Weekend Exploration

With April starting, we were amazed to realise we have now been here in Perth, Australia for four months. It both seems like we have been here forever as well as only feeling like yesterday we were shivering in a tent in the UK.

Here's some pic's  from around Perth showing what we've been up to the past couple of weeks.

And here's our little veg garden coming along. We have already harvested beans, lettuce and radishes.

And please meet the newest members of our household, two ex-battery hens called Agnes and Agetha. The poor things were a bit traumatised but hopefully some fresh air, grass and space should get them back on track and feeling more like chickens should.

Our new tent arrived last week which we are very excited about taking out for the first time this weekend, down in Busselton (south of Perth). Lots of photos to follow next week!

Southern Summer Days

Our original plan was to move to Australia last August, right in the middle of Winter. That would have given us time to gradually acclimatise throughout Spring and maybe Summer wouldn't have been such a shock?! 

As it happened we arrived right at the beginning of Summer and we have been subjected to two months of scorching heat and sun. While we were fully expecting this (being Australia and all) it has meant that getting out and exploring our new surroundings is proving difficult.

We attempted one weekend to go out geocaching along a heritage trail near where we live. Within five minutes of looking we had to give up and retreat back to the aircon!

And the garden has been coming along slowly, trying to do as much as we can in the mornings and once the sun has set to avoid the heat of the day.

Seeds have been planted and are starting to sprout, so with all this sun things shouldn't take to long to start blossoming. We have got two massive rainwater tanks to water the garden with, so we can be liberal with the water without worrying about the environmental impact.

And we are now the proud owners of 500 worms, who will be shortly munching and converting our kitchen scraps into fertiliser and compost.

We did manage a short trip to Fremantle the other week. Fremantle is Perth's port, and being right on the coast there is always a refreshing sea breeze (the 'Fremantle Doctor'). 

This weekend is forecast to be in the late 20's which will seem positively cold, so we are hoping to do some more exploring of this beautiful coastline.

We splashed out and bought a new car. We were totally intending to just buy a $500 run-around car to get about in, but it turns out you simply can't buy cheap cars that actually run here.

Cars actually seem to keep their value really well, so new cars aren't that more expensive than second hand cars. So we bought a conservative little Hyundai i20 (with a Ghostbusters-themed number plate - unintentional) and are considering it more as an asset than an expense.

Nick's job is still going really well. I am having more trouble. It's strange that although it was my skills as an accountant that got us the visa here, Nick managed to get a job straight away and I am still looking after 2 months.

I've spoken to several agencies, and apparently it's a quiet time of year, and apparently there are a lot of potential applicants out there (boosted by migrants from the East coast and overseas enticed by the mining boom - doh!) making it more difficult.

So at the moment I am officially a starving artist as my tiny art shop trickles in a bit of pocket money for me! I can't say I really mind getting to paint and play with the cats all day. But it would be nice to be able to start saving some serious money up for the next adventure.

Luckily I have a generous partner and parents who make sure I don't go hungry!

January update

Hello everyone, just a quick update to let you know what we have been up do.

We have both been slightly envious of all the UK snow pictures we have been seeing on Facebook! It doesn't help that it has been really hot here in Australia these past few weeks.

So I've been walking around the garden, planning and thinking but not actually doing anything yet.

We are right next to a national park, so we get a lot of wildlife here. We regularly see parrots flying past our windows and there is a flock of kookaburras living in the trees nearby which all cry out in unison at random times.

We've found what was possibly kangaroo poo on the patio, and we came home one day to this little fellow on the door:

There have been NO spiders in the house (although plenty of redbacks in the garage!)

We've got two rooms inside decorated already, our bedroom and the front room so it's starting to feel like home.

I also got to see my youngest brother Brad on his 18th birthday.

I've also reopened by Etsy shop that I put on vacation mode when we took off in the campervan. I'm selling lots of creative bits and bobs, bunting, bags and lots of prints of my watercolour paintings.

Please check it out if you are interested: www.etsy.com/shop/emmaallard

Much love

Emma and Nick x

New Year

It's the start of a new year. Usually we moan at how quickly the last year has gone, but not this time! 2012 was jam-packed with stuff for us. We went on a skiing holiday this time last year and that feels like a long long time ago. Since then, between us we have quit two jobs, sold a house, renovated a campervan, visited over 30 campsites, travelled all around England, Scotland and Wales, judged a sandcastle competition,    had an operation, attended three weddings, sold a campervan, moved to Australia, spent Christmas on a beach and New Years Eve in a hot tub. And we have come to the conclusion - don't let yourself get into routines! Constantly make changes in your life and it doesn't feel like time is disappearing before your eyes. Well it works for us anyway.

Nick got the job he wanted at KTM motorcycles and started last week. So far, so good, considering it's his first job in 10 months! Not much news on the job front for me, but it is still school holidays here and businesses haven't got back into the full swing of things yet.

There's tonnes of stuff to do in our new home... we have started decorating inside and last weekend we checked out all the nearby secondhand and charity shops (or op shops as I have to get used to calling them). We are trying to furnish inside with only second hand stuff - cheaper, more eco-friendly than buying new, and minimal depreciation if and when we need to shift it in the future. 

One thing I am uber-excited about is growing lots of veg. You can practically grow all year round - things like tomatoes, capsicum (peppers) and chillies in the summer and lettuce, broccoli and the like in the winter.

This patch of land is going to be our veggie garden. It needs a bit of work, as you can see. 

I would like nothing more to get out there and start digging but we are having a bit of a heat wave here in Perth, and it's 40 degrees most days, and reasonably muggy too. So physical exercise outside is not happening.

Instead I've been planting some seeds in pots to get things going, these little shoots are my first Australian tomato plants.