To anyone that follows this rather forlorn and not-too-frequently-updated blog.

Anyway, lots of news about moving and stuff, but more on that later.

I have holidays for the moment: it was part of my contract that I would take 2 weeks of holidays in September. The weather is beautiful: after a week of rain, we now have plenty of sunshine and temperatures up to 21 degrees.

I walked to the pengiun colony in St Kilda this morning and all around you could see people enjoying the nice weather.

Steve Irwin is still very much in peoples mind, as proves the plane that writes in the air. (Crikey)

Some brave people were swimming in the sea, and lots of old tanned men in swimming trunks were hanging around on the beaches. I already noticed them  last year: the most  vigourous  sunbathers are men  aged over 70. They come out at the first sun and will spend all their time on the beach. By the end of the season they will have a dark brown-red tan; the kind of tan you can only achieve by sunbathing for years. They spend their time in little groups, turning around at regular intervals to get an even tan, and reading articles from the newspaper to each other.

I only saw two pengiuns, but apparently there are 800 pengiuns living on the St Kilda Pier. Their habitat is protected by a big fence.

By the time I came back it was lunchtime, and you could see all the offfice workers taking their lunch break with a take away meal on the benches near the sea. I walked in a t-shirt and burned my face and neckline again. Bonaire sun was nothing compared to the sun in Melbourne!

We went to Williamstown this morning, because I had to pick up my new custom made dive suit in a dive shop.

The suit fits perfect (there is a first for everything), and I am really looking forward to try it out!

We had a few days with lots of showers (good for the farmers !), but this morning the sun was shining again so we decided to walk around in Williamstown. Williamstown is at the other side of Port Phillip bay, just opposite Port Melbourne. From the beach you can see the Spirit of Tasmania and you have a great view on the skyline of Melbourne.

We had Fish and Chips and took a picture of the fish and chips shop for those people who do not believe you can get Fish and Chips in Australia

All the newspapers are talking about this - and all my colleagues stopped working for a moment to read the news on The Age website.

If you want to read about this, go to

• http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/steve-irwin-killed-by-stingray/2006/09/04/1157222051512.html 

• http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/shock-at-crocodile-hunters-death/2006/09/04/1157222057526.html
  

Even John Howard (our prime minister)declared on the television how shocked the nation was by the death of the Australain crocodile hunter.

Last week was beautiful weather: it was the last week of the winter, but temperatures rose up to 23 degrees, and all pubs and restaurants had tables outside (terrasjesweer).

The past winter was extremely dry, and on the news they are declaring that this was the dryest winter in 114 years. I think that we only had around 10 days of real rain (meaning at least a few hours of rain in a row) since we moved over from Europe.

Daniel and I yesterday even went for a game of golf (9 holes - more than enough for me), and we played in t-shirts. My face was very red of the sun afterwards.

This morning it was raining, so we couldn’t do the sport activities we planned and we went instead to the South Melbourne market. We bought 14 punnets of strawberries from Queensland (a dollar a punnet), and I have been making loads of jam this evening.

We went out for a lunch with friends to a Croatian restaurant today, and because it was fathersday in Australia , it was busy everywhere. We only came out of the restaurant after 4 pm.

It is evening now, and we are getting ready for next week. I’ll work one more week and then I will take off two weeks because there is a two week stop in my project. Daniel will take time off the second week of my holidays so that we can do something together. For the first week of my holidays I planned so much that one week will never be enough…

Daniel and I went to our first live game of Australian football yesterday, and we had a great time!

For the Belgians: an Australian football game is played in four quarters of each 20 minutes. The pitch is an oval, and a lot bigger than a traditional football field. At the two ends of the field, you have 4 high poles sticking in the ground: they create the goal area and the behind areas.

The players are allowed to kick the ball or punch the ball with their hands. If they kick the ball in between the two middle poles, they score a goal (6 points), If they kick it into the two side areas, it is called a behind and they earn 1 point. the footballers kit consist of a tight pair of shorts and a sleeveless vest. When we just came over, I thought  that they were playing in their underwear..

The game is incredibly fast, and it often ends with high scores. The two teams we saw are in the top half of the table, and they played very well. The final score was 105 - 98 for the Western Bulldogs. The game was in the MCG , and there was a crowd of 30,000 to see the game. That is not a lot; if the local popular teams play, there are up to 80,000 spectators. The Australians are passionate about their Australian football: Friday afternoon everybody at work is talking about the game they will see on the weekend and predicting what will happen. On Monday morning there are the reviews and discussions about where teams are in the table and if they make a chance to end up in the final.

After the game we bumped into Jenny and walked with her to Birches appartments.

This morning I made my walk to St Kilda; The temperature was up to 19 degrees, it was sunny and… I burned my face. It seems to be time to slap up the suncream again when we go out during the day. I can’t wait till it is summer again!

We also went to the French meetup group on Tuesday; we subscribed to a group of people who meat once a month over a meal just to practise their french language. There are some native French speaking people, but also quite some students who are just looking for an opportunity to practice the language.

It is now Sunday night: almost time to close down the pc and to go to sleep I feel very sleepy with my burned face.

Today is a beautiful day. This morning it was rather cold but sunny, and later on the cold dissappeared completely. We had 18 degrees around 4 pm and a beautiful blue sky. I notioced that the pear trees have blossoms, and the other trees in our garden show little buts where new leaves are growing. (my gardening vocabulary in English is quite limited)

Unfortunately there are some wind warnings and the forecast for the coming days is less good…

When you are renting a house, the landlord (or the agency) has the right to come and inspect the house every 3 months to check whether you damaged the property. We had our first inspection last Friday (we are already 7 months in the house - so we can’t complain) and we cleaned almost every evening the week before.

I was really paranoid about it, but we passed the test and found a note saying that the house was in excellent condition.

Now that the house is squeeky clean; it is the right time to find a cleaning lady;-)

We went out with some friends in Elwood on Friday evening and had a lazy weekend. Tonight we went out to the movies and now we are ready for another Monday.