Time flies....

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Wow, it's been 9 months since my last post, and looooads has happened since, where to start....

OK, firstly the best news, and that is we have decided to try and go to Australia again, after not going after NZ we were a bit disappointed for a few months but then gave up on going on a Working Holiday Visa as it is only 2 years until I am too old to get one (30) ... and we got on with our lives did some things and then in the last few weeks we have decided that what we want to do we can do here in the UK or over in OZ, but the difference being that we would be much happier doing it in OZ and also now that OZ have changed the WHV to allow you to extend your 12 months visa for another 12 months as long as you do 3 months worth of work on the harvest trail during the first 12 months ... GREAT!!!

We haven't been thinking about going to OZ at all until about a week or so ago, and now we have made the decision to go and with the added time possibly available to go for upto 2 years, well, thats too good to turn down, we can spend enough time in various towns and see which one we would like to live in if we emigrate at some point in the future!

But there is a stumbling block for both of us, and that is that we are unsure whether or not we will be allowed 'another' OZ WHV, simply because we've had 1 issued to us both before, but didn't use them. Anyway, they have since expired without being used, so we have emailed the OZ embassy and asked if we would be allowed to reapply for another visa, we are still waiting to hear back from them ... heres hoping that it is good news!!

If we can't get another one then we will have to rethink our plans, but I'll wait until we hear from the embassy before making any decisions, but I have got everything crossed! :o)

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So, what else have we been doing? ... well, the 2nd biggest news after the OZ news, is that we have run our own courier company, whereby I ran it and did all the work, delivering parcels etc around the UK whilst Christina stayed at her retail job to ensure we had enough income each month, but to cut a long story short, the company expenses went up because of unexpected insurance prices and also the lack of funds available to sustain the business whilst we go established.

Anyway, we knocked that on the head once we realised that long term it wouldn't work, and it wasn't something that we wanted to be doing in 3 years time so we made the decision to close the company, which we are still in the process of.

Actually thinking about it, it's only about 5 weeks since we decided to close the company, and we have now made the decision to go to OZ, perhaps the company was never meant to be?! ... either way ,we gave it a good shot, it was fun and we have gained some valuable lessons and experience from it, so we pretty relaxed about giving it up.

Now that I have been driving for nearly 9 months I have some decent driving experience behind me, seeing that in those 9 months I have been driving I have done over 17,000 miles!!! ... thats mainly down to the courier work and I feel that I have been driving longer than 9 months because of this I think, anyway, thats now opened up a new job industry for me, something that I couldn't do 9 months ago, and seeing that I don't want to return to an office job now I can start looking for driving jobs.

Christina is happy staying in her retail job that she has had from the 3rd week we had got back from NZ!! ... she has now been promoted so that she manages that shop she work in for 2 days a week!! ... By the time we are ready to go to OZ on 1st Sep 2006 she should have had a pay rise or two, which will enable us to save more to take to OZ!

Anyway, thats enough about that stuff for now ... in the last 4 months or so we have both started to get more interested in animals ... well, more interest than before, which was really interested anyway! ... and I have starting thinking about volunteering for some animal hospitals/sanctuaries etc and then perhaps getting some kind of pet sitting certificate and then pet sit in the evenings and at weekends, and then over time see where it leads me!

I've always wanted to be with and around animals all my life and so has Christina, but we have never been able to have pets in the rental houses we have lived in over the years. and we haven't been able to afford to buy a house, so we have had to put up with friends and relatives having pets and seeing theres all the time. We have really dedicated anytime into researching about volunteering before, don't know why, but now that we are, we are really excited, hopefully any more I earn from pet sitting etc I can also put towards going to OZ!

We've also been going to quite a few zoo's around the UK over the last few months too, the best so far without a doubt is Woburn Safari Park and it is a massive espanse of land with loads of kool animals. I've included a few pictures that we took on the drive around in your car part of the park, you get to drive your car straight through alot of the animals enclosures and get reeeal close up to them, some even sit and climb over your vehicle, which was really kool!!

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