We haven't written a blog for ages so we apologise and hope that this one makes up for it a little bit. We've both been pretty busy - Simon with the Mary Poppins gig (after doing the load-in, they asked him to stay on as stage crew for as long as he was available which will be until the end of August) and I've been knitting (two beanie hats plus a beanie and scarf for Katie as part of our thank you for letting us live with them for the past three and a half months, as well as two other scarves, and a jumper which is nearly finished) and I've taken up drawing again - something I haven't really done since I was about 18. I'm currently doing a large pic of Aspen on canvas too, another part of our thank you to Tim and Katie (Tim didn't want a beanie and scarf).

Simon's made loads of friends working on Mary Poppins, and they love him there so he's made lots of contacts for possible work in Sydney and also back in the UK when we get home. He's really enjoying it, and because of their show pattern, he works Wednesday to Sunday so we get all day Monday and Tuesday to cram in a bit more sightseeing. We've had a few days out with Steve and Janine (a school friend of Simon's) who are living in Melbourne but heading back home to the UK in September because of the crazy immigration laws here; we spent a day at the Dandenongs (I just love all the Australian placenames!) and the other day we met up in the city where we went bowling (I am still fairly unimpressive) but we discovered that the bowling alley in the casino takes a picture of you every time you bowl, so we ended up concentrating more on making silly pics than actually on scoring...

At the beginning of June, the four of us and Aspen made the eight hour drive to Renmark, which is on the border of New South Wales and Victoria, to visit Katie's parents' farm, Bunyip Reach, for the long weekend. We left at four in the morning, and so we caught the amazing sunrise on the way there. The farm is enormous, about the size of Middlesex (well, maybe not quite that big but you get the idea...). After lunch, we took a trip out along the Murray River in a tinny (I always thought tinny was Australian for a can of beer, but apparently it also means a tin boat a bit like a bathtub). The following day, we went for a drive around the farm on a quad bike, and then out to a remote part where we built an enormous bonfire from fallen wood and we had barbecued lamb, bush tea and bread cooked in the fire. We were visited by some curious emus, and on the drive home we caught up with some kangaroos too. We had a brilliant time, and are hoping to go back and visit again before we leave the country.

Simon and I are currently in possession of a van/people carrier (more of which later) and so last week we drove an hour or so out of town and visited the Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary. We were blessed with warm sunshine and blue skies, and had an amazing day eating a delicious lunch at a cafe in the shadow of the mountains and then wandering peacefully around the sanctuary meeting all sorts of cool animals - my absolute favourite was the platypus; I've never seen one close up before and they are utterly brilliant.

I have spent the past four weeks as a makeshift Mary Poppins, nannying the three children of Debra Byrne, who plays the Old Bird Woman in Poppins over here, and who, apparently, is the Elaine Paige of Australia (we have no idea who any of these Aussie celebrities are and so are both pleasantly un-starstruck). Her previous nanny dropped her in it by resigning and dumping the kids at the theatre right in the middle of a show, and so I agreed to help her out for a few weeks until she'd found a replacement nanny. Going from not having any children of my own to having three, one of whom has Aspergers, was a bit of a culture shock but thankfully my teacher training came in fairly handy, and a few tantrums of the "let's test the new person" type which were swiftly and unsympathetically dealt with, we ended up getting along really well. I am also glad that there were two cats and a dog in the house so at least there was occasional respite from the madness! Debra has a people carrier which her nannies use for ferrying the children around, and as her new nanny has her own car, as a thank you she has lent it to us to use for our trip around Australia for the next couple of months which is fantastic. It means that we can now drive to Sydney to see Murf and Vix (just as well because we have accumulated too much stuff to fit in our checked and carry-on luggage to fly - not to mention all the knitting wool!) and it means that we can take our time, and go to visit other friends and parts of the country we might not have got to see.

Two weeks ago, Simon and I both went to the opening night of Poppins (Simon was working during the show and I was in the audience). It was a great evening; the show was great and the atmosphere was fantastic. There were news crews outside the theatre, and the party afterwards at the Sofitel was great fun. The hotel had been Poppined - umbrellas and chimneys everywhere, with chimneysweeps serving the food. During the day, Richard Sherman (he wrote the music for the film, as well as most of the Disney films of the fifties and sixties such as The Jungle Book and Bedknobs and Broomsticks) visited the theatre and did an impromptu cabaret for them. We met up with him again at the party - he is the nicest man, so polite and unimposing. What a legend.

Our immediate plans are to head to Sydney in a couple of weeks, driving along the coast and stopping off enroute wherever we fancy, then spending a couple of months with the Murphys ( we are so looking forward to seeing them again and to meeting baby Aaron who is already six months old), and then we plan to do a bit more sightseeing by heading up to Brisbane and possibly Alice Springs, before coming back to Melbourne to spend a week with Tim and Katie at their beach house and then flying to New Zealand to explore. We are aiming to be in Miami in December to spend Christmas with Tree who is touring there with Cirque du Soleil (Disneyworld beckons!) and then after that, who knows?

We have been a bit behind in putting up pics on Windows Live (the internet connections in this part of the world are not too great) but if you want to take a look, here is the link:

http://cid-5d774445eca82dd2.photos.live.com/albums.aspx

For those of you on Facebook, hopefully you will have seen all the pics we've been posting (they're all on my profile but any of Simon's friends can access them from there). We promise to keep them coming and will try not to leave it so long before the next blog :)

Hope you are all well x