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Published: June 25th 2008
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The two hour flight seemed to whiz by as we followed the coast line down to Brisbane in the brighteset of blu skies, not a cloud in the way so we enjoyed looking at the changing landscape below as we headed for our final destination.
Getting through customs is an achievemnet in its self, so many questions and forms to fill in and bag searches and scans along with sniffer dog! After the Spanish Inquistion about our 457 visas and passport control we finally made it out drapped in our union jack and english flag finery to meet up with Alex and Anne and our good friend Mark. After hugs and kisses and an emotional reunion we headed out to the new car and our drive back to 45 Gillan Street in Norman Park.
Balloons and banners welcomed us as we walked through the door along with a wonderful view out across the veranda stretching across the back of the house overlooking the pool, palm trees and the river. Kevin did us proud the location is perfect.
With so much to take in and explore the rest of the day was spent relaxing and catching up on all the news, the
redirected mail and then tucking into a delicious Thai take away for dinner.
We were all glad to flop into bed and enjoyed a good nights sleep.
A relaxed morning spent at Bulimba drinking coffee on the Oxford Road amongst trendy shops and bars was followed by a surprised BBQ party organised by Alex and Anne when all our friends joined us in welcoming us to Australia. We had a wonderful spread of delicious food cooked by the men (an aussie tradition that they always cook the food on the barbi!) sitting on the veranda in the warm afternoon sun.The Porters and Hamlins have been absolutely marvellous in supporting us all in our new adventure and looked after Alex ,Anne and Kevin magnicantly whilst we awaited the rental on the house and the sale of Spring Meadows. We are so grateful to them all as we would have found all of this experience much harder to complete without them.
The house has steps leading up to the front door and has a double door access which opens out into a square lobby before walking through another door into the main living space which is about the size of
3 of our lounges side ways on with folding floor to ceiling doors at one end that open up on to the veranda or deck which then looks out over the garden and pool. The deck area is about the size of the playroom so big enough for our wooden garden furniture and a set of lounge furniture. The kitchen runs off the side of the main space and has some pretty antiquated appliances, the oven is smaller than my old one and the hob is electric so that takes some getting used to. Kevin bought a second hand fridge/larder freezer which holds everything pretty much. The bathroom is again off the main room along side our bedroom which is nice and big with a funny walk in wardrobe storage area about the size of study at home. Dominic has a bedroom at the front of the house which is bigger than he has had so he is thrilled with that.
You have to go downstairs via the deck staircase and under another covered area into a huge space which will hold the leather chair furniture and table when the rest of the furniture arrives and there is also
another kitchen down stairs which is Alex and Anne may start using in the morning to have thir breakfast and morning cuppa to save walking up and down outside first thing. There are two further bedrooms one big enough to have 2 double beds in it, Alex and Anne are in there at the moment but they will probably have move to the smaller room when the container arrives and Tristan and Seb will move in there with a double bed each so we can accommodate visitors if we need to double up the boys at any time. T he laundry room is also down stairs along with another bathroom and an area at the back which is covered and used for bikes tent gear etc. We can also put the futon up down there for Cieran who can have his own space in the space along side the kitchen. It will be cosy but it all seems to work.
The downstairs area has a small lawn and then a patio area which leads to the pool which is fenced off for safety requirements for all pool owners and you can then walk to the end of the pool and
walk out onto a small jetty which over looks the river!
The house is so very different to Spring Meadows and it will take some getting used to especially with the restrictions on the rental agreement about pictures etc but I am sure that when the container arrives and we have put our furniture in place it we will not notice the shoddy paintwork and bizarre wiring! I cannot wait for my clothes to arrive so I can find some different clothes to wear, especially a fleece or two as it is quite chilly at times! Not what I expected!!! Must also remember to collect the mail from the post box in the front garden, so many different things to get used too.
The supermarket was the next experience after managing the car for the first time. The boys were eager to find out about the local amenities and helped me complete a huge food shop after having taken twice as long as normal. At least we could buy Marmite much to Tristan's and Dominic's releif! And so the list of jobs to do grows longer by the minute, schools, banks and driving licences to anme but a
few, they should keep me out of mischeif for a while.
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