Our house is somewhere at the top left of the picture

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/special-features/kenyan-chelimo-luka-kipkemboi-wins-2010-perth-rebel-sports-city-to-surf-for-activ-marathon/story-fn5knzic-1225911468359

Getting there...

Bedroom nearly done... we have this great walk in ward robe which means more space in my old wardrobe. The bedroom is huge (the ensuite as well). Filled a box with hats/scarves and gloves.. guess we won't be needing those for a while. Playroom nearly finished as well. Biggest room of the house, upstairs with great views. Lots of windows so nice and bright and a door to a big balcony. I still have these old lundia bookshelves. They belonged to my dad when he was a student and they are so practical and all our books and the toys for the boys have a space now.  Boys' bedrooms work in progress. They look rather empty now the toys are all upstairs (the boys sleep downstairs) Dining room also not finished. Still need to sort out all the cd's. Spare room.. not at all finished.. Garage... haven't even been there yet, Kitchen/lounge area sort of organised. It just needs pictures up and maybe another rug. The house is so much bigger than we're used to.. we have to be careful not to buy loads more to clutter it up. But we do need some nice garden furniture. Today we bought a TV and a hoover. It was so warm today, 23 degrees and Jamie took the boys to City Beach. I am glad I joined them a bit later. It was so lovely to be outside (and not unpacking boxes and sorting things). The beach is safe(ish) for children as there are 2 groynes to keep the waves down a little bit. Willem likes this beach better as it is wider so he's not too worried about the frisbee ending up in the sea. Still quite a few boxes of "bits and bops" to sort out. And now I wish  did sort out more in Aberdeen...but it's easier to throw out stuff now I haven't seen it for 3 months... Tomorrow is the City to Surf, a 12k run from the city centre to the beach (where we live). About 50.000 people take part. I thought about entering but am glad I didn't as I've got so much to do now! We will just be spectators this time. Willem wants to join next year! Will take some photos soon. Thanks for reading!

Pfffffff...

Long, long day...
After dropping Willem off at Kindy, Frank and I drove straight to our new house. The movers were already there and had unwrapped a lot of things already. I showed them round the house so they knew where to put the boxes. The guys were very nice and worked hard. They also put some of the furniture together which is great (they didn't do that in Oman). We have some damage, a couple of glasses, a bowl, minor things but also the leather sofas. For some reason the bubble wrap has stuck to them. We can still sit on them but it doesn't look good so we will have to claim those. I am not sad about it. They're not new and I am not attached to them.. quite happy to replace really! My big urns from Oman are still in one piece (much more important) and also my chest and big frame... Have been unpacking boxes as fast as I could so the guys could take the empty boxes away.. long day.. am very tired now. Frank was brilliant.. just played by him self all day! At 2.30 Jamie came home so I could pick up Willem. He hadn't been in the house since we first saw it and he said it is even better than he remembered it. That makes me feel good.. When I saw the house on my own I already thought: "this is it" and I am glad Jamie feels the same. It is so light and airy. Jamie said" I've always wanted to have a bedroom with windows on two sides and now we have one with three sides!" and with sea views south.., the island of Rottnest.. a great room to wake up in. It's huge, with a walk in wardrobe and big (a rather romantic, ugly looking) en suite bathroom. I promise to take photos when all the furniture has a space. We are used to a kitchen with lots of storage space so this kitchen  is a bit of a puzzle but I am sure we get there... Now time for a beer and a real weird reality show on the telly: "the farmer wants a wife"... very Ozzie!

Keys!

Yesterday Frank and I visited the Art Gallery. Lots of Aboriginal art, old and new and some fantastic modern art. Also a special corner for the little ones where Frank created a piece of abstract art with vinyl shapes on a huge magnetic white board. This morning I picked up the keys for our house and went to have another look now it's all empty and ours! It's nice and bright inside and I still think it's going to be a great place to live. But when you see an empty house with no furniture you also see all the marks and cracks and other things. It's obviously a house that has been lived in (not freshly painted). In a way that is good as I am sure Willem and Frank will leave their own marks. I noticed very ugly tiles in the ensuite bath room! Pink roses on relief! And gold along the mirror.. Ah well, in Oman I also got used to my bright yellow curtains and green bath room suite! It doesn't matter. It still smells a bit of curry (an Indian family lived in the house) so I think I will need to buy some air freshner..The estate agent said it was ok if we wanted to put pictures up, we just needed to call him so the handy man can come and do it. The lemon tree has huge lemons. I will have to borrow books from the library about growing vegetables in WA. Tomorrow at 9.30 the sea freight will be delivered. Will be a busy time!

dinner party

This morning we bought a huge fridge and a washing machine. We went to the park and in the evening we were invited for dinner at one of Jamie's colleagues Audrey. They also live in City Beach, not far from where we will be living. When we arrived we were amazed. Audrey and her family live in one of those huge mansions we were talking about earlier! Enormous door, steps with very big vases alongside it, a sculpture in the front garden, pillars and inside just as amazing. So grand! Swimming pool of course in the garden and a real fire place in an outdoor room! But very friendly people. So hopefully our neighbours who live in similar houses will be nice too! There were also other colleagues: Scott, Jamie's boss and his family, Giulia and her husband Geoff and a few more. Fantastic food (way too much of course) and a very enjoyable evening. Audrey's teenage children entertained the younger ones so it was relaxing for all of us. Tomorrow we're invited for lunch at Neil and Nicky's. We know them from Oman and haven't seen them for years. Looking forward to seeing them again.

house, school and car updates

On Wednesday I spent the day with Tamar. We went to Fremantle to one of those indoor playcentres. Frank loved it. I received a phone call from Georgi, our fantastic relocation agent to say the lease contract had come through and if Jamie could come in and sign it. Luckily he was free so now we have a house. We get the key on the 24th!!! I went to the house to measure up the space for the fridge. The tenants who live there now were in the middle of moving out and it looked a real mess...but she said the cleaners were planned for 2 days and the carpet cleaners the day after. We have to sign a "condition report" before we move in so we will need to take a close look otherwise we end up paying for things we didn't do. The contract is full of things like: if you fail to do this and that the cost is for you. We have two "watering" days, Tuesday and Saturday. Water is expensive here. On Thursday I took the contract to City Beach Primary school to show "proof of address". I worried we might not get a place without that proof. The really friendly receptionist took a copy but said the letters had already gone out. She couldn't say yes or no but she could smile.. so yippie.. the boys have a place in February! Now we can walk to school as it's around the corner. We also met up with Urmila and baby Lukas in Freshwater Bay, a place near the river in Peppermint Grove (one of the most expensive areas of Perth) and it was so lovely there! Nice playground, beach, coffee shop etc. A warm day anyway so we stayed till 3 pm! This morning we went to Scarboro Toyota and picked up our  car. I found a note under the windscreen of our blue hired car. It said they damaged the door. AARGH, how annoying but at least they left a note with name and phone number and at least it isn't our new car! Jamie took the car back and gave the note to the car hire company to deal with it. The sea freight is still planned for delivery on the 25th so hopefully we don't need to hire furniture and we can move straight in. We need to leave Mount Bayswater apartments on the 26th. Busy busy now.. sorting out car insurance, looking for fridges, phone connection, internet, washing machines etc. and all the other things that come with moving.. but exciting though!

Making new friends...

Yesterday I met up with one of the Dutch mums, Katja, from the playgroup. We had a lovely lunch and chatted for a couple of hours near Swanbourne beach on the playground. Frank and Katja's daughters played nicely and Katja and I got on really well. She's a lawyer and married a South African.  Today we met up again after the Dutch School, together with two other parents of the Dutch Playgroup, Irold (a house dad, 2 boys) and Simone (2 girls). We did a similar thing, had lunch at a beach playground but this time at Floreat beach. It has a great kiosk with fantastic fruit juices and good sandwiches. We left a good couple of hours later when it started to rain. I feel really good about this as I am already starting to make new friends of my own...They are all 37/38 years old (like me) with similar aged kids and talking in Dutch is always easy. It's good for Willem and Frank too, to have Dutch friends to keep the language up to date.. Katja and Simone only arrived a couple of months ago and are also fairly new to Perth.

I also ran up Jacob's ladder 4 times last night (after Jamie got home from work), 242 steps up to Kings Park. It's a real Australian thing to do.. You run up in a traffic jam of people, all running up and down.
This morning, when the boys were in school, I ran up again but went into Kings Park and ran a really nice 2 and half km loop along to edge of the Park with great views of the river and Nedlands Yacht club. The way back was through the bush and there are already quite a few wildflowers in bloom. Very pretty.