House Hunting Adventures 2

Bondi or Bust

My first week in Sydney I see an ad in Gumtree for a room in a flat in Bondi. "Goody" I think, "Summer at the beach!"

The Email

So I email the advertiser and here's her response

hi
i am going oversis for 6 week and i have a nice irish gay living in the 2 bedrom he working and his verry cleen and kwit person not like the irish you now if you wont to now mo please ring me
regard ...

I'm intrigued, and pass this email around to my friends and family for their interpretation. Josie is disappointed that the Irishman is gay. She's a big fan of PS I Love You and wants to travel to Ireland just for the great accents.

Buses and Trains

So after work I walk up to Martin Place. Darn all these stairs at the train stations - my knees are aching. A kind stranger carries my heavy bag down the steps. Is it safe to entrust your bag to a random in Sydney?
I puzzle over whether I can use a combined train and bus ticket or have to buy them separately. A full day train/bus combo ticket costs $20 which seems excessive. The ticket man isn't sure, but thinks a return combo ticket for $8.40 will probably work.
I take the train out to Bondi Junction, then find the right bus platform. I check the ticket with the ticket seller at the newsagent. He reckons it'll do. I am reassured. I hop on the bus, and my trusty iPhone shows me its progress so I know roughly when to get off. How did we live before iPhones?

A Street with a View

It's a beautiful street, lined with trees full of parrots and flowering vines. I can see the ocean in the distance. I'm thinking this would be pretty nice. I arrive at the right number and am a bit taken aback by how dilapidated the place looks.

I'm reminded of home!

I knock on the door and am ushered inside. The first thing that strikes me is an odour reminiscent of my dog Gypsy after she's been swimming in the creek - just like home! The place is rundown and shabby. There's a lumpy bed that looks like my Grandma's. I would be sharing the bathroom with the Irishman who apparently is not gay - he's an "Irish guy".

I leave with the sincere hope I can do better than this...

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Time wasted:1.5 hours
Bus and Train fares:$8.40
A walk along a shady street lined with jasmine and a view of the sea: Priceless!

House Hunting Adventures 1

The Adventures Begin

ThoughtWorks has very kindly provided us with four weeks of accommodation, but I know it's a tight rental market in Sydney so I figure we better start looking for our next place early. We've split our household into two and we're supporting the kids financially, so until they start earning we're going to be on a restricted budget. We're looking to pay around $300 per week.

Call me when you get to Central...

Our first day in Sydney, and we head out to see a share house in Castle Cove. It sounds ideal; it has a swimming pool, a view of the harbour, and the people I'd be sharing with are gourmet chefs! The home owner has offered to pick us up at Chatswood station around 5pm. Call me when you get to Central he says.

So we get to Central and I give him a call on the mobile. He doesn't pick up; I send an SMS letting him know we'll be at Chatswood around 5.

5pm and we're at Chatswood. No sign of the home owner, so I give him another call. He's still not picking up. We wait around 45 minutes, calling at regular intervals. Eventually we decide to go and get an early dinner in Chatswood in case he calls. I SMS him to tell him we'll stay in the area for a while, asking him to call back.

We find a lovely little Thai restaurant. Halfway through the excellent meal he calls. I tell him we're still at Chatswood but he has guests coming over and can't see us. We arrange to meet Monday after work.

Take two...

I meet Dave at Wynyard after work. He's brought some carrot cake for afternoon tea. We sit in the little park above Wynyard station and I call our man again. Guess what - no answer. This time we stay put and keep calling for half an hour before giving up. I SMS asking him to call me. By Tuesday afternoon we still haven't heard. I text him again and he says Hello mary anne, we have decided on a single male.

---

Time wasted: 2 hours
Train fares: $12.80
A nice Thai meal and cake in the park: Priceless!

1: Sydney Central YHA

Arrival

We arrived in Sydney by bus on Sunday October 23. ThoughtWorks has very kindly provided us with accommodation starting from Monday 24, so we needed somewhere else to stay overnight on the Sunday. The cheapest room for two I could find was the Sydney Central YHA.

Cost

$124 per night for a room for two with an ensuite bathroom.

First Impressions

	The location couldn't have been better. The YHA is directly across the road from where the bus dropped us off. There's a rooftop pool area with a great view of the City. Sydney welcomed us with a fantastic fireworks display.
	The room was pretty basic. You get what you pay for!
	We watched "Castle" in the TV room. The TV was a new flat-screen one. The in-store demo kept displaying along the bottom of the screen and we couldn't figure out how to turn it off. The couch was old split vinyl and smelled like my son's running shoes.

Community

As its name implies, Sydney Central YHA is located right at Central Station, near the top end of Pitt St. It's a fantastic location for travellers, close to transportation, restaurants, pubs, cinemas etc.
The Y is set up to foster its own community amongst the residents. There are communal kitchen and eating areas, a cinema, a common lounge room with a pool table, and communal TV rooms. It would be a great place to stay cheaply with a group of people, but as we were only there overnight we didn't have time to get to know anybody.

What will I miss?

Hmmm.... Let me think... Nope, nothing!

Departure

I had to head off at 8:15 to get to work, and needed to leave my suitcase behind. They've got a storage room where you can leave bags, but you have to pay for a locker. Oddly, the storage room is up a flight of stairs with no lift. As I wasn't travelling quite as Agilely as I'd hoped, I was grateful to have the assistance of the desk staff to get my bag up the steps!

My Animals and Other Family

[with apologies to Gerald Durrell]

My most difficult farewells are for the family I’m leaving behind in Canberra.

(L-R: Dad, Gertraut, Tim, Josie, Dave)

One of the best pieces of child-rearing advice I heard was “never do anything for them that they can possibly do for themselves”. The great thing about this is that I can move to Sydney knowing that my kids know how to look after themselves properly. They’ve been doing their own laundry since they started high school. They have both been running their own bank accounts and credit cards for some time now.

We’ve had a roster system for the cooking and other household chores. At first they would take turns being ‘chef’s assistant’ and as the ‘chef’ I taught them how to plan a meal and cook a good variety of healthy food. Once they’d learned to cook they started being ‘chef’ themselves with me or Dave assisting. Josie has taken a real interest in cooking and nutrition – in fact she’s planning to do a degree in nutrition starting next year after she finishes her photography degree

I had to say my farewells to Josie last week, as she has driven to Adelaide for a photography conference and a friend’s hen’s night. She has developed a fondness for long-distance driving that scares the pants off me and Dave.

Tim drove us to the bus station today for the trip to Sydney, and we said goodbye today. Tim’s usually pretty flippant and light hearted but he surprised me a bit today by being quite emotional – not teary, but more expressive than is customary for him.

When I reflect on it, I am quite surprised by how different my relationship is with the two kids. We’ve done our very best to treat them both equally, but though equals, they’re definitely not the same.

Tim has inherited my geekiness and we generally connect on a very technical level. He’s doing Computer Science honours at University and our main topics of conversation are around programming languages, operating systems, computer games, and smart-phone wars (Tim’s an Android fan while I’m hooked on my iPhone). On the other hand, whenever I need to talk about relationships or emotions I turn to Josie. Likewise, she’ll turn to me when she needs advice around how to deal with a friend’s behaviour.

I’m very grateful that I have such a close and loving relationship with the kids. You’d think that would make it harder to let go but in some ways it’s easier. I know I can rely on them to communicate daily through SMS and Facebook, as well as by phone. I don’t know whether I’d be so sanguine if we didn’t have all this supporting technology.

My Dad and his partner Gertraut also live in Canberra. We usually had dinner with Dad every Sunday and with Gertraut as well once a fortnight. They treated me and Dave to a lovely farewell dinner at one of Canberra’s premier restaurants, Aubergine. I’d love to keep in touch with them on Facebook too but Gertraut doesn’t even have a mobile phone! I’m hoping I’ve persuaded Dad to sign up to Facebook at least. He called me to say goodbye this morning and asked how to do it. I dobbed Tim in as his technical support.

Then there’s the pets, our 11 year old Labrador Gypsy and our cat Loki.
I will miss having Loki sitting on my lap purring while I’m trying to type. And I’ll miss watching Gypsy tear around the house after her toys. But I won’t miss Loki’s bad habit of bringing in bizarre and unusual wildlife (like a long-eared bat and a sacred kingfisher) and releasing them alive in the house. And I won’t miss having to clean up after Gypsy.

Farewell Brindabella!

Did I mention that I’m a singer? A large part of the last eight years of my life has been spent singing acappella four part harmony as a member of Sweet Adelines, mostly in the Barbershop style. I’ve been the assistant Baritone section leader for Brindabella Chorus, Canberra’s only women’s barbershop chorus, for quite a few years now.

I’ve been very touched by all the messages of thanks and support from my fellow Brindabellans, and their fond farewells. Last week I attended my last Baritone section practice and was regaled with cake, berries and chocolates. At my last chorus practice there was a long queue of people who came to thank me and say farewell. At quartet rehearsal there was more cake, and champagne to go with it.

Brindabella baritones

On Friday night some of us went to a Karaoke night with Caz, one of our chorus members who is also leaving. She’s going a bit further away than me though – all the way to the UK. We had a whale of a time, as you can see by this photo:

 L-R: Jen J in the background, then me, Jennifer D and Lynn

This, by the way, is why Jennifer and Lynn sing in the front row and I don’t. (If you’ve ever seen a Sweet Adelines chorus performance, you’ll know that the front row does quite a lot of dancing).

We’re coming to the end of a three month quartet development program that I set up for Brindabella. It started out with an information session run by our director Glenda. I set up a mailing list and provided assistance to quartets who wanted advice or coaching. The program will finish on November 2 with performances by the quartets for chorus and as a practice run for that the quartets are getting together at Elma’s home next weekend. I’ll be coming back from Sydney for that so I’ll see lots of my friends again soon, but it still feels hard to break away from so many great people. I'll miss you, girls!

Farewell Certus!

I was given a beautiful farewell morning tea by my Certus colleagues today. Our ACT Business Development Manager, Andrea, bought me this funky colourful mug.

I think it really expresses my personality! She also gave me the best farewell speech I think I've ever had. She listed the three aspects of my personality that had impressed her the most:

• My capacity for learning and my incomprehensible enthusiasm for sitting exams!
• The quality of my work, and
• My rapport with our clients.

We both got a bit misty-eyed. I still am, just thinking about leaving her and my other colleagues Annette and Greg behind.

0: Cosy Grove

Arrival

Dave and I discovered Cosy Grove way back in 1986. We'd been living in a granny flat underneath a big house in Melba, and though we were very fond of the Indian family who owned the house, after we married we felt we needed to find a place to call our own.

First Impressions

	Both of us loved the place straight away. Probably what impressed us most was the outlook. It's a battleaxe block; there's a long pair of driveways leading from the street to our home and the neighbours', and instead of looking onto the street the house faces onto a reserve with a creek flowing through it. We can sit on our front verandah and look out towards the Brindabella mountains, with a scattering of snow on them in winter.
	The colours were brighter than is fashionable; the bathrooms a vivid blue, terracotta tones in the lounge and dining, and the kitchen a sunny yellow. But I felt they suited my personality.
	In those days the garden was in pretty good condition, though the lawn was suffering due to lack of water. But Dave and I are not keen gardeners and don't have time to look after it properly. Although we get someone in to mow the lawns and trim the trees, gradually it has deteriorated to become a showcase for all varieties of local weeds.

The Neighbourhood

It wasn't until the kids started going to school that we realised there actually is a community here. Our neighbours kept to themselves and we didn't really meet anyone until we started chatting with other parents and participating in school activities. Once the kids started High School we lost touch with most of the older generation. Sometimes I smile and wave at a neighbour but we rarely talk. Once we organised a street party. It was a resounding success and everyone said what a great idea it was and how we must do it regularly. That was twenty years ago, and no-one ever organised another.

The nearest shops are a twenty minute walk away, so we usually drive.

The best thing about the area is the reserve around the creek, where we can walk the dog off the lead and know she's safe.

What will I miss?

Obviously what I'll miss the most is the family and friends I'll be leaving behind. But what about Cosy Grove itself?

Around 10 years ago we renovated the old kitchen and bathrooms. We replaced the bright yellow benchtops in the kitchen with even brighter yellow ones with a brushstroke pattern, and the vivid blue in the bathroom with a marbled pattern in various blue tones. Then we tiled both mostly in white but with a border and feature tiles with a beachy yellow, blue and peach theme. Still not fashionable perhaps, but I love it!

I'm sure I'm going to miss my big gourmet kitchen. I love cooking, and I doubt anywhere else will have a kitchen with the facilities and space for cooking a meal for six people. But then now that I'm leaving the kids and family, I guess I won't be needing to cook for six anymore...

Ironically, we had just finished setting up my new study when I heard I got the job with ThoughtWorks. Josie had decided to move out of her black and orange room, into our granny flat. So we repainted it and set it up as my study. It felt really good to have a place of my very own. Now we'll be renting that room to Connor, one of Tim's friends (also Dave's second cousin, but that's another story...). So I have to pack all my stuff away again.

One of the things I'll miss the most is the peace and quiet here in suburban Canberra. On the battleaxe block we're well away from the street. We get a little traffic noise from a major road that cuts across the creek out in front of our house, and the neighbours sometimes have a rowdy party around Christmas time. The neighbours' dog, Theo, barks like mad whenever someone comes down the driveway. Other than that the noisiest things are the birds - the currawongs and cockatoos in autumn and the magpies in spring. Oh, and in March during the Canberra festival, the sound of hot air balloons huffing and puffing overhead. Our dog Gypsy usually hears them before we do and responds with a frenzy of barking.

Departing...

Somehow our departure date has crept up on me. ThoughtWorks has offered temporary accommodation in Sydney, but there's no car park so we'll be taking the bus. I don't know if my original aim of travelling on one suitcase and a backpack is going to work out, but it will definitely have to do for now because I hate the thought of having to manhandle lots of luggage onto a bus. I still have no idea of what our first accommodation in Sydney is going to be like, but I had a call this morning from Ian who has what sounds like a lovely home in Castle Cove that has a room to rent. Will that be our home? Stay tuned...

The most Lethargic Process

If I'm going to turn my life Agile I'm going to have to do something about those processes in my life that are the very opposite of Agile. You know the ones I mean... the things you do where you find yourself saying "Why am I doing this? There must be an easier way!!". These are my Lethargic Processes.

The king of Lethargic Processes is the Dreaded Tax Return.

The Dreaded Tax Return is the cross I bear for being a detail-oriented control freak.

It all started way back in 1999. I wanted some way of collecting all the information needed for the tax return in one place. We discovered Microsoft Money. Not only would this allow us to print out a report for the tax return, it would also keep detailed information about every transaction in every bank account. We could use it to reconcile our credit card transactions to make sure they were all legitimate. We could print out graphs and reports, and analyse our spending. We could even use it for budgeting! Cool!!

For 12 years we religiously kept every receipt. When we had time, we typed the data into Money. At the end of the financial year we discovered we were way behind in entering receipts. We would spend many hours working through the backlog. Then many more hours reconciling the transactions with the paper statements from the 18(!) accounts we've ended up with. We would hold discussions about what this transaction could possibly be. Eventually, we would have sufficient information to enter the totals of the tax-relevant categories into the tax return.

We may have occasionally extracted some data when applying for a loan. Once, we discovered we had left a $50 note behind at the pharmacy (and managed to retrieve it!)

Was all that effort worthwhile? You be the judge!

This is all rather embarrassing. Clearly, I'm going to have to practice being less patient and more lazy.

Last week I thought I had found a Better Way. I discovered Yodlee Money Center. YMC talks to your banks online and brings all the transactions across for you. It makes a pretty good guess at categorising each transaction, and allows you to set up your own rules for better categorisation. It allows you to mark transactions as tax deductible and extract those into a report. It produces graphs of your spending you can drill down through. And it's free! Sounds good, doesn't it!

Then today I decided to use it to produce a budget for my new lifestyle. Will I be able to afford decent accommodation in Sydney while still maintaining a household in Canberra? That's when I started discovering the short-comings.

I have one bank login that gives me access to a business account as well as my personal account.  The business account is irrelevant to my household budget and mucks up all the figures. I can delete the account - but it comes back again every time YMC refreshes the account information.

You can set up subcategories - but you can't enter a budget for any category containing subcategories.

You can produce transaction listings - but not summaries showing the total for each category.

And worst of all - our main household credit card had to be cancelled due to suspected fraud.  For a while, Yodlee displayed the account with an error saying it could not communicate with the bank.  Then it disappeared altogether taking all the historical transaction data with it!

It does lots of things really well but these shortcomings are close to being show-stoppers. To do my budget I had to resort to extracting old data from Money and typing it into a spreadsheet! I will say though, they do have really responsive online support and they're looking into these issues.

So what to do now?  Use YMC and work around the short-comings? Revert to Money? Or look around for something else?

How do normal people do these things?