Back to work

Hi Guys

Sorry about the lack of contact recently. Life has suddenly got busier since I started work. Work is fine. Everybody is really friendly. The only problem is the paperwork & the computer. I feel like the new kid at school all over again! My first day on labour ward was fun with one (English) woman nearly having a cardiac arrest on me! I had visions of being on the next plane home.


The girls are getting pretty tired with all the commuting to school so we're looking forward to living down at the beach. One great thing about the commuting is seeing all the white cockatoos flying around. They're huge.

One of the advantages of starting work a week late was that we were able to go away with Steve (my boss) and Kerry to Port Willunga in McLaren Vale. We stayed in a lovely bungalow close to the beach. We walked down the beach each day and then went off to the 'Sea & Vines' festival. Some of the vineyards open their doors, get a band in and serve food. You buy glasses at the first vineyard which you then carry around as you go from one vineyard to the next. Gary thought I was nicking them! It was a bank holiday weekend - the bank holiday was to celebrate the Queen's Birthday!


We went to the cabaret last week. It was a little bit like the Edinburgh fringe with lots of comedy shows. The first show was called 'Every Film That Was Ever Made'. 3 people ran around the stage reenacting scenes from various films. It was very funy in parts. Didn't get some of the Aussie jokes & it seems like the Aussies hate Nicole Kidman. The second show we saw was a woman Julia Morris. She was an Aussie stand up comedienne. She was in the UK for a while where she worked for the BBC and also was the warm up act for Catherine Tate. We'd never heard of her before but she was very funny.


Today we went to Penfolds & had a tour of the winery. We ended the tour with a little bit of wine tasting (getting used to this now!). The big revelation is that the good Aussie wine isn't exported & bottles of wine like Rawson's Retreat are considered poor quality compared with what is available here. Their 'iconic' wine Grange (their words) retails at $650 a bottle for the 2004 vintage. I'm not sure how they can justify to charge that much. We're going back for dinner next week when they'll give us a snifter of the Grange 1996 vintage. Let's see if it really tastes that good. The wines we tasted today weren't that great!


In the true spirit of getting involved we're going to the Quiz Night at the girls school on Friday night. Interestingly, it's for over 18s only. We need a team of 10. We've begged, stolen & borrowed friends to get our team together. We also need to take our own food, drink & coins!! We'll see what happens...



We move into our place on 24th June. The address is 243 The Esplanade, Seacliff , 5049, South Australia. Gary is supposed to sorting out the phone. I'll let you know if & when it happens.


Hope you're all well.

Take care

Missing you all

Love Geraldine x

PS The marble cake has been renamed 'Marble Hill Cake' as Marble Hill is near to here