online at last

We moved into our apartment in Campbell earlier this month (on the 3rd June to be exact) and we're FINALLY connected to the NBN (National Broadband Network) as of about 6.00pm tonight - and we appear to have great connectivity and good speeds SO FAR!! It's been pretty tough operating with just our phone hot spots for the past few weeks - especially in a fully computerised building (we've had to have limited service patches to make the secure lifts work (sort of), the intercom the blinds etc etc etc!) - very frustrating.

But one of the things we really enjoy about our new apartment are the early morning light shows through our 40 odd square metres of north facing glass walls. Because it's the middle of winter we get a great view of the sun rising every morning to the north east....

 ......and the the layers of fog and mist around Mt Ainslie - due north.

We don't get a direct view of the sun setting but we still get a great light show in the north - west sky too! With so much north facing glass we haven't needed much heating either throughout June - it's so nice to live in such a bright, sunny, warm and spacious environment.

We've unpacked nearly everything now and found a place for most things too. Most of our old stuff looks OK in the new layout - but we thought this new rug would help a lot to tie everything together!

After the exhausting process of unpacking we've started to really enjoy some of the delights of living here - walking everywhere: around the lake, to the National Gallery, to the Canberra Theatre one night, to our favourite Palace Electric (about 30 minutes from here) to see an afternoon movie, to the Civic shops most days to pick up odds and ends from Aldi & Coles, and of course to our local, The Pedlar, for a beer when we feel we deserve it.

The girls have given the apartment their seal of approval - they like the space for doing their favourite moves.

 ..and most importantly the pantry is nice and big  and full of their favourite food! 

Hassett Park (our backyard) is one of their favourite playgrounds, even though it looks a bit more bleak than usual on a cold, cloudy June afternoon.

Though Ella, very happy in her new top, thanks to the London branch, doesn't feel the cold.

We've done some low key entertaining too in the last week or so - which makes the apartment start to feel like home. We had 9 people around for drinks last Sunday - and Judy L made this amazing cake to mark the occasion: layers of sponge and meringue and cream and lots of passion fruit. Yumm!!

It's taken us almost two years to get here; we feel very lucky to be where we are and we will LOVE making a new life here, but with all the best parts of our old life continuing, in our beautiful new environment.