Archive for the ‘Sydney’ Category

Gastronomic Sydney


09 May

Looking through the photos I have taken in the last two days, anyone would think we were in Sydney just for the food! We are certainly taking the opportunity to feast on our favourite Sydney dishes, but we have done lots of activities as well.

Monday morning we went to Sydney Park. My old playgroup meet there, and it was wonderful to catch up with friends there, and the kids had a ball in the park! Afterwards we had lunch at a very nice sushi train In Newtown, and while there we went to a wonderful buttons shop and visited a really cool toy shop. Toby needed a sleep, so while asleep on my back we visited the Remnant Warehouse to say hello to Joe, the owner, and get some fabrics. They always have a good selection of reasonably priced denim and I was in need of some. I also picked up a pretty, embroided remnant of brown poplin to make something for me next summer, and some fabric for hats. When Toby woke up we went back to Sydney Park, but this time to a traffic school area and the kids spent an hour riding around and mostly obeying the traffic lights and road rules. Back at our accommodation for the evening, we walked to a yummy and cheap Thai place and had take-away for dinner.

Yesterday I had an appointment with my old supervisor at UNSW. We took the bus there which Toby was excited about. He keeps telling me that Sydney has a lot of buses! Afterwards we went to Coogee, firstly to a playground and then we walked to the beach. Nathan wanted to paddle but we didn’t take bathers, so I promised that we can go ack again today to swim. We had Pide for lunch before going to visit Danii and her two kids. We had a lovely afternoon and grabbed some Chinese from a place on Anzac Parade for dinner.

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My little climber at Sydney Park

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Sushi train in Newtown

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Waiting for the traffic lights at Sydney Park traffic school

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Eating Thai for dinner

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Coogee Park

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Coogee Park

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Nathan ringing the bell he always aspired to reach but never could, at Coogee Park

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Pide in Coogee

Homesick


04 Oct

I never, ever imagined that I would be homesick for Sydney….but I am.   There were many, many good reasons for moving to Melbourne, but that hasn’t stopped me longing for the beautiful city of Sydney and my friends there.

I miss the convenience of living in the inner city area.  So many places that I frequented were very close by, with some being just waking distance away.  I miss the wonderful Sydney Park, that had so many different things to do there.  The playground is one of the best I’ve seen anywhere, there were ducks to visit with eels and turtles to be seen in the water as well, there was a little traffic area for kids on bikes complete with traffic lights and roundabouts, and of course lots of open space.  Newtown cheap(ish) eating was just a few minutes in the car, and the ocean beaches were only 15 minutes of driving away.  Eh, I even miss the little 1 bedroom flat that was so light and bright where we saw aeroplanes and sunsets through the foliage of the gum trees, even though we had well and truly outgrown it.

I miss my wonderful Monday group of parents (mostly mums but one dad) and kids, who met up at Sydney Park that has a fantastic playground.  My Friday group was also great, but in a different way.  The Monday group all had a similar approach to parenting, but my Friday group was made up of women who all have similar aged children, having all been loosely associated with a Mother’s group when our first kids were babies.  We certainly had different approaches to parenting, but were all lovely people.  And then there is Mel and her daughter, Sarah.  I met Mel when Nathan was just a few weeks old.   Sarah is just 5 days younger than Nathan.  We became friends pretty quickly, and have met up on a regular basis over the last 2.5 years.  Mel is also a member of the Friday group, but we would generally meet up on a Thursday as well…just Mel, me and the two kids.

Nathan has a little chant that he yells at top volume when he is tired and when he wants to wake a sleeping Toby when in the car….the volume is almost unbearable in the confined space of the car.  He yells “Mummy, Daddy, Nathan, Toby, Sarah, Mel” over, and over, and over again.  As far as Nathan is concerned, these are the people he loves most in the world, because these are the people he has spent the most time with and knows best.

This chant nearly brings me undone every time.  Nathan loves both Mel and Sarah, and so do I, and it brings me to tears to think about how much we both miss them.  It’s not just missing them for the things we did together, but also the knowledge that we will miss the eventuation or not of their hopes and dreams.  I won’t be there to celebrate moving into their new house.  I won’t be there when (hopefully when) Mel is pregnant again.  We won’t share in the growing up of our little families other than from afar.  All these thoughts bring me to tears.

I can’t say that I have been particularly excited about this move to Melbourne.  Intellectually I can appreciate so many great reasons for relocating, but emotionally it has been so much harder than I thought it would be. Yes, it has only been a week so far.  Yes, I do have some friends here already though they are not just around the corner and I find traveling hard and tiring with two kids.  And yes, I will probably make more friends with kids.  If anyone else tells me not to worry, that I’ll make more friends through the kids, I think I will burst from wanting to say that I have friends and they can’t simply and easily be replaced.  Great friendships are born from years of shared experiences, and there will never be a way to replace those who have been with me through my first years of parenting.

I am sure that the fact that I dislike the rental we are currently staying in doesn’t help with the homesickness at all.  The stained carpets, the cheap and nasty items within the house (it’s furnished) that make cooking and cleaning difficult.  The vacuum cleaner that barely sucks, the washing machine that leaves fluff on all the clothes, the bedrooms with that musty old house smell, the shower that barely fits a single body inside (to wash my hair I have to stand on the diagonal so that my elbows fit in), and the horrible beds.  At least it’s all temporary.  There are good things too….a heated roof over our heads, the big back yard and being less than 3 km from Andrew’s workplace.

I think this move to Melbourne is going to be a good thing for us as a family…..but right now it just doesn’t feel much like it.

And now, just because Nathan insisted that I also put this photo into my blog……

Sold!


31 Aug

Friday (20/8): meet first of 3 real estate agents to talk about selling our flat
Saturday (21/8): meet more estate agents
Monday (23/8): Andrew got his letter of offer for the job in Melbourne
Tuesday (24/8): sign with our chosen real estate agent
Wednesday (25/8): clean and tidy like crazy
Thursday (26/8): clean all morning, have a potential buyer through the flat at 1 pm.
Friday (27/8): 10:30 am first offer which was more than acceptable to us, midday the final offer which was a little more.

I never thought it would be so easy to sell our flat!

Music by moonlight


09 Feb

40 weeks 2 days

Free concerts are held at Homebush Bay every Friday night in February. It’s a great evening, sitting on a grassed area and we take food to share. We decided not to go last week because the weather forecast was for storms and rain, which is a shame because I would have liked to see Cate Cebrano and her Jazz Band. Last night was music from Broadway and the West End.

Being a fan of musicals, I was looking forward to going. Again the weather didn’t look too good, but we went anyway. We had hoped to meet a couple of friends there, but it seems they were scared off by the weather again.There was a small orchestra playing the music, and two singers (one male and one female), four dancers and 3 backing singers.

They sang songs from Hair, Man of La Mancha, Fiddler on the Roof, Jeckyl and Hyde, Chicago, A Chorus Line, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, Chess, Grease, and Hairspray….just to name those I can think of off the top of my head. Many of my favourite songs from musicals were sung, so I had a fantastic time.

 They also sang an encore, Time Warp from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Lots of people were doing the movements that go with that song, and towards the end I got a huge kick from Bugalugs which caused me to jump. I never get kicked so much that I jump, and the kick was at quite an appropriate time in the song! It sent both Andrew and I into a laughing fit. This baby has a musical ear already! 😀

Rikke’s visit


30 Oct

Last Wednesday my friend from Denmark, Rikke, and her mother and mother’s friend (Lisa) arrived for a holiday in Australia. I picked them up from the airport and dropped them at their accommodation in Clovelly. Friday night we picked them all up and went to visit Mick in his new flat in Randwick, and then all went out for dinner. We went to a Lebanese restaurant which was very tasty!

Andrew had to work on Saturday night, from around 11 pm to 7 am, so I decided to take Rikke and co. snorkelling at Balmoral Beach to see if we could see any sea horses there. I picked them up at Clovelly around 9 am, got lost on the way to Balmoral Beach (I should have paid more attention to the street directory) and when we finally arrived we had to spend quite a while searcing for a carpark. So we finally made it to Balmoral beach, with Rikke nursing a hangover, but when we got in the water we discovered it was very turbid and so the visibility was dreadful. The water level was higher than I’d ever seen it before, and there was no way you’d be able to snorkel along the net without hitting your head on the jetty. So much for our snorkelling trip!

We decided to call it quits, went back to the car and I drove them to North Head to see the views across to the city. We had lunch at a cafe there, but the food was overpriced, wasn’t great quality and we waited ages for it to be brought to our table. I certainly won’t be going back there again!

I dropped everyone off in Manly and got home around 3 pm. Andrew had only just woken up, so it was good to be out of the flat so that I didn’t disturb him….and it was nice to get into the water, even if it was dirty and polluted with rubbish.

They all flew to WA on Monday morning, but will be back in about a month for a couple of days before flying home again.

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