People & Places
Montoya's Australian blog December 2007
Dave brings us up to date with the very latest news from his family and tells us how they enjoyed the Christmas festivities.
Sorry for the late edition, it's been very busy for us out here on all fronts - work, socialising and moving... AGAIN! We decided to move very close by to a two-storey home with a pool next to the river with great mountain views a week before Christmas in temperature in the mid 30oC's. Oh yes, we sure do pick 'em! So, as you can see it's been all good!
I have also changed job as I fancied a change; Linda is busy with the kids as they are now on Summer half-term break (thank god we live next door to all the big theme parks and have passes, and have a pool again)! Oh yes, we have new friends to add to our weekend get togethers, more poms from the UK and some from our home town of Basingstoke!
It's been the usual work, rest and play for the Montoya's Down Under, with little Matthew now at playschool (kindy) for three days a week - he is so much an Aussie now, having lived out here longer than he did in the UK. It's been two years and four months for us now out here, and we still have no regrets, even after Lin's recent trip to the UK (see last blog). All is generally good; the main change for us was obviously moving home before our third Christmas out here. It is something we had been thinking about for a while, and the new place suits us better for now - we will not be moving for a couple of years now (I hope!).
Christmas, has now been and gone. I still can't get used to the fact that it's Christmas during the summer time (although we have had a fair bit of rain this year). It's still a time of year that a lot of expats struggle with, missing the loved ones back in the UK. For us, we are used to it, but it's still hard when you talk and see each other on the web cam over Christmas. We've also had friends from Basingstoke move out here six weeks before Christmas, and they have struggled a bit as newbies! We done our bit to help them settle in and had them over for Christmas dinner, the great Barbie this year and a cold meat spread. Christmas Day also started with a Champagne breakfast at the beach with a group of us, followed up with an afternoon of drink, sun, swimming and festive activities. All Good.
Getting that out of the way and the New Year, it's all back to normal in January 2008 with plenty of work, rest and play! However….the weather has been the worst in four years out here for this time of year, at least in Queensland anyway. Whilst South Australia, New South Wales and Western Australia have had temps from 30–42 degrees and sunshine, we in QLD have had around the 30 mark with buckets of rain! It's so strange, especially when we are blessed with over 300 days of sunshine up here in QLD. Things have brightened up the last few fays, and the sun is certainly hot, getting sun burnt/tanned is very easy in these very high UV conditions. Slip Slap Slop is still the order of the day with the sun cream, along with hats and rav shirts for the kids. Still, we can not complain too much about the rain, our dams are so desperately in need of these rainfalls that we are still on level 6 water restrictions!
All in all, life is still going well for the Montoya's Down Under, hard at times financially and at others through missing the family. The kids still have so much to do especially, with all the theme parks on our doorstep. It's great having so many friends out here now; especially after leaving the ones we had in Sydney, of which a few drove up from NSW to see us for the New Year! That was great in itself, as it had been a year since the families were with each other. Saying that, it was also hard to say goodbye.
We are torn between two states, Queensland and New South Wales, but do have a preference now to Queensland - it's just great for that outdoor, beach type lifestyle!
That's it for now, back at work in the not humid days, with the showers that have passed. Will catch up again soon at the end of this month to see what's next on the agenda.
Hope you all had a great Christmas in the UK, and we wish you a very Happy New Year!
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