home at last....

I must say it was a very tiring trip home - over 40 hours and in the end, you know to get home Ihad to catch a car, then a plane, then a mini bus, then another minibus, then a plane, then a train, then a plane and then another bus andall of that on my own with 54kgs of luggage! So little wonder I all butcollapsed when I got there. And then no sooner than I was home, about 4days, I had to pack and drive to Canberra - another 6 hours in a car -where I dropped off all my stuff and flew to Sydney - now I have justlanded back in Canberra where I will be living. Phew - it is exhaustingjust writing it...

Also I find that travelling in this direction it takes a while to getover the jet lag. My mum said that at about 4.30 each day I would literally and instantly fall unconscious into a deep, deep sleep and start snoring very loudly...he he.. I am such an elegant woman :) That was sort of because of the sleepless nights - on the first night home I got up at 2 am, woke my poor mum up (accidentally) and then, because shewas awake, I thought it was a really good idea to try on all the newclothes I had bought in London and do a fashion parade for her mmm - I am sure she loved it - then because all that made me hungry she got upand cooked me scambled eggs! I think she was rather glad when I left :)

I must say I am very happy to be home. I feel much more grounded and settled and looking forward to my new life as a corporate lawyer. Having said that my last few days in London in particular were very nice- on the Friday night I went out for dinner with Mary, and Zoe and Sandra (a few buddies we had made in London), on Saturday dear Ingrid came and spent my last day in London with me and on the Sunday morning the lovely Trish and Grahman got out of bed very earlyand drove me to teh airport at Heathrow - such a random act of kindness:)

My excitement at the airport was that I saw James Blunt and Madonna -Madonna was actually on my plane - it was so exciting I was like a starstruck kid. LA was interesting and no Mary - I wont judge all of the US by my visit to LA...AND my hotel was just fine!

I went in yesterday to work and met a few people, I officially startMonday. It will be interesting - never one to enjoy bureacracy or closemonitoring I am now deeply embedded in both. I also met the partner Iwill be mostly working with and he seems fine... He is really happy I am older - his first question was how oldare you (!) and he seemed rather relieved inviting me immediatley to a client dinner on my first offical day Monday - rather funny I suppose :)

I find it a veryexciting time to be here in the centre of government when we have had a radical change of government - yes I am rather odd..

On my way home....i.e life in the corporate lawyer lane

Hello all - it seems like forever since I have written anything to anyone.. As some of you know I am with Pfizer and am working with the Viagra team as we speak (see the joke below)!

Well I am on my way home this Sunday and after a lot of deliberation -ie my boss upped my already ridiculously high salary higher to encourage me to stay another 6 months - I am very pleased about it!

A corporate lawyer in Canberra - a new chapter in the never-ending-story and an interesting one I'm sure. I will be back in town next week, ie Melbourne, and will try to catch up with you where I can before I go to Canberra.

England is wonderful and I hope one day to be able to come back but now this meandering, backwards, forwards, sideways journey I have been on over the last 5 years since I embarked on my mid-life change of career crisis is coming to an end.

From Melbourne to Sudan to Melbourne to Sudan to Canberra to England and back to Canberra again...it hasn't always been easy, but really I wouldnt have changed any of it - or maybe I would have stayed in Sudan a bit longer and maybe one less trip back to Aus....And now I can't wait for the next phase :)

OK my lovely friends, acquaintaces and others - see you soon :)++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++This This is very funny!

In Pharmacology, all drugs have twonames, a trade name and generic name. For example, the trade name ofTylenol also has a generic name of Acetaminophen. Aleve is also calledNaproxen. Amoxil is also called Amoxicillin and Advil is also calledIbuprofen.
The FDA has been looking for a generic name for Viagra. After careful consideration by a team of government experts, it recently announced that it has settled on the generic name of Mycoxafloppin. Also considered were Mycoxafailin, Mydixadrupin, Mydixarizin, Dixafix, and of course, Ibepokin.

Pfizer Corp. announced today that Viagra will soon be available inliquid form, and will be marketed by PepsiCola as a power beverage suitable for use as a mixer. It will now bepossible for a man to literally pour himself a stiff one. Obviously wecan no longer call this a soft drink, and it gives new meaning to thenames 'cocktails', 'highballs' and just a good old-fashioned 'stiffdrink'. Pepsi will market the new concoction by the name of: MOUNT & DO.
There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today thanon Alzheimer's research. This means that by 2040, there should be alarge elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections andabsolutely no recollection of what to do with them.

When a (wo)man is tired of London, (s)he is tired of life....

Well London IS tiring, but so much to see and do...that you MUST betired of life to be tired of her...Ahmed and I went to see the musical Billy Elliot the other night and itwas fantastic. It was Ahmed's first musical play and he lovedit...tonight we are going to see the Mousetrap, yes it is still playing and tomorrow night in Regent Park Midsummer nights dream..so we are flatout every day, the museum, parks, eating and drinking in British Pubsand all in all having a lovely holiday.

Ahmed makes me smile as he looks aghast at all the goings on around him - from the transvestites on the train to the religious fundamentalists trying to convert us in the street. We are in Brixton at the moment, it is a shock to the senses and not for the faint hearted - a cross between Kings Cross and Footscray. I am sure a flick knife is just a step away...

But my news is that I have scored a great job paying great money and located is gorgeous Epsom. So I will be staying in London for the near future and Ahmed will rotate between Khartoum and London every 6 weeks. So we are both happy with that (at least for now). So we have been busy flat hunting, cant stay in Brixton and hopefully I have found a room. I will find out today. Room hunting is also a very interesting process! OK, comments would be great!

Safe and sound in London.......

Just arrived in London, got to my hotel without incident, i am very>happy to say....no interrogations, no detaining, no getting lost or losing things...

wow, it has been 18 years since i have been here and it has surprised me. It is SO pretty, i didn't remember that. I just remember it being so crowded i wanted to scream, but then it was the week before Christmas when I was here last, so maybe that is the reason, Melbourne is the same at that time of year...

There are flowers everywhere, the streets are narrow and winding, the traffic is minimal (I think they have a tax on bringing your car into town) and it all in all is quite delightful. In terms of cost, again a surprise, a large coffee was 1.50, so thats about $4 - about what you would pay in inner melb cafes...so all is good...

I think i love it :))

Ahmed comes tomorrow, so that will be super. Really, this might turn> out just fine :))

Ancestry visa and a beautiful baby boy makes his entrance....

Please see my friends' beautiful baby boy Ethan, which I was astounded to learn this morning, is now 3 months old! My time flies when you are finishing the "never-ending-law-degree"...

Welcome little Ethan :)

Well, I have my UK ancestry visa, which means I can live and work in the UK for up to 5 years :)

This gives me a few more options, come and go from Sudan a bit and not feel so trapped there. They make you get visas for everything - a visa to enter of course, then you must register your entrance within 3 days, you must get a permanent resident visa if you want to stay longer than a month, you need to get a visa to take photos, a visa to travel outside Khartoum and if you want to leave, a visa to leave the country - it is all rather boring.... With this at least I can escape from time to time.....

We are waiting to see if Ahmed's visa comes through, fingers XX.

Meanwhile my days are filled with reading Harry Potter, walking to my brothers house, which he is renovating, and playing with my puppies. But less than a week now, and I am sure that time will go in a blink of an eye....

The mousetrap??

Well, it looks like I have a visa...but I would like to hold it in my hot little hand. Not possible as yet.

I am off to the UK on 1st August. My darling Ahmed will meet me there, as long as he passes all the visa assessments. A bit dicey in the current climate. Here's hoping...

We will spend 3 weeks there and go back to Sudan. I have not been to the UK for 20 years - I wonder if the mousetrap is still running.. We plan to visit some good friends of mine in Leicester and hopefully if our agendas match, meet up with Margaret, my law honours supervisor in London. Bit of fun. Maybe home via Cairo.

More later...

Visas and other sharp objects....

Ummm - what can I say? Just as I was about to fly out, Ahmed rang to say the visa had fallen through...ummmmm....how quickly can I cancel flights? Accomodation? Collections from Heathrow? mmmmm - that is the joy of Sudan..

So here I sit in my mother's front room, all packed and nowhere to go, nothing much to do..I have my puppies, the best consolation..see photos.... to the left is Oscar and the right Zoe..


Not much I can do. Ahmed is still trying a few option, I am looking at SVP again, but it is Uni holidays and not much going on. The British Council cant help me. I did get an offer to teach primary kids for 10 months.............how long did I need to think about that one? I think I would rather clean toilets, well maybe not Sudanese toilets!


I have also tried getting a little contract work here. There could be a chance for some tutoring at Canberra Uni and an HR role at a law firm. Could for the $$$$

But for the time being I spend my days tring to start an exercise regime (with mixed success), trying to avoid buying a house (those who know me will know I do this when I am a bit bored!) and trying to keep it all together...


Having a rest has been good. I tend to race around like a mad thing (I was going to write that lovely Australian expression - blue-assed fly - but thought, mmmm, maybe only aussie's would get it..) So just being here is good. My brother and his partner have bought an old barn that they are converting to a residence and so I spend my days up there taking nails out of floor boards, scouring the countryside with them for second hand windows and watching in awe as they are put in. So quite relaxing really..


OK, hopefully a more eventful post next time...