Guten Tag, ich spreche kein Deutsch!

A picture of the Burgun/Bowens at the Opel-Zoo near Bad Soden, yesterday afternoon when it was sunny, before it started pouring with rain this morning!

Sorry to have been out of touch for a few days but unexpected technical hitches with computers and network connections mean that I haven't been able to get onto Blogger...


Never mind, we've been enjoying ourselves staying at my sister's house near Frankfurt on the way to Oz.

We haven't exactly been up to much: the stresses and strains of the last few weeks have caught up with us and we've all needed a bit of 'down' time and the chance to get some decent sleep, so we've just been pottering. Fiona took me into the Main-Taunus shopping centre and I was able to buy another suitcase! Packing for emigration is, as you can imagine, slightly different to packing for going on holiday but the situation has been complicated by the fact that our baggage allowances are different on different legs of the journey, so from Bristol to Frankfurt we had 22kg each and racked up £100 in excess baggage charges. From Frankfurt to Dubai/Dubai to Sydney we should be OK. Baack in Bristol I had thought I'd managed to keep the weight down in the cases but when it came to doing the final pack, bearing in mind that by that stage we were sleeping in two separate places, it turned out that there was a lot more to go into the cases at the last minute than I had planned for! So we ended up commandeering a computer bag and Patrick's very old green suitcase as 'overflow' and the new case replaces both of them and gives me enough room to even things out between the bags.

Here we are then, feeling slightly more used to the idea that we're moving. I had a complete wobble in the taxi after saying goodbye to Dad, but by the time I was in the air over Belgium my thoughts had turned forwards and I felt a bit better. It still is an absolutely HUGE thing to leave Dad, Fiona, all of our friends, our house, Bristol, England... but I have to believe - and I do believe - that we will make a good life in Australia.

Today feels a bit weird - there's lots of 'being nowhere' on the way to being in Australia. An aircraft is a funny sort of a non-place in which to spend so much time. Who knows, perhaps
this time I'll get to watch an in-flight movie!