Pros & Cons

We will have been here 4 months on the 1^st March, the days seem to just fly by.

We thought we would try to give you a bit of insight into the Aussie way of life from a new arrival prospective.

Everyone we meet couldn’t be more welcoming, in fact they are nearly all expats, who have done what we are doing, 5, 10, 15, 20+ years ago, most have kids that were born here. Clearly the ones we have met enjoy it and won’t be going back, but we have met a few who have experienced the ‘Boomerang’ effect. This is when they have arrived, didn’t like it, went home, didn’t like it, came back, didn’t like it and so on. Most end up returning and at some stage realise that Australia is for them.

The climate here is clearly the number 1 plus point. It’s 99% guaranteed, you can plan to do anything, it is never disrupted by the weather. In fact, even the short period that we have been here, we now take it for granted. Many decisions regarding outdoor activities are based on how hot it might be, unlike the UK not how cold or wet it will be!!

Kids sports activities are generally cancelled if its above 37 degrees, as do all works on building sites, but they get full pay. Almost like wet time in reverse I guess.

We have done stuff here, that I would not have contemplated back home, like paying up front for a 5 day cricket test match would be top of the list. I have seen more first class cricket here in the last two months, than I saw in my 52 years living in the UK.

I would not of attempted the Winnebago trip either, and that has been perhaps the highlight since we got here.

The kids have now started school and we are always planning to do stuff straight after they finish, golf, fishing, bike riding, pool, or the kids just play in the street with the other kids in the road, problems weather wise are just not an issue.

First fish ever for The Skerritts, caught by Little Niamh

Should have bought me specs really

Yuo are never gonna guess in a million years who fell in the river. we had only been there 10 minutes

Soaked

Damp

This is how you do it.

Most schools here look brand new, in fact Peter’s is, its 12 months old and has 150 pupils. His now issue Apple Mac wordbooks instead of exercise books, can’t tell you how excited he was about that.

2nd February 2011

Little Angels!!!!!!!

Me and Our Wend have even taken to the golf course on a few occasions, the only slight worry is, would it be too HOT! (the weather not the golf), last Wednesday we underestimated it and I damn nearly died. If it wasn’t for the fact we only played nine holes, (I actually only played 8, I walked the last hole!!) and the couple of ice cool beers at the end I probably would have died.

Me and Our Wend have not ventured out in the evenings on our own to any of the many restaurants that are in this area. We have been to a couple of places and taken the kids, these eateries came highly recommended by the locals defined as in the ‘fabulous’category. Well I gotta tell ya, they ain’t. There is a distinct lack of good quality places to eat. The two we have eaten at were German theme, which most of them seem to be, much along the lines of Austrian ski resorts, German sausage, pigs knuckles, sour kraut, that sort of thing. Won’t be going back in a hurry I can tell you.

Ischgul, no, Swan Valley, WA

I’ am told that there as some restaurant in the ‘seriously’ good category, these seem to be in the more affluent areas, which are a ways from where we are, so we may give them a try during the day when the kids are at school. Watch this space.

There are loads of McDonalds, Red Rooster, Hungry Jacks (Burger King in the UK), KFC and Chicken Treat. Whilst we have visited some of these once or twice, judging by the size of our Aussie mates these are by far the most popular eateries. Some of the kids her are ginormous. Considering the emphasis on sport, it’s pretty incredible.

I was at a petrol station recently, there was a young girl, a very large young girl at least 20 stone, who came out of the kiosk, went to a manhole and proceeded to kneel down, I assume she was taking some sort of reading from an underground tank. She was wearing grey track suit bottoms, which took some guts to wear, most of the said guts were on display, cheers thanks for that. As she walked, vast amounts of her moved like they had a life of their own, as if dozens of small animals were stuck beneath her skin and trying to get out. Anyway, as she bent over, and at a quick glance I could have sworn that it was the rear end of a baby elephant, truth. Every detail but the little grey tail.

There are very few indian or chinese restaurants, the ones that are here are not supposed to be too good, but not even tried them yet. We did have a curry in a market place recently and it was not too bad to be honest.

We do a lot of barbecuing; as do all the folk we have met here. Most folk tend to invite you around at say 5-5.30, and the evening is pretty much over by 8/9. Yeah, I know it suits me as I’m falling asleep about that time. Yeah, yeah.

The quality of all the meat here is ‘sensational’, to quote an Aussie. We have overdosed on the meat and never had a bad cut of beef, and all the chicken is corn fed, and the lamb is sensational as well. I could only ever eat the welsh lamb back home but here it’s fantastic.

The transport system here is first class. The train stations are spotless, trains and buses are clean, air conditioned, run on time and all the staff are white, speak good English, so polite and clearly enjoy their job.

The roads are in great nick, there is no litter strewn alongside them, there are few islands, it’s mostly traffic lights. I have to say when you are sitting at them you almost lose the will to live they hold you for so long, but it seems to work.

I would say that Perth drivers are abysmal, probably the worst I have ever come across. They have absolutely no road sense and are totally unaware of anyone else on the road. Not just women drivers, all drivers.

I was listening to a traffic report on the radio the other day; they were reporting a traffic jam on one of the north Perth roads, caused by two Emu’s who were on the loose, different eh? They also tell you to watch out for the kangaroo’s at dawn and dusk, as they are attracted to the lights off your car. Most mornings we see dead ones at the side of the road. Much like squirrels, pheasants and badgers back home but much, much bigger.

The other stuff our Aussie boys and girls are really obsessed with are tattoos and piercings, there is hardly anyone who doesn’t have one or the other or both. I sometimes wonder whether I just notice them because most folk are dressed for the beach all the time, but there does seem to be a way of life attached to it. I personally think the Māori ones are not too bad, but here they really are obsessed with brighter and more colourful the better, some have whole bodies that look like Hawaiian shirts.

As for piercings, most, girls in particular, have more metal in them than a grenade victim.

Newspapers, really only one daily, The West Australian, much along the lines of the Mail. However they do have at least 4/5 pages of ‘Discreet’ adverts. One just recently said “I do what your wife won’t”, I sent here a text asking how much to clean the windows, never got a reply, must have been bullshit!!!! Very little international news in any of them, very concentrated on what’s going on in Australia, and more in particular, Western Australia. Sunday, again only one, The Times, has more supplements than Holland & Barrett.

There is an abundance of shopping centres, the really big ones by us are at Joondalup, Karrinyup and Ellenbrook. They really are spectacular places, the only UK name that I have seen in any of them is Specsavers, no M&S, NEXT, Dotty P’s, etc, etc, told ya, a cartel!!

There are only three supermarkets here, Coles, Woolworths and IGA, and believe me they are running a cartel. We heard recently that Aldi were trying to get a foothold over here, but they have been knocked back, no-one really knows why. All I would say that the supermarket guys here are the old style brewers of the UK, they control pretty much everything. All three are the top performers on the stock exchange, there financials are consistently in the ‘brilliant’ category. Always, always tipped as a buy.

Cost of living is pretty batty, not helped by the cartel and more importantly the current exchange rate, milk $3 a litre, bread $4 a loaf, eggs $4 a dozen, corn flakes $6 a box. I have no idea how they compare to the UK, I just here Our Wend talking to others about it!! What I can tell you is a round of golf with a buggy here at The Vines is 62 quid, 9 holes at Joondalup with a buggy is 30 quid, 9 holes at Chequers or Carramar, without a buggy is 9 quid (the Pro at Carramar is from Aberystwyth would you believe. I turned up there in me Aberdovey golf shirt and he asked if I had played there, small world or WHAT),  a 24 pack of Carlton Fusion (in bottles the same size as Corona, its lovely stuff, I’m addicted, just gonna go and get meself one, be back in a bit…………………………ahhhhhh that’s better) is 27 quid, a single bottle in a bar is 3.75 quid, pint of Carlton Draught (bit like Carling) is 5 quid, a nice bottle of red 20 quid at the golf club, a nice bottle of fizzy red from the bottle shop is 5 quid, a litre of fuel can be anything from 76p to 87p, depending on the day of the week (really, fuel can jump 5/6p a litre overnight, the locals tell you not to fill up on a Tuesday or Thursday) them are the numbers that count eh lads.

The kids here are very respectful to adults.  We were going into the public library the other day and there were a few kids kicking a football in this huge foyer, nothing too drastic, so I told them that they should be doing that outside, good as gold, no lip, just picked the ball up and went outside. Had another time when a bunch of kids got up and left a McDonalds without clearing all the rubbish off the table. The young manager ran after them and call them back, again they just came back cleared it all away, no drama’s no lip. I really hope they hang onto that sort of thing.

You probably heard about the fires and cyclones here. Fires were pretty bad, there were two fire areas, one in The Swan Valley, less than a mile from us as the crow flies, the other is more serious and south of The Swan River, about 10 miles as the crow flies. They have just put out an arrest warrant for a police man who they reckon started the fire south of the river. They reckon he was doing some a sort of angle grinding and the sparks are what started it. He has done a bunk and they are now very worried 'cus they can't find him.

The cyclones, bad ones anyway, were nowhere near us, neither were the floods. Mind you it was very touching how all the Aussies stuck together during those times, there were loads of fund raising events for the folk in Queensland, all very patriotic. Check this out.

On Saturday just gone, at Karrinyup Shopping Centre (yes, Western Australia) the Variety Club Youth Choir organized a FLASH MOB where they all were incognito in the Food Hall, and started standing up in groups singing "We are Australians" 

The purpose was to raise money for the QLD floods. Each time it is clicked on, money is raised thru google ads, SO PLEASE WATCH!!!!!! It is a beaut way of suppporting those poor ozzies over on the other side of our country.

Goto - http://www.youtube.com/storytellermedia

 

I had a call from the Department of Immigration yesterday asking when we were going home. I asked why, they said that since we got here they have had nothing but fires, floods and cyclones!!!!!

We had a further demonstration of how patriotic Australians are when we went into Perth City Centre for the Australia Day celebrations. We were at Langley Park, right along the side of the river Swan, great spot. Loads for the kids to do, live bands, Eval Keneval type motorbike displays, air displays, helicopter fly byes, inflatable slides, bucking bronco's, beach volley ball areas ALL FREE!! Most of the areas were what they designated as alcohol free, this definitely contributed to the complete lack of aggro. At 8pm they had the most incredible fire work display that I had ever seen, all launched from 7 floating platforms in the middle of The Swan River, lasted 30 minutes, allegedly cost $500,000, I can believe it. No sooner had the fireworks finished, everyone wrapped up and set off home, all very organised, buses and trains laid on, very civilised.

No, its our next door neighbour, Raani.

Noisy b******s

Ride 'em cowgirl

There were two bucking bronco's abreast. The idea was that it would be the first to fall off. After half an hour, he still hadn't fallen off so he was asked to get off!!!!!!

They made me wear the helmet.



They really don't like having their picture taken do they (Ella from next door)?



And he is still bloody on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Finally, thought this might be of interest to all your construction folk.

The Oswals, an Indian couple, were having this house built in Mosman Park reputedly costing $70 million.

Their family fertilizer company here in Perth has just gone tits for $900 million. The administrators have seized the proposed house, his $50 million yacht, $35 million Gulfstream jet, plus his Ferraris and various other top of the range motor vehicles.

He had a local shipping company send 7 articulated vehicles and enter his current residence in Perth, under cover of darkness at 4am in the morning, to gather all their belongings and send them to Dubai, to his new abode which sits close by to a $400 million dollar fertilizer plant he is having built in The Emirate!!!!!
All the subbies, or Tradies as they call them over here, were not allowed to have any meat products of any kind in there tucker bags (eh, more Aussie speak). So, instead of eating it they used to put in in the concrete mixer and it got all mashed up, its now part of the concrete construction of the partly finished, never to be completed house!!

They ain’t coming back to Perth.