I know you don't believe me...

...but I'm still here. I think we have finally settled into or new digs here in Sydney. It's kind of nice to be back. There are a lot of advantages to living in a big city. At the same time there are drawbacks. I am trying to acclimate to the weather. I loathe hot weather when it includes high humidity. We of course have had nothing nut hot days with humidity in the 85% + range. I told myself if I can just get through the end of summer I will be just fine. Technically there are only have four more weeks of summer so I'll just see how I go. I mean I lived here for six years before we moved to Tassie so I know I can put up with the weather. Probably the other big difference is the amount of people and traffic. We moved from Sydney with over four million of people down to Tassie with only 500,000 for the entire island of which Hobart only had a little over 200,000 people. So getting used to the buzz of the big city will take some time especially seeing that one of the reasons we left Sydney in the first place was to get away from all of the hustle, bustle and noise.

I begun the job search in earnest up here and I hope I have a more positive experience than I had in Tasmania. I at least have more options and more job opportunities available which will hopefully make looking easier. All I can do is try and as the say in the lottery "you have to be in it to win it" and so I have to apply for things as they won't just come to me.

Anyway, there isn't much else to tell at the moment. As I said we have just now settled into our new but temporary living space. We started house hunting and plan on taking our time in order to get just the right place. We are grateful to have our current lodging which allows us to take said time so we won't feel so rushed and pressured to buy quickly. Now, don't get me wrong if the right place came along this afternoon we would definitely take it but I don't think it will be that easy. We shall see what comes our way. I hopefully will now pick up on my posting. As usually I am also always on over at Facebook if you want to keep up with me that way. Okay, until next time, take care and try to enjoy life and the world around you.

Remodeling re-visited...

Do you remember a few months ago, like around Christmas, when I was telling you about the remodeling we were having done on the back of the house? Well here we are now in the last few days of March and the final piece of the puzzle is about to be installed. The new cabinets are bring fitted this morning. When we had the new windows and doors put in earlier, basically the entire back wall of the house was removed and replaced. A large cabinet used to sit on that wall and the cabinet housed most of our dishes and various odds and ends. That cabinet was of course removed and based on the new window/door configuration there is/was no room to put that cabinet back hence the building of this new cabinet.

We have been living out of our office for the past few months in so much as all of our dishes are currently residing on the floor of said office. I will be so happy at the end of today when I am able to put the dishes back into the kitchen and we can stop having to walk to the office for a glass or a plate. Not to mention we can finally get our office back. Remodeling is always a pain and very disruptive to the normal flow of life. I will not be sad to see the backside of this project. All we need to do after these cabinets are fitted is to have a few tiles put up as a splash back for the sink and then we can have the painter come in and finish the kitchen walls to match the work he did earlier on the new window and door frames.

All in all it's been an experience and we are extremely happy with the results. I'm sure we'll love it even more after today's activities are concluded. In saying that do I plan on any more renovations in the not to distant future or even in the near future? The answer to that is a very definite. HELL NO!

PS. I'll post some before and after pictures as soon as the cabinets are all in but unfortunately you'll have to see it with out the new paint job otherwise it may take sometime before you can see the absolute complete prodcut. Until then Take care!

What to do???

We have a small problem in the Gardner-Sullivan household. What might that small problem be you might ask? Well I'll tell you what the small problem might be. The small problem is actually a huge problem in so much that James and I are being faced with a hard decision as to where we should live. Ever since my little hospital stay up in Sydney we have realised that living in our quaint, quiet, beautiful home may not be sustainable at this point in time.

We moved to Tasmania a little over three years ago after spending six years in the buzzing metropolis called Sydney. James lived in and around Sydney all of his life and that is of course where I met him. We stayed in Sydney during the time in which I was awaiting the outcome of my application for permanent residency in Australia. Once approval was received on the application we felt like we could finally move forward, as we didn't feel like we were able to do such up to that point, because if the application had not been approved I would have had to go straight back to the US within 28 days of the applications rejection. We lived with that fear for quite some time and because of that fear we never felt like we could make plans. We dreamed a lot but never made any solid plans.

Shortly after the application was approved we started looking at our options. A few months before the application was approved we took a short trip down to Tasmania. I had never been and James had not been there in over ten years. I don't know what it was about this place but as soon as we started over the bridge that you have to cross over to drive into Hobart, I knew this was a good place. It just felt right. The more we looked around and during the time that we spent in Hobart the more we knew that this was the place that we needed to be.

We started to look for a house in earnest and we had many to choose from. We also were being very picky. As I said there are a lot of beautiful old homes in Hobart, many of which date back to the 1800's. The houses exude old world charm and add to the quaint atmosphere that surrounds the city and for the matter in every town in Tasmania. One of the key selling points along with the homes was the slow and even pace in Hobart compared to the constant buzz found in Sydney. It is only natural that there be a difference between the to cities seeing that Sydney has over 4 million people compared to Tasmania in which the entire state only has roughly a tenth of the population at around 400,000 people. Nearly half of those people live in and around Hobart proper at a population of 200,525. Based on those numbers I think you can start to get a picture of the differences between the buzz of Sydney and the slow quiet pace that is Hobart.

After four months of looking through real estate guides and making a few more trips back to Hobart merely to search for and to look at houses we found this one. James had flown down to Hobart on a Thursday and I stayed in Sydney with friends from out of town. There were a few houses James had arranged to look at while he was there, and they all looked promising. I got a call from James around lunch time and during that call he told me that none of the houses had been right for one reason or another. He was going to see one more in the afternoon and if that wasn't right he would be back in the morning. I had in the meantime been looking some more on the internet real estate sites and had found one more house that we had not previously seen. This house was just listed with the agent James happened to be using while he was in Hobart. I said why not ask if you can see the place and sure enough the agent said no problem. The house had only been on the market for a week and she hadn't even thought about showing it to James as it was such a new listing she had basically overlooked it. Anyway, long story short I get a call back from James after he sees the house and he says book a flight and get down here first thing in the morning so we can look at the house together. I did, we did and by 7:00 pm that next night we owned our new house.

Moving to Hobart was a huge move for us on so many levels. It was a really big move for James as it would be the first big move for him from Sydney. James easily found a job and we settled in quite nicely. This was our first foray into suburbia and we had no idea what to expect. The last three years we have grown into this house and we have made it a home. We know a few neighbors but we didn't really come here to make neighborly connections. I mean it's fine if we do but I don't need to be best friend with the people next door to make my life complete. We made a few new friends who became very close friends over the next few years. Going out to dinner never found us in a situation where the staff at the restaurant were trying to rush you out so that they could seat the next table. We never have trouble finding a table when we go out for breakfast and once again we don't have people staring over our shoulders waiting to take our table. The local produce, food and wines are some of the best in the world. The air is clean as is the water. All in all this place is pretty damn near perfect, and that is where the needle scratches across the surface of this story.

The problem is there are not enough if no services avaiable to handle the growing population. The biggest area to lack services is in the area of medicaine, doctors, hospitals, etc. The hospital James works at is the largest one on the island but is it is grossly understaffed and unable to cope with its burden. As for it's ability to offer James a challenging work place the only challenge is dealing with the shortcoming and lack of resources. Now you may be starting to see where I'm heading with this drawn out post. You see with the fact that I am and have been HIV+ for the past 21+ years I occasionally need to be able to access appropriate medical services when needed and in some cases that may mean almost immediately. During our recent experience with regards to the treatment of my peripheral neuropathy we discovered that the medical field here in Tasmania is unable to accommodate my needs either through service availability, rapid response time and or a combination of both. Living in Sydney that was never an issue.

Our problem as for what to do is just that, what are we going to do. We love this house/home. We love the quaint gentle approach that we are able to take in everyday life. We love that changes of seasons, along with the temperate weather it brings. Basically we love living unhurried. So now we are in a dilemma as to where we might live and how to go about this transition wth out losing the kind gentle life we have created and at the same time move back into the sprawling landscape which is Sydney.

We do have a few things that work in our favour and those being that we own this home mortgage free and we still own out apartment in Sydney also mortgage free. Let me state from the start we have no intention of moving back into our old apartment. That will not happen! We don't plan on selling either place. We also don't want a new mortgage even though the rentals from both places could easily pay the mortgage on a new house. We just don't want to be saddled again with debt. We could at least rent some a nice big place and pay the rental with the rents that we receive. So again you say what's the problem well in the end the only real problem is we love this home and having to leave it is turning our world upside down.

Suggestions???

Sleepy now...

Recently a blogger that I read frequently asked the question, "Where do you sleep?". He answered his own question by sharing with his readers an insight into where it is he sleeps. He then asked his readers to post the same on their blog and I am happy to oblige. So without further adieu I present the place where we lie our heads.

The bed, a wood and iron sleigh style bed, is currently covered in it's winter bedding which consists of 100% goose down quilt covered in plaid cotton flannel duvet. Two side tables with matching lamps for bedtime reading, each have a clock and books for that sides occupants. I sleep on the right closest to the fire place, which you'll see in the next picture. The duvet cover changes with the seasons as do the throw pillows. The sheets are all 100% Egyptian cotton and range from 500 -1000 thread count.

In this picture you can see the fireplace which is fitted with a cast iron insert. We don't currently use this fireplace as we don't feel safe with an open fire in the bedroom, but if we did want to use it we would be able to as it is fully functional. This fireplace is one of four that we have in the house. The pictures above the fireplace were a gift from James' parents. They are watercolour's that were drawn by an architect from Bristol who turned artist. The pictures are roughly 100-110 years old. We think they fit perfectly with the age of our house, because as I've mentioned in the past our home is over 115 years old.

An added bonus is the view from our bedroom window, which sits at the front of the house. We look down on the harbour. It's a little hard to see but hopefully my pictures will get better as I'm about to get a new digital SLR camera, so hopefully all further pictures will not only be higher quality, but maybe even a bit artistic as I explore my photographic eye.

Anyway, there you have it, a quick insight into where we sleep. Enjoy...

Time flys (especially when you're cold)...

It is amazing how time flies by when you're not paying attention. I mean it's been four days since my last post. I thought it was like only yesterday. I felt like I should write a little something but this isn't going to be a ground breaking post, just a bit of a hey there, hi there so I won't have such huge gaps between post and I also won't feel guilty for not posting. As I said this isn't going to be a ground breaking post full of items about the most intimate parts of my life basically because I don't do that and to be honest there isn't anything ground breaking or shocking going on in the intimate department of my life. Not that I would honestly tell you anyway :) Nope pretty boring here.

So, what is happening? Well as you know it's winter here in the land down under and everyone is kind of hibernating including me. I don't mind winter as I like things like snow, wearing jumpers (American translation jumper = sweaters) and I love a nice fire in the fireplace. It's just that our house, which I'm sure I've mentioned before, is over 115 years old and there is no central heating/air conditioning. We depend on couple of space heaters, 2 oil heaters and one reverse cycle system which is located in the kitchen. We also use the fireplace in the lounge room and occasionally the one in the dining room.

What I'm getting at is, we don't leave all these item on except for the one oil heater that is in the bedroom to keep the chill off that room. So by not leaving anything on to keep the rest of the house warm over night it can be pretty darn chilly if not down right cold first thing in the morning. The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is turn the reverse cycle on in the Kitchen. It has an automatic timer but I have never learned how to make it work. Occasionally I will turn on the fireplace in the lounge room but I hate to waste the gas. I guess I should be happy it is gas fuelled and not one that I would actually have to start with kindling and such because that just wouldn't happen. I never was a very good boyscout. It usually take about 30-40 minutes before it starts to really warm up and then it only does in this part of the house. The rest of the house stays cold. Anyway, that is the price we pay for choosing to live in a temperate climate, which is hard to find in Australia. At the end of the day I will take the cold over the heat because I hate it when I start getting all sweaty and can't seem to get away from the heat. I'm sure I will survive.

Well there you have it a riveting post on how I heat my home during winter. I hope you enjoyed the read. I think I'll go fix a nice hot cup of tea and try to warm up from the inside and leave you to ponder over this this very engrossing post on how I cope with the winter chill. BTW I am very well aware of the heat wave many of you are experiencing over in the states so maybe just maybe I can send you a bit of cool weather. I'm really all about the sharing.

Where am I? Who am I?

No, I don't have amnesia, I just feel a bit lost especially about this blog. I'm having one of those moments again where I'm trying to figure out what to write or even why I keep working at this thing. To be honest that's a big part of it; keeping a blog is work. I mean trying to think up witty things to post for those people that stop by is not an easy task. And then of course I start feeling guilty if I go a few days without writing something. I just don't know. Lets look at it this way, I'm supposed to be doing this for myself and rather or not I write something of interest and by chance also make it witty or I write nothing at all should be totally up to me. So, if I understand that it's my blog and I'll write if I want to then what's the problem? Maybe there isn't a problem.

The fact remains I'm not the most interesting of writers. I'll never be witty like Mark, Joe or Dirk. I'm just me and at the end of the day I'm resigned to the fact that this is a boring blog and the only reason I do it is so that occasionally I can let my family know what's up with my life and on rare occasions I post some long languishing list of things I like and dislike as if anyone wants to know. I'm not writing this so someone will comment and say "Hey don't be so hard on yourself". I don't really care. I just want to rant and once again you, the reader get to read a bunch of tripe. I've done it before and I'm sure I'll do it again.

Anyway, as to the question of where and who I am. I'm still here in the land down under and I'm still me, a 49 year old guy who has been HIV+ for 21 plus years and I'm looking forward to my 50th B-day this year. I have a loving partner whom I have been with going on 9 years. He loves me and I love him which works for the both of us. We have a nice home (with no mortgage) plus an apartment in reserve in Sydney (again no mortgage). (The houses really belong to my hubby but he lets me say they belong to us) I never have to worry about being homeless. I have a small amount of money in savings, although it is a very small amount that I have worked at saving and it won't take care of me in my old age retirement (if I get there), but it's nice to have a little money in savings to feel good about. We have a few close and cherished friends who we can depend on and I am grateful to have them. All in all I suppose life is not so bad.

So, what do I have to complain about? Well, I do have the neuropathy problem with my feet which keeps me in pain. I still take 12 pills a day because I continue to try to keep HIV from winning and killing me. I worry about my mum who lives half way around the world and at the end of the day I can't just pop over to see her or be there in a second if she needs me. I miss seeing my daughter and my granddaughter, especially miss seeing my granddaughter grow up. And last but not least we have a rare hermaphroditic cat who fights constantly with all of the other cats in the neighbourhood because she/he or they can't decide if she/he is just being butch or just a plain bitch.

At the end of the day I'm alive albeit boring I'm here and for better or worse here I will remain. Read it if and when you want and I'll write if and when I want. Thanks for letting me ramble and besides it's a post for better or worse.

I'm pathetic...

Why you ask? Well I'm going to tell you even if you didn't ask. I'm sure you remember my recent post about the upcoming arrival of our new oven and cook top Well it arrived last Tuesday and this past Monday it was installed. I was, and still am, as giddy as a school girl going on her first date ya'll! Now getting this excited over a new oven and cook top is pretty pathetic in my view, but then again what the hell do I care if someone thinks I'm pathetic. I got a new oven!

As I said it was installed on Monday and the first thing I said I was going to cook was a cheesecake. Well, I lied. I thought better of it and decided we should eat dinner first so I made a meatloaf. The whole experience was surreal. It's not like I've never used an oven before but I've not been able to use an oven properly for the past eight years and I was not sure what to expect. The most recent, and now late, oven burned everything to a crisp within the first 30 minutes no matter how much time I took off the overall cooking time or even how many degrees I cut back off the required temperature. I love too bake and cook and it was so frustrating to spend so much time trying to make something and to have that oven turn it into something so disgusting the the cat would hiss at.

So anyway, I popped the meatloaf into the new oven and watched it bake. Seriously, I sat there for the whole hour and watched it bake and to be honest if the pan it was in had not come out of the oven blistering hot I would have sworn the meat was still cold in the middle. But alas, the new oven did not let me down and the meatloaf was not only hot in the middle but it was PERFECT!

I thought well lets give my most prized recipe a go and I decided to make a cheesecake. Now my cheesecakes are almost legend among my family and friends and as I said I had not been able to make one in over eight years so all of my new friends and family here in Australia have never had the luxury of eating any of these gastronomic delights. I chose to make the milk chocolate version and like all of my cheesecakes they take three and a half hours to bake because you can't hurry perfection. I went to bed Monday night at 12:30 after placing what looked to be a perfectly cooked cheesecake in the fridge to cool. I did not dream of cheesecake as that would have not been so pathetic as it would have been just weird.

The next day we had invited two of our favourite people over for after dinner dessert. So at 7:30 that night the truth was known and all I can say is "IT'S A MIRACLE" I can bake again. I have been healed. The cheesecake was as smooth, creamy and evenly baked as any I have made in the past if not better. I feel redeemed after all the past two years of burnt and mutilated baked goods seem like a bad dream.

Now if that story isn't pathetic I don't know what is. Aren't you glad you stop by everyday to see what I may have written and the best I can do is talk about an oven and a cheesecake. Well what can I say I never promised you stories filled with debauchery, drugs, alcohol and naked escapades. You get what you get. HMMM... debauchery, drugs, alcohol and naked escapades there could be a story or two in that....NAH!!!

Sunrise...

Nothing interesting about this post I just wanted to share the great sunrise we had yesterday morning. The picture was taken from our back deck looking east of course down to the harbour. Enjoy...

Busy as usual...

You know when I retired I was supposed to relax, well it seems now I have more things to do than I know what to do with and they just keep coming. Anyway, this is my feeble attempt at telling you why I haven't been posting lately but it is true, I am doing all sorts of things right now that keep me from posting. Lets see:

1. Refinishing two bifold doors to go between the lounge room (It's what we call the living room in Australia) and the kitchen. The doors were in the shed when we bought the house and we have talked about fixing them and putting them back up for two years but I/we never had time to focus on this so now I/we do. I'll take a picture of the finished product.
2. I have been baking up a storm. I know this is a choice but we have guests right now and besides everyone loves my cakes and pies. Recently creations have included dutch apple pie, peanut putter pie and just yesterday a carrot cake. I realize that this is not a necessary chore but it has kept me busy none the less.
3. We went to Cradle Mountain last weekend and once again walked around the mountain but not as far as we did last time when James almost met an untimely demise. This also is a choice not a chore but it did keep me away from the computer.

Okay, the list isn't that long but it's all I've got so as I said it's my excuse, feeble and all. Anyway, I've got doors to varnish so shellac you later. (Hee hee... I'm trying to be funny, talk about feeble)

The simple life...

When we moved to Tasmania over two years ago we did so for many reasons. One of those reasons was we had enough of all the people in Sydney (over 4 million) compared to the smaller population here in Hobart (approximately 180,000+/-). Most of the year it stays relatively quiet but during the summer we have on average 30 large cruise liners dock in port for a few days on their way from Sydney to New Zealand. The boats bring much needed money to the economy along with those that come in by plane for summer holidays. During thew three months of summer December-February it gets just a little crowded on our little island. I thought I'd share a picture of one of the liners taken from our back yard. we love seeing the boats and thankful for tourist dollar but I can't wait for Fall/Winter so they will all go home!

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree...

Well it's that time of the year again and I love it. We bought a new tree this year as the old one has done yeoman's service over the past 7 years but I finally told James that it had to go as it was looking a bit pathetic. So the new tree is great it's real bushy but so bushy I can't get any presents underneath it. I'll figure something out. Our tree is not your typical all one theme tree that seems so popular nowadays. I like a variety of ornaments. I have been collecting ornaments since about 1990 adding at least one new one a year. Some are from friends and many of them with dates which remind James and I of different Xmas' of past and where we were and what was happening in our life at the time. I love Xmas although it is also a sad time for me because it also is the anniversary of my late partners passing. He died on December 21st which has always put a damper on this time of year from that point forward. I have moved on from that day and since then found love and happiness with James. We have finally settled and we have made a home and in that home I try to bring back a little bit of Xmas. so I share it with you even though it's not the best picture...



...and another

Before and after...

Once again time is my enemy so until that is no longer the case which I will talk about in a few days. I wanted to share some before and after pictures of our lounge (living) room since we got our new furniture and had the room painted. No I know the furniture looks a bit old fashioned but you must remember we live in a house that is over 115 years old so having some new sleek modern design just would have looked way out of place and to be honest modern is not me. Anyway, here are a couple before and after pictures mainly in association with the room colour.

Before:

After:



Before:



After:

I know this is as boring as watching paint dry but I needed to write something until I can find time to be a bit more creative. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the pictures and I look forward to being able to write more in the next few days/weeks.