So our family are off to Sydney for nine months, relocating temporarily from Brighton. Enough friends have suggested blogging our way through the process, that we've at least created the blog and will try and write regularly about our experience.

The introductions:

• Ethan, the six year old gourmet of the family with the palate which will be delighted by the variegated tastes that Australia has to offer;
• Georgia, who has already decided she's going to become a surf chick and reef snorkeller, and will probably become so enchanted by the place we won't be able to persuade her to return. She's nine years old;
• Helen, the carefree and eternally optimistic half of the adult partnership, who cares not that of the ten deadliest animals on the planet, eight of them are native to Sydney;
• and Ian, the over-burdened computing academic, who spends his time eternally worrying about exactly how to punctuate lists, and whether semi-colons are line terminators or separators.

S-day is currently three months away, but the preparations are now in earnest.