Xmas in Kal

We can’t believe another year has flown by….we have packed so much in to this year its been amazing and we have had such a great time and ticked many things off our bucket list.  We have been on the road in Oz now for 18 months and who knew this time last year that we would be residents of Kalgoorlie!!
We have both been pretty busy with work.  After a couple of quiet weeks we knew it was going to get busy again with lots of babies due…and true to form they all started coming in at once.  There was a very sad outcome with one of the women and her baby a week or so ago (thankfully I was not at work)..things have been a bit tense since then.  January is going to be a very busy month so I reckon the first bit of 2013 will fly by…
Mal is still really enjoying his job and has settled in to the team really well.  He has been offered an interesting deal….to become the rural electrician if he does an aircon course – the catch is they want to then bond him for 2 years.  2 years does seem a bit excessive and given he has found out a lot of the other guys in the team are leaving over the next 6 months or so I can’t see it being enforced – it would mean becoming an employee of the hospital whereas at the moment he is still employed through an agency and therefore getting agency rates.  He is interested as he likes the idea of being out and about and the training and experience would be very helpful in getting other jobs in the future – he is just playing it cool at the moment and waiting to see what happens.  And here is Mal busy at work in theatre….LOL

We are still house sitting and enjoying being here – Chip loves the yards and its a lovely cool house to leave him in during the day.  We are eagerly waiting for the grapes to ripen….we have had fresh corn and tomatoes from out the garden and they have been delicious and this morning I went out and found a few figs are ripe…that will be an interesting taste experience.  We have been trying to water as much as we can as the temps here have been in the late 30s early 40s so you can imagine how dry everything is getting – I would hate to think what the water bill is here.  Here are some piccies

enjoying a beer out the front of the house....

naughty Chip digging a hole...

the man shed out the back

my score from the garden today

Xmas day will see the three of us having a quiet lunch and spending the day relaxing.  There is something on at one of the local parks so we might go for a looksie….I start night shift so am not wanting to do much as I suspect its going to be a busy 5 nights and we are short staffed a few of those so I will earning my money.  Mal only has the stats off work too so will be back on deck on Thurs.
 
I have New Years eve off so we are going to hit the town of Kalgoorlie and see if we can find some action – aka get ourselves on Kalgoorlie Cops!!!  LOL

MERRY XMAS EVERYONE…..XXXOOOO

Life in Kalgoorlie

We have well and truly settled in to a routine here in Kal (yep using the lingo).  Mal is really loving his work at the hospital and is learning heaps (and realising that he actually knows a bit too) and I have to admit that I am really enjoying seeing his sexy butt around my ward every now and then too!!

I have decided to become a permanent staff member when my contract finishes in early January.  We have no idea how long we are going to stay here – everyone thinks we will end up like the countless others here in Kal – the saying is ‘come for 2 years stay for 10’ – to be honest I can’t see us staying here that long, however its pretty addictive when you are earning great money and have minimal outgoings.  We still have our long term plan of ending up on the Sunshine Coast so are busy saving to buy a house for when we get there and just enjoying ourselves here for now.

We are going to be house sitting for the obstetrician at the hospital in a couple of weeks for a month over Xmas and New Year.  He doesn’t live far from where we are and it will be nice to have a whole house to stretch out in – though we have a massive amount of watering to do daily and I just hope we don’t end up killing his prized grapevine, fig tree or vegie garden while we are there – otherwise my life at work could turn pretty nasty :).

Today we went in to town after I finished work to see St Barbaras parade – St Barbara is the patron saint of mining but the parade is more like a Xmas parade Kalgoorlie style!!  It was pretty good really and there was a good turn out of people there..here are some piccies… of which you will notice mining machinery plays a huge part (funny that LOL)

 

Our local dog park where we usually let Chip have a run round in every day has been hosting the Great Moscow Circus  - much to Chippies disgust  - poor little bugger cannot work out why he can’t go through the gate anymore…they finish up in the next couple of days so things will be back to normal for Chip next week

We have a few social outings planned this month so are looking forward to those….it might even be starting to feel a little like Xmas….

All about Malcolm

Well Mallie finally got a job – ironically working at the Kalgoorlie Hospital as an Electrician!!!  He isn’t actually employed by the hospital, but by a company called Skilled who contract to the hospital.  This is his second week on the job – he was one ball of nerves last Monday on his first day – but so far he hasn’t managed to shut down the hospital, hasn’t stuffed up any of the dialysis machines, or blown up a generator!!  He is like a changed man though – the Mallie that we all know and love once again – best of all this week is his pay week, and a very good one it will be.  As he is employed by Skilled he is paid like a casual worker so a high flat rate per hour but no sick leave or annual leave accruing.  After 3 months he can switch over to being employed by the hospital if he wants to.  Here are some photos of the worker

The week he got this job he got rung about two others – typical! 

It was also Mals birthday last Friday – yep he had to work on his birthday – tough ah LOL!!!

I took him out for dinner to the Balcony Restaurant which is on top of the Palace Hotel.  Its quite pricey but the food was well worth it and you got a good plate of food too.  We sat on the balcony on the right of the picture below