12th April 2012

12th April 2012
Hello World!!
How are you?? I hope you all are well. Happy pre/post/belated
St.Patricks Day/Easter/Birthday/Mothers Day/Wedding Anniversary/Birth
of Baby … and if ive missed anything else or anyone else…Happy
Everything and Anything!!!

Apologies that I haven't been in contact sooner than now, but we have
both been on the go since I last wrote and in the evenings im too
tired to type let alone think!? So I will try and summarise the events
since the last correspondence…

Life has been abit crazy down under… in a good way of course! Mick and
I are now both fully settled into work, sleep, eat mode
(Unfortunately). Hours are long and I believe will slowly kill me… you
know how much I love my sleep. But otherwise all is going great. This
week we have seen a massive change in temperature from 22-27 degrees
to a low of 11 degrees this morning with a chilly wind… and to say it
is cold is an understatement. Freezing comes to mind and shock… you
see we didn’t really expect it or for it to happen so soon! Mick had
the pleasure of a "hot-ish" winter last year when he was in Perth so
he thinks he will have a hard time adjusting. I have just adjusted to
the heat- it has taken me the full four months and now… the weather
has turned… so im back to square one. This morning I stepped out of
the house in a hoody, scarf and a jacket… and that was just for the
walk for work. It's lovely and sunny… but the wind is sharp!? I even
had a hat in my bag …. But even I thought it abit excessive to put it
on. Yea im a wimp when it comes to the cold. God help me when it gets
colder!! Plus the whole idea of not bringing any winter clothes over
with me…. BAD IDEA!!!

Anyway, enough about the weather… Paddys Day/Weekend went well for
us!! Mick and I headed to the Randwick races on the 17th for
St.Patricks day itself… we may as well have been at home as it seemed
as if every Irish person in Sydney and surrounds were there and to
boot it was lashing rain. Typical Irish day out. We dressed in our
best suit and frock and got half soaked. Disappointment in the day was
an understatement, however we did win some money on a horse and met up
with the lovely Kevin and Laura (mates of Micks) from home. We quickly
moved from the cold windy rainy races to an Irish bar called Scruffy
Murphy's in the city and had ourselves a grand auld time drinking,
fighting and smoking. (note to parents- Mick nor I smoke …. Yuck !?)
It was a great evening and the pub was packed! Sunday, we decided that
we would head into the parade in Sydney. The sun was shining and the
forecast great. The reason the parade was on Sunday, is that Saturday
is considered shopping day and Sunday is considered more of a party
relaxing day so the likes of parades or big functions are restricted.
Unfortunately… we missed the parade by about an hour… and saw the last
5minutes tail end of it just has we got off the bus!!! It was gas to
see the town hall area cornered off and a sea of green or gaa jerseys…
there were even chinese people in Offaly jerseys!? There was a free
function on the in Park so we headed for that… my bag got searched on
the way in (this didn’t happen on Australia Day and this event was
similar?!) and the area was full of Irish music, bars, food, tayto
crisps, club orange and Guinness … magners was not to be had so I had
to settle for a strongbow knowing Sue would be proud… brought back
memories and London and the wasps as well as a few from Salou?! We
hung around the park for about 2hours and Mick met a few ex-Kerry gaa
players. It was nice to hear all the familiar accents with the ozzie
twang thrown in. As well as get in some Tayto and Club Orange. All in
all it was a good weekend and our aim is to make to Melbourne for the
Melbourne Cup in November for a proper race day out!!!!

After St.Patricks day I received some good news from work… my 4 month
contract had been extended to the full 6 months and I signed my
contract extension. Im delighted. However there is no chance of
sponsorship…yet (I still remain optimistic… even though I don’t think
it will happen!?). I finish up on the 20th July and 2nd week in August
I will have to start my regional work. Which we both are kind of
looking forward too. Sydney is lovely and all but it is big and vast
and everyone is busy busy all the time so maybe the pace of life might
be different in the regional areas plus I want to have a story for
years to come to be able to say I did this and did that and have the
regional experience. Also, depending on where we go, we will most
likely drive to it and get in some sight seeing and adventures along
the way which is the most exciting part!!! Otherwise, work is work.
Its definitely not a hectic as Superquinn, and im finding it hard to
adjust. Im not the type to be idle and try to look busy. Everything
happens a lot slower and they all seem happy enough with that… which
amazes me completely (Pace is very similar to Diageo). But maybe its
just a cultural thing or a manufacturing thing or the fact that
everything feeds down from a global level. Anyway, I look on the
bright side and say to myself… im getting paid aint I and am secure
until 20th July and to boot im getting experience in a global
company!?

As for the lovely Michael, work for him is flying!? Overtime etc and
loads of work so he's happy out. He is on the tools all the time now
which he is delighted about.

Things in the house are fine.  There are 23 people total in a house of
13 bedrooms, 5 toilets and 5 showers, one kitchen and a common tv
area/dining area. The fridge we share is on its last legs we think and
is about to conk out any day now. We have a few new faces around the
house, some of the couples have moved out and singles have replaced
them- one has moved over us and bombs go off late at night above us.
He is a single guy and well I think he literally clears out his
wardrobe or presses nightly and just throws stuff around the room for
the craic. For us, it’s a pain and if it continues I think im likely
to kill… however this week so far so good. I suppose this is what you
will get in a share house!? There are still people I see that I don’t
know that walk by when im making my breakfast, lunch or dinner…
seriously… lol. Also we have a food thief (who steals mayonnaise
(ours) and jam (another couples) and god knows what else) and a person
who refuses to wash up after themselves- half the sink is full at the
end of each week with their disgusting stuff (which the cleaner is
left to clean and she shouldn’t have to do it). Some of us had been
washing it up but that has stopped now as those of us cleaning it just
want to throw the whole lot in the trash… and it may happen yet.. Who
knows?! I decided to buy our own cutlery and dishes etc so that we
just have to look after our own stuff and we can keep it in our press
and no one goes near it and also then we don’t have to go looking for
knives and forks… forks go missing weekly…. Loads of knives… but all
the forks seem to go on holidays to peoples rooms… we have to eat our
dinners with spoons once!? Also a member of the house has a form of
OCD. Regularly comments on the dining table and if it has been shifted
to the left… he spent a Saturday morning reorganising the common room-
did a fantastic job and got rid of all the crap- but I have never seen
books and magazines so well organised in my life. Im surprised they
weren't in alphabetical order by title or by author. Its funny and
here I thought I was the clean organising one!!!! But other than silly
issues, we still have it pretty darn handy. The room is defo more
homely now and we have everything we need. City is a bus stop away-
darling harbour and shopping and in the other direction work and more
shopping…. What more could a girl ask for. Actually…. due to the
weather… an oil heater and an electric blanket… which I believe will
be got this weekend hahaha.

As I was telling a few of you, I have gotten up off my back side and
started to organise a few more trips, gigs and matches for Mick and I
to go see and do- as we have just been all abour work work work. We
have a few comedy gigs organised (Jason Byrne and Jim Eoin) and also
have a rugby match booked for our new team the Sydney Waratahs. As
well as organising a few trips for long weekends - Blue Mountains and
Brisbane- I organised a trip to Newcastle just North of Sydney- more
about that later. A few weekends ago we found our new local in
Balmain… similar to Brady's… same cool music as per back in the day
only minus our lovely friends and a ten minute walk away. So we are
now sorted for any alcoholic beverage or soft drink refreshment when
required. We also finally made it to the Zoo!!! Woo!!! There about two
weeks ago we took a water taxi from Darling Harbour over to it.
Luckily we had awesome weather so the trip over was brilliant. Taxi
man positioned us right under the Harbour bridge for photos and stuff.
Took loads of pictures and even managed to dodge the rain on the way
back. The way up to the entrance of the Zoo was via Skylift, it was
cool, we got to see an aerial view of all the animals. The best were
the elephants. There were two baby elephants playing in a pool of
water, pushing and jumping on each other. I kid you not. It was so
cute and every so often the poor elephant who was being jumped on
would stick its trunk out of the water for a breath and would attempt
to walk away out of the pool only to trick the other one, turn around
and push it back into the water. It was gas!? The words BIG KIDS was
an understatement.

Last week and this week we both had/have four day weeks... brilliant i
hear you say!!! Good Friday and Easter Monday were public holidays
here and to say we needed a break/holiday is maybe an understatement.
We booked a hotel 3 hours north of Sydney in a place called Newcastle.
The night before we left we met up with Micks cousin Grace and her
friend Vicki and toured around the Irish pubs... typcial i hear you
say... but they are the only pubs we know!! It was lovely to meet up
with them.
Friday we got up early enough and we left Sydney in what we thought
was excellent timing... for an Irish person... obviously it wasnt
early enough for Ozzies... it took us almost 5 hours to get to
Newcastle if not more ... due to traffic accidents and everyone having
the same idea to get out of the city. It felt like being stuck on the
Enfield road heading west oh so many years ago. Only good thing was
that it was sunny and i could stick my feet out the window!!! We
stopped for coffee half way through only for Mick to have the
strangest experience between the woman working in the road house.. who
he gave the order too who told her male co- worker who then left the
shop...she then decided she would to the order herself only to find
out they had no coffee left... well only had one shot of it left and
halved it for our two coffees... she then proceed to tell Mick that
her day had been awful, that her indian co-worker wouldnt take any of
her orders even though she was the senior staff memeber andhe her
junior, that she was considering quitting ... i thought he was
harvesting the coffee the length of time he was gone and when he came
back to the car with the coffee flavoured milk he nearly died
laughing/crying with the scary helaritory of it all trying to explain
it to me. We got to Newcastle just before 5pm and booked into our
hotel. Newcastle is very industrial. It is a big coal exporting port
and all the coal from the mines filters to it and is distrubuted from
it by train or boat. Also it used to be a big steel manufacturing area
but hasnt been since 2002. Cargo ships are constantly chugging across
the horizon. The place itself looked like a summer place that was shut
for the winter thus not alot was on or open unfortunately. But that
didnt stop us!! Friday night we drove around in the dark to get the
feel of the place... and had our dinner on the main wharf.
Saturday we had a wine tour booked in the Hunter Valley and we couldnt
havent gotten a better day for it. AWESOME. Sun sun and more sun!! A
tour bus picked us up at 8.40am. We hit 3 winerys all before lunch,
all serving about 6-7 shots (tastings) of wine at each. All fabolous
and tasty with a few not so nice. After lunch we hit two more followed
by a visit to a cheese shop and a chocolate shop. We didnt get home
until late and for dinner we had wine and cheese. Well we thought we'd
carry on with our tastings. The whole day was wonderful!!
Sunday we ventured out for a walk on Nobbys beach and visited the
lighthouse and walked along the wharf. We saw dolphins hearding a
school of fish out of the harbour. It was cool to see and i tried to
take photos but i missed every them time!!! The fish were like a dark
shadow in the sea and every so often the dolphins would jump up and
the fish would go crazy!!! After, we headed further north to a place
called Nelsons Bay and went body boarding in feezing cold water!!!
well its wasnt freezing but it took a while to get used to it.
On our way back from Nelsons Bay we found a few options for Mondays
adventure... and decided on quad biking!!! After check out and a
lovely breakfast we headed back along the road to Nelsons Bay and
booked ourselves into an hour of quad biking on Port Stephens famous
sand dunes. They were amazing!!!! It was as if you were in the dessert
somewhere and the sand was lovely. We spent at least good hour and a
half speeding around a sandpit style dune (more time than we had paid
for- score!) watching other groups memebers falling off their quads or
getting stuck. The whole experience was cool and once over we hit the
road again for Sydney. boooo. Our holiday was over. Traffic was bad
enough- it took 4hours to get back to Rozelle and we were wrecked
after all our travels. However, it was well worth it!!!

Anyway now it is Thursday... only one more day left until its the
weekend again! wooo!! At the minute we have no exciting plans and are
happy enough with that. We are exploring our options for the next few
months and hoping to make some firm plans in the coming weeks. Come
August we will be heading to the outback to do the farm work and for
Christmas we are going to go to New Zealand on a bus trip - we may
even see some snow if we are lucky. We had hoped to come home but
flights are massively expensive and if neither of us get sponsored, we
will be home in April 2013 once Micks visa is up regardless. So its
scary and exciting all rolled into one! At some time in June, Im going
to attempt to cook a Christmas dinner once it is suitably colder and
we both are looking forward to that... its the simple pleasures you
see!! haha. And with that my friends... is all the news i have for
now. I look forward to your responses and i hope that all is well with
each and every one of ye.

Email me when you get a chance.
Love Karen xxx