Our News

Today is St Georges Day - the apparent national day for England that comes and goes pretty much like any other day! Being St Georges Day, it reminds me that it’s also our wedding anniversary - yep, 1 year ago we were in St John’s Church getting hitched, at Emmanuel Church Centre for a reception, and then 2 days later off to Australia for a 2nd reception.

This year, 2 days later we are off to Australia again! We fly out this week on Tuesday, arriving into Sydney on Thursday and spend about 1½ weeks over there. The main reason for going is to validate my visa - when I officially become a resident of Australia! Can’t say I’m looking forward to the flying bit though!

There’s not a huge amount more to report, except that Spring has finally arrived in Sheffield!

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It’s been a while since our last web update, and things have changed a bit since then!

In January with no Dental Technician work coming Dawn’s way in the Berkshire area we even started to entertain the idea of going to live in Australia a few years earlier than planned. We were both working temp jobs in Reading, not sure what to do - so I had Dawn call the lab in Sheffield where she worked during October. Firstly the position hadn’t been filled, and then they were more than happy to offer her the job again! So we’re now back in South Yorkshire, living in Sheffield!

We came up in early February and 2 weeks later moved into a flat. Dawn is happy with returning to Dental Technician work, and is finding working at this lab to be a learning curve - it’s proving to be good as she is learning new things, and a higher standard is expected than where she previously worked in Brisbane.

I’m currently not working - we’re actually making a quick trip to Australia soon so I can validate my spouse visa. Originally it was going to be just me going, but we found a deal so Dawn can also go with me, and be on the same flight. Although it will be a week late, we are intending on celebrating our 1st anniversary in Melbourne! We will also be visiting Sydney and Brisbane, so it’s quite a busy itinerary that’s coming together as I type!

Windows managed to break itself on this PC through doing a scandisk - and my Windows CD’s are still in Reading! So currently I’m stumbling my way through Linux until I can get XP back up and running. Once that happens I’ll look into playing around with this website again - maybe updating a few photos to begin with.

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This is a very quick entry to let people know that I have been granted an Australian Spouse Visa!

I sent the application in last Tuesday, they received it Wednesday, and it was granted on Monday! My passport got back to me this morning

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Since Dawn’s last entry, the lab in Sheffield offered to reduce the trial period from 10 weeks to 4 weeks, and also pay half the cost for our accommodation during that period. So last week she began her trial and I accompanied Dawn to Sheffield. I’m now back in Reading and have a possible job in this area which would last until Christmas - the job would be working in an inbound call centre for a wine company, and it includes a nice discount for their products so that would be good!

We’re still working out exactly what to do, and where to live - only today Dawn got offered a part-time Dental Technician job in London, and I have an application or two in at places in the south. So it’s still uncertain whether or not we’ll stay in the south of England, or head up north to South Yorkshire. It’ll all clear up over the coming days and weeks!

I took a few photos in Sheffield for anyone who wants to see them - located here. Oh, and the other bit of news is that I have now sent off my application to the Australian High Commission in London for a Spouse Visa! I posted it last Tuesday, and it got there on Wednesday. Hopefully there will be no problems and the visa will be issued quickly!!

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