Well I think my last post understated the infrequency in which future posts would occur. I’m sure you’re all wondering what has been happening in my life for the last 3 months…I’m sure..haha…

If I think in terms of interesting singular events then not much has happened, but I guess it has been an interesting few months for me in terms of settling back into Australia/Melbourne/work.

We had a really fun time driving our little Renault around NSW/QLD in Janaury and I think clocked up 5000k in two weeks which is pretty impressive. We camped up the coast to Brisbane, then stayed with some rellos and came back down through the centre via Tamworth and the Blue Mountains. We had a great night on our last night when darkness and cold and a bit of rain was setting in  and we planned to camp at Perry’s Lookdown in the Blue Mountains. After a bit of umming and ahhing and asking about accommodation prices in town we decided to go out and pitch in the dark. We were the only ones there and were a bit spooked out by how dark and rainy it was. We gave up on the idea of cooking dinner on our stove and bunkered down in the car for a bowl of cereal and baked beans! Classic. It was about this time that some other campers turned up and busted us eating Sultana Bran for dinner. Still we had a lovely evening sharing tea and biscuits with them and did a bit of sightseeing the following day. Of course we had to stop off at our favourite lookout, Evan’s Lookout, where we were married for a bit of nostalgia

Shortly after that we moved to Melbourne and have been living with my mum and dad ever since. We’ve got a pretty good set up with a bedroom and a study, and even got a free couch off the neighbour’s nature strip! I’ve caught up with a bunch of old friends and one friend in particular where relations had been a bit strained, I think mainly due to distance and miscommunication. It’s great to be back together with all the girls. Well there’s still one away in Europe until July, but went out for dinner with her twin sister the other day, so it was kind of funny to imagine that we at least still looked like the old school gang

Started my new/old job in February. Things were going quite well on that front. Working with only 2 other people in the Melbourne office. It gets lonely at times, but if there’s going to be nobody in the office I get to work from home, which I do about once a week. Sweet. But about 3 weeks ago it was announced that we were being taken over by a big US consulting firm. Here’re the scary stats: We had 40 people, they have 24,000 people!!! Here are the less scary stats: they only have 60 people in Australia, and only 10 in Melbourne, so really it’s not that daunting. I’m at a good stage in my career to deal with this as I’m pretty keen to get some broader experience rather than just focusing on one specialty as I have been doing since Uni (if you don’t count my 1.5 year mid 20s crisis masquerading as a teacher in Japan). Still, there’s lots of uncertainty and new ways of doing things and we’ll be moving to a new office down the road in about a month. Hope I can still work from home!!

On a more sobering note, a family member has just been diagnosed with malanoma which has spread to her lymph nodes. From what I understand it’s a bit of an uncertain stage. It’s not running riot inside your body, but you never know when it will rear its ugly head again. It’s just a waiting game. It’s making me think a lot of about life and family and at times I get very sad. But this is part of life. I always think back to a very strong reaction I had as a teenager to hearing my mum talk about someone close that was dying of cancer. My immediate thought was “He’s living with cancer!!!”. We’re all dying of something, we just don’t know what yet. Maybe I’m being naive, but it adds a bit of hope to the moment when you think in those terms.

Hrm, sorry to end on a sad note, but I haven’t got much more news to tell. I’ve just realised it’s almost 10pm and I haven’t had dinner yet. I think it’s time to break out the Sultana Bran!