Surely my last entry was later than the 4th Dec...oops....I'm really slacking!

As most of you know (as I probably saw most of my loyal readers), Jason and I were in the UK over Christmas and Ireland for the New Year. Had an absolute blast, the whole 3 weeks were such good fun...first spending Christmas with Mum, Unky P and Penny, catching up with a couple of friends, and then spending the week in Ireland with my brother, Martina and of course little Hugo, and then the big wedding of Andy and Nicola which also meant catching up with good friends from the old Munich days...it couldn't have been any better, was so great to see all you guys, just like old times!!

I really struggled to leave this time....sometimes I feel like my whole life is one big series of goodbyes, so I'm on a bit of a downer at the moment. I'm sure things will pick up again once I've settled back in, but it is so hard. I guess having jetlag doesn't help, we only got back Saturday morning, so we've really only had one day where we can lie in before heading off back to work (I woke up at 4am today and couldn't get back to sleep!) Oh well, that's the way it goes!! So, talking of sleep, I think it's time for me to head to bed!!

Well I managed to find a lovely new dress for the Christmas party last week, well I actually bought it for Andy and Nicola's wedding in January, but you have to get your moneys worth! Had a great time at the Christmas party, we had a pretty late night, I was staying at my friend Liz's and bless her, she wanted to go home about 1am, but I managed to persuade her to stay out for a couple more hours...I tell you, once I start partying, it's very hard to make me go home if I'm having a good time! Needless to say, the next day I wasn't feeling too hot and when I got home Jason was a bit worse for wear too!!

We got through to the netball grand final, which we played today, unfortunately we lost 15-12. It was a really good game though, very close the whole way through, I was knackered after, it was the hardest I'd played a game.

I'm still not feeling very festive I must say, we've just put up the decorations at work, and it's helped a little bit. I'm sure that when we get back to the UK it'll be so much more Christmassy as they do tend to go over the top over there (which I love!) bring it on!!

Shock, horror!

I had quite a shock today whilst checking the exchange rates from the Aussie dollar to the Euro and pound...and I must say, it wasn't a good shock. And yes, I know I work for a Financial Services company, and I'm hearing every minute of the day here and on the news about the fall in the stock market and the dollar going down and the global crisis, but to be honest, I didn't really have time to put 2 and 2 together and think how this would affect our trip to Europe. Luckily we'd paid a bit of a deposit for the hotel in Ireland where the wedding is, otherwise it would have cost us $800 for 2 nights!!! I felt quite nauseous for a while! Looking back, I should have bought lots of travellers cheques or exchanged some dollars when the dollar was at it's highest....but hindsight is such a wonderful thing!!

Apart from that, I'm really looking forward to getting back home, it's 4 weeks on Friday, so not long at all now. I've been busy reading my new Fearless Flyers book, which on the whole was good, if a bit dated, but the trouble is it mentioned a few things that I hadn't even known about before...wind shear and micro bursts which can be dangerous when you take off and land, I'd rather they hadn't have told me about those, it gives me even more things to worry about! At least our flight is halved on the way there as we have a stop over in Korea, I'd rather have a bit of a break and then get back on the plane, I think it's a 5 star hotel which will be nice, although I'm sure we won't see too much of it. Have to remember to get some Korean money before so we can at least have a meal.

I can't believe it's only 5 weeks til Christmas, it'll be so nice to spend my first Christmas in 4 years in the cold where it should be spent, I'm looking forward to feeling really Christmassy which I haven't done since I've been over here. We've got our Christmas party next Saturday night, it's at the same location where Jason and I got engaged. It's supposed to be cocktail dress and everything..god knows what I'm going to wear!. It should be good fun as we always have a laugh with work, although it's the first year as BUPA we are allowed to bring partners, so it might be an interesting mix. I'm not taking Jason though as he has his works Christmas party on the same day, so our table is the singles table, so no doubt it will be the rowdiest there!! I was quite relieved to have the last weekend at home, it was the first time in a month that I hadn't gone out in the city. I've had Linn's birthday, Nicola's hen party (brilliant...went pole dancing...what fun!) and Ryan's birthday with about 10 gay men (and me) in a gay bar (that was an eye opener!) This weekend I have leaving drinks for someone at work, and then another leaving party for a couple we met when we did the outdoors training.

Well, that's about it for now, will try not to leave is so long until the next update.

It's been a while since I've sent an update...to be honest, I keep forgetting!

Things as always have been busy, so hardly get any time to do anything. I've now joined the gym so I've been going there a fair bit...getting into the pilates...which is very hard!

Getting very excited about going back to the UK....it's only 7 weeks now, I can't believe it's coming around that quickly. I remember in February thinking that it'll be ages before I see everyone again...but now it's nearly here!!

I'm in the netball team at work which is going well, we are currently joint 2nd in the league, and I got voted player of the match for the last 2 weeks...how good is that!! Although I did get quite angry in the last game as the goal keeper was a big woman, and she was in my face the whole game, I didn't stand much of a chance getting past her...but I did try my best!

I'm going to stay over at Sue's tonight, we're just going to have a catch up at home..I'm getting old, I'd much rather stay in than go to the pub! We're also booked to see Kylie in December, although I'm a bit annoyed now, I've found out that Pink concert tickets will be on sale this week and I think I would have preferred to see her this time...oh well!

I've been meaning to update my blog to let you know that I got my job yaay!! I signed my contract last week (with a bit more of a pay rise too) so I've now got my first permanent job since I left England about 9 years ago, wohooo!! Very happy, things feel a lot more secure now and I can relax a bit more, well not really relax as work as always is a bit full on...but you know what I mean ;o)

here are some pics of our new place.

our new table


Jase in the kitchen

It's been a busy few weeks that's for sure, I don't feel like I've had that much down time lately. We've been busy going to the shops, spending lots of money, catching up with friends, getting the place ship shape, plus I've had to prepare for my interview at work...yes, that's right, I had to have an interview in the end! It turns out that last thing on the closing day for applications, some bloomin woman in Brisbane decided to apply for my job, not happy I tell you. So anyway, after looking at her CV, my boss and HR decide that she had no experience, and that she wouldn't be a good candidate...which you'd think would be a good thing...but it meant I still had to have an interview, so that it wasn't seen as favouritism, so I had that last Tuesday. I must say I was a bit panicky as there was an external company there as well as my boss, but he prepared me pretty well, so the interview went as well as can be expected. I'm supposed to find out this week the outcome, there would have to be something extremely wrong for me to miss out on this one!! Watch this space!

The weather is warming up nicely now, it's funny that it goes straight from winter to 28 degrees, no in between. I went shopping on Saturday and bought some new summer clothes for work.

On Thursday night, we had our staff social club dinner at the Bavarian Bier Cafe, was great fun, I think I probably bored everyone with my reminiscing about Munich tho!! It was the type of do where you ask for a white wine and they end up giving you a bottle, so Crystal and I got through a fair few drinks. We wanted to go somewhere after, but all the other guys wanted to go home, and I was staying at one of their places, so I had to go back with Lizzie...I was grateful for that the next day tho, I felt bad enough without going out partying til all hours!

Saturday night Jase and went to a friends 30th birthday party, it had a 1920s theme, so we all dressed up, we looked pretty good, I'll put up some pics soon. We stayed over at Rach and Stu's so Jason didn't have to drive back, so the next day he hung around with them, and I went off to an underwear/clothes party back at Lizzie's. Sue came with me too, so we had a nice catch up...and a giggle about the clothes...they were a bit old fashioned to say the least, not our cup of tea! Got home about 7pm last night, and before we knew it, it was time for bed again.

Tomorrow night we are off to a media party for the Macdonald bros. I've never heard of them, but I've been told they were on the X Factor in the UK and they have supported Westlife. Apparently they are trying to make it big out here. Our friend that runs the Scottish newspaper got us invites, so it'll be interesting to see if there is anyone well known there!

Anyway, I'm just downloading some vids of my little nephew...who's getting bigger by the minute...so I'm off now.