This is likely to be a long one so get a cup of coffee and make yourselves comfortable!
I am still not working. Well I am doing volunteer work with the Volunteer Marine Rescue. Fully trained in talking to people on short wave radios, although talking has never been much of a problem for me - had my first four hour shift today actually. Weather was quite pleasant, the Coral Sea was very blue, not many boats going in and out and no one who wanted to tell me where they were going but not to worry it gave me time to write all this so that was handy.
I have also been doing tuckshop duty at the High School and have now been trained to work in the Uniform Shop using an accounting package called MYOB believe it or not it actually stands for Mind Your Own Business which is quite funny really - well I thought it was. Obviously done for people with their own small businesses but it's quite a good system. Anyway this job pays me which is very nice. But I am only doing it when the main woman wants time off or if she is mega busy which she will be in the week before school goes back. It's an actual shop in the school grounds with not enough room to swing a cockroach and you see a few of those running around! I did two days for her the other week and will do a couple of days in the busy week - better than nothing and it might get me into the school office if a job comes up which would be good.
The girls are enjoying life. Heather keeps going on sleepovers and is having a ball. Some friends were over a week or so ago and were very impressed with the change in her from when they saw her in February. They did ask her if she missed anything in the UK and all she could come up with (apart from friends) was Minstrals which we thought was quite funny but she didn't.
Abs is doing good ta very much! Had a fab time at camp although did moan a bit because they didn't do the abseiling or flying fox. The afternoon they were going to do these we had a major thunder storm with loads of lightning. She did do archery instead and got two bullseyes which she was very pleased with.
Both of them are off to Wet n' Wild next week on different school trips. Should be great, we've not been there yet but everyone raves about the place. If you don't know it's a water park with huge flumes, slides, giant hoop things to sit in and generally get very very wet but the water is warmish even in winter.
We have annual tickets to Sea World which is good. Apparently there was a London Eye type ferris wheel in Birmingham last year, well it was dismantled and shipped down here and has now been erected at Sea World and it looks huge because there is nothing big near it, the land there is very flat and it's on a piece of land between the Ocean and a lake system. Should have a fab view. Will go up there during the holidays and get some pics.
All of Heather's school is going but as years 10, 11 and 12 have already finished that only leaves 8 and 9 so it should be good. The school is really empty without the other years, very strange feeling.
There are a couple of other theme parks here; Dreamworld and Movie World. Not been to Dreamworld yet but that is where, if you're interested, Australian Big Brother is filmed and they have some amazing rides. Movie World is quite cool. They had a special evening event at Halloween and it was very cheap to get it. We haven't been to any of the parks in Florida so nothing to base it on but I would imagine it's smaller because of the smaller numbers of visitors but we were well impressed - that's fairly easy to do I know! Heather had been before to a concert one evening with a friend so told us we all had to go on this Scooby Doo ride which was brill. Now Heather doesn't like rides so we assumed it was going to be quite gentle and Kevan agreed to give it a go. We were wrong. It was mad. Not mega up and down but slinging us around. This in the pitch dark was interesting in a strange way. Kevan obviously hated it and wouldn't go on anything else!! There is one ride there called Superman Escape and Abs - the adrenalin junkie doesn't want to ride it but Heather the coward now does - We got annual tickets for half price so will possibly be going there quite a bit.
Don't know what we are doing for Christmas. Will be better than last year because we (me) are a bit more organised. Kevan has a few days off so will try and go somewhere even if it's just day trips but we will do something. Would love to go down to Sydney but flights at this time will be silly money - although not as silly as the money wanted to get Nic over here but that's another story.
It's amazing that we have been here a year. It has just flown by. For the anniversary of arriving we got tickets to Cirque du Soleil in Brissie. It was brilliant. Really amazing stuff but sometimes a bit too much going on to see everything.
Oh very exciting news............we now have a shed! Well it's more like a garage but it's called a shed - in actual fact it's probably called Kevan's shed. He is threatening to put a mezzanine floor in and put a bed, tea making facilities and a tv up there - not much of a threat but could come in handy!! We should have the house as a house soon and not a storage facility.
What is good here is the totally lack of going over the top. You just don't get the stupid stupid mega shopping for christmas a la Tescos. No queuing for Waitrose car park rubbish. Even the last few days, people do not go mad. I love it although it can make you forget it's happening. I am not a great christmas shopper at the best of times, certainly never went to Milton Keynes in early October to do the shopping - you know who you are! But I think I am sort of in control but hey, whatever, it's Aus!
What else have we been up to? Nothing major, just general life stuff. Everything that got stolen in the burglary has been replaced so that's nice. Getting some good photos with the camera and have now set up an account with Flickr so you can view what you want when you want and I don't need to worry about losing them again. I got a great shot of the view from VMR which the camera and the software turned into a panoramic shot without the bendy bit.
not a bad view all in all! There is a webcam attached to the building so if you are up very late or very early you can see what is going on on the beach. Just click on Currumbin on the right under QLD and the picture comes up. Not much point doing it during your day as it will be night here.
Got this picture whilst there today.
They came down for some bread and were eating out of my hand. Tried to get another picture showing the hand etc but the battery decided to die - sods law.As you can see I have now worked out how to hyperlinks so if you click on the blue underlined words you should be taken to the websites. Just need to go back and stick a few in on previous bits - then you can have the joy of reading it all again!
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