Amazes Me" as sung at the Melbourne Christmas Carol Concert on Christmas Eve. That was a spine-tingling performance, but I can't find anywhere who it was who sang it.

On Top of Old Smokey

I played rooftop tennis this lunchtime. It was great fun. Pretty warm, but not scorching, and a pretty decent wind to make directing the ball fun (not to mention the odd sanded astroturf surface we were playing on that behaved like a clay court). It was all going swimmingly well till Jenny shanked a ball over the fence and down into the neighbouring park. We were 7 floors up. I hope it didn't hit anyone...

What wasn't so much fun was the smoke. I could smell it as I woke up this morning (and given the quality of my sense of smell, I'd hate to be someone who can actually use their nose) and the sun was a deep and cold red till about 10 am. Our office is about 3km south of the city centre, and we couldn't see it at all at lunchtime. Even over as short a distance as the height of the atrium within the office (7 storeys, perhaps 40m) you could see a faint haze hanging around the roof.

I'm starting to get a bit of a reputation at work. I keep finding other people's problems, and they're usually difficult ones (both to understand and to fix). I managed to find one on Monday that took 2 hours on Monday and 1.5 hours on Tuesday to sort out, and at one point on Monday involved everyone who was in the department at the time (6 of us) crowded round my PC with heads in hands.

I'm not sure that's quite what they hired me for!

Forty Days and Forty Nights

So, what's been good and bad about the last 960 hours?

The Good

Sushi.

Melbourne itself. I really like it.

The Queen Vic market.

The heat.

The free lunches (I'm on at least 6, possibly 7.)

My new house.

The Bad

My stuff going via Brisbane.

The heat.

Not being able to get anything back home sorted properly when you can't easily speak to people, and all you've got is a dodgy internet connection that you have to stand on the stairs with the laptop resting on the window ledge to get it to function.

Still not being able to get things sorted back home when you do have a working Net connection.

The silence.

The spreadsheets.

The flies and the spiders.

Last week's Christmas party (which deserved a post of its own, but I'll probably end up rolling it in with another one on misunderstandings in the near future).

That does make things sound a lot more negative than I really feel about them. Yes, it's not been fun on quite a few occasions, but I wasn't expecting plain sailing, and there've been lots of things that have gone more easily than I'd thought they would (e.g. place to live - I was expecting to be moving in about now, and instead my second month's rent was due today). I am looking forward to all the stress being over, or at least back to a normal background level, at some point though.

As a fitting conclusion, this is my 40th post.

Back In The World

13th is lucky for some. It shouldn't feel like this, but it is a bit like having had my arm sewn back on, or suddenly being able to hear again after being deaf for a while.

I've finally got a Net connection at home. Time to start catching up on oh so many many things now!

Doctor Dancer Cancer Feet

I had a few other titles for this post, including


Not Just Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Was It A "Special" Tram Or Something?

Some background to the day. Victoria is currently facing bushfires as bad as any in the last 30 years, and today's predicted to get to 37C in Melbourne (36C on the thermometer on one of the buildings I went past on the train about half an hour ago - I'm not designed for this kind of weather!), and possibly a few degrees hotter up north nearer the firefronts.

I woke up this morning and looked out of the curtains and thought it was foggy. Oh no. Smoke. You can actually smell the burning on the air, and I'm several hundred kilometres south of the main fire areas. The sun was hazed out till about 10 am, and was shining noticeably pinky-orange through the smoke, rather than the usual yellow.

After my fridge was delivered (at last!) I had to go into the city to pick up my suit for the Christmas ball this evening. (I've got a pretty good picture on my phone of the city centre covered in smoky haze - it was pretty eerie walking around town this morning.) And that's where the fun started. I've been chatting recently with one of my friends about how I've enjoyed the people-watching since I've been getting the trams to and from work. It appears the most ... interesting people save their tram tickets for the weekends...

Firstly, an old lady got on the tram just in front of me. She sat in the "reserved for disabled or elderly people" seat near the front, just next to another lady. I didn't really see either of them, but could overhear their conversation. It starts with the not-old lady.

NL : "Having a good day?"
OL : "Yes, but it's very hot."
NL : "I know. 37 it's supposed to get to."
OL : "And you can see the smoke in the sky."
NL : "Do you live round here?"
OL : "Yes, I do - for nearly 40 years."
NL : "Do you want the name of a good doctor?"
OL : "I already have one, thanks."
NL : "This one's really good though. Not a professional, but really good."
OL : "Oh, OK, thanks."
NL : " No problem. See you around."

...and she got off the tram. The abruptness of the departure made it sound like all she was doing was waiting until she'd "sold" this doctor's name to OL, and then her work there was done - off to find another victim!

So, with that distraction gone, I could turn my attention to another person - the hip-hopping semi-naked dancer man over the far side of the tram. He had one iPod earbud in and was bopping away like he was in a club and had had several too many Es - all the while sitting down! - and then he engaged someone sat near him in a very one-sided conversation. He sounded very very drunk (it was about 11.30am) to the extent that I couldn't understand most of what he was saying - the one clear bit was when he realised it was nearly his stop, leapt to his feet shouting "Driver, driver, let me off!," forgot to brace himself as the tram slowed down and hurtled to the front slamming into the wall behind the driver's seat. As we pulled away again, I could see him dancing his way across the street towards some poor unsuspecting pedestrians!

Then it was my turn to be accosted. "Don't mind me mate I'll try not to disturb you I'm going to the hospital I've got cancer you see all over you can tell just by looking at me can't you I've spent too long smoking and drinking and it's going to get me this time just look I'll take my cap off you can see the scars there can't you I don't think I'm going to last much longer..." (it appeared he said all this in one breath, hence the lack of punctuation!)

Wasn't really sure what to say. I was saved by someone else getting on and sitting down on the seat over the aisle - he moved on to her, "Merry Christmas love how's your day been mine's awful I'm on my way to the hospital I've got cancer you see and I think it's going to be my last visit..." She made the mistake of reacting - "Oh my father has cancer too. Do you know the way to Alexander Avenue?" Oops - this started another exhalation-slash-verbal-torrent where, as far as I could tell, the guy listed every tram line and every suburb in Melbourne as possible destinations for the next tram she should take. He then gave her his cap, and tried to offer her a T-shirt as well ("It's brand new you can tell look it's one from a school and it's got the graduation year on it look 2006 that's how you can tell it's brand new no-one's ever worn it and I'm never going to now...")

He got off at the next stop. Something I'd considered doing, but as it's the same stop as for work, I had some psychological misgivings about doing so!

The rest of the tram ride was pretty average - except for the unrelenting heat - until I got off at my stop in the city centre. "Ahhh, I've been dying to get here and off that bloody tram. My feet are burning up." {splashing sound} I turned around, to find a man sitting on the pavement taking his left shoe off (right one was already lying on the ground next to him) after which he proceeded to pour some of his bottled water over his left foot, clearly, by the puddle in which he was nearly sitting, something he'd already done with his other foot.

There are some odd people here.

In other news, I now own a pair of kangaroo-leather shoes, I was very pleased to learn that shoe sizes are one body measurement I don't have to carry round two versions of in my head (they use the UK size system here), and when buying the shoes, the salesman unexpectedly said "Oh bugger." Not that I mind, but I keep forgetting that swearing has a much lower impoliteness score over here!

A Shark's Tale

Phrases I hadn't expected to hear over lunch :

The scientists found that he wouldn't get bitten so often by sharks if he didn't wee every time he went swimming.

A washing machine in the kitchen?! How weird is that?

All this accountancy shit's easy by comparison - I look at my baby and I think "I made that. I'm brilliant!"

Chris is also a follower of the Dark Arts of the Actuary, just like Barnesy. Of course, Chris is only an acolyte by comparison.

I really like spiders.

I'm getting to be way ahead on the free lunch count - today's was my fourth in 21 working days (and included wallaby sirloin), and I have another next week!

In My Imagination

I don't think I've ever got such pleasure out of buying pegs, coat hangers or towels before, but such are the rules of my life recently. It was definitely good to finish the weekend's shopping list at 1.30 today, so I could pop off to Oskawhyte's for a much-needed and much-enjoyed lunch (and despite what the review says, it's not just ladies lunching there). I could have done without the high wind that didn't want me to be able to read my paper, though. I've spent much of the rest of the afternoon enjoying the hot sunshine out on my terrace.

It can't be December. It's just wrong.

No new "Huh?" moments for the last few days, but I have started to have accent issues. I keep having to remember to talk more slowly. There've been 2 occasions already where "No thanks" has turned into just "thanks" (no, I didn't want my coffee white, thank you), but I really don't get how "cats" and "cows" can be confused with each other!

Close Enough

I had to wait a day or so before making this post, firstly because I have negligible Net access outside work (I'm limited to piggybacking off the one unsecured and intermittent wireless access point I can find) and secondly because I wasn't sure whether I was amused, resigned, annoyed or despairing - who's doing what now? (Blinddrew, a challenge for you - which Simpsons episode is that a mangled misquote from?)

I have an arrival date for the stuff I'm having shipped over from the UK. It's due to arrive on 30/12/06 in Brisbane. Which is somewhere I don't live. And approximately 1000 miles (no, no, no, very naughty - 1600 km!) away from somewhere I do live.

They expect it will be another couple of weeks from then till when it arrives in Melbourne (assuming no further detours), but there are two caveats to that - it's entirely possible Pickfords are staffed by actuaries.

1. As my stuff is in a container with several other people's, under Customs laws, they can't remove it themselves, they have to wait till everyone else has collected their own gear.
2. There's a 2-week quarantine period from when the container arrives in Australia. Pickfords aren't yet sure whether Customs will want another one of these once it arrives in Melbourne.

So, in summary, I'm not expecting to see my stuff this side of the Aus Open finals. What's annoying, and the despairing bit too, about this is that I've told Pickfords 3 times already that they had Brisbane down incorrectly as the destination, and they've told me 3 times they've corrected their systems. They did not.

The amused and resigned bits are because it doesn't make all that much difference to me being without all my gear for three months rather than two. I'd already anticipated not seeing it this year, so it's just a small extra inconvenience on top of an already quite large one.

That aside, I think things are starting to go better for me. My phone will be fixed on Monday, and the Fat Free Fone company will be giving me a broadband account a day later. I'm out for meals 3 days next week with various different people from work (trying to broaden the social network), I'm off to purchase a wide range of solutions for modern living (film quote, anyone?) tomorrow, and I succeeded pretty well with a piece of work I was given as (I suspect) a bit of a test of how well I'd do with it.

All things considered, November wasn't such a bad month, but it isn't one I'd particularly want to go through again.

With a Flake, Please

The “and 99 pence” thing has always annoyed me, chiefly because it shows that the average person is an idiot, to be able to be taken in by such a simple ruse. Which is why I was quite pleased when I learnt that Australians, with their lowest denomination coin being a 5c piece, had essentially done away with all that - till receipts will often show a “rounding” adjustment to shift it to the nearest 5 cents.

Now, I can understand remnants of the 99c practice still hanging around, where you're not paying a fixed price but a rate, e.g. $7.99 per kilo of bananas (I wish – it's currently $12.49, and $7.99'd still be more expensive than the UK!) or 3.4c per minute for phone calls.

What annoys the hell out of me, even more so than the original 99c practice itself, is that there are still any number of individual items that are priced to end in 99c. I bought a phone on Sunday for $49.99. Plus a cent. Why? The 99c practice is disingenuous enough because it's playing on people's psychology and the way we write our numbers. This is going one further – it's giving an item a price which people cannot possibly pay! (Unless they buy 5 things all of which end in a 99. Imagine that as a special offer - "Buy any 5 items and save ... erm, well, 0c really, but if you bought them all separately you'd pay 5c more!")

The Huh? Moments

This will be an irregularly and (hopefully!) infrequently added-to post, detailing my utter incomprehension when people have said things to me, or, to be entirely fair, the reverse. I may move this off into the sidebar at some point, if there are enough of them.

28/11/2006 - I order a sandwich : "Roast beef, mustard and onions please." "Do you want gravy as well?"

(same conversation) "Which bread would you like?" "What breads have you got?" {she points silently to several loaves on a table}

You Say Potato

Go on, say it, out loud. Now say tomato. They don't rhyme, at least not in an English accent. They don't rhyme in Strine (Australian accent – to see where it comes from, imagine an Aussie saying “Australian” then speed it up and slur it a bit) either, which is lucky, or I'd end up giggling my way through cookery programs or supermarket food aisles.

However, in Strine, the word data is pronounced in the tomato style, i.e. it's "darter" rather than "dayter."

And can I keep a straight face when I hear it used in the office? (That's a rhetorical question – I'm hoping the answer's obvious.) I've resorted to coughing whenever I hear people say it. I've not had to use it myself yet – I don't think I'll be able to contain myself. (It's not even like it's a particularly rare word – I can easily envisage me needing to use it on an almost daily basis.)

Perhaps I could retain a little foreign colour in my accent, and pronounce it properly. No point going fully native – I'm only here for 2 years.

Snubbed or Why I Should Go to an Optician's

I've had glasses since I was about 14, but I very rarely wear them. In fact, there are only 2 reasons I do have them – firstly, because I'm just below the legal level of eyesight for driving in the UK, and secondly ... well, actually, there isn't a secondly.

Or at least, there wasn't until I moved to Melbourne.

Melbourne has a rather excellent tram system. It's similar to the Tube in London, but there are many more lines (I count at least 40), it's quite a bit cheaper, and they run to a proper timetable, which means you can plan your stumbling out of bed in the morning to perfection.

What's not so great is when you're waiting for a specific tram. They don't stop at every stop – they only stop on request. If you're on the tram, that's fine – there's a button on the more modern ones, or a funny pull-cord thing on the old ones. Off the tram, and you need to make it obvious to the driver that you'd like to get on. That's also fine – step out of the shelter, or wave your hand, or pick up your bags and look intentful (which may be a word I've just invented – so sue me, I'm feeling inventful at the moment).

If you know it's your tram that's coming.

And that's where reason 2 comes in. I can't actually see the line number on the tram until it's too close for it to stop, so 2 sailed past me yesterday, and I'd have missed another one this lunchtime if it weren't for the pedestrian crossing 50m further down the road meaning I had time to run to the next stop up. As there are 6 different lines running through the stop outside work, this could start to become a problem.

I will probably soon be able to pick out the destinations more easily than the line numbers, but as I haven't got my head round all of those yet (some trams don't go all the way along the lines, so there are 2 different destinations that I've seen on the best homewards tram for me), I'm stuck for the time being with snubbing by the tram drivers.

The Slippery EelSlope

My nearest takeaway is a Japanese.

And I thought living near the Jaipur Spice was temptation enough.

#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.

What Goes Up

The past few months seem to have been typified by some sort of highly localised and time-bound karma. Every time something positive happens, something else negative balances it out within about ten minutes.

I get my new flat signed for, I find out I can't pay for it except by cash, drawn painfully out of a hole in the wall in 4 £400 blocks.

I get a mobile phone, but it takes 3 days and the same number of calls to Customer Service to get it up and running.

I finally get myself a bank account, but the lady serving me behind the counter is so brain-dead as to not realise that 2 is less than 6 so has to take me through the Australian-resident setting-up process about 90% of the way (15 minutes or so) before realising her mathematical error and having to restart with the recent arrivals process, which takes about 30 seconds.

Or take today's little seesaw - my furniture is all moved in this morning (I could count the 6am wake-up to get to my place for 7.30am delivery as a downside, but it's quite a minor one), but I have neglected to request a fridge. Furniture purchase #1 will therefore be a fridge, unsurprisingly!

On a vaguely related topic, I went to a quite interesting (stated non-ironically) presentation about auditing yesterday - the highlight was my department head (the aforementioned English guy) seeing the delivery of the drinks just before the start of the talk, and finishing his introduction off as "the first presentation I've ever been to where they needed ice, and the first where they've provided sunscreen." (Australia does actually have fridges, but it appears that the staff bar does not. It does however provide sunscreen in an attractive industrial-sized jar, presumably for those playing tennis on the rooftop.)

Further to the topic of refrigeration (which wasn't going to be my theme of the day, but these things happen) - the thermometer has hit a peak of 36C for the second day running (it's nearly 8pm and dark, and the one on the building over the road is still showing 32C). This is not good for recently-arrived British people, especially quite hairy ones. I was quite amused, however, to read the e-mail sent around the office this morning. I'll have to paraphrase, as I don't have it to hand, but the gist was "We asked our building owners to fix our air conditioning in July, when we wouldn't be needing it. They scheduled the work for yesterday and today. Murphy's Law dictates that we should therefore have 2 days with highs of 36C. If you would like to remove your ties, please feel free to do so. We've also provided you with free water in the fridges."

In what I assume is an entirely unrelated incident, marketing restructures being apparently just as frequent and drastic as in the UK, the sender of the above e-mail has already left the company on garden leave!

This Half

Firstly, Snow Patrol are playing here in February, and I'm going to get a ticket (or perhaps several) to see them - anyone fancy joining me?!

Secondly, and more relevantly, I've had a really enjoyable evening at my department head's this evening.

Their flat is amazing. It has a huge balcony with olive (and other) trees on it, with a clear view over the city centre and out to the hills east of Melbourne, it's really bright (virtually the whole of the "wall" between the balcony and the living area is actually window), an enormous open-plan kitchen and an inbuilt fountain in the entrance hall! They're renting, but one of the other flats in the block is on the market for $3.5m (or about £1.5m).

(Aside - funny thing, which I've only just realised, but I haven't actually looked at the exchange rate once since I've been here. Odd. Kind of doesn't matter for me except as a rough guide anyway, since I'm being paid in dollars.)

While it is a really excellent flat, and in the most desirable (subtle note - desirable, not desired - it's what someone else thinks of it that matters, not you!) suburb in Melbourne, that does seem a bit toppy to me. Still, I wouldn't turn my nose up at living there.

They do have a slightly overzealous security system on the garage, though - Clare had to go and wake up the owner of one of the other flats to help open find out how to open the garage door!

Clare had put on "traditional" Aussie tucker - meatloaf and tomato ketchup dip! - having forgotten I'd been here before. This was unfortunate, as the much more healthy and desirable (by all of us) but less "authentic" second option was a prawn and avocado salad. Oh well, next time!

We had a very long chat about all sorts of things, watched several Peter Gabriel DVDs (not sure why, other than David wanted to) and then the first part of The Castle, recommended viewing for anyone who wants to understand the Australian psyche (and also for David, Clare and me who were pointing at the screen and saying "Look, there's Melbourne, we live near there").

I think the best thing about this evening is simply that I've been out - not surrounded by the same 4 soulless hotel walls. I think David was right, that it will be very different once I'm in "my own" place - I'd already planned to get myself a new printer, so I can very quickly have some decent photos up on the walls to personalise it, and I can unpack things properly rather than have everything sort of unpacked but also ready to pack back into the suitcases at a moment's notice.

A Part

Rather fortunately, I still liked my new flat when I went to see it again! It's also quite a lot handier for work and the city than I thought - tram took less than 10 minutes from work to the flat, and a 2-minute walk and 10-minute train ride had me back in the city centre. Electricity isn't connected, though, so I can't move in just yet. I've used the address a few times already for various things (loyalty card at the big bookshop in town and for my new mobile phone).

On the topic of which - I've never owned a camera phone before, and I can now see the advantages of having one. I can see myself wandering round Melbourne spotting odd things I might want to take a photo of (the boards outside the nearby pub have had several choice phrases I could have shown a certain Welshman - "Avoid dehydration - drink beer!" and "Take time to savour your drink - the pub is not on fire.") So expect to see a few low-quality Flickr posts in the near future.

I've already started to meet a few expats. After being told off by the payroll department (for not having a working bank account yet!) I went to give them all the details I could, and found Jenny from Derby working there. She and her husband emigrated here (I need to get that phraseology right, as I'll likely be using it a lot - did they in fact immigrate here?) a couple of months ago and are really enjoying it, except for the lack of tea. So I've promised I'll pass them on a box once mine arrive on the ship! I also managed to get chatty with several people in the wider department when I accidentally found myself being the host of the Friday afternoon Finance quiz - it used to be held at my desk, so I had to take part in quite a central way.

Oh, and one final thing - any country where you can get takeaway sushi for lunch on every street corner is one where I'm happy to live.

Things are Moving

Aussie bank account

New house keys

Customs authority form sent back to UK

Insurance proposal for shipping completed and sent back to UK

First non-organised lunch out with other people in the department

Invitation for a drink at my department head's place (he's also recently arrived from the UK, so we've got lots to compare notes about!)

I'm quite looking forward to going round to the new place on Saturday and starting to get together all the bits and pieces I'll need, then actually moving in properly next week. I've got a 41-item list put together for it already, and I'm sure it'll be a higher number by Saturday!