Mobile Science

For the last two weeks I’ve been housesitting my parents’ place in the Adelaide Hills while they are on holiday in England.  I LOVE this place.

My family all grew up in a neighbourhood in north east England that can most charitably be described as shit.  It was almost completely surrounded by disused industry, further surrounded by still used industry (steel and chemical works), and beset by multigeneration unemployment – but it was in the shadow of some beautiful hills and a very short drive from some of the most beautiful moorlands in England.  Possibly because of the contrast, we all grew to love the English countryside – the colours throughout the year, the abysmal weather, the wonderful walks through ‘conker wood’ (conkers are horse chestnuts for the uninitiated), picking blackberries and bilberries on the moors…  All wonderful, if temporary, escapes from the black dust that fell from the steel works.

Since migrating to Australia I can honestly say that the only things I have ever missed about England are the English countryside – and the weather.  There’s something wonderful about a cold drizzly day with a steel grey sky.  Or even better, the freezing Autumn mornings with a perfect clear blue above.  I regularly say that in cold weather you simply put on more clothes to feel comfortable, but in the dry heat of summer there’s only so much you can legally take off…  Don’t get me wrong – I love my life here in Australia.  Australia has given me opportunities that, with my background, I would never have had in England – I became an Australian Citizen (rather than simply resident) at the earliest opportunity.  I would never even contemplate going back to England for anything other than a holiday (the feel of the ‘national character’ in England, the ‘I’m allright, Jack, and fuck you’ mentality that was the enduring legacy of the Thatcher years, is a real turn off). 

My parents have done fairly well for themselves (my Mum is in a very high position in Government House, working for the South Australian Governor, and Dad is an extremely experienced advanced skills teacher) and, at the earliest opportunity, they moved to the Adelaide Hills – the closest analogue, outside Tasmania, that Australia has to the ‘green hills of home’.

One day, in some dim and distant future when money is no longer such a worry, I hope to follow them.  All I have to do is convince my fifth generation Aussie wife…