A Foreigner at Home
Posted on Sunday 28th August 2011
“The strangest thing”
Credit to anyone who knows where that line comes from. And no, not the George Michael song.
Although we’ve been away from the UK for less than 5 years there was still a sense of unfamiliarity. This is natural enough as Adelaide is now “home” even though we retain resonance with Blighty. Having feet in both countries allows some insight into some subtle inconsistencies that may not be apparent to those living permanently in one or the other.
For example, not long after coming to Adelaide I commented, not just once, on my perception of the dismal quality of driving in the city. I favourably recalled better standards from Leicester and elsewhere in the UK. Having now returned and clocked up a fair few miles around the nation, it appears that my memory was flawed. We witnessed many shocking displays of incompetence, negligence and ignorance. The gong goes to the clueless tradie who merged into traffic from a sliproad on the M25 and kept coming. He appeared not to have noticed that we were in the middle lane and if my reflexes hadn’t swerved us away from danger, we’d have been speared into the opposing carriageway.
A patent feature of the UK climate that we clearly never noticed while living there is the humidity. Stepping off the plane into the Turkish bath better known as LHR Terminal 3 was just the beginning. London was palpably tropical too. Perhaps we’ve been spoilt by the dessicated Adelaide air which feels far more comfortable by comparison at equivalent temperatures.
We also though the UK was supposed to be in recession. Tales of doom and gloom and images of people and business going to the wall abound in our media. Yet visiting Fosse Park or the HighCross in Leicester, we could barely move for all the people clutching multiple full bags … during the week too. Either the financial crisis is a carefully orchestrated piece of propaganda aimed at cooling an economy at risk of inflation or people are continuing to spend money they don’t have. I suspect mostly the latter which then begs the question “Who’s still lending all this money then?”. It might be better if that went unanswered as it implies neither lenders nor debtors have learnt anything.
By the end of our 3 week holiday, much though it was great seeing everyone, we felt relief walking through the door of our house here; mostly because we had a furry welcoming committee.
