Life In Australia

We were talking with another British couple last night about homesickness.

Homesickness is something we’ve never really felt. We both feel it would be nice if we could see our relations in the UK more often, but it’s not something that’s tearing strongly at our emotions.

But last night we met – I’ll call her Jenny. Jenny and her husband have been in Brisbane for about a year now and Jenny still finds herself crying almost daily with the pain from homesickness.

It’s not as if she doesn’t like Brisbane. She says it’s a far, far better place to live than Manchester, where they emigrated from. Yet her close family isn’t here. Other familiar people and smells and scenes aren’t here. The effect seems to be tearing the poor woman apart.

If you haven’t been away from Britain for an extended period before, homesickness is something you should watch out for. It could wreck your whole emigration and, if it strikes you, I don’t think there’s much you can do about it.

I’m certain Jenny and her husband will be back in Manchester within 12 months. They’ll have a lower quality of life in many ways but it’ll be worth it to Jenny because she’ll have all those familiar things again that she can’t have in Brisbane.

Last weekend I took it into my head to buy some chilli peppers. They were sitting at a local market and their red, yellow / orange and green colours looked so inviting that I was tempted to buy them.

Last night we tried using them in our cooking for the very first time.

I was making a sweet and sour sauce. Normally we add a little chilli-powder to make the sauce a bit hotter and spicier. Last night I replaced the chilli-powder with two chopped chilli-peppers.

I’ve read that chillies should be treated with caution because it can be very painful if any of their juice gets into your eyes. So - don’t laugh now - my wife fetched a pair of goggles I use when I’m doing DIY jobs. I wore the goggles while cutting the chilli peppers. When I’d finished with the chillies, I washed my hands thoroughly with soap and water - twice.

When we were eating - and the sauce was very tasty - my eye itched a little. I decided to rub it with, but - ever cautious - not with my finger.

I rubbed my eyelid using the shoulder of the T-shirt I was wearing. Instantly my eyelid began hurting with a strong burning sensation. A tiny amount of liquid from a chilli pepper must have sprayed onto the shoulder of my T-shirt while I was cutting them up.

I scrubbed my hands again with soap and water, then fetched a clean towel from the linen cupboard. This I made damp and cool with water from our fridge and held it on my eyelid. It soothed the pain very well. If I took the cool towel away from my eye for more than a moment, the burning pain returned strongly.

After about ten minutes, the burning pain had gone.

All I can say is I was very grateful the chilli liquid didn’t get into my eye and only got onto my eyelid.

So, even after all my precautions, I was still stung by the chilli peppers. Next time, we’ll return to tried and trusted chilli-powder instead.

Fortunately, British immigrants don’t need to sit a driving test - my wife was especially relieved about this. It took her three attempts to get her driving licence in the UK and she was dreading having to sit a driving test in Brisbane.

All you have to do here is sit a reasonably easy driving theory test - which costs around $16.

You need to answer 30 questions about driving and traffic laws. I don’t know the pass rate but I would think it’s pretty high. Before you sit the test, it’s best to read through a little book called “Your Keys to Driving in Queensland”.

Some Poms are happiest moving where there are plenty of other Poms. Others prefer getting away from other Brits completely. If you’re one of the latter, most places in Australia are not for you.

Poms are everywhere in Australia. In Brisbane alone there’s almost 100,000 people who have emigrated from Britain. Most of us have gone native so you’ll find it difficult to tell us from the Aussies - until we open our mouths ;-).

You’ll find that the vast majority of Aussies are very welcoming and friendly to Poms, so don’t worry about opening your mouth and revealing your Pommieness.