You shall not pass

You can tell it’s January when bushfires rage, floods rise, thunderstorms lash and Channel 7 decide to promote every single ridiculous program that we have to look forward to ‘after the tennis’. Now even if you are bored watching Jokeavic strutting and scream queens squealing and a wee Scotsman struggling to contain his tourettes, you would want the tennis to continue. Because when it ends, what looms could be a whole season of Koshie’s Got Talent and Revenge of the Cooks. An impending trip overseas is thus even more fortuitous.

January has been, in comparison to those of recent past, hot and steamy. Because of impending trips (more of which later), I haven’t actually been anywhere significantly of note. And days have been a slight weird hybrid of work and leisure. One moment I can be trawling the depths of an ABS pivot table, the next, bobbing lazily entwined in a rubber ring in the pool. Fiddling with PowerPoint text boxes can be interrupted by shopping for fire extinguishers. Coffee breaks around the corner are most welcome and habitual.

Of course, walks here and there are almost a daily occurrence, to the point that I’m struggling to find anything different, anything new. Not that that’s a bad thing given what is around: from blistering dryness on Red Hill to shady lakeside ambles, Botanic Garden circles and Mount Ainslie fire trail combos. The late evenings that linger are perfect for little forays around the streets of my neighbourhood, where status is judged on the quality of your Agapanthus and sophistication of your sprinkler system. It is a world I have somehow ended up in, somewhat surreptitiously, and while I am very happy to embrace it, I cannot get over the feeling that, as I wander the streets, I am regarded with suspicion; a young hoodlum scoping out the next million dollar mansion to break into. Not that you could get past some of these heritage hedgerows mind you.

And so change, or at least temporary transition of an indecisive nature, is around the corner. On Thursday I head to New Zealand for three weeks. I am looking forward to it immensely, like a hobbit venturing out of his hobbit hole and onto an unknown road. I just hope that, having lived in Australia for six years, I can politely keep a straight face when confronted with Kiwi accents. And if you think this blog is pretty, well, uneventful, New Zealand should rectify that and provide a few contenders for Christmas presents.

And after that, a bigger undertaking, a three volume set to the prequel. Australia or parts thereof and parts not too burnt / damp / dug up by corpulence. It’s still fairly indeterminate but from east to west, across to Perth with detours and pauses. There and possibly back again. We shall see. The exciting news is that I have a machine for the job...a change of car and, after a little bit of tinkering, I am slowly becoming endeared with my twelve year old Subaru Outback. We have good times ahead.

Which finally brings me to pay homage to a former car that has sadly passed to the oil baths of the sky. Not my ex-Magna, which is doing well with its new owner, but the Renault Scenic of 2012. It buzzed around the French countryside with loyalty and commitment, even when its brother was lost. It terrorised the lanes of Dartmoor in pursuit of cream tea, and made it to the Cornish coast for staple ingredients of pasty and fudge. And it never complained when I drove it through storms and rain pummelling Devon from south to north, poking out into the sunshine along the north Devon coast. Even though you are French, I commend you V787 LBO.

Christmas mash up

Happy New Year and let’s hope 2013 brings just as much enjoyable food as the previous year, although perhaps cutting down a little from recent weeks. The festive holiday period was an eclectic Australian mix of hot weather, cold weather, roast meats, prawns, beaches and shops. Most of my time was spent in Sydney, in what turned out to be a fairly sedate week or so, with patches of Canberra wholesomeness before and after. Mercifully we now have a fully functioning BBQ in Canberra, christened for the first taste of Christmas along with a rather excellent rendition of black forest gateaux. Meanwhile, the pool here is also coming in rather handy of late...

In Sydney, Christmas Day provided a wonderful Australian summer of endless rain, thunderstorms and highs of 21 degrees! To sum up, it was pretty yucky and many an Australian was quick to note that “this must make you feel at home” or “you must be used to this”. Well, frankly I’ve been here for five Christmases and I expect to be melting, turning lobster red and fleeing rampant sharks. Either give us a hot Christmas or a white Christmas, not this awkward in between.

Despite the rain, Christmas lunch was sumptuous and involved a gathering with many, many Aussies who I didn’t know beforehand but who provided much entertainment, sage advice and wonderful food; from roast meets to the best Pavlova I have eaten so far on this continent. Supplemented in the evening by ham, sausage rolls, cheesy marmites and other such artery clogging homemade fare, the only thing (thankfully) missing was three hours of Eastenders, Coronation Street, Eastenders again, Emmerdale, Holby City, and Coronation Street Extra. Not that there was anything to watch here; in a land of mediocre TV, Christmas wins the prize for hopelessness.

Every other day was brighter and sunnier and warmer than Christmas Day itself, and this provided opportunity for a few forays out and about. This included brief bushwalks and boardwalks, beach stops and mall shops, tempered only by ailments and illnesses and obligations to eat more and more ham in various guises. Before you knew it, New Years Eve had crept up, offering an opportunity to finally finish the ham with a picnic in Coogee and fireworks, followed by a surprising view of some of the larger midnight fireworks from nearby.

It was a no fuss New Year’s Eve and this transcended into the next day, which was probably the best of the lot – warm and sunny with chilled lounging under the shade overlooking a rather busy Coogee Beach, coffee in hand, book in other, a few chocolate orange segments melting in the pocket. A nice couple of hours before hitting the oven and cooking up roast pork (because I have not had enough pig products already this Christmas). Enduring more TV hopelessness in the evening, Christmas pudding with decent clotted cream helped perk things up!

And so that was Christmas. The second day of 2013 heralded a trip back to Canberra and it was nice to return and extend the holidays just a little further. Especially as, once beyond the gloomy Southern Highlands, the weather was much more decidedly holiday-like. In fact, much more a return to order, with temperatures above 30 degrees and, so far, tipping over 40 the once.

Such sustained heat has warmed up the house considerably and is not the best in which to be enduring a sore throat, blocked sinus type lurgy that is a dragged out repeat of something similar last summer. Still, that pool has come as welcome relief, as have the evening storms cooling things down just a touch and adding a little bit of spectacle to the place.

So 2013 has started hot, stormy and with both a touch of malaise and a touch of clotted cream (not related by the way). But in local parlance, it’s all good. Let’s hope for an all good, eventful and enriching year ahead!