It took us three attempts to get this photo right - you can see dad was thrilled!

The first few days were spent finding our feet and trying to get rid of the jetlag as soon as possible (yes, I did get up at 5am for the first few mornings and go jogging around the fields with Sam the dog... which anyone who knows me would just laugh at).

We had quite a challenge on the Friday evening as we arranged a family meal which involved us meeting Stuart’s girlfriend for the first time and also Kate’s boyfriend for the first time. I must admit I felt the pressure of having to pretend I was a wonderful older sister! The meal was great, nothing beats having the family all together – cue lots of sarcastic comments and embarrassing tales from the past being shared!

It’s times like this when I think distance does really make you appreciate your family and friends, every moment you spend together is so much more precious.

Back Home - Yippee!

It is hard to explain how weird it feels to come back after a year away. It actually feels like you were never away after a very short amount of time - and sometimes I almost didn’t believe that we live in Australia. Although I can imagine that if we stayed away for longer it would start to become stranger.

The most difficult thing I found was remembering the local road map in my head. Planning what route to take and which roads and junctions off motorways that were once second nature to me took just a bit longer to recall.

The other thing is that after being away for so long, everything is so exciting; seeing family and friends (and even people you just recognise), being back in my old home and looking around the farm again, smells and sounds, tasting the food, drinking the drinks, driving along familiar roads, going out in York, back to my old workplace in Hessle, out in Hull again and even a trip into Selby was an exciting prospect at first...

Add this to the fact that, oh yes, we were actually getting married as well and you can imagine how the whole trip turns into an extremely emotional experience, from tears of joy to tears of laughter in a day, and sometimes within an hour when it is time to say goodbye. Even though we were there for 7 weeks, the time seemed to absolutely fly by because we just jumped from one thing to another – thankfully we had time-tabled lots of visits and events in before arriving to try and cut down on stress levels while we were there!

The mayhem and enormousness of Dubai Airport

The Green Green Grass of Home

The old home town looks the same as we step down from the
plane,

and there to meet us is my Mama with a ‘Welcome Home’
balloon!!

After travelling for 24 hours that last part in the airport waiting for the luggage, when we knew my mum was just metres away at the other side of customs, is agonising and so exciting. It is actually the first time we’ve ever had anyone meet us at an airport, usually we’re walking through feeling very lonely while everyone else is waving, crying and hugging each other. It was such a fantastic moment to walk through customs and see mum there and from that moment the adrenalin didn’t stop for about 8 weeks!!

It was great to see the very English landscapes pass us by on the M62, on surprisingly a lovely sunny day, as we were stuffing as many pork pies, prawn sandwiches, Walkers crisps and scotch eggs into our mouths as we could (that mum had thoughtfully packed up for us)!

Andy, Emma and Carol in Queens Street Mall, Brisbane

The next day was ANZAC day (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps), this is always the 25th April (they're not like the UK here, public holidays are whenever the date lands even if it's a Wednesday! Incidenty, if you say 'Bank Holiday' to an Aussie, they haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about!) and is to commemorate the service men and women who fought and died in all wars. The date is the 25th April because in 1915 in the First World War this was when troops landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey. There was a big parade through Brisbane centre which we sadly missed as we were too late up, but we did get to see all the service people walking around Brisbane afterwards in their uniforms.

We met up with Carol and Emma (who coincidentally were staying in Brisbane for a few days) for a drink and to say goodbye and John who we met yesterday came along to drop off some gifts for us to take back to his family and friends back in England. We had a swim and some final moments of relaxation at our hotel pool and then it was time to make our way to Brisbane Airport for our flight to England that evening!

We had booked in at a lovely hotel in Brisbane and we got a bonus room upgrade when they saw me lugging my wedding dress.


With cousin John at his local haunt in Brisbane


We had a nice afternoon looking round the shops and then in the evening we arranged to meet up with my cousin John who is living in Brisbane at the moment. We had a great evening drinking in the bar where he used to work and had a good chat with him and his friends.

A dragline bucket taking up most of the road on the way to Mackay

The day before we left was ridiculously hectic, we had to travel to Mackay to pick the rings and my wedding dress up and I spent the rest of the day cleaning the house (one of those things you just have to do before you go away), packing only began at about 9pm the night before we left in true Helen style.

After a limited sleep we drove round to Carol and Ian’s as Ian had very kindly agreed to drive us to the airport so we didn’t have to leave the car there for two months and pay $27,893 to get it out of the car-park. A final goodbye to Ben and we were off at last to Mackay to catch the plane to Brisbane! Yippee!!

Ben got into the spirit of things too...

We went to see Carol, Ian, Emma and Louis (who were to be Ben’s family for the next 8 weeks) we had some delicious food and they gave us an amazing wedding gift, a new digital camera! It was exactly what we had needed for a long time and we were so pleased we had a camera to record all of our trip back to England. So the next photographs on the blog are all courtesy of this present, thanks a lot guys! We had to drop Ben off with Carol and Ian the next day which was heartbreaking (we would have done anything to have him walking down the aisle wearing an ivory collar with the rings in his mouth) but we knew he’d be very well looked after and make friends with their dog, Mia.

Me (with disturbingly long hair and a pixie ear) and Meaghan the Hostess

Hen Night 2: Moranbah Hen Night

Meaghan and Bek who work with Andy kindly said they’d organise a hen night for me. Unfortunately, Bek couldn’t make it to the actual night in the end due to a clash of events, but Meaghan hosted it at her house. I was given a veil, a princess crown and a gorgeous pink feather boa to wear so I was the ultimate hen! Meaghan cooked up an absolute feast and also made heaps of heavenly Mango Daiquiri (it got messy later when someone picked the blender jug up from the base forgetting it didn’t have a bottom on it (and no, it wasn’t actually me!)). Meaghan and Bek had got me a hen night book for everyone to sign and also organised a game of ‘Celebrity Head’ for us to play. The girls from Community Health brought along a hilarious box of goodies for me with 'advice' attached to each item (a lot of which made me blush) - as this blog is family-frendly I won't go into further detail!
We headed into town afterwards to the Black Nugget and I faced the crowds wearing my hen attire, getting the inevitable “oh, are you getting married?” questions (no, I just like to wear a veil to the pub every now and then for a laugh). I got a free drink from the bar staff which was quite possibly the worst tasting and most dangerous looking drink I have ever attempted to consume (see awful picture to the left). We had a good laugh and in true small town style, we bumped into the Bucks on their night out with everyone squealing that it was bad luck! I believe Andy was too drunk to actually see me anyway so we were safe with the luck. The crescendo of the evening came when it was karaoke time and the girls sneakily nominated me to sing ‘I’m too Sexy’... I managed to strike a deal with the DJ that there was no way I was singing that but I would give him my best shot at Vanilla Ice (after my success last year on Long Island)! I don’t think the people quite knew what to expect but it certainly wasn’t an English girl in a veil and crown rapping Ice Ice Baby to them, it went down really well though and my dignity was intact!

Wearing a veil for the first time - thinking may cancel my veil order and use this one with flashing lights instead...

As well as all the organising for England, we have managed to make a few friends here who were keen to have a hen night (make that two) and ‘bucks’ do for us, so we kicked off the celebrations here in Moranbah a few weekends before our trip back.

Hen Night 1: 4RFM Hen Night at the Thai Restaurant at Moranbah Golf Club

I couldn’t believe it when I walked in and there were balloons, sprinkles on the table, a flashing veil and a big goody bag with a lovely handmade card and some lovely presents all from my friends who work at 4RFM radio station in Moranbah. We had a lovely meal and a really great laugh!

Goodbye Chocolate Cake from Mental Health


I've just had to spend ten minutes with a duster to get through the cobwebs formed over my blog!


THE RUN UP TO THE BIG DAY...

In April I finished working for Queensland Health and began my first full time job in Australia as ‘Senior Administrator Engineering / IT Support’. In hindsight, starting two weeks before we were due to go away to get married wasn’t the wisest decision – but I managed, albeit with a few days off here and there for dress fittings. It felt so good to have my own desk at last and at least I could go away knowing that I was coming back to a new job.

Every evening and weekend in the run up to our trip was spent sorting out: invitations, flights, rooms at the castle, registrar, running order for the day, wedding dress, wedding rings, jewellery, veil, bridesmaid dresses, suit hire, photographer, florist, music, string quartet, disco equipment, speeches, payments, hair appointments, food and drink arrangements, seating plans, table decorations, favours, hen dos and organising a timetable for our time in England to make sure we got to see everyone as well as get all the final wedding details organised! All this is common knowledge to those of you who have been through the nightmare of organising a wedding, but I had no idea just how many decisions and payments we’d have to make. At this point I would like to thank my mum and Caroline, without whom people would have been invited on post-it notes, the bridesmaids would have been in jeans and I would have had my hen night in Selby!