We (probably) have to move

Ah, beautiful, delicate irony. I becomes apparent that I spoke too soon when I confessed to feeling satisfied for the first time in years — within hours of my last post, our landlords called to tell us they’re selling our home.

We love living in this area, and our landlords have been brilliant: it is no exaggeration to say that they’re the first positive experience we’ve had, from either side of the rental market (and in two countries to boot). From the get-go they were accommodating (hyuk hyuk) — letting me view the property before it was officially available; waiting patiently for our security bond; organising all those typical rental-property things from afar whilst trying to get their own feet on the ground in a new country. Unfortunately (for us), they have indeed established themselves — and they're not coming back.

Hence the sale.

(Just to show how positive our experiences have been with them, they have even offered us “first dibs” on buying the property. We almost certainly can’t afford it, of course: property prices in Sydney are ridiculous. But we will be speaking to a financial planner once we’ve liquidated some pre-IPO stock-options of a certain Silicon Valley juggernaut, for some much needed advice.)

If we have to move, we’re hoping we can stay nearby — we want J to attend the school here, for one thing, and even if we can’t snap up this house we will be looking for a place to call our own sooner or later. Ideally we’ll even stay on the street — we’ve only recently started hanging out with our neighbours a few doors up (the Masons, would you believe?), and seeing our boy playing with the other kids “from the block” is a beautiful thing indeed.

This weekend has been both busy and eventful.

On Saturday Dee announced that we were having “a day off” — which translates to ONLY tidying up the house, a job which took some of Sunday too. Even as I undermine it, I have to admit that it was a pleasant change to have Dee skip yoga in the morning, and not have to rush off to swimming lessons for Jules.

Instead, we tidied (as mentioned) and took Jules to the toy-store (I forget what that was for, but he bought himself a mini Venus (Fireman Sam)) and we went for a late-ish lunch at the new Grill’d that has opened on Norton Street. Yum! I had a beer, which was possibly a mistake; continuing the clean-up job was definitely harder in the afternoon, and I didn’t get around to any more undercoating of the back porch.

… not that it matters, since our landlord rang while I was playing in Jules’ room. We rang her back, but already suspected the worst — they’re staying in France, and therefore selling 301 Nelson Street. (To be fair, I actually expected her to tell us that they were returning, and would therefore need us to move out. Either way, we’re moving.)

Today we got up at 6am to catch two trains to the start of the Blackmore’s Running Festival, aka the Sydney Marathon. Sure, we only ran the Bridge Run (9km in an official 1hr30something, but at an unofficial average Strava pace of 09:something min/km — and that’s pushing a pram!), but it was a good distance for the three of us and I was happy to see Dee cheering up after the news about “our” house.

I better go to bed, or I’ll get in trouble. If I can’t sleep — I’ve mixed a coffee with wine (not literally, mind you!) which may fight the exercise fatigue — then perhaps I’ll sneak back upstairs for some more writing.

Nelson Street New Year, New Car, New Job

Hurrah -- I have a new job! As of next Tuesday, I'll be a Senior Software Developer (Team Lead) with  Rozetta Technologies.

The company is, among other things, the technology arm of the not-for-profit SIRCA, which provides historical financial data to a number of cooperating Universities, government departments and financial institutions. Experts in "big data", of which there is a large and growing abundance, as well as "cloud computing" (since that's the only way to scale). Fun stuff! I can't wait!

Big data is one of those things you can't REALLY mess around with at home on the weekend, so it will be awesome to get my hands dirty with some of the cool stuff I otherwise just read about. (My last role used various bits of "big data" tech, but also tended to customise it for specific use-cases and hide it behind an API -- this should be a lot more down in the details.)

Even better (read: more challenging), the primary programming language of choice is Python. Now, I've done some Python, but not commercially and neither as much nor as long as Java -- so I'm brushing up on that and really looking forward to diving into some brand-new code. I never thought I'd be excited to NOT be doing Java, but I really am!

And of course, the team leading component: I'll be looking after a team of around 5 or 6 other (more junior) developers, across a number of different projects, which is a whole different class of problem altogether.

To finish of: some photos of our new car (in case you missed them on Facebook):

Lease signed, we're moving to Sydney

Did I mention we got the house in Annandale?

Yesterday I met Kate, one of the owners, and signed a 12-month lease on 301 Nelson Street, Annandale. It's expensive, but not that much more than we're currently paying in Belconnen, and we get all the benefits of living close to the city -- it's a 20-minute bike ride! -- and a lovely little community. Wide, tree-lined streets; a park just behind us; a child-care and supermarket opening up just down the road; bike paths, off-leash parks, Rozelle Bay. Everyone I've spoken to has said how nice an area Annandale is -- I can't wait to move in. Kate said that it wasn't uncommon to see neighbourhood kids playing together, running in and out of each others' houses. And that never happens in Sydney!

Which means only one more week of flying to Sydney, flying back to Canberra for the weekends. We move in on the 26th (or thereabouts), the day after ANZAC day. In fact, I've only got today, tomorrow, and three days next week away from Dee and Jules! Yay! "Settling" will be like Christmas, with so many boxes to open and sort through, including some we haven't unpacked since Melbourne.

Once we do settle in, of course, I'll be coming back to Canberra every Monday, and maybe more often if I get put on a particular project. But somehow that doesn't seem so bad, and sooner or later we're going to open a Sydney office (Shannon was even scoping out buildings yesterday) so our long-term plans are now based around living in Sydney. Settle, get our life back under control, save a little money. It's a good plan!

Renting sucks; Renting in Sydney sucks more

I realised I haven't actually blogged about a move to Sydney in any detail. Here goes:

I'm currently spending all my time in Sydney for work, while Dee and Jules stay at home in Canberra. They've driven over and stayed with me a couple of times, but it's not really sustainable -- we need to put Lucy somewhere, for example, and the last three times she's stayed in the kennel she's come back malnourished and often with an injury requiring a vet consult. It's also easier for me to just be in a hotel, but it makes it hard for Jules to sleep when we're all crammed in together. So not fun: our sleep suffers, my work suffers, our relationship suffers. So for the last few weeks I've just been coming on my own, and while I get a lot done it's no fun leaving my family: video calls, while good, just are no substitute.

Dee is also looking at going back to work, and with her history (Deustchebank, JP Morgan) it makes sense for us to move to Sydney, where she'll have a much wider market. And, of course, Canberra is a small place! We're city people, I think -- I go out at lunchtime and enjoy the crowds, the vibe, the noise, the excitement. It really does make a difference, an essential one, and there's the added bonus that my "engineer brain" recognises the higher-efficiency of urban-vs-country living. So long as we can grow some veges and find a good organic supermarket!

Even if I end up working back in Canberra -- a good chance -- then at least I can stay in the corporate apartments there, set myself up with a little "bachelor's pad", and not worry about bringing clothes back and forth. And, really, it's only a 30-50minute flight, so I could probably come home a little more often (with frequent flyer points if required) if I'm travelling light. Wins, all the way 'round.

Except that finding a house is hard. It sucks. Real estate agents suck. They're lazy at the best of times, but the rental market at the moment is such that they literally don't have to give you the time of day -- there are only scheduled "open house" viewings, which you must attend if you want to apply (they take your name and phone; sometimes they even hand out the application forms only at the viewing). I've even heard stories of some agents running a "rental auction", playing desperate renters off against each other to maximise the weekly rent!! Abhorrent.

So keep your fingers crossed for our latest find: a 3BR house that still has tenants in it, is managed privately (no agent!), at which "pets are welcome!", for affordable-ish rent, 20 minutes on the bike to the city (and 26 on the bus, for lazy/rainy days), next to a park, with a backyard (but no offstreet parking), 2 bathrooms and airconditioning. And the owner may be willing to let me see the place before their open-house viewing on the weekend! In other words, everything we could possibly hope for.

But we've been disappointed before, so while you keep your fingers crossed, we'll keep our expectations suitably low.

Let you know how we get on.