This is no ordinary glass of bubbles...

This is a permanent residency glass of bubbles. Sipped by the riverbank of Melbourne while planning a celebratory dinner.

Yay me!

Government politics

Someone wants me to apply for a job. They want me. The company policy is citizens only. Boo!

But the director; Yes I said Director, of the Melbourne side of the company gave me a HR chicks number who can bypass that. Alas, I still need a date of when I will receive at least my permanent residency...

Quick few points for some of you -

Being married to Lime before we left or now - I STILL would have been a temporary resident as I am now. It's policy. Its sucky. But it's policy.

I could have a baby tomorrow and if Lime dumped me I could STILL be denied permanent residency. Probably not, but it could happen.

Citizenship is not permanent residency.

Citizenship involves having had 4 years of residency, an exam, an interview and a silly ceremony where you're given an aussie native plant (and a pretty certificate).

Citizenship also then involves jury service and legally enforced voting, along with a pretty blue passport.

So back to the company I'm working for... It's the Australian Government.

So... The government want to give me a job. But the government want permanent residency status. But the government won't give that to me yet. Hmmm.... It's confusing and irritating and annoying ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!! Aarghh!!! God damned different government departments not scratching each others backs!!

I felt very deflated - like our tyre on Christmas Eve. How do tyres know the worst time to be flat? Or how did the nail pick our tyre out of all the other tyres on a road somewhere to attack?!

On a plus note Clare Babs has fabulous new job. Yey for Clare!!!

I'm jealous (I will also reply to your email soon!) ;o)

Happy Weekend! x

I bought new gym socks...

And thank god I did!

New years brought a few rather el scorchio days. That has only just been broken with a cool change (yey to cool change!!) And to escape the heat lime and I ran off to our local Westfield and pottered around the shops and cinema in air-conditioned luxury until we got bored and came back home to our sweat box. (we moved the tv in to our only aircon room the bedroom and lived there for a couple of days - limes chest infection and sunburn prevented any escape plan or alternate activities).

Now also being sales time it was rather busy by the time we got our hot sweaty selves out of our air con fabulous bedroom and to the carpark. We had to suck it up and park under the blazing sun. Not a worry. Aircon will save us on our journey home (it was 39 degrees yesterday).

What we had not considered was the effect scorching sun has on items inside the car... Like seatbelts (ouch), the seat itself and of course most importantly - the steering wheel!

It was literally like trying to turn a frying pan without a handle after you'd just fried eggs. The radio warned of "severe UV levels". I don't know what that means in comparison to other UV levels. But the word severe makes it's point quite eloquently.

Quick thinking Lime came to the rescue - at first he went for tissues in my bag (he has man flu and decided I should carry his tissues, and his sunglasses case, and his wallet, and his aftersun, and his cough medicine - I see a pattern emerging) but came out with my new gym socks.

Thank god I bought gym socks!! Gym socks saved the day and meant I could steer without fear of blisters on my fingers/palms. I think other drivers were quite jealous. They just won't admit it...

This blog is temporarily sponsored by Bonds. Socks that save the day.

Happy heatwave x x