Any Sydney mums around?

[thatsnotmymonster]

I am getting pretty excited as it is looking increasingly likely that dh is about to be offered a job in Sydney (should know by next week). However, whether we are able to accept or not all depends on the salary package, particularly with th school fee issue- has anyone else moved and had the company pay the school fees?

We live in Scotland and so ds is in P1 but he will be 6 in March and dd1 is due to start school after the summer as she will be 5 in July. I don't know whether they should go into Yr 1 and 2 in Oz from when we move or whether they shoud go into Yr 1 and kindergarten. Do most people wait until the year the dc turns 6 or send them the year they turn 5?

The office is in Pyrmont and we are hoping to rent in a nearby suburb- I have been looking at Lilyfield, Five Dock, Drummoyne...can anyone recommend any other nice suburbs in that area or tell me if there are any to avoid?

Anything else I should know? If this happens we will be moving around April.

Thanks!

[Bubbaluv]

Yep - good idea if the commute is doable. Wouldn't go telling people in Hornsby that they aren't in sydney though!

[thumbbunny]

Ah, no, I know - it's not as central as some of the other places mentioned though, is it? For me it feels like the start of Sydney :)

[BonzaBlue]

I am in Point Clare - which is right next to Gosford as DH works in Newcastle sometimes and Sydney the rest of the time. So I know a few areas around here - not as far as Hornsby - been past on the train though !

Shout out if I can help!

[Bubbaluv]

I guess it must be about the Northern extreme Thumb - not much past it until you get to Brooklyn is there.
Some of my family live at Killcare - I loooove it up there.

[sunnydelight]

Berowra is generally seen as the beginning of Sydney in that direction - the normal surburban trains go that far. The suburbs between Hornsby and Berowra (Asquith, Mount Colah etc.) are pretty affordable places to live, it's about an hour to the city and if you like to get out and explore you're not fighting through traffic just go "get on the road". To me they are just too isolated but I have friends in Berowra who say there is a real community feel - there are plenty of pre-schools and playgroups and a choice of three primary schools. If you haven't been down to Berowra Waters it's worth a trip on a sunny day, absolutely stunning bush scenery.

[thumbbunny]

heh - not disputing your point at all, sunnyd, but just thinking about the analogy with London, which would probably be the Underground and how far out of London that goes in each direction - some of the farther reaches of the Underground wouldn't be seen as London any more, certainly not by Londoners! Anyway, that's a different country and a different system - it did just make me smile a little.

I haven't been to Berowra but it sounds like it's worth a visit to the Waters!

[abithormonal]

Wow that's taken a while to catch up with this thread, thanks for the link Tumb.

Hello to everyone coming over and a quick wave to those I know. As with Bunny I live in the Inner West (Newtown/Camperdown) I love it, short walk to everything or the train (as I hate driving) and I went to an open lecture on Monday night by a world famous photographer, dinner out before to hand over DS to DH and a short walk home, very cool. It floats my boat but I can see why other people don't like it.

meetups - anybody fancy a pre-schooler sprog meetup at the aquarium? ie weekday when schools in?
Non sprog?

[Eralc]

The aquarium sounds like a good plan abi. DS1 is at preschool on a Thurs/Fri, so if we could avoid those days, he would be very happy (he loves the aquarium!). Mind, I've yet to go into the city with both boys with help, never mind on my own, but I reckon it'll be ok (ever optimistic!). Will have to work out the best way to get there (am thinking bus and walk, but I will have to go out with the sling a bit more first to build up my strength (given that DS2 weighs the same as a big sack of spuds now!)

Has anyone got exciting plans for the Easter weekend? We are doing a major spring (well, autumn) clean of the house ready for my parents arriving the week after next, but we thought we might go out to the Trainworks museum one day. I quite fancy a trip up to the mountains too, but am not sure I can face the drive up there! I suspect we will end up at Balmoral too one of the days if the weather is reasonable. I will also mostly be avoiding chocolate in an attempt to avoid derailing my post-baby flab loss efforts!

[bunnygirl80]

The aquarium sounds good, although I'm not sure how much DS will appreciate it. I keep trying to take him out to interesting places, but he generally just falls asleep as soon as we arrive

We've got nothing special planned for the weekend, it's our wedding anniversary and DH has proclaimed that he's going to cook, so I imagine a proportion of the weekend will be spent cleaning up the aftermath in the kitchen

[HighFibreDiet]

Hi everyone also keen on an aquarium meetup if it goes ahead. Ds3 in daycare Tues and Weds but can do any other days during school hours.

Are any of you cloth nappy users? I have to stock up again having given away/sold for next to nothing most of ds3's nappies. If there's a good site for used cloth nappies I would love to know. I have been looking on usednappies.com.au but there are ads still on there from November last year and I don't want to waste time contacting people who sold their stuff months ago.

Also if I end up having to buy new I would love to know opinions on the Aus-made pocket nappies. (GreenKids, MiniLala and BabyBeeHinds are the ones I was looking at.)

Thanks so much.

Hope you had a good anniversary weekend bunnygirl, with not too much cleaning up.

[bunnygirl80]

highfibre I use cloth nappies for DS. I'm no help on used ones I'm afraid, as I bought new in the hope that they'll last DS and any subsequent DCs we might have.

I use Totbots Bamboozle stretchies which I got from cotton bottom They recently dropped all their prices due to the strength of the dollar. One of my mother's group uses greenkids for her DD and she seems pretty happy with them, although I think she had a couple of problems with them leaking until they'd been washed a fair few times.

[thatsnotmymonster]

Hi everyone! I can't believe how much I've missed. Sounds like your meet up at the aquarium will be fun.

DD1 broke her arm on Easter Sunday- just what you need when you're just about to do a longhaul flight. It's just a buckle fracture and we are going back to the hospital today to hopefully get a removeable cast so that should be ok for flying. Only 9 days to go now!! Really excited!

[HighFibreDiet]

Oh tnmm sorry to hear about your dd1's arm. Hope it mends well. Good luck for the flight and move. :)

Bunnygirl thanks for the advice on nappies. I do try to buy local if poss but I have to say the strong Aussie dollar does make it far more attractive to buy things shipped in from overseas!

[sunnydelight]

Oh no TNMM. DS2 broke his foot in three places 8 weeks before we left (ironically also an Easter Sunday!) so luckily the cast was off before we flew but it did bugger up some last minute plans.

Have fun at the aquarium - I fly to Ireland on Thursday so won't be around until the end of the month but would love a sprog free meet up (I think my kids are a fair bit older than most of yours). I am getting to spend time with my best girlfriends (I have one night in Brighton, two in London and one in Paris all with girlfriends) so I am SOOOOO excited!

[abithormonal]

new thread

[abithormonal]

ohh excited I can make links, we can continue general chat here. Also had 2 posts in AIBU, not bad for a lurker, I'll go back to hiding under the duvet

[bunnygirl80]

Oooh abit you're brave posting in AIBU. I just lurk there and stick to posting in post natal where my PFBness is treated with the sympathy it deserves

[bunnygirl80]

bump

[HighFibreDiet]

Hi to the4ofus if you've made it this far reading this thread! Just thought I'd say (if it wasn't obvious already) that we settled in Manly and it's not as singles-orientated as many people think. There are loads of pg women all over the place, the library is brilliant, there are lots of pre-school activities and the school (Manly Village Public School) not only has a very good reputation but is full of expats. In fact it's often the Aussies who feel they stick out rather than the international parents! My eldest has had problems settling in but then he is a lot older than your kids, and had a good group of friends back in England and it's been hard for him to replace them. With your kids it should be fine.

It's very convenient for dp's commute to the CBD and as long as you don't live too near the Wharf/Corso/South Steyne the weekend clubs are no bother. The rents are high, mind you, but if your dh has LAFHA that covers a lot of the expense.

I have three boys who will be 9, 7 and 3 by November, and expecting a little girl mid July.

[thumbwitch]

at PFBness being treated with the sympathy it deserves! I know exACTly what you mean, bunny!

Well, I have been and come back. Hideous jetlag - 4 days of being up between 2 and 3am then finally cracked it and had 2 days of getting up at 6am instead. Just about feeling back to normal now (we got back on June 1st ).

Have discussed options for meetups on Abithormonal's link thread - and would be very pleased to see as many of you as can make it!

I am soooo cooooold at the moment though - it was nice and sunny in the UK, with the lovely long summerish evenings that I really do miss - I could have done with another week there, really. But DS was starting to miss home (thank God it took him a couple of weeks this time, unlike last time when it was almost immediate) so we had no choice in the end.

I did have a bit of a last minute trauma though - I saw on BA's website that I could take a whole extra suitcase home with me (another 23kg!) for the princely sum of £32 if I pre-booked it on line. So I bought extra stuff and my sister gave me a suitcase that my Dad had foisted offloaded onto her - perfect! Then I tried to do online check-in. No go. THEN realised it's because my flight was Qantas operated. Checked their website - no offer of extra bag. Phoned Qantas London office - got Aussie dimbo who didn't seem to know the unit of currency in the UK - when I told her it cost £32 to take an extra bag on BA, she kept telling me it was 23kg . ANYWAY - finally got figures out of her - $50/kg excess weight and $150 (£100) per extra bag. SOOO not worth it.
Had to pare down my purchases and leave behind some stuff :( - bags weighed in at just over 24kg each but the nice check in girl didn't charge me extra.

Flights were fine - DS slept much of the ones on the way out, less on the way back tho' still a fair bit but he managed to watch Gnomeo and Juliet about 5 times . Imagine my horror to discover that it isn't being released on DVD here until 28th June! He seems to have forgotten about it for now though.... (FX!)

[abithormonal]

Hello there Thumb, it's very good you checked, we didn't and got stung on a two part trip, very unpleasent as it was our pre wedding honeymoon, and then the lost the bag that we had paid the equivalent of an extra seat for, and it hed my wedding stuff, gah, I HATE qantas.

4of us, hope you've made it this far, I'll cheerlead for the inner west, yay go the jets and all

[thumbwitch]

abithormonal, OUCH!! Qantas bastards. for you. DId you get the bag and stuff back again in the end? And write a vicious letter of complaint?

[bunnygirl80]

That kind of thing is the very reason we never fly qantas. We always go on Emirates, where you get 30kg of luggage as standard and they're generally the same/cheaper than qantas

[thumbwitch]

Well I thought I was getting BA both ways - touch wood, I've never had a problem with BA, only when Qantas operate the flight. Will be more careful in future, that's for sure!
Does Emirates have video on demand? And free alcohol?

[bunnygirl80]

They have 600 channels of entertainment on demand and as much free booze as you can drink They also fly into Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow as well as Heathrow, so it's convenient if you don't want to go to London.