News from the hills

Enjoying a relaxing lie down with mum

Hi,

It's been a very busy couple of months here. I have started my new job at Lifeplan which is going well. The company is very family friendly so I can leave at a good time and we can be in plenty of time to collect Amelia from childcare each evening. It has taken me a little bit of time to settle in as I landed there with no department, all the marketing people had left and the job had been restructured with different priorities so it's taken a little bit of time to get to grips with who does what, where and how!! I have been recruiting my team and I have been very lucky to have Alison Brown working with me who I worked with at SGIC. I have been to Sydney to visit the staff there and am off to Melbourne in November to do the same. The Funds Management industry is quite complicated so there's lots to learn but I am enjoying it and that's main thing.

Amelia has started crawling which is very exciting and now she's getting about very quickly. She's very keen to walk and this week has started doing a yoga movement we would know as downward dog, we assume this is one of the progressions to getting up!! She is getting quite independent now and wants to do things herself including a messy exercise where she grabs the spoon with such force and won't let go - she wants desperately to feed herself but doesn't yet understand the idea of keeping the food on the spoon. Consequently our kitchen floor gets pretty messy!

Little Aussie munching Vegemite toast

A couple of weeks ago my good friend Alison from the UK was over here visiting. Ali and her friend Peter spent a few weeks in Australia and their first stop was with us. We had the best time with them and were very sorry to see them go.

We took them to wineries, down the Fleurieu Peninsula, had a BBQ so they could meet our friends, had fish and chips at a shack on a beach, I took Alison to my yoga class and we also spent a day in the city with lunch at Henley Beach. This was taken at Nepenthe Winery in the Adelaide Hills - taken by our visitor Alison - what a wonderful day we had.

Visits are never long enough. Although the last day with them was a disaster as I came down with gastro and had to go to my bed. I was supposed to be in Melbourne that weekend but postphoned it to November. Iain was away in Brisbane so Zoe, Pen and Alex all rallied round and looked after Amelia while I was ill.

This weekend Lifeplan are having their Christmas show at the zoo so all kiddies are welcome - we are taking Amelia - I think it will be a lovely day. The first of the Christmas celebrations. Iain has a work Christmas event - we are going to the adult one for him so it will the 2 of us joining his colleagues for a dinner. We have Melbourne Cup coming up next week so there's lots going on that afternoon at my work, sweeps, raffles, food and wine and of course the horse race which all the Aussies stop what they're doing and watch - I used to find it bizarre that a horse race stopped a nation for half a day but now I just enjoy it!!

Here's Amelia in her new dress sent by my parents.

We had a very exciting experience last night, there was a scratching at the door and when Iain went to investigate there was a koala sitting on the front porch. We're not sure what he wanted - I thought a cup of tea - but soon after he waddled off and went up the nearest tree!!

We got a photo of him once he was safely up the tree.

Here's Amelia and Dad on a walk this weekend

Anyway, that's it for now - here are some more photos - mostly of Amelia as usual!! Will get some of our visitors posted soon I hope. Amelia is 11 months old now and we have a first birthday celebration planned for her in Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens on Nov 17th.

Lots of love to you all xxx

Enjoying a bath - we are being very water concientious and bathing Amelia in her old baby bath so we don't use too much precious water every night.