I'm pretty ensconced in my role these days so I thought I'd share a little more about where I work. Meet Karly in the photo above. Karly sits next to me, is my lunch buddy and is from Bognor. Karly's full term of address is actually Lady Karly Forshaw of Glencoe and she is genuine landed gentry. Admittedly it's not by birth but more through buying 100 square foot of land in Scotland over the Internet but she has the right to use the Glencoe crest and wear the tartan so that's official enoght for me! It's great hearing an English accent although she does say dah - tuh instead of day - tuh (data) and and yoh - gut instead of yog - ut (yoghurt) so I have to keep reminding her not to lose her British roots!

My little corner is a good place to sit. I like the window view although all I can see is another office block and a crane these days. Also there is a lot of construction work going on and it can get pretty noisy. Overall though, I like my desk and if you look closely at the photo you'll see that I have photos around me to make me feel more at home. I've never been a tidy desk kind of person though and am always surrounded by swathes of paper and Post Its.

It's been a few years since I've been able to say this but I actually enjoy my job. It keeps me busy during the day and I really enjoy the company of my colleagues. We're an all girl team so it's all about girl power...and discussions about what to have for lunch! You all know about the Friday drinks trolley and I'll take a picture next time. This Friday we had drinks in the Boardroom instead of the trolley and I stayed in the office drinking and chatting until 9pm!

Friday lunchtime also saw a team visit trip to KFC! See the picture above and from left to right, meet my manager Jacqui, Brittany who sits on the other side of the partition to me (she, Karly and I form the three Brits) and Tanya who I work with very closely as we both manage the government contract together. KFC is lovingly called "dirty bird" here which I think is a great name for it. I have lots of other fun and loveable colleagues and will introduce you to them over time.

Saturday was a long but very fun day. It started off sunny and bright and I headed into the City for a hair cut and some shopping. Steve was very productive and did some laundry and went for a jog along the river!

We headed into St Kilda to spend the rest of the afternoon before going to the theatre there to see Tim Minchin. We had a late lunch at Greasy Joe's (a Karly recommendation) before spending some time in a small park with a newspaper.

Later on in the afternoon, we headed to Karly and Cam's apartment in St Kilda where they greeted us with warm hospitality, beer and vodka. We had a very pleasant afternoon with the Lord and Lady of Glencoe.

Tim Minchin was extremely entertaining; fantastic pianist, strong voice and very clever and talented. Definitely a good decision to buy tickets.

Friday was my first Hudson "kick off". I learnt that kick off means a good celebration for a strong performing quarter and in spite of the fact that I had made no contribution to the excellent performance of ther previous quarter, I still got to join in and have fun.

Kick off kicked off at about 15:30 on the Friday afternoon and we traipsed to a pub in Windsor which had a nice outdoor deck area. There we had a team bonding exercise and enjoyed several jam donut shots which were delicious. Dinner was at a lovely Chinese dumpling place where plate after plate of dumpling were brought out to us. We had a lovely private dining room and lots of wine. Kick off ended at about 23:30 for me and Steve came out to escort me home. I'm looking forward to more of such occasions!

Saturday was date night. Steve had bought us Mary Poppins tickets and dinner on he Colonial Tramcar Restaurant and this Saturday was the night it was scheduled to take place.

Dinner was early and at 17:30 we were queuing at the tram stop waiting for our car to arrive. Decor is classically twee with drapes around the windows. We had an entertaining maitre d', an Italian chef and a smiley waiter. Good combination! We were served champagne and the tram started circulating the city and headed out towards St, Kilda. It was a lovely sunny evening which made gazing out the window a nice experience. We started off with a red pepper dip and some chicken liver paté. I went for the steak with red wine jus and onion marmalade accompanied by potato rosti and some green beans. The steak was cooked really well; nice and rare just as I like. A couple of glasses of Victorian red wine washed it down. Steve went for chicken with a macadamia nut pesto with sweet potato mash and he took the Victorian white wine.

Dessert was sticky date pudding, some more champagne and finished off with two measures of Frangelico on ice. Not bad for the 90 minute trip! We then headed off to the theatre to see my favourite nanny.

Mary Poppins was great to watch with some entertaining song and dance routines. The sets and backdrops were creatively done and we both really enjoyed it. I thought the voices of the leads weren't as strong as some performers we've seen in musicals but Mary Poppins isn't about technical singing. The audience certainly enjoyed it and we did too.

Sunday was spent with my uni friend Jenny who had flown in on Thursday night and had been staying with us. Jenny had done some independent exploring and met up with some of her other friends and we made plans to spend the Sunday together.

We decided to drive to the Yarra Valley and go to Healsville Sanctuary to see some Australian wildlife. Weather was hit and miss and it started to rain as we finished breakfast. Determined not to let the rain deter us, we headed into the sanctuary with our matching blue ponchos.

Healesville Sanctuary is a good place to spend a few hours walking around looking at the various animals. Jenny was very excited to see koalas and we were pleased to see our first kangaroos. The rain meant they didn't move much however so we saw no jumping; so maybe next time. We also saw dingoes, lots of reptiles, nocturnal creatures, sleeping Tasmanian Devils, emus, wallabies, various birds and an echidna which is a very strange large hedgehog type thing.

Unfortunately the rain at Healsville meant the mosquitoes were out in force. I lost the battle with Aussie mozzie and was a delicious Chinese banquet for them. Boy did they have a feast and I have bits along my arms and legs. The worst bite was on my eyelid causing the whole area to swell up. Highly unattractive and very irritating. However it's been more than 48 hours since it was it's worst and I'm pleased to say my eye is gradually returning to normal.

Jenny's brief visit ended with a BBQ at home. It seems only right and traditional that whenever we have guests we have at least one BBQ. This one was one heck of a meat fest. We had BBQ ribs, lamb cutlets, steak, chorizo burgers and various sides. It was a fitting farewell meal for a lovely houseguest.

I can't believe I haven't posted on this page this month and we're already half way through February. We've had a few busy weeks and there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day!

So where are we? What happened after the tennis? Casting my mind back it seems so long ago!

We had our first Australia Day. Public holiday fell on a Wednesday which meant we couldn't get away for a long weekend but it made for a very welcome break in the long working week. I could get used to having Wednesdays off! We celebrated Australia Day with a BBQ at our home and invited Noah and Ling. Apparently it's traditional to BBQ on Australia Day so we did that right although we didn't feast on lamb which is meant to be the main dish. We enjoyed some home cooking; lots of meat - steak, chicken wings and drums, sausages, salad and the cheesecake from our meal at Conservatory the night before. Forgot Ling doesn't eat cheese so she had ice cream instead.

The following weekend we were invited to lunch at a friend of a family friend's place in a suburb about 30 - 40 minutes drive away from Melbourne. When abroad and so far away from family and friends I find we are much more open to expanding our networks and will happily meet up with strangers in the hope of making friends! We had lunch with Zenis and Lloyd and their gorgeous boys Andrew and Alistair in the beautiful home. Such a lovely family who were so kind to welcome us. After lunch with them, Steve and I stopped off in Williamstown which has a harbour and a beach. It's not far from where Emma lives and Facebook told me she was cycling in the area so a few texts later we met up and went for a drink and some cake. Steve and I were ready for an afternoon nap and Emma had been cycling all day so we found a bench to sit on and had some shuteye. We moved from the bench to a patch of grass and all had a good snooze. Unfortunately the grass on my back gave me some sort of rash so that's a lesson I must remember for future outdoor naps.

The next thing I'd like to tell you about is I met the cutest little new born. Meet Cooper Jack Woods whose momma, Corinne is a friend I went to school with. Having spent most of our childhood years together in school right up to our wayward teens (ok maybe my teens were wayward; Corinne was much better behaved) we went our separate ways during our university and subsequent years. We maintained a similar core circle of friends though so always could keep track of each other and it's funny how life turns out and now we live in the same city.

Funny that we used to chat in the school locker room and our latest chat took place in her room in the maternity hospital! Anyway huge congratulations to Corinne, Ricky and Kaylah on the new addition to the Woods family.

Work has been busy for both Steve and I. We're enjoying it though and I am so pleased to say that I get to laugh a lot at work with my colleagues. I had 4 days of training plus a day off and my colleagues were fantastic at looking after my work and did a better job than had I been there!

Steve's also had a busy few weeks but he tells me now that the worst is over so whilst I continue being busy he will have more time. That's great to know as there is so much he can be doing now he's got more time. Most of it involved housework, grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning after cooking!

We've also had a visitor this week. My friend Charis (smiling on the left there with her giant ice cream) spent a week with us as part of her family holiday. Her parents were around for a few days but after they returned home Charis came to stay with us. I took one day off and we spent a lovely sunny day wandering around Melbourne. The rest of the time she joined various tours and we met up after work for dinner. Saturday, Steve drove us to Mornington and took us to a few wineries so we enjoyed that and Steve pretty much watched. I did let him smell my wine a couple of times.

It was great to catch up with Charis and enjoy lots of good food and wine together. Restaurant reviews are posted on the other page. We met at university and lived in flats close to each other. She was a lot of fun then and still is although she has developed this bottomless appetite for drinking these days! I've never seen a Chinese girl drink so much (apart from me of course) and she pretty much drinks everything; wine, beer, spirits... This is a new development in her character. Well certainly new from when I saw her every day!

Today (Sunday) we took Charis to the airport for her flight back to Hong Kong. We've had a chilled day with some grocery shopping at 8am! We went after the airport run. We've also cleaned the apartment. Steve baked blueberry and white chocolate blondies. We had a BBQ for dinner. I've had a long Skype chat with the lovely Andrea and now we're getting ready for bed so we have enough energy for the week ahead.

It is going to be another busy week with my friend Jenny arriving from UK on Thursday for a few days, a work night out for me, Saturday date with Steve...but you'll hear all about that next time.

Happy Valentines Day by the way!