Come on England- beat those Aussies!!

Sunday 19th March

Hello everyone! Sorry about the delay in blogging but I’ve been busy having fun and working!!!! I have just completed my first week of childcare work (the schools are on a two week hol so I have been doing childcare work before my teaching placement starts). The money is no where near as good as teaching but the work is easy and stress free!! Basically the duties include feeding, changing nappies, playing with the children (often outside in the beautiful sunshine) and soothing the little darling off to sleep!

I have met some lovely little kids including a cheeky little one year old called Emma. All the other babies were asleep but I could not get her to go off, she kept crawling off her bed onto the beds of other tots trying to wake them up!! She really made me laugh- she was gorgeous! My other favourite was a two year old called Max, he had blonde curls and a cute face and was fun to play with in the sandpit. The strangest thing that I have noticed about toddlers is their ability to hold a conversation between themselves that sounds like nonsense to me! One tot uttered a few sounds and another one laughed and then responded- amazing! Anyway it’s all good practice especially changing nappies, so far I have escaped changing many pooey ones!


We have also been enjoying the Commonwealth Games this week. We ventured down to the Yarra River to watch the opening ceremony (with all the other people clever enough not to pay the expensive price for a seat inside). The atmosphere was brilliant and the fireworks were very impressive! On Thursday we went to watch the Rugby 7s at the Telstra Dome. Again the atmosphere was great and we got to watch 24 separate games! We were sitting next to loads of Aussies and a family from Manchester who emigrated 18 months ago. The Aussies are good sports and seemed to like to cheer on the under dogs of each match. They did go rather quiet when we beat them to go through to the quarter finals! Of course all the poms in the crowd loved it!!! The Aussies are good sports as long as they are doing well; as soon as they are out they lose interest!

The television coverage of the games is so biased it is unbelievable! They only show the sports that they are good at and will often show the Aussies in a qualifying event when a final is on elsewhere, for example when we were in the Rugby 7 final against New Zealand they showed the medal ceremonies for the swimming! Today we have had Aussies in the hockey, netball and lawn balls but no athletics coverage!! They are not interested in showing any other country winning anything!!

Last night we had our first posh meal out since my birthday. This meal was a gift from our landlord. Since moving into the apartment we have had a few things break down including the microwave and dishwasher. As a kind gesture our landlord sent us a gift certificate to eat at the Langham restaurant. Well the food was superb- it was a buffet that included king prawns, oysters, mussels, delicious cakes etc. All we paid for was the wine- bargain. We both ate so much I thought we were going to explode!!!

Anyway I will leave you with a few photos to show you how we spend our weekends in Melbourne- this is the life!!!