like time – only more so …
Archive for July, 2007
On the job …
Jul 25th
Firstly – Moneypen – that in now way could be considered a spoiler, you big jessy!
Right, where was I . Oh yea, had my first proper call-out today. I’ve been working at the head office of the franchise (actually a unit behind Austral Bricks, but let’s not get picky, eh ) fixing systems that come in knackered. Today however I got to actual do an on-site repair. Turned out to be quite involved (big pub/motel/bottle shop) but all was fixed to the customer’s satisfaction, so ‘yay’ me.
It’s turning out to be a royal pain in the arse having just the one car, so we’re going to have to bite the bullet some time soon and splash the cash on a vehicle. Whether that means trading the Kluger in and getting two smaller/cheaper cars, or merely buying a second car, I know not. Going to pay a visit to a couple of the larger car dealerships and see what’s possible.
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Okay. Slight pause for a WTF?!?!!!!*!!***!! moment.
I love the BBC. I love the shows they produce (for the most part) and I particularly like that they let me listen to their most excellent radio shows here in Australia.
But what, in the name of all that’s holy, makes this a news story? Some vacant bint who (judging by the photo) has just been tangoed and is famous for having a spectacularly shitty tit job, has named her child. And this is news why? Did the editor of the BBC new site think everyone could do with some light relief whilst their worldly belongings slowly sank beneath a creeping tide of muddy river water and raw sewage effluent? I’ve never come closer to profectile vomitting over my keyboard than when I read that they’d called their child ‘Tiaamii’ which means (apparently) ‘our princess’. I think they should have been honest and call her MediaExposure, because that’s clearly the main reason they produced her.
Okay, rant over.
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Liz was meeting me at the train station today and Jack asked her why there were two tracks instead of one. So Liz explained that one track was for trains going to Sydney and one set for going south to Belfast. However Jack spotted the rather obvious flaw in her argument and asked her where, if the other set was for trains going south, the passengers got on or off the train, since there’s only the one platform at Broughton. So this old lady who’d overhead steps in and explains that the other track’s not in use but is used of rearranging the trains. Everyone seems a bit happier with this explaination, but the Cityrail guard, who’d overheard everything explained that they’d all got it wrong and explained to Jack, Liz and the old lady exactly what the other track’s purpose was. Moral of the story …. always go to the source.
Hi ho, Hi ho …
Jul 24th
When we first moved here, I had a little plan for a PC tech support business. After looking into it for a while I realised it was going to be a lot of ball-ache, so I also looked into franchises. I left my details on one franchise site, but decided that the costs of buying a franchise (in excess of $20k) plus the commission paid to the franchisor were just silly and I didn’t do anything more about it.
Fast forward about six months and I get a call from a guy who owns the local franchise for the company I’d left my details with. They were looking to employ someone to operate the franchise for them and would pay a salary to said person and would I like to come down for an interview. So I went along and they said that they needed a techie to run their tech support van for them and that maybe, 12 months or so down the line, said techie could consider buying the franchise. I was very interested – here was a no-strings foot in the door. So I went up to their regional office and was tested in my geek credentials – a test I evidentally passed because I was invited back for a second interview. This was when things started going pear-shaped. They’d love to hire me, but only if I agreed to buy the franchise in six months. I was still fairly interested because I could of course still walk away if I thought it was a non-starter. So we had a third meeting and this time they said I’d have to buy the franchise within three months and, by the way, they’d only pay me a very nominal wage for those three months. So I politely told them I wasn’t interested and walked away.
Fast forward several more months and I get a phone call from the bloke that owns the whole NSW franchise. He told me that the old franchise had been closed down, that he’d parted company with his business partners, that he was setting up a new business with all the existing franchise owners and that if I wanted it, there was a local franchise for me. For free.
I was obviously very sceptical and asked him to email me the details of the new franchise model. I forwarded these on to my big sister (a small business advisor, funnily enough) and my brother-in-law who’d previously owned a franchise. I asked them to pick some holes in the plan. They couldn’t see any hugely problematic issues, but wanted some more detail. So I agreed to go along to the inaugural meeting of the franchise, where I could grill the owner and existing franchise owners to my heart’s content. That meeting went well. The new business model was much, much fairer – not only in terms of far more reasonable commission percentages, but also in terms of the on-going assistance we’d receive (surely the main reason to go the franchise route in the first place). Oh and we wouldn’t be forced to lease a van which the other franchise owners had told me was utterly useless for its supposed job as a mobile repair bay because you either fixed a PC on-site or took it back to the workshop, making the van little more than a very expensive form of transportation.
After the meeting I went home and had a long talk with Liz about it and chatted to anyone who’d listen and could pick holes in it for me. Liz had some questions that I couldn’t answer and so she agreed to meet with the head of the franchise to sound him out herself. I was relieved – as anyone who knows her wil tell you, she’s a very pragmatic person and I hugely value her opinion of people. So we had a meeting at a cafe in Broughton and Liz asked all the difficult questions and was happy with the answers. So the long and the short of it is that I’m soon to be a small business owner. I have to see our accountant about setting up a limited company for me, so that none of our personal equity is ever in danger … and a lawyer to check the franchise documents. I’ve already had a meeting with a lady at the Shoalhaven Small Business unit, who I sounded out about the likely competition I would face. It was a useful meeting.
In order to hit the ground running, I asked if I could spend a few days at the franchise’s shop-front repair business. I’m not concerned that I can’t do the job, I just want to get a feel for the kind of work that comes through. On the basis of today I reckon I’ll be okay. We had a badly behaved modem (cured by installing a network card), a dead hard drive (simple swap out) and a laptop that had been trodden on and would cost the owner over $1000 in spares alone.
So there you go, I’m finally following my geek destiny. Hope to be properly up and running within a month. I intend to not be like the IT bloke in The Office. You know, the loveable(!) geek that fixed Wernham Hogg’s computers. No? Maybe these will refresh your memory….
“First day it [a go-kart track] opened I went down there was doing a few laps and pulled over and the manager comes over to me and says “Oi, mate! No professionals.” I said I’m not a professional. He said “Well, you should be mate with moves like that you could be the best in Britain”. I said, “No thanks I’m making shit loads from computers”.
And this ….
“What you doing with my computer?”
“It’s not your computer is it? It’s Wernham Hogg’s.”
“Right. What you doing with Wernham Hogg’s computer?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“No I don’t need to know but could you tell me anyway?”
“I’m installing a firewall.”
“OK what’s that?”
“It protects your computer against script kiddies, data collectors, viruses, worms and trojan horses and it limits you’re outbound internet communications. Any more questions?”
“Yes. How long will it take?”
“Why? Do you want to do it yourself?”
“No, I can’t do it myself. How long will it take you out of interest?”
“It will take as long as it takes.”
“Right, er, how long did it take last time when-”
“It’s done.”
“Right thank you.”
“Now I’m gonna switch it off, when it comes back on it’ll ask you to hit yes, no or cancel. Hit cancel. Do not hit yes or no.”
“Right.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yep.”
“What did I say?”
“Hit cancel.”
“Good.”
“Thanks.”
Recently downloaded and watched every single episode of The Office again. Total class.
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In other news – it’s fucking cold here tonight. Five bloody degrees! Had promised to pick Lyndall and Darren up from the train station on their return from a holiday in cane-toad country. Car was nearly bloody frosty! Yes I realise that vast portions of the UK are under six feet of water, but my feet are cold!!
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After the news has aired on TV here, they run a couple of these ‘magazine’ shows. They’re the absolute dreggs of TV entertainment – like the Daily Mail live. They keep getting done by the TV regulatory body for broadcasting fiction as fact. The funniest one was when they were doing a story about some old granny who’d complained she was effectively being held captive in her old people’s home by the staff. The reporter covering it obviously felt the story didn’t have enough wow factor, so he chained the old lady (I’m not making this up) to the bed and claimed that the care home orderlies kept her shackled for most of the day.
Anyway, tonight they did a story which was funny on several levels. It was a 10 minute story about an online mobile phone shop. No really. The first reason it’s funny is that, due to the size (both demographic and geographic) of this country, we suffer a bit from lack of competition and the way it drives prices down. With just two main supermarket chains, for instance, prices are undoubtedly higher than they would be with more companies vying for the shopper’s dollar. The reporter was genuinely astonished that this online shop could offer unlocked contract-free phones for a good $400 less than places like Harvey Normans. And the second reason it was funny? I went to look at the site myself and so many people had paid it a visit that they’d crashed the server. Something tells me that that report will be by far the most useful and resoundingly the cheapest advertising they’ll ever get.
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I have now finished the latest Harry Potter book. Bought it on Saturday and read the first three chapters in the Kmart car park. No spoilers from me, but I will say that the ending is mind-blowingly sacharine. Yes, I know it’s a kids book, but the epilog kind of ruined it for me.
Happy rebirthday to us …
Jul 9th
Beautiful fine winter’s day in Sydney – very blue skies. Despite being knackered – felt great. Driving down the Princes Highway, both Liz and Jack had huge smiles on their faces and once we were off the highway and travelling along through Sandy Point and the Beach Road to Broughton, Liz kept nudging me - she even pinched me at one point to check it was all real. Rolled up the drive to my parent’s house, got the bags out the bag, flopped down on the bed, and exhaled.
Hard to believe that happened a year ago. Whilst we’ve done a lot and have well and truly settled into our lives here, England still seems very fresh in the memory. Doesn’t seem all that long ago that I was doing the school run up the ‘W’ and over the common in my old VW Golf, instead of driving down Coolangatta Road in my Toyota Kluger.
Moment’s reflection on what, with hindsight, I’d have done differently
- I’d have brought much more stuff out with us. Not just the big things, like my 32″ Sony TV that I stupidly gave to the father-in-law, but all the little stuff like cooking utensils.
- I’d have spent less on the car. It’s a great car, don’t get me wrong – reliable, roomy, practical etc … but in hindsight I should have spent about half as much and ploughed the rest into renovating either the kitchen or the bathroom or both.
- It was a mistake to put Jack into school immediately – we thought he’d be fine given that he’d done a whole year in the UK – we were wrong.
And a moment’s reflection on what, with hindsight, I’d not have done differently
- We moved at the right time of the year – the middle of the Australian winter. It meant we got on with things rather than spending ages at the beach or splashing about in a pool. My parents’ house is very luxurious, almost like a mini-resort and we’d have probably lived there for six months or more if we’d moved to Oz in the summer, when we should have been house-hunting and getting on with our new lives.
- Every week we’re here I’m more sure that we bought in the right town. There’s lots of retirees here, but the demographic is changing – nearly every week I see a new family’s moved in somewhere. This town’s cheap for the coast – especially given that we have both beach *and* river – we realised it was an undiscovered gem and other people are too.
Here’s to the next year …
Wernham Hogg …
Jul 8th
Funny how things work out some times. We have a couple of very good friends here – both aussies – who we’ve known for over three years now. One of them, who we’ll call Lyndall because (all together now) that’s her name – took great delight in correcting us when we referred to something in the old colonial English manner. For instance, you don’t buy a plot of land here. Oh dear me no. A plot is what you get buried in. If you’re buying land, then it’s a block. We were also informed that football was soccer, duvets were doonas, the sea was the ocean, trousers were pants and crisps were chips. She would correct us all the time and so, in the same vein, we would say it incorrectly deliberately, whenever she was about. Lyndall made it her life’s mission to get me and Liz speaking strayan. It didn’t quite work that way though.
As it happens, we’ve had far greater influence on Lyndall’s mode of speech, than she’s had on ours. She no longer refers to the vacuum cleaner, but the hoover. Ciggies are fags. Ugly women are mingers. You don’t bash someone, you give them a good shoeing. You’re not drunk, you’re mullered.
As part of this sneaky reverse assimilation, we have made her and boyfriend Darren watch The Office. I downloaded both seasons and the Christmas specials and we’ve been slowly working our way through the episodes when they come over. Tonight they watched the last two episodes – the grand finale when Ray meets the woman of his dreams and tells Finchy to fuck off and Tim and Dawn finally get together. Dare I say it, Lyndall even had a little cry when Dawn comes striding back into the office and gives Tim a big snog. We will continue our revolution from within.
It being the school hols, we’ve had a sucession of Jack’s mates coming and going. Thus far he has entertained six of his class-mates and visited their houses for play-dates. His favourite was at Adrian’s house because he had a structured day that included a full blown tennis lesson. Adrian’s parents are both G.P.s hailing from that region of south-eastern Europe that used to be known as Yugoslavia. They’ve been here for five years and don’t appear to have made any friends during that time. Probably something to do with the fact that she’s a monumental whinge-bag who wraps her spoilt son in cotton-wool. In any case, Liz’s gone and accepted a coffee-date with them – which should prove challenging.
In closing, here’s an image I made with the aid of the Simpsons avator creator on the Simpsons Movie web site. 
This time last year …
Jul 5th
A year in … Australia
Out with the old …
We used to live in England. We used to live in the bit just below the middle, sort of underneath Birmingham. The locals called it the Five Valleys, the posho retired civil servants that manicured their hedges with nail-clippers and opposed any form of wind-powered electricity generation called it the South Cotswolds, but we called it Gloucestershire … our home. It’s a highly affluent area with very little crime (beyond the usual walk-in robberies of old folk, pikies flogging tarmac’d drives 2mm thick, traffic offences by 17 year olds in 90% car audio Vauxhall Corsas and petty vandalism of flower displays and amateur-dramatics posters). Our house over -looked a valley with horses in paddocks and cows in pasture and a small industrial estate which we used to pretend wasn’t there.
Visa
My dad’s Australian. About 20 years ago, my mother (who planned to retire to Oz with the old man) acquired citizenship for me and my brothers (big sister having already moved here with aussie hubs). The citizenship certificate languished in the bottom of a chest of drawers for the next 12 years, next to my 25m swimming certificate and a much cherished but slightly dog-eared copy of Mayfair. I visited Oz several times prior to meeting my missus and we then went several times as a family. I got an Oz passport about four years ago and PR for my wife, son and dog.
On the 7th of July we loaded several unfeasibly large bags into the back of a hire car, said farewell to the missus parents, did a goodbye lap of the town (pausing only briefly to deface an am-dram poster) and then drove to Heathrow airport where we boarded a flight to Van Diemen’s Land.
In with the new …
We deliberately chose to emigrate in the middle of the Australian winter because we didn’t want to arrive feeling like we were in holiday mode. We arrived in Sydney to 16 degree temperatures and grey skies. We did not feel like we were on holiday. There again, after that much travelling we weren’t entirely sure which planet we were on, let alone which season it was. We moved in with my parents – the plan was to stay with them until we found somewhere we wanted to buy. That initial period was challenging to say the least (details in me blog – can’t be arsed to go over it again), but we managed to get into a routine okay after a few weeks.
After a couple of incidents with my parents and a ‘heated exchange of views’ or two – we redoubled our efforts to find a house. In fact we practically moved in with our friendly local real estate agent. Originally we’d planned to move to Sandy Point and this was where our search was concentrated. However a couple of things made us change our mind. Firstly the wind blows bloody hard on most days. Secondly the properties were very over-priced – vendors were trading on the trendiness of the town. Thirdly we just didn’t see anything that grabbed us by the balls and yanked ‘em like a slinky. We moved our search further, but despite viewing about 120 properties, we didn’t see anything that matched expectations or budget. Finally we returned to a little town I’d previously dismissed out-of-hand – Barefoot Bay. We had a bloody good look around the town with ‘new’ eyes – little kids were riding their bikes in the streets, people were out walking dogs, families were kicking a ball about in the park, teenagers were riding to the beach with a surfboard under their arms. It had both a stunning bit of river (the Shoalhaven) and an amazing beach (Seven Mile). It was an unpretentious little town, vaguely down-at-heel, but with a very relaxed feel to it. We liked it.
Once we’d decided that ‘The Heads’ was where we wanted to be, we started searching in earnest. In all we viewed over 30 properties. In the end, it was a tie-up between two houses – one of which was stunning, but had **** all in the way of gardens and no view – and the other which was large, in perfect condition, with pool and large gardens front and back, cheaper, but a bit boring. We went with option B – a red brick two storey on the residential side of town. After a bit of haggling we had an offer accepted and moved in October. We had shipped a small amount of stuff out, but all the bedroom suites, the living room, dining room and sun room furniture was bought new. I had enormous fun blowing an unfeasibly large wad of cash (well, in my universe anyway) on all the electronic bits and pieces. Pretty much all our electrical stuff came from The Good Guys – I bought from them because they did me a very good deal and because their advert is considerably less annoying than the homicide-inducing Harvey Norman ones.
Life, but not as we know it …
Jack has settled in nicely. We had initially (again, see my blog for a longer explanation) got him into the kindy year at the local public school. However he was four years old in a strange class full of kids who were all either five or six years old. He became very withdrawn and sad and we pulled him out of school and placed him in a superb pre-school up the road. He made a load of friends there, many of whom went with him to big school when he started again in January this year.
How is he now? He is a very happy boy and gets to do a lot of stuff that wouldn’t have happened due to either cost or opportunity in the UK. He started going to nippers (junior surf life saving) in October last year and thrived so much that he came in second in both the points and the club championships for his age-group and was awarded two trophies which have pride of place on the sideboard. He has gone camping by the river with some good friends of ours and their kids (went fishing, had a go on the jet-ski, poo’d behind a bush). He’s becoming an accomplished boogie boarder. He plays with a local soccer team – practice on Thursdays, matches on Saturdays. He has swimming lessons. He rides his bike around the block. He has a wide range of friends and is regularly invited to play at their houses or he invites them here. He loves our pool and has perfected a very reasonable seat-drop ‘bomb’. On the school front, he is reading and writing with great confidence and brings home a small amount of homework (usually a home-reader) every night.
In terms of day-to-day living, we haven’t had any problems adjusting to life here. We haven’t found the supermarkets to be that different and certainly haven’t gone out of our way to source British products (though I do pick up a packet of Jaffa Cakes when I’m in Sydney). There is a transition period when you try and work out which washing machine powder you prefer, which bread you like, which butter is best, which condoms can survive an energetic pummelling of frenzied love-making etc (one of those may not be true) … but we’ve enjoyed trying all the different things out.
Work-wise, we brought our main web design business with us. We have over 70 clients and they have all stayed with us, despite the move. It has advantages and disadvantages. The principle advantage is that we’re still paid in sterling, so anything we earn goes about 2.3 times further. The downside is that we have to make sure we’re awake for at least part of the UK day, which means plenty of very late nights. There are also tax implications (due to the dual-tax agreement) which are a pain in the arse and mean we have to present accounts in both countries and pay the difference here if necessary. Ideally we’d like to eventually build up a client base in this country and cut all ties to the UK – but that is some years down the line. I’m also a writer and I have continued to work for the UK press – often on subjects related to emigration.
The other half of the day …
When we moved here we made an effort to get out and meet people. We didn’t turn down any invitations, no matter how dubious or naff they sounded (Broughton Quilt Show anyone!). As a result we now have a good circle of friends, including several who are firm friends. Liz has a best mate who’s a good ‘ear’ when she needs it. We regularly get together with friends for days at the river or evenings out at the kid-friendly pubs. We haven’t clicked with everyone we’ve met and we’ve encountered a few arseholes along the way, but as the saying goes – you need to kiss a lot of frogs.
The area we live in is a very attractive part of the world with masses of things to do. We have national parks all around us, stunning beaches, amazing rivers, plenty of tourist attractions and opportunities for outdoor pursuits. We have large shopping centres nearby (Swindon and Shellharbour), Wollongong 30 minutes up the road and the tiny fishing village of Sydney two hours away by car in peak traffic. We can get the train to Sydney for just $25 return, although at just under three hours, it’s a slow way of getting there. We’ve tried to get out and about as much as possible (aided by the invaluable TomTom satnav), but modern life and the need to work, has a habit of getting in the way. We’ve travelled right down the coast to the border of Victoria, north as far as Newcastle and in-land to the Southern Highlands and the Blue Mountains. We hope to visit the Gold Coast soon and do the theme-park thing and are planning a trip to see my younger brother who lives in Cairns.
In the UK I had planned to join my town’s volunteer fire brigade. Once we decided to emigrate, however, I knocked that idea on the head because training me up would be a waste of their time and mine. However, I moved here with the firm intention of getting involved in a volunteer organisation of some sort. Having seen how the surf club operated I mentioned to one of the committee members that I’d like to get involved and earlier this year, I was invited to do my bronze medallion with them. I got my bronze (which means I’m now an officially endorsed red & yellow-wearing volunteer Surf Lifesaving Australia lifeguard) and my senior first aid and am working on my IRB crew and drivers certificates, so I can use the inshore rescue boat. The people I’ve met at the surf club have all been extremely helpful and I’ve made good friends and learnt a hell of a lot. When the spring comes I’ll be rostered for a few patrols on the beach every month and can do water safety work on nippers (junior lifesavers) days. I absolutely love being a part of it.
Hassles …
Is there anything that bothers us? Not really – minor gripes, not seething resentment. Some Australian drivers aren’t the greatest – particularly their habit of sitting six inches from your rear bumper at high speed and the way nobody ever ‘lets you in’ from side roads. With regard the television – for the most part, it’s exactly the same as UK TV – CSI, Heroes, Smallville etc from the states and the better BBC stuff on the ABC. That said, we watched very little broadcast TV in the UK and that hasn’t changed here. We tend to download the shows we like.
I haven’t experienced any anti-English sentiment. The only person that called me pom was my sister. I haven’t seen any hoons doing doughnuts in their V8s and I haven’t seen any random violence or dog shit – not saying it doesn’t happen (the hoons that is, not dogs shitting) – just that it doesn’t happen here. I haven’t suffered from homesickness to any great extent – Jack and Liz had a few days early on when they missed friends in the UK, but that’s about it. I don’t feel isolated or bored or trapped. The Internet, I feel, has made emigrating a much easier process for the modern migrant – super-cheap phone calls, webcams and easy access to newspapers, TV and radio from the UK mean you don’t have to completely sever the umbilical cord to old blighty.
Here to stay?
It was always our dream to leave on the coast – something that was never going to happen in the UK. We now have the Pacific ocean on our doorsteps – a stunning beach five minutes walk away. At night when I’m in bed, I can hear the surf pounding the beach. Sure beats listening to the drone of traffic on the A46.
Would we return to the UK? At the moment I certainly can’t picture that happening, but you never can tell what the future holds. As much as I love living here, if either my son or my wife was desperately unhappy, then I’d move back to the UK. What I do know is that when I’m driving back from Sydney, pull off the Princes Highway through Sandy Point and drive over the top of the hill at Gilmore, to see Dolphin Beach stretching off into the horizon with the azure blue ocean on one side and Mount Coolangatta on the other, I know I’m home.