Brisbane – 17th October 2005.

Well, it’s time to bore you all senseless once again with tales of what we are up to in the land down under.  It’s been a while since we updated you all with what’s been happening with us down here, so here goes.

I guess the biggest news is that John, Jacky and Amy are now proper Aussies.  Having done our two years under permanent residency, we filled in the forms, jumped though all the relevant hoops and eventually on the 20th of July we attended a Citizenship Ceremony at Brisbane Town Hall.  It was a very big event with about 600 people becoming Australian Citizen’s at the same time – so not exactly a personalised event!  Quite good fun though and well worth it for the benefit.  So we now are proud holders of Australian as well as UK passports.  David has just done his application, Mark’s not quite eligible yet, but there is no hurry and he can make up his mind in due course.

Jacky has recently changed job, having flirted with the ‘not for profit’ sector when working for Diabetes Australia, she decided the arts were in need of her amazing organisational skills – so at the end of June she went to work for the Queensland Arts council as PA to the CEO and Secretary to the Board of the Queensland Arts Council.  Their main function in life is to deliver arty type stuff to the furthest flung corners of Queensland (coz all the rich people in Brisbane can afford to pay for that kind of thing).

Other major events in the last few months included Amy taking part in a school exchange trip with a school in New Zealand.  Her ‘buddy’ came over to be with us in May, and Amy went over to NZ in June.  However there were one or two problems.  The school in NZ was a boarding school and they really did not have their act together, plus there was flu epidemic while she was there, half the school was away and then Amy went down with it as well – suffice to say Amy now says that while she was glad she did it, she’s in no rush to repeat the experience.  Even worse, it’s put her totally off the idea of going to a boarding school!

While Amy was away, we took the opportunity to commence our 25th Wedding anniversary celebrations by spending a few days at a place called Orpheus Island off the coast of tropical North Queensland in the Palm Island group.  It’s a very small, very exclusive resort island, no children allowed!  The food was just stunning and all in all it was fantastic.  If you really want to feel jealous take a look at www.orpheus.com.au  Very highly recommended!

The main event for our 25th celebrations in August was the dinner dance we had at the Stamford Plaza hotel in Brisbane.  It was a great evening, there was about 70 of us in total including Aussie relatives, friends and business associates.  We decided to go totally over the top and it all worked really well. Instead of presents we asked for donations to the Victor Chang Cardiac research institute and managed to raise well over $1250.  We did get a couple of nice pressies though – special mention needs to go to out best man, Steve Napier, who sent over a brilliant caricature picture of us both, and Margaret Sampson who painted portrait of us!

Mark is in the home run for his Diploma in Screen and from the new year will be out there trying to obtain gainful employment.  Dave has had a very social year but in between all the partying has managed to fit in his first year of university.

Looking forward, I guess we should warn you all that we are heading back to the UK for this coming Christmas and New Year.  John was dead set against leaving a Queensland high summer for the depths of a UK winter – until Jacky pointed out that it’s her Dad’s 80th birthday at Christmas time, which was kind of a trump card!  So, all being well we should arrive at Heathrow on the afternoon of the 19th of December.  We will spend a few days up in Oxfordshire and then for Christmas and New Year we are renting a house down on the south coast at Rustington in Sussex.  We should have plenty of bedrooms available, so if anyone is up for a New Year’s party do let us know!

So, that’s about it for the time being.  If we don’t get to see you when we are over, or speak to you, or exchange emails etc etc – then please accept this as a very early seasons greetings for Christmas and the New Year!

John and Jacky
(and Mark, David and Amy).