Treading water

What a mad week. This time last week, I had nothing planned. It ended up being so mad, I'll be lucky to have it all done this time next week. Apart from a trip to Argos for a disturbingly cheap shower head and tea with Auntie Margaret, it's been all work. And when you consider that I can see Argos from our front door, it's kind of left me a blog entry short of anything worth writing about.

The weather (ever-ready fallback topic) has been really great, as in Great Britain. Amazing clouds made for dramatic skies, which were perfect for some work I had to do but also ideal for getting wet while doing it. The highlight was probably holding onto my tripod on a dark, puddly Newcastle quayside, waiting for the wind to stop howling. It did, as it happens, but not until the following evening...

So, true to English sporting tradition, rain (and work) stopped play as far as getting some nice shots for the blog was concerned. The one above is a late substitution from August last year; one of our top players who takes a canny photo. It reminds me, even in the shade of our old back yard, how fabulous the light is compared to here, and how similar the light in New South Wales was, just a month later. Sometimes, Australia seems so close I feel like we should be thinking about packing; other times, I can see all ten thousand miles stretched out before us.

We're still no nearer getting a visa, but it's proving to be quite entertaining, treading water over here. Our little town is a constant eye-opener, a wild mix of the sublime and the ridiculous. You could never accuse it of being boring. Tonight and tomorrow night, the streets are minging with a rich mix of happy-hour pub crawlers and wine bar types; there's a bit of everything, really, and as this discerning culinary review site points out, it's largely a question of knowing which bits to avoid.