I was sent home early from work today because of, wait for it, snow! Yup, my very first snow day, brilliant! Even better is that the heavy snow fall coincided with the local school’s mid term break, so all the kids were running around town having snowball fights (actually this was mostly the big kids, i.e Uni students) and building snowmen all over the place.

Since I was home early there was just enough sunlight left to run out and take some shots of the new neighbours.

This lovely lady was kind enough to let me pose next to her, although it was startling when a few of her teeth fell onto the ground when she smiled. Oops.

Oh dear, this guy was terribly upset, I couldn’t figure out whether it was because his buttons were falling off, or he was just disturbed to discover he had no legs.

Never fear, scouts to the rescue! Dib-dib-dib, dob-dob-dob.

Across the road this guy just wouldn’t stop laughing and grinning at everyone. I think he might be a little, uh, wet in the head, if you know what I mean.

If you grow up in rural Australia then bushfires are just another part of life. You will have a family member or friend who volunteers in the Country Fire Authority, and you will know someone who has lost a home to the fires.

In my case I grew up hearing hero like stories of my grandfather’s fire fighting, including tales of Ash Wednesday,  and spent lots of holiday time with my grandparents playing around the big red fire engines at the brigade house. My mum tells of melted asphalt from the road sticking to her shoes as a child and the great smoke clouds that hung almost constantly over the town. When I was an infant my father joined the community fighting fires during a particularly bad blaze. In primary school one year I won the district Fire Safety awareness drawing competition. Every family has their fire plan in place, and every summer we would go through ours over the dinner table, just in case.

So when I saw in the news that Victoria was experiencing large bushfires over the weekend, I wasn’t particularly concerned. It happens almost every year, people are prepared, it’s just a part of Aussie life. Then reports of just how devastating this years fires have been starting coming in: I was glued to the websites, reading everything I could find, following the fires on maps and checking this against where friends and family live.

Thankfully although my uncles family were evactuated on the Saturday, they were able to return to an unscathed house. Obviously this was not the case for a great many people and the level of destruction wrought by these fires is hard to comprehend from the opposite side of the world.

Despite the massive damages, it has been incredibly inspriring to hear how quickly the communities rallied together to help those in need. Not surprising at all, it’s simply ‘what you do’ in times like this back home, but it does make me feel very proud of my home country. I do wish there was more we could do from over here other than donate to the Red Cross, but it’s good to know that what can be done is being taken care of by those who can.

Well it’s not so bad today really, though I did regret not wearing a beanie on my run. Hearing the crunch of ice underfoot is just not as fun when it feels as though your ears are burning with cold. Maybe I should take some fashion advice from Faye up there and find myself a hat with warm fuzzy ear flaps.

This was our first Christmas on the other side of the world from our friends and family back in Australia, so we put a bit of effort into making the apartment feel festive, putting up a sparkling tree and an advent calendar. I know it might not seem a whole lot of decoration for some, but people please, Christmas is not all about the singing Santa Claus and dancing snowman.

After setting my family up with a webcam back in January, we finally purchased one of our own in December and were able to video chat with them on Christmas eve and open up a few presents. It was absolutely brilliant being able to see them all again. We’d also caught up the night before with some other friends and now we’re all set up I imagine we’ll be able to chat with more people more often (hint hint).

Simon isn’t a very pro-Christmas person, in fact he often borders on Scrooge worthy. When it came to cooking up a roast for dinner though he was right into it as he’s loving some of the recipes in our new cookbooks.

Here he is carving up the roast pork. Note the lovely butcher’s stripe apron he’s wearing fresh from his Santa sack. As usual he did an excellent job, lunch was so incredibly tasty our conversation was peppered with silly yums, mmms, and other appreciative sounds.

To help out each other and our families this year we set up wishlists on Amazon UK which seemed to work really well. Packages were arriving in the post almost daily in the two weeks approaching Christmas, so much so that we were running out of room under the tree. We didn’t really buy Christmas presents for each other last year as all our money was going towards the big move, so this year we put aside 100 pounds to spend on each other in the form of one big gift and a bunch of stocking fillers. Presents, presents,  presents! Some favourites:

• A pair of pink spotted Slippa Doo slippers from the Bushells.
• Mario Kart Wii, courtesy of my family (played so often it is now blamed for Simon’s bad back).
• Chocolate mould set from my sister Meagan.
• DVD Howl’s Moving Castle from Grandma (love that film!).
• Bibliophile card game from Simon.
• Honey Summer massage bar from my littlest sis, Alicia.

December isn’t just about Christmas for me though, as two days later I celebrate my birthday and receive…even more presents!! Those of you with birthdays evenly spread throughout the year just don’t understand, for me presents only come once a year, which makes it all the more exciting.

Oh birthday cake how I love thee! Looking at this picture makes me want to eat it all over again. Yup, another culinary delight courtesy of Chef Simon.  Actually we both felt pretty stuffed by the end of the evening. Along with the cake Simon cooked up a simple tasty tomato and basil pasta dish, then we settled in for the evening to watch Kill Bill and munch on some freshly air popped corn. Perfect.

Presents!!! No…it’s a curling iron, get your mind out of the gutter.

I found Bailey over at Cute Overload. I doubt we’ll be receiving any snow falls here  as lusciously deep as the one Bailey gets to frolic in, it would be awesome though hey?

We’ve had a few light  falls here over the last month. The first time it happened I almost missed it. It was Saturday morning and I’d been tossing and turning all night. Finally giving up on sleep around 7am, I dragged myself out of bed and into the lounge room for a bit of reading. A few hours later the Scientist rose, opened his eyes, looked out the window and exclaimed “Snow!”. Yup, I’d been up and about for hours but not bothered to glance out of a single one of the many windows in our apartment. Was I just tired, or incredibly lazy? I plead snoozy.

It didn’t take long and we’d wrapped ourselves up in as many layers as possible, grabbed the camera, and hurried outside to make the most of the snow before it all melted away. As I stepped out onto the footpath and heard the first delicious crunch of fresh snow underfoot I grinned and knew I wouldn’t be able to stop. It was like popping bubble wrap, a simple action creating a sharp sound, immediate and satisfying.

Down the street a few neighbourhood kids had pulled out some hockey nets and were slipping around on the thinly iced roads in their sneakers whacking at a hockey putt.  I don’t know what they thought of us as we ran around on the grass, posing for pictures in front of snow covered bushes and trees, the Scientist dancing ‘Singing in the Rain’ style around a lamp post, but we didn’t care. It was our first real snow experience here in Scotland and we were loving it.

I don’t mind the cold weather, it just means I get to wear my fluffy green coat and beanie.  I don’t mind the rain, and the hail. I just don’t understand the people who complain about it. The countryside looks like winter people! Real winter of the kind described in all the storybooks you read as a child.

Back home in Melbourne it gets colder in winter sure, the landscape does change, but not as obviously and with such conviction as it does here.  Whenever I’m down at the Post Office, or in the Milk Bar and someone starts up about how cold and wet it is, how miserable the weather, I’m just flabbergasted. It’s winter… in Scotland! What did you expect, sunshine and daisies?

Watch Bailey again. Now there’s someone who appreciates a real winter.

So what does a Charlie do when she’s home alone, has no books to read and nothing better to do? She sets up a new blog of course!

Now the reference to a new blog, yes I have kept other blogs in the past and have a few different handles, to keep things simple though let’s leave it at just Charlie for the time being hey?

‘Somewhere In Between’ is where I spend the majority of my time, lets face it I’m never completely where I should be, always looking forward to some imagined point, skittering sideways towards something completely random, or browsing through old memories for a particular gem or piece of coal. As of today I am ‘in between’ jobs, ‘in between’ careers (or rather still pursuing that thing I’ll be a god at and make loads of money from while having a blast. It does exist damnit!), and also ‘in between’ countries as the Scientist and I spend a few years here in Scotland before returning to the land of Oz.

Oh and yup, ‘Somewhere In Between’, is also the title of a song I like by Kate Bush.