First blossoms

After a month or 2 of winter I kind of just keep your head down and keep going. The near constant gray skies of England, the wet roads, the dark, it all has a general shut-down effect on everyone. Everything outside of work slows down (work never slows down anywhere near London)

So one day while walking head down, partly to make sure I can effective dodge all the puddles and partly because its just so so grim, I glanced up and there it was. The first blossoms.

Now middle of February, summer or even spring, is a fair way away, but suddenly there is some colour. That one tree on my walk from the station that is starting to defy the winter, makes me start to wake you up from my winter hibernation, and suddenly I'm looking for more.

On closer inspection the seemingly dead tree next to the road is holding back from pushing out its leaves. Little seed-like bulbs sit at the end of each and every twig as if the tree is keeping itself busy to keep itself from bursting out into summer mode then and there.

So 6 more weeks and the clocks go back! Then its the time of the year when England is actually a nice place to live.

Sunny mind games, especially on weekends

The problem with the British summer is that it has the ability to get you to reconsider things. Maybe the winter isn't so bad, maybe the country isn't that glum. People are in better moods, birds are chirping in the trees and we are all walking around in our shorts event when the wind does usually gives us a chill.

The problem is obviously now the big question of "Is it better anywhere else?" Taking family out of the equation, there are winters in Australia and England and South Africa. As another blogger so adequately put it, "you need to take the rubbish out here too".

I guess the difference is the extent of the "outdoor" lifestyle. In UK we go sit in parks, in Australia they sit next to the sea. In England we have a pint next to the river... not sure what the same thing is in Oz but I'm assuming you drink a pint on the beach.

You can not help bring into the equation that a sane person can actually go into the water in Oz in summer. I've tried it in UK once it was freezing!

So now, waiting for the winter to set in again for our moods to shift towards sunnier dreams again. I'm contently enjoying the British summer. Let see how the mood shifts when it gets dark at 4pm next.

Foxy round of Golf

Last night I arrived home at 6pm and it was still lovely and sunny. So I decided that it would be a good time for a round of golf. Seeing as we live literally 20meters from the Strawberry Hill golf course I couldn't see a reason not to. My wife arrived shortly after I did so I invited her along to enjoy the sunshine.
As usual the first hole went horribly and I actually almost picked up. So half determined we marched over to the next hole, which went a bit better and we spotted a fox. He was not very tame and on the next hole he sat watching me tee off before something on the other side of a bush caught his attention and he went jogging away.
I played another hole undisturbed before he made an appearance again. This time as I was trying to find a ball that I had hit into some impossible rough! He ran halfway across the fairway about 50 yards closer to the pin, stopped, sat down, and looked at me as if to say "You coming?!". I gave up looking for the ball and dropped, this was too much for my spectator and he jogged off into the bushes again.
As we arrived at the next hole we were rewarded by a rather strange yet grotesque site of a squirell jumping out of a bin with a dead rat! He gave us a look, apparently decided that we weren't a threat an sat there nibbling on the rats head for a second before squirreling up a tree. Mmm coming to think of it that may explain me and my wife having rather violent dreams that night...Anyway!
I teed off again (lost another ball but who's counting) and carried on unhindered for a round or 2 before just as I was about to chip onto the green on the 8th hole the fox decided to grace us with his presence again and sat down exactly in-between me and the pin with a look on his face of "so...". I paused to point him out to my wife was enough of a delay for him to get disinterested again. He saw a bird on the screen and took off after it halfheartedly.
We finsihed 9 holes and returned home having had a good dose of British wildlife. Gotta love summer.

Ireland Weekend - Road trip

There is definitely something that England is great for. City breaks! Since it is close to most of Europe, the pound is stronger than the Euro (marginally these days) and there are a host of cheap deals to pick from you can easily and with a smallish budget get a taste of a different culture (and a break from the English one).

So last weekend we packed our hand luggage (budget trips, no normal luggage allowed but hey we paid £2.50 a ticket from Ryan Air. Went up a little because I figured it its that cheap I might as well pay the little bit extra for Priority boarding (won't ever go without it again) so all in all for me and my wife's tickets it cost us about £25 incl taxes and the lot. So off we went.

We arrived late, around 22:30 and hurried over to the rental car collections to pick up our car. We opted for a Garmin from Europe Car. Okay so the trip gets a bit more pricey with the extras but I think we saved at least the €10 in petrol a day by not getting lost and loads of frustration. We did however get a slightly confused Garmin and it took us a couple of U turns to eventually get to our Hotel. As per usual at the start of a holiday, especially one starting at 22:00 at night after a hard days work we passed out.

The next morning we were surprised to see that it was sunny! It didn't last long but they bad weather didn't stick around long either, it seemed to move fairly quickly rather than the English weather that seems to hang around, especially when its cloudy weather. We had a quick breakfast and then used our confused Gamin to get us to the Guinness brewery where we had a Guinness in their lovely tower bar with views over Dublin and learnt all about how to make it.

We then set off from Dublin to Cork. This is a 5 hour drive if you go straight, I think it took us closer to 9.

Our first stop was the Rock of Cashel. The guide book says that Cashel is overshadowed by it but we thought it looked more like it protruded from it. It looks completely out of place. The huge stone castle that was later given to the church, with it medieval feel is completely out of place in the green landscape with a couple of small houses around.

We then moved on, we stopped at a pub for lunch in a small town and then continued on to Cork. I was adamant to find an Irish stew but Alas this eluded me, my wife was also disappointed by the fact that we couldn't find a pub playing Irish music with some Irish dancing the first night in cork.

The morning of the next day we took a trip down to the coast. We actually after a bit of driving around found a pathway leading to a little beach and got some fresh sea air in before our hunger got the better of us and we found a nice little restaurant called The White House in Kinsale where we had lovely service.

We really enjoyed the Irish's encouraging manager. Every question is answer with "Off course you can" and when you asked if you were on time you were told "Your right on time" and when trying to leave a pub that night you had chorus of Irish accents calling after you "What it something we said? Come have another one, there will be Irish music in a minute." We had to stay until 22:00 but their promises did come true eventually.

We had to off course go up to Blarney and kiss the stone, the Legendary Blarney stone. When I first heard of William Churchill I didn't think I'd ever kiss something he kissed, but life is full of surprises!

Blarney Castle isn't all the impressive, the gardens are pretty and all but when its freezing cold, as it happened to be in the hour we were there we quickly made our way back to the car after paying €10 of a photo of us hanging upside down through a hole in the tower floor. Gotta love capitalism.

Our last day was a bit of a mess up because we thought we could make it around the ring of Kerrie from Cork and Back to Dublin before 19:00 that night to catch our flight when we only left about 10:00. Needless to say we realized the error of our ways halfway around the ring of Kerrie and had to push our poor little VW Fox to its limits to get back to Dublin. We did stop for some encouragement next to the road and had a coffee and a toilet break and was told "You'll make it no problems" in their encouraging tone. So feeling reassured we set off and made it with an hour to spare. I did loose my temper with taxi driver because he had a problem with me reversing up a one way after the airport roadworks and signage being less than adequate got me going down the wrong lane. But all in all it was a successful trip and we'd definitely go back to see the rest of Ireland someday!

February Snow in London while Australia heats up

Most people will remember last week. Most because they got a day off work, some because school was cancelled, and yet others for being able to build their first snowman. Which all in all put London in a better mood, neighbors taked, strangers had snow ball fights, couples got to go play outside in the snow and post their snowy accomplishments on facebook. It was a good day, at least for peoples spirits.
Unfortunately snow means amongst other things that its cold, very cold, and the week after the snow was bitterly cold helped allong with sleet and rain. It was cold ok (I think you get it). Yet somehow it was OK, as if the snow somehow promised that spring was on its way or it can only get better now, or at the very least, this is as bad as its going to get before it gets better.

At the same time we are struggling with the cold the Ausies seem to be struggling with the heat. I have some friends there who say people had similar days off because of the heat. Even the train-lines went down because the lines "buckled". So while we were covering up in layer after layer over there they had the fans on full. Good week for utility companies all around the world it seems. Unfortunately just like our snow and ice is causing some accidents on our roads, and some bruised knees (and more) this side, in Australia the heat wave seems to be a little more destructive with the great fires raging there that's killed more than a 100 people so far.

It really does make me wonder about how quickly we are going to have a real live version of "the Day after Tomorrow" situation. At least we all know to head for the library and start burning books. Then again UK will probably be 100 meters under water... So maybe saying that Australia wins this round.

Wedding in South Africa

This December holiday was a busy one for us. Not only were we going back to South Africa but we were also getting married whilst we were there. We left home with our big jackets on got on the plane and 17 hours later (we did the via London to Johannesburg via Dubai) we stepped into the boiling heat in sunny South Africa.
You do almost immediately get the "This is what I gave up" thought popping up in your head as your drive down the wide highways, trough the hilly outer reaches of Johannesburg. I barely managed to make it to the house before passing out from the long flight, but I managed to wake up around 8 that evening for dinner outside on the patio in the cool 20 something degrees nighttime.
Unlike the UK we didn't have neighbours one or 2 meters away, we were blissfully unaware of them, you only have your present company taking up your attention.
For the next couple of days I spent the nights at my parents, they live on a particularly hilly area of Johannesburg. If it wasn't for a annoying apartment block behind them blocking the way they would have a beautiful stretching for miles to the horizon. The dogs are constantly running up and down the garden looking for their next game and the pool water is luke warm after baking in the heat.
As luck would have it (depending on who you talk to it was very lucky) the day of the wedding started out as boiling as the ones before it but by the time we were getting ready to start a thunder storm broke loose and rain came pouring down. If you've never been outside of UK I doubt you know this kind of rain. Huge drop come pouring down to hard that it takes you only a moment or 2 to get sopping wet. We were lucky though that as my lovely bride was about to make her entrance the rain slowed to a drizzle and she could make it down the isle without trouble.
By the next morning the rain was gone and we made our way to the Drakenburg for our honeymoon. The stunning scale of the green mountain country gets you wondering why you'd ever really want to be anywhere else. We were also treated to a lighting storm the one night that turns the night quite literally to day from time to time, but again as before the clouds can't stand the sun for long and soon the sky is blue again. The rain dries in an hour or two after the sun comes up and the dusty (its a good dusty) African air takes its place again with just a touch of the cool freshness that came with the rain.
After the honeymoon we made our way to my parents in Pilans berg, a game reserve just outside Johannesburg near Sun City. The heat was so intense when we arrived that my mom and grandmother as well as my one sister couldn't do much more than sit and wait for it to cool down, however as it usually happens after the heat comes the storm and after a frantic couple of minutes trying to hold on to the tent we were rewarded by a cool fresh night. The following day turned out to be nice too as the worse of the heat had been broken by the storm the night before and we were chased back to camp by the game wardens that night when we got stuck at a beautiful sunset scene.
Needless to say when it came time to climb back to the plane to go back to the freezing temperatures of the UK I felt a fair amount of resistance. Not just from leaving the 24 degree afternoon to land the next morning in 1 degree but also because of the friends and family I was leaving behind.
The crime aside, South Africa is a stunning place and if it would just sort it self out, and I can trust the source that tells me its better. I'd be on the next plane back. The problem is of course the brain drain causing the remaining skill in the country being worked to death, the crime stopping me from finishing a round of golf because there was a mugging at the bottom of the 16Th hole and the need to lock yourself up wherever you go. These factors are very hard to miss when you live there and I really hope it could become a peaceful country again were one or two men's greed and lust for power won't destroy it as has happened with some of our neighbours.
So where we are back in the safe, cold and wet England. Which for all its faults is a good place and safe place to live if you can avoid the frantic central London transport systems. I think I might be good waiting staying here and waiting until South Africa sorts itself out. I may not be the patriotic type that wants to stick it out there and risk becoming part of the statistics but I do love the place and I hope that one day I can return to my home country.

Australian Seminar

We went to a working in Australia seminar this weekend. It was interesting to hear about all the Visa's that you can apply for and we had a chat with some of the employment agencies. Seems if your in any kind of engineering or mining or building industry your very likely to find a sponsour. The IT prospects are there but not as eager as for the above mentioned ones. We would basically need to register my CV and hope for the best.

The other alternative is to go straight for the skilled visa. This can take up to a year to apply for and could cost you about 2000 Australian dollars. There are ways to fast track it by applying to the regional governments after you had your skills assessed by the relevant authorities. If your skill is in high demand they can then opt to fast track your application. If you don't meet the points for skilled migration this is also a way in which you could potentially gain the points needed to push you over. If a regional authority wants you, you only need 100 points as apposed to the 110 points you usually need.

I have to admit the thought of going through all of this again so shortly after doing it for the UK is a bit... well daunting. So we have decided to register our CV's forget about it and see what happens. If we get a good offer we will concider it then. In the meantime we will live as if we aren't going anywhere. 

So lets see what the UK will bring... for now :)