The Wilsons of Oz

Oh my goodness! Nearly four months of visitors, and what a crazy four months it was! We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends and family , who are willing to travel all this way to see us and share our adventure! It definitely made our summer the best summer ever! (Poppy’s words not Mine but I totally agree). 

   
I remember people saying ” once you’ve done a summer in Australia, there’s no going back!”. Oh yes I understand now!  Summer is officially over, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next!  The temperature has dropped slightly, and the evenings are dark! Shocker! 

We had endless sunshine! We ate every meal outside, swam in the pool every day, ate ice creams, got through about 8 bottles of sun cream, and thanked our lucky stars that we had made the enormous leap to Oz!  There really is nothing quite like Christmas in the sun with your buddies! And we were so lucky that we had ours to share our prawns with!

    
   

In between games of  “cards against humanity”, BBQ’s and gin fuelled giggles, we managed to trek out West to the Parkes Elvis Festival! (www.parkeselvisfestival.com.au) What a treat!  There was not enough gasp in my body for the sights I was going to see! And that was just our husbands in Hawaiian shirts.

  

  

 As if being “out west” isn’t enough of an eye opener, everyone and their dog was dressed in some kind of Elvis outfit! Even the towns mayor was kitted out, in an open top Cadillac with an Elvis wig and the mayoral chain for good measure! “Elvis” was everywhere! Big ones, little ones, fat ones, thin ones, some incredibly talented ones, some not so much! 

The highlight had to be the Elvis show! Donny Edwards was “Elvis”. He had come all the way from Vegas, (vegas big shot) to this small country town, and the way the ladies screamed when he sang, you would have thought Elvis was alive and well in Parkes!  

 To be fair, he was pretty convincing! I’m (obviously) too young to have ever seen Elvis live, but the Parkes Social Club (exactly like an old British Legion) was alive with screaming Nanas, hollering grandmas, and excessively sweaty 50 somethings! They were clawing at the stage, queuing for a sweat soaked scarf, hundreds of which were being swept across Donnys face and draped round the necks of swooning  Ednas! 

Secretly I wanted to join them but was worried I might get stamped on in the rush! I did however accost the winning “Pricilla” and get a photo! I am convinced she had a welsh accent! And bloody lovely too!  

 
Once the fun had died down, we packed our very sweaty kids into the car, tired, emotional, and now  avid Elvis fans! We drove out a little bit further west to see “The Dish” (read that again in a deep Hollywood movie voice please). This is the 64 meter radio telescope that received the first contact from the moon landings! Pretty awesome stuff.  

http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au 
 
I would have liked to have spent more time here but it was 46 degrees and the only shade we could find was under the four sombreros bought from the Elvis merchandise store! In fact it was so hot that there was no sign my darling son had peed in the car park! Evaporated within seconds! I “whooped” with delight, as we had run out of sandwich bags on the way ! #whoneedspublicloos 

So after a glorious summer we eagerly await the next! We have become utter pansies and find 25 degrees chilly enough for bed socks and a cashmere jumper! Maybe we need to move a little further North! 

I’ll be blogging you all from Kuala Lumpur and Cambodia next month, fingers crossed the kids don’t mind eating tarantula donuts or deep fried crickets! 

Onward on our adventure…..  

  

  

Wow it’s the first day of summer! Finally! Our first Aussie summer is here! Everyone has said “just you wait for summer!” Now it’s here and I am delighted!  This also means it’s the 1st of December and the advent calendars were ripped open with great gusto this morning! Ever since 730 when Monty opened door number one, he has been asking “when is it Christmas mummy?” And “I just need to know, when is it actually the real Christmas?” These questions along with “can you just tell me what are MY decorations on the tree” are starting to wear a little thin! Here’s to the next 24 days!

We have been super busy the past few weeks! We have been to pantomime at David Jones department store in the city! It was pretty tame! No saucy Dame, just Ben and Holly and a Thomas the tank engine who had some sort of eye malfunction!

 We have also visited Canberra which was awesome! Someone told Tim it’s a very quiet city! Understatement! Almost like a ghost town! A modern, funky ghost town! It was green, spacious and had a great selection of coffee shops which is always a bonus! We left home at 6am and travelled to Canberra via Goulburn! I am sure there is loads to see and do in Goulburn but in typical tourist fashion, we only stopped to see the Big Merino!

This beast is hollow inside and you can climb to the top and peep out of its eyes! A little odd! The children found the Big Merinos private parts round the back the highlight of the day!

We left the gift shop, via the Sheeps back passage, with about $50 worth of stuff, including a pot of goo (Monty’s choice) which we soon discovered made “fart” noises! Safe to say this was highlight number two! The children in fits of giggles…… silence…..fart noise…..fits of giggles!! To be fair, Tim and I also, childishly giggled our socks off!!

 If anyone is thinking of visiting Canberra, you have to visit the Australian war memorial! http://www.awm.gov.au! The staff are super knowledgeable and helpful, the grounds are beautiful, and there is an awesome exhibit for the children! Tim and I want to visit again so we have more time to visit all the different exhibits, there is so much to see and read about!

We also managed to squeeze in the Telstra Tower (www.telstratower.com.au). It has the most spectacular 360 degree views of Canberra from the top! I would love to insert a family photo here, but the elderly man who was adamant he had taken “quite a few” with our camera, had in fact switched it off! Another good excuse to go back for the week end!

We visited the Australian Mint where the children made their own coins! They were very excited about that!

After the mint, we gave in to Monty’s demands and headed for the dinosaur museum! A cute little cottage full of plastic dinosaurs, fossils, and touchy, feely exhibits. nationaldinosaurmuseum.com.au

It’s not quite the natural history museum but the children liked it, and that’s all that matters!

After a long busy day we headed back to Sydney in search of a watering hole! Fart goo at the ready, we headed into The Surveyor General at Berrima! This pub claims the title of Australia’s oldest continuously licensed Inn. Established 1834, licensed from 1835. A sweet country style pub, that just wasn’t ready for Monty’s goo noises! We downed our wine in between our schoolgirl giggles, and left the diners to enjoy their meals in peace!

It’s now the 16th December! It’s taken me weeks to get this post finished! Poppy’s home from her last day of term, Christmas is around the corner! Tuesday sees the arrival of our dear dear friends and it can’t come soon enough!

It may be a while before I blog again, what with visitors, Christmas partying, childish behaviour etc etc, so, Happy Christmas to you all! I hope you get everything you have wished for! We will be throwing some shrimps on the barbie (honestly) on Christmas Day, thinking fondly of you all at home! We love and miss you!! Xxx

We went out last weekend to celebrate our 6 months in Oz! As we sat, chatting about the past 6 months, Tim noticed something under the seat upstairs!! I’m sure someone out there made this happen!! The Wilson’s of Oz, 6 month celebration and Dorothy was with us!!  

 
The world is a magical place my darlings! Keep holding on to your dreams! 💖

Oh my goodness, it’s been a month since I last opened this up and wrote anything! What a crazy month too!   It all started with the school holidays! We had one day, and then the house was in lockdown! I took Poppy to the Dr as she seemed under the weather, really chesty, high temperature etc! We don’t have a GP as such here, you just go to a “bulk billing” medical centre and get seen by someone! Could be the janitor, and sure as hell you get given anti biotics! 

This particular time we saw a lovely Indian doctor who told us  Poppy had caught pneumonia and was super poorly! He prescribed a McDonald’s and a glass of Milo! (A malted milk drink the Aussies go mad for!). So after an X-ray confirming the diagnosis we went home, tuned into Netflix and got comfy! Monty tried his hardest to irritate his sister while she slept on the sofa but got very little response! She was out of it for a good 6 days! 

 

By the time Poppy was up and about, Monty took a turn for the worse! Back to the medical centre we went, where the same lovely doctor prescribed anti biotics, a Vegemite sandwich and a glass of Milo! This is not a joke! I almost choked! My boy had bronchitis, I was exhausted and we rushed home for more Milo! (Monty is a marmite fan, and will not cross to the Vegemite side).

  
The whole two week holiday was taken up with wiping noses, passing cups of water (well within reach), administering medicine and crying! Mainly my tears I have to add! I needed my mum! Yup! I needed mum to take over for an hour. I was tired! It’s exhausting looking after poorly kids!  (Note to self: take mum on next adventure).

No sooner had the germs gone, the packing boxes came out! Oh good lord! The owner of our house decided that she needed to move back in, so we were on the move! It’s incredibly stressful trying to lease a house here! The agents advertise the properties, then open them for inspection for 15 minutes! So, we loaded the children into the car, I had armfuls of printouts, we had a strict schedule, and there was no time for a loo break! Actually, Monty has become a dab hand at peeing into a sandwich bag whilst still strapped into his car seat!   

 When you arrive at a property you need to be armed with an already filled out application (just in case you like it), because there may be 12 other people you need to jump ahead of! This particular day we saw 6 houses, 5 of which the cockroaches were welcome to! Honestly I wouldn’t have liked to have seen humans or animals in them! So we found one house and all our hopes were in there! We applied and waited 3 days!  Thank goodness  someone was looking down on us! We got the house!!  

    
  
This move was very different to the last! We didn’t have the two cockney packers, wrapping and boxing up, we had Poppy!! We hired a van, roped in some buddies and off we went! We have a great place now, and haven’t stopped partying and bbq’ing since we got in!  

 
Everything happens for a reason hey! 

  
This little trooper has found this particular move pretty hard going! You think your kids are well travelled, resilient little creatures, but sometimes it’s one move too far! Even with the lilo, the pool and the banana tree out front, I think secretly our darling girl would choose rainy UK, cafe Nero and a wander round tesco express at the moment! 

6 months in Australia this weekend!  Half a year has gone already! Maybe that’s why I said “far out” today instead of “Golly Gosh!”

 

  

 

Wow!  What a couple of weeks! We have had parties, play dates, end of term celebrations, more fairy bread and party pies than you can shake a stick at!  

 That added to all the beers, red wine and crisps, has pushed me head first back into another whole30!! So I am 2 days into it and I am too busy to miss the 11am spoonful of Nutella!

Last week saw the end of term 3 for Poppy! Can’t believe how time is flying! She gets to wear her summer uniform after the holidays, which she is thrilled about (me even more so!).

To celebrate our last day alone before the holidays Monty and I went for a scoot in Cronulla!  We like to race each other! This…..

 Soon turned into this…

Yup, mum of the year award goes to this Pratt who let her three year old scoot a million miles an hour down a hill with no helmet! In typical Wilson drama style, Monty was in and out of concouisnes in the back of the car, so I pulled over, lay him on the pavement and screamed for someone to call me an ambulance! He gave me the shock of my life! Two policemen walked over to check on us, “ah buddy, you hurt your noggin?”….. (Not sure if Monty was confused by the word noggin or out of it?)… “Can you point to where it hurts on your noggin?” No response! Beautiful, tanned, teeny short wearing goddess rang the ambulance for me! I was sweaty, frightened, scruffy and unaware of the black mascara smudged down my face! Damn, I bet she looks perfect even during a drama! So, paramedics arrive, tall….tanned….handsome…cool shades… Since when do paramedics look like they just stepped out of a magazine shoot!!?  “hey buddy! How you going?” (I still don’t get the “how you going” thing!?!?) No response from my boy! “Have you bumped your noggin?” No response! Off we go, me in my trackies (which Tim later tells me are see through!Cringe!) and Monty strapped into the bed with his sore noggin!

In true Monty style we were wheeled into the emergency department, still dazed and confused, asking for a bag of crisps! Two hours  later, having eaten a kit Kat and his crisps, we were discharged with concussion and told to buy a helmet! Didn’t want to say we have one, just left it in the garage!! Safe to say it is now taped to his head before he even looks at his scooter! Bloody kids!

So what do you do when your kid has concussion? You go to your mates house for a last minute party! It was messy! It ended about 9pm with four rather merry adults running around the street in gardening gloves trying to move a birds nest out of a kumquat tree while being pecked at my some mean assed perky birds! The adult birds were swooping anyone who went near the nest so we moved it into the neighbours front garden to save our friends being attacked every time they left the house! Lucky neighbours! Pretty sure it is the same bird that emptied its bladder all over my back a few weeks back!!

Our weekend was pretty quiet after all the excitement  of Friday!  Poppy and I went for a manicure! She loved it! Although she had picked all the varnish off by bedtime!

Unfortunately as I am typing away my poor girl is lying next to me asleep! She has pneumonia and is pretty poorly! She is not a happy bunny! I think this is one of the hardest things about being away from home! The comfort of home! The comfort of family support, of knowing where the hospital is, who to call in an emergency! Who knows which dr you can use with your health cover??!? It’s pretty confusing, even when you don’t have Monty trying to kick the young lady’s sick bucket over, or throwing his captain America shield around the waiting room! (What sort of moron moves abroad just as the free childcare vouchers kick in?) Anyway, she’s had her X-ray, she’s on antibiotics and Monty’s still trying my patience!

Summer is on its way! Hip hip hooray!

  

This week has been a toughie! Yeah I did just say that! In fact it’s been more than tough! I have spent most of the week with a lump in my throat, fighting back a dam busting amount of tears! (Don’t worry! I’m ok really!) 

 
This week has seen the birth of my niece! She is gorgeous, beautiful, and seems to be an angel!! So why do I feel so sad? I have missed out on the birth of my brothers first child! I want to hold her, to kiss her, to rock her to sleep! I want to be there to, well, just bloody be there! Ok, so we Skype, we email, we text, but nothing (absolutely NOTHING) makes up for missing out on holding a baby, smelling that baby smell, seeing that look that new parents give each other, the adoring way they look at their new child!! Even Monty tried to reach into my phone to stroke baby Daisy while she was sleeping! We are all missing out on this precious family time and it feels pretty damn sad!!! Having said that, we are thrilled and over joyed to have this little bundle in our lives!! We’ll just have to get her passport sorted out! 

 
This week has also seen the first day of school for some special little people back home!  Ok, ok I hear you say!! But stop! When you are 10,000 miles away from home its hard not to feel a little “emosh” about stuff!!  

The “Father’s Day Brekkie” at school this morning was the push I needed to get right over the edge! I turned up late thinking that all the dads would have gone to work, but no! The playground was full of dads, playing soccer, hopscotch, and giant chess, running around with their kids, throwing their heads back with laughter! For goodness sake?! Poppy was in tears!! “I want daddy!” It’s hard to explain to a 7 year old that actually your daddy is busting a gut in a new job, holding it all together so we can have this opportunity and he just doesn’t have the time to come to school to eat a bacon butty and get ketchup on his tie this morning!! To be fair to her, it did look like every dad in the whole of Sydney (if not the whole flipping world) was there!

So, apart from all that, and my son calling me a “cock” in the bank, this week has been good! (He meant cockatoo BTW) 

  

In other news; I have managed to avoid being peed on by a parakeet this week! It’s only happened once but I can tell you now, I carry a small umbrella in my bag in case I am stranded under a tree!!! Who knew birds wee’d!?  Really, I don’t know what has been more of a shock in Oz, fairy bread, or the size of a parakeets bladder!! In fact, another little shocker this week (my what a week I hear you say!!), was a shopping trip with my gorgeous friends! The trip was planned so that we could purchase “Father’s Day” presents for our other halves! So off we went to BBQ World, Bbq’s Galore, even drove up to The Webber Shop although Webber BBQ’s are just too small!!! Yup, it’s true! The best fathers day  prezzie you can buy an Aussie bloke is a bloomin’ BBQ!  In fact we bumped into another friend in BBQ’s Galore who was also buying a BBQ for her husband! I mean, us Poms know “they” like cooking over coals but Jeepers this was surely being filmed for a new sitcom!?

So another week has flown by, I am now officially a “soccer mom” and we seem to be really getting into the swing of things! What with the BBQ shopping, the parakeet wee, and me giving in to calling crisps, ‘chips’, sweets “lollies” and trousers, ‘pants’! God forbid, I’m practically native!  

 

So, Friday will mark our 4th month in Australia! Gosh, time really is flying! Someone told us it takes at least 6 months to settle in and start to feel like you’re at home! We are having the best time no matter what! We have more meals out than we should have, the children stay up way beyond bed time most nights, we sightsee, we bbq, and we seem to be making more of the hours in the day than we used to!   

    
 We have made some super friends here, who have included us like we have been friends for years! We are very, very lucky! Really, to be able to holiday in Australia with the children would be an awesome experience, but to live here, go to school here, holiday here, I honestly thank my lucky stars every day!  

 
Having said all that, this weekend we have been having long (wine fuelled) chats about what we do in the future! Where do we want to be? What do we want to be doing? What about schooling? What do we want the children to see and do!? So we have made a decision! Drumroll please….. Our four year Australia plan has had a tweek!  (Did I say wine? Oh and beer) 

We have decided, once we have finished here in Sydney, we are going to pack up, ship our things home, and travel!  

 We want to take the children to as many places as we can get to in Australia, and maybe further still! We will have beach days, city days, farm days, and we will make the most out of being together (God help us) and free! Free from all sorts of things that stop people travelling! 

  

Ok so apart from the children getting on our nerves in the back of the campervan, or Monty getting eaten alive by Mosquitos or Poppy vomiting into our suitcases, or me missing my manicures, what on earth could go wrong?? Ok, don’t answer that!!  

  We aren’t going tomorrow, in fact we aren’t going next year! This is a two year plan, unlike our “shit, you got a job in Australia!!!! Have we got time to say bye to our mums??” 

We are going to list the places we must see, and find out where we can stay in between! We have found a great organisation through which you can work on organic farms even with the children in tow! Check it out!! (http://www.wwoof.com.au)

  Not sure we’ll be staying with these two though! 

Agh this is more what we’re after!

   
( Ok I will be the one wearing gloves, trousers tucked into my socks yelping at the sight of a creepy crawley! Look, I’m going to do my best!)

So now we need your help! We need as many places, experiences, beautiful, must see sunsets/sunrises as you lot can give us! Where have you been in Australia that you think we should put on our list!? How did you get there!? Where did you eat!? What did you eat!? We want to be able to give ourselves and our children an awesome once in a lifetime trip so please give us some pointers! 

I’m going to add our plans, updates and ideas to this blog! We really will be The Wilsons of Oz!  A few months with less of this ……

 
And more of this…. 

 
Hans Christien Anderson said “life itself is the most wonderful Fairytale ” and he also said “To travel is to live.” So here goes, let the planning commence! The Wilson’s are going to travel! Who’d have thunk it!!?  

   
 

thewilsonsofoz have some news for you, so look out for this weeks blog, coming really soon! 

  

Well, I have made it to 34! I love birthdays! Really love them! I love them even more now that I have the children! They got so excited, so much so that I was forced to open a present on the eve of my birthday, and was promtly told what exactly was wrapped up downstairs for the morning! No surprises here!  Then when I woke on my birthday I wasn’t allowed to open my own presents as Monty deemed me “to weak”! 

   
We had an awesome day! My lovely Aussie buddies arranged a trip to the park, where I was serenaded by them and the children singing “happy birthday” after which I gobbled down a tonne of cake! Wouldn’t have been so bad, but two hours later I was tucking into a 9 course meal! (Summersalt.com.au) Safe to say the gym was hard last night!   

    
We have had an awesome couple of weeks! We took the children to Symbio zoo! It’s pretty small, but a great place! The highlights had to be hand feeding the Kangaroos and seeing a snotty little kid getting bitten by a wombat! (Dad was in charge! Surprise suprise?) (no Cilla pun intended) I wasn’t sure who was more delighted, the little kids siblings or the wombat! I guessed it would be wrong to photograph a crying, bleeding child so you’ll have to just put up with the Kangaroos! 

 
  
   
Our weekends seem to be packed with all sorts of great little trips! This weekend we have been out to the Blue  Mountains. The scenery is stunning, nothing like anywhere I have ever been! The scent of eucalyptus was awesome; that and the butter Popcorn they were selling by the bucket load to hugely overweight children, who were then hugely dehydrated!!! 

In typical Wilson style, a force 10 gale picked up as we stepped onto the cable car! I clung on for dear life as we hurtled left and right! Tim was hysterical, with laughter I might add, as I was putting on a brave (ish) face! The children were fine, trying to spot koalas!! The views from up high were unbelievable! We could see down through the glass floor (um…. One eye closed), as we flew across the tree tops! It wasn’t too terrifying, until the tour guide mentioned the waterfalls! This encouraged 50 Japanese tourists to scamper across the car all at the same time! Jesus how the cables didn’t snap I will never know! I shrieked “stop! Christ!” Tim laughed and Poppy burst into tears! We’re so ace at “adventure”!! 

Our Sunday morning was pretty ordinary! The children had a party to go to in the afternoon so we lazed about, the children played and watched TV, we pottered around in the garden! Then it got to that time when you see how much of the day has gone by and you jump into Seargent major mode! “Everyone get dresssssed, turn the tellllllyyyyy off NOw!!!! Come oooooon! We’ve wasted the whole moooooooorninnng”. 40 minutes of that, followed by some frantic hair and teeth brushing and we were out the door?  Phew! It meant we had a morning at the park with much coffee for us and ice blocks (lollies) for the kids! 

  

They wouldn’t have had the ice blocks if I had known what gets served at kids parties here! They went to a lovely party in a play centre! There were hundreds of small, sweaty, red faced kids running around like dingbats! Mainly because they had been fuelled with…. Wait for it…. “Fairy bread”! Do you know what fairy bread is!? Fairy bread is sliced white bread, smothered in butter and then covered in hundreds and thousands! It’s a kids party staple here! What sort of mentalist thought that would be a good idea! The children were going nuts! I love that people don’t let their kids drink apple juice, looking around for approval, “only water for mine!!!”  but hey “have another slice of fairy bread son!” Don’t get me wrong, my kids get far too many treats but JESUS CHRIST!!!! Fairy flipping bread!!!! It’s so bad, I can imagine kids selling it behind the bike sheds for some extra cash! You have to be superhuman for fairy bread not to have any impact on your state of mind! Surely!?!? Having said that, the party passed by without Monty kicking anyone in the “Winkie” or threatening to shoot anyone’s eyeballs out, both of which are fairly common place! He did spend quite a while hollering at people “there’s nothing that a good smash can’t sort!” Incredible Hulk has a lot to answer for! Well it’s either Hulk or Monty’s  been buying black market fairy bread!!! He has hasn’t he!!!!!!  

I’ll leave you with this little beauty I found today!!! 

New research has found age 34 is the happiest of our lives on average !

It’s when people start ticking off boxes including marriage and children!

A Study of 2,000 over-40s found it was when most people were happiest

It’s also the age when we’re most comfortable with ourselves!

Most people said that they had become happier as they had grown older !

So here I go on a voyage of discovery! I’ll let you know how 34 goes!!! X