Can you believe that it was a year ago that the shipping container arrived and all our worldly goods started their journey to the other side of the world! I have just been reading the first posts on the blog and it brings all the memories back, including the lovely party my family hosted at my sisters, then saying goodbye to everyone. The time just seems to have passed by so quickly but I think that is because we have been so busy, life seems a lot more settled now and we know a lot more about the country and we can actually find our way around without needing the sat nav! It is great that you all still keep in touch and update me with all the changes in the UK and the gossip, I love hearing from everyone so don’t stop!

Tom is leaving on Easter Monday and will arrive back in Oxford Tuesday, ready for his new term. That’s the day Sam goes into hospital for his knee surgery so he will be on crutches for a while.

We have been out every weekend showing Tom more of Melbourne. We went down to the Great Ocean Road for 4 days last Friday. It is a lovely drive along the ocean (well part of it is!), with some stunning sandstone rock formations and cliffs, very dramatic, especially when the sun sets against them. We walked through a tropical rain forest with trees 70 ft tall and tree ferns 10 foot tall with stunning waterfalls, really felt like you were in the jungle! Not so keen on the drive up there there, single track roads with hairpin bends at every turn, we did encounter a few cars coming the other way which was when I closed my eyes and held my breath! Lucky I wasn’t driving then! We saw some koala’s up in the trees and one on the ground which just ran and hid behind a tree when it saw us, funny little things but so cute. Whilst we were in the car watching the koala a kangaroo bounced straight in front of the car, the rest were just laying down in the sun, they don’t do much until dusk apparently. The beaches along the great ocean road are stunning and have great waves for surfing. We called at Bells beach on the way home and they were just setting up for the surfing world championships,the waves were amazing and it is on TV at the moment.(Will put some pics on Flickr)

Steve & Tom really enjoyed the granprix, there was a lot going on also including black hawk helicopters doing manoeuvers, an airbus A30 doing flybys, stunt motorbikes and sports cars doing there things to! The race itself was so noisey with the roar of the cars that the spectators have to use ear plugs, they phoned Sam on his mobile (which was 07.00 UK time) so he could hear the roar of the cars, but i dont think he was impressed!! We went back to the grandprix circuit the following weekend as it was still all set up and you can drive around the course, but it really is not that much fun when you have to stick to the speed limit!  Steve has also taken Tom to see an Aussie rules footie match , one of the teams that was playing was Collingwood. They won the premiership last year and are known as the pies because their kit is black and white like a Magpie, but their fans are known to be,  shall we say –  a bit rough, so it made for an entertaining few hours with the things the fans were shouting and doing! There are a lot of older people that go to the matches to, they can be worse than the younger ones! We went shopping yesterday and Tom thought it would be fun to buy a Collingwood top to take home as he has a few Aussie  friends back at Oxford and they would be aghast that he would support the pies, so we were in a shop trying a top on and a few people walked past on different occasions ans shouted ‘go pies’ at him! It was so funny, he couldn’t get it off quick enough, I think it is like a cult!!  They have also been to watch the Storm rugby league and The Comedy Club with they guys from Ste’s work to watch Steven K Amos and yesterday we went down to the peninsula to look around the quarentine station, where all the ships docked in the 1840’s  onwards. Sorrento and Portsea are also down there and were beautiful, it was very much like a Riviera, with all the yachts dotted around the ocean, but it is a millionaires haven, gorgeous never the less.

The weather is still good, temperatures this week have been 20 – 24 degrees, occasionally 18 deg and a bit of rain, but a good forecast for the Easter weekend of 24 – 25. It is dark now at 6.15 which I hate, really cant stand Winter! It is strange having Easter with no daffodils or bluebells, at least they have Easter eggs! Yesterday was Good Friday and everything closed, not even DIY shops were open, no local cafes, nothing in the city – so strange, we went to get a takeaway as we were late getting home and there was only one open in the whole area! We have a 5 day break as it is ANZAC day on Tuesday, which is a public holiday to commemorate all the fallen Aussie and New Zealand soldiers during the wars. At least the shops are open over the rest of the break, but can only open after 1pm on ANZAC day. We are off to the city today to have a look around the memorial, do a river cruise and get dinner before Tom goes home, Ellie is back at school  28th April and will be in her Winter uniform, her school skirt has just cost me $120 dollars, so expensive but they are wool and quality, but have to be hand washed – what a pain! Ellie will also have to watch what she eats now as she has to have a wheat free diet and cant eat certain other foods as she has Fructose intolerance, explains why she has not been well for the past 5 years, and she also has pernicious anaemia so needs injections every 12 weeks, I hope that there is nothing else!!