Two years to the day..

It's sad to think it takes as special an occasion as our two year anniversary of arriving in Melbourne for me to write a blog entry, but life has been such a whirlwind of late that I'm afraid the blog has taken rather a back seat. Since the last entry where we brought you up to speed with the Uluru saga, we have made lots more happy memories in Melborne, taken new steps in both of our careers, and also made a second whirlwind trip home to plan the next BIG event in our lives....

Here's just a snippet of the past four months...

In the UK, July brings the school holidays, Wimbledon, Pimms, the odd BBQ and maybe even some sunshine. In Australia however, it brings Christmas in July! This year we gathered with a group of fellow-Northern hemispher-ites and travelled 90 minutes down the coast the Blairgowrie, where a holiday house and food-a-plenty awaited. The Brits cooked a roast on Friday night, and the American's went wild with chilli-dogs on the Saturday night. We played 'Aussie rules' Secret Santa which permits the stealing of other people's gifts (contraversial, but undoubtedly more exciting for spectators), which saw me lose my amazing gift of a stylish water jug, in exchange for a $30 Myer voucher. Four months on, I actually spent the voucher last weekend - on a jumper for Tom! Typical.


Featured in this photo are brussel sprouts (to prove it was a genuine 'Christmas'), and my strawberry pavlova (to prove I can still only make one dessert). Jordan, bottom right, proves greater versitility on the pudding front with her US-flad sheet cake however!

Looking back at my photos from July and August, I don't have much to offer, largely because I spent most of it, day and night, in a windowless room with my calculator and fellow auditors, doing what we do best. I think they put us in a windowless room deliberately, because we can't tell when it gets dark and therefore 'home time' beckons. The hard work and long hours were worth it however, as I got a promotion for my efforts and feel very at home in the Melbourne office. The end of 'busy season' celebration was just as big here as it used to be in my London days, and we had a big dinner followed by a solid karaoke session! I rewarded myself for my hard work not with chocolate (usual reward) but with a new camera (less fattening, particularly when photographing children which requires lots of energy), and found a little bit of time to get in some shoots:

Ben is son to Lou and Sam, our friends and a very willing subject for me!

Whilst I was hard at work, Tom was busy plotting the next big stage in his career - in Aussie Rules Football! He has a new job with the Western Bulldogs as their General Manager for Fan Development, with the objective of building the fan base of the club. As a sports-nut, it's Tom's ideal role, and now one month into the job he is really enjoying it. I'm afraid the Saints will now have to take a backseat and make way for the mighty Doggies!! Here are some photos from an event Tom ran (and I photographed) a couple of weeks ago:

After the madness of August I was really relieved to get on a plane to the UK - not just to see family friends, but simply for 24 hours of travel time where I could do nothing but rest! We had three wonderful weeks at home, and caught up with family and friends. I'm going to have to end this blog here and write about that next time though... but I promise there won't be a four month gap! Until then....