REverberations - Real Life

Back to Picton we go

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 07:44:47 -0500

We've just spent our first night in a new house. No, not our new house we intend to build, just a different rental property.

The one we moved into in December when our previous house in Picton was sold was a significant compromise. Given only two weeks to find a place and move out, we didn't have a lot of choice. But we were told at the time that the owners (one of who lives on site) were planning on selling it at the end of this year. So, this move was to preempt that while the newest little bubba is still inside, but also to get around the issues we had with the place.

The landlords were almost completely unresponsive, only wanting to do the bare minimum, and reneging on promises they made to fix the place up. Paying for 5 acres but only feeling we had the use of the house and immediate surrounds due to the landlady living (illegally) on site was another. Lack of garages or any external storage when we have two cars, a trailer, a ride-on mower and a caravan to store was starting to be a big hassle too.

So, we took the hit of pain and moved. We're back in Picton (well, north-west of it really) on 5 acres again, but this time with the landlords safely away in Sydney somewhere. The move was about as painful as you can imagine. Actually no, it would have been worse without the help of our parents - thanks to Margaret, Mum, and Dad (Happy Birthday!)

The owners had locked more locks than they gave us keys for, and then when we finally did get in the the place looked like a bombsite. It took three cleaners all day yesterday to make it acceptable. Not a good start.

But the setting is gorgeous - tucked in a valley. It's so picturesque that today AAMI are shooting a commercial there. Not sure if it's one of those dodgy driver ones, but if so then the approach road is certainly a good setting.

Hopefully this will have been an overall good move, and the last we make before we move onto our land.

A Debt-Laden Australia?

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 10:48:53 -0500

One of the headline points that Tony Abbott has been spruiking in recent times amongst the rabble that is our collection of elected representatives is how Labour are getting us so debt-ridden that our future is destroyed and we are all doomed.

I don't claim to have found this by myself but have lost the source. Wikipedia lists countries by public debt. Basically countries at the top of the table owe way more than they are able to pay off easily and hence are at strong risk of what we've seen happen to Greece (#8) and Iceland (#11) in recent times. Australia is one of the the lowest-ranked developed nations at #107 and hence a long long way away from the predicted Liberal debt doomsday. We are very slightly more likely to be swamped by debt than China, the world's manufacturing powerhouse.

Here's some selected entries from that table:

Rank	Country	% of GDP
1	Zimbabwe	304.30
2	Japan	192.10
6	Singapore	117.60
7	Italy	115.20
8	Greece	113.40
11	Iceland	95.10
18	Germany	77.20
22	United Kingdom	68.50
42	United States	52.90
61	Switzerland	43.50
90	New Zealand	29.30
107	Australia	18.60
108	China	18.20

Land Update

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:49:17 -0600

We're spending a reasonably amount of time just mowing our block of land, and the associated bills with no real benefit are driving us to focus on saving to move on there!

The first structure went up some time ago - I built a compost bin! Compost is rather difficult to move between properties, so our previous two have been left with a nice supply thanks to all our kitchen waste. There wasn't much point doing that again, so a bit of research and time later, and our land was no longer 5 empty acres.

We've cleared some of the fallen trees and turned it into firewood, discovering our local wildlife in the process.

Not long after we purchased the block, there was of course the question of how to tend so much grass. The answer was served up courtesy of an eBay-ed large commercial ride-on mower (diesel to run on 100% biodiesel, of course!) which we collected from the Hunter Valley thanks to the impressive grunt of the VW and a trailer we decided to buy to do the move ourselves. Both of these have proved great investments, even with a bit of repair work we needed to do to the mower.

Starting this coming week our fencing starts to go up. The neighbor we are sharing the fence with unfortunately started the relationship off on a less-than-optimal note by reneging on a deal we had, however this is hopefully behind us now.

The neighbor on the other side is a far different story - it turns out I used to work with him back at Strathfield Car Radios 13 years ago! One of those real small-world stories, and enough to completely overpower the let-down of the other neighbour. He fenced his block with the help of his father who lives around the corner, running an olive farm. This means he can borrow farming equipment as needed, although yesterday he had broken his slasher. The fact that he was slashing at given he has sheep on there shows just how much the recent rain has made the grass grow. Our block has sure taken some mowing in recent times!

For the fencing we have to clear out a section of odd fenced garden that is mostly in our property but goes into the block next door which we want to separate ourselves from with the fence, this is tomorrow's task.

The back fence is somewhat intact so we've asked the fencer to keep what he can to help keep our costs down, and I spent some time clearing away the blackberries and other overgrowth from the farm behind us with another new piece of gardening equipment we're going to need - a petrol whipper-snipper (using our electric one when the nearest power point we own is 3-4km away was proving a little difficult).

We have decided for reasons of cost not to fence the front for now, instead waiting for a final decision on where our driveway is to go (there's a drainage ditch which if we are careful we can drive across but this won't work in the long-term for delivery trucks, etc.)

Once that is done, we're pretty much done with the first phase of our project - get land and boundaries established. After that, the next phase begins - Services - where we get power, sewerage, water, hot water and phone available on the block in preparation for the following phase. This will be when we put up the barn with kitchenette, bathroom, heating, etc., then back in the caravan we purchased as cheap bedrooms and kitchen that we can sell later (currently sitting outside our rental property), and move onto our land!

Current hopeful plan has us there in spring, after the new baby comes along. We could be there far earlier but have to pace our spending according to our earnings.

I have a flickr set called Build on Razorback where I'm putting pictures of the process, and am also working on a more specific website to showcase our crazy plans as they evolve.

Merry Christmas

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 06:36:21 -0600

Here's a belated Christmas post with some updates on our life.
Phoebe had a great time on Christmas day, exploring Santa's presents, and those from her parents, grandparents, and other great friends. Having our family together for the day was great - Phoebe really loves being around people she knows.
Favourite presents vary from day to day, but between boxes of Duplo, wooden train set, a play house, and piles of In the Night Garden books and a talking doll, there's plenty of entertainment.

The sale of our land has gone through - pics shortly - and as such we are now planning how to move on there and start building as soon as possible. Our current rental property being only five minutes away has turned out to be basically the only positive of it - the previous tenants' seven puppies appear to have left a legacy of an impressively robust flea population. These things are sent to challenge us.

Since we now own the land and are planning to get into temporary accommodation there quickly, we've decided not to do much unpacking here (hence the boxes in the picture). Exactly what form this accommodation will take is still up for discussion, but we may yet become trailer trash :)

Lots of recent pics up in the usual location.

Happy Second Birthday Phoebe!

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:51:19 -0600

So our little girl is two today. Wow.

Recent progress means that she is now largely sleeping through the night, perhaps with just a wake for a drink or nappy change. What a difference from the Phoebe of old!

She has also largely opted to toilet train herself in the last two weeks, such that for the last few days she only wears nappies at night time or when going out. Around the house she's happy to wander off and find the potty and look after herself!

Her speech is amazing, understanding so much that we say, stringing long sentences together, and comprehending more and more complex topics daily. A real little knowledge sponge, and so much more than either of us expected from a two year old.

Right now the cute little thing is in front of me playing with her new kitchen - birthday present from Liz and I. All the little girls we know seem to have managed to get these for their second birthdays but in defense of our originality we bought this one months ago!

We're celebrating with family today and friends on Saturday at the zoo, all of which I'm sure she'll love.

We love you so much little Phoebe, and look forward to watching you continue to grow over the years.

Rental Chaos

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:30:31 -0600

First, the bad news. The house we have been renting for a year in Picton has been sold underneath us. Although they had brought people occasionally through it, it was never actually on the market.

We were given 14 days notice to be out. In that time, we were expected to find a new rental property in the current tight rental market, apply with references, wait until other tenants had left, pack up everything we own, and move it from one house to another. Never mind jobs or a super-active toddler!

That 14 days notice period expired yesterday, and we're still here. Despite me attempting to negotiate the owners were not interested, so I had to file a complaint with the tribunal just to buy some time to find another place.

We had decided a little while ago that we were really wanted to build our own place. This is an amazing house, but not really to our tastes. So we couldn't complain about it being sold but were perplexed that we weren't even contacted for a counter-offer - the first we knew of the sale was the property manager ringing to organise a pest and building inspection for the purchasers!

It's been two weeks of stress, packing, rental inspections and heartache, but we have finally secured a new rental property on Razorback, a little closer to Sydney. We have also secured one other more expensive one near Tahmoor and are waiting to inspect and apply for a far cheaper one in Picton next week.

Maybe we're atypical renters in this part of the world, or perhaps it's the 14-year-olds typically working in Property Management, but we are completely over being treated like scum wasting their time as we try to secure somewhere to actually live.

We'll move somewhere in the first week of December, probably the day before we go and defend our tribunal claim that 14 days was insufficient. They could have just given us the customary 30 days and that would have lined up nicely. Instead, they relied on a tiny contract clause to treat us in an inhumane manner.

So a big sarcastic thankyou to the majority of solicitors, property managers, and landlords we've dealt with over the last two weeks.

Movember '09

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:27:25 -0600

Warning - due to extreme lack of time (further posts on this topic to follow eventually), a generic cut-and-paste blog post is to be found below!

Hi,

I am growing a moustache this year for Movember. I have decided to put down my razor for one month (November) and help raise awareness and funds for mens health specifically prostate cancer and depression in men.

What many people dont appreciate is that close to 3,000 men die of prostate cancer each year in Australia and one in eight men will experience depression in their lifetime - many of whom dont seek help. Facts like these have convinced me I should get involved and I am hoping that you will support me.

To sponsor my Mo, you can either:

Click this link and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account
Write a cheque payable to Movember Foundation, referencing my Registration Number 74440 and mailing it to: Movember Foundation, PO Box 292, Prahran, VIC, 3181

Remember, all donations over $2 are tax deductible.

Movember is now in its sixth year and, to date, has achieved some pretty amazing results by working alongside The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCFA) and beyondblue: the national depression initiative. Check out further details at: http://au.movemberfoundation.com/research-and-programs.

If you are interested in following the progress of my Mo, click here. Also, http://au.movember.com has heaps of useful
information.

Thank you

Reunited, Land, Fires, Family

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:05:56 -0500

I'm absolutely overjoyed to have my girls back home again! They returned safely Friday morning (no thanks to Malaysian Airlines' website with wrong times on it, nor the airline in general with indifferent service and poor treatment). The trip was a great success, with them visiting friends and family in many parts of England. Photos to follow once I've seen them first :)

It's been a rather busy weekend since then, starting with me getting to know Phoebe again. I'm so happy that she seems much more attached to me now, perhaps absence makes even the young hearts grow fonder. It certainly has done for me, for both of them.

While they were away, I went shopping for land to build a house on. Where we are living now is a truly fantastic house, in a great position, but I'm glad we tried out the place before buying because, in ways we almost can't articulate, it's not really "us". It's too ostentatious, not energy or water efficient enough, has a tennis court that disagrees with my knees, and which is also part of the problem of the backyard. One acre is big enough to grow food and/or graze animals, but not really when a good deal of that is taken up with a tennis court.

So, we've all but decided that we want to build. I originally was on the lookout for land right in town at Picton, but have branched out across Razorback, which has the benefit of being closer to work, friends and family, and also being cheaper for the same size block. Not to mention that there are much larger blocks available, such as our current favourite that we're researching after I took Liz there and she concurred - 12.5 bushland acres close to a great little Primary School. Phoebe had a great time chasing animals and spotting ducks on the dam, so I'm sure she'll love it there too.

It is however in a bushfire-prone area, but I have new-found confidence that we'll be able to design to cope (and plan to get out) in that worst-case scenario, after yesterday putting out a fire in a neighbour's backyard. They were burning off something or other, and the high winds carried some ashes across into their garden. Nobody home, nor anyone in the house between them and us, so I went in, called the fireies for backup and found that their garden hose just reached long enough to drench the area. If I hadn't have had the day off work, and Liz wasn't home either, then the outcome could have been much worse. Fireies arrived just in time to say "nice work mate, that'll do it" and left a calling card for the owner to get in touch with them.

Burning-off is crazy at the best of times, but with gale-force winds predicted, and so much dryness around, it's pure idiocy. Luckily Liz had the car packed and Phoebe ready to go for a worst-case scenario. Which we both hope to never see.

Unfortunately that car almost remains packed, with one of my grandmothers suffering a heart-attack up in Nambucca. I'm on the train to work now but might be off for a quick drive up the coast later today or this week, depending on how that progresses. She's stable but heavily impacted last I heard.

So a very eventful weekend, let's see what this week has in store.

esCarGo(t)

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:09:52 -0600

After some consideration and much research, we took a trip last weekend up to Dubbo again - this time with just one purpose.

Despite knowing that we can live without it, we decided to get ourselves a second car. I looked around at many options and narrowed down various criteria until I found what we really wanted - a Peugeot 406 diesel wagon. Being French, and having enough room to lug your house around with you, it was promptly named esCarGo(t). Being bigger, slower and older than Albert the VW Polo diesel we already have and love, the dual-purpose name for snail is quite appropriate too!

The thing is crazily efficient for such a spacious, luxurious car - despite having 7 seats, auto wipers and lights, wood-grain trim, computer, four airbags, etc... - after the 460km drive home from Dubbo the computer still says it's got 1100km to go before it needs fuel again!

In fact the HDi engine in this thing is rather impressive:

"You may recall a Peugeot 406 Diesel set a world record in 2002, driven by John who is a multiple fuel economy world record holder, when it travelled from Melbourne to Rockhampton on a single tank of fuel. The car covered a staggering 2348 km's in real day-to-day driving condtitions on less than 70 litres of Diesel."

I'll do the maths for you - that's 2.98 L/100km.

Ours is a little bigger than that one, but has the same engine. And room for so much baby stuff that we're planning road-trip North next month - one of the reasons behind the purchase.

A real Aussie BBQ

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:18:22 -0600

Our old house has natural gas, but now, out in a country town, a little way out of town, we don't even have sewerage let alone gas to the house.

So when we bought a BBQ a couple of years back, we paid up a bit to get one which could be piped into the house, then paid a bit more to get the existing piping extended to the BBQ area. When we moved, we brought our shiny expensive BBQ with us, but couldn't connect it to anything!

A further problem was the lack of a built-in stand, so after months of waiting we finally got the proper cart thing the other day, and I spent a few hours putting the impressive piece of engineering together. A quick run to Bunnings later, I had the adapter cable to run the thing on bottled gas instead of town gas, and yesterday evening, just in time for Australia Day, the moment of truth arrived - most of a summer without a BBQ was coming to a glorious end!

And what glory it is - the natural gas conversion on the bbq widens the gas outlets to about 2.5 times the size they normally are for bottled gas. The net effect of this is that having the bbq on bottled gas turned up even half way causes glorious jets of flame to shoot through the grill. Full-power will char-grill your steak in about a minute, and empty your bottle shortly thereafter.

So, we have an overclocked BBQ, violating several safety regulations but capable of heating the hotplate in 1 minute instead of 10.

Happy Australia Day!

PS: Phoebe is walking everywhere now, there's no stopping her!

Our New House

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:30:50 -0600

(Continued from So Why Picton?)

Once we'd decided Picton may be worth a try, we set to viewing some houses. There's quite a variety in the town, from 1860s weatherboard places with lots of charm, central, even cheap, but not really what we are looking for in a family home.

There's empty blocks to build on, which is a very strong possibility, but we're yet to find the right block - most new land releases are too far from town, and the ones that are close enough to walk are unfortunately not served by footpaths - just busy roads designed for nothing but cars. Even cycling would be dangerous in the 60-80-100km/h zones.

One thing we did want to be able to (before we'd even decided to move out of Sydney) was to be able to walk to some decent shops. Penshurst is reasonable, but a good town centre is important, and it needs to be walking or cycling distance to reduce our car dependence, especially since we're so far away from the city.

The place we're in for now is called Jarvisfield Estate. Don't worry, the word estate has negative connotations for me too, but this is nothing like what I had expected. It's an established little suburb 20 minutes walk to the north of town, 8 minutes ride to the station, no through traffic, and all one acre blocks (there's a neighbouring estate - the Botanical Gardens Estate - which is all quarter acre blocks). There's a really nice walking path around the river that borders the area, forming a natural barrier to further development along with the hills we have a great view of from our front door:

The house itself is absolutely amazing. Built by the people who now live next door (they used to own both blocks but sold one off) who are in Real Estate, we're yet to find a short-cut taken. There's four bedrooms, four bathrooms (that's just stupid!), a huge kitchen, dining room, family room, and the "big" room which is the massive octagonal living room you really can't describe in words that I'm currently sitting in. Outside on the basically flat acre, there's beautifully landscaped gardens, a four-car remote garage, a huge pergola for outdoor living, a tennis court with lighting, full irrigation, water tanks (smaller than we'd like though), and a biocycle, which breaks down all the wastewater from the house into watering for the extensive gardens automatically.

In short, it's a house way more than or anyone really needs, but within our price range, both for renting which we are doing now, and possible purchase if the Picton Experiment turns out to be a winner. We intend to keep looking around probably after Christmas at other places here, but this is going to be hard to move away from now.

All pictures here.

Movember

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:58:39 -0600

Due to extreme busyness you're going to have to cop the same boilerplate you've already seen elsewhere, sorry! Liz is not too impressed, but nonetheless:

During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I'm growing a Mo. That's right I'm bringing the Mo back because I'm passionate about tackling men's health issues and being proactive in the fight against men's depression and prostate cancer.

To donate to my Mo you can either:

Click this link and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account, or

Write a cheque payable to Movember Foundation', referencing my Registration Number 1974386 and mailing it to:



                                            Movember Foundation 

                                            PO Box 292

                                            Prahran VIC 3181

Remember, all donations over $2 are tax deductible.

The money raised by Movember is used to raise awareness of men's health issues and donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative. The PCFA and beyondblue will use the funds to fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and depression.

Did you know:

Depression affects 1 in 6 men....most don't seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide.
Last year in Australia 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 2,900 died of prostate cancer - equivalent to the number of women who will die from breast cancer annually.

Thanks for your support, Tim.

Away

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 07:39:00 -0500

Yes, we are heading up to Dubbo for a long weekend tomorrow - 7am Friday until 10pm Sunday, first-class on the train.

Yes, we are still moving out of Sydney next Friday.

No, we haven't finished packing or cleaning.

Yes, we probably are insane.

So Why Picton?

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:52:00 -0500

I've already attempted to explain that we are moving and also why.

How did we decide that Picton might be a good place? A process of elimination, and then actually really liking the town when we first arrived to check it out.

First, the elimination. Having decided to move out from where we are now in suburbia, a problem rapidly arises. In Sydney, as you move out further and further west, north or south, the houses get bigger, but they just cram closer together, or more on to the same block. Witness the McMansion belt of most of the western suburbs.

Thousands, probably millions of people live there in varying degrees of happyness, but this is not what we want. The idea of having seven bedrooms on the same size block as we have now, with no public transport and total reliance on petrol prices in this day and age is simply contrary to what we are trying to achieve.

So, we decided fairly early on to look beyond Sydney. People I work with in the CBD already commute from places like Springwood, Emu Plains, Gosford, Wyong, Thirroul, Helensburg, and I've spoken to most of them. Their views are in chorus - the longer travel times are worth it for their families to have a better life, and to have more money to spend on what really counts.

From Sydney, if you want to move out but still commute in you have four basic options - our first task was to whittle these down:

North to the Gosford area. There's definitely some nice cheap places up there, I really like the Hawkesbury and surrounds and would love to live there. However, you are totally reliant on the F3 and the train line, both notoriously unreliable, and - the big one for us - even getting to the start of either of these is a major undertaking for all our friends and family, mostly congregated around the St. George area. Best would be 45 minutes to the F3, and then probably 45 more to wherever we ended up. The final nail was the fact that the land blocks aren't very big, so we'd still feel somewhat crammed in.
West, to the Blue Mountains. We were up there not very long ago and really liked the place. The trains are pretty good, but the drive is no better than North, especially from St. George. We are familiar with most of the towns up there to the point where we could rule many of them out for not being quite "nice" enough. The only remaining ones really were Leura (too far away) and Springwood. Staying there was enough to confirm that it hit all the right points, but still we can't quite get over the distance back to our family and friends.
South, to the Illawarra. I was down in Kiama for work a while back and really liked the place. It's a great little town, just the right size, friendly people, on the beach, but it is simply too far to commute each day. The drive is only an hour from Sutherland now which is fantastic, but then you still have to get to the city. Alternatively, the train is over two hours, which is excessive. Not quite as far south, Wollongong is next - huge and ugly and mostly suburbia, so past that you really only have places like Thirroul. This is nice, and we've visited it and the rest of the coast road towns a fair bit. However, the prices are really no cheaper than Sydney now, the blocks are just as small and there's really no nice-sized town to talk of - just a few shops and a big pub or two.
South-West, to the Highlands. So we arrive at this option, after analysing and pretty much eliminating the other options. Ideally we'd probably like a place like Bowral, which is similar to Kiama with a fast drive until you hit the city, but again the train is just too long. So, we started looking north of Bowral. To keep the train journey times sensible, and the drive to St. George a reasonable length, we didn't want to go too far.

I did most of this research using Google Earth/Maps and the Cityrail timetables, and eventually located Picton as a possible option. I didn't at the time recall ever visiting the place(*), but it was 45 minutes drive down the M5 from the Beverly Hills junction, an hour to the CBD by train (admittedly there aren't many of them, and most are longer than this with a change required at Campbelltown) and yet a quaint little country town just the perfect size. Less than four thousand people, 30 minutes drive to huge shops at Campbelltown and Windsor if you feel you need them, 30 minutes drive to the beach (same it takes us from Penshurst in mid-summer!), and importantly, acreages abound.

Next we researched real-estate prices and were pleasantly surprised to say the least, for something so conveniently located. We found a few actual properties we liked, booked some inspections, and I convinced Liz to give it a chance so we loaded up the car for our first drive down.

As soon as we drove into the main street, after what felt like a very short drive, we were immediately taken with the place. There's enough of each type of shop for there to be competition and sensible prices, but not so many that it feels like one big Westfield. Behind these shops if you look up there are unspoilt green hills in all directions, and two minutes walk gets you to a paddock with horses. There's a botanical gardens, with cycleways servicing many of the houses, and several pubs including the great old Henry IV, home of Scharers Little Brewery. There's several also schools to choose from, which will be important in a few years, a public pool, doctors, etc. All the things you need and none of the stuff you don't.

In short, we felt like it was a serious possibility from day one. Subsequent visits have brought more interactions with the locals, and honestly, in the total maybe 48 hours we've spent there I can honestly say we've made more local friends than we have in four years in suburbia.

Our parents are a little sad that we are considering this option no doubt, but understand and are supportive. They too were blown away with the house we've chosen, which is covered in the next installment of this riveting saga.

(*) We later recalled that during the 1997 bushfire season, we'd both been stationed down here with SES as the Wollondilly SES has it's headquarters in the town. From here we'd driven to and evacuated surrounding areas, and interestingly I had my first unaccompanied drive of a manual vehicle - a suffering SES ute - one morning from the HQ out on the road we now appear to be moving onto. The skidmarks are no longer visible, but I do vaguely recall the area where "our" house now lies being empty, which according to records I've seen, it most likely was.

So Why Move?

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:01:06 -0500

"Aren't you guys happy there?"

Well yes, we are. But we're looking at the bigger picture and trying new things.

From my perspective, for as long as I can remember, when asked whether I think of myself as a city person I've answered "not really". My parents can confirm, but moving away from the city has always been something I've wanted to do. I hate crowds, and Sydney is now a huge city with useless fundamental design now incapable of moving people where they want to go when they want to go, either by car or other means.

Try driving at 3am, as we had to do a little while ago when there was no other option for Phoebe - that's how roads were meant to work. Then try the same thing at 8am. That's how Sydney, and any other big city now feels to me - millions of people stuck waiting to get somewhere else they want to be. Trains are a little better - just as cramped but at least they move and there's less rage.

But, the really silly part is that they don't actually want to be at that target destination. Who wants to work in a cramped office? Humans evolved to roam free and work the land and all that, and now in the last century we've come to spend two-thirds of our life in an office (or factory, or shop, or whatever) and somehow perceive this as normal.

That's the world we live in and I can't change that (I might be aiming to, but that's longer-term). However I can try to make the other third of my life as enjoyable as possible. Here where we are now in suburbia, I had hoped to be able to to say that was happening. Instead, we barely know our neighbours - those on one side have never even said hello. There is no community spirit anymore, no place to gather akin to European plazas, even if you go into the CBD!

Everybody has somewhere else to be, is perpetually busy, and no time for each other. That's the real shame of it, and we're hoping to find a new place that can help.

So that leaves us with two basic options - either move further inner-city where life is more vibrant, travel times short, and lots of like-minded people exist, or move further out, to a "simpler" life.

Moving inwards, the drawbacks as I see it are:

price - a run-down two bedroom semi with two metres of backyard is not worth a million bucks, no matter where it is
space - for the dog and the bub to run around - is significantly less than we already have
noise - traffic and of course our city has that fantastic triumph of planning, an airport smack-bang in the middle of it
child-friendlyness - well, plenty of children grow up inner city, but deep down that still doesn't feel quite right to me
pollution - air, noise, visual, ...

Alternatively, moving outwards, we get far more house and land for our money, somewhere to live more off the land with our own food and energy sources, a strong community, peace, tranquility, and a good place to bring up Phoebe amongst animals, rolling hills and fresh air.

Drawbacks will of course be being further from our friends and family, longer commuting times to work, and the risk of mono-culturalism. We've mitigated these risks in our actual choice of location which I'll elaborate on more later.

I also want to spend significantly less of our lifetime income paying off a pile of bricks that we live in. Australian capital city property is amazingly over-priced compared with pretty much anywhere in the world, and I'm no longer interested in playing that game to the point that it impacts the pile of money we have to actually enjoy life with.

It's still rather scary even after much delibration and with an easy way out, but I do honestly feel we are making the correct move for this time of our lives.

As always, time will of course tell. Maybe the drawbacks will be large enough to get us back on the bandwagon - they appear to be for millions of others! Or have they just not truly considered their options?

The Picton Experiment

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:58:45 -0500

So we're moving to Picton!

Starting in a few weeks we'll have vacated our little Penshurst house which has been a great first home, and moved all our belongings to a strange new rural place. We're calling this an experiment because we like to have ways back out of unfamiliar places, so we're renting a house down there and going to put our Penshurst house up for rent too. This way if we change our minds after a little while (probably six months to match the lease durations), we can move back and say "experiment completed, conclusion negative".

However at this point we're all super-excited and think that this is the place for us for a good while yet. More posts on the reasoning and the actual house we've chosen coming soon. As well as a house-warming of course!

For now it's crazy packing time, plus organising everything for two houses at the same time, oh and of course Liz is going back to work shortly and Phoebe still challenges us with her on-again, off-again sleeping and eating habits.

We must be crazy, but sometimes in life you have to be a bit daring and hope it pays off.

Octsober

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:51:19 -0500

I'm ten days into Octsober, and doing just fine. This is a seemingly low-profile campaign where the Drug and Alcohol Council tries to get you to not drink for a month. I guess I should donate what I would have spent to someone at the end of it, but I can't find much about it online.

The long weekend was a bit of a challenge, but the large supply of bubbly mineral water and decent ginger beer proved refreshing enough.

I am missing the wine though, and the wine club that we're members of is sending out the next tasting collection soon, so hopefully it doesn't arrive this month so that I have to stare at it!

My reasoning behind this isn't much more than "just because" - maybe to give my body a break, definitely to remind myself that I'm not addicted, and to feel more compassion for a breastfeeding mother who only recently has started to sneak a glass in here and there.

Bring on Movember!

A Returning Nurse

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:16:48 -0500

Liz's twelve months of maternity leave is rapidly drawing to an end, which has prompted us to think about how we are going to handle it.

There are a number of factors that make this quite a challenging task:

Phoebe still doesn't eat solids in any measurable way. Now that she's crawling (and standing) all over the place, she's burning through energy like mad and breastfeeding more often again.
Phoebe still doesn't sleep properly. A good night means up twice, a bad night could be a few hour long block, followed by up several more times. This is currently compounded by factor one and the temporary problem that all three of us have colds.
Liz doesn't really want to go back to work, although she misses some aspects of it, such as her friends.

SMH today have an article that neatly sums up one of my concerns:

The bureau's report found that from 1996 to 2006, police-recorded incidents of assault at hospitals across the state have increased from 214 to 322.
In more than two-thirds of the assaults, the victim was a stranger and was most often either a hospital staff member or police officer.

I've never found this even remotely acceptable, but for Liz it's been just part of the job - mentally ill people who don't know what they are doing get away with physically abusing staff. It's largely tolerated because there's not much that can be done.

It's a very tough problem and one that's come back to my mind now that we have a small child still wholly dependent on Liz to think about. She has on occasion suffered this herself, and it's always worried me greatly.

But for now she'll most likely go back one day a week, hopefully a good day where positive things happen, but that's not something we can count on unfortunately.

Thanks Rail Corp!

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:45:53 -0500

Dear Guy in the Railcorp Uniform I just sat next to on the way into town,

Perhaps next time you don't have to leg-spread so wide your mother would be ashamed, and then look with me in scorn as I attempt to squeeze myself into the gap. Or at least have the decency to move your legs so that I can fit in some non-yoga-position manner.

If you decide to continue with your understanding of the amount of personal space required by each traveller on CityRail, perhaps you could approach your employer to re-instate first class? It's not like you're even paying for your ticket so you'll get the free upgrade I'm sure.

Personally, I'd settle for just more trains so that maybe one of the two that shot through Penshurst without stopping before this one arrived would have taken on some passengers, giving each one of them more room.

Oh yes, this was a train at 7 am, and this was the last available seat in the carriage. Otherwise your body odours would have put me off way too much.

Nine Months!

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:16:01 -0500

We could have had another baby in that time! Not that Liz would approve of that plan :)

So little Miss Phoebe is going pretty well really. We still have ongoing sleep issues, which seem to sort themselves out for a few days where she surprises us, but then that's followed by nights where she's refusing to sleep for three or four hours straight.

A good night is currently Liz up feeding twice where Phoebe goes straight back to sleep, and a bad night is up ten times or more, and/or where some of those times Phoebe just wants to be awake. The evenings are typically very challenging, although there's signs of improvement there as well.

But that said, when she's awake, Phoebe is happy and enjoying life most of the time. There's screamy days and happy days, but it looks like the latter are finally outweighing the former. Phoebe loves to look at what we are doing, play with anything, grab things, smile at everyone, and try and get to the dog.

Crawling is still almost there, but constant reliable forward motion still escapes her. She can do it, but it just takes a little while for her to remember how. She loves to walk (assisted of course) so that may come sooner than we expect if she can work out how.

Funnest games include peek-a-boo, flying around, tickling, and funny moving faces. Her laugh is truly wonderful if you can work out how to coax it out of her!

So it's taken a while, and not quite there yet, but we're truly enjoying being parents now. I miss them both so much when I'm away for long days at work, especially on the worst days when I leave before Phoebe wakes and return after she's slept. Luckily for me, she's usually awake again soon, but that's not good for other reasons.

We envy those parents with babies that just sleep twelve hours a day from birth - Liz sleeps maybe five hours some days and Phoebe perhaps seven, but I wouldn't trade either of them, especially since Liz kindly lets me get more sleep than her so that I can face the long working days. This is helped though by the fact that at times Phoebe screams for her mum and won't have a bar of me!

Crawling! (*)

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:57:52 -0500

(*) But backwards, we're still working on forwards.

I think it's pretty cool, as Liz commented this morning it must be weird to suddenly have mobility after seven months of life. It was fun this morning watching her move all around the lounge floor, even if she doesn't really control where she goes yet - just a matter of time though!

OK, so my arm is reasonable. The ortho surgeon guy, despite being a surgeon, said no surgery is required - that's really the main thing I wanted to hear. Just some exercises a few times a day and it should heal up, just a millimeter or so off where it should be. Apparently there's enough tolerance in our joints that that's not at all a problem.

Still sore though, especially when people bump into it on a packed train. I have a sling but despite trying I can't make it comfortable and it's far from convenient so am not normally wearing it.

Shoulder Fracture

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:50:01 -0500

It's only really painful if I move it the wrong way.

Quite bearable most of the time. Specialist appointment on Monday.

Blue Mountains trip

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:41:31 -0500

We got back yesterday from a great long weekend away staying in a house in Wentworth Falls with friends Sarah, Derek and Pearl. It was quite a lot of fun as an over-sized family and a great place to stay.
The photos tell most of the story, but highlights include:

Nice well-renovated two-story house with lots of heating, almost too much. A pleasant change to our previous trip away!
Phoebe mostly behaving herself and sleeping at reasonably sensible hours. I said mostly.
Not thinking about work.
Being out of Sydney in the fresh cool air, yet it only took us 45 minutes to get home (from Glenbrook)
Derek and I competing in the Woodford to Glenbrook mountain bike ride.
Me not breaking anything too serious, although I have some nasty grazes and a very sore arm which will need X-raying.
Derek and I having sole custody of the young ladies for a few hours, taking them to the Leura Toy and Railway museum, which I'd describe as an impressive house and gardens filled with an interesting array of old toys and a poorly-displayed collection of model railways.
Playing with the new camera
A break from the dog. But we missed her!

Sonny Rollins Tickets

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:09:59 -0500

The Saxophone Colossus himself Sonny Rollins is playing in Sydney for one night only at the Opera House, and we find ourselves in possession of an extra ticket.

Contact me via some means if you are interested.

Rolling Over

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:04:55 -0500

Just a quick post because last night Phoebe managed to roll herself over! (I know, if you're not a parent, it's not exciting. Don't worry, I used to feel the same.)

From her back to her front, during her 'nappy-off' time when she's quite a bit more mobile, but obviously a little more care needs to be taken by us parents during this time!

More pics online from Therese and Antony's excellent wedding at Luna Park too. Best Wishes to them both and congratulations on a great day. Thanks for including Phoebe.

Aaah the blog...

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 09:37:46 -0600

It's a sign that life is busy when I don't post here for ages. It's been beyond busy recently. I stare at the front page now and then and note the stagnation, knowing only I can change it. And then something else comes and steals my attention.

No matter, life is going well! Miss Phoebe is for the most part much improved. She still has times when she has been awake for hours and is so tired that she won't sleep or feed. They're tough and she needs constant attention to sort her out. Liz is unfortunately copping most of this as I'm busy at work and still with bands. Several times of the years I've considered dropping back my band commitment, and each time we've discussed it and agreed it can continue. Now I'm not so sure, it's just not fair on Liz to make her do so much while I'm off having a good time elsewhere.

As part of the process of spending more time at home, I purchased a shiny new bike. On the first ride into work on it I cut ten minutes or so of my fastest time on the old bike, so there should be less time spent commuting and more at home. I spent a long time researching options, considering a few compromises on eBay, but ended up getting exactly what I wanted. An expensive way to do it, but warranty and reliability are key on a commuter.

It's what they call a Cyclocross bike, dedicated to the sport of Cyclocross, which pretty much nobody knows about. The formula is to take a fast road bike, make it more rugged, make it more comfortable, and add practical features. So it's a bit slower than a "real" road bike but as you can see above, it's still plenty fast!

And at the other end of the commute - work - things are changing too. My team is being restructured out to the Parramatta office, and I'm was really not looking forward to the extra hour's train journey. The bike ride was far more direct and looked not to be too much longer than the ride to the city, but I can't ride every day, due mostly to weather and carrying instruments. From an organisational perspective it makes sense for that team to be with the rest of the people who do similar things, but from a personal perspective Parramatta has nothing at all to appeal to me, and eats into the time with my new family. Even if I don't go out in the city every day, I could if I wanted, whereas what little there is at Parramatta seems to shut down after business hours.

So I got offered a position as technical lead in a different, but similar team, who are remaining in Surry Hills. I've decided to take it for six months, to see how the management thing suits me. If it doesn't very well then I can either revert to my old job out at Parramatta or look to the market for something different.

Enough for now, I need coffee.

Tresillian

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:24:23 -0600

After not exactly acheiving smashing success at Possum Cottage with Phoebe's tendency to scream most of the night, we booked ourselves in (via a highly convoluted process which really isn't necessary) to Tresillian.
Returning home this morning after four nights staying there, we're pretty optimistic that the worst is behind us. Phoebe has slept very well the time we have been there, and we've actually discovered that some of what Possum Cottage told us actually sent us backwards. They don't appear to have the best name after all, with a few other families staying at Tresillian also having had pretty poor experiences at Possum. That said, it's worked for friends of ours so it's can't be all bad.
The staff at Tresillian were fantastic, genuinely listening to our problems, stories of woe and understanding and helping in every possible way. I seriously can't recommend them highly enough.
It remains to be seen just how Phoebe reacts longer-term, but here's hoping. She's certainly been a great little daughter these last few days.

PS: Always new Phoebe photos coming online at her website!

Belinda & Bryce's Wedding

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 08:01:37 -0600

Had a great day out yesterday at Belinda and Bryce's Wedding. It was at times a bit of a stretch for us but worth it to see all our friends and of course wish the happy couple best of luck for their future together.

I took plenty of photos at the ceremony. Perhaps not as many or with as much talent as Chris - the photographer from our wedding who's work so impressed Belinda and Bryce that they booked him as well.

We're at war, remember?

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 07:13:20 -0600

Received in an email from GetUp:

We're sending you this urgent, one-time email because right now is a time when we can change Australia's direction by speaking up about what's important to us.

Last week, we saw the Prime Minister launch his campaign - and the most astonishing thing happened. As the leader of a nation at war, setting out his vision for the future, Mr Howard failed to even mention the war which he has supported - not a single word.

We are not experts. But we are two young Australian women who know something about the real cost of this war in Iraq. I, Louise (right), survived the 2005 London bombings. I underwent six operations and spent three months in traction. And I, Sam (left), was married to Jacob McMillan - an American soldier, my 25 year old love, who was killed in action in Iraq last December.

Please. Join over 60,000 of us calling for an end to the mess in Iraq by putting your name to the petition below:

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/OurOwnPlanForIraq

How can this man live with himself? I honestly feel for people like this - Liz is so dear to me and, she keeps telling me, I to her. I can only imagine the pain Sam and Louise must be suffering, and to think it was for a war over ~~WMDs~~ ~~global security~~ oil that our country's leader has taken us to against the majority of the population's will, well, I'll let you end this sentence by voting appropriately on the weekend.

Can't wait to see the back of him.

It's time to gooo

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 10:55:51 -0600

Found via Miss Politics.