The past few months

We're now in the middle of sorting out our stuff to return to the UK, so thought I should make some attempt to get this up to date before we leave Melbourne in a few weeks. It's pretty cold here now so we're hoping for some English summer sunshine when we get back! We've not done any major travelling since our Sydney/Brisbane trip but have been busy nonetheless. A quick summary below and photos to follow...

We were straight back into being sociable when we got back to Melbourne from Brisbane. We met up with a friend and her family to see her brother in a show called Scrabble Unscripted, which was part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. The general idea is that a couple of people play Scrabble at the side of the stage, and then others use words from the board to inspire their improv. Very funny stuff! The festival itself is (I think) the third largest in the world - it goes on for three weeks and there are more shows than you could possibly ever see. We managed to get to a few, including a night out with some other UK visitors.

The main focus for me in April was work, as I was very involved in organising a large event at Queen Victoria Market on 29th. The general idea was to recreate a Spanish/Latin American market within the market, with food, crafts, music and dancing. It all came together very well on the day which was a relief as we were a bit concerned that the rain would put people off. Fortunately it didn't, which I think is an indication of how popular cultural events are here.

Andrew has also been busy at work, and we have been spending a lot of time with friends here as well fitting in a weekend to Echuca in mid May. This is the town where Andrew grew up, about 3 hour drive away from where we are. He still has relatives from both sides of the family there, and so it was good to catch up with them. We also made the short trip across the New South Wales border to Deniliquin, my friend Kristie's hometown and also where Andrew's dad lived as a child. The town is famous for its Ute Muster (see http://www.deniutemuster.com.au/) which sounded so bizarre to me that I wasn't really sure it existed. But yes, it does!

The highlight of the following weekend was a trip to the MCG to see the Aussie Rules, North Melbourne (aka the Kangaroos, the team Andrew supports) againt Melbourne. I think I more or less got my head round the rules in the end and the Kangaroos won by one point, which is a very close game by AFL standards. I think I've got a long way to go before I'm converted but it was good to see it. Since then we have had a pretty quiet few weekends, the only major event being Andrew's colleague's wedding a few weeks ago.

So that brings us more or less up to date but there is another post to follow very soon, including some photos...