Another year has come and gone, it is my thirty fifth birthday today and I vividly recall my last birthday.  I was pregnant with Luka, heavily so, Gerhard and I went out to diner with my sister and her then fiancee.  I knew in my heart of hearts that it would be my last birthday in South Africa for a bit and somehow was sad already, if that even makes sense.  Today was a sad day, I missed friends, family and all, and then I remembered that this is not my first birthday spent away from home.  After matric I lived in Belgium for a year, that was a sad birthday, and remember, this was before the internet, skype, emails, bbm and texts, yes, I know I am giving my age away, but hey, that also proves that this birthday, even though spent in the outbackis not as bad as that... Move on a couple of years and we relocated to Middelburg, Mpumalanga, even more rural than Sydney, and once again, just me and Gerhard, and worst of all, I wanted a couch as a gift, but sadly, Middelburg did not live...

I am feeling very sorry for myself today, melancholy is not quite the word I had in mind.  This is not a light blue, this is a blue that is almost black.  I am so homesick today that even a Nicholis Louw song will probably send me over the edge bags packed ready to go home.  Gerhard is sick, has been since Saturday, and today marks his third visit to healthcare providers of various shapes and sorts and seemingly only today someone bothered to listen, check him out and refer him to a specialist.  Goodness, yes SA has her problems, but at least we know how to be sick in South Africa.  Here we obviously have no clue.  I am just missing all things about home today, being sick at home is easy, you pop in at Intercare and have a chat to Gerhard, our friendly GP.  You leave with a script and in severe cases injection in bum.  You go to Clicks, you pick up the meds and Bob is your uncle.  Here, no clue.  We have no jobs, no permanent home, no microwave, no gym, one car, no school, no nan...

A very long time ago, I said silly things like 'no daughter of mine will ever wear pink'. I saw other mommies smiling at me and thought that I will show them, well, we all know how that turned out for me.  Luka has only pink things, the only exceptions being purple and a pair of blue jeans... Next crazy statement, 'barbie is such a bad role-model for a girl, I would rather die than have my daughter play with one', Well guess what...Luka is ten months old and she got her first barbie look alike doll today at K-Mart.  She chose it herself and the two of them are inseparable.   How did this happen, how am I managing to raise such a typical girl?  She is supposed to be gender neutral and pro-choice and a hundred other things.  You see, I think despite Freud, Erika Jong and all the rest of it, women are genetically pre-disposed to love pretty things, and barbie and pink just are too pretty to resist.  Luka is a real girl, she loves playing with dolls and I love dressing ...

How to speak like an Australian  So I think I am getting the hang of Australian...it is actually so easy, just never say the R, ever, let me illustrate using some examples.   In South Africa, we have braais, in Australia they have barbies.  It is pronounced baaaaabie.  Never say the R remember.  Doctor, no, docta, almost Jamaican in its pronunciation.  Easy, no, not quite.  You see, there is also that lovely colour called maroon.  Sounds like 'moon', not here it's not, it is pronounced 'marone', as in sounds like 'capone', holy crap, imagine that.  I honestly think we will probably never quite get the accent over here and heaven help us, Liam and Luka will end up sounding like this.  In South Africa we have a special brand of English too, but hey, it still sounds like English and on the odd occasion that I went to the UK or met citizens of the UK in good old South Africa, I could actually understand them, and they me.  There are some gems too, a co...

I have again been a bad blogger, and yes, I know I am a stay at home mommy, but somehow time just flies and before you know it, another week has come and gone. Today marks our two week anniversary in Sydney, two weeks, and I think we are getting better with this.  A brief overview of our week thus far, we both went to see personnel agents in the Sydney CBD.  Even more surprising, we used public transport to get there.  We were on time, it was no effort, we are getting used to it now.  We spent Sunday using public transport as well,  family discount applies on Sundays and you can use unlimited busses, ferries and trains for $2,50 a person. We went to the Opera House at Liam's request. We ate ice cream, we walked the streets of Sydney, we had a lovely family fun day.  Househunting has been a bit of a bore and property in Sydney seems overpriced to say the least.  So we decided to stay on a bit longer where we are now, not ideal as I am dying to get settled somewhere and to go sho...

We have been rather busy the last couple of weeks, and yesterday was no exception. The afternoon ended with me actually taking a tumble down a flight of stairs (our current house has four levels), with Luka in my arms. In my desperate attempt to not fall on her, I actually hurt my neck, back and bum, so much so that I took some painkillers last night. This morning I woke up with an aching body and a fever.  I really have no idea what it up, I just feel terrible.  And Gerhard reckons I am a tad on the pale side.  I hope it passes soon and that it is not congo fever or arthritis or some other tropical disease. Add to that the fact that today of all days, Gerhard has an interview, we need to return our rental car and we have no car seats for the two smalls.  It was hectic, ironing shirts, pressing suits, printing resume's all whilst making sure the poor little family has lunch, Gerhard frantically installing car seats (I must point out that these cost roughly the same as the car...

We have now been here almost a week and thank heavens the jetlag is subsiding.  Luka is sleeping the best in her entire 10 months on earth, Gerhard and I no longer want to kill each other, for a couple of weeks it was rather hectic and we all seem to be settling in nicely. We had an amazing weekend, we went to the beach and had loads of fun. It is bad for the diet though as these people make amazing battered calamari and chips... Liam thinks that living close to the beach is the best thing ever, he recons it is like a giant swimming pool. He also told me that we need to move our butts and buy those surfboards now.  The kid has no idea about priorities, getting a place to stay and a car is number one on the list this week. We are still amazed at how friendly and helpful everyone is around here. I opened a bank account yesterday and oh my.  I have never had such a good customer experience in my life. Private banking in SA can learn a thing or two here.   Today we are hopefully bu...

Ok, so here is the thing, I can honestly say that we have never slept this bad or this little in our lives, including two pregnancies, two babies, one a colic baby. It started months ago, first you dread the actual telling people that you decided to leave South Africa and move to Sydney. Then you spend some sleepless nights thinking about resigning, telling the school, telling your kids. Next up, that wonderfull thinking about selling cars, cancelling cellphone contracts and the like, bank accounts, letting go of people in your employment, the domestic worker, the au pair. It really never stops, and it is a roller coaster from the minute you get on. You will then start thinking about friends, family, the fact that you have no home, no job, no car, no gym. This of course culminates in a twelve hour plane trip resulting in severe jet lag, this is where we are now, so I was up chatting to people in South Africa at 1 am this morning, and I can see that Gerhard has been pretty busy ...

We arrived in Sydney without too much drama, kids were generally good on the plane and we even managed to get some much needed sleep.  A twelve hour plane ride followed by a one hour shuttle to our lovely temporary home in Elanora Heights and an extended four hour wait for Gerhard followed, no phone this side as he had to take mine. That meant that I got rather frantic at one stage waiting for him. Safe to say that in typical paranoid Niki state, I actually marched the two kids off to the next door neighbor's house and borrowed a phone... The sun here sets after 8, so we went to Woolworths (where else) last night. Ate dinner at 10, all in bed at midnight. Liam, Luka and I slept like babies, by the grace of some paracetamol for the two smalls and a sleeping tablet for mommy...imagine my surprise when we woke after 8 this morning. So today the fun bit starts, big shopping! Gerhard needs a laptop and printer, we need cellphones, a car, a house, furniture, I was born for this.  ...

Goodness, time flies when you are having fun! As of last Tuesday, I am jobless, homeless, carless, nannyless, you name it and I probably no longer have it.  It has been quite hectic, and emotional. To say that I spend my days crying would be an understatement. My poor family. My poor husband. This is truly the hardest thing that we have ever done. I am an emotional wreck and we have not actually boarded the plane to Australia yet.  We packed up or sold all our worldly goods, we found another job for our beloved Sekai. We said goodbye to friends and colleagues. My. Team took me for lunch at the Sandeck in Sandton, we all took the Gautrain. It was divine. On my very last day at work, a small drinks party took place on the roof of the building, truly memorable. I will miss these people dearly.  After moving out of our house, we spent a last night with Rudi and Izel. Tammy and Nick joined us for supper. Amazing. Then we left Pretoria for a last week at Zebula. It has been magical a...