Back in the room

Posted on Saturday 7 June 2008 at 03:11 - Post Comment

Arrived home from Oz last night and was absolutely shattered.  After all the nerves about this conference, it basically turned out to be a big bunch of like-minded people sharing loads of good practice via giving presentations etc during the day, and getting absolutely rip-roaringly pissed in the evenings.  Repeat x 3 days and nights!

The presentation I gave with 2 colleagues went well and though we could have done some more preparation (which I will do next time) it was well received and we fielded the questions effectively and it gave some value to the group and I was happy with that.

Tell you what though, the weather was simply appalling!  After the single sunny day on last Saturday which I spent at Bondi, the rest was generally overcast - and the 3 days at conference it rained solidly.  On caling home, T told me that it was lovely and sunny.  So much for lovely sunny weather during an Aussie winter!  On returning home, it seems to have followed me as it is peeing down here now.  Ah well, the best thing about rain here in Winter is that it adds to the snow on the mountains so every cloud and all that.  This year T and I are 100% dead-set on getting up on the mountain at least 3 times - we are not going to miss out on skiing two seasons in a row!

Whilst in Oz I was playing around on my funky new work mobile.  Since my last phone (nearly 2 years ago) I am simply stunned by the advances.  This thing does everthing apart from wiping my arse!  The camera function even has a panorama thing that takes panorama pics.  Here's my first attempt at Bondi:

I mean - how cool is that?!

I also took a pic of the alpacca mating - those sensitive to harcore animal action, look away now:

Finally, a pic of Darling Harbour:

I s'pose the beer should be a bit more native but I fancied a decent lager.

So, we're now back to it, and it has been great to see T again after what seems like an age.  She's off now getting her hair done or something, so I figured I'd use the oportunity to get back into blogging.  In my absence she's also been at TradeMe (can't leave her alone for a day without her buying something on there!) and bought a treadmill.  We picked it up this morning and it seems to look sturdy enough to support my elephantine bulk bounging up and down on it.  Hopefully some exercise on that - plus a new food budget and fresh-food menu means less fat in the diet and more cash in the bank, plus us both being a few kg's lighter.

Why the weight loss effort now?  Well T is off back to the UK in September (I think) to her best mate Julia's wedding - at which she is to be a bridesmaid.  I have told her that I am sure she is beyond 'maid' and more 'matron of honour' and got a punch for thanks!   As you can imagine, she is thrilled to be heading back to the UK for a bit of un and pampering and is already preparing a shopping list!

Talking of the UK, some exciting news in that a brief summary of our emigration story so far is going to be published in 'Woman' magazine this month and we even get paid for it!  Apparently it should be in around the 18th of the month, so we'll have to see if it reads well or makes us sound like nutters.  If you've read the early stuff in the blog you'll know we've had ups and downs, so it'll be interesting to see how things come across.  Will stick a scan of it up here if and when it actually happens.

Well, that's all for now.  Gonna surf the net to find a soup receipe as that's what's for tea.