Catching up

Gday Cobbers,
How're you doing?

Well did you all see Harry Potter? What did you think?
We've discovered a cinema in Brighton (about 20 minutes walk) where they show 2 feature length films. The place had about 30 people in it. We watched the first film (September about the aboriginals getting equal pay). They then had an intermission. Once the man had served everybody their coffee/ ice cream etc & we had all sat down he started the next film. We then watched 'Is there anybody there?' with Michael Caine - it has some great one liners but isn't anything too exciting. The cinema is called the Windsor and is really old. They charged us $8 each! Cheap night out.

Annie has been really poorly - I even took her to see the GP. She was checked out for swine flu which she didn't have. Lucy went to Linda & Eric's while Annie was really ill. When she came back she wouldn't go anywhere near Annie until the swine flu results came through. A week later and a course of antibiotics Annie is still coughing like crazy & has not gone back to school.

Time seems to be flying here & we've lost sight of a few birthdays - sorry. Your presents & cards are on their way - better late than never.

Contact situation - we are 81/2 hours ahead of you. It's 8am here which means it's 11:30 pm back home. My UK mobile receives text messages but won't let me text back - not sure why. You can phone me on that or my Australian mobile (0439 246146). We will try & look at Skype this weekend. My email is geraldine.masson@tiscali.co.uk - don't have all your emails.

Mel arrives on Sunday - we have all sorts of great things planned (most involving wine).

Lucy is great - she has gone back to school (they just had 2 weeks holiday).

Gary as always is basketball mad. He's playing and refereeing. He's discovered the joys of public transport and often travels by train.

Take care Pommies
Missing you
Love Geraldine x

Getting Old

Yesterday Michael (Linda & Eric's eldest) was 18. Richard (Paula & Rod's son) was 18 last month.
Linda & I were arranging some activities for when Mel comes to Adelaide. On one website to book accomodation we had to choose our age group - we fell into the 'over 45' category. How/ when did we ever get to be so old?
(A little bit of philosophy now I've got some time to pontificate!)
Geraldine x

Our Aussie Home

Hi Guys

If you want to see our house check it out on Google maps. I found it on the Aussie Google website. Type in 243 Esplanade Seacliff SA 5049. When you look at the street view you can see our house. The house on the left with the car on the drive is our nextdoor neighbours. The yellow 2 storey house is ours - you'll be able to spot our balcony where we drink wine. As you pan around you'll see some building work - those flats are now finished. Keep panning, cross over the road and you'll see the yacht club (with the funny square bit on its roof). Then you'll see a double garage. The garage on the right belongs to Sally & Graham. Keep panning and you'll see the car park. On the far side of the car park is the beach & then the sea. Isn't it great? Don't worry we'll be landlocked in sunny Sandbach soon enough.

I'm on call today so not much happening. Hope you're all well

Love Bean xx

my frist friends

On this post i'm going to talk my australian friends the 1st friends i made was Rachel she showed me around my classroom the 2nd friend is Parya (pronounced parry a)Rachel's friend. The 3rd friend i made is Michael a friend of parya and then tyler.
Lucy xxx

Beside the seaside

We sat on the balcony today watching dolphins swimming in the sea - bliss!

Old Friends

Hello Up Over!

The big excitement is that we moved into our beach hut this week. Well it's not exactly a beach hut but it as at the beach. We wake up in the morning and have a great view of the sea. Gary & I have started walking on the beach every morning which is lovely. It takes about 45 minutes to walk to Brighton Pier & back (and you all thought we were in Australia, haha).

We walked to the pub for dinner last night with Linda & Eric. The food was lovely. We also went out for dinner with Linda & Eric to Magill Estate on Thursday. Magill Estate is the Penfold's winery where it all started. We spent more on the bottle of wine that we would normally spend on a meal out (for the whole family)! The food was lovely but truly extravagant. We won't being that too many times.

An update on the quiz night - we came 3rd. We had to do a few things including taking some of our clothes off, me finding lollies (translation sweets, confusing cos I was looking for the sticks!) in a tray of flour. I wouldn't recommend this as one guy went home & I spent the whole weekend with bits of pastry on my eyelashes, up my nose etc. Our big success (Mike & Gary's really, Eric was the foreman on this one) was the construction of the tallest tower out of a newspaper & some masking tape.The winner was the structure still standing at the end of the evening. Ours wasn't the tallest but it was the tallest at the time of judging. You can see the boys efforts and mine after I found all the sweets.

Our other bit of news is that we went to see Simon & Garfunkel on their "Old Friends" tour. They were fantastic, the band was excellent, the sound was amazing but they are old. I'm glad we went because I don't think we'll have another opportunity. The sad thing is that the people in Adelaide sit down at concerts & clap politely! Those 2 guys were working hard on the stage & nobody got up & danced. Eventually I did but people didn't like it. The only time the audience woke up was at the end when they wanted encores!! They certainly deserve any!

The girls are having fun. Annie off to a disco tonight. They're on holiday for 2 weeks. Gary will have fun entertaining them in the rain - I think he should take them to the Gold Coast. Can't persuade him though.

We now have internet access at home but Gary reckons we can only get it outside, not sure why. If you want to skype that would be great. We don't have a landline but I have my UK mobile & an Aussie mobile 0439246146.
The new address is:

243 The Esplanade

Seacliff

South Australia 5049

Since I started this blog last week the weather has become wild with freak storms - bit like a British summer but I here you're all having a heatwave.

Take care

Lots of love

Missing you all

Geraldine x

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