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Thursday, March 03, 2005 - (see all news for this day)
in emerald - 10:08 AM
(filed under 'general')
i'm here in emerald! smiley & i arrived on monday night at 10pm, exactly on schedule. as the bus drove into emerald i recognised our car. once the bus stopped & i waited for everyone to get off (it was only a tiny bus. maybe three times bigger than a minivan) so that i could carry a sleeping smiley off the bus still in his car seat, i headed towards the front door & heard a voice say, "can i help you with that?" it was shroom. 
he took smiley down the stairs & we put his seat on the ground & i gave shroom a big hug. it was great to see him again after four weeks away.
smiley stayed asleep while we strapped his seat into the car & we drove all of three minutes home. our house is on campus. once we got home & took him out of his seat, he woke up & wandered around the house, very pleased to see his daddy & mcgarnicle again. needless to say daddy & mcgarnicle were happy to see him again, too.
the house belongs to the college here where shroom is the new computer guy. there are quite a few staff & their families living on campus. the house itself is quite nice. it's nothing flash, but it's definitely a good house. it's pretty hot up here in emerald (emerald is in central queensland, for those of you who don't know. queensland is in the northern half on the eastern side of australia. it's hot in the northern part of australia & gets hotter the further north you go) so we're rather pleased that the house has two air conditioners as well as lots of large windows to let the breeze in when we don't use the air con.
there's a pool on campus, just around the corner from our house, which smiley & i have used twice already since we arrived. it's perfect to use in the afternoon heat & by the time we get out it's cooled off a bit so that we don't even get hot on the short walk back. i'm trying to teach smiley how to blow bubbles underwater. so far he's tried a few times (he does it on his own, copying me) but swallows a bit of water every time. it hasn't put him off trying again though.
we don't have the phone on yet, but hopefully that'll be sorted out soon. of course, that also means that we don't have internet access yet, either. i've written this at home & saved it on floppy, then gone to the local library to upload it to my site. i'm checking email while i'm here, too, if i have time in my allotted half hour while smiley jumps around on my lap & i type with my one remaining hand. so if you don't get a reply to an email you've sent, don't worry too much. i'm not ignoring you, i just didn't have the time or enough hands. 
i found out something disturbing yesterday. shroom forgot to pack my toilet gnome! he's still sitting on the window ledge in the toilet in the house at childers! noooooooooo!! i'm talking about a silly little garden gnome which i've had since i moved out of home at the age of about twenty one. at that time, my two housemates & i would move him around the house, putting him in various amusing places, such as in someone's bed with his head on their pillow & a bottle of alcohol next to him. he ended up spending most of his time in the toilet, placed so that he would stare down anyone sitting on the loo. since the three of us moved out of that house & went our separate ways, he's been following me around from house to house for over ten years, so it would be terrible to lose him now. i called someone at the mill (where shroom worked in childers) & have arranged for them to get him & check through the house one last time for anything else we might have left behind.
we're still unpacking here, but shroom did a fantastic job of getting all the comfort things put into their proper place & ready to use: computers, tv, bed, etc. in only the single day he had since the movers put our stuff in the house, he even did a week's worth of grocery shopping, so we've been able to eat real food. he's very good.
stuff is really expensive here. for example, a cooked chook (chicken) from the supermarket is usually about $6 or $7. here it's $10. a baby proofing thing for keeping cupboard doors closed has previously cost me about $5. here it cost closer to $7. i suppose it's because it's two hours drive to the closest big town, so freight is more expensive. i think that i'll be buying as much as i can online. groceries aren't an option since that's only available in the big cities. there are some decent online pharmacies, however, at which i can buy many things which i would normally buy at the supermarket, such as cotton buds, personal care products, that kind of thing. the shipping for that is around $5, so it's going to be easy to save money there.
i have to get ready to leave for the library now (i'm writing this at home, remember?) & i've just realised i don't even know where it is yet, so i'd better save this & get going. talk to you again soon.
one last thing. when i arrived here on monday night & finally got into bed, i gave shroom a hug & said, "it's good to be home." he pointed out that we only just moved here, so he was wondering how it was 'home' already. i said, "well, home is wherever you are."
btw, i've updated my postal address for anyone who wants it.
it's under the 'about' section in 'contacting me'. find it in the menu to the right on the front page.
Crikey, where did that comment spam come from? It wasn't there a second ago I'm sure. Bloody spammers.
whew!! now i can sleep. glad you made the trek okay. talk after you are set up more.
spam now removed (at least as i type this). i really hate spammers!
I know this is late---I've been reading up on the more current entries too---but it's good to hear you arrived safely. Good Grief, four weeks! I was away from my wife and daughter for less that a week several years back, and when I picked them up at the airport I thought I would explode!
And it looked like my little baby girl had grown a year in that short time.
Can't imagine four weeks.
Enjoy your new place---look forward to hearing all about it.
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I'm glad the move went well and hope your gnome shows up soon!