A little bit about coming home...

I've been back a couple of weeks now, and England feels a long way distant - much further than home feels when I'm away in Blighty. We've spent our days catching up with many of the people we love best - friends and family alike - at endless bbqs on terraces and patios, with fish and chips on the beach (actually, it was cold and threatening rain, so we didn't make it to the beach, but the fish and chips were fantastic), and scoffing home-made garlic sausages washed down with single malts with re-enacty friends in Geelong.

In between lazy afternoons drinking wine in my mum's spa, I've also been trooping into town to stock up on foods I've missed and pressies for folk at home. It's funny to see Melbourne through the eyes of a tourist, knowing I'm here for such a short time, when so much of it is already so familiar.

It's set me to thinking about the things I've missed most while I was away. A surprising amount of it has been food-related, but the list in its entirety looks something like this:
- fat t-bone steaks and massive king prawns, both to be had for less than a fiver (sterling) per kilo;

- really truly fresh fruit and veg - watermelon, pineapple, canteloupe, tomatoes, avocadoes, basil... I could rave forever;
- ricepaper rolls from any of the hundred or so Vietnamese cafes on Victoria St - the best bit is that I don't have to make them myself;

- and Asian restaurants that assume you will use chopsticks (where they would never dream of asking 'would you like chips instead of rice with that', as Chinese takeaways must do in England!)
- Australian wine, at Australian prices;
- antipodean snacky goodness - cheezels, twisties, cherry ripes, timtams, witchety grub lollies and boiled sweets and rock from the lolly gurus at Suga (below);

- the taste of truly clean water that has sat in a reservoir being filtered by nature for two years, instead of passing through seven other people on its way down the Thames;
- public seating, public toilets, and rubbish bins in the streets - we clearly don't have the same fear of tramps or terrorists here!

- open spaces; our roads are wider, and they come with sweeping verges instead of narrow hedgerows (which are quaint, but slightly claustrophobia inducing); our pubs have higher ceilings and feel light and airy after England's dark and smoky haunts; and even the streets have fewer people in them;
- riding in the front seat of a taxi, talking (about cricket) with the driver and paying with my credit card. You can’t do any of that in English cabs.
- and, of course, trams.


All good for a laugh, but last of course, there's the big stuff. I left Melbourne knowing it was time for a break - so much had happened here in such a short space of time and I needed to head off, see the world and heal some old scars. I've come back to the happy realisation that, although I'd like to keep exploring elsewhere just now, Melbourne will always be my home town and there's much here to be proud of. It's a beautiful mix of old things and new, gloriously multicultural, with a little bit of something for anyone who cares to go looking.

I grew up here. I built a couple of different careers here. I loved and lost and found new love (those last 3 all in the one pub!). It's where my family and most of my oldest friends live, and now that I'm back, I'm not sure how I managed without them. It's good to be home, and I'm gonna miss you when I leave, in a way that I didn't miss you last year.