PACKED & LOADED

Feeling very excited ... Tomorrow, Miranda and I fly to South Korea for a very brief stopover and then we land in Sydney.

It's late. House packed in lots of boxes marked ''stuff'. Lovely caretaker ready to take over. Three suitcases packed with all we think we need for six months away including good boooks and a Juice penknife. All bills paid and a few pounds left over. Celebrated Christmas and New Year and exchanged love with close friends & family.

We're staying with Miranda's sister, my brother in law and their grown up children for a while - in their shed. And then we're moving to an apartment on a cliff with a view we can watch whales from our bed.

I have a fabulous new opportunity working with a great team at KPMG and I'm looking forward to 'knocking it out of the park' in their amazing office over looking Sydney Harbour. This new practice is one of the most innovative and disruptive in the whole firm, it's led by an awesome, genuine, generous, innovative good friend I met in Chelsea in the DotCom boom days - Piers (you'll most certainly be hearing more of him). It also turns out my step cousin is the National Managing Partner of KPMG NSW so I'll need to prove myself big time to show my face when I next see my mother in law! Oh, and whilst I have an official fancy job title, I have given myself an unoffical title. I'm now a 'Smart City Architect (SCA)' and I am going to help design a/some Smart City/ies in Oz. From a quick Google, I think I'm the only SCA at the moment. I'll be blogging on that area in another blog sharing some ideas about how to build a Smart City (see www.howtobuildasmartcity.com if that made any sense and sounded interesting).

The kids are coming over soon for the Easter holidays and we're all going to learn to surf in Maroubra beach - the HQ of surfing in Australia (400m from our appartment). My step nephew is currently around 100th best in the world so I'm hoping he may be able to help out.

Several other friends will be over and we know a few more really great people there.

Last but not least ... I have four step nephews (Sam, Luke, Tom and George) who are considered to be the best sibbling rugby league players in Autralia, so I am hoping to watch their magic while we are there.

What could possibly go wrong?
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