I've made a few veiled references lately to being busy and making plans, but have been keeping the details under wraps until things were a bit more solid. Well, I think it's pretty well confirmed now, to the point where I feel comfortable talking about it online ...

For family reasons, we're coming back to Melbourne for about six months.

We're already in the middle of packing the house up and arranging the move, which is why we've both been so under the hammer lately. I'm flying out next week, and Tim will arrive in Melbourne a week later, as he's driving down. We'll stay with my mum to start with, before moving back into our house in December.

Tim and I both want to return to Darwin. We enjoy it here, and there's still a lot that we want to do. And I really enjoy my job here. I work with a terrific team of people, and I've had fantastic opportunities to contribute and to make the job my own. It's been a bit frantic and stressful at times too (that's client service!) but the positives have far outweighed any negatives. So when I asked my manager about the possibility of taking leave without pay, I was thrilled and extremely grateful when they made me the counter-offer of continuing to work in my position part-time from home, on a remote basis. I'm really excited that I can keep my job, and continue to work with my team and my clients. And I have heaps of projects to keep me busy!

So, it's a temporary goodbye to Darwin for now, and hello again to Melbourne. I'm looking forward to spending time with family and friends, as well as revisiting some of my favourite places. I'm also looking forward to meeting the challenges of telecommuting, so you can expect some future blog posts on that topic :)