Visitors from home, working in the tropics, and prepping for the big day!

Such a lot has happened since I last wrote an entry - good to be busy!

First up - we had our first visitors from home, which was fantastic. Manch and Rachel spent 5 nights at our place as part of a spontaneous trip over here. It was a huge buzz for us to have them, and we made the most of the time we had with them. We barbied, went to Noosa (saw a koala!), took them for a breakfast in Currumbin, showed them where we'll be married, went sea kayakking in Byron Bay (saw plenty of dolphins), watched whales from the lighthouse and drank a whole bunch of my homebrew :) Manch even seemed to enjoy watching a podiatrist cut my ingrown toenail out! It was great to hang out with Manch's parents, and his brother Steve and his girlfriend Tina too. Skye and I were both very sad on our last day with them - we said goodbye as we left them in the house and we went off to work together. The place felt empty when we got home after work. So happy to have them here, so sad to not have them here once they'd gone. I'm sure it'll be the same through the wedding as people arrive, spend time with us, and then afterwards it'll be just us again. Still, I'd glad to have solid friends and the good times they bring, even if missing them when they're gone is part of the deal. A few photos are here.

...and then, with the wedding getting ever closer, work became hectic and I had to spend 4 days away from home in Mackay trying to complete the install of a wireless point to multipoint network at an Ergon Energy depot. These trips away for work are always long days, the motels are generally drab, and I tend to be on my own with a paperback as company over dinner. This time, the motel was pretty good (food was pants though), I had decent company with a guy from the Ops team accompanying me, and I managed to successfully complete the install of the network. To top it off, I got to be taken up in a cherry picker to around 20 metres above the ground - while I was up there, I watched a flock of Lorikeets screeching as they tried to escape from some kind of hawk that was chasing them! Way cool... The downside to the trip was that new regulations have been brought in that mean I have to wear a hi-vis shirt, full length cotton trousers and steel-capped safety boots whilst working at a depot. I have jackets thinner than those shirts, and the temperatures are tropical....

Preparations for the wedding are going well. We do have a lot to do, but we're getting through it. While we both want a non-traditional, non-religious wedding, that means that we have to author pretty much the whole ceremony. It means that it'll be as we want it to be, but it takes time to think it through and word it right. Well, we spent a few hours on the weekend pulling our ideas together and drafting what we'll say - and we're both happy with the results.

Mum and Dad arrive in less than a week! We're incredibly excited, and can't wait to pick them up from the airport. As I type this, they're either in the air or in the midst of a stopover in KL. Dad showed us over a Skype video call what he plans to wear on the big day :) Naomi and Dave have already left the UK, and should be somewhere in Malaysia by now.