Avid followers of this blog (….crickets chirping in the background….) will know that it’s been a while since my last post. Four months to be exact. What I have I been up to? Well, in short, fighting my way through a mass of preparations for leaving Australia and heading to Old Blighty. To York to be exact. Yep, I’ve left the colony and headed back to the old country. I’ll be here for the next two years visiting Prof. Chris Thomas at the University of York and Dr Jenny Hodgson at the University of Liverpool. Chris and Jenny have long standing interests in metapopulation dynamics, and so their respective labs represent a logical place to hone my metapopulation capacities (there’s a masterful in-joke in there if you can spot it…). I’m here courtesy of the Victorian Government, who have packed me off to learn some new skills and extend my professional networks. It is a wonderful opportunity and I’m hugely excited about it!