Hurray, a day off. Tourism here we come!!

Immy and I spent/wasted the whole of Saturday zooming here there and everywhere around the Manly area looking at houses yesterday. They have an odd system here that you can't just got to an estate agents, look at house listings and then go and take a looke around, decide you like and say "yep, I'll take this one". Oh no, that is far too inconvenient for the precious estate agents, after all, all that show people around and actually earning a living might get in the way of Doug their nails and choosing sharp suits. So instead you, as the punter, are required to come along to open house viewings at times that suit the estate agents. Except the only time that suits them is a Saturday. And because they have so many properties to cover in the same day (because they couldn't be bothered all week) you only get a fifteen minute window to look at each before the agent locks and scurries off....whether you are finished or not!!

Well here's an idea people - meet people during the week, or spread the opendays through the week so that a swarm of 50 people don't have to race across town all day trying to fit in all the viewings...and usually missing half of them.

Anyway, with that tedious day behind us, and too tired of house hunting to start again this morning we decided to be tourists for a day and headed to Sydney Aquarium. And it was cracking!! Yes it was just another city aquerium with loads of big tanks, walk threw tunnels and a penguin enclosure like so many other such places. But there were two things that really caught me.

First was the way the place was 'constructed'. The main entrance, shop, cafe and smaller tanks were all on the quay in Darling Harbour. However the two major exibits, which were huge tanks containing sharks in one and Dugongs in the other, were two huge barges with the big tanks entirely self contained. Genius! It appears a great idea to me because it saves loads of space quay side but also allows the aquarium to have third barge off somewhere else being prepared for the next display (if they ever change them that is) and just towed into place ready to go with minimum disruption to the service. That's brilliant in my book.

The other was the dougong tanks. It was great to see these creatures, the possible presence of which had plagued a project of mine in UAQ. But what really amazed me having seen these creatures in the flesh was the theory that they are the source of the mermaid legends.

I mean, how long would you have to be at sea, and how despirate would a sailor have to be for a bit of 'companionship' to mistake these huge lumps of blubber for the beautifully nubile mermaids we see depicted in Coppenhagen!!






Or maybe it says a lot more about the sort of women the sailors were leaving behind....I mean...dougongs have WISKERS!!

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Cravings....nooooo, no cravings here

They say when girlies get pregnant that they get cravi gs for odd stuff. They also say that girlies MAY become a bit emotional unbalanced and given to getting upset at the strangest things or people mentioning their cravings,....which they don't have. Nor do their cravings change from one day to the next.

In fact I have theory that cravings (if they were to exist) arnt in any way linked to any need from the baby for certain things for growing etc. Instead they are a need by the mothers brain to test the loyalty of the husband.....and how far his patience can be pushed by demands for Jaffa cakes and poppdums at 10:45pm......while in China town.

Last week it was (or wasn't) salted crisps and hot chocolate.

And in case you are wondering yes, I am writting this while wondering around the supermarket looking for that perfectly normal combination if poppdoms and Jaffa cakes.....

I usually like to include a picture of some sort which is somehow linked to the post you are reading....but as i found no trace of the Jaffa cakes or the poppdoms here's one of the beach we went to earlier today.




That is the beach with the crap cafe that doesn't do jaffa cakes or bloody poppdoms either!!

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Ey Eyhab, here's to your dreams!!

Well the weather here in Sydney has finally started to break which has had two very favourable results. The first being that the humidity has started to ease (although not quite completely yet) and secondly there are some pretty darn impressive storm clouds rolling across the evening sky last night when we went out for awalj about. This of course gave me fantastic photo opportunities.....just when I didn't have the camera with me.



Still I had the trusty iPhone so had to rely on Chase Jarvis's maxim of the best camera is the one you have with you. And I promise, this is the actual shot with actual colours....there has been no Photoshop jiggery pokery here.


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Good morning Australia!!

After a lovely few days back in Dubai saying good bye to all our very good friends in Dubai (I won't go on too much with a long drawn out good bye, our friends know they are great) we set off for Sydney.

The co-pilot adopted her usual strategy of sleeping through the safety video andwaking up as we landed in Sydney - yep she slept for almost the entire 13 hour flight but then I guess she is sleeping for two isn't she. I tried to play catch up and downed the sleeping tablet at g&t and managed 8 hours followed by two movies and we arived in Sydney to start our new life down under.

The serviced appartments we arrived at prooved to be a reminder of how spoilt we are in Dubai with regards our expectations from hotels, the place more closely resembling a travel lodge/student halls than the luxury establishment promised. And being in the heart of china town we were able to spend our jet lagged evening listening to police syrens, drunken revellers and stuff getting knocked over, nit to mention the two drunks we had to dodge pasted to get into the hotel. Still, we didn't leave Dubai to experience the same stuff so while it was a litttle disheartening at the time at least it made fore something to mention here.

So at 6am this morning we have decided to abandon all hope of sleeping and got our selves up, threw back the curtains and greater with the glorious sight of Darling Habour shrouded in rain and blanketed is a uninterupted abundence of grey




Those who know of our previous adventures in Sydney will know that this is out seventh day in Sydney in the last 18 months......and our 7th day of rain. Don't be fooled by the tourist blurb. To quote the co-pilot's embracement of the Aussie lingo "Oi Steveo, it's on blaady pissin' Down again"

So starts our adventure....


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Need a weee

Day two off the rest off our life....and we are off to the Doctor for poking, prodding and a scan to establish how long ago the deed was done.

The co-pilot was initially checked out by the doc then it was off to the clinic for a scan and she was told to drink at least 1.5l of liquid before arriving. So at 9.30am this morning We arrived with CPs bladder fit to burst and praying we weren't sat around waiting too long. And thankfully it was a very slick in and through to the change room


And with the sexy gown donned we went through to the darkened room with the big TV and lots of probes and tubes of jelly where CP was strapped down and...

[Stop being silly Steven, and there will be absolutly NO discription or photos of that bit!!]

:Yes boss

Well, moving swiftly on, the scan went well, if a little uncomfortable looking and it would seem we are definatly going to be parents, and CP is now keeping our 5week and 4day old peanut warm!! And it has a heart rate of 97bpm



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Oh my god!!!

The co-pilot and I have had a little bit of a shock this week and as they say, a picture tells a thousand words so here's a thousand.....summarized in one clear blue word:



We don't know how far along it is or anything other than The Co-pilot went for a wee and everything changed from there!!

We are off to the doctors tomorrow to be checked out and hopefully get some kind of educated guess from the Doc on how far along because all we know is that we had 'that chat' and decided the Co-pilot would stop taking the pill five weeks ago, and now the clear blue says we are more than three weeks gone but no more details than that......watch this space.

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The final leg

Well after a few days rest in Nantwich recharging our batteries we went back out into the wilds of the British winter and headed up to Gala'...because eveybody knows Scotland never gets bad weather in winter....don't they?



And as expected the weather was awful, snow relentless and the GPS useless, taking us off the A7 onto icey B roads presumably because it was half a second quicker.

However it was great to get up there and visit Oliver and Charlotte (oh and Fran and Simon as well of course) and Imogen got to chat and catch up on 'news' (not gossip of course).

The snow and the commencement of the thaw and melt also afforded some great opportunites for photos

[pictures to follow once I get to a computer]

The trip back down was equally interesting as the thaw water flowed across the roads causing some interesting cornering corections. Still once we were on the M6 the co-pilot soon settled in to enjoy the rest of the trip.


I have to admit that while I might refute it around Ashley, Scotland is a beautiful place, with dramatic scenary and great landscapes.....I can understand why we British took it off the Scotts!!


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