Pink in Adelaide

Just a short post as I remembered I hadn't mentioned our night out on Wednesday - too tired to write about it the next day! We - that is, DD and me - went to see Pink on the second night of her trip to Adelaide. She was awesome! How she did that show two nights in a row I will never know: she must have been exhausted, and even more amazing, how did she walk - let alone run and dance - in heels that high??!!

From the minute she rose up out of the stage on a suspended trapeze-type thing, to the end when she was again on the trapeze, spinning at great speed, being dipped into a tank of water, and singing all the time, the show was absolutely spectacular. She's back in August, and a friend who was with us on Wednesday has already booked her tickets to go and see the show again. If tickets didn't cost something like $130 each, I'd be tempted myself!


Everything was so well done - the dancers and the band were amazing, the acrobatics outstanding, and the stage set stunning!

The cover versions she did of Bohemian Rhapsody and "I Touch Myself" were brilliant - I really need to know where she bought her sofa from! But the absolute best for me had to be Family Portrait - the pianist was fantastic, and the song was incredibly powerful. I've run out of superlatives now though so here's some pictures DD took at her first experience of a "real" concert!

Nepotism - or something very like it!

Just need to rant a little (for a change!): Son has been trying out for the District soccer team - initially we were told they'd hold two trials, three if absolutely necessary, to select the final 14 players. Son tried out for the position of goalie, and the first week there were about five kids trying out for that role. At the end of the second trials, they cut the numbers down to 22 - and son made it through that cut, along with only one other goalie.

Now, turns out this other goalie is already in the state team (state under 12s I guess as all the kids have to be primary school age) but hasn't actually turned up to all the trials, and in fact has broken his arm, so last night, the fourth trial, he's there with his arm in plaster, playing in goal (for the first time at trials) but unable to actually use his arm - quite a disadvantage in a goalie! The tournament is due to be played in two weeks.

At the end of the trials yesterday they announced the final 14, and lo and behold, this other guy gets the nod, and son gets rejected - with the proviso that if the other guy doesn't get medical clearance before the tournament, he'll be the emergency reserve. Now call me biased but surely if this other kid hasn't had medical clearance yet, he shouldn't be at the trials, and if his parents had any sort of common sense they'd have told him "well, son, as you're injured give the District team a miss this year and let some other kid have a go!" - or even "well, son, it's pretty foolish playing soccer with your arm in plaster - what if you fall on it, or the ball gets kicked at it, and the injury is made worse"! But no...... Surely there is some sort of duty of care - both on the part of this kids' parents and on the part of the coach?

What is he doing out on a soccer field with an arm in plaster, prior to receiving medical clearance, which he obviously hasn't had yet? What is the coach doing picking him when (a) he isn't fit to trial, and (b) he hasn't attended all the trial sessions, and certainly yesterday was the first time he'd been put in goal, and rarely got a touch on the ball (with his feet or his head, NOT with his arm obviously!) It does make me wonder -being the suspicious type - if maybe there is some sort of favouritism going on here. Son has been left totally bitter, feeling it's not about skill and dedication and the selection process was purely arbitrary!

If they do end up calling on my son to fill in at the last minute I'd really like to tell them where to stick their district team, but son was so keen to play, so I guess we'd have to say yes, and in the meantime, just stick small pins in a little soccer goalie doll and hope this other poor kid doesn't get medical clearance to play!

Keep telling myself it's only a game, but hey, it's a tough life lesson to learn for a 12 year old that the system sometimes, in his words "just sucks"!

Dining and Drinking

Great girls' night out on Thursday at the Golden Grove Tavern. We try and do this about once a month, and post up details on the forums so anyone that may have just arrived can come along, and we had about ten of us this week. Great to meet Sue for the first time and welcome Georgie who wins the prize for newest arrival, and nice to see some familiar faces too. As usual, we were the last ones in the bar, with the landlord having to shoo us out and lock the doors behind us! The Golden Grove Tavern is actually one of the better places as far as this is concerned, we went to the Tea Tree Gully Hotel a couple of months ago and were made to feel like complete dirty stop-outs for being out past 9:30pm!

Felt a bit hungover going into work in Port Adelaide on Friday morning, but a great celebration lunch at the Argo Hellenic Greek Restaurant, (http://www.portenf.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=716&c=25816) celebrating the Enterprise Centre our office is located in having won "International Incubator of the Year" award recently, and our boss having just come back from the awards ceremony in Kansas. Great food, and apparently it's huge fun on a Friday night when they have live music and greek dancing. Can highly recommend the Mixed Platter for Two - which had more than enough for four of us!

Out again in the evening with some friends of OH to a restaurant in Norwood called Manto's - http://www.mantocafe.com.au/ - have to say this is one of the best Italian restaurants I've been to with some really nice things on the menu, good atmosphere and friendly staff. I had the Pollo Spinaci, which was chicken breast with baby spinach, pears and walnuts - just the right size portion (after stuffing my face at lunchtime as well!) and extremely tasty. Norwood Parade is full of restaurants and cafes and has a real buzz in the evening, and this place is definitely worth checking out if you haven't been -it's opposite the Hoyts cinema. Upstairs from the Cafe is Maxim's where there was live music from a couple of R&B bands, open till late - I dragged OH away at nearly midnight and it was still going strong! Perhaps we should have one of our next girls' nights out there (there were certainly lots more men than girls there last night!) - they won't throw us out at 11pm! http://flightcentre.agfg.com.au/guide/sa/adelaide/adelaide-surrounds/norwood/restaurants-dining/maxims-wine-barbistro

Feel like I need a bit of a rest from bars and restaurants now for a few days, but our oven and grill are still out of action - mouse number 9 caught in the humane trap in the oven overnight - I don't think I ever want to eat anything cooked in there again!

Dinner, anyone?

Here in South Australia, I reckon the local councils can pretty much be judged on their attitudes to pet animals. Tea Tree Gully Council, for instance, under which our suburb comes, is very pro-dog, anti-cat: lots of places to walk dogs off lead, pet parks with jumps and hoops for your dog, council-run dog training classes, excellent facilities.... show them a cat on the other hand and their response is "lock it up, lock it up, spawn of satan, lock it up!" They haven't managed it yet, but there seems to be constant debates about whether cats should be allowed at all, and if so whether they shouldn't be kept totally contained and confined to a cage at all times to protect the native wildlife. Make a note of that bit coz I'm coming back to it in a moment!

Tea Tree Gully is separated from Campbelltown Council only by the glorious Linear Park, with the boundary line somewhere in the middle of the Torrens River - barely more than a stream at this stage, but over there, as far as I can make out, dogs are bad, cats are good, which means that anyone with any sense who wants their dog to have a nice walk crosses over to this side of the river and lets them run off lead, and I am constantly panicking that Bonny the Devil Dog will cross over the river after a duck or something, inadvertantly leaving me open to a large fine for having her off lead on the wrong side of the river!

Now, we have a cat and a dog, but I'm afraid our cat is never in her life going to a be a threat to local wildlife, in fact, she's been running her own native wildlife breeding programme, unbeknownst to us, in our kitchen! Yes, she's brought in a little native mouse, set it up in comfort and style somewhere (possibly behind the fridge!) where it's happily given birth to its own little brood, quietly and discretely until the last few days, when we noticed strange things happening.... the tin foil lining the grill tray was shredded into tiny pieces, and then the baking paper on one of my baking trays was ...errrrmm... how can I put this?.... decorated with small black mouse droppings! Yes, we have mice. Not living in the oven as such, but certainly paying it and the grill tray frequent visits, cleaning up any crumbs that may have been left, processing them through their little mouse bodies, and leaving the results in my oven!!! Ewwwwww, I never want to eat anything from there again!!!

Dreading the thought of dead mouse in the oven even more than mouse poo (well not more than, but god, the combination....!), I managed to buy a "humane" mouse trap which we duly baited with chocolate and put into the (unlit) oven last night. Two hours later, one trapped mouse, taken for a walk into the park and released. Reset and replaced the trap and this morning....result - two trapped mice! How many more of the things are there? OH has told me to check the trap today and if filled, to take the occupant into the park for release a good distance away (is there such a thing as a homing mouse?)

I already get strange looks when I take the dog out for a walk, and the cat trots along with us as far as the river, then waits for our return and runs out to greet us. Heaven knows what people are going to say now when they see me taking the dog, the cat, and a caged mouse out for a walk in the morning!

Anyone fancy a nice roast from my oven?

Autumn in Adelaide

Just back from walking the dog and Adelaide truly is a great place to be in the autumn! The sun is out, the sky that clear, bright blue, the grass thick and green and wet with dew.... Don't think I ever took much notice of birds and birdsong when I was in England - perhaps it was because we didn't have a dog so I wasn't out walking in parks first thing in the morning, but this morning as the magpies yodelled in the trees, the galahs flew squeaking overhead, small lorakeets swooped like speedy spitfires, flashing orange, red, emerald green and blue feathers, and the grey heron stood patiently in the river shallows, I was struck anew with how lovely a place we live in. Autumn mornings, when you wear gloves and a scarf against the fresh morning air, but sunglasses are essential, are absolutely glorious here!


The recent dew-y mornings and a bit of rain over the weekend has softened the ground enough for a whole load of mushrooms to break their way up through the soil - some I'm sure are the normal field mushroom, the type you get in the supermarket, but I'm not brave enough to try them, whilst others are tall and thin, or spindly and yellow, or crusty-looking and mustardy in tone. Where before the grass was a smooth swathe, it now looks like it's broken out in a nasty case of acne!

Off to the opticians this morning for an eye test - have decided to take the plunge and look into laser surgery for my eyes - first step is to get an up to date prescription, then buy a cheap pair of glasses to wear in the five days leading up to my laser consultation, when I'm not allowed to wear my lenses... then the terrifying wait. Everyone I've spoken to who's had it done says it's the best thing they ever did, and I fall asleep so often in my contact lenses that I really feel I should get my eyes fixed before doing them serious damage, but I'm so damn scared!

Adelaide Essentials

Actually, thinking about it, this is probably Australia essentials! One of your very first purchases when you arrive in Oz, and something that you really, really can't live without here, is....... fold up camping chairs! Preferably the ones that fold up umbrella style, with little drink holders in the arm rests! The 'low slung' ones I've seen around also look very useful, although I'd say not essential as we've managed without - those can go on the "nice to have" list!

We bought some when we first arrived and they've been invaluable. You take them with you on all occasions: to the kids' sporting events and training sessions, to open air concerts, to the drive-in cinema, to people's houses for barbecues, to office parties that invariably are held in a public park somewhere, and of course the obvious - when you go camping or out for the day to just about anywhere! In fact we have taken ours to so many places that we started off with four of them, and somehow have managed to leave two somewhere, but goodness knows where! The two remaining ones are now looking very much the worse for wear, the dog chewed her way through one of the drink holders at a very early stage, and a couple of the plastic bits on the hinge mechanism have started to give up the ghost - time for a trip to a camping shop methinks!

Just one small word of warning: went to get out our two remaining ones to take to the Pedal Prix at the weekend (http://www.pedalprix.com.au/) and realised we'd left them outside on the patio, folded up and lying on the floor (the chairs, not me!) OH picked up the first one, shook it open and firstly out fell three cockroaches - yukk, I hate those things. Flipped it open and on the back there's this huge redback spider, shiny red spot on its back - thank goodness OH hadn't picked it up by that particular edge. On the ground where it had been lying was an extremely large and very scary-looking wolf spider! All that wildlife on one little chair! Funnily enough, even after cleaning everything off it, we decided not to take that particular chair with us after all!!

The Pedal Prix was a great laugh. Unluckily for the competitors, the day was rainy and drizzly (quite a novelty I must admit, here in drought-stricken SA), but for us spectators that meant lots of spills and near crashes on the hairpin bend, as grown men (more competitive dads I suspect) hurtled round the track, mixing it with kids from high schools down to primary age (I think the minimum is Year 5 but that's still only 10 year olds and some of them looked so tiny!) all in their pedal powered vehicles, some a lot more professional-looking than others! By the end, there were vehicles with pieces hanging off them, holes, and held together with yards of tape, and a lot of tired little - and not so little - legs I bet! 9 hour race for the next event, followed by a 24 hour race in September to be held in Murray Bridge - must get round to booking a campsite....and buying those camping chairs!

Four wheeling adventures

Son's birthday today so yesterday we had a Go Karting party planned for him at a local track. He's been dying to try Karting for some time now, but a lot of places have either a minimum age limit or a height limit, and as he's just turning 12, he hasn't been able to do it in the past.

We booked a session at Go Kart Go (www.gokartsgo.com.au) which is located off Research Road in Pooraka - about 20 minutes drive from here. Had a few dramas initially as needed a minimum of 8 (and at $30 a head didn't want to go much over that!) and one of his mates was grounded so unable to come. Managed to find a brave last minute replacement, so rushed around Friday afternoon, stocking up on junk food to feed the brave racers between their two ten minute stints. Times like this I really miss Marks & Spencers, as could at least have got semi-healthy junk to snack on from there! Ordered delicious ice cream cake from Cold Rock - layers of Chocolate Ice cream, Vanilla with Mars Bar mix ins, then Ferrero Rocher flavour with crushed Maltesers, and headed to school to pick up the lad. Chatting to Debbie at the pickup spot (another Taurean - happy birthday Debs) then headed back to car thinking just enough time to get home, tidy up, heat up sausage rolls and garlic bread, then head off to Go Kart track then disaster! As Deb's car drove away round the corner, I turned my ignition key.....nothing....absolutely nothing! For some reason, my car battery is completely dead! Panicked phone call to OH (just about to go into his first week's progress meeting at new job), garbled explanation of the problem and received very very basic instructions on how to push start a car (thanks dear but I just need to know how to do it, not how it works!).... thank goodness there was a slight downward slope as had to get poor son to push me down the road, and thank heavens, results! Son was a little concerned as engine fired up and I drove away down the road but I did come back for him (eventually)!

After that drama, the Go Karting went really well - with amusement provided by another parent who joined in giving a whole new meaning to "Competitive Dad"! Kids had a great time, junk food went down a storm, and sleepover afterwards at our place deemed a great success on the basis of the three boys only getting two hours sleep in the night! I hate kids' sleepovers - just too many non-family members in the house - but they seem to be the big thing here, and no birthday would be complete without one!!!

Phew! Where did the weekend go?

Thank goodness I only have two kids! How on earth parents with three, four, or even more manage I cannot imagine!

Out of school activities are so popular here, that if you come across a child that doesn't do some sort of hobby, sport, music activity in addition to their school stuff, it's the exception rather than the rule. Even trying to limit what ours do, both for reasons of cost and of time, at weekends you have to be a scheduling queen to work it all out (which I am, of course, thanks to my handy HP organiser, which as a phone, is a very good diary!!). Ours just do soccer (one in a school team, one in a club team), choir (daughter in both school and Aussie Girls Choir), drama (just daughter) guitar lessons and ensemble (just son), and something called Pedal Prix (just son - don't ask!)

So now the soccer season has begun here, this weekend for instance we had to take darling daughter to school soccer match on the other side of town for 9:30 kick off (more on that later!), then darling son to club soccer match for 12:15 kick off at different venue, then darling son to Pedal Prix practice at 2pm - and that's just the Saturday! Sunday (Mothers' Day here in Oz) had to accompany DD to Mothers Day Classic - a charity walk/run in aid of Breast Cancer Research, where her choir were singing before the start, and then do the walk with the girls - which, admittedly was great fun for a great cause but hey, it was hard dragging myself out of bed at 7am on a Sunday! When Channel 9 pointed a camera at me before the walk and tried to get sense out of me for an interview, they were wasting their time I'm afraid!!

On the subject of soccer venues, DD goes to a high school that's about ten minutes drive away, probably walkable in about 40 minutes, but in their wisdom they have decided that the girls' soccer A team should play all their matches at a school on the other side of Adelaide! Whereas the B and C team get to play at home every week! She was so pleased to be selected for the A team, as last year the B and C teams played elsewhere, and the A team played at home! Just can't win.......

Added to all of their social and sporting commitments, we try and fit in time to do stuff together, so Friday night (the only night there isn't some kind of training/rehearsals/lessons) we headed out for a meal at the Pepper Leaf Restaurant, Tea Tree Gully. This is a Vietnamese Restaurant apparently, which as far as I can make out is a cross between Chinese and Thai. Not having eaten "vietnamese" before though, we could have really done with a Set Menu with suggestions on how much to order and what goes with what! Faced with this huge menu covered in assorted dishes, we were a bit in the dark, so I have no idea if what we ended up ordering is typical of their food or not. It was ok, but all the dishes we ordered were heavy on carrots, red peppers (that's capsicums, to us aussies!) and onions! I imagined pots of prepared veg in the kitchen, with the chef throwing handfuls of each into different sauces, adding a bit of meat and coming up with 50 variations!

Saturday night we had tickets to see Cats, a production by MetMuscials at the Arts Theatre in Adelaide. Bought the tickets ages ago, but foolishly didn't look at the seat numbers so when we got there it turned out they'd seated the kids in a completely different part of the theatre to us! Unable to change them, as the show was more or less full, but surely when you buy a family ticket of two adults plus two kids, common sense would dictate that you would like to sit together?! Anyway, the performance was good, even if OH felt the actors went a little over the top with their cat mannerisms - even thought one was going to lick her own bottom at one point when she raised one leg high up in the air!

Anyway, that's our busy weekend over - until it all starts again next week! Just can't imagine how parents manage with more kids than our two - chatting with another choir mum on the walk, she mentioned a friend of hers that has 11 kids..... now that just doesn't bear thinking about, in so many ways!!

Ladies Who Lunch!

One of the hardest things when you move to a new country is re-establishing a circle of friends, when you've left all the old ones behind. I was thinking about this yesterday, as I had a lunch date with some more girlfriends, and I was reflecting on how one friend leads to another, then another and so on! I met Debbie first when she moved out here from the UK and her kids were at the same school as mine, through her I met another Debbie, whose daughters were friends with the first Debbie's, then we met Donna, who's a friend of Aussie Debbie, then another English friend Louise started coming along on our lunch meet-ups, so we now make quite a respectable group! Well, respectable in terms of group-size if nothing else!!

Usually we meet at either Cafe Primo in Tea Tree Plaza or Caffe Buongiorno in Tea Tree Plus. Yesterday we thought we'd try out the newly opened Cafe Verde in the new Fairview Park shopping centre! It's a tough life but someone has to do it.....

First two negative points about the centre - there's no ATM there yet so the only way to get cash out is by buying something at Foodland there, and the loos are a bit of a treck from the Cafe, so go before you're really desperate just in case when you get there they're temporarily closed for cleaning (isn't that right, Louise!?!) Ok, that's my pommie whinging out of the way.

The cafe itself was very nice - similar in a lot of ways to Caffe Buongiorno - all the usuals such as Chilli Prawns, Salt and Pepper Squid, Pizzas (I liked the sound of the Tandoori Chicken one - I'm trying that next time!) and a tasty chicken with asparagus, broccoli and blue cheese sauce. Only downside was all five meals didn't come at once, but they did give us some free chips to nibble on and apologise with free coffees all round, so can't really moan! Good wine selection too. Apparently they're open 8:30am to 10pm 7 days a week, so next time I might check out their breakfast menu!

Back to real work today over at the Management Consultants in Port Adelaide. Oh, and the good news is that OH now has a four week contract job after being made redundant at the end of February. Only a short term thing, but Adelaide is all about getting your face and name known, so fingers crossed for this one - at least it will hopefully stop him from nagging me about hanging up my clothes: when he's at work during the day he doesn't keep tripping over the pile!

Five Go Wild in the Grampians

Just back from a wonderful girlie weekend in the Grampians with the other Home2Home girls - left to right Sherie, Judy, Mary and Mandy - www.h2h.com.au

As a family, we've done a small amount of travelling since arriving in Adelaide in 2004: we've driven to Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road, and to Sydney, then down the coast to Melbourne and back on the "fast" road. We've also flown up to the Gold Coast about three times now. One of the places we've missed so far though has been the Grampians - mainly because when we were planning to come back through there in 2006, they were hit by terrible bushfires.

Judy and Mandy had found this wonderful camping park purely by chance a couple of years ago, and had raved about it ever since, and as Mary from our Home2Home helpdesk in the UK was over visiting, it seemed a good chance to see what they were talking about. We hired a people mover (some Toyota thing - not sure of the model!) from our friend Brian at Aussie Car Rentals (www.aussiecarrentals.com.au), Sherie from Migrate Mates (http://www.migratemates.com/) flew down to join us, and we set off Friday lunchtime, heading East!

Well, what can I say about Emu Park Holiday Camp (http://www.emuholidaypark.com.au/)? If you've not experienced any of Australia other than the Cities, then you really need to check this place out! Alan and Vicki, the owners of this fantastic 40 acre park, are also the local fauna rescue people so as you wonder around, wallabies and kangaroos that they've nursed back to health and released watch you pass, and if you're very lucky (as we were) Vicki will have a current resident that she's bottle feeding - we even got to help with this, after which LS the 'roo thought Mandy was its Mum and followed us back to our cabin! Mrs Possum visited us in the evenings - we had been told to be sure and shut the cabin door or she'd be in and on the sofa! - and a pair of Wedge Tailed Eagles flew overhead! The fields around Wartook are just full of 'roos and emus - so much so you really have to drive cautiously, constantly on guard for one bounding across the road in front of you. I imagine living in country Australia is tough - the climate means you're either having to buy in water or you have too much and have to be aware of floods, it's a long old drive even to get your groceries and a long trip on the school bus every day for kids, and then there's the bushfire risk in the summer - but this place, with no mobile phone and very little TV reception, is the place to go to truly relax. They even have a fire-proof shelter - the terradome, complete with double spa bath - that you can rent out by the night for the romantics amongst you (well, it sleeps up to four, so we'd be sharing with the kids - not sure about romance there!)

We visited Halls Gap Food and Wine Fair on the Saturday, and had a great meal at The Wander Inn (http://wanderinn.wordpress.com/) with some family friends of Mary's (complete with great live music by their son while we ate), and then visited their sheep farm on the Sunday, learnt all about the shearing process, and got to bottle feed a 3 day old Suffolk lamb - we christened him Chops - before a wonderful lunch in their beautiful farmhouse. These lovely people had never met half of us before, but welcomed us and treated us like family, it was wonderful.

In between these fantastic experiences, us girls got to plan, and set the world to rights. We talked about ways to get the message across to potential migrants in the UK that if they want to use an agent, it's well worth considering one who is in Australia rather than automatically opting for a UK-based firm: Australian Migration Agents must be licensed and regulated (unlike their UK counterparts); their costs are often substantially lower, and more important than all that; when you land in your new country, your Australian Migration Agent (if it's a good one like Sherie!) is there on the ground to help you settle so you're not just left floundering. Sherie is based in the Gold Coast, but handles visas for migrants to all parts of Australia, and has links with people all over to help her clients when they arrive - like us, here in Adelaide! She often visits the UK and holds 'clinics' offering help and advice, so get in touch with her if you're looking for a great agent who not only knows her stuff, but cares about her clients well beyond the call of duty!

Wartook is about 5.5 hours drive from Adelaide - mostly on the Dukes Highway, the A8 - so if you're planning on checking out Emu Park, try and plan on at least a long weekend, if not longer. We only had two days there but it was so peaceful and welcoming that it felt like a real break - although we all wanted to stay longer!

Back to normality now - son's SAPSASA (South Australian Primary Schools Amateur Sports Association) soccer carnival all day today and back to nagging darling daughter to do her homework in the evenings, despite her doing her best to act out Swine Flu symptoms after the school sent home a list of them to watch out for - I'm not really such an uncaring mother (honestly!) but I'm sure if you have swine flu, it doesn't just hit on school days then take a break at weekends! Sometimes after such a great weekend, the everyday family hassles are just that little bit harder to put up with......