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We arrived back in Melbourne early on Tuesday morning, having almost missed our flight to Singapore due to a technical difficulty on the connecting flight to Heathrow. Fortunately they kept the plane waiting for us and closed the doors as soon as we were on board. Once again Charlotte was as good as gold on the flights, managing a few hours sleep and keeping herself amused by smiling and chuckling at everybody who walked by.

We thoroughly enjoyed the holiday and meeting up with everyone after being away for a couple of years. Thanks to Bernie & Geoff, Louise & Ian and Rachel & family for putting us up and making us feel so welcome.

It was nice to go out for meals (especially the six curries we had!) and drinks with everyone, to see how things have changed — or not — over the past couple of years. Despite our best efforts to see everyone during this trip, we simply ran out of time and unfortunately missed a few people.

As well as a holiday, we had a few business things to take care of during this trip. Firstly we needed to appoint a new letting agent to manage our UK house, since the old company was absolutely useless. So we spent a few days sorting that out, as well as arranging some repairs to the house and carrying out an inspection. I also had some IT Support duties to take care of, ensuring that we can all use Skype and webcams to keep in touch. We also had the pleasure of using Oldham Council’s “One Stop Shop” in the Civic Centre to request a reissue of a refund cheque; that was a depressing experience.

We returned to Melbourne with mixed feelings (and a suitcase full of crisps). Sara is obviously missing her family, but we both agree that Melbourne is a better place for Charlotte to grow up. We’ll try to make the trip back to the UK every couple of years, but we’d also like to see some of you come down here for a visit once our apartment is renovated.

Edit: It’s early Spring here now and the temperatures this week have been in the mid-20s with clear, blue skies. The grass needs mowing this weekend and the swimming pool is full of leaves. I’m just about getting over my jet-lag now but Charlotte’s body clock is still out of whack so she’s up at all hours at night and sleepy during the day.

Edit: Lots of new pictures from our trip have been added to t’gallery.

It’s been nearly a month since our last blog update, so I’d better do a quick round-up of what’s been going on:

Charlotte is now 14 weeks old and is developing her own little personality. As well as letting us know when something isn’t right — hungry, wet, tired, etc — she now smiles and chuckles when Sara and I do as we are told.

Charlotte still runs the show — she likes to get up very early in the morning; she likes to play for an hour after feeding; she likes a long sleep in the evening — but we’re learning to work around her.

I’ve put together another video clip (21Mb), click here.

I went to the CeBIT Exhibition in Sydney last month. Sara and Charlotte flew up to join me for a few days, it was a nice break. We watched Manchester United win the Champions League at the hotel. John “Captain Courageous” Terry missing his penalty was hilarious, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Thanks for all the funny texts and emails, sorry I haven’t replied to any — it’s been hectic at work this past couple of weeks.

We’ve had a nightmare month dealing with things back in the UK. We’ve been trying to remortgage our house in Oldham so that we can buy a property out here — more about that soon. Barclays assured us that this would be a simple process and all would be completed within 6 weeks; 11 weeks later and it still wasn’t done, meaning that we were in real danger of losing our new house and incurring severe financial penalties.

On top of that, the estate agent managing our property in the UK, Key Moves, ceased trading last week. No great loss, they were shocking. But as yet we haven’t had any correspondence from the new company who have taken over their affairs. The tenants seem OK though, so we’re not too worried about that at the moment.

It’s a public holiday here on Monday — the Queen’s Birthday — so today we’re going to head over to Mornington for an event called “UK Fest” to sample some traditional British Fayre. Sara should be able to stock up on crisps and I’ll sample the “Three Lions Pub”.

Edit: UK Fest was pretty poor, definitely not worth the $20 entrance fee. There were only three or four stalls, selling overpriced stuff we can easily get elsewhere. The “pub” was a draughty hall with $8 cans of John Smiths sold through a serving hatch. The live entertainment — Morris Dancing and a Magician — wasn’t our cup of tea either. At least it was sunny. No chance we’ll be returning next year unless they change the venue and drop the entrance price.

Today is Mother’s Day in Australia. It’s celebrated on the second Sunday of May here.

Charlotte bought mummy some nice Thornton’s chocolates and took her out for dinner at the Switch Lifestyle Bar & Grill this evening. She was also planning the whole breakfast in bed thing, but decided to get up at 4:30am instead.

So it’s been a long day already and we’re planning to stay up to watch the Premiership finale, kick off is at midnight our time.

Edit: Daddy would like to point out that Father’s Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of September in Australia. Socks and underpants will not be acceptable.

We’ve recently found a new local pub.

We originally thought that The Acorn on Forest, a few doors down from The Oak Tree, was just a restaurant — we had a meal there last year. But it turns out they also have comfy leather settees, regular live entertainment and a large, sunny outdoor deck which is perfect on a lazy Sunday lunchtime. They do a cracking breakfast too — the full monty, including black pudding and HP sauce if you like.

One Friday evening after work we found ourselves chatting to some of the regulars who come from Chester, Widnes and St Helens — there seems to be quite a few ex-pat Poms in The Basin.

While I’m blogging, here’s another video clip (18Mb) that we’ve put together this week. Charlotte is now 7 weeks old and weighs a whopping 8lbs 3oz! There are another 20 pictures in the photo gallery too.

Edit: Speaking of local pubs, this article made me smile when I read it. Will we even recognise Oldham when we come back for a visit?

This weekend we’ve been trying to take a photograph of Charlotte, so that we can get her an Australian passport. We need this a.s.a.p. in order to book flights for a trip back to the UK later this year.

The rules state that a baby born in Australia to parents who are both Permanent Residents is automatically an Australian Citizen by birth, so she needs an Australian passport. We can also get a British passport for her in due course.

We downloaded the guidelines and set about trying to take a photo that meets the requirements:

• Must be taken against a neutral coloured background
• Must be looking straight ahead
• Eyes must be open and no red-eye
• Mouth must be closed
• Photo must be clear of other distracting objects (arms, camera flash, etc)
• Some rules about dimensions

How hard can that be?

Well, it took us around 200 pictures over three days to get something suitable!

Here are a few of the out-takes:

We got there in the end, we think. Hopefully it will be accepted and we’ll see you in sunny Oldham in late September!

Edit: She seems to have slightly red hair in some of these pictures, but this is an optical illusion. She is not ginger, nosiree! And even if she was, it’s just a phase she’s going through.

Christmas Dinner was at our house this year. We were joined by Andy, Johanne, John, Marian and all the kids and, despite the weather, we laid on a full traditional dinner with all the trimmings.

We ordered a 6kg turkey from the local butcher which, fortunately, just about squeezed into the oven. All the veggie peeling and preparation was done on Monday, which made things a lot easier for us on Christmas Day.

It was a good day — everyone ate too much, had a few drinks and enjoyed a nice relaxing afternoon.

Presents-wise, Sara got a new mobile phone and a digital camera. I got a much-needed new keyboard and mouse for my computer. Boo Boo got a bouncer to match her pram, plus heaps of cute clothes.

What on earth made me think that travelling TWENTY TWO THOUSAND MILES for a three-day trip would be a good idea?

My company was too cheap to pay for a full business class fare this time, so I opted for Virgin Atlantic’s “Premium Economy” service — which I can highly recommend. Unfortunately this meant having to fly out from Sydney, rather than Melbourne, adding an extra one hour domestic flight at each end of the journey.

I flew via Hong Kong but unfortunately didn’t get to see anything other than the airport which was clean, modern and efficient. I had 90 minutes to kill before the second leg, so I had a coffee and made use of the complimentary wireless access to catch up on email and make a few calls.

After another 10 hour flight I arrived at London Heathrow which seemed dirty, run-down and, from what I could see, staffed entirely by Poles. It took over an hour to get through passport control, thanks to the jobsworths operating the new security scanners — my small bag of toiletries, which was OK at the previous three airports, was suddenly a potential terror risk in London. They also forced me to squeeze my laptop into my other small carry-on bag, despite allowing other people to have “one item of hand luggage” the size of a house.

So I ended up with only 20 minutes to buy newspapers & crisps for Sara, and sink a swift pint of Marston’s Pedigree (it was 6:20am, they looked at me as if I was a Glasweigian tramp when I asked for it!) before boarding my short Lufthansa flight to Munich. After a white-knuckle taxi ride from the airport (they have no speed limits at all on the autobahn, so the driver pushed his old Merc past 220km/h!) I arrived at my hotel at about 10:30am — exactly 36 hours after setting off from Melbourne!

Munich itself is a beautiful place, with lots of interesting old buildings and modern architecture. Although I was tired out, I thought it would be best to try to stay awake all day to reduce the jet lag. So I pottered around town, had an early dinner and a few beers before turning in for the night. BING! I was wide awake three hours later, completely unable to get back to sleep. Jet lag sucks.

I met up with other delegates from different subsidiaries on Monday, had a tour of the company headquarters and datacentre, as well as meeting face-to-face with some people who I regularly speak to by e-mail. In the evening I met up with a bloke from the London office for a curry and a few Weissbiers.

On Tuesday evening I went out with a group of staff from the C-IT department in Munich. They were good hosts, taking time to show us the sights and explaining some of the historic buildings. They took us to the Schrannenhalle (a bit like the old Beer Keller in Manchester) for traditional Bavarian-style food, drink and entertainment. Superb stuff. On the way back to the hotel it snowed, which was a real novelty for me!

After several more meetings on Wednesday, I started my trip back to Australia. This time I decided to take a couple of sleeping tablets at the start of each long flight. That really worked for me, knocking me out as soon as I’d had dinner and a drink. I managed to sleep for 6 hours on the first leg and 10 on the second, arriving in Sydney on Friday morning feeling relatively fresh.

Today we’ve just chilled out in the garden (after unsuccessfully trying to find Andy & Johanne at Lysterfield Lake Park). It’s a lovely 27 degrees today, the trip back to Europe really made me re-appreciate the weather down here. BBQ tonight! Tomorrow Sara and I plan to have a relaxing picnic in Jell’s Park (with English Sunday papers and magazines!) — anyone care to join us?

Edit: A special thank-you to John & Jack who came out to rescue Sara when the burglar alarm went off while I was away, and to Marian for checking that Sara was OK afterwards.

We’ve just returned from a week’s holiday in tropical Far North Queensland.

Last Friday we flew up to Cairns (a 3-hour flight from Melbourne) and stayed at a little place called Trinity Beach, about 20kms north of the city. Sara booked us some fantastic beachfront accommodation, only a 2 minute walk from the handful of bars and restaurants.

We really liked Cairns, it’s very small and quiet in comparison to Melbourne. The weather was fantastic — it rarely drops below 30°C up there, even in the middle of winter. Property seems very cheap, too. It’d be a great place to live but, unfortunately, there’s really no I.T. work up there for me. Nonetheless it was a nice, relaxing break and made us want to explore other parts of Australia.

The only downside to the holiday was me picking up an ear infection. I occasionally suffer from “swimmer’s ear” but this time it just wouldn’t go away. I went to see a doctor and managed to fly home, albeit in a lot of pain, but I’m virtually deaf at the moment, dosed up with ear drops, anti-biotics and painkillers.

We’re expecting!

It’s official, we’re going to be bringing our own little Aussie into the world. We’ve just had the first scans and heard the woosh-woosh-woosh of the baby’s heartbeat.

“Sprog” “Boo Boo” is now minus six months old and measures 6.5cms. Sara is positively “glowing”… if “glowing” means puking up every morning and leaving me to do all the cooking and shopping.

But we’re doing all the right things, reading all the books and websites we can lay our hands on. I’m now drinking for two.

It’s all new to us but how hard can it be? (Except for the birth itself, which I believe might smart a bit).

More pictures in t’gallery.