28th March 2012…….that date will be forever etched into my mind.
It was the date I got up in the wee small hours to head to Sydney airport with a one-way ticket in my pocket and my final 30kg of possessions crammed into my remaining bags.
It was also the date, thanks to the vagaries of time difference and a ‘direct’ Emirates flight, that I touched down at Gatwick, ready to start my new adventure ‘Back home’
A couple of months ago, I wrote about my anticipation at the start of summer, fingers firmly crossed that it didn’t turn out to be a fizzer.
I needn’t have worried, because despite the best efforts of Ex-Hurricane Bertha to spoil things over the last few days, this summer really has been a glorious one.
Week after week of warmth, with July 2014 even being hailed as one of the top 10 sunniest and warmest Julys since records began (1910, if you’re interested).
Whilst the official start of summer in the UK isn’t for a few weeks, I always think that June 1st has a symbolic, start of season feel to it.
And, as if in agreement with this sentiment, what a glorious day it was – warm, but not too warm and accompanied by a gentle breeze to propel the fluffy clouds across the sky.
Today it is March 28th – a date that will be forever etched into my mind.
The reason is that it was the date, in 2012, that I zipped up my suitcase and headed off to Sydney airport for a flight to the UK … only this time, clutching a one-way ticket and lugging all my remaining possessions with me.
It seems like it was only yesterday.
Perhaps lost in all the drama surrounding the impending arrival of the tempest that was St Jude’s storm, last weekend also marked that annual ritual of putting the clocks back.
Overnight, journeys home from work, previously undertaken in a sort of weak, dappled sunlight, were suddenly plunged into premature darkness with the prospect of this scenario continuing for another 5 months or so.
Somehow, I managed to resist its rustic charms for my entire stay down under.
Not once did I unpack my swag next to a billabong and pitch my tent beneath the Southern Cross.
Living in Sydney, October was probably my favourite time of the year.
It was then that the colder, wetter weather of winter would be safely consigned to the past and the skin-searing heat of summer would be yet to arrive.
This in-between season was usually warm by day and mild by night.
When I returned to the UK a little over a year ago, there had been an unseasonably warm March and as result, Spring had well and truly sprung by the time I stepped off the plane.
This year, the reverse is true with a cold March and April ensuring that nature spent a little longer tucked up in bed than normal, thus delaying the time when I get to experience my first English Springtime for many years.
Most mornings in Sydney I would be jolted from my slumber by a loud sound right outside my bedroom window.
Sounding like a cross between a baby crying, a protesting drunk being evicted from a pub at closing time and a member of the Australian cricket team appealing for yet another LBW (not the current team, obviously), it had a uniquely raucous timbre.
One of the many positives about returning to live in the UK is the easy access it offers to a wide range of different types of holiday.
In recent years, I have to say my Australian holiday experiences (or those that didn’t involve a trip home to the UK) had become somewhat limited by a diminishing passion for either long haul flights or, dare I say it, the beach.
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