Day Three Hundred and Sixty Five

So that's it, one year, 365 days in Australia...

Sometimes it feels like we arrived yesterday and sometimes it feels like forever ago since we arrived!

I thought I would do a little review of the year and refer back to some of my older postings here and there.

So it all began 1 year ago as we arrived in Sydney, lordy it was cold when we stepped off the plane, funnily we keep saying now it's just like it was a year ago with the cold. We laugh now at how quick we threw ourselves into getting ourselves set up down under. By day fifteen we had found a house in Glebe and took the keys by day eighteen. By day twenty one we had bought a car outright!

We spent a lot of time in those first few months trying to find ourselves jobs we would both be happy in. We sent of countless applications with no success. I think we arrived in Sydney in the midst of the GFC ( Global Financial Crisis - Aussie term for credit crunch).

I think the volunteering for Oxfam paid off with Paid work and the job I have now.

And so the year moved on to September and our trip back to Blighty. But prior to this I knew the time was right to pop the question to Kate, and for the romantics among you, you can re-live that day here!

And so as quick as we had arrived down under we found ourselves back in England for a couple of weeks, the highlight of course being Anna/Mikes and Stu/Cates Weddings all on the same day!

Quick enough we took the long flight back to Australia. I then found myself in Melbourne for three weeks working an events logistics contract for Oxfam.

In November and December we had many wonderful days in the company of my folks, we did so many good things starting from here. It was great to see them before Christmas.

November also saw us attend the worlds hottest concert Pearl Jam.

And so soon enough it was Christmas. This was excellent although it never really feels like Christmas when it's 30 degrees plus outside It's always a toughie around Christmas/Birthdays not being able to share it with the family face to face but the Colhouns have made me so very welcome and part of their family it makes up for that absence of the Stewards a long way.

And so into January and another hot day out at the Big Day Out I also took up a role at CARITAS which led to some cool event stuff in February.

March is when we took the decision to move house. Our house in Glebe was lovely but was simply too big for us, and with the potential rent increase simply wasn't worth it. So we started the process of moving ourselves to Newtown.

March highlight was the wedding of Kate's brother Chris to Hannah. Sadly in March we also lost the wonderful Marion Edna Forbes.

And so to April, we moved house to Newtown. A lot of effort but worth it in the end and before I knew I was was working with Oxfam and on a plane to Melbourne for best part of a week helping out with the Event Logistics for Trailwalker Melbourne. This is where I get the most satisfaction out of work, making events happen.

During May we settled ourselves into a routine of actually both going to work regularly. We did some cool stuff like surprise nights away in the city etc.

And so to June and reaching a year in Sydney.

There has been some real highs and a few lows along the way, as I said at the start sometimes it seems like yesterday we left in whirlwind from UK, and other times it seems like forever ago. I don't think we would have changed anything majorly, if we could have everyone in same place it would be great but we look forward to the year ahead with our wedding and celebrating with everyone together in February.

Our timing was good that we left Nokia/Symbian with money in our back pockets which as seen us through the year and allowed to buy a car with no debt and to rent a place without having to worry about money too much. I guess year 2 will see us establishing ourselves even further in Oz with jobs we like and getting ourselves hitched.

Year 1 trip count

Melbourne x 3
Adelaide x 2
UK x 1
Fraser Island x 1

I'll just add a years exchange rate graph for posterity of year one



Finally a brief update on today, we spent the day shopping in town and had a wonderful dinner cooked by John round at Carolines house and watched the Swans play football on TV. I'm getting up at 4am on Sunday mornign to watch England play the USA.

Oh and leave a comment if you are still here reading a year on!