The Sweet Escape

Over the holiday break I made an escape up north to my hometown of Brisbane. I had felt that I had suffered the cold enough, well my thinking of cold at least, in the last 6 months that I was entitled to some days were moving was energy sapping and a shower required every other minute. To my amazement the opposite happened, I packed the miserable weather into my luggage and brought it with me while someone packed the furnace like weather and took it with them to Melbourne (30 plus temperatures). Such is life. Anyway, even though the weather was miserable, 20 degrees in my hometown was still a lot warmer than 20, maybe even 25, in Melbourne, when you include the humidity. I was happy that I brought the rain with me as most of the people I met enjoyed the fact that it was raining and windy as it was something that had been missing in the last couple of years.

Before Christmas I caught up with one of my closest friends and traded war stories from SEA as he had just returned from a trip to Malaysia. The way he described it made me want to visit there next time I go to SEA. Later we met some other friends and I realised that over the years I had drifted apart as the guys were just talking about their investments. I am happy for them, yet I was really bored listening to them.

For Christmas I met my (just about) in-laws for the first time, brother and his girlfriend, my parents, and their new kittens. I was taken aback by how small they were, thinking back to a picture of Buong sitting peacefully in Eric’s hand (before terrorist training), who is now a couple of kilos. The kittens were a real show stealer and I felt like it was not Christmas but the welcoming of a new family member. For lunch I tried a type of lobster called a Moreton Bay Bug. It kind of reminded me of crab with out the claws. Definitely would be good in a tamarind sauce.

Between Christmas and the New Year I tried to catch up with as many friends I could contact. As I was hinting at before, time apart does change things notably phone numbers. I had all sorts of trouble trying to “find” people and only resulted in catching up with a few. I was impressed that my friends and I got on just like we never separated, even though there were definite changes in their situations like kids and mortgages.

For New Year’s Eve, I went and did the traditional thing of going to South Bank to watch the fireworks. I was surprised to meet an old friend there and halfway through our catch up the countdown started. The fireworks went off with what I though was an amazing dazzling of colour and precision. The fireworks were tuned into music and even with all the speakers around you couldn’t really hear anything except the ooohhhs and aaaahhhhs as people, including myself, were mesmerised by the fireworks. Next time I will make sure that I remember my camera.

The tropical low off the coast decided that wind and rain should also be used in the celebration as a couple of minutes after the fireworks were over it started to rain. The next few days were rather lazy just helping out around the house by keeping the TV on as the people I had managed to contact were back at the grind. I returned to Melbourne without incident and prepared myself get back into the swing of things.

I am realising getting back into the swing of things is harder than I thought.