Aussie

It's been a funny day today because the sun's finally shown it's face and with the summer weather comes a profound sense of sadness at the life we've got to leave behind. Sure, you can go to nice places on holiday and feel sad to leave, but for the last year this has been our real life, not a holiday. This has been our home, we've been driving our own car, sleeping in our own bed. Now we have to return to Britain knowing it's all going on without us and there's no easy (or cheap) way back.

This morning Ella and I joined Jan and Saul in Centennial Park, where the sun was already searing the ground at 9.30am, rendering the swings and slides completely unusable. Jan's recently returned from five weeks in the UK, most of which she spent at her parents' house in Cheshire. In common with every other Pommie family we know, she's now been joined by her parents for Christmas, the escape from a British winter (or the lure of the glorious southern land) being too much for any of them to resist. And the thing is, now all their families have arrived, it makes you feel sort of alone.

Jan's parents come to Sydney every summer and spend four months in an apartment they rent all year. I'm assuming they leave it empty for the rest of the year and I'm assuming they're loaded, because I can't even imagine what this sort of thing costs to them on an annual basis. "They like to know where they're staying" explains Jan. "I'd rather spend it in John Lewis" I reply, wincing at the thought of leaving the place empty for eight months at a time.

"So how was Blighty?" I asked, wiping Ella's hands free of Vegemite

"Well the first two weeks were glorious" she replied. "The autumn weather was gorgeous and it wasn't as cold as usual for that time of year. We drove across the Peak District and the colours were, you know, those golds and oranges, simply stunning, and for a while I felt quite nostalgic"

"But not enough to go back?"

"No. After that it all became very grim and cold and I felt really couped up indoors all the time. I mean, it's the first time I've been home with Saul and I thought, God, what do British kids do all winter? Admittedly Sydney's got nothing to offer when it rains, but Christ we spend most of the year outdoors one way or another, we have barbeque picnics in the park all winter"

"I know" I replied watching Ella chase Saul in her bare feet, "complete with picnic table and gingham cloth. It's serious business. So what other impressions did you get?"

"Well the shopping was a joy in comparison. The clothes were better made and it was easier to find something that suited me. I mean, I'm a big girl and the weather here gets so hot you have to choose some sort of skimpy get-up and that sort of thing just doesn't suit me. And add to that it'd probably be in some lurid shade of yellow and, well, you get the picture"

"I do" I said. "The clothes here are appalling, the cotton must be really poor grade stuff, even the jeans are made of really thin demin, the sort you don't get too hot in. I've given up on shopping for me and thank God for hand-me downs for Ella because my friends back home have kept her in clothes all year"

"Well I bought up half the undies in Marks and Spencer and I was pleased about that but very glad to get back, and I thought God, it's not my home anymore. That place just isn't my home. Anyway, what about you?"

"We leave in just over three weeks"

She stopped dead in her tracks. "Oh my God. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know" I replied. "But I keep looking at Ella in the sunshine, all the running and jumping and swimming she does. She's so incredibly happy here, despite us having to live in a little flat. I don't know how she'll adapt. I feel we brought her here and introduced this great quality of life and she was like the luckiest child in the world, and now I'm looking at Saul and looking at Ella and I feel so sad for her; what are we doing taking all of this life away from her?. I feel wretched about it"

Jan nodded. "The problem is, she's an Aussie now. I know she lived in the UK before, but she doesn't remember it, all her memories are here. She's just as Australian as Saul is, only he's got the passport".

I bit my lip and tried not to cry. My head says stay in Britain, my heart says you want the passport. Darren feels the same but neither of us likes talking about it.

"Look" said Jan (Sydneysiders start a lot of their sentences with look). "I know you're not asking my advice but I honestly think you should put in your residency application. I mean, what have you got to lose? They take about a year to process and then once you've been approved you have four or five years to activate it, and you only need to enter the country to do that.

So what if you decide it's not what you want? At least if you put in the application then the process will have been completed when you make your decision, so you won't have to spend another year waiting around. If you decide it's what you want then you can come right away, no messing about".

She's right, of course, but I can't help feeling it would be a big step putting in the application, because putting in the application amounts to some sort of admission you'd consider leaving Britian permanently, and when we set out in January I didn't really think we would.

This evening I took Ella down to the beach at Coogee for her tea as Darren had been called out to the Hawkesbury on a job. She devoured the fish and chips from the Chish and Fips kiosk (she takes her own bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup every time; an appreciation of the finer things starts earlier than I imagined) until there was hardly anything left of them. Afterwards we played football on the grass and sat on the beach watching the swimmers and burying each others' feet in the sand.

"We're going to England on a plane" I said to her

"It's cold there" she replied. "I'm taking my blanket"

"Don't worry, it's toasty warm in our house" I offered. "But it won't be sunny like in Australia. It will get sunny soon, in the summer, but for now we'll have to stay inside the house and keep dry"

"I don't want not have sunshine" she said, in the same way she says she doesn't want to go to bed or doesn't want to have a bath. "I want Australia".

How do you answer that?