Mid-winter, after months of everyone being sick and not being able to leave the house after 4pm due to a chronic rib problem that does not play nicely with damp Canberran winters, I said to Trev "I think it's time to move somewhere warmer. I've done 18 Canberra winters, I just don't think I have another one in me". After a few minutes thought, Trev agreed. Leaving behind a lot of precious people was a tough call, but the lunacy of house prices in Canberra helped make the decision an easier one.
So over the next few weeks, we discussed our wishlist- must be warmer, not Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or Darwin, not too city but city enough to have a shopping centre, etc. We finally decided that NSW Central Coast would be ideal, but Trev would apply for jobs anywhere in the country and we'd let fate decide. First flaw- 1 job in NSW, many in WA. Could we move that far? Yes, we could. And we did.
When the WA Mental Health Commission heard Trev was job hunting, they did their best to get us here, and here we are. After a lot of packing, purging, and tears, we entrusted a removalist to put our belongings on a train, hopped on flights and headed over. All the farewells require a seperate blog post (and I'll get there, I promise), but after 3 weeks here, our initial thoughts on WA :
People are NICE!! Disconcertingly so. When the Canberra removalists forgot to put our belongings on the train, Trev rang them- Canberra side put out at our inconvenience (!!), Perth side can't do enough to get us here and settled. I dropped one of Eli's toy cars in Woollies today, and the lady next to me apologised, even though I'm pretty sure it was not her fault unless she had been using some kind of Jedi mind trick that had gone array. And at the traffic lights, someone has to miss the green light twice for drivers behind to toot- in Canberra they would have been bludgeoned to death.
The 3 hour time difference to the East Coast has advantages- the cricket starts at 7am (with brekky, very civilised), and the lunch break is at 9.30, just in time to pop out for some groceries and be home for the afternoon. It finished early enough to scoot around, do some token cleaning and think about dinner before the evening's T20 game starts.
The 3 hour time difference to the East Coast has disadvantages- no matter how many times you tell people, it's really best to put the phone on silent and face down overnight, or else be woken at 4am for Christmas & birthday messages.
It's WARM! While Canberrans are still in hoodies (I'm told), Eli has gotten used to just wearing jocks around the house, and has mastered boogie boarding with surprising ease.
There's no Aldi or Costco, and shops can't give you enough plastic bags. Very hard to get used to coming from a place that banned plastic bags in November, but handy seeing as my green bags are still on that train yet to leave Canberra with our belongings on it. And while Canberra shops are multi-level, mostly the ones here are one level but spread over several acres. Apparently Waussies don't do stairs and escalators.
So even though we are missing some bloody fantastic people, the nightly chats with Jacob during Vodaphone's free hour of calls mean I'm talking to him more each day than I was when we lived in the same house, and so far, the signs for the Dare Waussies are good.
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