Just in case anyone I know still looks at this website, I
should let you know that I have evolved to the world of
facebook....

Photos from the last year or more are on there and you
are more than welcome to join at www.facebook.com
and search for Ali Giles (Durham network).

Sorry xanga, you've been great but... it's just quicker
(and free).

See you on facebook! 

I can't believe it's been so long since I've updated...!! 
Looking back, my pictures start in MOvember. 
Thank goodness that only comes once a year:

Anthony in MOvember

Movember brought some equally intense and scary times,
including a visit from Jason and Carlo (brothers - Carlo
lives in London)  This might be the first picture I've taken
that remotely catches Jason's personality:

Jason and Carlo

And Movember meant it was James' birthday!  He
arranged a lovely BBQ overlooking the city:

Me, Anthony, James, James' Mum and Jason

James and his Mum

before things got silly...

Carlo (notice the cigarette?) and Fraser doing the caterpillar (Jason lying down in the background as usual)

Now that it's well and truly summer - woohoo!! - we went
down to the beach at Southbank.  They had a big screen to
watch the Ashes whilst bathing in the water - perfect!  Well,
except for the score.

Carlo, Anthony and Jason

Then went to see Borat...

Carlo, Borat and Jason

Then Anthony's Mum came up to visit!  She treated us to
a weekend up in Coolum!

Me and Anthony at Coolum beach

Anthony and his Mum

We booked tickets to see Cirque du Soleil!  I'd never
been before and I was in awe!  I couldn't stop beaming
throughout!  No photos allowed inside, so here's one
of the tent to prove we went...

Then we got chucked out of our apartment (for asking
things to be fixed) but luckily the same day we had an
offer accepted on a unit!  So we moved all our stuff into
storage over Christmas:

James and Anthony doing all the heavy work!

We then celebrated in our empty place with a Chinese
takeaway without plates:

And James opened one of the wines we got him for his birthday...

Very natural

Soon all the neighbours came in to say goodbye, and
the place looked fuller than it had before we'd spent
the day moving!

James with his Christmas PJs

And then it was time for our roadtrip to Melbourne!
We found a deal to relocate campervans for $5 a day!
It was cheaper than flying and meant we got to see some
of the country on the way.  Our (now ex-)neighbour Pete
came with us for the first bit and we dropped him off in
Newcastle. 

Pete driving

Me and Anthony after our second night in the van

Me inside!

Playing cards to pass the time at night

The Big Banana at Coff's Harbour

Parked up overnight in the middle of nowhere - I was
absolutely convinced we were going to be murdered:

We then drove on to Sydney via the Blue Mountains
where all the recent bush fires had been:

We arrived in Sydney, met up with Bry and Bob, switched
vans, and on to Melbourne....!

Brisbane 1022km, only 1045km left to Melbourne!

After our fourth night on the road... 

After Sydney we drove to Narooma to see Jensen and
his lovely family:

Jensen's Mum, niece Sakura, Dad, the man himself and Max the dog

Makeshift dinner!

We drove to Phillip Island in the hope of seeing the penguins
coming onto the beach at night, but missed them by 20 mins! 
We stayed the night there and had a great time though.  The
next day, on Christmas Eve we finally arrived in Melbourne! 
Anthony's nieces and nephews and friends' kids really made this
Christmas wonderful, it really is true that children bring the
magic to Christmas!

Isabella

Heather, Belle and Rick

Cassie and Anthony

Ice lolly on her nose, a black eye and a frown but I still want to eat her...

Belle

Heather painting the pictures we got them for Christmas

Classic Cassie pose

Belle with the sneaky spoon

Anthony's sister Maggie and Paul

Speaking of kids.... here's a cute one! 

Can you guess who it is?

A day at Melbourne Zoo!
We had a brilliant day at Melbourne Zoo with Jason and
his daughter Mercedes, later joined by Anthony's friends:
Ivan and his two sons, Jimmy and his girlfriend Kristen,
Ivan's brother Anthony and his two daughters:

Mercedes and Jason

The otters

Nelly

A collection of gorillas!

Mercedes and Anthony

Ivan's youngest: Aaron

Lavinia

Anthony, Anthony and Jesse, Jason and Mercedes

Anthony and Me and the giraffes

Back at Jason's with Hercules the dog:

New Year's Eve!
We went to watch the fireworks at midnight then on to
a really cute bar.  We headed back to Jason's for quite 
a relaxed night...

Catching the train into the city...

Kristen, Jimmy, Anthony (2), Ivan, Jason and me! 


Jason trying to impress Herc with Kristen's jewellery 

Poor Hercules

And then there was the dreaded remote control
car day.  Oh my.  What a long day.  There was over
6 hours of fixing remote control cars and I would estimate
under 10 minutes of working remote control cars.  They
cost the same or more than my real car, but at least my
car actually works (kind of).

Fixing the cars

More fixing of the cars

Still not working

Nope, no luck.

At last!  Anthony trying out Jim's

Lavinia waiting for the cars to be fixed

Kristen and Jimmy waiting for the cars to be fixed

Jason Foley moving his real car by hand!

Sovereign Hills!
This was an absolutely brilliant day!  Sovereign Hills is an
old gold mining town from the 1850s.  They have people
dressed in old clothes and musicians playing on street
corners and all sorts of gold mining activities!  We went with
Jimmy, Kristen, Ivan and his two boys Jesse and Aaron.

We went in to see the demonstration of how gold is melted
and poured.  This was fantastic and made even better
when the guy picked Jesse out to come and hold the $80,000
block of gold he had just poured! 

Jesse holding $80,000 worth of gold!
(luckily didn't fall for the $5 offer from an audience member)

Thinking of all the xbox games...

Kristen, Me and Jimmy

Panning for gold...



Aaron

Jesse

Me and Anthony

Kristen and Jimmy

The day before we left Melbourne, we had a day at
Anthony's Mum's house with all the family and friends
and a BBQ - it was a perfect summer's day in and out
of the pool!

Cassie

Heather, Rick and Isabella

Kristen and Jimmy

Jesse

 
Cassie and Anthony                                  Brooke and Anthony

Jason didn't quite make it...

 
Anthony and Heather                                  Aaron and Jesse

Jimmy, Anthony and Jason with their pool hairdos

Cassie and Jack

Nephew James
(James is coming up to Brisbane this week so look out
for more photos including a trip to Movie World!)


Da-daa!  Ivan, Anthony, Jason and Jimmy!

We then flew back to Brisbane - homeless!!!  Settlement
took a few more days so we stayed in a lovely hotel next
to my work until we got the keys to our new home!
 

The bedroom with our ensuite

Our balcony catching the morning sun


A dishwasher!!!!  (Main reason for house purchase obviously)

And our new housemate!  The tiniest gecko!

There's also a second bedroom which we're using as a study, a
laundry room, an internally connecting garage with our own internal
staircase, and a pool! 

So from a newly promoted, newly home owning, summery Brisbane
living Alison, may I wish you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!  So
far it's been pretty amazing over here, here's to more!

Loads of love,
Ali xxxx

I really thought that now I'm living a 'normal' working life, I
would have had no photos to put on my site, but looking back
I seem to have quite a few!  So apologies for the delay in
showing them!

Anthony and I spent an afternoon up at Mt Cootha which
overlooks the city.  My camera battery died and this was all
the photographic evidence we could get....!
 
Mt Cootha

Anthony and I have been making an effort to be cultural
and have been to quite a few amazing things lately.  We
saw 'Stomp' at the theatre which I have wanted to see for
ages - it was incredible!  And we managed to get great
seats.  Last week we went to a concert of Beethoven
piano concertos with the British pianist Paul Lewis. 
Once the audience had stared out the excessively fidgety
family sitting next to us (typical!), the concert became very
enjoyable!  We also recently saw 'Swan Lake on Ice'
which had 26 skaters with over 200 Olympic/National
medals between them!  A while ago now we went to see
a contemporary jazz group called 'Misinterpretato'.  They
really were excellent and inspiring!

Anthony and James at the Misinterpretato concert

And when we're not being cultural........

See how well we're matched?

Anthony's work organised a skate comp in a local skate
park, so all the skaters and partners had a lovely mid winter's
day sitting in the sunshine!  We then all went out for drinks
after.  Turned into a bit of a messy night but the girls bonded!.....

Priscilla (Patrick's girlfriend) and Deb (Daz's wife)

I worked for about a month for the government in the
Department of Child Safety.  Can't you tell?

Farewell drinks

Followed on by a night at a 'skate art' exhibition. 
Not sure I remember many of the art works but I
definitely remember having a good time...

Me and Priscilla

Gangsta Pat                                                                  Nice Pat....

Something possessed us to buy the baked bean puzzle. 
This is how far we got.

Bec's sister Jess came to stay for a couple of days! 

Jess and James


So THAT'S where my scarf disappeared to......

Brad from Anthony's work had a surprise birthday party! 

Happy birthday Brad!

And Jason came to stay!  He was on holiday, so he got
a tattoo, naturally.....


Some nice facial hair to match the scary look.....

Before shave                                           After shave

I'm teaching James and Anthony the piano.......


One random night, Patrick and Jenson brought around
Andy and Cale, some friends they had met whilst out. 
They fitted in great!

Andy and James


Everybody!  (well not really)


Drunk in the kitchen

Remember this lovely day?  Giving Bec her birthday present,
Doc, who I would bring back to the UK with me?

Well.... while I was drunk in the kitchen.....



Oh no!

Cocktail party at a friend's house on the Gold Coast....

Need a glass Jo?

After having a busy household of visitors, Anthony and
I had a weekend to ourselves so we had a picnic in the
park!  Anthony had spent the day cleaning and polishing
his car - you can see how shiny it is in the background
(the red one)!

Learning to skate.......
                                    .......my way:


We went down to our local bar because Danielle from
Big Brother (Australia) was singing her new song!  She
was crap, but sweet about it.  Please do not comment on
how I am barely in this picture.  It took about 10 minutes
of some stupid fan not being able to work my broken camera
to get this.....

Danielle and me

The next day was a bank holiday - no work yay!!!!!  And
even better, Bry arrived from Thailand!  On the Friday we
had a night out with Bec (different Bec to our Bec!) but thought
we'd get a pic of Bec, Ali and Bry just because it was weird to
have that combination again!

Bry Ali and Bec!


Ali and Bry

Melbourne!
Last weekend was Anthony's friend's wedding so we went
down for a very short but sweet trip!  We met Jason's
daughter Mercedes for the first time.  Absolutely gorgeous,
obviously.....

Mercedes

The wedding was really beautiful, every little detail was perfect.....

Jacqueline and Rudy Tadros

I know this photo isn't very good but it nicely captures the
bouquet which I later caught.......

Walking down the aisle


Gorgeous bridal party

Me trying on my outfit before we left Brisbane (ignore the awful hair!)

We had a couple of hours in between the (second!) ceremony
and the reception, so we went for a few drinks and met a freak.....

Strange man, Anthony and Jay


Jim and Jason - I love this photo!

Unfortunately with all the free drinks, I forgot to take any
pictures at the reception.... or afterwards when we went
out and met up with Bry who is now staying in Melbourne. 

On Sunday we spent the day with the family, who are just more and more gorgeous every time we see them!

Gorgeous Heather                                    Isabella digging a hole in Nanny's garden 
                                                            (see below for further creative contributions)


Little Rick                                                Brooke looking beautiful with straight hair!


Maddy (Cassie's friend) and Cassie up on the balcony

Looking through a pile of red scribbled paper, Anthony
found this lovely drawing.  All of the kids denied it was
theirs but Mummy knows your style Isabella!


And now to our collection of hat pictures.....
It seems that anyone who visits has a natural desire to wear
the hat that Anthony made for his 21st (or do we force them?) 
Our collection of pictures is becoming a little ridiculous.......

Jess in the hat


Jason in the hat


Me in the hat


Jenson with style in the hat


Cale in the hat


Andy in the hat


Everyone pulls it off so differently.... don't they Pat?


Fraser in the hat

And then there's the show offs........

 Until next time... or maybe I'll see you before then - I'm back in London on the 26th September!!!
Ali xxxxxxxxxxxxxx