So, here we go again.

With tonight being the evening of Gary and Julia’s “big leaving do” – in actual fact a few pints in Far From The Madding Crowd, but who’s counting? – It seems appropriate to finally kick off the new blog, the title of which has been a little inaccurate for going on two years now.

While I’m staying put for another few months, Gary and Julia will be off on the 28th December and should – planes willing – be arriving in Sydney in time to combine severe jetlag with the New Year celebrations.

With travels being less structured this time around, and the fact that the paths of Gary and I are diverging from the outset (not permanently, I hope!), this blog has had something of an overhaul. For one thing, it’s a lot prettier – which might come as some respite when reading the gory details about Gary’s latest health issues (expect blood, puss and all kinds of unexpected excretions in his future updates) there are also a few handy bits and bobs which we may or may not get round to keeping up to date. For simplicity’s sake, these generally take the form of specific Blogger posts accessed directly from the links at the side, so – yes, that’s them hiding beneath this post – but don’t worry about that for the time being, things will hopefully straighten themselves out in due course.

Oh, and this time we have pictures! Hopefully not of blood, puss and excreta of course – I’m thinking beautiful landscapes, sunsets, cute kittens etcetera. If you’re squeamish, I’d check the picture title before clicking through to Flickr – generally headings like “Look what’s oozing out of my ears” should set off warning bells. There’s also the ability to comment this time round, so expect lots of spam along the lines of “Hey! Love your blog, I have a blog too – it’s all about cement! Click HERE” or maybe “you sux” or something like that. I’m not really fussy, all feedback is good feedback, right?

Given that I’m not going anywhere until April or so, I’ll probably be relatively quiet over the next few months (a good thing you say? Why you… I oughta…) I’m saying this just in case someone is reading this sometime in April having arrived at the blog from a list of “Top Ten Most Gross Weblogs EVAH” and are trying to work out why I suddenly turned up with a long post about beautiful landscapes and cute kittens.

Why am I cruelly going on an on about Gary’s propensity to post about bodily functions? Jealousy, obviously. No, not about the bodily functions part – although I have a huge admiration for his use of the words “seeping” and “moist” without resorting to pornography. No, I’m irrationally and completely unfairly jealous that he’ll be in Sydney by the end of the year, the lucky bastard, while I’m still here for another three months. Damn his fortunate seeping scalp.

*sigh*