Season's Greetings / Życzenia Świąteczne

Dear Friends, Kochani!

Hope you are having a fantastic festive season. We miss you all, and we miss the white Xmas you are surely enjoying. But on the other hand, snacking on a balcony in shorts and short-sleeves, drinking icy drinks and soaking up the warmth, has its own attractions ... wish you were here!

Mamy nadzieję, że się dobrze bawicie w te Święta. Tęsknimy za Wami, i za białymi świętami (jest biało i puszyście, nie?). Ale z drugiej strony, siedzenie na balkonie w szortach i w krótkim rękawie, popijanie chłodnych drinków, i wygrzewanie się o tej porze roku ma swoje atrakcje. Tylko nam was do szczęścia brakuje!

All the best from Kalamunda (in the Perth Hills). Wszystkiego najlepszego z Kalamundy (na Górkach Perthskich).

From Ania & Pawel

Here's a card from Ania&Pawel in Krakow. Pawel made it!
I've put it up for all to enjoy the stylised view of Wawel castle rooftops (click on the picture to enlarge).

March 2006 - Buying a House

• 04 March Arrived in Perth in the morning from Hong-Kong


• 07 March Walked into Unicredit and asked about mortgages


• 13 March Got mortgage approval


• 14 March Ela rings agents in Kalamunda. Anneli from the Professionals thinks she has just the property for us, and can we come to look at it (Spring Rd) immediately. We look at it at 2pm, love it. Sit at Paris Brest cafe and think about it. Go back with Phil (Mark's brother), Gaye (Phil's wife), and Kim (Phil and Gaye's daughter) to see it at 6pm.


• 15 March Ring Anneli and say: haven't seen other properties, also worried about verticality of block: will it be too hard to build on. Anneli shows us other house-land combinations for similar prices --- these look ugly and have fewer features that we want. She also shows us vertical blocks that people have built on or are intending to build on. After a drive-by, we decide to put an offer in. We offer $620K, Anneli takes it to the owners, they return with $628K which we accept.


• 16 March Anneli comes to Harber Drive, and we sign the revised offer papers. We go to Nedlands and arrange mortgage with Unicredit.


• 20 March Structural inspection --- house passes with flying colours (mostly).


• 22 March White-ant (termite) inspection --- none found.


• 25 March Final inspection with current owners.


• 31 March Settlement day --- no, it's been delayed. Vendor's bank is not ready


• 3 April Settlement day --- get the key


• 4 April Moving in.

February 2006 - Getting Rid of the Car

One of the last things to do before we left the UK was sell our car. It was an annoyingly reliable Volskwagen Passat. How can a car be annoyingly reliable? It was sufficiently unpleasant to drive that we wished it dead, but couldn't justify the cost of replacing it until it did die.

I advertised the beast online in a couple of places. The only responses I got were variations on the Nigerian email scam: We want to buy your vehicle, but can only pay you in a bank cheque for 3 times what it's worth. You pay us the difference. Anyway, I'd also contacted a few garages that bought 2nd hand cars, and had one lined up to buy it. He wasn't going to offer much, as someone had recently given him a similar model in better condition. Anyway, on our last day in Edinburgh, I left my office at the uni and went to the car to take it to this garage and get what I could.

On the way, my mobile rang. I only just caught it before it went to voicemail. It was our one and only call of interest in the car. Trying to contain my joy, I said I could drive it to where he was and show him. I did that, and we went for a test drive, and I carefully didn't say we were leaving the country the next day. In the end he paid £300 for the car, twice what I expected to get from the garage. And because the buyer paid less than the advertised price, he felt he'd got a bargain.

Saturday 25th February, we got up, packed our last remaining items, took a last hurried look at the streets of Edinburgh as we went to the airport and boarded the first flight in our trip to Hong-Kong then Perth.

January 2006 - Leaving our Edinburgh Home

Friday January 13, 2006 was an auspicious day for the Ellison brothers. It was the birthday of Mark's brother Stephen. His other brother Phil and family moved into their newly bought house in Kalamunda. That same day, we left the flat in Edinburgh that had been Mark's home for a dozen years, and Ela's home for most of a decade.

We sold the flat in November last year. You can read the agent's description here. In the end, we accepted the first offer we received for the flat. Because Ela had not been well, we put settlement off till January.

Most of our furniture was sold by direct advertising. We'd tried advertising on various bulletin boards. In the end, we printed flyers and Ela letterboxed the neighbourhood. Our best units were sold in a few days.


The belongings we were shipping to Australia went in instalments. Mark bought a barcode scanner, and started scanning books then packing them into boxes. He packed 45 boxes. The rest were packed with the kitchen items on January 11. Three guys arrived at 9am .. at noon they had to call in two more .. and they still didn't finish till after 6pm. 189 boxes in total. We held some items back, such as both of our main computers and our printer. We'd need those in our remaining time in Edinburgh.

So on Friday the 13th, we said goodbye to our neighbours and made our way across town to our temporary home on Buccleuch St. The picture shows Mark closing the door on 1F3 for the last time.