Living the life

After a couple of days of torrential rain and then an unusually cold day, we’re finally back to business as usual – clear blue skies and warm sunshine!

You might have seen on the news that a cyclone has hit New South Wales, including Sydney, and killed a few people. I think we caught the edges of it here. In fact we couldn’t believe how cold it was yesterday. The houses here aren’t prepared for cold weather; they’re built to keep the inside cool and many, including ours, doesn’t have heating. Well I think it might have, just we haven’t figured out how to get it working. The A/C unit is supposedly one of those reverse cycle ones where it can kick out warm air but whatever setting we tried it just seemed to be set to ARCTIC.

Today couldn’t have been more different. It was like a different season never mind a different day.

It’s Queensland Week this week, and with this weekend also being a long weekend due to a public holiday on Monday for the Queen’s birthday (funny how there’s a public holiday for it here yet not in Britain), there’s loads of stuff happening all over Brisbane this weekend.

Today we started off by going to the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre on the South Bank for what was billed as the world’s largest second-hand book sale. There were over 2 million books for sale, starting for as little as 20 cents. We bought a stack of paperbacks and hardbacks, some fairly new, including DVD’s for a total of only $50 (£20).

We then drove over the river to Roma St Parkland where they were holding the Big Queensland BBQ. It’s the first time we’ve visited the Roma St Parkland and we were really impressed. It contains the world’s largest urban sub-tropical garden – and it’s absolutely beautiful.

The Big Queensland BBQ was completely free and there was plenty to see and do (besides eat of course). Lauren loved it. Hi-5 were performing on the main stage, and all around there were tents with different acts and fun for the kids.


More new photo's on flickr.

One of the things I love about this country is that there are always things happening, places to go and things to see, and most of the time it’s completely free. Today, even the parking was cheap.

In other news… (this is the BBC from London).. Rach has got herself a couple of interviews lined up. One next week and one the week after. They’re both for office manager type roles. I’ve proposed the idea of her working full time and me staying at home, writing a best-selling novel or working on my perpetual motion invention, but she’s having none of it. At least if she does get a job it takes the pressure of me a little and will at least pay for the roof above our head. What I’m starting to realise here is that because everyone’s so laid back, everything takes ages to sort out. In the UK, I’d submit my CV for a job in the afternoon and then be following it up with a phone call to the agency the next morning. It doesn’t work like that here. It seems it takes them a week just to check their e-mail.

Patience my dear boy..

We went out for a drink last night at ‘our club’ with our new neighbours Paul and Julie, from Coventry. Paul drove and parked his car underneath some trees brimming with Lorikeets. When we came out the car was absolutely covered in bird shit! It was that bad he had to take it through the car wash there and then, and even that didn’t get it all off. We did laugh!

I’m getting the hang of the language by the way. It’s simple. You just abbreviate everything to the first 3 letters and then add an o. For instance, your car registration over here is rego, an ambulance is ambo, etc (you get the picture).

I also love some of the shop and brand names over here. I particularly like Coon Cheese and the bedding company - Holy Sheet.