Making the decision to turn my attention towards Eastern Europe - and the wonderful women there - was the best decision I have ever made. Yet, I learned all-too-quickly that making the decision to start my search was the easy part. What came next was infinitely more difficult. It was difficult because I had not done anything like this ever before in my life. I wondered how to begin.

I gave my situation a great deal of thought and what I knew I needed was help and guidance - but there was none available. I know that if I, for example, knew nothing about bushwalking and was interested in becoming a bushwalker, before I took my first step into the bush I would speak with someone experienced about the do's and don'ts, the ups and downs, the where, ifs, buts, and maybes, the hazards and pitfalls, and the possible misinformation and misdirection a person can pick up along the way.

Malcolm & Lyudmyla at the 'Blue Mountains', Katoomba, Australia (2002)

Just like bushwalking, or any other untried pursuit, finding a marriage partner can be a very daunting and hazardous undertaking if a person has next-to-no experience on how to go about doing it. I was such a man - once.

The main problem facing me at this point in my search was that there was absolutely no-one experienced enough to offer me that much-needed guidance. I was on my own and it was frightening. I knew there was that pot-of-gold at the end of the rainbow, but I didn't how to go about getting it. It was frustrating.

Giving my situation much thought, I did the only thing I really could do under the circumstances - I went ahead into the unknown, without guidance, support or any form of direction. I was an inexperienced traveller and the odds were that I would very quickly get lost.

In commencing my search I started perusing the Internet, investigating the numerous 'marriage' and 'Russian and Ukraine bride' sites. Some sites talked a lot but said very little. Other sites talked very little and said even less. Not one of the sites I came across offered me that much needed guidance. I was going nowhere fast. The more places I investigated the more confused and lost I became. I tried e-mailing companies with questions but received next-to-no replies. The one person that did reply, I felt, was more interested in my wallet than my circumstance.

I spent a great deal of time just reading bits and pieces from one website and another, trying to glean as much information as I could to help me in my quest.

I think that I must have visited over 50 sites. In the end they all tended to look and sound the same. Also, they all tended to say the same thing and make the same empty promises.

Lyudmyla with kangaroo at 'Featherdale Farm', Sydney, Australia (2002)

Not wanting to be defeated so early in my quest, I continued as best I could. I started to compile all the separate shreds of information that I had gathered and piece them together in order to try and make sense of it all. This took time.

Subsequently, I formulated some sort of makeshift plan and strategy. I really wasn't sure whether my strategy was good, but it was the best I could come up with and all I had at this point in time.

In all of this my two greatest fears were: 1) making an error in judgement that would hamper me finding a good woman, and 2) being ripped-off by some unscrupulous person who would take advantage of the fact that I was a novice at all of this.

Sure, I was honest. But who else was? I was unsure of whose word to trust or what to believe. All I had to go on was gut-instinct. I did a lot of thinking. I came to the conclusion that knowing what sort of person I was interested in meeting was of paramount importance. I had to get it clear in my mind what I wanted and who I thought would be compatible, for if there was no compatibility, there would be no future together.

One of the fundamental truths about love is that it is not 'prescriptive'. There are no rules attached to it. It's different for everybody. So how could I know who was potentially right for me? I had to start somewhere?

I gave a LOT of thought to what sort of woman would best suit me. I asked myself many questions about what I liked in a woman, things such as personality, looks, intelligence, life experience etc. I came up with a picture in my mind's eye about the sort of woman I would love to have as my wife. She had no name, no real face as such. She was basically a rough mind-sketch that was still a long way from completion. I put this sketch firmly in place in my 'mental Geiger Counter'. It was something I planned to use when faced with the many, many photos and profiles of woman I knew that I was soon to be confronted with.

Lyudmyla overlooking the Jamieson Valley, N.S.W., Australia (2002)

In addition to thinking about what sort of woman suited me best, I also gave a LOT of thought to the notion of what sort of woman would not suit me. What was there in a woman that I didn't like? I made a mental picture. I also put this information in my 'mental Geiger Counter'. I knew that the BIGGEST mistake I could possibly make was to let a woman's photographic appearance cloud my judgement. I knew that I had to approach such things as unemotionally and dispassionately as possible. I was not prepared to 'fall in love' with a picture. As far as I was concerned, falling in love was a long way down the track. There were a lot of hurdles to overcome first.