January update

Hello everyone, just a quick update to let you know what we have been up do.

We have both been slightly envious of all the UK snow pictures we have been seeing on Facebook! It doesn't help that it has been really hot here in Australia these past few weeks.

So I've been walking around the garden, planning and thinking but not actually doing anything yet.

We are right next to a national park, so we get a lot of wildlife here. We regularly see parrots flying past our windows and there is a flock of kookaburras living in the trees nearby which all cry out in unison at random times.

We've found what was possibly kangaroo poo on the patio, and we came home one day to this little fellow on the door:

There have been NO spiders in the house (although plenty of redbacks in the garage!)

We've got two rooms inside decorated already, our bedroom and the front room so it's starting to feel like home.

I also got to see my youngest brother Brad on his 18th birthday.

I've also reopened by Etsy shop that I put on vacation mode when we took off in the campervan. I'm selling lots of creative bits and bobs, bunting, bags and lots of prints of my watercolour paintings.

Please check it out if you are interested: www.etsy.com/shop/emmaallard

Much love

Emma and Nick x

New Year

It's the start of a new year. Usually we moan at how quickly the last year has gone, but not this time! 2012 was jam-packed with stuff for us. We went on a skiing holiday this time last year and that feels like a long long time ago. Since then, between us we have quit two jobs, sold a house, renovated a campervan, visited over 30 campsites, travelled all around England, Scotland and Wales, judged a sandcastle competition,    had an operation, attended three weddings, sold a campervan, moved to Australia, spent Christmas on a beach and New Years Eve in a hot tub. And we have come to the conclusion - don't let yourself get into routines! Constantly make changes in your life and it doesn't feel like time is disappearing before your eyes. Well it works for us anyway.

Nick got the job he wanted at KTM motorcycles and started last week. So far, so good, considering it's his first job in 10 months! Not much news on the job front for me, but it is still school holidays here and businesses haven't got back into the full swing of things yet.

There's tonnes of stuff to do in our new home... we have started decorating inside and last weekend we checked out all the nearby secondhand and charity shops (or op shops as I have to get used to calling them). We are trying to furnish inside with only second hand stuff - cheaper, more eco-friendly than buying new, and minimal depreciation if and when we need to shift it in the future. 

One thing I am uber-excited about is growing lots of veg. You can practically grow all year round - things like tomatoes, capsicum (peppers) and chillies in the summer and lettuce, broccoli and the like in the winter.

This patch of land is going to be our veggie garden. It needs a bit of work, as you can see. 

I would like nothing more to get out there and start digging but we are having a bit of a heat wave here in Perth, and it's 40 degrees most days, and reasonably muggy too. So physical exercise outside is not happening.

Instead I've been planting some seeds in pots to get things going, these little shoots are my first Australian tomato plants.