We landed in Melbourne at midnight on 23rd April - it took ages to get through customs because everyone's bags have to be xrayed again on the way out, and they need to check that we're not bringing any food, drink, plants etc in as it's completely prohibited (we threw out the piece of cake we'd brought along from Kuala Lumpur but got away with sneaking in our last two Oreos), and Tim and Katie met us once we'd got through immigration. We stayed up chatting until about three in the morning - mostly Simon and Tim reliving memories from their time together working at Outdoors when Tim was living in the UK which was eleven years ago so there was a lot to catch up on! We also met the rest of the family: Aspen the black labrador and Pat the Cat (also known as Paddy) - 24/7 fluffy animals, heaven!

The village we're staying in is called Yarraville and it's lovely - there are plenty of shops, cafes and an old-fashioned cinema, as well as a train station and an internet cafe, all within a three-minute walk of the house. The cinema does cheap-date night on a Monday and Tuesday and so we've been there a couple of times since we arrived, and the seats are more like armchairs - a bit more comfortable than the Vue in Harrow... The village also has a couple of parks fairly close by, one with a creek in it and we quite regularly walk Aspen there; she loves swimming in the creek and although she's incredibly well-behaved, she seems to become slightly deaf when we ask her not to go in...

On our first weekend, Tim and Katie took us into the centre of Melbourne and we had a really good walk around (there was some sort of Zombie event happening too and so we kept coming across people with ripped clothes, fake blood and interesting make-up everywhere we went). We also stopped at Federation Square for a while - it was a beautifully sunny day and there was a jazz festival on so we relaxed for a while with some delicious potato wedges from Lord of the Fries and enjoyed the music and sunshine before heading down the river a while to the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) to watch our very first AFL footy game - it's a bit of a mixture between rugby and football and Simon was instantly hooked (he's since been again, watching another match at the Etihad Stadium).

After we'd been here a few days, the two of us went back into town to take Simon's CV to all of the theatres looking for work (there are six of them. It takes a lot less time to do than the West End). We also went to the Immigration office to find out whether or not I could change my visa to enable me to work, seeing as the country is desperate for qualified teachers. Sadly, I am definitely too old and they will not let me work under any circumstances (I think that's a bit mean) and apparently, I'm not even allowed to volunteer which could have been a possibility to avoid becoming bored.

Katie goes rowing every morning at at weekends - she is part of a team who are going to be competing in the National Rowing Championships. A few weekends ago they were rowing at Albert Park and so we all went down to watch her row, and then we drove around the F1 race track, which for the rest of the year is just a network of normal roads but it was pretty cool, even if we had to go backwards. In the evening, we went round to Mel and Ed's place (friends of Tim and Katie), and had a lamb spitroast with lots of home made salads and potatoes - delicious. We've since been round again for another spitroast - pork this time - and sat around under the stars in front of the fire, yakking with the Aussies.