Spider alert

Well it's been nearly 6 months in Australia and I have mainly gone spider free so far, apart form the little one.  However, as I was making my porridge in the office kitchen this morning, all i heard was a scream from reception and i turned round to see a huge huntsman spider running across the desk. 

Now I am sure you are thinking that I jumped in and caught or killed it.  But no, my instant reaction was to go "cool" then, run away.  It was huge!!! No chance i wanted to try and catch this:

Thankfully a freelancer had arrived in reception, and being the 'bush' girl she is, was not afraid at all and just scooped it up and put it outside on the balcony.  NO CHANCE I WILL BE GOING OUT THERE FOR A LONG TIME!!!

Settling in...

So this is my 4th week in full-time permanent employment in Australia.  I was only freelancing before.  And so far things are going well.  It's been incredibly busy, but it's all good fun and I am enjoying it. 

Things have been a bit mad, but i am working on great clients, inc Coke and Lion Nathan (Australia's big beer company).  So the work is really interesting, although there's not much I can give away on here. 

I also have my first work party on friday, to celebrate the end of the financial year (which is the end of June here), any excuse for a party.  There was a awards ceremony in which i managed to pick up a trophy for have the best (or maybe it was worst) accent.  No matter, i was very happy as you can see. 

The night carried on quite late and turned into the usual mess
that advertising agency nights out usually do.  People embarrassed by doing stupid things and drinking far too much as usual.  I am sure there are many photo's that will be hiden away for eternity.  The worst part is I am sure it will happen all over again the next time we have a party.

Apart from work, living in Bondi has been awesome, I am out on the beach every saturday morning for a walk and last week managed to snap the photo's below.  The Bondi winter festival has been on for a few weeks now and they have a little market with an ice rink built on the sand at the south end of the beach. 

It's been a while!

Over 3 weeks since my last post folks, sorry about that but it’s been a busy time.  First of all, I got a promotion and made permanent at work!  Then it was my birthday and moving house and settling in.  It’s been a hectic few weeks.

So we have been in the new place for nearly 4 weeks now and we are completely settled!  It’s a bit of a treck to get into work, takes about an hour and involves a bus, a train and a 20 minute walk each way.  But it’s a fairly enjoyable trip as I have the company of several pretty ladies coming from Bondi with me to the city, so I won’t complain.

Work has been going well too, and 3 weeks ago I was offered a permanent job with the company I have been with since March.  That offer also came with a promotion too.  So I am now a Production Manager with Momentum.  And I started in that role last week, although my official start date was the week before, but I had a handover with the previous person in the job.  So this week has been a bit mental, with some crazy briefs and requests from clients, but it’s all been great and this week has been the best week in momentum so far.  I am delighted to be back in the production role!  Just need to dig out that production for dummies book again.

So 2 weeks ago it was my birthday and I turned the tender age of 26.  This is the 2^nd time I have had a birthday whilst living abroad.  I turned 19 when I spent 3 months in Florida back in 2004.  So I knew what it was like to spend a birthday away from your family and friends back home.  So since we had recently moved into our new flat, Greig and I felt it the perfect opportunity for a flat warming party.  So we invited more or everyone we knew (which isn’t really a lot of people), and decided to have it the night before my birthday.  About 20 people turned up and it was a cracking night.  Thoroughly enjoyable, apart from the twat that put his fist through greig’s bedroom window!  That has now been fixed and the guy paid for the damage, so no harm done in the long run. 

 The broken window.  With mike and greig outside.

 Greig, stealing someones bike.  (It was returned).

Then last Saturday, Celtic came to town, yes, the green and white lot from the east end of Glasgow.  They are in Australia on their pre-season tour, and had arranged a game against Gold Coast Mariners here in Sydney.  So Chris (being a part-time celtic fan) and I decided to go along.  So I put on my killie top and headed out to the Olympic village for the game.  I got a lot of weird looks for my kilie top but it was all good banter.  The game itself was a complete and utter waste of time.  Celtic had apparently been out on the piss the night before and had only landed 2 days before this game.  So they were completely out of it and could hardly string a pass together. If they keep that up killie might have a chance of the league this year. In the end they were beaten 1-0 thanks to a late goal from the Mariners.  However, the mariners will be more happy by the fact that they will have made about $30,000 in fines because celtic fans trying to run on the pitch, only to be rugby tackled to the ground by about 5 stewards each time.