First things first, a quick apology for everyone that thought we had perished in the heat of a South Australian heat wave. Apparently the blog has been missed over the last couple of weeks or so, so I will do my best to keep it up to date more often! I will however, paint a picture of why I haven't had time to update it, or at least try! I'm not quite sure where I left the last blog but we arrived in Adelaide on Wednesday 27th Feb early morning after a hideously early start in Auckland. The flight is about 5 hours or so and I managed to read the whole way (never thought I'd be capable of that!) I am now hooked on Dan Brown! Incase your not aware I also have cousins (2nd or 3rd or something removed twice or thrice along the lines) in Adelaide. Anyway, we had arranged to stay with them for a little while until we were able to buy our car and head along the Great Ocean road to Melbourne where we are going to watch the Grand Prix and also plan to work for a couple of months as our savings are pretty low!Raewyn and John have kindly taken us in and they live about an hour's drive out of Adelaide city (which in Aussi terms is nothing as we are now starting to understand) near a place called Mt Barker. They live on this great little farm (a few acres mind you) where they've horses, cattle, chicks and a huge dog called Nash - possibly the most pathetic nonse of a dog ever (except for one particularly large Spanish dog I know!)On arrival John (newly renamed Sir Steve Irwin 2nd) gave us a tour of the place and pointed out all the different animals that would land you a one way ticket home.......... in a box. Big brown snakes, maybe 6ft to 8ft long that can strike up and take your face off for it's own amusement. Nice. And then they've got red back spiders which are really common and would kill you instantly with one bite. John pointed out that if we could be bothered to look we would be able to find loads in the various sheds around the place. Still can't fathom, why?! Austraian's are weird!The farm is really nice and we've been made to feel really welcome and we're really enjoying our stay here as much as anywhere else we've stayed and assume it might be partly because of John's main shed. Epic! Every man should have one. On one side there is loads of manly power tools, a huge gun cabinet stacked with rifles, shotguns and hunting knifes (not to mention the BFN - the big something something), John's a big hunter and fisher and is absolutely hilarious. On the other side of the shed is a dart board, electric guitars and amps, bongos and didgeridoos. A Porsche Boxter (which we have frequently found Liam sitting in naked at the dead of night), supercharged remote control cars and planes and of course the centre piece, a massive fridge stacked and loaded with…….ice tea, (for the people that know me better you can actually see that this 'looks' like a blatant lie but to everyone else, ice tea is lovely.)We have spent many a night play guitar and obliterating the aussi's at darts (they really can't win anything - especially rugby which I love to remind John, he still seems to thing Jonny Wilko is actually Australian!) sipping ice tea and having a blast on the Guitars.We have been up to so much in Adelaide I really don't know where to start and am worried that if I type it all down I will loose about half an inch off all my fingers (being a short goalkeeper, I really can't afford to loose that!) Anyway, I'll start form the front of my memory and work back (all that ice tea has a way of dissolving parts of your brain). I'll also just point out that all the 'social fun' we are having is not the influence of John and Raewyn, well maybe John, but there's also Raewyn's daughter Gemma and her mad friends that are contributing to the cause!So, yesterday John took us fishing at a place called Victor Harbour which I believe is west along the coast from Adelaide (maybe wrong though). This is the first time myself and Liam had ever been fishing so obviously I was going to catch the most which John found rather amusing. Anyway, the sea was like glass and it was a tepid 41°C so appropriate clothing to make you look and absolute **** was required (I can think of more than four adjectives that will fit in there but for the benefit of younger audiences, I won't.) Refer to photo's once I've uploaded - there's heaps.The water was so clear and we ended up having a couple of swims and then getting back to the competition although, there weren't many fish. All in all we were out on the water for about seven hours and myself and Liam came in tied with first place with a grand catch total of three each followed by the Aussi's (John and Gemma) on two each. A lifetime of fishing experience was not enough to overcome the English competitiveness. Oops, looks like the Aussi's have lost again!I've still got loads to type and my fingernails have almost disappeared so I will write again in tow days. Adelaide Cup is tomorrow and it's a public holiday and we're off to the races to win a fortune and be able to stay longer without working! Either that or we'll loose it all and I'll see you all in about a week.Hope your all well and I'll write again in two days, promise… don't worry Ash, I'm not dead.

*Ice tea - Pure Blonde (low carb beer for fat boys - Liam)