Temp bush ranger

Here I am in North Ryde! The accommodation up here is actually pretty nice, and it's good to have our own bathroom/kitchen again and not have to share. The house is nice and spacious, with big open plan area downstairs and bedroom, en suite and main bathroom upstairs - a nice change from two of us in one small double room! The downside we already knew about - it is literally in the middle of nowhere. There is a bus stop outside but there is only one bus an hour into the city for most of the day, and the nearest life is Macquarie University 20 minutes walk away. The Macquarie shopping centre is walkable too though, in about 30 minutes, and there are some pretty good shops there. Otherwise there is just a park on every block and a few houses.

We have been trying to make the best of it however. We explored the complimentary sauna facilities yesterday evening, which was lovely, and today we went to Mac Uni sports centre and played squash and then went swimming. I am horrific at squash, but then I am horrific at all sport except running, and the squash was ok so I shall go again I think. I am also horrific at swimming but it's fun to flap around.

On Friday I started my new illustrious career as a.... temp. Haha. I had a day assignment, and have work again for tomorrow and Tuesday this week. Going ok so far, and I am getting about £10 an hour, but I need to get a proper job asap really so I don't feel like a failure!
My Friday assignment was down in Pyrmont. I didn't realise how easy it was to get there (basically I didn't realise there was a bridge over Darling Harbour you could walk on), so I was there an hour early! Fortunately it was a nice day and it was nice wandering around on the wharf, so I took some pictures to entertain myself. So here is the view from Wharf 7 in Pyrmont at 7.30am on a winter's day, with the sun just rising over the Central Business District.

Shuffling around

This evening Mark and I are getting packed up as we leave the Glebe house tomorrow for another temporary home. At least we will soon have a more permanent home! As I mentioned a couple of posts back, we had our application accepted on the house in Meadowbank and put down a deposit on it last Saturday! Until we can move in on September 3rd, we will be in the Medina Executive Apartments. It looks pretty nice and is being paid for by Macquarie University out of Mark's relocation allowance. The downside is that it's in North Ryde (near Macquarie University), a dull suburban sprawl connected to the city only via a 40 minute bus ride. But, there are gym, sauna and swimming pool facilities, so hopefully I will be too busy getting wet to notice the surroundings too much.

Today Mark took the morning off work and we strolled around Glebe and Newtown, until it was time for a seminar he wanted to attend at the University of Sydney. We also had another poke around in Gould's Book Arcade on King Street, the most brilliant warehouse piled full of second hand books, where I acquired Nylon magazine and Nabokov's The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. That makes the second Nabokov novel I have bought in a week (the first being The Defence, found for $3 on a stall at Glebe Market) - the lesser known ones that I found hard to get hold of in the UK just keep appearing!

Here's a few pictures from around Glebe/Newtown:


View of the Central Business District.




On King Street, Newtown.


Mark in a cafe reading Nylon.

Glebe house

I realised I never posted a picture of where we are staying at the moment! Here is the house, in Glebe, just off Glebe Point Road. It is a shared house, we have our own room but are sharing kitchen, dining room, garden, and 3 bathrooms with the others. There are a few interesting people here - Singaporeans, Canadians, other Britishers.... The Singaporeans make amazing homemade tea which they let me try. Lovely!



So we have been here just over three weeks now. We leave next Thursday (31st July).

Rain booo.

Feeling a bit ill today, got a cold coming I think. The weather is awful at the moment which doesn't help; it has poured with rain pretty much solidly since yesterday evening. This means I am stuck inside the house, as neither of the three pairs of shoes (well...two pairs of actual shoes and one pair of flip flops) I brought with me in my suitcase are very rain-appropriate. I wore my canvas shoes to just walk a hundred meters down to the Fair Trade Café on Glebe Point Road last night and they almost died, so I am having to give them a day off today.

I also need more clothes! I am so fed up of the same hoodie-jeans-jacket everyday. I think American Apparel is due to open their Sydney store soon though, possibly even today, so I need to get down there and pick up a new hoodie, especially since the $$$ price works out slightly cheaper than the £££ price.



I may end up with this one in brown. I kind of favour the hoodie dress that they do (they same thing just longer like a dress), but it doesn't come in brown and I am kind of attracted to this brown. Ho hum we'll see.



I like this cardigan as well, it's a unisex one but looks a good fit, and I'm always borrowing Mark's cardigans because I like how they fit so it would be good to get my own and I'm sure he would appreciate it!

Mark just skyped me with some good news!!! We got our application accepted on the house in Meadowbank!!! I'm so excited! It is still a month until we can move in, but it's so good to know there is some stability coming. We move out of this house in Glebe next Thursday, and Macquarie University (Mark's work) are hopefully sorting us out something for the intervening weeks.

In other news, I forgot to write that I passed my Graduate Diploma in Law, and not only passed but got a Commendation, hurrah! So there are two things to celebrate right now. Although they will possibly be celebrated by hiding in bed from the weather...

England's green and pleasant land

I miss England today. There are a lot of things about Sydney that make it seem very familiar, but also a lot of things that make it feel very foreign. Especially the way the buildings look, and the wide wide wide roads.

These photos were taken on Mark's parents' farm in Broughton, Cambridgeshire, just before we left on our way to Australia. I miss the peaceful English countryside, that's where I want to be right now.

Thai thai thai weekend.

This evening we had a lovely meal at Thai-riffic on King Street in Newtown, with the University of Sydney people. It was pretty good - Mark and I shared a Pad Thai as we were warned the meals were huge, and the warnings were right! It was delicious though - a much nicer Pad Thai than what I am used to, and they put the peanut at the side of the plate which I like. I am not very fond of the peanut part of Pad Thai so it was good to get the option of whether to add it to the dish or not.

On Saturday we had a lovely day at Glebe Market, followed by rosehip tea at Badde Manors on Glebe Point Road. On Sunday we had a really good red curry at the Fair Trade Café just a few doors down from Badde Manors. I like that café, it has a very relaxed bohemian feel.

Apologies for the lack of interesting photos here and at Flickr recently. I will get back on track soon I promise!

Possible home

On Sunday we caught the ferry out to Meadowbank to look at Mianna's (Mark's colleague) house. She is moving out and we have the possibility of taking over the lease. It was a grey, overcast, chilly day but you still got a great view of the harbour. It would be an amazing trip to take in the summer.

The house is really nice! It's a bungalow (as are most suburban houses) built in 1914 with a good amount of space and really lovely period features.



That's the living room, it's so cosy and I love the fireplace and windows. Mianna and her partner have a 6 year old daughter and that's her little dinner table in the middle! (The wine glasses are obviously ours!)

Meadowbank is a very quiet suburban area with a couple of local shops and a park, and a supermarket in the next suburb. The house is 3 minutes walk from the station to get into the city in 25 minutes. We are having a big think but we are very keen on it!