Impressions

• We're starting to get our bearings, locally at least. Cottesloe is a fairly compact place, the streets laid out in a grid of streets that roll up and down hill both west-east and north-south; mostly wide, many lined by tall pine trees. (I'll upload some photos when I get the chance to get online with the lap-top.)
• There seems to be quite a mix of folk out-and-about. I went for a walk along the ocean and a coffee mid-morning, mid-week, and found a wide age-range sitting outside the cafes, as well as the more-active surfers.
• It gets pretty cold here in the evenings - well, we're only just out of winter, I suppose...
• The local supermarket - Woolworths (a brand that seems to have lost its focus back home) - is very good. Jo is probably going to join the gym upstairs in the same centre, which has a good creche facility; I almost certainly won't...Its a short walk, across the train-tracks and past a village of speciality shops to get there.
• Friday night there was an impressive storm (magnified by sleeping in a caravan!), and it turned out that two tornados hit Perth - in fact, hit a community just a little north of us, where we'd been visiting earlier in the evening (plenty of damage, but no fatalities)...Exciting stuff!
• We took the train into Perth yesterday - it takes around 15 minutes, with stops every couple of minutes down the line; the carriage seats face each other along both sides, like on the London tube, but the track is (essentially) above ground. The city-centre is very compact: on one side of Perth station is the Art Gallery/Museum; on the other, shopping streets/malls. We bought two car booster seats, and two mobile phones, and had our hands full on the way home...
• There's this strange game called Australian Rules Football [unlike British and American games, the Aussies haven't persuaded anyone else (except a few Irish Gaelic Footballers) it is worth playing; but then, I guess having an Empire - whether geographical or economic - probably helps in "persuading" others that your games are worth playing...]. This weekend has been the semi-finals in the Aussie Rules equivalent of the FA Cup back home, with the final taking place next weekend at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (the equivalent of Wembley Stadium). Local team the West Coast Eagles were in the second semi-final, played yesterday. I'd been told that the team was pretty good, but that, for some strange reason, their fans generally expected them to lose. Anyway, we were coming home on the train through Subiaco as the fans, all dressed in blue-and-yellow, had got to the platform after the match. From the look on all of their faces, things had not gone well; and, being unusually tactful for me, I didn't ask. When we got home, we found out they'd won. Who'd have known? My source wasn't wrong about Eagles fans!
• We went to church for the first time this morning. Services are at 7:30 am (we didn't even attempt it) and 9:30 am - because it gets hot by the middle of the day, people get up early around here (Australia). We were moved by such a warm welcome from so many people - a number of whom we'd met over the past few days - and we're looking forward to getting to know people better over the weeks to come.