Shall we do an Aus/NZ round up?

[ClaudiaSchiffer]

Hi all

Where is everybody? It seems that all the old familiar Oz/NZ mners have wondered orf . . . shall we have some hellos?

I'll kick off

Hi there, I'm ClaudiaShiffer, I have two daughers and live in Adelaide, I am a Pom and have been here for 2 yrs. Mostly loving it. DH is an Aussie and is beyond delighted to be back in Oz after 10yrs in the UK.

Now your turn

Hi, I am coming to Melbourne in three weeks now.

Can anyone answer these ridiculously specialist questions for me?

Can you get shoes in widths in Australia? My dd is a C width and the other one is a D which are hard enough to get as it is. I don't know if I should panic buy some here or not.

DD1 has a peanut allergy. My dh has failed miserably in trying to find a cereal she can eat. Kellogs make everything on the one line and make Crunchy nut cornflakes with peanuts so they are out and Nestle can't guarantee nut free either. They are the same here too. What other companies can we try?

Thankyou if you can help me and hoping to meet some of you soon.

Savoycabbage

Try - Sanitarium. They make Weet-Bix. Owned by the Seven Day Adventist Church.

www.sanitarium.com.au/

Consumer site "Choice" - Nutritional value of some cereals www.choicefoodforkids.com.au/category/breakfast-cereals

Quaker Oats and Uncle Toby's make porridge/oats

Anaphylaxis Australia
www.allergyfacts.org.au/joe.html

There are a lot of muesli cereals from small boutique companies available - they're not generally cheap but I'm sure some of those will be nut-free.

Hi!
Can I join? Used to be tinto but namechanged (not that anyone knew me!)

Sydney girl married to a british boy (if 42 is a boy!).
Born in Dublin but I have been here all my life.
2 DD's - 2 and 7 months.

So, if you have any niggly Sydney questions - I'm your gal!

Thankyou Sidonie! That is really useful. Sanitarium have already e-mailed me back and all their products are peanut free.

Brighton born and bred married to a Bedford/Brighton boy and we've been living in Rozelle, Sydney for 9 months. Have a 19 m DD.
I've been caught up in RL as our buggery landlord has decided to sell our house at an over inflated price (6 weeks on market and not even an offer) and has given us until 6 Jan to move out. Luckily have just found a house which is nothing like as nice as the one we're in but there are so few houses to rent here with 30+ people trying to apply for each one.
ND - glad you're online. Fancy an xmas drink?
SunnyD it all went a bit tits up for the xmas shindig, reckon its going to be more like a new year one now.

ahem

don't make me search the thread for my name

Olive oil is here in the same great conurbation that is Perth but I missed a couple of her calls on account of being too lazy to answer my phone and I haven't heard from her for 2 weeks

Hey, did anyone see the news tonight, the piece on the Degas exhibition coming heer?

Now all you Aussies know that I am very fond of you but I needed a Tena Lady when I heard the presenter saying "Edguh DaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyGaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

quaint

Christmas drinkie would be lovely, BG. I have a friend here from New Zealand this week, but maybe later next week or on the weekend? What about the London?

What a pisser about your landlord. Our tenant begged to stay at any price and I felt very sorry to be chucking him out but not sorry enough to stay in the great polluted shithole that is Shanghai.

Later next week sounds great ND. Have I got your number? London sounds great, though flights a bit pricey this time of the year (ho de bloody ho).
Our landlord is officially a C**T. He lead us along, making us think we could stay at least till Feb, and then decides because he's a greedy little twat that he suddenly wants to do up the house to resell at same ridiculous price. He'll be lucky - the place needs stripping down and starting again in my opinion. Hes been getting $800 off us a week as well - grrr. Thats better.
You glad to be back then?!!!

Hehe Suzy - not as bad a Vincent VIN GOOOOOOOO.
Wish there was a snob emoticon!
Is the Degas exhibtion touring Australia? God I hope it comes here - the Monet one at the Art Gallery of NSW was good but very small and I'm missing my regular gallery trips to London town.
How you doing? Found a lovely Vouvray the other day - so nice I drank all myself.
Can you get Tena Ladies over here?

Hey brightongirldownunder, I'm just down the road in Balmain. Did you manage to find a rental in the same area?

Yes - in Clare st, Rozelle - a minute away from AboutLife and 2 streets away from the house we're in now! Not as nice but will do for the next 6 months. You fancy meeting for a christmas drink with me and ND next week, being a Balmain girl and all that?
Have we chatted before?

Just found this thread... and am in Auckland again (NZer) after almost 6 years in the UK. I feel totally bereft at the moment, which has been a surprise. I've got heaps of family and friends here as has my husband, but we are missing Oxford reeeealy badly. We've only been back a week, and DS (7m) has had an ear infection for most of that, so perhaps it has been a bad start. I know I used to love Auckland, so I guess I'll just have to dust myself off next week and get out there to rediscover it all. How long did it take other returning Kiwis/Aussies to settle back in???

Which parts of Auckland do the other Aucklanders hail from? I'm in the centre (Ponsonby) although that is temporary while we look for somewhere to rent.

Ah Brightongirl, I've done my time in the lovely Rozelle back in the mid 90s - when I was single.

Used to booze at the Three Weeds before it went swank. Then stumble down the road in ridiculous high heels, stopping at pubs along the way - eventually falling into the London.

["those were the days" emoticon] - picture a smiley face looking wishful.

I mean 'wistful'!

Hellooooo!
I am a Brit, married to a Brit, living in Adelaide.
We have been here for just over 3 years now, and loving it. I have 4 children

Yes, Loremipsmum, do join us! I am in Birchgrove so we can start to lobby for our own little Balmain Peninsula section of MN, where we can remind each other to apply for our car permits for New Year's Eve (shit, typing that I just realised I have forgotten to post mine).

You can give me the inside on applying for child care. My boss has offered to move my job to the Sydney office and I'm dying to get back to work, but every child care centre I've rung has acted like I'm trying to get her on the waiting list for commercial space travel. "Yeah, darling, call us again in 30 years" is the stock response.

Re-settling is hard, takingitasitcomes. I have just returned to Sydney after 14 years abroad and could have kissed the ground at Arrivals, but that was because I was coming from somewhere I absolutely loathed. If I'd come home straight from England (which I loved, and still miss, much to the disgust of my British husband who can't fathom why anyone would ever want to live there) I would have found it much harder to settle in.

9D, I have three at Birchgrove PS - we were living on Cove St until a year ago - so the childcare days are well over for us I'm afraid!

Brightongirl, I'm not sure if we've chatted. I haven't been on MN for that long, so probably not. I wish I'd found it earlier. I do love wasting time online when I'm meant to be working and MN is much better than any of the Aust boards I've found...

Aargh to NYE permits, I haven't done it yet either.

We have a crazy week next week - up until Christmas in fact, but I'll keep an eye out for any meet-ups next year.

takingitasitcomes - some people seem to settle back easily. i've been back 2 years and still struggling...
there's an auckland thread going at the moment which you should be able to find under this topic.

Great - thanks Shells. I'll go look for that thread now...

Takingitasitcomes - I'm in Green Bay, west Auckland. I rented for five years in Mt Eden before that and worked in Ponsonby for 6 years - childcare centre on Vermont St.

I have a Kiwi friend just got back from her OE,having trouble settling back in, finding it all very quiet here...mind you, she is staying up in Wellsford

hi takingitasitcomes we're in Brookby, between Clevedon and Whitford, just south of Auckland but dh works in town and I come in quite often. Dh had been away for 18 years. He found it very hard when we first moved here, once the initial 'I'm home' feeling had gone. Things and people change. I know England feels different each time I visit and we've only been here 6 years. Where are you looking at moving?

Hi,

I'm from Brisbane, but haven't lived there since July 94. We are going back there in March maybe for good, even though we have a return ticket back to London.

We think we have got DS1 accepted into a school to start prep in term 2, but other than that have done nothing.

I go from not being able to wait to leave London (have been here 10 years), to getting really sad watching the BBC Sports Personality on Sunday realising we've had our last Wimbledon in London!

We have heaps of family there on both sides, but because we left so long ago only really have a few school friends still in Brisbane.

Really scared!

Hello everyone

mm22bys What are you scared of luv? Coming home? My dh returned to Adelaide after 10 yrs in London and is as happy as a sandboy. It is a complicated business this moving countries thing. All terribly unsettling.

Oh soddit, have just hung out some washing and now it's raining.

WorzelGummige are you in Gawler? Have we talked before?

Where are you, Brightongirl? Let's go and get pissed next week!