the turning wheels

i was going to start today's entry by describing me, at the desk, the sun streaming in through the window, birds wheeling in the sky, but in the space that it's taken me to type this the sun has ducked off behind a cloud for some private time and the birds have buggered off to somewhere more interesting!

which brings me to my first observation. the weather here is very mercurial, it's actually difficult to guess what the weather will do hour to hour, let alone day to day. this has, so far, remained novel, but i imagine it will irritate the snot right out of my nose down the track. (sun's back...)

but really, the weather has been a side note in the last week. i actually feel like it's been relatively productive, and once the jet lag wore off i even felt a sense of, not exactly excitement, more like anticipation, about life here. of course this hasn't prevented me from doing the inevitable embarrassing things that come with trying to sidle your way into a new culture. whilst purchasing slippers the shop girl said "that'll be 4.99" which i mistakenly heard as "what's your name?", and rather than question why the shop assistant would need my name to sell me shoes, happily went on to announce my name proudly and loudly. the girl, bless her, didn't even bat an eyelid and preceded to give me my change.

i had actually been nervous about the language barrier before the shoe incident, (and for those of you who loudly protest that they speak the same language as me, i would reply firmly with you've never heard a geordie speak) but now that i've actually done something stupid i don't feel so concerned about it.

the second embarrassing thing had to do with a small plant in our yard which i mistook for a mint plant so i tore off a leaf and held it up to my nose for a whiff of it's scent. at which point the leaf suddenly became a stinging nettle and promptly stung my nose. jeff, of course, thought this was funny and then told me, a number of times, that he'd pointed out stinging nettles to me before. in my defence that was a year ago!

but, embarrassing moments aside, i have actually got the wheels turning. i opened my bank account on tuesday, which was relatively straight forward, although my account is not. i've got the forms to change my licence over to a british one, the forms for my national insurance number are on their way, and i even registered with the australian embassy.

we've about 80% settled into the house. jeff and i spent an hour or so on wednesday putting together a chest of draws that we bought from ikea. it was time consuming and fiddly, and made just that bit more difficult because we didn't have a hammer, but, more importantly, neither of us wanted to kick the draws to bits and then smack the other in the head with the spanner (a common complaint, i'm told, when putting together ikea furniture).

so my first week is done and dusted and i feel happy about being here.

oh, wait! i forgot to mention the leaking shower!

so, the morning of my second day, jeff and i both had showers, then went down stairs only to notice water running down the kitchen wall, straight into an electrical socket, which was now making an alarming buzzing noise! we, sensibly, flipped off the fuse, only to discover that this meant all the appliances in the house were now off, which for the jet lag sufferer meant no tv to stare vacantly at whilst feeling myself slip slowly into a coma! we called jeff's dad and he came over the next morning to help us fix it. well i say us, but i actually didn't do anything, apart from make cups of coffee, and occasionally turn the mains switch back on when phil (jeff's dad) accidentally tripped it! so jeff's dad fixed the buzzing socket and jeff fixed the shower. fixing the shower meant that i wasn't able to have a shower for three days. nice...