Hi to all,

Well it's official, the weather is the worst it has been the week before Christmas for 10 years..............great! We've had non-stop rain for pretty much 7 days now but it's supposed to be getting better in the next couple of days. All the locals think the lack of sun is great. They have a massive water shortage out here so pretty much every Oz you bump into tells you how good it is that it's been raining............as you can imagine, we don't share their excitement.

Because of that, we decided to drive our little camper van down to Sydney a few days early and arrived yesterday afternoon. Before we knew it, we were actually ON Sydney Harbour bridge peering down on the famous opera house. After a quick spot of lunch, we did a bit of Christmas shopping and headed back to the camp site. We've decided to try and make the van into Santa's Grotto too (pictures attached...hopefully) to get us in the festive spirit as it's been a very strange week for one reason or another.

The campervan has been great but we are both looking forward to checking into our hotel on the 23rd and enjoying a bit of luxury (with less mosquitos!) on Bondi Beach. We have booked a Para-sail and a power boat ride over Christmas in the Harbour so we're looking forward to that and if we survive that, Laura will probably end up braking her leg on her new toy...a body board.

We did a spot of fishing today too and I managed to catch the weirdest looking fish I've seen in my life. It looked like a frog with a tail and actually GRUNTED as I took it off the hook. We were both laughing so much I don't know how we didn't fall in!

We have both finished wrapping our presents today and are quite excited about the giant stockings we have to open in 4 days time............yes only 4 days to Christmas, but we have let ourselves open a few presents early to cheer ourselves up a bit and make up for the bad weather........ You should be able to see Laura enjoying one of hers from the pictures! And Santa has bought me a beautiful new guitar so if you're really unlucky, you may be able to hear me with it!!!

Will be in touch soon to let you know what Bondi is like. Hope you all get your shopping done in time and for those poor people going to Sarah Baker's house for Christmas dinner............There are some take away menus in the kitchen cupboard....USE THEM!!!!!

Take Care,

Lots of Festive love

Jo & Laura xxxx