Back to the Start.

It has been just over a week since we got back from the UK.  Our arrival into Melbourne was greeted with heavy rain and thunderstorms and in many ways it feels like we have arrived in Australia for the first time again.

The first and most important job for us when we got back was to acquire a Christmas tree, after all we needed somewhere to put the Christmas presents.  We found a man selling trees that seemed in good shape outside of Bunnings near the Northland shopping centre and so our Christmas tree was sorted.  The only downside was we managed to pick the one day of the year to buy our Christmas tree that Melbourne was suffering an infestation of large green beetles, which hitched a ride with the tree and infested our house and car as well.

Our First Christmas Tree in Australia

The second job of the day was good old house hunting, starting with the auction of the house in Heidelberg West followed by a second visit to a unit in Reservoir.  Although we both really liked the house in Heidelberg West (much to our friends disappointment) we didn't actually place a bid as our provisional pre-approval for a mortgage was just that, provisional, the bank still requiring more proof of Barnadi's income.  The house didn't reach its reserve price, and so one of the estate agents working at the auction came up to check if we were still interested in making an offer.  He explained that we could always put in a 'subject to finance' clause, but as the agents wouldn't give us an indication of what the reserve price would be we left it without placing an offer.  The unit in Reservoir we looked at was one we had looked at before but the auction was set for a date we were in the UK.  It didn't sell at auction so now was back on the market.  Although we spent a long time there considering all the possible confirmation of furniture we could squeeze in, the final decision was that it was just too small for us to be comfortable in.  So we are back to square one in the house hunting stakes.



The Alfred Hospital

On Monday I started my new job at the Alfred, my first two weeks are set aside to the pharmacy departments induction programme.  Weighing up the options for transportation I decided that public transport would probably be more bearable than facing the traffic on Hoddle street every day, and so far the tram ride has been quite pleasant allowing me time to read a book, a simple pleasure I have struggled to find time for in quite a while.  The first thing I noticed since starting work at the Alfred, is the large number of us POMS working there, the second was the relative youth  of the department, although this might be linked to the third thing I noticed, the high turn over of staff, most people I spoke to having been there for less than a year.  That all aside, everyone has been very friendly and welcoming and in the first week I have been out for dinner with a small group of staff as well as being invited to join in a departmental football game (I haven't the heart to tell them how much I hate the game, being English they must just assume I love it).  Most of my induction so far has been spent in the main dispensary, trying to get my head around their computer system iPharmacy and the prescription pricing process.  If you thought pricing of prescriptions was complicated in Australia for community pharmacy, you ain't seen nothing yet.  The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) may be a brilliant system in assuring affordable medication is received by the good people of Australia, but it is the most convoluted and complex system to work with as a pharmacist, making me miss the UK's one price fits all model.  Another problem with the PBS model (other than being overly complicated) is that it prohibits doing one stop dispensing to wards, the use of patients own drugs on the ward and pretty much the whole medicines management service.  I know Australia has developed its own systems so I shouldn't keep comparing it to the UK, but I can't help feeling that PBS will prevent Australia ever releasing the full potential from their pharmacy technicians.  I am only one week in and I still have a lot to learn.

Love and Marriage

The Wedding day of my best friends David and Kirsty saw us take our second trip back to the UK  within the year.  When Barnadi and I had the Australia leg of our wedding, nearly 6 years ago, both David and Kirsty came out with us, David was my best man and Kirsty a bridesmaid (a slightly erroneous term, considering there is no bride in a gay wedding). 

BBQ on the Balcony

Our flights did not leave until after midnight and so we decided to host a BBQ at our house during the day to pass the time.   It would be the first time we got to use the new gas BBQ we had bought from Bunnings almost 2 months previously.  Amongst the guests who turned up were Sam and Athina, the last time I had caught up with them was at the Fringe festival, since then both have now got full registration and Athina had even got a job.  Sam however was still unemployed although had a few interviews set up.  It was this combination of events which led Sam to the decision he would be coming back to the UK for David and Kirsty's wedding after all (provided he could get a cheap enough ticket that night).  This was very good news as Sam and Kirsty had lived together at university and had been friends as long as I had with David.  The rest of the BBQ went very well, and finished early enough to get most of it cleared up before we had to leave for our flight.  The flight itself was long but completely uneventful, which is always a good thing for a flight to be. 

Racing Santas at Martin and Laura's Festivitiness party

We spent our first night in London as we didn't fancy getting off the plane and facing a three hour bus journey to Bath.  We didn't really do much in the way of sightseeing in London, instead we did a bit of shopping (Clothes in the UK are much cheaper than in Australia and they usually have better cuts and sizes) and met up with a friend for coffee, but that was about it.  The weather was wet, but surprisingly not too cold, and to be honest I quite enjoyed the misty drizzle that is so eponymous with England.  The rain was much heavier when we got to Bath, and the river Avon was much higher than I had ever seen it, the footpaths on either side being completely submerged, the weir completely indistinguishable from the roaring torrent that made up the rest of the river and the bottom of bridges normally high enough to allow a narrow boat under now not even letting any sunlight through.  The weather forecast for the actual wedding day had changed from a sunny day to that of continued downpours.  The weather combined with the development of a nasty cold was giving Kirsty a great deal of anxiety about their wedding day.  Most of our time in Bath was pretty much planned out for us, with dinners out and Christmas parties to attend as well as making the time to catch up with old friends and colleagues.  The rest of our 'free' time was taken up making important trips such as to the bank to transfer the rest of our money over to Australia to put towards the deposit on a house.

The night before the wedding we went to help decorate the hall the reception was to be held in.  It was a monster task with lots to do, but it was a miraculous transformation from a barren looking hall to a warming winter retreat.  The photo walls that covered the halls notice boards helped disguise the halls many other uses as well as giving the whole place a more personal touch and the blue filters for the lights completely changed the atmosphere of the place.  After we had done as much as we could to the hall we then took a trip over to the church for the wedding rehearsal.  My role as best man seemed quite simple stand to one side with David and present the rings to the vicar when asked.  David never actually asked me to be his best man, it was merely ever implied that I would be.  The first definite clue I had was when Kirsty wrote a message in the invitation that ended "..you had better start working on your speech..."  I also didn't know I was to be one of the witnesses until the vicar mentioned it during the wedding rehearsal. 

Wedding photo's in the rain

In keeping with tradition the bride and groom slept in separate beds the night before the wedding, Kirsty stayed at a hotel with her mum, whilst Barnadi, Sam and I kept David company at his house.  In the morning the house was a hive of activity David and his father had to go to the reception hall to accept the delivery of flowers while I took a trip to the florist to pick up the buttonholes.  We then enjoyed a slightly staggered champagne breakfast before getting changing into our wedding suits and heading to the church.  Sam sorted out the candles, Barnadi helped attach buttonholes and the photographer and camera man set up whilst the ushers handed out the order of service to the early arrivals.  Everything was going well until David's brother managed to drop a cuff link down through a grate in the church floor.  With a great deal of luck he managed to locate it again before the wedding service started.  When Kirsty entered she looked resplendent, the dress, the hair and make up all complementing each other perfectly, the happiness that shone from her eyes completing the image.  The service went without a hitch even though none of us could quite remember what to do when from the rehearsal.  Trying to get the wedding photo's done in the rain was a bit of a shambles however and in the end  it was decided to give up trying to get them all done and just head on out of the rain and onto the reception.

Adding the finishing touches to the hall

The reception was the part of the day I was dreading, not the whole reception, just the speeches.  I had written my best man speech a couple of days ago and had run through it a few times by myself but when the vicar stole one of my anecdotes during the wedding service I began to panic.  By the time we sat down to eat I had already had a couple of kia royales and had developed a headache, thankfully I was sitting near Kirsty's mum, who had come prepared with a wide array of analgesics to choose from.  The best man speech is always last, and by the time it got to me I was shaking so much I could hardly hold my champagne flute for the toasts, but once it was over that was it, I could relax again and enjoy the rest of the night, and what a night it was. 

We spent another couple of nights in Bath before making the trip back to Kent to visit my family, the weather continued to be rainy but it also had grown considerably colder too, so the thought of coming back to an Australian summer was somewhat appealing.  My sister Rachel and her husband Glen drove us back to the airport where they waved us goodbye, much the same as they did only 6 months previously.  Coming back to Australia was going to feel different this time however, Gemma and Dan would have moved on after 2 months living with us and I am about to start my new job.  Not only this but with the pre-approval for our mortgage going through we will be busy looking for a new house.  Everything is about to change.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Plan 2: To buy a house, has had a massive leap forward.  Barnadi's boss Sam put us in touch with his mortgage advisor, a woman named Bronwyn, who does house calls.  She came round to see us last week got us pre-approval for a mortgage on a house up to $380,000.  It didn't then take Barnadi long before he found the house he wants us to buy.  I didn't get to see the house as I was working, but Barnadi instantly fell in love with it.  It is not too big or too small, it has recently been renovated with a new kitchen and bathroom, it is near the creek and has plenty of parkland nearby as well as a large shopping centre and an Italian wholesalers just a short walk away.  There is one potential problem, the suburb the house is located in is infamously known as 'The Worst Suburb in Melbourne' or to give it its proper name, Heidelberg West.  Heidelberg West was the location of the athletes village for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.   After the Olympics the area was converted into housing commission property and it is this that has given Heidelberg West its bad reputation.  In reality however a lot of the poor housing commission buildings have since been sold on in private sales and the area is nowhere near as bad as the rumours make out.  Public transport is not that accessible in Heidelberg West the closest train or tram line being a good half hour walk away, but saying that there are plenty of bus routes that pass by and an abundance of cycle tracks.  The auction is at the start of December so we have a little time to think about our options, and I will get myself to an open house inspection before then to see the inside for myself.



Dan and Gemma at the Organ
Pipes National Park

On Sunday we had the rare event of a day off together, and so with Gemma and Dan we took a nice Sunday road trip.  First stop was the Organ Pipes National park, a small conservation area to the north west of Melbourne just off the Calder freeway.  The park is most famous for its volcanic rock formations that give the park its name, The Organ pipes.  We spent most of the morning there as the park was bigger than we expected and we spent a long time down by the creek trying to spot a platypus.  We didn't spot a platypus, but we did spot a large cat like creature (possibly a cat).  Other geological points of interest within the park are the tessellated pavement and the rosette stone.   There were some stalls set up near the car park with displays of local ecology, but more importantly amongst the stalls there was a hot dog stand, so we had a quick snack before heading on.
Or second stop was at the town of Daylesford where we went to a cafe called koukla for lunch,  the food was good but the service was a little slow.  We were not in any hurry so this was not too much of an issue, what was an issue was the fact they had their radiators on full blast, and at 28 degrees it was hardly a chilly day.

After lunch we got back in the car with the intention of driving to Hanging Rock...which we did...although I did take a slight detour forcing us onto a gravel track for some of the way.  We arrived at Hanging rock at around 3:30pm timing it just right to miss the worst heat of the day.  To take a car into the park costs $10, but it is well worth the entrance fee.  We had an ice cream to cool down and then headed up the summit path exploring all the nooks and crannies in between the stones as we went.  There is a film set at Hanging Rock which I had been led to believe was based on a true story, the film entitled 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' tells the story of a Valentines day school trip in which a group of school girls and one of the teachers goes missing.  One girl is later found uninjured but with no memory of the events since her absence.  A serious of further unfortunate events including the death of a girl in school and the suicide of the head teacher force the school to close down.  The mystery of what happened that day on Hanging Rock was never solved.  In reality the film is based on the Novel of the same name written by Joan Lindsay, a work of fiction.  According to wikipeadia, the original manuscript did contain an explanation for the disappearance in the last chapter, but at the advice of her editors she left it out.

Hanging Rock

We made it home around 7pm and after a quick freshen up we headed down to Victoria street for some Vietnamese food for dinner.  Next week Barnadi and I will be heading back to the UK for a wedding and when we get back Gemma and Dan will be moving on to explore some more of Australia, this was therefore our last day trip all together and we couldn't have asked for a better day.

Making up for lost time

Kookaburra

It was always our plan to take Gemma and Dan out and about around Melbourne while they are staying with us, but circumstances have conspired against us by not giving us any days off in common.  This week we decided to make up for lost time by making the most of our evenings together.

On Sunday I took them up to Sky High Mount Dandenong to watch the sunset.  On the way we stopped at Pinoak court, the street used to film Neighbours, to keep Dan happy.  Despite the traffic we got up to Mount Dandenong in good time and sat and had a coffee and a walk through the woods to do some Kookaburra spotting before getting back to the viewing platform to watch the sun to set over the city.

Sunset from Mount Dandenong

A more ambitious trip was made on Monday night when we embarked on the 6 hour round trip to Philip Island.  Philip Island is the most famous place to see penguins in Victoria, although there is a small penguin rookery in St Kilda.   Barnadi has never been to the penguin parade, put off by the high entry price,  about $22 per person.  We got to the penguin parade ticket office a couple of hours before sunset, so after buying our tickets we drove to an area of beautiful rocky coastline called the Nobbies where we enjoyed the views of the rocky windswept cliffs dotted with nesting seagulls.



Sign in the Penguin Parade car park

The penguin parade was well worth the money, even Barnadi was glad we had come and couldn't draw himself away from the antics of the worlds smallest penguins.  We started off sitting on rows of seats set up from the beach waiting for the first few brave individuals to come out the water, the beach being clearly illuminated by the full moon made for good viewing conditions.  After watching the first few groups of penguins scurrying up the beach we returned to the boardwalks to watch them return to their nests.

It was about 9:30pm by the time we left the penguin parade and we still hadn't had any dinner.  With a three hour drive home ahead of us we resorted to stopping at a 24 hour McDonalds, to keep our hunger at bay.  It was the first McDonalds I have had in Australia and it is not something I am proud of, but needs must.

On Tuesday night Barnadi was working again so I joined Gemma and Dan for a few drinks on Northcote High Street.  Barnadi and I never tend to go out, especially as we are saving money for a deposit on a house, so it was good to get to experience the High Street while we still live here.

My contract of employment for the Alfred hospital has also arrived, my official start date being the 3rd December, this means I will start work at the Alfred as soon as we get back from our trip to the UK at the end of November.  It is only a six month contract, to cover a maternity leave vacancy they have, but it was a nice surprise when I saw that although it is a grade 2 position they will be paying me at the top end of grade 2.

Van Diemen's Land

I have only been to Tasmania once before, but instantly fell in love with the place, so much so in fact that we seriously considered emigrating to Hobart instead of Melbourne.  Needless to say Melbourne won out for one simple reason, it is bigger.  The fact Melbourne is bigger gave us a better chance of being able to find work.  Melbourne also provided us an advantage with travelling, as it is impossible to fly out of Hobart to anywhere without an extra stop-over in Melbourne or Sydney, greatly increasing the cost and time needed.  With my fathers declining health, the ability to get back to the UK at short notice is very important to me.  We may still move to Tasmania one day, once we've retired possibly.

In the meantime knowing how much we loved Hobart, Barnadi's boss Sam and his partner Saf took us on a trip to Hobart for my 30th Birthday.  The night before my birthday I wasn't feeling particularly well and after getting home from a late night at work I was about ready for bed.  I was about to go and leave Barnadi to watch his German film on SBS about killer bees, when he brought out a bottle of champagne and a small chocolate cake complete with number 30 candles.  So we ended up staying up and finishing off the bubbles with Gemma and Dan, and made a good stab at the cake too.  By the time the last of the German killer bees had been incinerated however it was time to go to bed, after all I did have to drive to the airport in the morning.

The next morning we got up early and picked up Sam and Saf on our way to the airport.  The traffic wasn't too bad for a change, (the Tullamarine freeway usually being reminiscent of the M25), but finding a parking space in the long stay carpark was a challenge.  Sam kept wanting to start the champagne early, at the airport or on the plane, but we reminded him how early in the morning it was and eventually convinced him to wait until lunchtime.  When we arrived in Hobart the weather wasn't the greatest drizzly rain interspersed with the odd sunny spell.  It seems that changing my Birthday from Autumn to Spring was not enough to avoid a rainy birthday.  We picked up our hire car from the airport, a little blue Suzuki Swift, which we all squeezed into before heading to our first stop, the MONA gallery and winery.

View from MONA, Hobart

One of the degustation courses

The MONA gallery is meant to be very impressive and is possibly the reason Hobart has now made it into this years Lonely Planet's top 10 cities to visit (the only Australian city to do this).  Sam and Saf are not big fans of art galleries however so we didn't visit the gallery, famous for its controversial installations such as the 'Wall of Vaginas'.  Instead we came for the food and wine, and had lunch in 'The Source' the very expensive and pretentious restaurant located upstairs.  For lunch they provided a Degustation menu of 3,5,7 or 9 courses, you don't get to see a menu but simply get bought the requested number of courses selected at random by the chef.  We opted for the 3 course option, but even that sets you back $75 per head.  Sam finally got to order his champagne, a local brut prepared at the vineyard on site, the wine was certainly better than the food.  The 3 courses we received were an Asparagus jelly, Steamed ling and a 'deconstructed tiramasu'.  The biggest problem we had with the restaurant was it seemed more focused on the presentation of the food than the actual flavour (or indeed quantity).  The restaurant and gallery must be doing well as they seem to have a deal with a local tour guide operator, as several helicopters arrived during the time we spent there dropping off new guests every 5 minutes.  We took a stroll around the grounds after lunch to take in the views.  The views by far being the best thing we had sampled so far, surrounded by mountains and water, every direction you looked was stunning.

After lunch we checked into our hotel, the Grand Chancellor, right on the harbour front.  Sam and Saf booked the hotel which like the restaurant we went to for lunch was seriously over priced.  Over $200 a room, and that doesn't even include breakfast!  Barnadi and I took a walk around the harbour while Sam and Saf slept.  We found some nice shops in Salamanca and found a few Christmas presents for people back home in the UK.  Then for dinner Sam and Saf took us out again, this time to the revolving restaurant on top of the casino.  They had an ulterior motive for this choice as they planned a night in the casino.  We almost convinced them not to gamble and come out for a drink after dinner instead, but this is Hobart on a Sunday and nowhere else was open.  So we got a lift back to the hotel with a crazy taxi driver and left Sam and Saf to loose all their money in peace.

The next day Barnadi and I got up and had a big breakfast in a cafe on the harbour, before taking the hire car on a drive down to Port Arthur.  Sam and Saf stayed behind to sleep off the night before.  It must have been a cold night as there was snow on the top of mount Wellington, but it turned out to be a beautiful warm sunny day.  The drive down to Port Arthur is absolutely amazing, the guides say allow an hour and a half to get there from Hobart, but I say allow for 3 hours as there are so many amazing places to stop and admire the view on the way.  We first stopped at a viewpoint that overlooked Pirate Bay, a stunning piece of coastline, then at the bottom of the hill we stopped again and walked out to the tessellated pavement, a rocky piece of coastline that due to the natural erosion by sea salt has formed a regular tile shapped pattern that seems almost man made in its regularity.  Our next stop was at the blowhole where we also found breathtaking cliff top views, at this point I was beginning to think we would not actually make it to Port Arthur after all.  After a quick lunch of half a dozen fresh oysters we continued on our way and eventually made it to Port Arthur.

Tessellated Pavement

Port Arthur is a world heritage site, and the location of a famous penal colony.  We only had half a day there so purchased the bronze pass which costs $37 per person, but as well as entry does include a walking tour and a harbour cruise.  The site is a mixture of preserved ruins and house museums spread out over a vast site.  Port Arthur was designed for repeat offenders as a 'machine to grind rouges into honest men' and was in some part successful.  It closed its doors as a prison however when the population of convicts changed from young able bodied men to the older, infirm and unemployable men, making it unsustainable.

We headed back to Hobart and had dinner at an Italian restaurant in Salamanca before heading back to the hotel for a nightcap.  The return flight was later than I had expected and so I ended up having to drive straight to work from the airport.  Even then I was an hour late for work.

Winds of change

The most common complaint you will hear from Melbournians is the unpredictability of the weather, you can go out in the morning dressed for a beautiful sunny day only to be caught in a torrential downpour by lunchtime.  For those of us who come from the UK, unpredictable weather is nothing new, but it does throw visitors to the city off guard when the common perception of Australia is somewhere hot, sunny and above all dry.  The main cause for this unpredictability is the wind, Melbourne is constantly buffeted by strong winds carrying a vast array of weather systems across the city.

It is not just the weather that is changing, as another big change is about to hit our lives in Australia.  My interview at the Alfred did not go as badly as I had feared.  I did not get offered the renal job for which I applied, the reasoning behind this being my complete lack of hospital experience in Australia, instead I was offered a 6 month temporary contract to allow me to get that experience.  This left me with a bigger dilemma than I had expected, should I leave a permanent but part time job for a full time but temporary one?  After a day of weighing up the pros and cons I decided to do both!  I accepted the job at the Alfred, and agreed to stay working at the pharmacy in Epping at the weekends.

It may be that I am biting off more than I can chew, but I am not yet ready to burn my bridges with the world of community pharmacy, there is after all no guarantee that this six month contract will lead onto anything more permanent.

Fringe

The problems of living so far away from home have never been as manifest as now.  My father was rushed to hospital on Monday night after getting increasingly short of breath.  My sisters tried to contact me as soon as they could but suddenly realised that they never had my Australian mobile phone number and so ended up leaving a message for Barnadi and I on facebook, in the hope one of us would be bound to check it.  So Tuesday morning when I was at work I got a text message from Barnadi telling me what had happened.  By the time I got home from work it would have been the early hours of the morning for those back in England so I had to wait for a more reasonable hour before I could attempt to contact my sisters to find out what was going on.  After what felt like forever I eventually got to hear what happened.  My father had been away for the weekend, with his active retirement group and had been feeling rough and not been able to sleep the whole trip.  By the time he got home he was unable to speak without getting short of breath and so my half-sister took him straight to hospital.  After ruling out another heart attack they diagnosed him as having fluid on the lung which they treated with aggressive diuretic therapy and used artificial ventilation to keep his oxygen sats up in the meantime.  This seems to have got him back under control and his obs all started to stabilise.  He is still far from out of the woods and he will have angioplasty and a stent put in before he goes home.  This whole episode seems to have been precipitated by events from a few weeks ago when my father was getting dizzy spells.  The GP feared his blood pressure was getting too low and so reduced some of his medication including his diuretics, we now think that it was this reduction in the diuretics which allowed an excess of fluid to build up slowly in his lungs to the point where he needed hospitalisation to fix it.

While feeling so far a way from family back home in the UK, having friends from the UK over here in Australia has made life seem more interesting again.  This week I took Gemma and Dan up to our friends house in St Andrews so that they could see their first wild kangaroos.  As well as kangaroos we also saw an abundance of cockatoos, galahs and even a kookaburra.  Dan however seemed more interested in poking every rotten log or tree looking for spiders. 



Cockatoo

The Melbourne fringe festival is currently on, and we used this as a chance to catch up with Sam and Athina who we hadn't seen since we had them around for dinner soon after they first arrived.  Barnadi was working so Gemma, Dan and myself went into the city and had dinner at the Ludlow on the Southbank where they have 'steak night' every Monday and Tuesday.  A porterhouse steak with a glass of wine or pot of beer for just $20.  It was a very good steak, and very good value for money considering the usual prices for going out here.  We were a little worried at first that we were going to be late for the show, but luckily we made it to the fringe hub with enough time for a beer with Sam and Athina before the show started.  Sam and Athina have made a lot of progress since we last saw them, they both now have their registration sorted with AHPRA (a much simpler process than I had with them), and are currently looking for jobs.  Sam and Athina had picked the show they wanted to see "As we mean to go on", a drama performed by a group called Elbow Room which won several awards after last years festival.  It was billed as being a new look at creation theories, but in reality it turned out to be a retelling of the book of genesis.  The show was performed in the middle of the audience which was small, and arranged in a square around the stage.  The acting was good, but a little too religious for my liking.  The funniest thing however was when Dan asked me just before the show started, "do you think there will be any nudity", to which I answered "No, as the brochure would put a warning if there is nudity in the show".  The lights suddenly come on to the first scene....Adam and Eve.

Sam and Athina went to watch another show after the first one but Dan, Gemma and myself thought one was enough and had one last drink in the fringe club while watching some dodgy free cabaret before deciding to head home.