There’s something fishy going on

Me and Mia went to Oceanworld in Manly today. The highlight there is the nurse sharks. You can walk through a tunnel that goes through the large tank full of sharks, stingrays, turtles and other kinds of fish. Mia just stared at the sharks as they swam towards her, she didn’t really react to them, just kept pointing at them as they swam overhead. One of the sharks was called Mia!!

Mia seemed to enjoy the smaller fish in the other tanks though. She even made a friend. This little friendly fellow kept squashing himself against the glass as Mia got closer and closer to the tank. These fish were more colourful and I think they caught her eye more.

We sat down in the arena bit upstairs and watched the reptile show, which was basically a guy telling us all about Australian reptiles. They got out a baby crocodile for us to touch, but Mia wouldn’t touch it. She kept pulling her hand away. We saw a funnel web spider and a few brown snakes. It was a nice day, just messing around watching the fish swimming about in their tanks.

Video of Mia in the bath

Nursery hunting

I went to have a look at a nursery in North Sydney today – well over here it is called Long Day Care Centre. I didn’t think it was that great. The people were nice enough but they only have two other babies the same age as Mia and I’m not even sure they would be attending on the same days, so she might be playing on her own, which defeats the object of her going to nursery in the first place. It felt a bit strange to be thinking about leaving Mia in the hands of complete strangers. She has never been looked after by anyone other than me or Damien, so not sure how she would take it all.

I was shown around, they even had cots so that the babies can have a sleep during the day. The woman said the carers can see the babies asleep through the window – it just made me feel sad thinking about Mia asleep all on her own in that room. I just wonder what they would do if she was crying and wouldn’t stop?? Does that ever happen and if so, are the parents ever told?

On my way out, I ended up putting my foot through some timber flooring that must have been rotten. It was on the main path on the way in and out!! Wasn’t impressed with that. I only slightly grazed my foot but can you imagine if it had been a child? I had already completely embarrassed myself my making a right dog’s ear of trying to get me and the pushchair through two gates! Don’t ask.

The bus back to Manly took 45 minutes but Mia kept the surfer dudes and dudettes sat opposite us amused with her tongue sticking out trick. They kept doing it back to her and she would stick her tongue out again. We were sat at the front, so the whole of the bus were looking at what was going on.

I meant to say yesterday, whilst we were walking along Manly beach there was a warning of a confirmed shark sighting and everyone was told to get out of the water! Not everyone did though, still plenty of surfers just carried on surfing. I think the shark sighting was just a little bit north from where we were.

Oh and guess what?? Mia has grown another little tooth! So now we are 7 and counting. This one joins the other two gnashers on the bottom. She’s not even 11 months yet.

We spent the late afternoon on the beach at Manly Cove as it wasn’t too sunny for Mia. She was more interested in trying to chase after the seagulls. I put her little shoes on and off she went, I hardly had hold of her. She seemed to enjoy the sound of her shoes scraping on the floor though.

We are going to Oceanworld tomorrow to see the nurse sharks, most of the kids are back at school, so hopefully it should be quiet.

Moving on....this time to Manly

We moved to Manly yesterday. We had to do it in two trips, I have no idea how on earth we have managed to accumulate so much stuff. Damien did drop off some things at the place in Cremorne as well though.

The Manly apartment is great, we are just opposite the Manly Ferry Wharf overlooking Manly Cove beach. So Mia and I have been exploring again today. We walked over to the main beach and sat in some shade and had our lunch. Mia loved the breeze blowing in her hair and pointing at all the seagulls.

Just found out that our furniture has cleared customs, so we will take delivery of it on 4th February, which means we get to move into our new place in Cremorne! Yay – at last we can sleep in our own bed and we don’t have to move for at least another year, thank god.

We are now in a rush to buy a fridge/freezer. We went over to the shopping mall in Bondi Junction at the weekend and some bloke in one of the shops attempted to try and hard sell us one, we managed to get a good price from him and then he found out he didn’t have any in stock, so he tried to sell us another one and his selling point was “yes, well this one will be better for you as it has a larger freezer section” ermm yes how on earth does he need know what we need?? We hardly use the freezer, so would probably only need a small freezer section. I think he could see his sale going, as he was getting desperate. Then he was trying to say, well pay today and on Tuesday you can come back in and find out whether we have anymore in stock. What planet was this guy on? Why would we pay now only to have to come back and possibly find out that there are no more in stock by the time we need it? Needless to say we walked away, only to go back to write down the name of the fridge/freezer we liked and he came running back over thinking we had changed our mind. Should have seen his face when he realized we were only there to write down the serial number.

It’s been a long weekend this weekend because of Australia Day on Saturday. It is their national day. It’s the day that 220 years ago the first European settlers arrived in Sydney Cove. There were lots of kids things going on in Darling Harbour, so we went to have a look and watched Spot the Dog singing and Fireman Sam on stage. Mia seemed to like it, we were waiting for Bananas in Pyjamas but Mia was getting a bit irritable and fell asleep so we missed them. We wandered over to the Opera House to see the end of the Tall Ships race; the finish line was the Harbour Bridge. I managed to get a few photos over the tops of people’s heads as it was really crowded with people watching the ships.

There was a fireworks display to finish off Australia Day in Darling Harbour. So whilst Damien babysat I went out to watch the fireworks. It was really packed; I just about managed to find a spot on Pyrmont Bridge to watch them. The Australians certainly know how to put on a good firework display!

New photos

I've added new photos to the list on the right. Have a look if you've got time.

Mia being nosey video

Mia crawling video

Last week living in the City

Me and Mia have done lots of things in the City this week. Whilst Damien flew to Melbourne overnight for meetings, we went to look around Chinatown and had a look at Paddy's Markets but it was shut. So we'll have to come back when it is open.

On Thursday we met some friends at Australian Museum to let the kids play in something called Kidspace. It is basically a play area for children under 5 and it has lots of different areas dedicated to different types of creatures, i.e. insects or marine animals. So there were plenty of rubber spiders, snakes, plastic sharks and crabs lying around. Mia seemed to enjoy herself, so much so that after we'd had lunch in the cafe and everyone went home, we went back up to play. She loved it. There were stuffed animals around as well, but she didn't want to touch the dingos and kookaburra's but she didn't seem to notice that she had been sat right next to a stuffed wombat!!!

We then had a good look around the rest of the museum and Mia was very well behaved as she didn't moan once! There was a skeleton section and some sort of exhibition on that featured just huge images of gorilla's faces. That was quite surreal. Mia pointed at one gorilla's face she seemed to like. We also had a look at the pictures from the Wildlife Photographer of the year competition. Some amazing pictures there.

We are picking up the keys for our place that we will be leasing for a year tomorrow and going around to remind ourselves of what it looks like. We will also need to measure up so that we buy the right size fridge/freezer. We'll probably leave some of our things there but until our furniture clears customs we can't do much there.

We've also heard that until our furniture arrives we will be living in serviced apartments in Manly. They look really nice and apparently it will have views of the harbour. So we are moving there on Monday.

Christmas & New Year in Sydney

Please click on the link above to see a few of our photos we took of Mia's first Christmas and of our New Year here in Sydney.

Mia cruising video

Just thought I'd share this small video with you.

For my next trick

Well look who's managed to stand up in her travel cot! I went to check on her as it had all gone quiet in her room, so I thought she had fallen asleep but no, she was just having a cheeky look around. I hope we can lower the mattress in her proper cot to a low enough height, so that she can't climb out.

Apparently our furniture has now arrived in Sydney but it can take up to two weeks to clear customs. Damien's work is trying to fast track it for us.

We went to the Aquarium the other day. There is a walk through tunnel where sharks swim around you. Mia was fascinated by them. Well, she didn't really show much in her face as she was quite tired but she was staring at them and couldn't take her eyes off them. I'll probably take her back when it is not the school holidays as there were millions of kids there when we went, standing on your feet and generally pushing you out of the way so that they could squash their little noses against the tank windows to get a closer look at all the fish. It was a bit too hectic for a baby and a pushchair. Actually, I could have rammed a few of the kids and their pushy mothers out of the way with the pushchair!

We've got a place to live

The owners of the place we went to view last week have agreed to us renting it for below the asking price! It's in a place called Cremorne and we'll let you know the address when the lease is all signed.

I've spent the day over at another huge shopping mall in Bondi Junction. Mia and I got the train over there - it is only a few stops away from the centre of Sydney. We navigated our way through the minefield of concourses and platforms to find the lifts each time we needed to go up or down. I don't do escalators with a pushchair anymore after I nearly had a little accident in Woolworths. Needless to say I nearly ended up on my a*se with the pushchair on top of me. A bit stupid really. Mia was fine, she never noticed a thing, but it could have been sooo different.

I have managed to find myself a pair of shoes. They were in the sale and amazingly only cost $12, I'm sure Damien won't be happy that I've replaced my Jimmy Choo shoes that he bought with a pair that cost a hell of a lot less. Or actually maybe he will, considering I'm not earning at the minute.

He's just spent the last three nights in the Sheraton Hotel on Hyde Park as part of a team building exercise, so me and Mia haven't been able to see him, even though the hotel is not far from the apartment at all. He sounds like he is having a good time and is getting on with his new colleagues. They are all going to see Billy Elliott tonight, not sure that is right up his street, but I'll be asking him to demonstrate a few pirouettes and pliés.

Nothing interesting

We've been busy viewing possible places to rent. We saw quite a few this weekend and we think we've found one. We've put in an application for it and offered $50 below the asking price a week for it, so we just have to wait and see now whether the owners will agree to that price or whether they have had a better offer from someone else. So keep your fingers crossed.

Mia is definitely crawling now, I can put her down in the middle of the lounge and the next minute she is right by my feet over by the kitchen table. I can't take my eyes off of her for a single second now. She can even pull herself up to standing and attempts to walk on her own but of course she would fall down after a few steps if I wasn't there to catch her.

Broken shoes and crawling

Had an interesting shopping trip today. I had loads of food to get as my cousin is coming round for something to eat tonight so the bag on the handlebars of the pushchair kept pulling it backwards nearly toppling the pushchair over, so as you can imagine it was quite hard pushing it along – especially in the crowds and heat as well. AND THEN my damn shoe broke! I had to carry my shoes and walk barefoot home with the pushchair nearly toppling over, Mia moaning to get out, through crowds of people, on a very hot pavement with people staring at me as if I was some mad bag lady!

Another bit of news is that Mia is definitely crawling a little bit. When she really wants something she does actually get up on all fours and shuffle forwards. The juicy prize on offer this time was a dirty nappy bag! Not sure what was so great about that bag that she just had to have. She also crawled backwards a little bit and ended up in a sitting position. So she is really learning how to get around now, as well as the constant cruising around the furniture in the room. She’s getting really good at that as well.

Oh and one more Mia story for you – I put her down for a nap the other day but I could still hear her making noise so I went in to see what was the matter and she was sat up in the cot facing one of the meshed travel cot walls and she was rubbing her little nose on it quite vigorously! Have no idea what that was all about but it has left her with a little red nose now.

Not more teeth!

I’ve just noticed that Mia now has 6 teeth. Two more have just appeared on either side of her top two middle teeth. I’m not sure when they first popped through, but they are still quite small, so it can only have been in the last couple of days. Mia seems fine, so these ones didn’t seem to cause her as much pain or discomfort as the top two teeth did.

Look who’s sitting now…

Well today I went in to check on Mia after her nap and she was sat up in her cot. I have no idea how she managed that – clever girl. Then later on, whilst playing on the floor in the lounge, she managed to get to a sitting position from lying on the floor on her own a further three times. I’m very impressed.

More unit hunting

We have just spent most of the day unit hunting today. We were all over the place, Cremorne, Kirribilli, Neutral Bay, Wollstonecraft & Pyrmont but none of them were exactly right for us. Some were just downright tatty and then there was this fantastic apartment in Pyrmont with a pool and gym but the area, we thought, was more for younger people without kids. Also this place only had a balcony and no other outdoor space for Mia to run around in.

We spent the afternoon over at Balmoral beach relaxing and then went to Manly for a little look around as well. The waves were crashing down in Manly, they really looked quite dangerous. A bit like it was in Newcastle yesterday. No one was allowed to go in the sea there.

Damien needed to visit the John Hunter hospital in Newcastle as part of his job so Mia and I tagged along for the trip. We just went to Nobbys Beach, which was very beautiful and had some lunch at a gorgeous little café on Hunter Road then went into the town centre, which reminded us a bit of Stockport precinct.

We’ve been quite busy recently, trying to find ourselves somewhere to rent and just getting to know Sydney really. I’ve spent a few lunchtimes over in Darling Harbour, people watching and Mia spending her time seagull watching!

I’ve been into the Australian National Maritime Museum (mainly because it was free) and had a wander round. They have a new exhibition on called Iceman – the story of Otzi. It’s been in the newspapers and on the television. It’s basically all about the oldest wet mummy in the world. The iceman was discovered in 1991 in the Otzal Alps in Italy and is thought to have died over 5000 years ago. So I thought, oh I’ll just go and have a look at him (as you do). Well, I’ve seen Juanita, who is a 15th century Inca mummy of a young girl, whilst we were traveling in Peru, so I thought I’d go and look at Otzi as well.

Well, I didn’t realize but they don’t actually have him there, it is just a replica of the mummy! The exhibition is just about his story and how he lived, died and how he was found. More to help children learn about it really, so that was a bit disappointing. I must have been distracted when the news report mentioned it on the tv, or they did a good job of keeping that bit secret!

Happy New Year

Hope you all had a fantastic New Years Eve. Ours was amazing. We had the most fantastic views of the harbour from the unit we were staying in, and we didn't have to pay a penny for the privilege! What a way to see the Sydney New Years Eve fireworks for the first time.








We got there during the afternoon, and just let the kids play together whilst we took in the views of the harbour. There were bi-planes flying in formation over the crowds at the harbour, on the hour, every hour and we could see Circular Quay and the areas surrounding it filling up with people getting ready to watch the fireworks.

Mia didn't wake up at all throughout the fireworks, and they were really loud, so we were quite surprised she stayed snoring away. After the 9pm Family Fireworks, there was something called the Harbour of Light Parade, where basically 50 ships, boats and ferries sail around the harbour with illuminated emblems in red on their hulls. It looks fantastic all lit up at night.

The Midnight Fireworks lasted for about 12 minutes, it was just spectacular. The atmosphere was great, everyone seemed to be having house parties and all had their windows and doors open and were talking to each other or just soaking up the atmosphere, there was even some guy playing the bagpipes (badly) upstairs from us. I've never seen New Year's Eve celebrated quite like it.