Ahhhhhhhhhh

It's bedtime for my six-year-old. I go with him to his room to read a bedtime story. As soon as we enter the room he starts to scream: 'Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!'.

Because he screams, I start screaming too: 'Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!' and we make a lot of noise. I ask him why he screams and he points to a huntsman spider on the door of his closet. Luckily it is only a small one. After my earlier encounters with bigger huntsmans, the small ones don't freak me out anymore. I somehow manage to ignore them.

Huntsman spiders are very quick so after brushing teeth in the bathroom it was no longer there. I'm sure it's now hiding somewhere in the closet, growing and growing and waiting till it is big enough to really scare us.

You can also read: warning, do not read this when you have a spider phobia

Anzac day

Today we had the day off because of Anzac day. It's about remembering the actions of Australian and New Zealand forces in the first world war and the wars since then. This year Anzac day was on a Sunday and therefore everyone gets the Monday off which is nice. If you want to know more about Anzac day this is an excellent link We didn't really participate in the ceremonies but our six year old could tell us all about the battles, the Japanese and poppies. He also made a beautiful drawing of a poppies.

This week we will be preparing for the Dutch Queens day celebrations. After celebrating Queens day in jakarta and Mumbai we are a bit dissapointed. There are so many Dutch in Sydney we ended up on the waiting list!! We also need to pay to get in. This is really unheard of. Luckily our Australian neighbour, a musician, has been invited to play on the event so we may be able to get to the Dutch reception through him. Tonight he showed us the Dutch songs he will be playing. One of them is 'Laat me' and another one is 'Op een Kangaroe eiland'. We are looking forward to it.

Autumn in Sydney

It's the end of April and it's slowly getting colder. This morning I noticed a tree with brown and red leaves making it look like autumn. It's getting chilly at night and in the mornings. Please don't get me wrong, it's still very nice outside. We had a beautiful week with a lot of sunshine and temperatures around 25 degrees.

The houses - unfortunately - don't have central heating. In our house we only have two very small electric heaters to keep us warm. This is not very practical in a house with four bedrooms and two separate living areas. I'm sure people in Sydney must use different ways to keep warm instead of heaters.

I must laugh when I see shops packed with winter clothes. They make you believe you need to prepare for temperatures below zero. Ha, ha. I bought new shoes for Julia and she now refuses to wear them. She decided she only wants to wear them when it snows. It's not very likely that that will ever happen in Sydney.

Things to do

As a not-so-busy-lately-looking-for-a-job-stay-at-home-mum I need to find things to keep myself occupied. I'm reading a book about how to find a job. The book is completely outdated (with tips on how to hand-write application letters, there is no mention yet of PC's. Ha, ha), but it is useful because it keeps me focussed. According to the writer I should spend eight hours a day on finding a new job. No way! That's much to depressing.

I need to do nice things as well to make me feel good. The main activity on today's to do list was to bring our brand new Samsung LCD TV back to the 'shop' in South Sydney to get it repaired. We bought the TV through Ebay. That's ok if the TV is working but not ok if it's broken. In that case you end up driving for almost an hour to get the TV fixed. Next week I'll need to go there again to pick it up. The money we saved by buying online compared to a traditional shop is gone because of the gas for the car and the toll fees. Luckily my hourly fee as a stay at home mum is not very high.

Tomorrow I have a more exiting 'to do' on my list. I'll start playing tennis in the competition. Tomorrow will be my first official match ever after I started lessons almost three years ago. I'm pretty nervous. I'll play doubles and I've never met my other team member, I only know her name. Let's see what happens. I can always try to find work as a professional tennis player.

Getting used to a new climate

While it was easy in India where it is extremely hot every day and where I didn't have any clothes with long sleeves, the climate and the 'what to wear today question' is not easy to answer in Sydney. Summer in Australia has officially ended. The mornings and evenings are now very chilly. During the day however it still gets very warm. Last week it was around 25 degrees and sunny every day.

I have not find a good way to deal with this temperature change yet. I don't want to be cold so I started to put my summer clothes away. As a result I wore a long sleeved shirt and jeans when we went to the beach today. Upon arrival I noticed that everyone on the beach was wearing hardly anything at all.. It looked as if summer was still in full swing. Does this mean I should not yet say goodbye to my summer clothes? I'm confused. It's so much easier to live in a country where it's over 30 degrees almost every day of the year.

A tree on Fraser island

Please let me turn the clock ahead again

Today at 6 a.m. while still in bed trying to get some more sleep I wondered why we had to turn the clock back by one hour. As a result the kids are now up and running by 6 a.m. in the morning instead of  7 a.m. This makes it a very long day. At 6 a.m. it is light outside so it makes sense for the children to get out of bed and start their day. Not for me.

Because we had to turn the clock back an hour it's pitch black dark outside at 6 p.m. so there is nothing you can do in the evenings.

On behalf of all parents with young kids who need their sleep, please turn the clocks back to where they were. Thanks.

Off road on Fraser Island

We just returned from our Eastern trip to Fraser Island. It's a drive of over 1000 km but the long hours in the car to get to the island are worth it. We had five days to explore the 120 km long island which is hardly enough. We just couldn't get enough of driving on the beach.