Final Blog from the UK- The Families meet!

Well, after nearly a year of communicating by e.mail, MSN and Skype, we actually got to meet Michelle, David and their sons, Joel & Liam. They arrived on one of the coldest days of the year, leaving temperatures of 30 degrees.
















So, here we are shivering, at Bolton's Bench, in Lyndhurst.
We are ready to embark on our life swap tomorrow. We've already re-packed half a dozen times!!

Christmas 2005.

Christmas Eve was lovely, as usual , especially with all the family there. I forgot my camera so I can't show you a picture of us singing and dancing around the tree, as is our tradition.
Christmas Day felt very different; we are used to driving up to Kettering, whilst listening to and singing carols, arriving just in time for dinner and Ralph lighting the Christmas pudding, with lots of brandy!! So we missed our usual routine , even though we enjoyed our different Christmas day.
As you can see we went to the beach.



My Mum belongs to a mad group of swimmers ,called the Spartans, who only swim when the water is cold enough!!!They have a special dressing up competition on Christmas day. The pressure was on this year because it was the first time we had been to watch and my Mum had won the ladies title for the past 2 years!!
It was another different Mayor, but the black wig and wiggle did it!! He announced, " I'll have the sexy one on the end!!" Well done for getting a hattrick, Mum!



The sea scarecrow won the men's title.
Doesn't the water look inviting???Not!!

Desert Island Compact discs

These ones have made the shortlist for making the trip to Oz.
How many can you recognize?

Goodbye gatherings.

Thanks Mum for helping to organise the Glogg and Aebleskivier (or as Ian calls it, 'hot wine and donuts!) We've never had 30+ people inside our house before, which included the 11 stampeding children upstairs!!



I missed the hockey knees up so it was nice so many of the girlies turned up for pizza and buffet...we have only just finished the rice today!! We played a game of Notability...what marvellous rhythm and timing on the mini piano to plonk out those songs!! The concentration required to play and work out the tunes was a picture.(It's cheap on e.bay at the moment!)



Another super curry, Paul. This was the fourth attempt at getting Paul to smile....was it the four hours preparations time in the kitchen or our company??Or was it the camera thing?



How will the boys manage..a year apart? They are already, according to them, step brothers! I did explain why this was impossible and what would have to happen for it to be true!! Anyway, we bought Dominic a friend to keep his company and annoy Paul and Nikki......a Tamagochi!
He was delighted and gave us regular bulletins all evening on it's toilet functions and what he was feeding it etc.



Alex's Farewell and early birthday party....14 jolly children ganged up on Chris and Allen, while Chantelle and I looked after the bar!

Who is that infantile spod in the background? Most surreal moment of the whole Lazer Quest experience?

You expect to stalk around inside to some banging techno drum n' bass track or at least the them tune to Crystal Maze. Well at one point I was kicking Alan's butt and sneaking up on poor defenceless six year olds whilst Chris Rea blasted out of the sound system, singing Driving Home for Christmas. It suddenly reminded me that I was infact on a Southampton industrial estate, rather than the outer spiral oupost of the Galfralian Galaxy

More goodbyes and final preparations.

So here is... toilet seat(mark2). We had to return the last seat when it broke after only the second bottom!!(and that was a small one...honest!)
Chris 'poo,pooed' my choice of seat, but I'm sure it will make our Australian friends right at home!!



Goodbye..hockey chums..keep winning without me!!
A good 4-1 victory on Saturday.




The whole team as South Park characters...well done Byker!!



The kids did the tree and then we put things where we wanted them....I'm my mother's daughter!! We had to get the Danish flags on...it just wouldn't be the same without them!!

Farewell to Kettering

Sunday afternoon 24 days to go. The countdown is definitely in the closing stages when you are saying goodbye to close family members. So Christmas came early to Kettering as Auntie Mandy put on a fine vegetarian spread. I didn't miss the turkey much. Presents were exchanged
and sad farewells were exchanged. I was starting to feel a bit emotional up until the point that Tina started swearing after she'd stepped in something canine and unpleasant. Then, like Paul Gascoigne, it was time to leave before we knew it


"Oh crikey what have they bought us this year?" thought Jean and Ralph.


The Chappell brothers. What a fine collection of Northamptonshire manhood!


It's another of those "Hurry up and take the damn photo" moments.

Seeing folks for the last time

Pre Christmas or going to Australia, suppose a combination of both. Anyway for whatever reason the social calendar has been picking up in the last few weekends prior to departure.
The most recent was a "What I want to be when I grow up" fancy dress theme. Now our house is usually well supplied with fancy dress costumes due to the fact that Tina loves being creative and wandering aimlessly round charity shops but all such creations are now in the loft. So Tina got some scrubs( thanks Mark) voila instant vet. As for me complete "I want to be a footballer"
cop out maybe but add a letter K , a joker and a bucket and you've got an It's a Knockout contestent. Maybe not but I really wanted to do that. Sad isn't it?


It was the third cocktail that really finished me off!


The Plumleys and Chappells line up for a mug shot.


Now up above is Caroline (on the left). Ex fellow hockey player and long suffering Saints supporter who kindly put together a little send off for us. Another pleasant evening where we went around forcing people to smile in a "if you must" kind of way at the camera. One thing you realise after nights like this though is a year is not really so long. We were wished all the best but at this stage there is no sense of people feeling the need to say "We'll miss you". A statement based on the fact that seeing most of these friends once a year is actually quite an acheivement.



Now will they miss the "Moosey" games? That's another matter

Who lives in a house like this?(part 2)

Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours......


Anyway, we get this......one more room than ours, a 'rumpus room'and my art studio is going to be in the garage.........how exciting is that?



This beach is apparently close by but Tina might be far too into the interesting rocks and might be inspired to compose another work of art.....!



If in doubt...throw another shrimp on the barbie....mate!

Who lives in a house like this?

so...this is what the Australians are getting (complete with our lovely weather, although, actually they are really excited about the cold weather and are hoping for snow!!)




They are probably getting a good deal on the kitchen, which we will still be paying for well into next year.



Thank the Lord for Sharps bedrooms. We will particularly miss the water bed. Looks wonderfully calm..doesn't it? You should see it in a storm!!

Mercenary little monkeys- Nov 25th

The manic expressions displayed below are supposed to be feigned greed. People keep asking us if the kids are looking forward to it . We basically think they have no idea what they are in for. They'll probably think they'll be coming home after ten days. 24 hour plane flights and being away for a year is not something they can quite comprehend. "Is it christmas in two days" asked Alex tonight. So we dutifully made a countdown calendar to get it into his head. The 100 dollars displayed above is the first Christmas present the children received. Another 30 of those would be great thankyou. Then we can buy the children a car. Alex was more interested in money having a window in it.

Those hidden expenses

Have you ever wondered if you left your house for someone else to live in for the year what little
idiosyncracies you'd have to mention. David and Michelle already know how to re-pressurise the boiler, the fact that the security light comes on and gives you the willies evertime you turn off the hall light and which channel you need to play Nintendo games.
You also go round the house thinking we can't possibly leave them with this! Therefore our most recent purchases include......


Sheets, towels, cutlery, quilts and coasters.
Courtesy of Asda and TK Maxx


The bathroom "transformation" completed with a new shower



A bog seat from Homebase....... with adjustable brass hinges

Go socceroos

Apart from all the friends and family that we did not refer to
in our "things we will miss" post (sorry to any who were mortally offended)
we should also have mentioned the World Cup. It will be such a shame not to sing Rooney Rooney after five tins of Heineken and put a small St. George's flag on our aerial.
Hope is at hand though as by qualifying for the tournament last night (beat Uruguay 4-2 on pens in case you wanted to know) the Australian team ensured that coverage over there will be more than "By the way Brazil won" when June comes around. The only problem now is we'll have to set our clocks to 1am or 5am to get up for the matches.

Oh the paperwork

Less than 50 days before we are off!

Before doing an exchange read the smallprint. Here is this weekend's
paperwork. We forgot about this bit. It nakes you realise how tied
you are to various authorities and organisations.
Where are you going?
What are you doing?
When are you coming back?
It's like being a teenager again.
The neat little rectangle in the middle is called the Chappell Jobs list.
Anyone who knows us at work or play know our life is driven by lists.
This one is very regularly updated.

Things we will not miss

British Barbecues




Watching Rusedski/Henman/Murray fail valiantly
in the quarter finals of Wimbledon




I suppose this list could go on but we don't want to sound like Mr. and Mrs. Negative. Anyway trawling through old photos is a real pain in the backside especially with Tina's filing system. Meanwhile it is time to get back to more pressing matters.

A few things to miss about being away

Seeing old friends from college.



Mums and Dads





Wacky "moose" games at Wayfarers

How to prepare for Australia

Prior to taking on a voyage to Australia there are a variety of interesting tasks you must undertake.



11 year old Australian boys tend not to like pink fairy covered walls. China blue is far more suitable. Jessica was forced to smile for this shot though.



Any mould and shitake mushrooms growing in the corners of your bath need to be removed. This is the after photo believe it or not.



Get any old spider infested box out of your loft and fill it with things you can survive without for fifteen months. This collection includes such essentials as. 25 years worth of albums, a plaster cast of Chris' teeth and various artistic endeavours of Tina's.



Go to Matalan and buy the biggest suitcase you can find. We have found out that two small children can fit in here but exceed the maximum baggage allowance.

Guess the 80's song titles!

There are 4 song titles in this picture. Can you guess what they are? (See end of this post for the answers.)



Paul and Nikki enjoyed dressing up !!!!Their song titles were hard to guess: The Milkman of Human Kindness and Laundromat cat!!??(Ithink that's what they were called.) By Billy Bragg and Flesh for Lu Lu (I don't remember the second band,do you?)



Mum and Dad's double act below, 'It's a kind of Magic.'



Simon and Chris were both Down Under, while Sam did a White Wedding! She had about 6 congratulations during the evening.



The whole crew waiting to go aboard...we even nearly got a real magician,by mistake (he went on the wedding boat instead!)



(answers to top photo are; Woman in chains, China in your hands, The whole of the moon and Breakout!)

First Post

Thanks to all for coming to the party!