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Published: January 10th 2011
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The New House
Our new house. Well, a surprise blog for you all! Its been a long time, I know, I know but we have been busy! Since our last blog in March ( New Zealand ) a lot of water has passed under the bridge....quite literally! Queensland at this moment is in the midst of a 1 in 100 year weather event.....described as a weather event of biblical proportion! We have been in drought for over 10 years and now the rains are here. An area the size of Great Britain, France and Spain together are presently under water.
Now at first, everyone jumped for joy, water at last, but now we are over it! It has rained constantly for the last couple of weeks and when I say rain I mean cats and dogs. Hopefully we are nearly over it all now, but there is a lot of devastation, hundreds of houses and businesses under water and just today, Toowoomba, a town 120km west of Brisbane had a flash flood with up to 7 metres of water in a torrent down the high street and sadly killing two people. So, we really are copping it at the moment, but I'm still in my shorts and
My veggie patch and fruit trees
Avocados, blueberrys, oranges, limes, lemons and all the usual herbs! teeshirt as it is still 27/28 degrees!
Anyway, enough of the doom and gloom......"Barmy Army!" Ashes won! We are giving the Aussies some stick and I'm sure we will continue to do so for some time yet...victory is sweet!
So why have we been so busy?
Well, June saw a milestone for us both with the issuing of our permanent visa! They can't kick us out now, no matter how much stick we give them over the Ashes!
We have had our usual trips away and been enjoying life, and had heaps of sunshine, until recently! But the big events have all happened just before Christmas.
Caz and I had a trip planned ( another one!!! ) to Sydney with our friends Lisa and Brandon, a pommy couple from Liverpool. A month before I had chanced upon a house for sale whilst I was out visiting clients.
The house in question was for sale by auction, quite a popular way of selling houses here in Oz. I had a look at the place which I personally fell in love with but the laws here in Oz prevent the real estate agent from discussing prices, guide prices and reserve prices, so
My Dream
I have always wanted my own pool to chill out in with a cold beer! we thought it may be out of our price range.
Never the less, I suggested that Caz looked at the place and she too thought it was perfect.
Now this place was a surf life saving house!!!! What is that I hear you say? Surf life saving are the lovely people that rescue all the idiots that swim outside the flags and nearly drown! They raise money by commissioning a builder to build a lovely home (show home style) and then sell raffle tickets to people for $10 each.
So the winners of this home already have a home and wanted it sold. So we loved the property so much that we decided we were going to bid at auction.....problem being we were in Sydney!
Big Bruv to the rescue! On the telephone from a bar in Sydney, we bid for the property with my brother as the bidder and he was a legend. Cool as a cucumber and cooler again, he managed to get it for soooooooo much less than market value and way under what we had set out limit at so, in a bar in Balmain, Sydney, we bought a house!
So we moved in on 6th
Patio
Our alfresco area with the nature strip to the side, just the "birds and the bees" to the side of the house! December 2010.
Quite a significant day as another storey being that I was approached by an insurance company and offered a job, which just so happened to start on 6th December 2010!
So new house, new job! I am now a Sales Manager for Queensland for AIA insurance, and loving it!
Caz also had a result, she waned to go to a four day week and she is so good at what she does and is so well respected, they were happy to give her a trail at a four day week until Easter 2011, when they will evaluate how things are going.
So winners all round!
So you could say we had a hectic year! Manic is perhaps what we would say.
We have had three lots of UK visitors, you know who you are and we loved having you here. We now have a swimming pool so no doubt we expect more visitors in 2011!
So the pictures are not from our travels this time but indeed of the new place and the town we live in! We are 25km ( 15 miles ) east of Brisbane on the Coast. We live in an area called Thornlands which
Lounge
Lounge area in the open plan kitchen/diner is in the town of Cleveland. Raby Bay is the little area of restaurants and bars set around a marina and the pictures should hopefully show you our little piece of heaven.
Hope you all ok and we look forward to hearing from you.
Anyway, there is a quick update of our year! Hopefully, the sun will come out in the next week and we will be back to the usual.
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Dorothy & Edgar
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Your New Home
Wow!!! What a super super house. Happy to know that you two lovely likable people have made it, and seem to be loving the life, so different to here. Thank you so much for the Christmas card and greeting, it was really good to hear from you, and sorry to have missed your visit home for whatever reason. Edgar and myself are still together, (phew!!!) we here of so many couples divorcing these days.See Ruth and Chris now and again, they are busy with their jobs, and cant believe that Ruth is working full time at Reeds Rains. Planning to maybe go on a trip to Arizona this year but not 100% certain. Carry on the good life. We think about you so often and admire you so much for taking the plunge. Love Dorothy & Edgar xx