(delayed publish as we wanted to personally tell various family members and other connections – which are scattered around the globe and somewhat hard to catch ;-)

Horay! Claire and I are engaged!

Last weekend I whisked Claire away for a surprise weekend near Stanthorpe (the cold South of Queensland). I managed to keep it all a surprise, and a good one it turned out to be: in the evening by a nice fireplace I proposed and Claire accepted without any hesitation.

I figured there wouldn’t be much chance of her saying no but of course I was nervous anyway! Some might note that this is all pretty quick and they’d be correct in terms of time, but sometimes something is just right and our blended family has been living together in my new house since March. We’re very happy together and the kids are getting along well.

We don’t have wedding plans sorted yet at this stage, but there’ll be an engagement party (extended pot luck) in a few weeks.

In case you’re curious about the ring… neither Claire nor I particularly care about “rocks”, but her favourite colour is light blue – the gem is a blue topaz.