Meet Illawong Jack

This is our new car. If it was a person, it would be an old man with a flat cap and glasses driving slowly and holding up the Sunday traffic on the A49 towards Whitchurch. We have therefore nicknamed him “Jack”, or “Illawong Jack” to give him his full title.

I did in fact drive Illawong Jack this afternoon, only for about a quarter of a mile, but it felt like further. Darren said it would be just like driving my old mark III Golf (ie no power steering) but he was still trying to hoodwink me into returning the hire car. As if!

Another stressful day househunting today, as has become the norm. I’m sick to death of leafing through the UBD (like our A-Z at home) as chief navigator and rear gunner (dealing with Ella in the back). Last night we concluded that a fortnight of stress has resulted in nowhere to live and a 20 year old banger for our troubles. The British Airways 747 was looking good and I even logged onto the BBC news website to catch up on the UK news (if we get cable internet I shall be downloading the Today programme from Radio 4 and watching Corrie within the month).

But today was another day (our last one before Darren starts work) so we made an executive decision to place a deposit on a house in Randwick. This is in fact the first house we saw on the day we arrived (remember? The first cockroach we saw). Somebody else had beaten us to it, but his money transfer hadn’t showed up on the estate agent’s books yet, so we put the cash down and gazumped him. I never thought I’d be gazumping someone for a house with a corrugated iron roof (we took the liberty of spraying it with the hosepipe to simulate rainfall – you should have heard the racket), but as Darren said, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” and it was better to secure that house until next Friday while we keep looking. The house costs $600 per week. It’s in a good spot but it’s not a great house at all.

This evening we saw a flat for $440 which is absolutely ideal. Isn’t that typical – we’ve got a $600 deposit on a crap house, a banger of a car to get Darren from a house in Bronte that we aren’t renting, and along comes this flat at the (literally) eighteenth hour. It’s in a complex which is a bit like a resort, there’s an outdoor pool and a nice leafy outlook from the (large) balcony. Still only two bedrooms, but gorgeous inside, all new kitchen (just like ours at home but smaller) and no having to do the washing in the shed.

So Darren has been to the estate agent for that place (which is now closed) and put an application and cheque under the door. If we are the first ones to have done so, the flat is ours. Should find out tomorrow.