Life's a beach

OK. It looks smart but don't be too jealous. Our fish and chip lunch was shared with around 30 flies. The sand was the size and moisture level that gets into every possible crevice. The water was freezing and went from 30 cm to 1 metre within a couple of steps. We had no boogie boards, no nice wicker beach mats and factor 30 with a dodgy nozzle. Result? Nice red sunburn marks on every square cm we missed the next day. We compensated the next evening by going to Doyle's on the beach at Watson's Bay. Famous for the best and most expensive fish and chips (fly free) you can imagine and a breathtaking (excuse cliche) view of Sydney by night. If any of you are coming over here; we'll let you treat us to another meal there.

Other highlights of Sydney

Get on a Jet boat, serious adrenaline rush. $80 well spent.


Put on a faux Viking helmet and make yourslef look really silly whilst humming along to Ride of the Valkyries.


Spend disproportionate amounts of money at Cheesy fun parks. This was the location of Tina's first Australian "Can I have my dollars back?" Argument. Her victory was only partial. Whinging poms are obviously going to have problems over here

Join about 500 other people on a ferry to Manly and have a beach day. Show no respect to the local sculptors and amuse yourself by sitting on the bottoms of the statues.

Take lots and lots of pictures of the opera house and the bridge. I'll spare you the other 50.
They look uncanningly like this one.

Fish Watching

We put the Aquarium top of our to do list after fireworks. Alex and I look suitably enthralled. Jessica looks like the late night was too much for her.


Tina and Alex took dozens of entertaining fish photos but this was one of our favourites. He was about a metre long and just lay at the bottom of the pool looking permanently petrified. Maybe this will be my expression in about three weeks time.

Apparently these sharks are completely harmless (unless you're fish shaped) but I'm still more inclined to believe Steven Spielberg. I wouldn't be grinning so much if there wasn't a thick glass tunnel separating us.

Starting the year with a bang!

So here we are. 25 hours of flying, 5 films, 6 meals, 3flights and about 2 hours of playing pong. Jet lag successfully defeated and no time to hang around as we headed down to Sydney. Woken up by a sulphur crested cocktaoo in the Old Gum tree outside (The Kookaburra couldn't be bothered) and got to Sydney by two. Plan A was to stroll around for a few hours and wander down to the Park for about 8o'clock. No chance .......
"They shut the park after 25000 people are in and if you're not down by 3pm you'll be lucky to get in. The shot below was our view... Blooming tree!


Family shot just before the 9pm fireworks and just after I'd come out of 50 minute beer queue.
Alex looked as if he'd had enough already but managed to ooh and aah with the rest of us.


Now 9pm is all well and good but if you want to see them set light to the bridge you have to last another 3 hours. I think the picture below is 2004 but you get the general idea. Have you ever seen anything like that we asked Alex.
"Yes " he replied "At Marchwood Junior school and they're better than these." Oh well we enjoyed them.

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?