Hello again! It's 7am on Saturday morning (4pm on Saturday afternoon in Australia) and I'm sitting on the floor of our guest house room again. Ben is still asleep. This is becoming a habit here – the last few days, I've been waking up early and either writing a blog entry or doing some study before the day starts properly! We've been so busy that I wouldn't have time to do those things otherwise! Breakfast is at 8:45am today so I've got a little while.
I think the time zone is still set for Brisbane on the blog, so the last two entries probably say they were posted at some horrible hour of the morning – I'll check it when I post this and set it to our time! To answer Dreana's question, we are 9 hours behind you. I think they have daylight saving here currently, so it should change to 10 hours behind you at some stage. By the way, £1 is about $2.40.
While I'm answering questions, you also asked about the weather, Dreana... well, it's actually been wonderful! I think the only time it's rained was on Tuesday night when we arrived. Since then, the sun has been shining, the sky is blue, and the Byrds are singing! During the day I mostly haven't needed a jumper, and the last couple of nights it's been too hot to wear my flannelette PJs!
Here's what we've been up to over the last couple of days (part of which has already been mentioned in my brief update post)...
On Thursday, we set off to HSBC and started the bank account process. We didn't get to see Jane's daughter, but a girl called Cind got our application underway, pending confirmation from TimePlan about our current UK address.
We then looked at a couple more flats, including Tom's and one that is above a dry cleaner's in a little shopping complex! Our two favourites ended up being the first one we looked through (on Wednesday) and the dry cleaner's. We had a hard time choosing between the two, but eventually decided to go with the first one due to its having more space, being in a housing rather than shopping complex, not being right above the owner's place of work, and being closer to Ben's school (1.3 miles). By the time we made that decision, it was 5pm and we were on our road trip between West and East London to look at the second of the two cars for sale. So we arranged to go in the next morning and pay the £250 deposit to make sure no one else gets it. I'll give you the proper address of our flat once I get the postcode!
We had tea – Southern Fried Chicken and chips while driving home – after committing to buy the second car. I also bought a handbag at some stage on Thursday – it's hard to remember the order of everything! But we have been ducking into various shops in between everything else.
On Friday (yesterday), we had our usual huge breakfast (still not eating lunches!) and met another guest, Jean Francois, who is a French Canadian who has just ridden 2700 miles around England in 45 days and is about to walk to (around?) London. Rather a fit fellow!! Btw, Ben's already managed to be recruited to investigate and provide advice on Jane's computer problems. :)
We then went and paid the deposit to the real estate agent and filled out some paperwork, from which they did a reference check to confirm Ben's employment. We also ducked into HSBC to check on our bank accounts, and although she hadn't done it by then, our visible reminder worked and Cind rang later in the day to say it was all organised! We then went on the Internet and I posted yesterday's brief entry while Ben sorted out the transfer of our Aussie dollars into GB pounds via an online company called OzForex. Need this to pay for our advance rent and car next week! $$$$$!
Yesterday we also did quite a bit of shopping. We looked through some markets on High St, and both purchased a pair of £4 ($10) sunnies. Ben's had broken at Brisbane Airport just before we left, and I accidentally left mine in the public toilet at the shopping complex where the dry cleaner's flat was!!! We also explored the County Mall, and (Tim: go straight to next paragraph) Ben bought a pair of jeans, and I bought a nice black knee-length work skirt with thin pinstripe, a pair of black work shoes in a Delle style with buckle feature, a funky blue/ black/ white dress, two cute t-shirts (black and blue), and an adorable pink hat!
By the end of the day, the real estate agent had rang and confirmed that the reference check was fine and we can collect the keys and move into our flat on Monday morning (we also did the visual reminder “look-how-keen-we-are” thing with them)! We arrived back at the guest house at the earliest time of any day yet (4:30pm), and later went for a drive and had fish and chips for tea, which we ate while sitting on a little grassy patch across from the shops. Ben's SIM card from TimePlan had also arrived in the mail.
Today we plan to do some study (maybe in a public library) and possibly take a drive down to Brighton to check it out. Ben spoke to Matt last night and also tried calling the worker's number he gave us, but we haven't managed to reach her yet – hopefully we'll do that today too! That's about all the news for now – not as many exciting/ amusing adventures as my last long post, I know, so we'll try to have some more for you over the next couple of days! Bye for now!
PS. It's now 1:40pm on Saturday and we are currently at the public library. We got ahold of Judy earlier and got some details for tomorrow morning and afternoon; she's calling back with more info tonight. It'll be great to meet up with people!! We'll probably go down to Brighton this evening – our 4-hour parking ticket finishes at 3:30pm so we'll head off then.
I've just been studying for nearly 2 hours – only got through 10 textbook pages due to the time and concentration required to understand equations such as IΔt – EΔt = PΔt = At –Lt – (OEt-1 + KΔt – DΔt)!! Ben only started studying a little while ago, after he finished reading some Dare Devil and Iron Man comics!!! :Z You have to pay for Internet access (and lots of other things) here, and I'm not sure if any computers are free or whether I'll even be allowed to use one without a library membership! But I'll go and investigate, and hopefully post this shortly...
I think the time zone is still set for Brisbane on the blog, so the last two entries probably say they were posted at some horrible hour of the morning – I'll check it when I post this and set it to our time! To answer Dreana's question, we are 9 hours behind you. I think they have daylight saving here currently, so it should change to 10 hours behind you at some stage. By the way, £1 is about $2.40.
While I'm answering questions, you also asked about the weather, Dreana... well, it's actually been wonderful! I think the only time it's rained was on Tuesday night when we arrived. Since then, the sun has been shining, the sky is blue, and the Byrds are singing! During the day I mostly haven't needed a jumper, and the last couple of nights it's been too hot to wear my flannelette PJs!
Here's what we've been up to over the last couple of days (part of which has already been mentioned in my brief update post)...
On Thursday, we set off to HSBC and started the bank account process. We didn't get to see Jane's daughter, but a girl called Cind got our application underway, pending confirmation from TimePlan about our current UK address.
We then looked at a couple more flats, including Tom's and one that is above a dry cleaner's in a little shopping complex! Our two favourites ended up being the first one we looked through (on Wednesday) and the dry cleaner's. We had a hard time choosing between the two, but eventually decided to go with the first one due to its having more space, being in a housing rather than shopping complex, not being right above the owner's place of work, and being closer to Ben's school (1.3 miles). By the time we made that decision, it was 5pm and we were on our road trip between West and East London to look at the second of the two cars for sale. So we arranged to go in the next morning and pay the £250 deposit to make sure no one else gets it. I'll give you the proper address of our flat once I get the postcode!
We had tea – Southern Fried Chicken and chips while driving home – after committing to buy the second car. I also bought a handbag at some stage on Thursday – it's hard to remember the order of everything! But we have been ducking into various shops in between everything else.
On Friday (yesterday), we had our usual huge breakfast (still not eating lunches!) and met another guest, Jean Francois, who is a French Canadian who has just ridden 2700 miles around England in 45 days and is about to walk to (around?) London. Rather a fit fellow!! Btw, Ben's already managed to be recruited to investigate and provide advice on Jane's computer problems. :)
We then went and paid the deposit to the real estate agent and filled out some paperwork, from which they did a reference check to confirm Ben's employment. We also ducked into HSBC to check on our bank accounts, and although she hadn't done it by then, our visible reminder worked and Cind rang later in the day to say it was all organised! We then went on the Internet and I posted yesterday's brief entry while Ben sorted out the transfer of our Aussie dollars into GB pounds via an online company called OzForex. Need this to pay for our advance rent and car next week! $$$$$!
Yesterday we also did quite a bit of shopping. We looked through some markets on High St, and both purchased a pair of £4 ($10) sunnies. Ben's had broken at Brisbane Airport just before we left, and I accidentally left mine in the public toilet at the shopping complex where the dry cleaner's flat was!!! We also explored the County Mall, and (Tim: go straight to next paragraph) Ben bought a pair of jeans, and I bought a nice black knee-length work skirt with thin pinstripe, a pair of black work shoes in a Delle style with buckle feature, a funky blue/ black/ white dress, two cute t-shirts (black and blue), and an adorable pink hat!By the end of the day, the real estate agent had rang and confirmed that the reference check was fine and we can collect the keys and move into our flat on Monday morning (we also did the visual reminder “look-how-keen-we-are” thing with them)! We arrived back at the guest house at the earliest time of any day yet (4:30pm), and later went for a drive and had fish and chips for tea, which we ate while sitting on a little grassy patch across from the shops. Ben's SIM card from TimePlan had also arrived in the mail.
Today we plan to do some study (maybe in a public library) and possibly take a drive down to Brighton to check it out. Ben spoke to Matt last night and also tried calling the worker's number he gave us, but we haven't managed to reach her yet – hopefully we'll do that today too! That's about all the news for now – not as many exciting/ amusing adventures as my last long post, I know, so we'll try to have some more for you over the next couple of days! Bye for now!
PS. It's now 1:40pm on Saturday and we are currently at the public library. We got ahold of Judy earlier and got some details for tomorrow morning and afternoon; she's calling back with more info tonight. It'll be great to meet up with people!! We'll probably go down to Brighton this evening – our 4-hour parking ticket finishes at 3:30pm so we'll head off then.
I've just been studying for nearly 2 hours – only got through 10 textbook pages due to the time and concentration required to understand equations such as IΔt – EΔt = PΔt = At –Lt – (OEt-1 + KΔt – DΔt)!! Ben only started studying a little while ago, after he finished reading some Dare Devil and Iron Man comics!!! :Z You have to pay for Internet access (and lots of other things) here, and I'm not sure if any computers are free or whether I'll even be allowed to use one without a library membership! But I'll go and investigate, and hopefully post this shortly...
9 comments:
Hey great to hear more news...I love reading what's going on!! :) Make sure you put some pics of - of the car, your new place and all the interesting people you've been meeting. Oh, and let me know bout the Skpe chat thing when you've got time/access to a computer!
We get up early every day to check the blog. Love the way you write.
Hi, its nice to see youre doing a little bit of shopping, i would love to see the pink hat ! ! The guest house youre staying in is really really cute im sooo jealous!! its fun to read all these things...its like a novel that i can just read a little bit more of every day, looking foward to the next page :) oh also, who would you like to be the next Keeper of the Killer Bunnies cause now us Jankes own it too? whoever you choose it will find its way there...
pick me! pick me!! :D
ooops, sorry, that was me!! blonde moment, forgot to add name! :P
I reckon Delle can keep Killer Bunnies as she's probably still got it anyway. :) And that will mean someone in Brisbane will have it! :D
AAAhhh I see the next handbag collection has its first item :) We've been away for the weekend so lots of reading of posts to catch up on - you will be able to write a book when you get back. It should be a top seller.
I doubt it; all the people who would enjoy reading it will have already read it! :P Btw, Rox and Delle can sort out between themselves who would like to be guardian of the murderous bunny game. :)
Hopefully we'll have the net up and running at home within a week or so, and then we'll be able to upload photos (you'll see the pink hat then, Chany - I'm wearing it at the mo too) and have group Skype chats etc! Can't wait!
Thanks so much everyone for all the lovely comments - it really makes blog-writing worthwhile! Love knowing you're enjoying it!!
Sounds fun... I'm trying REALLY hard not to be jealous...
With your internet you should be able to use it free at your County Council library once you have joined (with proof of address etc). I was able to use the internet at any library in the council - some you need to book ahead, others you dont. Just check it out.
The nudist beach was hilarious by the way...
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