Sunday 27 December 2009

Christmas.Done.

Christmas got off to a slow start - with our sad news still painfully recent, we decided to not attend the gangs Xmas dinner last Sunday. They all seem to have had a great night and the good news is, Helen brought my secret santa present home for me!!

I left work on Christmas eve and went to do a big food shop with Nikki and Shak. The supermarket was surprisingly void of madness! Not sure if the Aussies are more organised and so don't need to go shopping mad on Christmas eve or if we live in an area full of English people that know better than to go to the supermarket on Christmas eve! After our shop was put away, we headed over to The Oaks in Neutral Bay. It was a bit disappointing as a Christmas eve night out, so we left at around 10.30. I was lovely to see some of the gang though as we hadn't really seen anyone for a while.

Christmas morning saw the four of us spend all of 3 minutes opening all our presents - there was no waiting for each person to finish etc etc!
I then finished sorting our food out for the day, and off we went to Jo and Pauls!


Jo had done a great job of bringing a little bit of pommie Christmas to the orphans in Sydney! After a quick glass of pink fizz, we headed down to the beach. A few of them braved the cold water for a swim, the rest of us settled for a couple of hours of beach cricket courtesy of Shams present from Nikki, we headed back up to Chez Watters just before the rain started!


We then proceeded to tuck into enough food to feed a small African country!! Here are pics of SOME of the feast we consumed...




Coupled with the never ending supply of beer, wine, cherry brandy, pimms and rum we had, and the rowdy game of hum that tune, it was only a matter of time before someone gave in to the urge to have a little nap!

Naz found himself a strangely comfortable place to do just that!




Boxing day was spent braving the shops for a bit of last minute shopping for Shak. We also went to see Avatar at the Imax.
This was without a doubt one of the best films we have seen for a while!!

Saturday 19 December 2009

RIP Baa

Today, we have had the call that we all dread when we move so far from home...
Today our family lost our matriarch-our rock-our family's glue.
May her spirit give us all the strength to get through this difficult time, and may our prayers lay her soul to rest in peace.

We will never forget the stories and jokes we shared with our beloved gran.

You will always be in our hearts and our thoughts.

Love you forever baa

From Sham, Shak and Kunj

xxx

Thursday 3 December 2009

November 2009 - What a busy month!

So Heena left (after helping to pack up the kitchen!), and then, our busiest month here began:

31/10 We moved! Leaving the northern beaches of Sydney to enjoy the Inner West! Blamain is lovely with lots of bars, restaurants and boutiquey shops. The journey to work is now less than 30 mins. Here are a few pics from move day and of our new home!








2/11 Although we had signed a 12 month lease for our new house, we technically only had just over a month left on our visa. In fact, we still had a return flight booked for November 30th! So on November 2nd, my company lodged the application for our 4 year visa. The lawyers quoted us an approximate 4 week turn around...

3/11 Melbourne cup day in Oz is I suppose the equivalent of the Grand National... but its actually crazy. Getting on the bus at 7.30am, I was greeted by girls in full on racing gear - facinators, little frocks, the works... all very strange considering the races were in Melbourne - and we were in Sydney!! It was a REALLY REALLY hot day too so it was not going to be fun for these girls! Anyway, I won one of the sweepstakes at work so ended up $60 up! The oter thing that we won't forget about that day is that the temp reached 40 degrees! it was tooooo hot to do anything, so we took shelter in a nice cool cinema and watched the MJ film.

5/11 VISA GRANTED! This means we can now stay in Australia for the next 4 years (as long as I still work where I am now, we apply for residency or we find another employer to take over my visa)... the details don't matter too much - WE ARE STAYING!!

14/11 A few reasons to celebrate. With the new house, visa and my forth coming birthday all within a few weeks, we cobbled together a bit of a bbq/ curry afternoon with everyone that was around.






19/11 My first summer birthday. Sham had told me we were going for dinner - just the two of us, and it was a lovely surprise to arrive at the restaurant and have lots of the gang there!




21/11 Summer in full swing! The gang spent Saturday afternoon in Centennial park - public bbq, beer and football/ cricket in the park. Perfect!





23/11 - 27/11 3 interviews and 2 job offers for Sham! He started his new job on the 27th - for the first time in the year we have been here, we both have permanent jobs!

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