kate and graeme

There isn’t a lot of news to bring about our new place at the moment.  The builders are working on getting the plans submitted to the councils liking (they’ve had one go already, only to be sent straight back) and so it will be a little while before anything truly interesting is happening (like some house being built).

In the meantime next door’s house has being going up at a rate of knots. While we are envious of their progress we will be happy to have some neighbours and not be the only house on the block by the time our house goes up.

Last update, I promised a picture of our land and so here one is:

Mum, Kate and Lily @ the 'Sold' Sign

This afternoon we have received notice from our conveyancors that the land we were purchasing has settled.  This is great news for us as it represents the completion of the first phase of getting our own place.  The next stage - getting a house built - will be a somewhat longer process, however we hope to be moved in sometime in Autumn next year.

Building a house is the next step in our little family’s life journey together and we have wanted very much to be in our own space for such a long time now that it is really starting to feel overdue.  While we are looking forward to watching the house go up, at the same time there is an element of can it be done already, as we are very much looking forward to have our little bit of the world that we can arrange how we like without worrying about landlords, real estate agents et al and on the financial side progressing our assets rather than paying someone else’s mortgage. Though we are also lucky that we are able to stay at Kate’s parents until the house is built and not have to worry about renting and it’s issues currently.

The only downside to building a house, is well the organisation that it requires - it is very time consuming.   Which explains for the lack of updates here. As between catching up with people and life in general after our move back from London, we have been looking at (many, many) display homes, organising mortgages, going to brickyards, contract appointments or just pouring over plans to make sure we are getting what we want.

We hope to journal the construction of our new home on this blog, so check back to keep up to date with what is happening.  I’ll try and start by putting up some photos of the land.  Also, we haven’t forgot about journaling the 3-4 trips that we took torwards the end of our time in Europe and will hopefully get those up in drips and drabs, in the not too distant future.

Lastly, if you reside in Sydney and haven’t caught up with us yet feel free to leave a comment and we’ll try and organise something.

Till next time,

-Graeme

Should’ve put this post up yesterday, but the laptop never came out (well, mine didn’t… Graeme, of course, had his out within 10 minutes of walking in the door…).
Our first port of call in Australia ended up being Melbourne, but just the airport tarmac. Sydney was fogged in and we were diverted to Melbourne, along with a million other planes. We were 7 hours late by the time we finally landed in Sydney. Needless to say, those hours spent sitting in the plane in Melbourne made us eternally grateful for the wonders of frequent flyer points - business class was already sweet, but it would have been torture to get almost there and then spend 7 more hours crammed in economy. Before you ask, no, we weren’t allowed to leave the plane in Melbourne. The whole experience was frustrating, but we can’t fault anyone who was aboard the plane - the Qantas crew were fantastic.
So, after 3 years and 4 months, we’re back in Sydney. Home for now is with my parents and youngest brother in a house they moved to about the same time as we got married, so have never actually lived in. Lily is already getting used to having a bunch of new people around and everyone commented about how great she was on the flight. Looking forward to catching up with all our family and friends and settling back into life here.

Oh, and just so you know…
- We will eventually get around to posting about all the other trips we did while we were overseas.
- We plan to continue to use this site to document the things going on with us and our adventures back here in Australia.

We are currently in Singapore, writing this from a free computer in the Qantas Business Class Lounge.  The whole Business Class thing has been cool so far and Lily has been exceptional.  Though not sure how we would have handled her in economy.  Not long till we are in Sydney, we are so looking forward to seeing everyone.

I know I promised this to some of you awhile ago. To be honest, I started writing it about 2 months ago, but never got around to finishing and posting it. Anyway, I tried to make a wishlist thingy online, but it just wasn’t working for me the way I felt it should, so I decided to give you this little list of guidelines instead. Use them as you will.

Lily loves music.
She adores books and has even stopped trying to eat them… almost.***
There are already plenty of stuffed animals in our household.
Lovingly handmade (by you, or someone else) is always appreciated in our family.
Quality second-hand stuff is just as good as new.
If you want to buy her clothes, please be aware that she wears cloth nappies (so she has a big butt) and is pretty big for her age.
We are trying to refocus all areas of our lives to quality over quantity.
We would rather things that don’t require batteries.
We’re not anti-plastic, but do love things made of natural materials.
While pink is good, so is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple…
Please remember Lily is only a year old.

Above all, it really is fine if you just get (or even better, make) a nice card with a thoughtful sentiment - she’s not going to remember turning 1, but she will enjoy looking back at things like cards when she is older.

***EDIT: The list of books we own is now up - you can get to it from the link up there on the right, under Pages.

Graeme has told his work, so now we can go public with it - we are moving back to Sydney!

In the first week of June, we will embark on the insane 24-hour trek from London to Sydney with an (almost) one year old in tow. Luckily, we have booked our flight with frequent flyer points and were able to get business class seats, so the three of us won’t have to cram into a space that’s barely big enough for two small adult humans (if you’ve ever met us in person, you will know that none of us fit into the category of ’small’). Hopefully though, Lily will fly as well as she has every other time and we won’t annoy the other passengers too much…

We will arrive back in Sydney just in time to celebrate Lily’s first birthday with family and friends (if you believe that should include you but haven’t received an invite to the party, please do let us know) and then… well, who knows. I kind of think moving back after three and a half years will be almost as big an adventure as coming over was, especially given how much our little family unit has changed.

See you all in 7 weeks or so…

(I know some of you were already aware of this - take this as your cue that you don’t need to be hushed about it anymore)

That’s right - 2 chocolate countries in 2 weekends. Graeme prefers Swiss chocolate, I prefer Belgian, Lily doesn’t get to have chocolate yet…

Saturday 21 March

It was so hard to wake up that we almost got to our second/backup alarm time, meaning we had to get dressed and leave in a big hurry. Thankfully, we made it to St Pancras international at exactly the right time to go straight through and onto the train and then we were on the Eurostar headed for Brussels. Once in Brussels, we were straight onto another train to Brugge.

Got ourselves a map from a little dispenser near the tourist information at the station (it cost us 50c and meant we had to buy some lollies to get change, but way faster than queueing at the tourist info) and then wandered into the city. We were glad we’d brought a stroller, but wish our big one was more compact because the little one was all over the place on the cobbled streets and walkways. Wandered through Brugge, which is full of very cool buildings, plus a generally beautiful place with canals and lots of old-world charm.

Ended up in big, main Markt square and had lunch there… well we went and bought sandwiches away from the square and then brought them back and sat in the square to eat - a much cheaper option. Once we’d had lunch, Kate checked out the haberdashery store we’d spotted while Graeme queued for the ATM (there seemed to be very few and the first one we found wouldn’t take our bankcard). Kate went and checked out some other stuff, including a Tintin shop, which was kind of cool, but also a bit insane, while Graeme continued to queue. Finally, he got some cash and we headed to our hotel via a walk through a park.

We checked into the hotel, used toilet and suitable baby-changing surface then back out (we seem to do this a lot - it’s often hard to find public amenities). After being in Belgium almost a whole day, we finally bought some chocolate (yum) and then our Harry Potter book (up to 2 of each book in assorted languages). Wandered a bit more then back to the hotel, where we had dinner in the hotel restaurant. Lily fell asleep part way through, so we stayed for dessert - it was a fantastic Belgian meal.

Sunday 22 March

Got up and sorted then checked out of the hotel. Bought breakfast from a supermarket, including a container of grapes - Lily loves grapes. Headed to the station via a section of Brugge we didn’t see yesterday, including some more pretty parks and canals.

We took the train back to Brussels, got a map from the station and headed out of the station straight into a huge trash and treasure style markets. Wandered through for a bit, but they seemed more trash than treasure, so we walked up the main boulevarde into the city centre - it was quite divy and somewhat neglected to start with but got nicer closer into the centre.

It was interesting that everything seemed to be in French here whereas Brugge was all Flemish and is less than an hour away. We grabbed some sandwiches from same chain as yesterday and sat in a square in front of the opera house to eat them. Can’t say it was especially pretty, but the same can be said for most of Brussels that we saw. Still a bit hungry and craving something warm, we got some fries in a cone (frittes) from a tiny shop with a long queue and then went to McDonalds to use their loo. We then explored the main Market square, which was the first really interesting part of the town, visually.

We walked up a hill via a craft Market to some formal gardens (unfortunately we had to go up lots of steps, which isn’t easy with a stroller, but we managed) made a little less formal by lots of graffiti.  Got up to the palace then walked around to main park, which had a nice fountain. We ended up staying here for a while because Lily woke up, so we had a play near the fountain. We then walked a different route back to the main square, via the big cathedral which is up on a hill and looks very impressive.

We got our one and only waffle (with icecream and chocolate) of the trip and as we were eating it, realised we had picked the one place serving it with Australian icecream. We decided to begin walking back to station, even though our train wasn’t due to leave for hours, because we were hoping that instead of putting us on the later train, we could get on an earlier one, since ours had been cancelled due to trackwork. We went via the famous peeing statue and found he had clothes on as part of a Unicef campaign.

Got to station and discovered that the train we thought left at 7.30 actually left just before 7, but we were lucky enough to get seats and again go straight through the process and onto the train - the train we had originally been told we were moved to would have got to London after 11, so it was much better to be back to St. Pancras at 8:30.
OK, here’s the photos…

We’ve been away plenty more than we’ve written about, but we keep putting off writing things up for various reasons, often thinking that we should catch up before we write about our latest adventure. Well, not anymore - we’re just going to get things up as often as we can and in whatever order they happen. Hope you don’t get too confused.

Friday 27 March

Up early and once again we were at Heathrow way before a humanly acceptable time. As usual, we ended up with time to kill, so we got some breakfast and waited at gate and then got to be the very first ones on the plane - turns out, if you’re travelling with a baby, take a stroller and sit near the desk in the departure lounge and they will actually ask you to come on before the general boarding call, even if they don’t make the ‘can people who need assistance or are travelling with small children please board now’ announcement.

Lily, the plane-catching expert that she is, was asleep before we got in the air and slept almost the whole way to Zurich… although that may have had more to do with the fact that she didn’t go back to sleep when we got her out of bed 3 hours before her usual waking time. Anyway, we got to Zurich, collected a map from the tourist information and promptly got lost by getting on the wrong train from the airport. It definitely said it was going to the station we wanted and definitely did not go there. Graeme tried to get help from a lady who knew no English, we ummed and aahed about what to do and where we were but eventually we worked out where we’d gone wrong and got on a train to the city centre.

Once in the city centre we followed a walking path set out on the map we’d collected earlier. The route took us to the top of a hill to get the best view of the old town, down the hill by the river to the view of the nice bridge and two cathedrals on either side of the river.

Following this the route then took us around to see the two churches, the Grossmunster and St Peters. St Peters had brilliant, modern stained glass windows (but we couldn’t take photos, so had to buy a postcard). We then went back to the Barnhofstrasse and walked towards the lake, past lots of fancy shops. After checking out the water, we headed back up to have lunch and encountered our now ever-current problem - where to eat with a baby in tow… Finally settled on some fast food, then headed back to the station where we balked at paying 2 francs to use a baby change and did it on a nearby bench instead.

We then caught the train (the right one this time) to Bern.

Once in Bern, we walked from the station to the hotel, which was quite a walk, but saved us the tram fare (which we later found out we could actually get cheaper) and also allowed us to see the city in the late afternoon sun, which proved very important when it rained on us all the next day.  We crashed out at the hotel for awhile and then went back out to get some dinner which proved more effort than it should’ve been (see issue from lunchtime).

All three of us were absolutely exhausted by the time we got back and we crashed for the night.

Saturday 28 March

Had an easy-going morning and didn’t leave the hotel until almost 11. Caught the tram to the station, left our big bag in a locker, got breakfast from a supermarket and then walked to the Market we’d seen from the tram. Were just about to leave the market when Lily decided she needed a nap but wasn’t going to sleep until she’d had some milk. Of course, it was raining and miserable, so we couldn’t just sit anywhere, we had to find somewhere inside that we could sit and feed her. So we got a drink and sat in starbucks until she was asleep then followed some of the suggested city walk from the tourist map we got. Took in the parliament, the view of the valley below and other parts of the old town until we couldn’t take the driving rain anymore and headed to find some lunch. We’d seen a good looking likely candidate but it was full when we turned up and we were ushered away with a direct ‘nein’. This forced us to rethink and so we continued our tour of the fountains on the main street before having a cafeteria lunch at the top of a department store. It was very good and not too pricey for Switzerland, which we were quickly discovering is an expensive place.

After lunch we walked to the end of the old town and crossed the bridge to the other side of the valley where the bear pits are. Here we saw one of the mascot bears called Pedro, a big brown guy who is only a year younger than us. Lily was especially excited to see a bear, a bit different to her teddies though. We then walked back to the station, collected our bags from the locker and waited for our train to Lausanne.

The trip to Lausanne was just over an hour and the most spectacular bit is just near the end when the train exits a tunnel under a mountain and all of Lake Geneva is revealed before you. The countryside in general was very pretty throughout Switzerland.

We arrived in lausanne and headed to our hotel, which was a short walk from the main station. The hotel check-in was interesting as there was no reception, you ring them and they talk you through some stuff, finding out it’s you and then when they are happy a box pops open with your keys! We had a suite room with 3 beds, tables and a kitchenette. So for dinner we got some stuff from the supermarket and cooked it ourselves, spending the night inside out of the rain and enjoying having hot baths in a decent sized bath.

Sunday 29th march

Woke up very early for our London-based bodies - 8am feels very early when you are an hour ahead of your timezone and daylight savings started overnight. At least we’d gone to bed nice and early. Got ourselves dressed and sorted and up (literally, it was a massive steep climb) to Place St Francois to meet Rachel, a friend from back in Australia who now lives in Lausanne. Had a drink in starbucks (it’s where we met and where she works) and did the initial catch-up thing. Then Rachel got a call from someone at her church wondering why she wasn’t there yet - she was supposed to be on the welcome team. We considered going along to church with her, but instead decided to explore Lausanne and then meet her to go to Vevey together.

We climbed another steep hill up to the cathedral which had a great view over the city from the front. Wandered through the old town a bit then down the cool covered staircase and around via the road to another square (they like those in Europe). Lily was being a grump so we stopped in the square and got her out of the stroller and she had a great time watching the little birds that were flitting around, although she was uninterested in food or anything. We decided to head down to the water’s edge, but first caught the metro back to our hotel to grab some extra layers for Lily and change her nappy. Then down to Ouchy and walked along the edge of the lake for a bit. We noticed some cool large pedalos that had slippery dips on the back for sliding into the lake, and figured the place must be teaming with people come summer. From the lakes edge at Ouchy we headed back up to St Francois again to meet Rachel for the second time. Once we’d met up, we went back down the hill to the station where we caught a train that took 15 minutes or so to get to Vevey.

Vevey is very picturesque, on the lake with tall mountains all around. First stop in Vevey was to get lunch and we had a great lunch in a hotel restuarant near to the lake. After lunch we had a walk along the lakeside boulevarde, seeing a 2 metre tall fork stood in the lake, and generally just enjoying the nice surrounds. Lily wasn’t much enjoying being in her pram by this stage and as it was pretty cold with the wind blowing off the lake, Graeme carried her inside her foot muff from the stroller so she’d be warm enough. Now we’d looped around and were heading back to the center of town and we stopped off at a cafe for a break to get out of the cold for a while and catch up some more with Rachel. Lily had fun trying to get the attention of some slightly older boys and walking (with hand held) over to an old lady, whom she even let hold her for a bit, before getting shy and wanting Mummy.

After the tea break we headed back to the station and back to Lausanne where we headed back to our hotel room with Rachel and had a bit of a chat, with Lily roaming all over the room before Rachel headed home.

Graeme went out and brought back dinner as it was pretty cold by this point and with the daylight savings change and busy day we were all tired.

Monday 30th March

Got up and sorted our stuff, Kate wasn’t feeling well, so in no particular hurry. Went to the train station and got a train to Geneva about 40 minutes away. Lily fell asleep on the train.

Put the big bag in a locker at the station before heading off for a walk around the town. Went down to the lake’s edge, pretty but very cold and windy. Headed from there up the hill to the old town, wandered around for a bit before heading back down to the shopping boulevarde to try and find some lunch - too fancy to have somewhere suitable for us. Ended up at a department store again, near to the station, which had a cafeteria restaurant up the top, good food, not too expensive and with a view over Geneva.

After a nice long lunch, we went back to the station and collected bag, then caught the train to the airport.

Quick flight home, got home before sunset due to daylight savings change.

OK, here’s the photos…

Okay, have finally finished the Wales post - you can find it below. Hoping to get some more posts up soon, of our other recent trips, but no guarantees.