After a busy couple of days I packed my two girls off ready for a day of firsts this morning - Rach for her first day at work and Lauren for her first day at school. Now that one of has got a job we decided it was safe to get Lauren into school. We hadn't done it yet because we worried we may have … read more

Some good news - Rach went for her second interview (not for the same job) this morning for a Branch Manager position for a Home Services company. The company provides carpet cleaners, upholsterers, that kind of thing. She came home from the interview feeling that it went pretty well and after … read more

I’ve just finished reading this extraordinary autobiography from Michael Buerk. What a life he has lived! The book was funny, insightful, moving (especially when he is recalling his time in Ethiopia), and also acts as a good historical reference for some of the major events over the last 30 years. … read more

We've just realised that it's the end of the financial year here which may account for why it's so slow in the job market at the moment. When we came over in January there were tons of opportunities but I've hardly seen any this month. I'm just hoping it will pick up in July with the start of a new … read more

We had our first taste of aussie sport last night watching the annual State of Origin. The State of Origin is an annual set of 3 Rugby League matches between 'the maroons', representing Queensland, and 'the blues', representing New South Wales. It's one of the main sporting events of the year and … read more

I've just realised, for the first time in many years it's the middle of June and I'm not sneezing my head off with my eyes streaming due to hayfever! read more

After discovering Coon Cheese, and the Holy Sheet bedding company, today we passed a florist called Give Her One Tonight! read more

Knowing that the traffic would be bad yesterday as it was a public holiday (just like in the UK on a Bank Holiday Monday), and taking advantage of the fact that we’re both unemployed bums at the moment, we had a lazy day on Monday and decided to go to the beach today instead. We drove down to the … read more

After a couple of days of torrential rain and then an unusually cold day, we’re finally back to business as usual – clear blue skies and warm sunshine! You might have seen on the news that a cyclone has hit New South Wales, including Sydney, and killed a few people. I think we caught the edges of it … read more

I've updated our photo's on Flickr, including the LA photo's. I've also copied the post about LA into my Yahoo Trip Planner and included the photo's. I was going to update the LA post on here with the photo's but it's a lot easier to do it with Yahoo Trip Planner. Not surprising really as Flickr is … read more

I'm finally up and running on broadband again. It wasn't straightforward though. I went back to 3 on Monday with all the necessary I.D. They spoke to their accounts department and explained my situation. In the end the accounts department just needed some proof of recent income. So I had to go to … read more

All was going well with the new wireless broadband USB adaptor for my laptop up until Friday when I broke it! All I did was pull it out of the USB port and the thing came apart on me. I took it into the shop I purchased it from Saturday morning and they told me they couldn't replace it there, I'd … read more

It’s officially the first day of winter here today. You wouldn’t know it. It’s a bit weird actually. All the clothes shops are stocking jumpers and other winter clothes and yet it’s 25 degrees outside! We’ve spent the last couple of days getting into the ozzie lifestyle. We had Kangaroo steak for … read more

So much for the broadband order being processed and activated 10 days after Thursday. After speaking to a neighbour last night (who incidentally has recently moved her from Coventry), it seems that there's no more ports available on the local telephone exchange for ADSL broadband and they're not … read more

Well we're in the new house now. We've made the major purchases and everything we ordered has been delivered. Yesterday we bought a nice new telly and a few other things like a hoover, ironing board, kitchen stuff, etc. Our fridge, freezer and washing machine came today. We've also been given a form … read more

My first post on the blog! Happy Birthday Dad - enjoy the last few days of your holiday! Hope you like the DVD (Ray is sooo your humour!) Rach read more

I got up at 4:30. I had already planned to do this because I wanted to be in Fortitude Valley to watch the Liverpool v AC Milan Champions League Final. Someone had told me on BritishExpats.com that I’d be able to find at 24/7 Sports Bar in Fortitude Valley in Brisbane which would be showing the … read more

We didn’t do much at all on our first day in Oz. I think we were in bed before 9pm that night (even though we did have a bit of a kip as soon as we got there). Jetlag had fully kicked in! read more

I haven't posted for a few days as it's been a bit hectic emigrating and all that. I'll try and catch up now starting with our stopover in LA. Also, I haven't had chance to upload the photo's yet so I'll update this post with our photo's in a few days... We started our first day in LA with an … read more

We've spent most of today shopping for our new house. We went down to IKEA first thing, arriving for opening time at 9am. The IKEA in Brisbane is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and is absolutely huge. What's more it was pretty quiet and quite an enjoyable experience, unlike the last time I … read more