Well hello, I thought it was about time for another update!

Things have been a bit manic here since we arrived, the first week was spent rushing around trying to find somewhere to live, then we had a few chill out days - largely because it was too hot to do anything but! On arrival Adelaide started a heatwave, the longest on record for an Aus capital city in Australia, it was over 36 ever day! I can't tell you how strange it was to watch the weather forecast and see a min predicted of 22 and a max of 40! 22 would be a summers day at home and here it was the coldest part of the day. We decided that we ought to start looking for work etc, so we put together our CV's and started networking:)

I had an interview a week ago last Friday and found out I got it on Tuesday, it's a marketing role in Adelaide for a financial serv/gov organisation and I start tommorrow, I can't believe it!!

Iain's situation has been a little more difficult, though no fault of our own, more to do with the laid back aussie lifestyle, when I say laid back and I mean horizontal and sleeping! As most of you poor souls know who listened to us drone on before we left, Iain had to do his skills assessment before we came out here, and the process for this had changed just before Iain did it, it used to be a co. called TRA and it was now Vetassess. The new process is more thorough, i.e includes a two day practical test aswell to enable the aussies to feel more confident about Iain's abilities and to start working straight away.

You can imagine our shock horror when we rolled up at the licensing office in South Australia to find out that they had never heard of this new process and insist that Iain did a TRA assessment, which incidentally he couldn't even if we wanted to as TRA advised that they are no longer accepting applications. They basically sent us away while they looked into the process. The following week we returned, armed with print outs from the internet and a book of peoples names that we had spoke to once again tell them about the new process and see what they had found out, we found that they had not found time during the last seven days to look at it and reiterated the same information as they had told us before. Obviously by this point we were both feeling a teeny bit annoyed and as I explained to the kindly customer service officer, we have paid a fortune for Iain's skill assessment, that they know nothing about, the only advise they could offer us was to go to the TRA who didn't want to know and they didn't have any other next steps because they didn't know themselves, when put like this I felt sure they would tell me to calm down and that there was something they could do, what I did not expect was for the kindly officer to aggree with me, that shocked me into silence for a couple of minutes, and luckily for him the phone rang as I was about to let him have it with both barrels! The call was from Vetassess and we spoke with a lovely woman who unfortunately though was about as much use as a chocolate fireguard! She advised that the problem was really that we had come too early, apparently they hadn't expected people to arrive this quickly - 8 months (since the change in process) is deemed as a very short time out here, and what had happened was that although the front end of the process had been designed, ie the bit where they assess you in the UK, dressed in black and white stripey tops, what happens when people turn up on the shores has not really been thought through and/or communicated to anybody else. She then advised that the 'Iain Tweedly' situation was to be discussed in parliamentary meetings in Canberra at which point I considered it lucky to be sat down as otherwise I would have fallen down. (Point to note: for all you Tweedly's thinking of holidaying in Oz, I haven't decided whether it's best to use the name, you'll either be sat first class or barred from the country and I'm not sure which yet!) It turns out Iain is the first electrician from the UK to arrive under this new process and as such is a bit of a guinea pig. This week we were awaiting an updating on this and eventually got it on Thursday, it turns out that Iain will be offered a provisional licence and will need to do additional 5 courses and 12 months work exp to get a full licence. Essentially this means, under the new process, you go through a harder more intensive and more costly assessment in the UK and you actually end up with a lesser licence than under the old process. I'm still scratching my head at this one. In addition employers want people with a full licence, we're now awaiting a response from our complaint and Iain will be meeting with the MP next week!!

Anyway moving on from that, we did venture to the wineries at Mclaren Vale last week, which was a ggood experience, Iain was driving and it would be better if there were a few of you and you went on a trip so you could both have a tipple! It feels a bit strange at first wine tasting, because basically you just work your way through a list of wines, not paying for anything which you feel bad about until you've tasted a few wines and then that feeling leaves you! Funny that:)

Friday, (Good Friday out here), we went to Victor Harbour, where there is still a tram pulled along by a shire horse, which I'm pleased to say is not because they're that far behind, but because it's a tourist attraction! We then went to a place called Horseshoe Bay for a picnic. Now me and Iain have got a cool bag and have taken a picnic to the beach before now (we took one for the sunset the other night - I thought I'd throw that in!), however we were with Julie and Andy and this was what you called a proper picnic!! It was absolutely delicious and the setting was beautiful, a great day out!

Yesterday we headed to the beach (Easter Sunday) as it's meant to be a bit overcast next week (it is autumn after all!) and then last night we went on a dolphin sunset cruise! The guys that we stayed with in the B&B came round the other night and had bought us tickets as a surprise, which was fantastic of them and the cruise was absolutely brilliant (I'd taken my pills before hand so this time I was fine), you could have a glass of vino on board and it was about an hour and a half long and then you watched the sunset go down. Obviously the Tweedly/berkeley luck continued and there wasn't a dolphin in sight but there's always next time! Well I will have to get going in a second and make the most of the sunshine toay as Iain's packing me off to work tomorrow. Will write again soon!

Hope everyone's having a great Easter!!

Lots of love as always.

Sara and Iain

xxxx