Today the weather has deteriorated. The summer weather has broken. It isn’t tragically raining, and hailing, and windy, but there is a hint of autumn sniffing around. Soon the days will draw in, earlier and earlier.

The antidote to really foul weather, for me, is a break somewhere in the sun. Sloanes disapprove of ‘sunny abroad’ if they are made out of the old mould. You need to just stoically face the cold. Stiff upper lip and all that, which means that their top lip is frozen.

When we moved to Chelsea in 2003, we went back to Oz for Christmas. With so much upheaval, I had to go back to the red earth and the pounding surf, which reassuringly, day after day, 24/7, rolls in from the Pacific. Hello, says the sun over the Pacific rim, I am here today to make your day – happy.

Oz at Christmas. Bliss. Forget all our troubles! Down tools and leg it from cold England. Forget the turkey, stuffing, white sauce, parsnips, brussels sprouts and redcurrant jelly. Actually I love white sauce; it’s white sauce with onions and bread and herbs. I love the whole cold weather Christmas, with possible snow. But there is something about a baking hot day and having Christmas in Oz. You go off to church with the sound of cicadas in your ears, not church bells. Aussies wear shorts to church on Christmas day, not knitted sweaters with reindeer trotting along their chests. It’s as informal as British Christmas is formal. Polar opposites.

Even as we ate our food after church, usually some hot food, like pork and crackling, Stan’s favourite, with a few local treats as well, like prawns and oysters, you could hear the waves crashing, on the golden sand, down at the beach. You may have a few British treats, but let’s face it, tomorrow you’ll be down at the beach again, swimming in the waves, cooling down. Thankful that, tonight, Stan will be chucking a prawn on the barbie.

I love that with all the change that has happened to me, over the last twenty eight years, the constant has been my pilgrimages home. I still call Australia home.

Ironically, yesterday I went with my friend Matilda, named after Waltzing Matilda, possibly, but who is more British than British, to the south coast at Emsworth to walk and watch the sail boats. We both stood and gazed for a moment. She said, “It’s beautiful.” Whether  you’re an Aussie or a Brit, you can love the water. Love the sea. I can’t be friends with someone who doesn’t have that connection with the “warder”, which is the way some Aussies pronounce “water.”

Today, I am having lunch with one of the three Hon.s in my life: she is a tonic.

Back in London by lunchtime. Summer is almost over. I will have to get that top lip ready for the ice to come.