Not so strange anymore

Balikpapan does not seem such a strange place anymore.

It is still a very random and odd place to live but the longer we are here, the less you notice the strangeness. I have been driving myself around and I don't even notice the crazy people on the roads because I have clearly become.........da da da.........one of them!

We have been Hash Running on the family day. It is not as hard going as the usual hash run and we can walk with Mr Pickle. We actually end up carrying him half of the way but it is nice to be out in the fresh air and walking about.

Yesterday I went to an 8 to Midnight sale at the local 'hardware store'. I found the best bike for Mr Pickle for Christmas from us and it was 50% off. It is green camoflage in colour, has a banana seat, a backrest, a basket on the front in the shape of a helmet and a little bear in a aeroplane on the handle bars that plays 'It's a Small World'. What more could a three year old boy want from a bike! Mr Pickle is going to burst when he sees it. For those of you who witnessed the garage ding excitement of last Christmas, we are hoping for a repeat performance.

I went on an adventure to find trimmings for homemade Christmas decorations with one of my new friends here. I bought 100 buttons for about £1 and whole rolls of ribbon for pennies. Food is expensive here though. We pay the same, if not more, for food as you would in the UK.

Another thing that is expensive here is bedding. You can't buy duvets, you buy a quilt but you cannot buy a flat sheet to use under it for less than £60. It takes ages to wash and dry this quilt once a week (now you all know how often we change our bedding) and we only have the one becuase a) they are bogging expensive and b) they are mostly gopping in colour/pattern. This was confirmed when one of my new friends came over for the grand tour and laughed when she saw we have the same bed set as her. Quite clerarly the only nice one in Balikpapan that we could afford without remortgageing.

We have had a work crew painting the front of the house and freshening up the wood work. The crew had a little mishap with our quilt on their last day with us. It was drying on the airer in the sun and they must have spilt  varnish on it when clearing up! They didn't tell us. Instead they took turps to our bedding and scrubbed it! So now our quilt smells of turps, even after the third wash. There is also a stain on it from the varnish and a faded patch where the furious scrubbing must have taken place. 

I was all for complaining to the rental agents but Jeremy thinks it is not that big a deal. I think that I feel so annoyed by this occurrence because we still don't have our shipping boxes and we haven't got many belongings here! I have decided that part of the issue is that it shouldn't have been being washed on such a regular basis. Flat sheets are a must.

Today we ventured into the textile quarter. We bought an offcut piece of carpet that has been stitched arond the edge for £18 rather than the £400 that the interior shops in town wanted us to pay. We also found a fabric 'shop' selling bed sheeting and I have made a king size flat sheet and pillow cases to match for about £10 and about an hour and a half of my time. Much easier on the pocket than £60 and a much better fabric.

We also had a full day without any accidents of the potty training variety.