So what was my other piece of news?

Well how is this for pretty amazing.

My friend, Amy, is going through a tough trot. Her marriage is breaking up, and although it is pretty amicable (as best as these things can be) it has still been confusing and hurtful for her. Both Paul and I have been through marriage breakups (gee isn't that a great qualification to have on one's resumé) and so we've been, if not actually offering advice, certainly giving her a space to vent and question and try to work out where she is going now her life as suddenly taken a huge departure from the path she thought she was on.

The other night she tells me she wants to talk to us about something. I am a little concerned. But I needn't have been. I should have been jumping up and down with excitement. And I was.

Amy's (soon to be former) husband does a huge amount of travelling (and from Australia, everywhere is a long way away, so that is a lot of frequent flyer points). He had always said she could use those points as she was always left keeping the home fires burning. So she went to him and said, yep, I'll take those. She has already reserved flights for Paul, me, and herself, to Uluru, plus car hire. We just need to pay for accommodation (and as we're willing to share a room that makes it, well, if not cheaper, certainly less expensive).

How generous is that!! Amy had discreetly asked both of us, at different times, where we would like to go in Australia that we hadn't been to before. And we had both said Uluru.

Now we just have to wait for a time when it won't be 45°C... so probably four months or so, after our summer has passed.

For those who don't know what Uluru is... it used to be called Ayer's Rock, but was reverted to its traditional name when the traditional owners took back the management of the park. I have never seen it, but it is somewhere I have wanted to visit for as long as I can remember.

Some information on Uluru