Sydney Part 1

As we flew towards our penultimate destination, the friendly pilot’s voice came over the PA system informing us that it was going to be a warm day in Sydney – a balmy 45 degrees! Now I know we had been acclimatising ourselves for the Australian summer for the past 4 months, but even so, that sounded hot! In our defence a newspaper described Saturday 5^th March as the day the city melted.

We had a warm welcome (no pun intended) from my sister, brother in-law and 2 year-old nephew Ben (who I am officially obsessed with,) and were delighted that he instantly declared “Jill”, “George” when we walked into their flat (good coaching skills Sue!) We were invited back to theirs for a BBQ on the balcony overlooking the stunning Manly beach later that evening, and went off to settle into our room, which was very kindly provided by Michael. We were going to be in Sydney for 3 weeks and actually felt like we could catch our breath and have a little bit of a normal life. The idea of being able to make a cup of tea for ourselves and even pour our own cereal in the morning was alarmingly exciting.

One of the reasons we added Sydney to our travel itinerary was the fact that we could spend time with some of our closest friends and of course my sister’s family who we hadn’t seen in far too long. It was wonderful to catch up with Ian and Kate – who are looking way too healthy, relaxed and sun-kissed from their time living in near the beach – and to meet their friends who are sharing their Sydney lifestyle. We were welcomed like old friends and invited to drinks at the stunning location of the Opera Bar. It was lovely to catch up with Amanda too, who seems to be thriving in the city and enjoy a couple of glasses of wine.

Our objective for the next 3 weeks was to find out how feasible it was going to be to get sponsorship to live and work in Sydney and to then decide whether we wanted to do that, or return to live in England. That will be easy we thought.....how wrong we were! The reality was in fact 2 weeks of turmoil with our minds changing almost daily. We felt like we were auditioning Sydney and every time we did anything we were asking ourselves if we could see this as our life. It actually got to the point of drawing up a pro’s and con’s list (for which both Sydney and England had countless pro’s)

Whilst in the process of making the ‘Big Decision’ we took every opportunity to enjoy being Auntie Jill and Uncle George in the flesh rather than virtually via Skype. We readily accepted the challenge of a whole day of babysitting and spent the day at the zoo with Ben. We quickly assumed a tag-team formation with one of us pushing the buggie whilst the other ran after Ben pointing out various animals and averting disaster. We were exhausted, but satisfied at the end of the day when we had passed every test – he’d eaten at all the right times, napped and even had a very pooey nappy changed – phew!

We both managed to arrange interviews for jobs in Sydney and were surprised to find that it would definitely be possible to get sponsorship and therefore visas to live in the country. We realised that it was impossible for us to make up our minds and so decided to leave it to fate – if we were offered jobs we would take them, and if not, well, we would be happy to head home to London. This seemed like a perfect solution until I was actually offered a position and told that I would be living in Sydney in less than 2 months. Reality hit like a ton of bricks and it was then that we realised we couldn’t do it – England was home and that’s where we wanted to be. It goes without saying that we would miss family and friends in Sydney, but our decision was made – we were going to stay in England.