Early September and the kids start school

Today my boss was talking to a customer about how underwhelming this summer has been when she said
"You know it's probably not true, but I always remember when we were kids the summer being really warm and sunny all the time." For the past few months my host parents have been periodically apologising to me for the poor weather of the last few months. There was a moment last weekend when people started using the phrase Indian Summer (over-optimistically, it turns out), but for the most part this summer has been fairly cool and grey. And I haven't minded one bit. Until now. When my boss said that I realised Australians are incredibly lucky. Because what for many people is only an idealised fragment of memory is an annual reality for us. My summers have all been hot and sunny; they've been spent lazing on the beach and wearing slightly stiff, salt-encrusted clothes; I've fought valiantly but ultimately vainly against sunburn for 20 years, and never fully recognised that this kind of summer is the stuff of daydreams for millions.

The thing is, I don't even like Australian summers. In fact, I spend most of my time sweaty and red, refusing to go into direct sunlight between the hours of 10am and 4pm and wishing desperately for winter. And I honestly believe when England does manage to turn on the sun that summer here is infinitely more enjoyable than the antipodean version. London summer means 26 degree heat, picnics and Pimms.

So why this rush of false nostalgia for a season I moved 12,000 miles away to escape? Well, for one thing I accidentally started listening to this song again, an event that coincided directly with the beginning of warmer weather back in Aus. I got the chance to wear shorts and a tee-shirt about once, and sundresses sans-stockings maybe three times in the past three months. So the influx of facebook statuses celebrating the changing weather has made me - loathe though I am to admit it - a little jealous. Plus the kids have gone back to school, and routine has returned, lending my life a degree of normality I haven't experienced in several weeks. And so until leaves start falling and bonfires start blazing, my day-to-day is in the doldrums, giving me plenty of time to think about what I'll be missing as I skip out on the Australian summer.

1) Bare legs. Complain though I might about the need to shave on a bi-daily basis, it is really nice to walk around with nothing on below the mid-thigh region. I swear, I didn't think it was possible for my skin to become paler, but after 9 months of almost constant coverage my legs are practically transparent.

2) Beer. I don't understand. The British are a technologically advanced, reasonably civilised society (if you ignore Essex). So why, Why, WHY haven't they mastered beverage refrigeration? Pints might trump schooners and the Brits might do pubs better than any other country in the world, but drinking lukewarm beer can't hold a candle to a cold one fresh from an esky after a long hot summer's day.

3) The beach. This isn't restricted to summer, because I love the beach all the time. But I will miss jumping out of bed, racing to the sea and swimming for a blissful half hour before the beach becomes overrun by tourists and UV rays. Not to mention the brilliance that comes of combining the beach with the aforementioned chilled long-neck.

4) The sun. London might not be far north enough to experience 24 hours darkness, but it's close enough. The sun rises late, sets by 4pm, and spends most of the intervening hours cowering behind heavy cloud cover. It's enough to give a person SAD. And I don't even like the sun.

5) Storms. Summer storms are brilliant. So wild, so refreshing, so satisfyingly brief and brutal. The weather here is so weak-willed in comparison.

6) Fresh fruit. Oooooooh god mangoes. What I wouldn't give.

In reality I doubt I'll miss much of anything in two months, when everyone in the southern hemisphere is complaining of 40 degree heat and I'm warm and cosy up here in the north, with my big winter jacket and underfloor heating to keep out the chill of the English winter. But if anyone wants to send me a copy of the latest Hottest 100 in January to remind me what I'm missing out on, then I wont mind enduring a little jealousy. But only a little.

Laura In London

On Monday I received a phone call I had been waiting seven months for. Laura was in London.

Laura and I went to school together, but didn't really spend a lot of time hanging out until last year, when we discovered a mutual love of day drinking. And although inappropriate alcohol consumption seems a poor grounding for any kind of relationship I now consider Laura one of my closest friends, thanks primarily to the $3 drinks at Bar Century and an excess of free time. I mean, we do actually have a lot in common so that probably helped. But mostly it was the drinking.

So that's what we did.

It was incredible to see her again. She was staying in Camden, so on Wednesday I took half a day off work and went up there to meet her. Isabel came too, making Laura the one person to have infiltrated each and every one of my friendship groups. We spent the first part of the day trawling the markets, but once Isabel had to leave we got down to business.

I knew seeing Laura would be a slightly bittersweet occasion. She is basically the embodiment of everything I left behind, and seeing an old friend is so different from seeing the various family members who have come over while I've been here. Inevitably we talked about the various people we knew back home and reminisced about the past, but over the several hours we spent together we also spoke a lot about our future plans. And I have to admit it was reassuring. When Laura arrived I was super excited, but also slightly nervous. It's been so long since I've seen any of my Australian friends that I wasn't sure how things might have changed.

Once the pubs had closed and we'd run out of vodka I decided it was time to go home. And despite reassurances of her return in August ("there are heaps of times even at home when we wouldn't see each other for a month") leaving was difficult.

But not as difficult as I'd anticipated. Leaving Australia was the hardest thing I've ever done. I remember sitting on the plane, feeling totally along and realising that two and a half years is a really long time. I had no friends, no safety net and no way of knowing whether I was making a huge mistake, so I wanted to cling to everything I was leaving behind. Now all those concerns have become non-issues. London feels like home now too, and the friendships I've made here are no less valid just because they're newer. And, most importantly, I don't want to go home. Seeing Laura made me very happy, and August will be a blast, but it didn't make me miss home at all. If anything it made me feel more at home here. Besides, I'm only ever a (painfully long) plane ride away.

The Average Voter

I like politics. Like, really.

Ugh. Making statements like that make me feel like I'm at a kind of AA for the incurably pretentious. And while I don't mean it in a "I've memorised the names and personal details of all the members of Parliament in an attempt to better KNOW MY ENEMY for when I take my God-given place at the helm of my country, because I can totally run this shit better than Jules" way, it is true. I think politics is equal parts important and interesting, and if you can deal with the inevitable outpouring of bullshit, political conversations are often some of the best.

Because of this I love election times. I love the campaigns, I love Anthony Green, and I really, really love election night. Hosting my own "Don's Party" remains one of my greatest dreams. Honestly, sometimes I forget how much of a nerd I am. Then an election rolls around and I remember how excited filling in the the boxes under the line makes me. (For the record, it's embarrassing amounts of excited)

Which is why I was really depressed when I finally got around to casting my vote for the NSW State election today.

I probably shouldn't be surprised. After all, I'm half way around the globe, so the effect the election result will have on me is literally non-existent. I barely know who the candidates in my area are, let alone what they stand for, and state is my least favourite branch of government at the best of times.

Still, I wanted to have my say. I am lucky enough to come from a country where the elections are genuinely free and democratic, where I can casually destroy the character of candidates I don't like (I'm looking at you, Pauline) in conversation and not fear for my life, hell, where if I wanted badly enough I could form my own party and run for my life. There are people all over the world who are literally dying for those rights. And I don't even know when the election is on.

Aussies in Britain can vote from the 14th until the 24th, and I had every intention of going out last Monday and casting my vote. But then I just...didn't. Other things kept seeming more fun (which they were) and more important (which they weren't...probably). By Wednesday I'd clean forgot I even had to vote, and I only remembered yesterday because I didn't want to be fined. And this morning when I did finally make it over to Australia house and filled out the 311-odd boxes below the line, I did it with none of my usual flair.

Then I found out I wouldn't even be fined if I hadn't voted at all.

Then I felt bad.

It'd be easy to say the reason I'm not fired up about this election is because I'm so far away, but I don't really care all that much about UK politics either. It's pathetic how fast I've lost interest in something that used to captivate me so fully. And it's not mildly disturbing that my loss of interest has basically relocated me to the realms of the average voter.

I need to find myself a protest to attend.