Blogging Evolution

I'm Annabel Candy, an Australian travel writer with British and Kiwi passports.This is where my blogging journey started with one post in 2006 in which I declared I was going to:

"stare fear in the face and overcome my fear of being read, my fear of being judged."

I never wrote another blog post for three years.

But since I set up my blog on my own domain name I've got thousands of lovely readers for my personal writing and travel stories at Get In the Hot Spot. I've also written a book called Successful Blogging to help other writers and small business owners tap into the power of blogging.

I hope to see you there.

Still Blogging and Web Copy Writing

I've moved my blog to its own domain name:

Inspiration, Information & Idiosyncrasies for people who want to live their dream.

By me, writer and travel fiend, Annabel Candy, now living my dream in Australia and planning more bold moves daily. Dip in, dare to dream and enjoy the journey.

We've set up our Australian business:

Internet marketing, Website Design and Web Copy Writing Queensland in Australia

Please visit, you'll be glad you did:)

New Blog : Click Here

Thanks for visiting. This blog has moved. Please click on the title above to visit:

http://www.getinthehotspot.com/

Because dreams do come true: Annabel Candy moved from New Zealand to Costa Rica and Australia with her family. To hear how she made her dreams come true, get help making your dreams a reality and find out how not to move overseas just read it and subscribe now.

Many thanks and good luck with all your travel plans!

Real Estate and the First Home Owner Grant

All new expats to Australia should be eligible for the first home owners grant so that is a nice welcome. It is currently about $14,000 for an existing house and $21,000 for a new one. It does expire in June but most sources say the government will continue it after that date. On the down side, some pundits believe this grant is what is propping up the Australian housing market which is remaining resilient compared to the 20% drops in the US and UK housing markets. Hence, if you sell up in GB, USA or NZ your house money may not go as you would have hoped. Unless things drop here in the future of course. Time will tell.
See http://www.firsthome.gov.au/ for more information.
My husband, who is a real bear, says that $14,000 is nothing anyway if the value of your home goes on to drop by 20% and that it certainly true. It is definitely a case of buyer beware.

Autumn is in the air, time to get realistic

I’ve come to the conclusion that, realistically, updating my blog will be a once a week event. This should actually make it a better read by paring it down to the essentials and also assuage the guilt I have been feeling for not adding to it on a daily basis.

The thing is we really have settled in now and the routine is down pat. Kids off to school, I write, Hubby works, all easy peasy. Not so with the blog which I have decided to relocate from Blogspot to WordPress because I think the latter has better stats which I desperately need. So now I have to revisit all the sites I’ve added In the Hot Spot too and also relocate my (six!) wonderful followers.

The other evening I felt quite strange, I couldn't put my finger on it for a moment and then I realised, I was cold! I don't think I've felt cold for two years so that's why I couldn't pinpoint it at all, but since then I've been feeling a nip in the air in the mornings and even once in bed a night. So, my old duvets which were packed away in storage in New Zealand are now outside airing. It is actually quite fun to have seasons again. In Costa Rica they do call the rainy season winter but it is hardly cold. Meanwhile here in Queensland, the summer was hotter than the temperatures in Costa Rica but now we will get a bit of respite over the winter and can enjoy wearing jeans and sweaters. Funnily enough Ticas (Costa Rican women) wear skin tight jeans non-stop no matter how hot and steamy the weather. It is kind of a national pastime I think. So, now the sky is clear blue andd there is a light breeze, the perfect weather for airing my duvets after a week of clouds and unexpected showers. I do hope we have nice weather over the Easter holidays and need to put getting a wetsuit to the top of my list as I could definitely tell I was cold last time I went surfing and was eying all the surfers with wetsuits on enviously.

Making New Friends: Playdates

Following up on the Gold Coast post and McDonald's Happy Meals

We have a lot of kids over to play where ever we live. My kids demand it and I supply. Anything to keep them happy, even though this means lots of phone calls to strangers lining up the play dates and lots of conversations with mothers I don't know. Recently I had a conversation with one mum who was dropping her lad off at my house which went a bit like this:
“Samuel can stay for supper.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, it's no problem. We're just having omelets.”
“Samuel doesn't like eggs.”
“Oh dear.”
“Just give him a little bit, maybe he'll try it.”

Later at supper, after Samuel's mum has gone home, Samuel eyes the omelet with suspicion and asks:
“What's this?”
“Cheesy delight.” I answer, smiling encouragingly.
“Try it.” Samuel obediently has a bite, then asks:
“Has it got egg in?”
“No.” I reply, then shamed by the blatant and, to my own children, obvious, lie I add:
“Well, just a little bit.”
“Crocodile eggs” My hubby interjects helpfully. We all laugh and Samuel looks slightly confused but eats the omelet anyway. Good lad.

Shameful I know, but we had Samuel's best interests at heart. After all, you just can't beat an omelet for taste, nutrition and ease. But I'm sure they'd be more popular if they came with a free toy.

Gold Coast Theme Parks - White Water World

Learning to be like an Aussie and Speak Aussie

Last Saturday we went to the Gold Coast on a bus trip with our local Surf Life Saving Club to celebrate the end of the Nippers season, where children are schooled in the fine art of surf life saving. This was the final bash to reward the kids for all their hard and fast running, paddling and swimming over the season. For someone like me, who doesn't like bus trips, this was a brave move. Travel by bus makes plane travel, with it's opportunities for walking round people watching and star spotting, seem positively enviable. Yes, five hours on a bus was a brave, some may say foolhardy move. Still, I have to say it all went well and was worth the trip.

We spent the day at White Water World, a kind of aquatic adventure park and the only hiccup was that my kids didn't want to go on any of the rides. I have to take some of the blame here. I have raised them on a small island in New Zealand and in the jungle of Costa Rica where the only adrenalin rushes are provided by nature. So, a vast theme park with thousands of people running around squealing may have freaked them out a bit. We went straight to the Temple of Huey where there were some short tubes for people to whizz down in inflatable rings. It looked like great fun and all the other pleasure-seekers had smiles plastered on their faces. Not my four year old though. She screamed, she yelled, she cried, she clung to the edge of the tube and refused to let go. The helpers and I cajoled, pleaded, ordered and finally prised her fingers away and pushed her off into the tunnel. “Wheeeee” I whooped.
“Again, again.” Small cried when we got to the bottom. Phew! Meanwhile Medium, aged seven was having the same problem and weeping inconsolably at the top of the ride, so I had to go through the same scenario all over again with the same predictable end result. Sometimes you really do have to be cruel to be kind. Surely Large, aged ten was having a blast, I thought. But no, he was skulking around at the bottom and refused to even climb the steps to the top of the ride. This time the usual cajoling, persuasion and ordering failed and sadly, I had to resort to bribery. Yes, I am sorry to have to say that I had to pay my son a dollar to go on the ride. It makes me wonder what is wrong with my children in these kind of situations and by extension what is wrong with me. Any comments on this are welcome...maybe.

Anyway, after all that nervous excitement, we really did have fun and spent six hours wooshing down slides and around bends. On the way home we stopped at 'Maccas' just as one of the other mums had told me we would. “What's that?” I asked “McDonalds.” She said, without even rolling her eyes. Our kids, who have been deprived of such things for a few years were delighted to be reunited with the 'happy' meal, especially Small who was over the moon with her Hello Kitty watch. Combined with an unexpected meeting with Dora the Explorer things can't get much better than this when you're four.

Australians love abbreviating words to create new ones like 'Maccas', 'avo' (avocado) or 'arvo' (afternoon). There are so many examples I'd like to compile a list of them. But wait, the thoughtful people at Koalanet have already done it for me, so if you want to learn to talk like an Aussie and be in the know if you come across a bogan, a hoon or a jillaroo try Koalanet.

Small and Dora the Explorer

Noosa Festival of Surfing 2009

Bad News: Skin Cancer, Oil Slicks, and Sick Trees
Good News: Hot, Hot, Hot Surfers, doing what they do best

Some of the beautiful people, and Thomas Meyerhoffer, launching his radical longboard design

The people sitting on the beach must be hot, and ignorant of, or choosing to ignore, the dangers of the midday sun, whose ultra violet rays are so strong here in Australia. Under the shade of a pandanus tree, with its roots growing in a cone to support its trunk, it is cool, chilly even with the off-shore breeze. Laguna Bay is glittering as far as the eye can see, like a million tiny mirrors catching the sunlight. From the shoreline the white surf and gauzy green shallows darken gradually to deep velvety blue on the horizon. Noosa National Park is hidden around the leafy headland, but the white sands of the beaches and dunes of Cooloola National Park are clearly visible across the bay. Yet this paradise on earth conceals many hidden dangers, and it's not just the sun which is posing a serious health risk or only humans who are in peril. On land there is a mysterious insect infestation which is killing the iconic pandanus trees. At sea, an oil spill has blighted beaches only twenty kilometers from here, and along much to the coastline further south towards Brisbane, causing untold damage to plants and animals at sea and on land.

But here in Noosa, the Festival of Surfing must go on and a good time is being had by all. The pro-women's surf competition is underway and the only drawback visible to the naked eye are the waves, which are so small, it's a wonder anyone can surf on them at all. Lucky that these people are professionals who can surf on any wave, big or small. On Sunday pro-surfer Julian Wilson was surfing in the family competition with his dad. If the local press is to be believed, twenty year old Julian, is one of the best surfers in the world. Despite the obvious bias of the local press towards this Coolum surfer he has beaten Kelly Slater several times already so it may just be true. Julian and I flew to Brisbane together from Los Angeles in November. I'd never heard of him then, but like me, he is a poor flier who prefers to roam the plane and loiter outside the toilets for hours at a time, while other people are sleeping soundly in their cramped seats. His carroty tan and woolen hat pulled down low over wild straw-like hair made a lasting impact on me. I had no trouble recognizing him a few weeks later when I read saw him featured in a magazine. So you see, me and Julian go way back. Fortunately for him and the other pros I have decided to stick to surfing at an amateur level this year, and I can't help noticing that Julian looks much better in his board shorts, with no beanie and with wet hair.