The god in godmother

One of the things I'm most looking forward to when I'm back in the UK is meeting this gorgeous girl, Genevieve, aka Gen/Vivi. She was born in October and I was DELIGHTED to be asked by her mum, my good friend Kelly, to be godmother. What an honour! Now Kelly and Vivi's dad aren't particularly religious and they won't be having a christening. And good on them I say. I think that's better than all those hypocrites who don't believe in God in the slightest and have a christening in church for the party and some nice photos to keep for when Junior's older.

When I told someone the other day they asked if they'd be having a christening while I was in the UK. I explained the situation and they then proclaimed that I wasn't really a godmother at all. Pft! Like most of the people out there who are godparents believe in God and really look out for the religious and spiritual education of their godchildren? It doesn't make it any less of an honour to be picked for this special role, especially when I'm on the other side of the world.

I for one am taking it very seriously (and we'll leave my religious leanings out of it because this is not really about that). I will be watching this little one grow up with genuine interest (as well as sending her excessive amounts of cute new clothes and toys by airmail) and fondness. Her mum bandied around the words "good role model" and I hope I can live up to that. I'll be that exotic Auntie Jen in Australia who sends the best presents for her birthday. But I also hope I can teach her a thing or two about what it means to be a positive and independent kind of gal in this day and age.

Will you look how cute she is?!

Feeling kinda homesick

My little (25 year-old) sister will be meeting me at London Heathrow on Friday lunchtime. We haven't seen each other for 13 long months. I'm convinced it's going to be the kind of Love Actually airport moment I've always hankered after, unlike the tears when I left. Can't wait.
It's funny, I've been here in Oz over a year and I've not had many moments of real homesickness. But now, knowing I'll be back in just a few days, I'm remembering all the people I'm missing and how much I miss them. And I'm already dreading saying goodbye to them again at the end of my three-week trip.
I love my life here, much more than my old UK life, but living on the other side of the world is tough. I think it's easy to forget just how far away you are and then, faced with a 24-hour plane journey (ugh), it brings it all back into reality. If I'd stuck to my original plan and not fallen in love with this country, I'd be home by now and there'd be no going back to visit, then leaving again. It's going to be a real test and I think it will make me realise whether I love it here enough to leave all those people behind again. Because if I didn't, I'd sure as hell miss all my friends here, big time.
There are a lot of things to consider when you move overseas. And if you had to make the final decision whether it would be forever before you made the move, few would do it. But you just have to take a chance sometimes and you never can predict what's going to happen.
On the plus side, only three more sleeps until I leave! Yippee!!!

Whingeing is good for business

Seems those Aussies quite like whingeing poms after all. The Whingeing Pom is the name of my 'work' blog on dynamicbusiness.com, and more often than not I use it to have a rant. It's so therapeutic! Psychological benefits aside, one particular blog got 1,800 hits in ONE DAY this week which is great news for our website. The page about me also ranks in the top ten pages (the homepage being the most popular, obviously) on the entire site this week. Who would have thought all those people would be interested in reading my rantings? Such is the power of the world wide web.

I must admit I have been heavily self-promoting the blog via social networking tool twitter (follow jenbishopsydney) and messing around on the internet chatting to people has now become a justifiable part of my job. That Facebook ban's still on at work though. Sulk.

I'm going to need a holiday after my UK trip

I've always known a lot of people. I'm not saying I'm popular, more I've been around—in the career sense—and met nice people worth keeping hold of after I've moved on from each job. This always means birthdays etc are big 50-plus people parties, sometimes in two locations (where I'm from, in Wiltshire and in London, where I know most people). So now, faced with 3 weeks back in the UK next month to catch up with family and friends, I'm having to plan this trip like a military operation. Thoughts of giving myself reasonable amounts of rest time to prevent burnout have long since gone out the window and somehow, despite my vow to only see the people who really matter, those 3 weeks in my Filofax are the biggest, multi-coloured, scribbled-out-then-written-over-again, circled, highlighted mess I've ever seen. And I like things neat!
To give you an idea, during this trip I have the wedding of a very dear friend in Wales, a baby god daughter to meet for the first time in Norfolk, an entire house worth of my worldly belongings to remove from a storage unit (and decide what to sell/chuck/store at Dad's/ship back to Oz), a big party in London, and quality time with my Dad, only sibling and other family to contend with. And that's before I see most of my friends. Phew!
All of this I am looking forward to immensely (apart from the dealing with my belongings part) but it is also instilling a kind of panic in me. Because even though I think I have enough days left to see all the people who matter, the realisation that I might only get to see each person once—twice at best—is already disappointing.
What I'm grateful for however is that I obviously have a lot of very special UK people in my life. And I already have a good few on this side of the globe as well. Can't say luckier than that...

Russell Brand on Jade Goody

Russell Brand blogged about Jade Goody today and it was an interesting post; honest, good natured, sensible, not overly sentimental and from someone who actually knew her, if only a bit. If you've been following this, I'd recommend you read it because it's real.
It made me consider a couple of things:
1. That I lost my mum to cancer, like Bobby and Freddie, when I was three years old, and how terribly sad that is for them; and
2. It is really not such a terrible thing that the general public took to this mere mortal. After all, she never did anyone any harm. She was just a nice, normal, working class girl done good. So what if she wasn't the cleverest? She was certainly entertaining.
As Russell sensibly points out: "One of the charges often levelled at Jade was that she was just a normal girl with no trade or practiced skills. Well people didn’t care and our heroes are not prescribed to us, we have the right to choose them and the people chose Jade. Fame has long been bequeathed by virtue of wealth and birth and this was the first generation where it was democratically distributed by that most lowbrow of modern phenomena – Reality Television. She was a person who, I think due to her class always had the propensity to irk people. When Big Brother 3 made her famous she was vilified in the paper and bullied in the house but through her spirit she won people back round and became a kind of Primark Princess with perfumes and fitness videos and endless media coverage – because people were interested in her. They remain interested."
For all his silliness, he's a smart guy.

Home news

Living on the other side of the world these days, it's always nice to see a bit of home news on the telly. NOT. Most of the UK news to hit these shores since I've been here has been about the dire state of the economy. Fair enough. That's big. But when something non-economic filters through you'd hope it'd be heart-warming, or quaintly English, or make me wish I was home. But no, it's this kid (above); Britain's youngest father at 13 years old, or so he thought. Turns out his 15 year-old baby mamma was sleeping with a variety of teenagers and a DNA test has proved this little guy—who would have been 12 at the time of conception—is not. Doesn't change the fact he was having sex—shudder—at the age of 12. He's 4ft tall, damn it!
The UK has a horrible rep as teenage pregnancy capital of Europe. Not only that, but a court made a ruling after the media initially went mental, that there should be no more reporting on this case, including the DNA results. Well guess what? The Mirror just went ahead and put it on their front page anyway! There's something else we have a bad rep for in the UK: our tabloids.
So there's no nostalgia and homesickness for me today. I'm just glad I met a Royal earlier in the week (did I mention I met the Queen's grandson?!) and had my British moment then.

Today I met my first Royal

Today I met the Queen's eldest and least well known grandson Peter Phillips, at an Australian British Chamber of Commerce Grand Prix lunch. How funny is that? I meet my first Royal on the other side of the world! 

When I was introduced to him I was sure he looked familiar and was wracking my brains as to where I'd seen him before. When my friend told me I had been chatting to, and shaking hands with, the Queen's grandson (son of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips and tenth in line to the throne), I said: "Ooooooohhhhh, that's it!"

He was thoroughly normal and pleasant. I have always thought his sister Zara was about the coolest thing to happen to the Royal Family—apart from the deliciously badly behaved Harry—and she always comes across as very grounded and modern. So it was really no surprise to find that this 30-something was so very unassuming and nice. Here he is pictured with his wife Autumn Kelly, being the first of the Queen's grandchildren to get married last year. Aaaw....

I've come over all British!