On Saturday 13th December we discovered the answer to this challenging brain-teaser when we attended the Police Commissioner's Carol Srevice at Suncorp Piazza on Brisbane's South Bank. Two main clues should have alerted us to what we were about to experience (but none of us is a Detective, so we should perhaps be forgiven) - first, it was free to attend and second, the programme. I have included a copy of the graphic delights of the programme to give you some indication of our naiivity. So desperate were we for some Christmas cheer less than two weeks away from ourfirst Aussie [View Full Entry]

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Last week we visited our local cinema and sat through 3hrs 10 minutes of the epic new movie 'Australia' by Baz Luhrman. The opening was preceded with much hype and although entertaining, it never lived up to expectations despite a couple of good performances and some magnificent scenery, alongside a feature film exposition of the tragic 'stolen generations' story. I tell you this because another epic is about to begin as we have in the last 24 hours bought our very own little piece of Australia (and I don't mean the movie) at 133 Morehead Avenue Norman Park 4170 (about 10 [View Full Entry]

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After what seems no time at all, Seb has graduated from Balmoral State High School, completing Year 12 six days after his 18th birthday. We had a monumental struggle in June to get him accepted into the final year of school, but common sense prevailed and after some pretty hard work and a few 'challenges' along the way, Seb made it and is predicted a very good grade (called an 'OP' here) of around a 9. Levels go from 1 - 25 and these equate to A level grades in the UK and are the benchmark for Tertiary education. The year [View Full Entry]

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We have just enjoyed two back-to back weekends of culture in the performing arts from two masters of their respective genres - Stevie Wonder and Oscar Wilde. (Wilde of course, was not present, but his spirit was!). Last weekend I was treated to a late birthday present when we travelled just to the north side of the city to Brisbane Entertainment Centre to see the Master Blaster himself in the '2008 Wonder Spring Concert' with around 25,000 other people of all ages. It was his first appearance in Brisvegas for 24 years, so the attendance and expectation was high. The performance [View Full Entry]

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We have just returned from a week in Pottsville NSW where we spent the second week of the September school holidays under canvas with a large group of friends and three of the boys. Just under 2 hours drive south from Brisbane, we were situated at Pottsville North campsite which is perhaps 300m from a beautiful sandy beach stretching for miles to the north and south. Fotunately, the beach was patrolled near to the entry track, so swimming was not a worry although we did not feel the strong current prevalent on many other beaches along this stretch of coastline. Also, [View Full Entry]

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How time flies and with the blink of an eye it is all change. Cieran came over at the beginning of July and revisited some favourite haunts near and around Sydney before meeting up with us at Byron Bay. He managed to hand in a number of CV's for some casual work and within five minutes of handing one copy in he got a call to visit for an interview! With his experience and knowledge of the catering trade having worked for the Tanner Brothers in Plymouth he was soon employed and being slotted into rostas. Some how he managed to [View Full Entry]

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Kevin's first birthday in Australia was celebrated in beautiful winter weather over the weekend of 9th & 10th of August. Earlier in the year we had discovered a beautiful beach along the Gold Coast called Cabarita Beach which we had called into on the drive down to Byron Bay to celebrate Hilary's birthday. It has a small secluded beach surrounded by palm trees and huge rocks which form great shade when the sun rises arounded noon above our heads! We packed a huge picnic feast and surf boards along with all the other beach parafernalia and settled down on the sand [View Full Entry]

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There cannot be many moments in a person’s life when you can say you have had a perfectly wonderful time and that everything about it could not have been better, well I had one of those moments this weekend….. Unbe known to me plans had been afoot for weeks to celebrate my 50th birthday in style, well Kevin and the boys certainly made sure of that. The celebrations started the Saturday before with a trip to the Ballet to see Giselle performed by the Australian Ballet Company, simply magical and a great excuse to get dressed up and take in the [View Full Entry]

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Today was a memorable day in so much as I unpacked the last box from the second shipment and flattened all the empty boxes ready for collection by the removal company to recycle. Our Queenslander style house, No 45 Gillan Street is beginning to look abit more homely now with all our furniture and pictures around the place. It was not exactly the style of house I had imagined we would be living in, I will have to wait to find the ultra modern streamlined house for the future. So for now we have settled for a wooden structured building 'improved' [View Full Entry]

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For those who have not been introduced to Scotty he is our travelling furry friend companion who was given to Hilary as a leaving gift at Priors Court School. He has had the good fortune to visit and experience many exciting and different places as we have travelled along the way to Australia and has insisted that his adventure is documented and shared with everyone on the Travel Blog. he is a well travelled bear and has caused many a raised eyebrow as he has had his photo taken along the way, not many bears can have that acclaim to fame!!! [View Full Entry]

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