Diary of an Australian in Bristol
March 26, 2006
We have moved in to our new place and we are really enjoying it. It is small, but comfortable and cosy with a very English feel (well, it is a Georgian terrace). It is nice being close to Clifton Village, a nice shopping area with lots of cafes, delis, bakeries, Indian restaurants and wine shops. Our boxes have arrived and are mostly unpacked (on to the floor!). It is great to have all our stuff - lots of useful things in the kitchen and a variety of clothes! However, the house has gone very suddenly from tidy and uncluttered to being very FULL! (although the clutter does make it feel more "homely"...)
We have even had our first guest at Caledonia place. My dad stayed with us for a weekend on his way to a meeting at Reading. He assures us that the lounge room floor is very comfortable (you even get to sleep in front of the fire there!). We had a lovely weekend showing him around the bits of Bristol that we know and discovering many new bits!
We had a lovely extended weekend with Phil and Kaz (Judy's brother and his girlfriend) in Aberdeen in February. We enjoyed relaxing with them in Aberdeen, hill-walking in the snow in the Cairngorms and going to a great concert.
We have bought bicycles and are pleased that they have not been stolen yet (from what we have been told about bike theft in Bristol, we wouldn't have been surprised if they had!). We are slowly learning what to do with them. Stuart seems to have got the idea and rides to work every day, I am OK as long as it is flat and there is no traffic - unfortunately, neither of those conditions is met very often in Bristol (especially around Clif-ton)! But I'm slowly getting the hang of it!
Last time I wrote, I had lined up discussions with the University of Bath and with Stuart's boss about work. Well, both of them offered me positions (neither seemed particularly interested in my qualifications, they just seemed very keen to get someone on to the projects!). I accepted the position at Bath, it is a 12 month contract working on titanium dioxide nanotubes for hydrogen storage. The project is very interesting - similar enough to the materials and techniques that are familiar to me from my PhD that I should be able to make some good progress in 12 months (a very short time frame for a research project!) but also with lots of new things for me to learn. It is in chemical engineering, but there is also some involvement with the modelling person in chemistry that I met in 2004 (he's the one who told me about the project), so includes some modelling work. They wanted me to start as soon as possible (we compromised on the end of February), so my period of unemployment and laziness was significantly shorter than I had planned! The down side is the commuting - nearly 1.5 hours each way on two buses and a train (although crossing the Pulteney bridge and seeing Bath Abbey lit up from across the River Avon every day does compensate a little!). Once I have mastered the bicycle, I will try cycling to the station in Bristol, which should cut some time off the journey.
Stuart has found a choir to sing with and he seems to be getting along well with them. We went to their concert with dad and they seemed to know how to sing. Now Stuart just has to do an audition for them...
I have found a ballet class, which I am enjoying. It is of a lower standard than the class in Melbourne and the teacher is not as good, but this just makes me realise how spoilt I was to be taught by ex-Australian Ballet dancers in Melbourne! I am still in search of an orchestra/band to play with. I have been to a concert by one potential orchestra, but they weren't particularly good and prefer students as members anyway. So the search continues, but there are a few potential options, it seems that for an orchestra I may just have to wait while until a vacancy pops up for a clarinet player...
The weather is slowly getting warmer and flowers are starting to come out. Apparently this is a very late spring and it is usually much warmer by now and the flowers have been out for a while. We had several days of snow in March and lots of very cold weather. The snow was exciting and very pretty, but we are pleased that it is starting to get warmer! The change in daylight here is quite amazing - much more dramatic than Melbourne. Already, it is light for nearly two hours longer in the evenings that when we arrived and the change is quite noticeable from week to week.