Home again, home again, jiggedy jig

Perhaps this post would be more aptly named 'Burning in the Blue Mountains' as we casually note on the evening news that some of the largest and most unpredictable fires in many years is tearing up the next suburb past us. Nobody seems particularly concerned, some thought was given to clearing the dead leaves out of the gutters, but that is a bit of hassle and it's almost dinner time. I think it's great!

So after a quick pit stop in Brisbane to see my family (and for Heather to meet them for the first time) we got back on the road again and with the aid of the mighty Honda (my trusted companion for nearly ten years) we rocketed down the Newel highway through country NSW for a sneaky backdoor entrance into Sydney (Blue Mountains actually, where most of Heather's family lives). Other than the perspex driver's window which doesn't wind down and the roof nearly blowing off with every truck we passed, the Honda once again did itself proud over the long distance - memories of a 14 hour return trip to Canberra, arriving seconds before the starting whistle for a netball game.

After a couple of days of taking it easy on the apple/rose farms, and session on the ride-on mower for me, we headed south to Jervis Bay to visit Heather's mum and other siblings. After we'd gone through a bottle of Jim Beam and started to masochistically drink Absinthe I launched into a socialist rant at the nearest innocent bystander, I don't think anyone paid much attention to my angry drivel, so not much damage done.

We've now returned to the farm up in the blue mountains (amidst terrified news reporters and old men standing on their roofs watching for the fire). Tomorrow we load the Honda with enough clothes to build a marquee over the Sahara and I return to Brisbane in time for a day of croquet with family and friends and the 4th (and hopefully last) day of the first Ashes Test. Heather flys up a few days later after further family reunions.

My impressions of being back in Australia.....

I am home. I feel like I belong, no longer a foreigner treated with veiled suspicion or unveiled disdain. People in the service industry in Australia - and even the general public quite often, have treated us with the most genuine willing helpfulness we've encountered in a long time. I wonder if this would also be available to the non-English speaking and darker skinned inhabitants of this country?

While being so proud of this country as I walk/drive around it and am met with such lovely people, I am also a little horrified at the - in my opinion - bland, unimportant, small minded, petty issues that consume so much of peoples minds and conversations. People ringing up talkback radio to complain that some Irish guy from Australian Idol 'shouldn't be allowed to win Idol because he's not Australian'. But no-one is calling to voice their disgust that the Australian Government won't commit to the Millennium Development Goal of donating 0.7% of GDP as foreign aid - just some smug comments by Peter Costello about what a nice sincere chap Bono seems to be. We have politicians who won't contribute to the development of the world in a significant manner and then turn around with glib comments and no justification for their outrageous decision, and the public gets it's knickers in a knot about a bloody contestant on a television show (I won't even start on the ugly head of nationalism rearing it's head once again). Where did it all go so horribly wrong and what can we do to change it?