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We’re now only two or three weeks away from the big event.

Sara is now having weekly checkups with either the midwife or her doctor in Boronia to make sure things are progressing smoothly.

Last week they had a bit of trouble deciding whether Boo Boo was the right way up or not. Although she’s been head down for weeks, they thought she might’ve changed positions because her heartbeat didn’t seem to be where they expected to find it. As a precautionary measure, they sent us for an extra scan.

So here’s the video clip — it’s 88Mb so might take a while to download.

Thankfully she’s the right way up and everything looks OK.

The images aren’t as good as the previous scan because there’s less fluid surrounding her than before. There’s not much room in there, but she looks quite comfy.

They took all the measurements (see 9:30 on the video) and were even able to estimate her weight. She’s quite small right now — which isn’t surprising considering Sara’s size — but she should gain a few more ounces on over the next couple of weeks.

Right, we’d better get the hospital bag packed in case she decides to make an early appearance.

Edit: It’s been six weeks since I last blogged properly, lots has been happening. I’ll try my best to do a catch-up post in the next few days.

“Oldhamers don’t like Oldham”, according to this article on the Manchester Evening News website recently:

“OLDHAM is a backward-looking town where people are tightfisted and outsiders are not welcome, says a new report - comissioned by its own town hall.

Council bosses are spending £50,000 on re-branding the town, but first they wanted to find out how local people view it.”

Maybe a bit harsh?

I always said he was a good player.

We planned to celebrate New Years Eve with a party at our house. Unfortunately it didn’t work out like that.

I was in the process of cleaning the barbecue, using boiling water to clean the drip-trays, when the ovengloves that I was wearing suddenly decided to stop being heat-proof. I burnt my fingertips on the cast iron tray, causing me to spill some of the boiling water on my toes. Flapping about in pain, I then knocked the rest of the boiling water over my hands and feet.

We immediately shoved my hands in the sink filled with ice cold water, but it was obvious that I had done some real damage and would need to go to hospital. By the time we got there I was in agony. They had to give me three doses of morphine before dressing the wounds. Great way to spend New Years Eve, eh?

I’ve been back to the hospital twice this week and have another appointment with “Plastics” next Friday. Most of the blisters have now burst, so it looks a mess but I’m told it’s all superficial damage and there should be no long term problems or scarring.

But for the next few weeks I have to keep the bandages on and stay out of the sun. It’s already driving me nuts.

Edit: Here are a few pictures of my wounds: one, two, three, four, five.

At last… kicking and screaming our way out of the 1990’s, we’ve finally bought ourselves a widescreen TV.

When we arrived in Australia I was quietly disappointed that our 15-year old, square, Sony CRT survived the journey. I was secretly hoping it would die during transit so that we could replace it with something more modern.

Today we bit the bullet and decided to spend our recent tax rebates on a shiny new flat-screen TV. There’s a bewildering range on offer — Plasma or LCD? SD, HD or “Full HD”? 42″, 46″ or 50″? 100Mhz? Buy a cheaper one now or buy a better one to last a good few years?

Having done my homework over the past few weeks, I knew which model I wanted — a Sony Bravia X series — but getting approval from the financial controller was another matter entirely. So I had a few cheaper options lined up when we went shopping this morning.

We mooched around The Good Guys, Retravision and JB Hifi, playing the salesmen against each other — it wasn’t difficult to get 15% off the already-discounted sale prices.

The Sonys were still quite a bit more than we wanted to pay but, thanks to a timely promotion, this month they come with a free PS3 console. That can flogged on Ebay for $750, bringing the cost of the TV down to almost an affordable level.

So, after a bit of traipsing around, we ended up coming home with a 46″ Bravia XBR — it barely fitted in the back of the Land Rover, it’s bloody massive!

Tonight, after watching Match of the Day, we enjoyed Casino Royale — well, it is Christmas after all — it was like being at the cinema!

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.

It has served us well, but the time has come to to say goodbye to Sara’s little car.

With temperatures now in the mid-30s as we approach Christmas — that’s just short of 100 degrees Farenheit — it’s impossible to drive a car without air conditioning out here. Especially if you’re nearly 7 months pregnant.

So we’ve been looking for a suitable alternative, but there’s not a lot of choice in the small car market in Australia:

• Ford Fiesta - no, only available as a manual XR4 out here
• Honda Jazz - no, too big, don’t like the rear seats
• Volkswagen Polo - no, too expensive and plain
• Holden Barina - no, that’s a Vauxhall Corsa
• Hyundai Getz - no, cheap and nasty
• Toyota Yaris - no, can’t see the corners
• Suzuki Swift - nice, but too expensive

So, until last weekend we were stuck. We considered importing another small Japanese “K-Car”, like the Subaru R2, but didn’t want the hassle when it needed a service or repairs. Four doors are essential with baby on the way, so we discounted the forthcoming Fiat 500 as well.

Impressed with her little Diahatsu Cuore, Sara actually seriously considered the Sirion — one of the most ugly cars I’ve ever seen. There had to be something better out there!

But last weekend Nissan introduced the Micra to Australia — the same model of Micra that has been available in the U.K. for about 3 years already. So we popped down to Ferntree Gully Nissan and took one out for a spin. Unbelievably it ticked all boxes — small enough, four doors, can see the corners, air conditioning, power steering, ABS, automatic, lots of airbags, sporty, not too expensive.

We spent ten minutes haggling to get a good trade-in price for Sara’s clown car — I played the “I know it’s shit but you must be able to do better than that on launch day” card — then we did the deal and picked the colour.

All that remains is for Sara to decide what number plate she wants. Out here you can have the usual six digit random plate for nothing, or for about £150 you can pick virtually anything you like with 4-6 letters if it hasn’t already been taken. You can even choose the colour you want. If you like you could get OLDHAM on a dark blue plate, or MUFC99 in red and white, for example — how much would those cost in the UK!

So Sara will definitely pick something distinctive for the new car, but because custom plates take up to 21 days to arrive, we might have to collect the car with ordinary plates and change to the personalised ones afterwards. But she can collect her new car on Wednesday.

Driving in Melbourne is a lot easier than in the UK. The roads are generally wide and straight, with extra lanes added just before you reach most intersections. It’s easy to navigate because main roads tend to be either North-South or East-West, so you can usually reach your destination with only a few changes of direction. The road signs are good, almost identical in style to those in the UK, and traffic lights usually have filters for people wanting to turn left or right, which keeps traffic flowing at peak hours.

But there are some downsides too. Aussie drivers are quite aggressive: they tend to accelerate hard away from the lights, change lanes frequently to get through slower-moving traffic and sit right on your tail (yet bizarrely they leave huge gaps in front when waiting at lights).

The other odd thing to get used to is that distances and speeds are measured in kilometers, rather than miles. Motorways are usually 100kmh (62mph), main roads are 70-80kmh (50mph) and suburban roads are typically 50- 60kmh, except when passing schools.

Unlike the UK, there aren’t many speed cameras in Australia. They also publish the location of all fixed speed cameras on a website — there are only about 150 of them in the whole state of Victoria; none at all on my usual route to work. However they occasionally use mobile speed cameras on certain roads: you can usually see an estate car with tinted windows parked on the grass verges of straight roads. Oncoming drivers tend to flash their headlights to warn you as you approach one.

Unfortunately a couple of weeks ago I was caught by a temporary camera in Ferntree Gully, allegedly doing just 5kmh over the limit. Sadly you only get a straight 3kmh tolerance here, unlike the 10% allowance in the UK. So I’ve copped a $138 fine and one demerit point on my licence.

However, I’ve just found this website, which offers a chance for me to plead my way out of it. It’s got to be worth a try, based on my previous good character and unblemished driving record.

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.

On Saturday I will be flying back to Europe for a short business trip, visiting the company’s head office in Munich for a 4-day technical seminar.

Although I am travelling via the UK, there’s no time for a stop-over — sadly I’ve only got two hours at Heathrow to change planes on route to Germany. But that should be enough to fill a bag with “essentials” that Sara is missing.

I arrive in Munich on Sunday morning so, depending how jet-lagged I am, on the way to the hotel I might take a detour to Kirchtrudering, the site of the air crash.

I’ve been playing a teach-yourself-German CD in the car on my way to work for the last couple of weeks, so hopefully I’ll get by with the lingo. In fact, I tested a phrase out on one of the German guys at work the other day and he looked shocked that I might be able to speak the language… I think he wondered what I might’ve overheard when I’ve walked in on their conversations previously.

It’s a heck of a long way to travel for just four days though, I’ll be knackered next week.

Sara isn’t impressed about being on her own for a few days, especially with Andy & Johanne on holiday in Queensland next week. So this week we’ve doused the house with Baygon and she has her emergency contact numbers in case of creepy crawlies.