Oscar 2, Australia 0

How time flies. Seems like no time since Oscar's first birthday and now he's a big old 2-year-old, complete with hair and everything. This time I think he had some idea what it was all about; wrapping paper to tear up, candles to blow out, making sure he infuriatingly played all day with the world's cheapest plastic piano while pointedly ignoring his expensive new bike... we all had a fab time, far too many sweets and a happy-hour pizza at Valentinos. Which he refused to eat. He's gorgeous and infuriating and stubborn and hilarious and wonderfully, terribly TWO. I've posted some more pics on the Picasa page which explain it better, somehow. [edit: you might not need to click the Picasa link if you can see the slideshow to the right]>>

No explanation for the absence of blogs this last month. We're both busy as hell with work but that's not really it. I think it's the realisation that Australia is going to stay out of our reach, at least for now. It kind of took the wind out of our sails for a bit & got us scheming a scheme. The revised plan of inaction is to look at maybe getting to Oz a few years hence, maybe 2011 (which is so far off it sounds like something out of the Science Fantasy bargain bin at WHSmiths (hey, whaddyaknow?!) – but it's no biggie, really. We've been throwing around the idea of a slightly longer stay here as a worst-case thing but really, there had to be a better solution than just sitting here, waiting, hoping and getting rained on. So what we doing between now and then? Well, with a bit of luck we gonna be living in New Zealand!

It was all initiated over a bottle of reasonably-priced wine and a late-night perusal of the TES; it somewhere we always thought we might end up, maybe to retire or something equally mundane, but apparently they're crying out for primary teachers there now. There were a few keen-sounding ads from schools around Aukland, so we scraped the mould off Nik's CV and three weeks later and she has two UK interviews in the autumn, one direct with a school and another via an employment agency which more or less guaranteed her a place. Well, not in so many words, but the Big Deal is that the main barrier to getting into Oz was the work situation and with NZ this seems to be the easy bit. The hard part is trying to keep a lid on the excitement. Ok, thus far it's not much more than an idea, something (else) to aim for, but it really feels very different this time, much less pie-in-the-sky than Oz, and only 2 0r 3 hours flight from the place. You get Permanent Residency status after three years and (this is my favourite bit) NZ PR entitles you to Australian residency as well! Except NZ sounds so completely fab that we might just as easily end up staying...

I'm going to say no more for now except to promise more blogs than there have been of late, by virtue of keeping them short and therefore a sight more likely to get written. That might be a more sound basis for making plans, as well.