After a “hearty” breakfast of pancakes and golden-syrup (f*ck you, maple-syrup), made by yours truly no less, we’re off to the shops for supplies: hot coals (well, cold coals to start with), unidentifiable meat (snags), potatoes, cabbage, carrot (obligatory salads). Anything I’ve forgotten? Oh yeah, as much beer as I can carry.
Actually, that’s not accurate – I want as much beer as I can drink in an afternoon, and not a drop more! We don’t have the storage space in the ‘fridge. Of course, we may have some help disposing of said beer so perhaps it will all work out.
It’s not a celebration so much as a way to feed the poor starving med-student Lawrence, Colleen’s little brother (although we’re not going to ask him to bring anything for the barbeque, for obvious reasons. Aren’t all doctors flesh-eating zombies/cannibals who love performing surgery because it’s a cheap way to fill up their storage freezers? Or am I being unfair and it’s only NHS doctors?)
But I think we’ll use it as a celebration regardless: we made it through the week (week two of Dee’s work, for one thing), and we’ve got a sketchy plan about what we’re doing (and where we’re going) in Australia this December.
It’s been a long time since we were home – over three years. In that time, my sister has manufactured two new nieces; my brother and his wifey are a good way through their own production schedule of a child-unit I will forever call Little Terror 1.0 (he can play with our child-to-be, Pugsley. Or Pong. Or Chris’s child, Boots. No, we’re not all preggers – it was just what we decided one Sunday afternoon … and with that, a seamless segway back to whatever the hell it was I was talking about!)
I miss my friends, my family. I miss decent fish and chips. I miss small-town country yokels who think I’m “gay” because I wore a shirt to the pub, and was surrounded by women (who must’ve thought I was A Big City Lawyer Or Som’in). Wait, I don’t miss that bit at all – f*ck you, Maryborough! (grin) But yeah, I don’t normally get homesick (I’m an emotionless autonomic robot after all), so last night I dug out all the old Aussie albums and simulated homesickness: The Whitlams, the Secret Life Of Us soundtracks, Triple-J Hottest 100, Powderfinger, The Sharp, Something For Kate …
I couldn’t find any Horsehead ‘though. May have to rip Warrick’s CD when I get there.
Our trip will be a whirlwind: London to South Korea to Melbourne, then to Bendigo, Adelaide, Darwin and Brisbane. Somewhere in between all the travels we might even see some of those friends and family I miss so much – you never know! Grant and Sheila’s wedding, Greg’s bamitzvah, the birth of Little Terror 1.0 (well, maybe).
Going to need a holiday after this holiday. Shame I won’t have any annual leave left. Perhaps I can work from a beach in Spain? I’ll ask on Monday and let you know.