Week 2...

...and although we are over our jetlag, we are not sleeping well. Flo seems quite bewildered about all the different beds she has slept in and there has been quite a bit of uncharacteristic bed-hopping. We have been staying some nights at Maria's on the coast in Hastings and some nights at Dad's in the country in Kent. The weather has been amazing so we have been outdoors a lot. It might sound weird but we seem to be doing more outdoors here than we did in Sydney. We are enjoying country walks, village pubs and whole afternoons at the local park, at Dad's. We are in Hastings right now where we are looking at houses to buy. Over the weekend we took the kids down to the seaside for a solid session of skimming stones from the beach and spent the afternoon in the next door neighbour's pool and having a bbq. We had so much fun, it made England's devastating loss in the World Cup yesterday a little easier to bear. This week we are off to Surrey to stay with Rob's sister Helen and her family. From there Rob has to jump in the car early Friday morning morning to pick up our old next door neighbours Steve and Barbara from the airport when they fly in on holiday and to hand deliver Rob's NZ passport and visa which has just arrived in Sydney. Then it's onto Suffolk to see Rick and Justin and to attend their annual village bbq. The house hunting is taking its toll and we are totally over it -fingers crossed we find something this week we both like and can afford.

Almost a week here..

... and despite feeling as if we have totally missed getting jetlag - i.e no nocturnal wakings and kids sleeping 12 hours a night - we are clearly all shattered. Last night I slept from 8pm until 6am. I was almost in tears I was so tired. Flo fell asleep in the car the other day at 4pm and was put to bed and slept until 6.30am. What have we achieved so far? We have bought a new car, which we love and is the nicest car we have ever owned. We feel very grown up and important driving it, loving the in-car sat nav and walnut dash. We have viewed several houses, including one we had our hearts set on when we saw it online from Sydney. When we saw it in person, the garden was too small to even consider it, despite the house itself being a stunning renovated Victorian terrace. We were also slightly alarmed by the next neighbour telling us about the brother she cares for with Parkinson's Disease who yells and screams at night. I loved it however. Rob loved a 1930s semi, but after you see Victorian houses, 1930s homes feel too pokey and small with low ceilings and smaller room sizes. On Tuesday we made an offer on a house we both walked into, looked at each other and said 'yes!'. Unfortunately our offer was rejected and we don't think we can manage to offer the full asking price. We were pretty gutted as its location was amazing - on the west hill of Hastings, just a few hundred feet from a huge park overlooking the channel which was spectacular on the glorious sunny day we viewed it. More to see this weekend however and at least two look like they might be perfect. The weather has been beautiful since we arrived - long, hot sunny days and of course low humidity compared to Sydney. We are still getting used to it being light at 9.30pm and again at 4am. The girls are of course bored senseless and despite Maria brilliantly taking them for many of our home inspections, they aren't getting to do much more than sit either in the car or other people's houses. Today we changed direction in our house search and headed inland from the coast to the picture perfect village of Egerton in rural Kent, complete with village pub, school, post office and shop, as well as glorious country views. The cottage we went to look at was unfortunately much too small but the the garden and outlook were nothing short of breathtaking, with a field of cows on the one side, another field being ploughed by tractor and another full of horses in a sanctuary. You could have heard a pin drop, even over the occasional moo, neigh and tractor whine. We stopped off for lunch at the Smarden Bell, a beautiful old pub I used to visit in my youth, in another perfect Kentish village. We sat in the pub garden, while the girls played football (we are all gripped by world cup fever and the fact that England have just scraped into the next round), drank local cider and beer and feasted on good ploughman's lunches. Overhead small planes did loop the loops and other tricks before landing at a small airstrip nearby. It was heavenly. Today is our 15th wedding anniversary so Rob and I are off to the Tickled Trout tonight, a pub a few villages away from Dad's house, and the location of our wedding rehearsal dinner in 1995.

The Duthies of.......

No pics yet but just a quick update. We spent an entirely blissful, final full day in Sydney. As we were staying in the Taylor-Bigg's divine Tamarama flat, we walked down the coast path to Bondi and stopped in at Bondi Icebergs fora cokctail for old time's sake. It was only 3pm so we had the place to ourselves, which was just as well, as the girls went crazy in the hanging pod chairs while Rob and I sipped a cherry caprioska and a cosmo and looked out at the surf. We walked the length of the beach and had dinner at North Bondi Italian. We flew out at 3pm on Friday and had as fine a flight you can have with two kids. The girls were mostly engrossed by the films and endless supply of food. Rob and Inoticed how much less room we now have on planes as the girls have got so tall. Sleeping with a child's foot half wedged up your nose is harder than it sounds. The girls slept really well on both flights and for the whole drive to Dad's from the airport. Am slightly in the loon zone as I type this, despite a pretty good night's sleep as I am certain I should now be asleep not awake. We have been here 24 hours, have already found the car we're going to buy, narrowed our house inspection list to 3 places, shopped at Sainbury's (Heaven) and been to the village school fete. I have just come back from a run around Barming, the village I grew up in. It was so lovely seeing the old village hall, the ouses of my friends plus the house I grew up in. I'm amazed at how beautiful the setting is - surrounded by fields and rolling hills with church steeples and farmhouses, and how litte of this we appreciated growing up. Today we are heading to my sister's for Sunday lunch and to met our new nephew/cousin Ethan who is 6 months old.

So long, farewell, auf weidersehen, goodbye

This was a big week of goodbyes. Rob and I left work - me celebrating with a final chicken and cashew nut lunch with my marie claire team, and Rob with a whole afternoon of boozing at Olympic park with the QBE misfits.We also sold the car this week and picked up a rental and saw lots of our furniture walk out the door with its new owners. We are now down to one couch and a dining table and chairs, plus beds.

On Saturday night we went to the leaving party organised by Julia, with a little help from Brett and a big group of mates. Brett made a lovely speech and, in spite of my huge fear of publc speaking, I was really pleased with my speech of reply which I hope encapsulated our feelings about 13 years of life in Sydney. It's weird to think Rob and I have lived as adults in Sydney longer than anywhere else. It was great fun and a highly emotional night with lots of tears but brilliant to realise most of our mates will be in the UK at some point in the next year or two. Here are some shots taken by Sam on the night

We devoted Sunday to lolling on the couch in front of the fire and Tv until 1pm when we were joined by George and the kids and walked up to Annandale for lunch at Vicini before running home in the rain. Brilliant. Am v excited to have found 10 websites in Britain selling just wellies.

Vivid

Another top weekend. Friday was a child and husband-free day for me and was all about ferrying stuff we're getting ride of to Flo's childcare centre. Have also finally managed to find a home for the TV (Scarlett's school) and if I can't shift the last two pieces of furniture we're selling, the people that have bought the house are happy to have them. Phew! On Friday night lovely Laura our friend, and sometime babysitter, popped in for a glass of wine and a cuddle with the girls, who she adores.

On Saturday morning Sam and Christy came over for tea and cake. They have just returned from a few weeks in England and got us excited about what's coming. Still on our minds however is Rob's elusive passport and visa. We've now accepted that there's a good chance I'll have to go ahead with the girls if his NZ passport fails to appear by June 18, the day we're supposed to fly out. My next big worry is the fact that my UK passport forms part of Rob's application and I won't be allowed to settle in the UK travelling on my Australia passport. My best case scenario is to plead my case at passport control with a photocopy of my British passport and hope there's someone nice on shift that day.
We took our minds off our passport nightmares with a fantastic afternoon at Charlie and Liv's. The Flemings came too, and with the kids consumed by a game of Masterchef, we sat down to a fantastic curry cooked by Charlie. On the way home we drove through the city to see the light show that forms part of the Livid festival that's on at the moment, curated by Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson. Loads of buildings including the town hall, Government house and the Opera house have been lit with changing light scenes. Very cool.
Yesterday we had Kirsty and Simon and the kids in for a late lunch of lamb shanks and mash. We toasted our brief but brilliant our friendship with a bottle of 1989 Bollinger. Hic.

PS: Rob has called to say my Uk passport has just arrived at home, alongwith his birth certificate. Hopefully that means his passport might be close behind and now at least he can apply for an Australian passport as the next best thing.

Old friends and old wine

The weekend began with Kendall and Brett, Lara and Adam coming for dinner. Kendall is about to head off on another work trip, this time to France, and we won't see him again before we leave. Rob has been saving three wines he bought in Margaux before we met (so that's pre 1991). As Kendall and Brett really know their wine, Rob decided this would be the night to decant them and see how they had stood the test of time. I need to point out these wines have not been cellared well. They have been moved across the world in a container, have been stored variously under beds, in the kitchen and in a linen cupboard - not at all perfect conditions for wine. Still it was fun to pull out the corks, which as expected disintegrated - not a good sign. Rob strained them through a sieve with kitchen paper to remove the sediment but despite some really good aromas, the wine was bad, bad, bad, undrinkable.
Before Lara and Adam arrived, Scarlett wiped the floor with Brett at Connect Four. Scarlett is now impossible to beat at this game, alongwith Cathedral and we are still working with her on how to be a gracious winner.


Saturday was wet and cold so we had the fire lit from the morning and after coming back from breakfast, spent most of the day in the sitting room, watching Tv and keeping warm. On Saturday night it was the turn of Zoe and Paul and Jules and Lenka to come for dinner. It was another emotional night of reminiscing and laughs.
By Sunday we were pretty worn out by another packed round of socialising and spent a really lovely, relaxed morning at Melissa and Larry's eating hot fresh bread with cheese and lime pickle (who knew?!). The girls variously played, screamed, made a boat from the nanny's umbrella, watched Tv and cuddled on the couch.

The goodbyes begin

On Friday night I met up with old SMH mates for my first farewell drinks. It was such a mild evening I walked from work in Redfern to Pyrmont wearing a vest, jeans and flip flops - not bad considering it's only two weeks until the official start of winter. It was great to have a few wines and reminisce about lots of funny times on the paper. On Saturday I launched into a new phase of my current project - getting rid of most of our stuff. We are endeavouring to sell the majority of our furniture before we move back to England. As well as my huge successes getting rid of stuff on ebay and through work colleagues and friends, I decided to get rid of the smaller bits by holding a garage sale. I have been gathering things in our spare room for several weeks now and on Saturday morning spent almost 2 hours bringing stuff out to the front of the house from the spare room, the attic and garden and setting it all up along the footpath in front of our house. Everything looked great but I had overlooked one small matter - advertising. Apart from the small flyers I had taped to lamp posts at either end of our street the day before (flyers Rob found the next day blowing around in the wind) I hadn't placed an ad, sent an email or told anyone from school. After meagre sales to two of my neighbours, who I'm sure only bought things out of pity, I abandoned the sale due to lack of interest. Rob and I decided to pack everything back in the attic, to advertise in the local paper and have another go next weekend. But after sleeping on this, and having what I like to refer to as 'a tantrum' upon realising we have so much on every weekend between now and when we leave, I've decided to give it all to the Salvos and to Flo's childcare centre instead.
I spent the afternoon prepping lamb shank pie for our dinner party that night. Martin and Drew came over alongwith Cait and Pete, who came up from the Shire with their kids Max and Eve and so they stayed the night. We packed the kids off to bed by 7.30pm and had a great night catching up on fun we had together in the UK years ago. On Sunday a little worse for wear we took over two tables at Revolver for breakfast before walking to the local park with takeaway coffees. While the kids played, Pete had us in stitches telling stories about the various faux pas he's committed at work not least the time he accidentally tripped over the false leg of a colleague sending it flying across the room. Until then I never knew coffee could come out of my nose and mouth at the same time. On Sunday afternoon we drove to Bondi for lunch at Julia and Rich's. Julia prepared a warming feast, now that the temps have dropped to more appropriate pre-winter levels, and the kids played beautifully. Alarmingly, Alice appears to be crawling - at 7 months - and had to be repeatedly brought back in from the garden once we noticed she was missing. I felt my first tear well up when we left and Flo said goodbye to her mate Tess and Scarlett hugged Ella as I realised this was probably the last time they'd see each other for a long time. Since then have rescheduled a return visit at ours for 2 weeks' time!

It's nearly Winter...

....but honestly you wouldn't know it. It was 26 degrees yesterday and Flo and I spent the day on the beach searching for shade. It's been the sort of unseasonable weather that makes our motives for lighting the fire every night hard to justify. We've ordered the wood and we want to enjoy an open fire while we can even if it is warm enough for the cicadas to be chirping outside.

In the meantime, another fairly action-packed weekend. On Saturday we crammed into Prints Charming owned by Cath, one of the mums from school, and an absolutely brilliant shop selling beautiful screen-printed fabrics, quilting, sewing and embroidery project kits. The shop was so busy as Cath was launching her first book and we saw loads of our school friends there drinking Champagne and stuffing smoked salmon sandwiches before the kids saw them. Since wandering in there a couple of months ago I have become hooked on embroidering and have made a brooch, two pillows (the larger heart-shaped one the cause of a fight between the girls), a string of small stuffed love hearts and am about about to start making my way through the book's many sewing and embroidery projects in the hope of eventually being able to attempt a quilt. http://www.printscharming.com.au/ Here's the website. I am officially middle-aged - I like craft!

In the afternoon Flo and I went to Carriageworks to the Finders Keepers market, a collection of amazing craft and jewellery stalls from all over Australia. I bought a beautiful origami ball made from the pages of a 1960s edition of Treasure Island, a brooch and t-shirts for Rob and I.

That night we went to the 40th birthday dinner for my old Herald colleague Cath Keenan. It was a fantastic dinner cooked by Hugh Wennerbom, a chef with no restaurant of his own who as well as making a living supplying his mailing list of foodie fans with great cheeses, meat and fish he finds from suppliers each week, also raises his own beef and pops up every Saturday night at a little cafe in Chippendale. There's no menu - you just turn up, pay a flat fee, bring your own wine and Hugh sends out dish after dish of the best produce he's found at the markets that week. It was great fun catching up with lots of old friends from the paper, the food was really superb and Rob and I got to share one of the bottles of Champagne we have been saving for a special occasion which we now have to drink as we can't ship it back to Britain.

Sunday was Mother's Day and after rubbing my sore head I opened the lovely home-made cards from the girls before we all went to Revolver for breakfast. Then it was off to Darling Point to see Jo and Mark. We have seen very little of them of late as Jo's Dad has been very ill in the UK and they have been jetting back and forth to be with him. They have the coolest most unusual apartment after years living in a beautiful sandstone cottage in Rose Bay which they outgrew last year. While the kids watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the proper version with Gene Wilder), the grown ups chatted and drank tea - for 4 hours. It was brilliant. The girls were beautifully behaved and loving all day.

It's my birthday today...

...I'm older than yesterday. I am now officially middle-aged. I knew this before my birthday. Just the night before I sat in front of the fire doing my sewing and embroidery - yes, you read correctly - with my reading glasses positioned halfway down my nose so I was able to see the close up needlework, whilst also being able to look over the top at the tv.

I spent my 42nd birthday opening presents in front of the fire (loving those Birkenstocks D & A), before a day on the beach at Balmoral with Rob without children. After breakfast at Bathers - a breakfast that did not involve taking children to the toilet, wiping up spills, being constantly interrupted or wishing that the ground would open up and swallow us - we lay on the sand and read and talked. I mean actually, properly, definitely read and talked. Sometimes we didn't read or talk, we just sat there. Quietly.

After a while, I took a long walk to take photos and video, while Rob listened - really listened - to music. The weather was absolutely perfect and Autumnal - lots of sun, not too hot and a light breeze. Despite this, the beach was almost deserted. There was just enough time for a happy half hour at the old barracks site on the hill at Mosman, now redeveloped with fantastic lookouts over the harbour, before picking up Scarlett from school and hitting the pool for 36 rounds of Connect 4, her new favourite game at which she is an arch player and difficult to beat. Excuse me, but weren't we supposed to be here to swim?




After picking up Flo from daycare, flush with excitement from an afternoon with visiting animals from Kindifarm, we were in the shower, wrangling phone calls from Dad, Moira and Fraser and others (thanking you) and then hiking up the hill to Annandale for my birthday dinner. With Mart already calling in sick and Melissa on the phone to say her car wouldn't start, it was a poor first show of guests in the restaurant. Add to that Rob forgetting to arrange a cake and things weren't looking up. Thanks goodness for Melissa's car doing its stuff, for Drew McHugh sitting patiently waiting for us, Punt Road chardonnay, a pannacotta with a candle on top and (mostly) beautifully behaved children aged between 1 and 6. Home to a fire, children asleep and uploading these pics. Here's a little film (made on my new Flip video camera - thank you Rob) of our day at Balmoral, something to treasure during the darker winter months in Britain.

Packing it in

We are packing in many many social events between now and our departure date. On Thursday I hosted my last book club and as it was a special one we all went out for dinner instead of meeting at our house. It was a great night of conversation about Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Whether we loved or hated the content, everyone was moved by the writing and had a very strong emotional response to it. On Saturday Melissa and Larry invited us over for lunch with Martin and Drew. It was great fun and ended up turning into dinner when Larry produced plate after plate of fish and chips for everyone. Yesterday a group of dads from school hit Petersham bowling club for an afternoon of barefoot bowls and beers, so the mums met at Jillian's for lunch in the garden. With so much going on, I have taken up running again in an effort to combat all the eating and drinking, plus it gives me time to think about the next list I need to make. The cooler weather makes it much more pleasant to run and I am really 'enjoying' it. We are selling lots of our furniture now and are planning a garage sale for everything else that's left. We met the couple who have bought our house on Saturday. Cindy is Australian and her husband David is English. I was absolutely gobsmacked when she told me she is a breast cancer surgeon at the RPA. She took over from my surgeon when he left last year and works with my oncologist and all the team who have taken care of me over the years. It seemed like fate playing a hand in a very appropriate end to our life here.

Magic beach

Here's a little film Flo and I made of our day at Balmoral with Jacqui and Oscar.

Making the most of it

We have had an action-packed weekend that started with Jillian's 40th birthday ladies lunch at Susie's house. 8 of us sat down to prawns, oysters and champagne over several hours. As school pick up time approached various husbands were called to ferry children and themselves to the lunch. We left at 5pm as Rob had to go to work, but I understand the lunch continued until 10pm when a fleet of taxis delivered everyone home.
On Saturday we had James and Amelia and Susie and Damien for dinner, an event so funny and entertianing I forgot to take any pictures. Sunday was Anzac Day and as the weather had turned cold and wet we wrapped ourselves up and had a slow walk from our house to Revolver for lunch stopping at 2 parks there and back for a long play for the girls and a chance for Rob and I to chat. Now that we have made our decision to move back to the UK, we keep second guessing ourselves. We seem to be having a much more wonderful than usual time with our friends and have also seen a house we really like the look of in Leichhardt. One minute we are sure, the next we are not. I won't be sorry to see the back of my job but it's the great school and school community that is hard to leave. Monday was a bank holiday so after a party for Charlie next door we had Christian and Emma and their kids plus Nic and Yoko for lunch. It ended at about 7.30pm when there was no more wine or champagne left to drink. In the space of a whole afternoon the kids had been offered the same bowl of pasta for lunch and dinner, bribed with sweets to sit quietly in front of a DVD, had been bathed and then finally they went potty jumping about the place while the grown ups danced and sang. The picture below is the before shot, the one above, the after shot.

Roar and Snore!

Scarlett and I spent Friday night at Taronga Zoo at Roar and Snore, where we got to experience the zoo at night and early in the morning with only a few others. It's a brilliant campsite set up in a spot offering amazing views of the city and harbour, you sleep in great tents on proper beds with duvets and get dinner and tours of the zoo too. On Friday night after drinks and nibbles the zoo keepers brought snakes and lizards for us to meet, then after dinner we set off on a 2 hour torchlit walk around the zoo in the dark. It was great fun having the place to ourselves and hearing the lions roaring in the dark. We got to bed at about 11pm and then woke at 6am for breakfast and some fantastic behind the scenes action.


We went into the giraffe exhibit to hand feed the giraffes their breakfast, and saw the seals up close too, then we got to pat a koala, ringtail possum and echidna. It was great fun and I think I might have enjoyed it slightly more than Scarlett whose favourite part of any trip to the zoo is the ride on the gondola.

Scarlett loses her first tooth!

Scarlett started complaining this week that her front tooth hurt. We assumed some collateral damage after the Easter Bunny's generous chocolate deposit, but closer inspection revealed a wobbly tooth. After placing bets on whether it would fall out before or after Liz and Charlie's departure, it finally came out last night after a great deal of wibbling and wobbling by Scarlett. Here she is as pleased as punch with her new gap, unaware of her resemblance to the late Queen Mother (God bless 'er). A short note to the tooth fairy placed under the pillow alongwith the tooth resulted in a shiny gold $2, an increase on what we were given as kids, allowing for inflation.