Moose on the Move!

July and August meant that we had two months only until we would be flying home and we had so much to organise before we could leave.

On the first of July Chris got roped into playing cricket in Plymouth for a local team who were short a couple of members. He had a good time despite not knowing many people on the team and getting out for a Golden Duck. Such was the beginning, and ending, of Chris' English cricket career.

A few days later we were visited by my sister, Kiki's, boyfriend. He was in the UK driving like a man-possessed all over the country visiting friends and was able to squeeze in a visit to Exeter. It was our first meeting with him and was slightly unusual in that Kiki wasn't with him but we welcomed him in for the night - especially when we realised that he came bearing edible Australian gifts from Kiki!!

With the school year drawing to a close, the Year 6 cohort were using every spare moment to practice their end of year production and I was able to help by spending some of my spare time painting the set. I had several people looking at me disapprovingly and asking if I should be climbing the ladder - in my "condition". They really are a caring lot at that school!

Ebay is a fabulous place to buy large bundles of second-hand baby clothes! We bought a couple of bundles for little Squidgy, one for the 0-3 month range and one for the 3-6 month range. They are such tiny little items of clothing and it made us both smile and giggle to pull all the little outfits out of the box one at a time. The second last item out of the first box was a little t-shirt with "Little Moose" on the front - I guess it was meant to be!!

Our third anniversary was a much quieter affair than the previous two. No capital city, no fireworks, no stamps in our passport. We went out to breakfast, looked at an exhibition at the Phoenix Gallery, bought some maternity clothing, had a drink and a walk by the river and went to see the newest Harry Potter film at the Picture House. It was a lovely day in all and nice to spend the time together. Who knows what next year's anniversary will entail.

Each summer in Exeter a Shakespeare play is performed in Rougemont Gardens - the old moat surrounding the castle in the corner of the old city walls. This year it was McBeth and we were organised enough (thanks to Dayna) to get tickets to go on the 19th. It was a great show - the sets were simple but really effective and the use of huge puppets for the three witches was a really great idea because it gave them the ability to float and move in a much more eerie way than people ever could.

The last day of the school year was the 24th of July and the staff at the school where I'd been working celebrated with a river cruise from Exmouth up the River Exe towards Topsham. The sunset was gorgeous that night and it was a nice way to say goodbye to everyone. We were lucky to make it though. We were a little late leaving home and then got lost in Exmouth - luckily one of the other teachers had my mobile number, called to see where we were and held the boat for a minute until we arrived!

The last week of July saw me get on a plane to Denmark for a final visit before we headed for Australia. It was wonderful to be there and hear the language and I was really lucky to see the whole family together. They were all well and it was amazing to see how much the two little girls had grown since we saw them last summer. Anette's little girl, Laura, was intrigued by the idea of there being a baby in my belly and that she had come from Anette's belly. She wasn't shy to talk to the baby, imagine "Hi Baby" in the enthusiastic, high pitched strains of a two-and-a-half year old. More than once she tried to lift my top to 'see' the baby and when she couldn't feel him moving she'd tell me he was sleeping. Awww.....

August brought us some wonderful weather and we took advantage of it to walk by the river, soak up some vitamin D and to catch up with friends in Topsham. I was left on bench guarding duty by Topsham markets one weekend when we went to meet up with Kate, Lucy and Jim. I did my best but was quickly overwhelmed by three old biddies who sat and nattered beside me. Oh well.

All this time the baby bump belly kept growing bigger. Lying on my stomach was definitely not an option any more and rolling over in bed was getting harder. On the up side, the baby's movements were easier and easier to feel and Chris was able to feel his unborn child too. At times we were able to see little movements too, just subtle shifts in the shape of my belly but very exciting none-the-less.

A few days before we left Exeter Chris' work mates held a BBQ in a huge park in Exmouth. I take back everything bad I've ever said about the English not knowing how to barbeque! The actual barbeque was one of the best constructions I've ever seen - you'll have to have a look at the photos. We played rounders and giant Jenga and generally had a good time.

It's amazing how much stuff two people can accumulate in the short space of two years even when they're renting somewhere fully-furnished! It's a big job moving and even bigger when you move overseas and don't automatically pack everything. Decisions had to be made about what to throw out, to donate, to sell, to ship and to pack for Darwin. It's huge! We finally whittled down the 'shipping' pile to just five large boxes, one book box and a guitar case. We were able to sell on a lot of our unwanted bits and pieces to workmates, we donated a lot of things to the two closest charity shops and after much hoo-ha and price dropping we finally sold our car the day before we left Exeter. Nothing like a little bit of last-minute stress when you're moving internationally. We'd had low offers from a couple of dealers and could have sold to them if need be but luckily found a family who wanted the car. It's silly to get emotional over an inanimate object but it felt better to sell the car to nice people.

It was very odd to leave our house completely empty and clean, to lock the door and walk away, knowing that we'd probably never be going back in there. It was sad. I guess the fact that it was hard to leave means that we had a good time there. If we hadn't been happy in Exeter it would have been easy to leave.

Our last night in Exeter was spent with Dayna and Ben (we had curry from the Ganges - yum). It was hard to say goodbye to them, they've become such good friends, but we were excited leaving too because it meant that we were getting closer to home and to meeting Little Moose.

We spent a few days in London before we left for good. It was a great way to finish the trip - just taking it easy and being really touristy. We made a point of doing several things that we hadn't done on previous visits. Like going to the Tate, riding the London Eye, touring the city on an open-top bus and going to see a musical.

The London Eye is definitely worth a visit, the half hour ride was over quite quickly but it's an amazing way to view the city, especially if you're lucky enough to be in London on a clear day. The eye isn't appreciated by everyone in the city but it is an amazing structure.

The bus tour was great, despite us getting caught in traffic on Regent Street for half an hour. It was a real test for our guide - just how much can one man know about the toy store we were stopped next to? He was a great guide actually, very knowledgeable and funny and he got quite excited when he found out we were from Perth. He wants us to go into Clancy's Fish Pub in Freo and say 'hi' to his old boss when we get back.

If you're a Monty Python fan and you get the chance to go and see Spamalot - DO! Oh my goodness. Chris and I were both in stitches right from the start when the Finnish fish-slapping dance got going. The audience went wild for lines like "I fart in your general direction" and "I'm not dead yet". It was a great night with excellent performances!

It was a bit surreal getting on the train to go to the airport. Knowing we were leaving the city and the country for an indefinite time. Knowing we no longer lived in England. Knowing we were going home to see family and friends, that the baby would be arriving soon. Do you laugh or cry? Maybe a bit of both.

We have so many great memories from living in the UK and were lucky enough to be able to show 'our' little corner of the country to various visitors. We feel like we tried to make the most of our time there and mostly succeeded. We've got some good friends there now. And we've left a few little things to go back and see. Like Scotland and Ireland and all of northern England!

Ha - one final hurdle though - we had trouble when we went to book in at the airport. I was just over 30 weeks pregnant (well within their time limit) and had a letter from a doctor to say when she saw me two weeks previously at 28 weeks that all was well and the baby's head wasn't engaged. But the letter didn't state what my due date was, so there was much humming and hawing and rule book reading. They finally decided that my pregnancy record would be sufficient and let us through. Phew!

The pilot announced over the PA system that it was raining in London as we descended into Heathrow Airport. Ah England! Despite the gray skies it felt wonderful to be coming ‘home’ – we were looking forward to getting back to Exeter, to our house, our city and our priory garden with the purple wisteria.

In the next few weeks the sun shone beautifully and we made the most of the weekends by walking down the river to double locks and going to visit Cheddar Gorge. The gorge is most of the way to Bristol from Exeter and was spectacular, in a smallish way. There are caves in the gorge but if you’ve been to any of the caves south of Perth you’ve been spoiled – the ones in Cheddar are not as spectacular although the story behind them and the local history is interesting. And of course we had to try some Cheddar cheese from Cheddar - it was good!

Once we were back in England we took steps to register with a local midwife and book in for an ultrasound. By the time we’d seen everyone we needed to see I was 16 ½ weeks pregnant before we finally got in for an ultrasound scan on the 22nd May. It was really amazing to see the little guy in there. The last time we’d seen him he was a centimeter-long peanut with a heartbeat. This time he had a head and face and arms and legs and heart and kidneys and stomach and everything! It was quite emotional for both of us and we left clutching two little pictures of the baby moose and the knowledge that he was doing fine. We both felt so incredibly in love with our unborn child and couldn’t help but grin at each other almost constantly in the following days.

There is a long weekend at the end of May and we decided that it would be a good time to head up to Wales. Unfortunately the weather was going to be a bit too wet for camping and, in typical Moose style, we left the booking of a B&B a bit late and were severely limited for choice. We ended up finding one and headed up there on Friday afternoon. We had spoken to them on the phone and booked in for three nights but on arrival we were disappointed with the place as a whole and when they told us that they’d knowingly double-booked our room and intended to move us into their own bedroom for Saturday night we decided not to stay!

We checked out the following morning and went to the Hay-on-Wye literary festival, a huge annual festival of books, authors, talks and so on. We got in to see a discussion between Monty Don and Rosie Boycott about her experiences on a small farm and then drove back to Exeter. It wasn’t a bad decision – Sunday it absolutely poured with rain.

On Monday when the sun came out again we went down to the quay to hire canoes and go for a paddle but the river was so swollen and rushing we had to settle for bikes instead. It was a gorgeous day for a ride and we went all the way down to Turf Locks (a first for us) for some lunch. It’s been a couple of years since either of us was on a bike and our bottoms and legs were sure to remind us of this in the following days.

Some months ago some friends of ours, Dale and Paul, move up to Bristol so we went up to visit them about a week into June, on the 9th. We spent a night up there and it was nice to see the place through the eyes of ‘locals’. We went to see the Clifton Suspension bridge - a feat of engineering and one of the much celebrated accomplishments of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. We wondered briefly if that might be a good name for Squidgy but quickly dismissed the idea. It is a great city with a lot to offer. Even if the accent is a little funny!

Later that same week we had visitors from home! It’s always exciting when people we know really well from elsewhere, come and we get to show them all the special places we have discovered in the area. Mary and Spencer are some of our oldest family friends – they’ve ‘just always been there’. They came to see us for several days as part of a long tour to visit family in England and Ireland and to see a few places in Europe.

Unfortunately the weather had been really miserable – again or still. We took them out to Dartmoor but could initially not see anything because the fog was just so thick! I had to keep saying "there really is a wonderful view out there – honest!". We stopped by the clapper bridge and in the space of ten minutes the fog cleared completely and view was again magnificent. So Mary and Spencer were able to see the ponies, foals and sheep and the fabulous scene from the top of a Bone Hill Rocks.

The Exeter Summer Festival began about this time and a wonderful part of this annual event is the huge craft market held in the Cathedral Green. The variety and quality of the work is always amazing and we all enjoyed checking it out. Later we took Mary and Spencer out to Branscombe for Cream Tea and visited the old bakery and a rose garden that we must've driven past a dozen times and had never seen before. It was in need of a little TLC but was still a beautiful tranquil place with lots of different ducks and flowers.

On the 20th June we went to the new Women’s Health Centre at the RD&E for our 20 week anatomical scan. Poor Squidgy was looking a bit more cramped in there this time but was still gorgeous. He was moving around in there and looking spectacular! The sonographer was a bit of a grumpy-bum and got quite aggressive when Chris asked if he could take a photo of me having the scan done. So sorry guys, you’ll just have to use your imagination. It's incredible how clear the images are on these scans - they can show you the four cambers of the heart beating merrily away!

A week and a half later our next visitors (and probably our last over here) arrived. Michelle and Tarah were just beginning their European adventure when they came to stay with us for a couple of nights. The river was again swollen from all the rain we'd had and flowed really quickly when we went for a walk around the bridges.

Dartmoor was on the itinerary for these guys, as well as a visit to Paignton where we chuckled about the beach huts and the old locals enjoying the not-so-sunny summer weather! A ghostly red-coat tour around Exeter city centre was informative and amusing! Our guide took great pleasure in reminding us that neither she nor the city council could be held responsible for anything that might happen to us on the tour - or afterwards if we didn’t have rosemary in our pockets or if we should mention the name (E-T-H-E-L) of the local poltergeist!

I dropped Michelle and Tarah off in Bath to carry on their amazing tour and was more than just a little jealous as I thought about all the amazing places they were off to see in the coming weeks.

The end of June arrived bringing with it the knowledge that we had just two months until we leave for Australia. So much to do and so little time. Only two months to go! We'll be back in Australia on the 31st August, when we arrive in Darwin at 2:30 am. The plan is to stay in Darwin for the birth of Baby Moose and then move back into our house in Perth for some months. After that the plan gets a bit loose - we'll see how we're coping with the little man!

A quick reminder - click on any of the images within the text and you can see the rest of the photos we've loaded onto Flickr. When you're in Flickr, you can click on any image to see it larger.

After a mad couple of days back in England unpacking and repacking and doing laundry and passing keys to a friend we found ourselves back on the train to London for the trip home. Mid March saw us arrive back in Perth very early on the morning of Friday 16th for the first time in over 2 years. We had expected that things would all feel a little bit odd, but actually, things seemed surprisingly normal and quite familiar. It was really hard to believe that we had been away for so long.

We were picked up by our good mate John, who met us at the airport with a big smile, bigger sideburns and my long awaited Coffee Chill. Being home was bliss already. We made it back to Mum's place at about 2 am and while Elke had to go to bed to get some sleep before her mad dash down to Albany (a mere 5 hour drive) the next day, I stayed up chatting for another couple of hours.

The following morning, we got the opportunity to start spreading the news of our pregnancy. We were very excited about the prospect of becoming parents, and were very much looking forward to letting our folks know that they were going to be first time grandparents. Mum was very excited to hear the news. There were a couple of tears, but they were all happy ones.

That afternoon, Elke headed down to Albany with some friends while I stayed in Perth and caught up with Mum and some family. The purpose of Elke's visit to Albany was to attend a wedding. Wendy is a good friend of ours from University. She wrote to us around Christmas time to let us know that she getting married the weekend we arrived back in Perth. It was a great for Elke to get down to Albany to celebrate her wedding as well as catch up with all of our University mates that we hadn't seen for so long. The wedding was at a winery in Denmark which is a small town not far from Albany. It was an ideal location to catch up with everyone, but Elke had to keep passing up offers of wine on the excuse that she was very jet-lagged and couldn't possibly stay awake if she had a drink. Thankfully, no one pressed her on why she wasn't drinking, as we were trying to keep our pregnancy a bit of a secret for a while longer.

The next week was an absolutely mad rush around Perth trying to catch up with friends and family. There was so many people to catch up with, so much to catch up on, and yet there was a limited amount of time in which to get it all done.

As I mentioned previously, it was amazing how familiar things felt after being away for so long. For the most part, Perth hasn't changed much, and most of our mates are still exactly the same. Over the past couple of years, my good mate Pete had been telling us about his girlfriend Kylie, and it was great to finally meet her too.

So while there were a few things that had changed a little, I found the one thing that really had changed, was the kids. Before we left, there were some children who were so small they couldn't yet crawl or talk, and now they were walking and talking! There were some who weren't even born, and even they were now walking and talking!! At least one of my cousins children had now started high school and has a little mobile phone attached to his belt. My goodness, I was starting to feel old.

Initially, we had planned to keep our pregnancy a secret from everyone other than immediate family until we had passed the 12 week mark. While this was a great idea, it didn't really last. There were a couple of times where we were asked when it was our turn to have kids. I had no trouble lying. "Not for a few years yet", I'd say. A couple of times though, I think our massive grins gave the game away and we had to come clean. That was fine though, they are all great mates, and it was exciting to share our news.

We got to celebrate Mum's brithday towards the end of March while we were in Perth. She had a big BBQ at my cousin's place with lots of aunts, uncles, cousins and lots and lots of laughing. I think everyone really enjoyed the day.

We had dinner out most nights catching up with various groups of friends. We caught up with old friends and work friends and uni friends. We caught up with various aunties and cousins and my Dad down from Geraldton. It was wonderful if a bit manic. We went to a BBQ at Point Walter - it's still a beautiful spot. We went to Fremantle to explore the markets there and enjoy the sunshine. Oh yes! The sun still shines in Australia and our 'night-club' tans were painful to look at with the naked eye.

One other exciting thing we did while in Perth was to book in with an obstetrician and go in for our first meeting. The doctor we met was very nice and offered us an ultrasound. We jumped at the chance and could not hide our excitement when he showed us the tiny flashing area on the screen that was the baby's heartbeat. Wow! He gave us a picture to take home and we proudly showed it off to all and sundry (although we had to point out which bit was baby and which bit was not)!

A week and half after arriving in Perth Elke headed off on a mad intra-continental dash. To the untrained eye it looked like she was single handedly trying to speed up global warming. First stop was Sydney for the last couple of days of March. Her physiotherapist sister Kirsten met her there and they spent a couple of days enjoying the beach and the sights of Coogee Beach. Kiki was excited to find out she would be an aunt at the end of the year and quickly asked if she and Inge (Elke's other sister) could choose baby's middle name. We're having enough trouble deciding on a name with just two of us though so we might not involve anyone else. They walked from Coogee up along the coast path to Bondi - a longish walk if you're feeling the effects of a little morning sickness but still spectacular. They also explored Bondi Junction and went to see a movie. Kirsten stayed in Sydney for a few days after Elke left to see a visiting friend before heading back home to Townsville.

On the last day of March Elke headed north up the coast to Newcastle for Ben and Dayna's wedding. It should have been a simple trip up on the train, Dayna had told her which station to get off, but was complicated slightly by the fact that the trains were not running due to work on the track. Well that's ok - manageable too if you get on the right bus! Elke got on the wrong bus and instead of getting off at the prescribed stop she rode right into Newcastle and had to be picked up by Dayna's dad. 'Hello Mr Jenkins, it's nice to meet you'. The wedding on 1st April was a lovely affair with representatives from all over Australia and from the UK as well. Elke did a short reading at the ceremony and managed to get all the words right.

From Newcastle she flew north to Brisbane on the same flight as a few other guests from the wedding who were then kind enough to drive her an hour north and drop her right at her friends' Tsu Shan and Brian's door! Granted they lived nearby and were already dropping Dayna's Grandmother off just 5 minutes away but Elke was still very grateful. Tsu Shan is one of Elke's oldest friends - they've know each other since Yr 5. At the time Tsu Shan was about 8 1/2 months pregnant (due on the 17th April - two days before Elke's birthday) and Elke caught herself waddling around the house behind Tsu Shan on more than one occasion. Both Tsu Shan and Brian were delighted to find out about our baby news and there was much baby related talk in the next few days. While Elke suggested she would be perfectly happy for Tsu Shan to go into labour a couple of weeks early and have the little tyke while she was there, Vanessa Mae arrived safely a few days overdue on the 22nd April.

Elke arrived in Darwin at about 1am on Saturday 6th April and had to bite her tongue several times to keep the news of bump a secret until just after noon that day when I flew up to meet her. Over lunch we told Elke's parents about the arrival of grandchild number one and, as is inevitable with Elke's family in any mildly emotional occasion, there were many tears and much smiling and laughing.

We finally had a chance to slow down a little while we were in Darwin, there are many fewer people up there these days to catch up with. We went for lots of swims and had a couple of nice BBQs, there was a lovely sunset sail with the Keperts and breakfast with Jessica (who used to live in London), Fiona (another old friend) and her boyfriend Luke. We had an exciting easter egg hunt with the Denniss family - there was much whooping and laughing as we all raced around the garden looking for eggs and bunnies. While we were in Darwin we celebrated Jurgen's birthday at a BBQ with friends and got to spread the news about bump a little further.

Something we had hoped to be able to squeeze in was a camping trip. We got to go camping for a couple of nights at Edith Falls about 2.5 hours south of Darwin. It was a wonderful relaxed couple of days. lots of reading and swimming and eating and swimming and reading. I tried to get rid of my good English tan a little and ended up getting seriously burnt on my back, shoulders, upper arms and a couple of little bits of my belly. Hmmm. Ouch!

The 18th April the day before Elke's birthday we flew down to Alice Springs and were met by Inge, Elke's other sister. She is living in Alice with her boyfriend Tim and they seem really happy there. They both took the day off for Elke's birthday and had planned a little trip out along the West Macdonnell Ranges to see Simpsons Gap, the Ochre pits and Serpentine Gorge. It was a lovely day.

Saturday morning we flew back to Perth for a final day and a half before leaving. That night we met up with various friends in Kings Park - you might think that a park sponsored by the local electricity authority might have lights on after sundown, apparently not. We all ended up sitting around in the dark - an interesting experience for those in the group who didn't know everyone else!

Our final day in Perth we went down to have a quick look at our house in Kardinya (currently rented out) and then watched an Aussie Rules game on TV with John and Fay. It was hard saying goodbye to everyone again but we made it a little easier by leaving at 6am!

We had decided to break the trip back to the UK up a little by stopping in Dubai for a few nights. It turned out to be a really good idea. Elke got off pretty lightly in terms of morning sickness (a lot of slightly bleurgh feeling but no actual throwing up - until we were on the plane) but she was felling pretty tired after the round Australia trip.

We explored Dubai on foot, looking at the markets and the people and the little shops. We took a cruise on a Dhow up the creek and then caught a water taxi (an Abra) across the creek to see the other side of town. Dubai is an interesting and colourful place and we'd quite like to go back at some point to see the desert and some of the amazing new architecture.

What a trip! It was a bit of a whirlwind and we're sorry if we missed catching up with you. We're looking forward to coming home towards the end of the year for the arrival of bub - if you want to see us then I'm afraid you'll have to come to us at that point. Take care.

We wanted to go skiing this season but the winter had been so mild in Europe that many resorts had limited or unreliable snow conditions. So, we looked to go just a little further a field – and decided on Canada.

We left for Vancouver in the last couple of days of February, just after the finish of the Animation festival. The 10 hour flight over was not a good one – no sooner had the wheels left the ground when the family in front of us all put their seats all the way back and left them there for the entire flight. Arghhh! Also, there is something terribly confusing about leaving the UK at 1:30pm, flying for 10 hours and arriving at 3:30 pm on the same day. Needless to say we were completely stuffed when we arrived and were in bed at the hostel by half past six.

The following day we caught the ferry from the mainland to Vancouver Island and were met by Elke’s Uncle Jochen. The trip over is always stunning (provided there in sufficiently little fog) - the ferry weaves in and out of the islands and the gulls hover overhead.

We spent the next week with Oma and the Dous Family of Duncan. Oma had her 87th birthday the day after we arrived – she’s a very alert older woman whose hearing and eyesight is not quite what it used to be but who nevertheless has a sharp sense of humour. We walked the dog, Gem, and looked at the alpacas on a nearby farm. They are very odd looking animals who seemed to be almost as interested in us as we were in them. At one point a group of about 10 stared stalking closer to the fence as we went by and followed along when we turned the corner. If it had been a little darker it could have been quite eerie.

We took Oma shopping for a new jacket, she had finally decided that the one she bought in the 1600s was a little daggy and that she could do better. Success was ours and she found a snazzy navy number. We were also lucky enough to get to spend a whole afternoon replacing the elastic in her new knickers. Ahhh… it was an exciting week.

Towards the end of our visit Chris and I had something happen to us that we hadn't experienced before. I did a pregnancy test in my Uncle's bathroom and we discovered that we were expecting our first child! There was jumping, smiling and tears all in the space of about two minutes. What a strange feeling it was to find out, we'd been hoping that the test would be positive but to actually see two lines in the little window was quite surreal. I think we both had to keep checking it to make sure we weren't reading it wrong (although, admittedly it is fairly hard to read one of those things wrong...) We spent the rest of the day smiling at each other and were able to last a whole 36 hours before we told the Dous Family and Oma. It was very early in the pregnancy at that point but being able to tell those we love face to face was too good an opportunity to miss. Now we just had to keep the secret for a couple more weeks before we could start telling family in Australia! The due date we worked out was the 8th November 2007.

From Vancouver Island we flew inland to go back to Silver Star – the same ski resort where we learned to ski almost exactly two years earlier. It was as beautiful as we remembered – the snow was white and sparkly and the buildings were colourful in the sunshine. In contrast to the drab English weather which our now mole-ish eyes had become used to the brilliant sun and white snow of Canada and we were forced to buy ourselves each a pair of sunglasses. I got a very trendy pair of enormous purple ones which didn't look nearly as hideous when I looked in the mirror of the shop. Of course it was quite dark in there and I was wearing sunglasses....

We had a really wonderful week, the sun shone one day, it snowed (heavily by our standards) all day on another day. We skied and skied and didn’t break any bones. It took a while on the first day to get our ski-legs back, foolishly we had assumed that we would strap the skis on and be off like we’d never been away. We were wrong and spent much of the first day in the old faithful snow-plough position - adorable on three year olds, slightly pathetic looking when you're closer to 30.

As a treat towards the end of the week we caught a horse drawn sleigh through the forest to a little hut with no electricity for a home cooked meal. It was really wonderful listening to the bells on the horses tinkle as we slid across the snow. The sleigh was pulled by two enormous Belgian horses called Fred and Barney.

We slept well on our last night knowing that the following day, and indeed the week to come, was going to be completely exhausting. We were right. In the space of seven days we made two long bus rides, four long flights, three train rides and spent a whole lotta time sitting around waiting.

The upside of all this travel though was knowing that we were heading back to Australia after two years away. Oh it was so exciting. In preparation for our visit we’d made a list of people we wanted to catch up with, places we wanted to visit, business we needed to take care of and food that we wanted to eat. The top of Chris' food list read - Browne's Coffee Chill and Chicken Treat.

Ah rugby - we didn't understand a lot of the last game we went to see but enjoyed it all the same. We went to see another game early in the month - an international match this time between England Saxons and the Italian A team. There are some very VERY big boys on both teams.


With our flights booked for home and no guarantee of being able to come back to England for work we decided it was time for another trip to Cornwall. It was just an overnight trip but we visited a few places that one or the other of us hadn't been to. We drove through various amusingly named villages and stayed the night at the hotel at Land's End. It is a spectacular location for a hotel... the hotel itself is less than spectacular though being mostly a bit old and run down.


The following day we went to see the Minack Theater built on the cliff edge almost single-handedly by a woman named Rowena Cade. She started hosting plays there in 1932 and it must have been really special at the beginning when the stage was basically a grassy little area part way down the cliff face. It was a bit early in the season for anything to be playing but it is a spectacular location none-the-less and we'd love to go back and see something performed there.

Littering the coastline of Cornwall are the remains of many old tin mines. We visited one called Levant, the wrecks of the old buildings make for some interesting images. We posed for a photo in a couple of neat archways only to find when we looked at the map by the carpark that we'd been smiling happily right by the old arsenic pits!

I worked for two more weeks back in the same year 5 class for two weeks at the beginning of the month. It was nice to see the kids again, and fun to tell them about our upcoming travels. I put a world map up in the classroom before I left and promised to send them postcards from each of the places we visited.

The last two weeks of February were spent working for the Animated Exeter Festival. It's the same festival I volunteered for last year and it was just as much fun this year. I spent the first week working as a guide for school groups - taking them from ma screening of animations to a workshop and then to see various exhibitions. It's always great fun helping kids get the hang of animation and watching their faces when they see their characters come to life when you hit playback.

One of the exhibitions that was part of the Festival this year was of Suzie Templeton's Peter and the Wolf. It is a beautiful new version of the story with the original music in accompaniment. I had seen the exhibition so many time in the first week that when the director walked in to the Festival during the second week I smiled at her thinking I knew her (while I tried to work out where I knew her from.) Oops. There was a set from the film on display as well as several of the puppets used. I didn't tire of looking at them throughout the two weeks - the detail and care taken was absolutely astounding.

It was a really great two weeks and I got to meet some really interesting people and see lots of fabulous films. At the end of the festival Chris and I had just a couple of days to clean the house and pack for our trip to Canada. Ah the whirl-wind of life continues....

January got off to a fairly slow start. The weather was fairly miserable and we hadn’t seen a flake of snow at all, not much of a winter. School started back at the end of the first week of January and I was back to travelling the county of Devon teaching at various out-of-the-way schools. Overhanging us all month was the growing need to submit Chris' Highly Skilled Migrant Program application. We had so many bits of information to gather and we were basically there - just waiting for one or two documents to arrive...


As a Christmas gift our friends Chrissie and Dom had bought us tickets to go and see an Exeter Chiefs rugby game at the new rugby ground, Sandy Park. On arrival at the ground we were issued with a TRY card (why do they call it a ‘try’ when they succeed in putting the ball in the right place??). The back of the card had instructions on how to behave when ‘our’ team scored and when the other team scored. It was a fun afternoon despite the fact that Chris and I know very little about the rules of the game… my uncle will be disappointed for sure to read that.

Not much else happened in the middle of the month, we went to the Quay one sunny morning with Ben and Dayna. Chris and I joined a free Red Coat Tour around the Cathedral Green – they are a series of free walking tours that you can go on to find out a little more about the history of Exeter. There are some really interesting things to find out and each tour is guided by a keen volunteer (ours was called Clive). We had to buy a new bird feeder after donating our old one to the French bird-feeding effort. We walked out our front door one morning to find a man and a woman eyeing our feeder. After we explained it was ours they asked if he could have it to take back to France – apparently you can’t find a good feeder there! We agreed and considered it our good deed for the day.

One big thing that did happen (finally) towards the end of the month was that Chris submitted his Highly Skilled Migrant Program application. It is the visa that we are hoping to return to England on when the Holiday-maker visas we are currently on expire in March. It’s a point’s based system which seems pretty straightforward on initial reading but is in fact a right pain to apply for. The amount of documentation required is amazing – when I took it to the post office the scales said it weighed 1.6 kg. Far out. Once it was in the post the waiting began, we’d heard stories about the application taking 5 weeks to come back and the miss rate being pretty high. We only had about six weeks until lift off to Canada and Australia when we posted the application. Nothing like a little January adrenalin!

“The Napoli was deliberately grounded off the Devon coast on Saturday 20 January amid fears it would sink in deep water, after holes appeared on either side of the vessel two days previously” - BBC. The news was reported around the world. Many containers fell off the listing ship and washed ashore near Branscombe leading to widespread scavenging. It made for some amazing news footage. On the 26th I was working the morning at a school near Branscombe so stopped in at the beach on my way home. By this time the police had stopped public access to the beach and the clean up operation was well underway. They are slowly taking the remaining containers off the ship and have pumped the fuel out of it to prevent further spillage into the ocean. The beach was an amazing mess and they say it will take months to clean it all up successfully.

We finished January by going to see a unique band play in a small village hall. The band was Jiggerypipery – an amazing mixture of drums, guitar, fiddle and bagpipes! It was a fabulous night with much jumping and jigging and highland-flinging. Ah, trust Kate to take us to the sort event you would never believe if you hadn’t been there yourself! They were so good we had to buy their first CD when the gig was over.