Hi all,

As promised, quick update from me on what I've been up to since I've been offline. Glad to be back now.

So I moved to Oz, settled in here, met a new Mrs Blue, we moved in together, got a couple of promotions and am pretty much settled now.

That's it in short. Got myself something I'd wanted for a while (350z pictured below) and am currently trying to save!

This is my one at the showroom before we collected it. (Has new plates now though before you try and hunt me down)


So, that's me, I'd like to know what everyone else has been up to?

Ah, reached your mid life crisis?

Congratulations. I hope every works out with you and the new Mrs. Blue.

We bought a brace of new sofas yesterday. The back of the old one is too low and the spings are shot and it is giving me back ache.

Ah yes, we got a new sofa this year too, springed seats are so much easier....we were virtually sitting on the floor on the last one.

It's good to hear someone's doing well. Good for you.

In my corner of Blighty, I've been searching for a full-time job, having ground to a halt on the freelance/self-employed side of things. Even getting interviews has been a trial, but I did get one back in July, and was offered what I thought was going to be a full-time gig. Turned out to be a freelance placement, and lasted five weeks.

Still, five weeks of money is worth having.

I scrimped, saved, sold some hobby stuff and finally managed to upgrade my DSLR to a Canon EOS 7D.

Otherwise, life has been plodding along. If Best Beloved wasn't retired and didn't have a half-decent pension, and we had a mortgage to service, I don't know where we'd be now. Probably in the workhouse.

Onwards and sideways!

308bhp V6 engine

Good to hear from you Mr Blue, it's been rather too quiet on your front recently I'm so glad to hear that you are settling, need more details about the new Mrs Blue though......

The Red life has been pretty hectic, but in a good way. We started studying for our Lantra award in keeping and hunting Birds of Prey, we should be ready for the first fledge of 2012 to get our first bird so we're currently drawing up plans for a mews and weathering arrangement. There was no way we could manage a bird in the converted hayloft we lived in before, so May saw us moving to a 3 bedroomed place waaaaay out in the country with a 1/3 acre paddock by the side of it. We added to the menagerie straight away with the addition of 3 kittens to the family, Mac, Elmer and Stella who are brilliant and growing fast. Homelife is as good as it could be (well, without large injections of cash to the bank anyway!!) We've just recently started working towards actually thinking about considering getting wed, so that'll start moving forward now.

Work life is hellish as ever. Our team restructure still hasn't happened which means our remit hasn't changed so I am still doing the work of 3 people (4 for the next fortnight as my colleague is off on holiday) which isn't good for my stress levels, actually went properly hysterical at work for the first time last Thursday. Without the bliss of my homelife I think I'd have cracked months ago! Still, I just have to keep hanging on another month or so, by which time I'll either be "restructured" and happier, or in a mental institution!

Red and I have both been working on side-projects with an aim to eventually being able to work for ourselves (the ideal) so I'm slowly starting up a Health & Safety consultancy business, as well as running a social commentary website which is also building slowly. Red is running a classic car parts auction website and a recipe website for people who want something more exciting for lunch than just sandwiches all the time, it's a good idea and is building up a bit of a following online.

That's about the nub of the happenings here. Keep in touch Mr, I think J_V has been pining for you, his puns are being outweighed in terrible and groanworthy by (of all people) Bratty!!

Our section at work was put at risk earlier this year.

Applied for early retirement.

Got it.

Retired.

Paid a few bills.

Am now financially better off for nor working.

Al

Great to get an update Dave. Seems like ages since you were around a lot, and things a clearly A LOT more positive than a couple of years ago. I'm with Mrs Red, we need more details on Mrs Blue! Really pleased for you man. I'd also curious to hear more about your work. You're the second person I know to have moved to Oz in recent years, meet somebody, settle and get a house and a lush car. Is it just that country or what??

You may or may not know that I'm currently living in Lanzarote and working for a luxury travel company under TUI plc. It has it's ups and downs, for example, today is the fourth day running that the computers are down in the office and apparently they've recently outsourced all of our tech to Dell (wtf?!) so I can't do any work. However, that means I get to come to my favourite Italian place for lunch and chill with my friends. I'll stress about it tomorrow. In general, the ups are way cool. I have a free house (shared, but hey), free car, free unlimited fuel and phone and last night I went to a private cinema in the old capital to watch Luc Besson's Nikita in French with subtitles, followed by meeting the owner of a bar/restaurant downstairs who is super cool and chatting with him until 0100 about all sorts of stuff.

So I'm largely good. Far from perfect, but really good.

Got any new tats?

Yeah definitely, I've done a bit of contracting in the past and it's always up and down, hit and miss. Glad to have something more permy now. I guess all you can do is keep trying to get your name out there.



Had to Google the birds bit, but that all sounds really good! Keep us updated!
We live about 10 minutes outside of the city at the moment, but I'd love to get a house in the country one day. At the moment it's more about being close to work than anything else.

I shall be sure to follow J_V around, ensuring his jokes don't go without a laugh from now on




That. Is. Awesome.



I think there's a few reasons people that move here do well, a lot of it is to do with the fact they only let you migrate if you're doing a job they actually need or want and therefore you're likely to get work fairly quickly. The other thing is that when you've given up your life in England to make a new start in another country you want it to work and so make 100% effort everyday to make things work, there's no plodding along because you want the move to have been worthwhile...if that makes sense.

I did a bit of IT Support/consultancy when I first arrived and now I'm running an IT Helpdesk for a corperate company in the city. Been doing this for about 18 months so it might be time for something new soon

Living in Lanzarote sounds really good, couldn't have said no to that! Plenty of girls I'd imagine....

And yes, plenty of new tattoo's; I won't start a new debate here but rattling them off, but I'm continuing to grow the collection

I sofa is on my shopping list once I have moved. Great options for easy payments.