When they begin planning their move, a lot of people from the UK think they should move here in December or January. The idea is to escape the worst of the British winter. In my opinion, it’s not the best time to arrive.
When you arrive, you’re going to need to find a house to rent, buy furniture and household goods, buy a car and do all sorts of other things. Even though there is air-conditioning in many areas, you’ll find all of these activities are tougher if you’re melting in summer heat that you haven’t adjusted to.
To make things worse, this time of year is a bit like August in France. It’s the time when lots of people take holidays. You often can’t find people as easily as at other times of the year.
In my opinion, the best time to move here is in April or May. Then the hottest, wettest, stickiest weather is over. In April and May, the sun isn’t as strong as in summer so, with a bit of care, you won’t have to worry as much about getting sunburnt.
Coming in April or May, you will be greeted on many days with perfect weather – blue skies, moderate humidity and daily maximum temperatures somewhere around 25 degrees C. Perfect weather, giving you lots of time to acclimatise before the heat of next summer comes along.
Posted by Happy Pom under
Australia
You would think I’d be used to Aussie English after two years. Well I’m not. I understand it, but some words don’t sound right.
Lolly is a case in point.
To me a lolly will always be something on a stick that comes out of the freezer. We used to make our own lollies by freezing orange juice onto sticks. If you want this sort of treat in Australia, you’ll need to ask for an iceblock. Our eldest’s favourite is lemonade iceblocks.
When an Australian talks about a lolly, they’re meaning something that I’d call a sweetie or a sweet – like Smarties or Fruit Gums or such like.
Onto more healthy issues – like vitamins. Aussies don’t say vitamins (so that vit rhymes with sit) they say “vytamins” (so that the vit rhymes with bite). Very odd sounding to Pommie ears.
Many people say Pom (or Pome) stands for “Prisoner of Mother England”. This is just an urban myth. It rings true – and so it is a successful urban myth – because many of the first European Australians truly were convicts sent out of London.
According to the Australian National Museum the word only came into use in 1912 – long after the era of convict deportations.
Pom and Pommy came about because the hot Australian sun turned most of the people arriving from the UK as red as the inside of pomegranates. So instead of calling UK migrants ‘immigrants’, they were jokingly called ‘pomigrants’.
Pomigrant was then shortened to Pom or Pommy and the nickname stuck.