It's been far too long since I updated, but then things have been far too busy and intense for me to have my focus here. But thank you all for your lovely wishes and "Where are you, come back!" messages.

Ghost is here still, and by the grace of the Australian government, is here to stay.

So what have we been up to, other than filling in forms in triplicate and the obvious? I'll do a quick rundown.

My birthday was wonderful. I got up early and drove out to the airport to collect a very sleepy and jetlagged boy. We had most of the day to ourselves, we just had to make an appearence that night at a family dinner. Not too painful, good food, fun and I got lots of other wonderful presents, including a PowerPuff Girls birthday cake, which was extremely amusing.

Our first week was spent reacquainting ourselves, getting settled, going to the movies and preparing for my birthday party the following weekend. It had a black and red with a touch of goth theme. Ghost looked splendid in a dark red shirt, black pants and a black and red shot tie. I scrubbed up rather well myself in a red corset and black, full-length, A-line, heavy satin skirt. It was a great night and I got completely and utterly trashed. Ghost took very good care of his woefully unwell girl and even cleaned up after the party. Any wonder I love him?

The second week was when we found out what immigration had in store for us. Rather than try and attempt to negotiate the dangerous waters ourselves, we enlisted the help of an immigration lawyer and it's a damn good thing we did. I had made some initial enquiries about immigrating before Ghost arrived and not only did I get the wrong information, I would have filled the forms in completely arse-about and got him deported just for not understanding the process. Sigh... I hate beauracracy.

He told us our options, many of which involved way too much money in airfares back and forth between the US and Australia and much heartache, but we settled with one which will keep him here for the entire process. Wish us luck.

The third week was the highlight, and the lowlight in some respects. We had booked four days at a beautiful cabin in the country, just us and the bush and the wildlife. It was lovely and peaceful and we could have spent another week there at least. It was a low-key trip, not too much sightseeing but we did go to a maze (with a quiz which I beat him at), played mini-golf (which I beat him at) and began to collect the Harry Potter trading cards (which I continue to beat him at).

Competitive? Moi? I don't know what you mean...

The lowlight? Well, I think I had too many expectations in my head of what the trip was going to be and had put too much pressure on the pair of us. When a lot of little things started to go wrong on the trip up there, I lost it. My temper can be very volatile and Ghost hadn't really seen me lose it before. The poor guy nearly got out of the car and walked home. On top of that, once I have lost it, I calm right down and then it is like nothing has happened. Ghost is more of a slow burner and was still wound up while I was fine. The poor love must think I'm psychotic.

But that was the only lowlight. There were long, bubbly baths with glasses of red, snuggly movies in the muslin-draped four-poster bed, fabulous, romantic dinners in Daylesford and relaxing afternoons spent sitting on the balcony winning at Harry Potter. We really didn't want to come home.

The last week of my holiday was spent doing little bits and pieces. More immigration stuff. Ghost earned brownie points by fixing my aunt's computer (a torturous story on its own). We saw Attack of the Clones (I hated it, he enjoyed it, we are agreeing to disagree) and I tried to convince myself to get ready to go back to work.

Last week was a nightmare. I had been warned that I was stepping back into a very intense project. Nobody warned me of the real scope of it and how many hours I was going to have to work in that week. Ghost was an absolute champion for me. He would be waiting for me when I got home, exhausted, with hot dinner and snuggles. Damn that boy does good pasta and snuggles. It was a bit of a shock for Ghost too, I think. He had had me entirely to himself for a month, and then I practically disappeared off the radar on him. Fortunately, the hours have calmed down this week and we are settling into a bit of a routine.

So, it's all going well. Not perfectly, of course. I mean, most couples who move in together have a lead up time, time to prepare and get used to the other toothbrush in the bathroom. Us? We've gone from nothing to everything overnight.

It's intense, hard work.

I wouldn't give it up for the world.