The (Joe) Eagle has landed ...

Well he's back - with a one year visitor's visa - not the ideal but we'll take it.  Four months separation has been excruciating … well the last month for sure.  After we settle in, we'll attempt to apply for the spousal visa, but for now … he's "home" - yippee!

(oops - no photo of him - he looks pretty much the same as when he left surprisingly!)

He was 3rd through the door after the 43hr trip, looking in pretty good shape and that would be thanks to the business class seats we had enough points left for (sadly the last time either of us flies bus. class).  Jasper ran into his arms and then went all shy - he was used to poking him on a screen and now here he was right here in front of him - very confusing.

Forgot to get a picture of him running into Joseph's arms!

Thanks also to business class there were two HUGE suitcases to unpack - full of mostly things for me!  My teapot (yippee), my photos (oh so many photos!), my Creative Memories stuff (oops!  CM has gone bankrupt! who knew?), the plastic cake server my brother made in high school!, a few more pieces of clothing … but not my jeans!  I've been asking for my jeans for four months - I know I left them behind and there were two pairs!  He says he's looked everywhere and they are not there.  Humph!  Finding jeans that fit is so traumatic - I want my jeans!!  Well there are 15 more boxes arriving any day surely THEY will have my jeans.

The very next night we have a neighbourhood party - right on the dock - three feet from our front door!  Good to meet the neighbours and I think I finally have their names sorted out.  Surprised to find out there were some youngsters in the group - renters like us - and mostly from overseas; an Irish couple, Vicki from London, Anika from Germany. The oldies include two artists, the couple who started the local pancake restaurant and Mike who is the doyen of it all. 

Not great pics but you get the general idea!

They were impressed with my bbq meatballs!! (recipe from internet and I didn't even have any Worcestershire sauce!!) … aaah … ignorance is bliss!!  They even liked our tomato/basil/boccancini appetizers (from Katrina's wedding) and even my Moosewood gazpacho soup!!   The mini maple-sugar pies were so-so… but the Nespresso machine was a definite hit.  

Sorry ... no photos of the dolphins … it was dark!

Just as we were packing up (in the dark), the dolphins arrived and did three or four jumps completely out of the water SIDEWAYS!!  We (well the girls) were screaming with delight!  I think they heard us talking and came to show off… I honestly do.


An extra day babysitting makes for lots of grandpa/Jasper catchups and still no jet lag!!

He was SO good at putting the decorations on.

There was the odd bird from ONW that Joseph bought with him
and the rest are from the Salvation Army
(a bag for $1)

He's slowly settling back into MY house...
It's tricky having to remember there is somebody ELSE to consider when doing … well … when doing nearly everything and of course when your boyfriend's back, there's gonna be laundry, and it was while doing the laundry that we realized that HE had been wearing MY jeans for the past four months!!  It was happy/sad … mostly sad that my jeans fit him, a little sad that winter has gone and I no longer need them, but ecstatically happy that I have at least one pair of jeans!!!

Yet another celebration down here at The Port!!  This time it's the The Port Santa parade complete with fireworks. Mum's walking with the Meals On Wheels "float" with Jess & James along for the ride … er walk… so we're off to wave to them.  It's a beautiful warm evening, perfect for a Santa Parade - and we wave at the mishmash of "floats": the Green Bin (feed it your kitchen scraps!), the nursery-school cuties, the men waving hankies (huh?  an English thing apparently), the greyhounds!!! (surely only in Aust!).

Here's the green bin with his cheese scrap …
such a Christmasy thing!

Who has greyhounds in a Christmas parade?

We're still waving … and finally here comes the M.O.W. with Jess & James waving at the crowd ... but no Mother!

Here's the Meals On Wheels "float" ...

… here's James & Jess! … where's mum?

So we keep waving and wonder if she is lying on the road and the bands are having to step over her, but finally, a good five minutes later, she appears - she's been stopping to chat to everybody she knows along the 1.2km route!! Of course!!  

Now this is Christmassy!

Can you see the beer in his hand? 

Here's one of the four hotels on the parade route - three more just a street away!

Some of the bands aren't too bad and the large Aussie crowd is pretty excited!.  It's easy to get excited when you can order a beer and step right outside onto the sidewalk and see the Christmas parade pass before you. Down here at The Port there is a *hotel on (almost) every corner  - it's just the perfect place for a parade!

Yoo hoo Sanata … over here!

Back at the house after eats and drinks the fireworks start and they are within spittin' distance from us so the balcony and upstairs deck are just the perfect places to watch!  The noise is pretty crazy and they seem to be almost on top of us but it's an amazing display - on a par with any Canada Day ones I've seen - Joseph of course disagrees!   Pretty good for a local council I say.

I'm too excited to take good photos!

Next day there's a bbq and tennis in the hills … it's been so long since I've hit a tennis ball!  Joseph finds the requisite koala and a Superb Blue Wren that I missed 'cos I was just too comfortable in the shade in my chair.

Ali & Theresa hugging Kim!

The place is alive with people having BBQs/picnics playing cricket or tennis and waving away the flies - oh so many flies!

Then, after just over a week together we are apart again!   Joseph is off to Esperance to visit Cassia. He's so happy to see her and I think Cassia is happy to have company and of course it's a great place to bird!  I use my alone-time to finish Christmas cards and I almost faint when the Post Office worker tells me how much it will cost to mail them to Canada!  Apparently it's a 94% increase from last year!  Next year … hmmm … I'm gonna have to think about it.

Yet another funeral - six since we arrived 12 months ago - this time in the Barossa, where the Droegemueller's are from - and we take time to visit my 101 year-old great aunt that I can't remember ever meeting. Dear Auntie Nell is almost blind and wishes she weren't here, but she leans over and asks Mum if I'm "her girl that went to England"!!!  Goodness me - how on earth can she remember that!  She's my maternal grandfather's sister - the baby in a family of 10. The genes seem to be good on both sides of our families … Mrs. Dafoe's younger sister, Aunt Zeta sister turns 100 on Christmas Day but  Joseph says we only have enough money to last until we are 83!!

On my way to funeral # 5 this is what was on the road in front of me!
It's a mother koala with her baby on her back!
it took me a while to figure out what it was as well

Christmas is nigh and our house is moderately (pathetically) decorated and I find myself thinking about Ottawa and decorating the store, our ONW friend's Christmas shopping night, Thymes (I'm always thinking about Thymes) and that's it's been a while since we've been gone …

It's not quite up to Eileen's standards :(

My bit of snow - when the lights go out the "snow" on the tree glows…
only trouble is when I turn out the lights I'm on my way to bed!

The tree!

The wreath! (too windy to put it on the door!)

That's neighbour Mike the doyen - pointing to my brother John
(inside the trailer that my brother David USED to own)
taking out some gems that we made good use of!
(alas he wouldn't take out the toilet paper for me!)
(That's Kym doing her Vanna impression)

Note:

*There really was a hotel on every corner in The Port, when the Wharfies (Waterside Workers) numbered around 30,000. Some hotels, have closed, some empty for years but there are still quite a few operating and Joseph especially likes one near us that offers "Happy Hour from 7.00 a.m. until 9.00 a.m..".

Boxes and visas ... still the visa!

I hoped I would have news of Joseph's visa but alas - nothing!  There's a flight booked for today (Oct 28th) but with no visa as of late Friday (25th) we rescheduled for Nov 5th!  I forgot to sign one of the papers (sent via FedEx to T.O.) that we need to submit for the Spousal Visa so we decided to hold off with that submission and just apply for a simple visitor's visa. At this stage we would happily take three months but are hoping for twelve ... so we wait some more!

Meantime …

Joseph has been busy driving between Toronto and Ottawa, visiting and saying goodbye (again) and shoving more of our wordily possessions into our tiny warehouse as he makes room for the new tenant (as of Nov 1st)… who will be sleeping in our bedroom!!  I haven't met her but I'm pretty sure she expects to be sleeping there alone so that visa had better come through!!!

I've managed to fill my days ...

Jasper's 2nd birthday - He's still adorable even at two (I know it's early days still) and It was lots of fun watching him trying to hold up two fingers and how he quickly came to understand the "present" thing and now Grandpa Joe is going to be so impressed with how well he knows his dinosaurs. A tube of small ones with the names on the bottom in size 2 font so I'm no help but he now knows most of them.

 

Being kind to his birthday guests!

The local "Port Festival" - another excuse for a party here on the dock! Make-your-own sandwich with champagne. Not quite the tall ships but fun none-the-less.This time I did NOT invite the crew from the prawn trawler outside the front door in for a shower!

More night murals!

Mum and the flamingos - all pretty in pink!

Our Chilean friend Sylvia and her vases in one of the galleries for the festival.

Great use of a container!... a walk-through gallery

The dolphins were performing for the crowds on the dock -right outside my front door.

A sailing regatta

It was quite hairy there for a while - we were on our feet thinking they would crash!

There was our friend Patricio (Villaroel)'s 75th party where i thought I would be able to show off my spanish with all of their friends (from Chile) but sadly nobody took my lead so I it was English all afternoon.

Some movies: I liked Diana (I know a million won't), I really liked About Time and (a weird one for me) I enjoyed Rush, and last night I really enjoyed Captain Thomas and later I heard somebody else talk about the scene at the end, that I flashed back to at home, and thought about what it must have taken for him to do it, and I think that might win him an academy award! It's nice to have a some good movies to chose from for a change.

In the hills on the windy roads and this is what I saw as I rounded the corner!
It's a koala with a baby on her back!

A trip to IKEA (of course) - this time to buy for Cassia because there isn't an IKEA store within a million miles of where she is living. These will be added to their boxes that have been shipped from Spain and she'll use her relocation allowance to have them all sent to Esperance.  Brilliant.

The $5ea lamps!

 It was fun shopping with somebody else's money except that I also managed to spend $100+ of my own! I picked up a couple of lamps ($5 ea)in As Is and I just don't know how but it ended up being that much so apparently there are still items we need!

Then Cassia & Pablo's 14 boxes of personal effects (the official name) arrived -  sadly addressed to Pablo who wasn't here to pick them up, so there was a bit of paperwork involved to hand over to me and then off to customs to have them cleared and find out it required my passport for identification (huh - nothing else would do!) that for the first time in over a year I didn't have with me (different purse) and then once we had them satisfied there was a drive to the other side of town to be approved by Quarantine. Why you would have customs send you to "Quarantine" and even give you a map to show you how to get there and then have the building not have the word Quarantine visible anywhere - just the official government name DOFF (Dept. of Forest and Fisheries)!! is beyond me. So while I was waiting for clearance I filled in the feedback form to explain that to them and then luckily (for me) their system was down due to the ridiculously windy weather, so the officer took pity on me (I think) and gave approval without an inspection!!  Yippee yippee!  because an inspection would have required; only ONE person and the quarantine officer attending the inspection, and me (as if I could ask anybody else to do it) having to remove the boxes from the pallet, open them (with my own tools I took with me) and then repack and re-tape them (with my own tape I took with me) fourteen times and with my fingers crossed that the officer wouldn't notice there were feathers in the quilt and sleeping bag that I had answered "NO" to the question "are there any feathers, shells…" etc. on the form because Pablo forgot to answer that one (pourquoi?)!!

Anyway, thank goodness for computers and system failures that there was no need for the inspection and today I took all of my siblings (&Jen's husband Michael) (5 of us) and each of our cars (4) (well they are tiny cars and there were 14 boxes) off to the dusty container terminal, that is within spittin' distance of my house, and where for the first (and last) time I wore one of those orange-glow-safety vests and didn't wear my thongs (they said I couldn't) to find out that I probably could have done it all by myself because the 14 boxes, while heavy, weren't nearly as intimidating as one would think 14 boxes would be.

With all that help, it took longer to sign in at reception, than it did to pack and unpack the cars into my garage and what a weird and crazy thing to do with your brothers and sister that was really only possible on this one day in our lives … John was on holidays, Jen works three days a week and this wasn't one of them, David was days away from starting his new fancy job and me, well here I am after all these years. Crazy for sure!

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These are "luggage tags" from the Port Festival where they asked students "what would you pack if you were going on a trip".  There were hundreds of these but I couldn't get over how many said my iPod or iPad !

 

 

 

 

I think Apple should use them... well except for this one!

Australia/Canada!

I haven't posted anything lately because other than my cancelled flight back from Perth, that added copious hours and a red-eye with stopover (Melb!!) and of course copious amounts of pills, life has been rather ordinary since leaving Cassia in Esperance, and that made it difficult to find anything remotely interesting and/or funny to write about.

So last week Joseph's brother Tom and wife Elizabeth came to stay for a few days before driving off into the sunset in our van.  They are gone for a couple of months - north, then east and down the coast all the way back to Adelaide.  They are seasoned campers/travellers/combie-vaners so they will have fun and hopefully the hot/humid weather up north won't bother them.  It was great to have them visit and take my mind off the saga that is Joseph's return to Australia. As of today (Tues Oct 8th) we have been officially notified that his application for a Resident Return Visa has been denied.  

BUT … before we start picketing outside of the Australian Immigration office in whatever country you live in, here's some background … read on if you really want to know - or skip to the last paragraph ... 

Back in 1976, a year after we were married in Ottawa, we decided we should go to Australia so that Joseph could meet my family and get to know Australia (then finally, we would have something to talk about!).    He was poked and prodded and finger printed by the RCMP and finally received a Resident Visa - a permanent one (we thought!).  Then we did what anybody who is leaving N.A. and travelling to Australia to live (forever?) would do - we went to DisneyLand.   (Somehow Joseph managed to add another column (Disneyland) to our saving's plan for Australia, that mean we could rent a car, with unlimited mileage, and drive from Ottawa to Orlando Florida with a side trip to Kennebunkport Maine (to say goodbye to Alexander) in 10 days because back then, when you lived in Australia, Disneyland was just a dream.)

You should know that we didn't have a lot of money - so we packed our teenie tiny possessions into 15 million small boxes and shipped them to Australia at "book rate" (Joseph worked at the Nature Canada Bookstore) and drove to Toronto and (as part of the very cheap plane ticket) took a van to Buffalo N.Y. with some other poor sods, and flew to HongKong with a two-hour stopover in Anchorage Alaska in the middle of the night (on this flight I learned that Kosher meals are served first!) and spent a week in HongKong buying a stereo and having clothes made for Joseph and then after being off-loaded (I don't think they can do this anymore) in Singapore for two nights and a day, (where Joseph went birdwatching and I bought paper under garments because our luggage was NOT off-loaded), we finally landed in Australia.  We whizzed through customs (if your luggage arrives a day before you it sure speeds up the process) and they stamped his passport and let him into the country without blinking an eye.

There's seven years worth of stories in between when we arrived and when we left in March 1984… We built a house in the hills, Mischa was born, there was a bushfire and the house in the hills nearly burned down so we took my parent's only grandchild back to Canada, is the short version.   There's a whole chapter on the trip back from Adelaide on planes, trains and automobiles, via Melbourne, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Kennebunkport, Montreal to Ottawa to live for the next 28 years. There's a whole book about those 28 years; we had another baby, we had jobs, we lost jobs,  we lived in four different homes, we started a business, we retired and along the way we made friends to die for, met people you only dream about and of course Joseph's family and Mrs. Dafoe turning 100.  But I'll skip all that except to mention that on that fateful day in March when they stamped Joseph's passport, if we had known what we know now, we should have mentioned that we MIGHT be back (to Aus.) to live and it would have been a different stamp and maybe just maybe we wouldn't be in the predicament we are in now.

Here's the predicament: 

Having decided that, with both children, a grandchild, an ageing mother and all of my family here in Adelaide, we would turn our holiday into an extended stay. We knew Joseph would need more than his one-year visitor's visa so we did what anybody who wanted to know about visas would do, we went to the Immigration Department to find out the correct visa to use.  

We mentioned to the Immigration person - I have no idea what they are called because they are NOT Immigration Agents (you pay them) - that Joseph had lived and worked here for seven years as a Permanent Resident. We told the person we knew Joseph was 'in the system" because Medicare could see his name and yes after much searching he (with some help) found some kind of record of Joseph's name in their (Immigration) system so we were advised to fill out a Resident Return Visa. More discussion with the person giving us the forms about whether he should apply within Australia or in Canada, but given that all of the supporting documents needed were in Canada (and Joseph had to do his (oops our) taxes anyway) we decided he would go back to Canada as planned, submit the Visa request and come back at the end of October on a one-way ticket with Visa in hand because really … it is pretty obvious where he should be.

Alas!  It's the Spousal Visa, along with $3,000.00 and FIVE more months that we should have submitted!!! We've wasted FOUR months on the wrong visa!!  Cassia, who declared it the wrong visa in the first place, will help us submit the new one (she has to her credit , successfully applied and received Pablo's PERMANENT Resident Visa) and we hope that once the application is in the works, he can come out on a visitor's visa while the big one is being processed.

  Then of course life will go back to being mundane and there will be nothing to "blog" about…