Happy New Year everybody!!! Hope you all had a good one and didn't start the New Year with a headache. We had a great time. Gem was originally meant to be working on New Year but that would have been rubbish so she begged her boss for the night off and after some serious moaning he crumbled and gave her the night off, hurrah!

We thought we'd get in the party mood on New Years Eve with a nice visit to Melbournes old jail, what a creepy place. It was the jail where Ned Kelly was killed, nice. It was full of various torture instruments and the cells were tiny. It was good but a little bit claustrophobic.

It wouldn't have been New years without fireworks so at about 11 pm we headed down to the Yarra River with about half a million other people to see the show. Despite being packed in like sardines the fireworks were brilliant. Well worth seeing although there was a big annoying group of people behind us doing very loud, exaggerated 'ooohhs' and 'aaaahhs'. After the fireworks we all headed on up to my pub to carry on the party. The weather forecast had predicted thunderstorms for New Years Eve but they never materialised, instead it was really hot and muggy which meant that the heat in the pub was fairly unbearable..there were lots of very sweaty people in there. Gem suffered a bit so I took her home at about half 2 but I then did the honourable thing and returned to the pub where I stayed until well after 5am.

We felt surprisingly good on New Years Day but staying in bed still seemed like the best option so we did, until 5pm! If I hadn't had to go to work I would have stayed there all day, never mind. Work was quiet and the Liverpool v Bolton game was on so I was quite happy really. Gem went to the cinema to see The Holiday and then came to see me in the pub claiming its one of the best films she's ever seen, I'm a little bit sceptical.

On the following day we made the most of 2 free passes we had been given by my boss to go on the Observation Deck which is at the top of Melbournes tallest building. The views were amazing. Apart from that it was a very quiet day.

Yesterday was brilliant.. Jed, our friend from Fiji, took us on a tour of the Great Ocean Road. It really is spectacular. After stopping at a big surf clothing outlet for Gem, we drove for about 2 hours on the most amazing road next to the sea before stopping in a town called Apollo Bay where we sunbathed for a while and played around in the surf. I'm now determined to learn how to surf. Once the sightseeing was over we went back to Jed and Amelias for a meal and a few drinks before coming home and crashing out.

We've booked our flight to Sydney, we leave on the 16th which is the day after we're going to the Australian Open so we really don't have long left. Hope everyone's ok. Lots of love Phil and Gemxxxxxxxxxxxx