Unbelievable. Last Thursday was a year to the day that we left a miserable, wet Heathrow, and Friday was a year to the day that we arrived to a warm and sunny Perth. We celebrated last night with a meal out and toasted the next year and we look forward to having a big celebration for our citizenship.

We've all been through so many emotions, thoughts and feelings this last year but Oz is now home and we won't be coming back to the UK. Looking back we knew the first year would be tough in all ways and, financially it certainly has, but otherwise it's been pretty easy. We did think we were going to rent for a year, we also thought we'd settle between Joondalup and Butler about 1.5 hours North from here, neither happened. We bought a house and moved in within 3 months or so and ended up south of the river in Mandurah. Buying a place has certainly helped us to settle even if it has drained our resources somewhat drastically. Recently a combination of Paul hurting his back, all the annual bills coming in, the rain and the swimming pool being worked on has meant that, for the first time in a long while, the credit card has been hit and not paid off. Hopefully, now spring is here (along with the most amazing wildflowers) and Paul is better, the debt will start to be paid off and we can relax for Christmas - I don't fancy beans on toast for Christmas dinner !!!! Financially we do feel like we've had to start all over again, but we can see that the end result is something we would never have achieved in the UK and the potential is limitless.

Tallulah gave the thumbs down for her year here but I know that it was based solely on her UK friends. She misses them all dreadfully and is constantly in touch. She wants them all to visit  and is looking forward to be old enough to go back to Bristol and see them all. However, if she had a magic wand I know she'd rather they all came here than she went back so I think she does prefer Oz over the UK. Tallulah has, however, blossomed here. Last Thursday we went to the Mandurah Performing Arts centre (a theatre) were she performed a couple of songs in her school choir in front of over a thousand people. Her confidence has increased as I couldn't see her doing that last year and Paul and I had a tear in our eye watching her. It was a great night with a selection of the local schools performing - all schools in the metro area performed over the period of a week or more and it was a really professional affair, there were even soloists performing and I saw 10 year olds who could easily rival pop idol. There is such an enormous talent out there and Australia are fantastic about finding and promoting that talent. Their motto 'give everyone a fair go' produces a society that can only benefit the children of today. We realised how far Tallulah has come educationally when we were driving to Perth last week for a disastrous hunt for pool tiles. Tallulah spent a lot of the hour relating the whole of how Australia came to be discovered. Paul and I looked at each other and realised that, in a year, she has learnt more Australian history than she ever did in her 6 years at the UK school.

Nakita gave the thumbs up for her year here. She is doing great things at school and has a good group of friends (even if they do fall out quite regularly) and has even now been for sleepovers. She spends a lot of time outdoors and has lost weight, she's chomping at the bit to get in the pool. We now rarely see the sadness and tears that haunted her in the UK. She has also joined an art club and will be starting dolphin guides soon which she can't wait to do. Australia has definitely suprassed all hopes we had for Nakita.

For Paul and I it was also thumbs up. I have now made a very good group of friends who are there for me when I need them and we've had a girlie movie night, pizza night and drinking night. We've been to loads of concerts and outdoor cinema events and have now booked into see the Abba and BeeGees tribute band at the end of November in Kings Park. I love these events as you take an esky (cool box) filled with food and drink, picnic rugs and deck chairs and just pick a spot, chill and have a great night. We are going with Robyn and her family and I hope Anne will get tickets too so we'll be surrounded by good company too. I may well get an season ticket for the outdoor cinema this year too as I think we may make it a regular outing even if it is an hour away !! The ticket prices for all these events are so reasonable and, because you take your own food and drink, it's a very cheap night out overall. We're even looking forward to starting up the round of bbqs too and, I suspect, there won't be too many more roasts now that the weather is warming up.

This week at school was science week. The girls had the same 'star' dome that they had in the UK but they also made an ice mountain . The children all had to take in an empty ice cream container of decorated frozen water (some were just coloured, some had glitter, some had toys and one even had a $10 note) and, at the beginning of the day, they were all piled up into a high mountain of ice. Over the day the children all saw the ice melting, colours running into each other etc and, at the end of the school day it was a free for all as all the children piled in to see what toys they could find. I would have been after the $10 but no, Nakita had to pick up the Bratz doll head.......no body, just a head !! Tallulah was too 'cool'  to dive in but enjoyed watching everybody else (think Next sale !) On Thursday the whole school moved from class to class as each teacher specialized in a specific science project. Nakita's favourites were making ice cream and the bath bombs (which she is yet to use !). Yet another school week the girls both loved. Next week will be just as good I think. On Friday they have a sports day (I don't expect this one to be cancelled due to the rain) which, apparently, is more like the Olympics. They are making a great deal of it and even Tallulah hasn't tried to get out of it........yet !!

It's father's day here today and the church had a 'celebrate men' day, they had 4 motorbikes in the foyer, two in the church and loads of tyres and toolboxes. Some of the ladies were dressed up as 'Pink Ladies' and the men were all handed a gift pocket knife as they went in (another 'only in Oz'!). They even had a Fonz !! The men were served hot dogs, fries, coke and ginger beer and there was a juke box with rock and roll playing - for a small church it was awesome and we managed to get Paul there which was a miracle. He enjoyed it but I don't think he'll be going back anytime soon. We even had 4 bikers (who owned the foyer motorbikes) who weren't Christians but were members of BACA (Bikers Against Child Abuse). They looked like typical Hells Angels, all dressed in the leathers etc and the noise was pretty deafening when they fired up the bikes and drove off.

I know that I haven't posted for ages, thanks to Angeli who noticed and checked in that we were all ok !! So now you have an epic saga to make up for the recent lack of info. I hope I haven't bored you all too much.