I can't quite believe it's been a whole year - I feel completely at home here, although because my mum just flew home on Sunday I'm currently prone to crying at random songs while driving along... (I mean really random songs..)
I haven't really written a blog post about emigrating - I always meant to but then we just got busy doing it - building our new life. All I really need to say is it really isn't that hard to do.
A little over a year ago it seemed like the biggest, hardest thing to do - I couldn't imagine leaving my family and friends. I do miss them every day.
What has surprised me though is how much I miss England, the green - really green - countryside, proper trees, Autumn leaves, windy beaches, drivers who know how to merge properly and give way to you at junctions. (And say thankyou when you give way to them.)
Being able to walk through fields of long grass without worrying about being bitten by a snake - decent television, marshmallows that don't taste like soap, real genuine liquorice allsorts.
You know - the important things in life. The things you take for granted whilst sitting on a radiator moaning about the weather..
But really, there's nothing to complain about here. Apart from the right wing politics and downright racist attitudes of a certain section of Australian society, apart from this town's loyalty to the mullet and belly button length beard combo, apart from a certain newsreader who yesterday pronounced Zurich with a 'ch' sound on the end... Apart from all of this I love living here.
We can hear the surf while lying in bed, our neighbours are lovely (and they seem to like us although our house looks worse by the day). The school run is now fun, compared to living in a tiny village in Gloucestershire where all the other mums were related to each other...
It was a really little village.
So what I'm saying is I'm happy! The boys are happy, Mark is really happy - even Molly is happy!
Just one thing that still niggles - we still haven't found a decent curry. We've found some incredibly awful ones... But tonight we're acting on a tip from Mark's sister in law - fingers crossed for a proper Prawn Balti....
Aw really glad you likey!
ReplyDeleteYou'll be pleased to know it's absolutely bloody freezing today and my garden is covered in leaves
...real leaves though ;-)
xxx
I just hope you appreciate the fact that leaves actually fall off your trees!!x
DeleteSo lovely to read this post Elli, especially when I consider how much I struggled when we moved here. I think a lot of it depends on what you are used to and love about where you came from, both big things and small things, and whether they are better, just different, worse or even exist here. Funny to think that we were thrilled to find the quality of TV here so much better than in NZ! (I mean SBS and ABC, the other channels are as grim as a grim thing.)
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