Will the last Englishman out of the country turn the lights out please ?

Puppy Dog !

Just to let you all know, thanks for all the emails. We will respond asap, but we have only just got internet back, and it is dial up ! I cant believe they still have it over here, and worse, we have to pay for it ! Jeez ! Anyhow, it's workable, but slow, so no pictures for a while, or video calls, but MSN may be a go-er, and skype voice calls will work, so not all bad.

Big news is the puppy has arrived. Leelu is her name, after the woman in the movie Fifth Element, she is the supreme being. She is a pedigree German Shepherd, or Alsatian, whatever you like to call them. She is beautiful, and really cheeky. The first night we were up with her until 03:30, she was so scared to be away from her family. Now, she is happy as Larry. We have walks every day, and she loves it. She had a bit of a paddy yesterday in the shopping precinct, when she got hot, and refused to walk another step, so we had to carry her back to the car !

The rest of the time we have been assembling various bits and pieces. The BBQ, beds, awnings, gazebos, furniture, you name it, we've bought it. It takes ages to buy things here, as the haggling process seems to go on all day before you get the lowest price. Good fun though, they never reckoned on my Del-boy like negotiating skills. My favourite was getting the electricals deal done, then telling the guy the deal was off, as they did not include the gas, and bbq kit in with the bbq. Ofcourse, I got it free, and then he asked, “Are we really finished with the free stuff now, I dont need to find a dog with 12 legs or anything for you do I ?”.

We had our neighbours in yesterday, Trevor and Nicola. Had a really nice afternoon. They are expats too, and we are having some more people over at the weekend, who we think are Spanish. We have not met any of our aussie neighbours yet, but we've only been here 4 days, so plenty of time.

The pool is lush. Yesterday and today, 30 degrees, blue skies. Dont want to make you too jealous, but it really is paradise here. K and I are so so happy, even things like going to the local DIY store is an event. People are so friendly, we spend ages just chatting to people.

Sandra and Jim arrive in a week and 2 days. The house should be ready by then, assuming our stuff turns up on time. If not, it's sun loungers and deck chairs, but we do have an outside table, which is absolutely beautiful, coming on Wednesday, so we have somewhere to eat !

We have an aussie landline number now, so we will email it out. If you register with telesavers (Just google them), you can call us for 0.5p p1er minute ! That's 2 hours for 60p San ! Loads of chatting !

Right, going now, Leelu wants to play.