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