Home | Australia | Arcadia

I took the train out to hornsby (45 min north of Sydney) I was picked up by Kate is a brand new four door landcruiser and taken on a few errands before I was taken to her home in Arcadia. I am now a full time live in nanny to 5 children and I also look after the morning and evening feeds and even some exercising of 3 horses, 2 broodmares (ponies), a filly, a yearling colt, a stallion(pony), and 2 other ponies.
The children are great--Charlie turns 1 tomorrow, his grandpa calls him chucker charlie--the poor boy has been through so much in his first year of life. He has asthma, and immature valves, meaning that when he coughs sometimes food comes up. When I first arrived, we went for lunch, Kate, Charlie, William and I. Well, Charlie had his bottle, then threw it up--I thought it was a burping process, and Kate did catch most of it. Well, not even a minute later, up came lunch--I could believe that so much came out of that little child. Well, it cleared the table next to us anyways.
William is 3--he'll be 4 in Feb. He is blond with blue eyes and doesn't stop talking. Not only that, he's got a bit of a speech impediment and with the accent on top of that, most of it sounds like gibberish to me. He often quotes lines out of Men in Black ( his mother regrets letting him watch that movie) and loves the Lion King.
Alex is 7. He has kindly given up his room for me until the flat above the barn is ready for me to move into. He's Mr. game boy, and he's quite shy. He often gets picked on by his older sisters.
Amelia is a gymnast. She came home the other night from 3 hrs of gymnastics and did summer saults up the stairs. She must be about 9. She likes to show off.
Sophie is the eldest--she's 10. She's quiet. Her and Alex don't get along--they get quite nasty actually. She's the horsey one. Her mom is looking for a new pony for her now. She shows a lot and likes to jump.
Kate is the mother--she's about 35 and looking good! I don't know how she does it, but she's great. She does a lot of showing (in hand herself) and when she's not doing that, she's driving the kids to their extra curricular activities.
Paul is the husband. He works for an Australian bank and finances things like movies being made, shopping centers being built etc. He's at work till late usually. On weekends though he plans to get back in the show ring with his jumper 'Viper'--16.2 chestnut thoroughbred.
I could go on about the horses, but you know then I'll be here all night.
The Edwards live on 25 acres, in which only about 15 acres are arable--the rest is trees and ponds with dams as their source of water. The house is beautiful. It's brick. There are two levels--the bedrooms are upstairs, except for mine. Right now I have a room with an ensuite--nice, except the doors don't lock. William's been in to wake me up the last few mornings. He's so cute, and he opens the door, I think to spy on me, but I hear him. He calls me mawtawshuaw. The main floor is all stone, same as the patio outdoors. A few of the rooms (incl mine) do have carpet. They have two dalmations--Basil, he's gettting old and smiles when he approaches anybody and Rupert--he's 5 mos and at that clumsy uncoordinated stage. He's hilarious!
The flat at the barn is about the size of my room at home--just a bit longer and wider by a couple of feet, with about 1/3 of that being the kitchen. The toilet, shower are downstairs in which I have to walk outside to access--ugh, I'm definetly cutting down on drinks in the evening!
I'm welcome to stay for Christmas. There won't be a turkey dinner though. It'll likely be cold cuts, oysters, prawns and that kind of thing. I do plan on stayin atleast six weeks and probably until the end of January. That way I miss out on the most expensive time to travel in Australia ( it is afterall their holidays, and the kids are out of school). I get food and accomodation plus 200$/mos (also tax free). That'll work! The only thing is that I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere, but Kate is kind enough to make arrangements for me to get into the city on my days off!
So life's good now, and I'll travel later!

More from natasha here