Weather nondescript today, neither warm nor cold.

Yesterday had tennis training at Steep. Pottered around the garden. Warming up for the onslaught of weeds when summer comes.

It took me a long time to acclimatise to the reversal of seasons. Northern Hemisphere versus Southern Hemisphere. Cold at Christmas, not hot. Hot in July, not cold. After a heat wave summer at Stone House, the winter drew in. It was a particularly cold and foggy winter. We don’t seem to get fogs in London now like we did 25 years ago (less brown sites). I would look out of the window of my office at 3.30pm in December and it would be almost dark. I felt like going to bed at 6pm. 

How was my first Christmas as a Wilmot wife at Stone House? Terrifying! Gigantic turkey. No sun. No heat. No prawns. Turkey, bread sauce, Brussels sprouts instead. Loved the Christmas pud and brandy butter. Very homesick. But I was pretending it was all “marvellous”.

Church – very formal. I had on my new Sloane outfit. And then present giving after lunch by a roaring fire. (We ripped our presents open at dawn in Oz.) I smiled chuffed: two special presents from my husband, a pashmina and a leather handbag from Liberty’s. I hid in the corner, trying to acclimatise to the extent of the celebrations.

Mutti and Pops have seven children, so there was a growing family at the top of tree, the next generation. I would have to reproduce as well. Would mine come out with surfboards and a tan?   

For New Year we went to stay with Nicky’s parents in Scotland for a house party. Lots of food and walks. She kindly handed over her double bed to Geoff and me. On 1^st January, 1990 I had a sleepless night. When we returned to our little house in Clapham, a distressing period of insomnia overtook me. Some nights I would just about manage one or two hours.

After a week or so I told my boss, Justin, that I was having trouble sleeping. I looked as white as a sheet.  Justin, true to form, politely took the pressure off me and said to come into work when I could.

I went to the General Practitioner around the corner, Dr Dunwoody, an old, crusty doctor. I cried. Looking back I realise that I may have had Sunlight Affective Disorder (SAD) and homesickness and depression. Too many changes too soon??? Too much pressure to assimilate into a new culture??? He didn’t offer any advice, medication, nothing, just said to get on with it or so to speak.

Geoff was very patient and would try to lay awake with me. He put his hand on my shoulder. Held my hand. Zero effect.

Geoff had a bright idea. He said, “You need a change of scenery.” So we went to Paris for a long weekend. Even though Paris was also grey and foggy, the beauty of the city and the delicious food revived me. In the photos I look ghostly. But it did the trick. I needed some distance from my new life in London, to get some perspective on what it looked like.

We walked the streets, ate breakfast in fashionable cafes on the Boulevard Saint Michel, visited the Musee d’Orsay with the Impressionists, had lunch in the Place de Vosges, went to the Eiffel Tower. It was so romantic. People fall in love with Paris. It is known as the City of Love. It is like a beautiful French woman, elegant, well-structured and with a good complexion. Finally I fell asleep.

Today a pheasant from Hurlingham is coming to give advice on cutting flowers and growing vegetables. Nicky Barber is coming for tea.

More lovely spring weather.

Had a lovely catchup with The Hon. (she has mega aristocratic credentials) at Gails in Fulham. Gails is one of those new fad “good for you” establishments, serving, e.g., spiralised courgette (zucchini) or quinoa – both wheat substitutes. Everything is whole grain and low sugar. Even so, The Hon. ordered bacon and eggs on sourdough. The upper classes love nursery food, the sort that was served and eaten in the presence of a nanny, whilst the parents were elsewhere preparing for drinks and dinner with staff (think Downton). Comfort food-cottage pie, shepherd’s pie, fish pie, chicken pie (there is a pie theme here), boiled eggs and soldiers, sausages, macaroni cheese, apple crumble and custard. The best description of nursery food is fictionalised in the Cazelet Chronicles, by Elizabeth Jane Howard or Nancy Mitford’s novels. All are like having a soothing warm bath.

We had a lovely supper at the Hurlingham Club with Mr and Mrs Jetset, who live in Chelsea and gad around the world when they can. They have a thirst for travel, seeing and experiencing new places, new people, new vistas. And escaping the cold winters. Stan, my Dad, would have loved Mr Jetset, because of his engineering capabilities. Stan was a genius in that department. And he would have loved Mrs Jetset as she is so glamorous, like The Duchess, my Mum, Bev.

Bev could always wear a good frock and she was a legend at sewing. She could have made Kate Middleton’s wedding dress. She made stunning outfits for me as a kid. People would stop me on the street and say, “Strewth, your mother’s beaut at sewing.” The material of my blouse would line my culottes (skirts that are really shorts). The trim of my neckline would adorn my waistline. Bev loved people complementing her about her creations. She should have been Coco Chanel. 

Stan was a DIY superhero. When I was a toddler he read a book and built a Venetian style speed boat, christened Sandy, in my honour. He built billy carts and tree houses for my brother Shaun and me. Stan was always building something in the garage. His main achievement was kitting out the interior of my grandparents’ holiday house, The Weekender, which was near The Entrance, north of Sydney. 

The Weekender was where I spent a lot of my childhood and teens, weekends and school holidays. It was where the tribe met, Stan’s tribe. The Weekender was made of fibro, a bit like rock solid cardboard. It had two bedrooms, one for my grandparents and in the other were bunk beds for the women. The men slept with the children on mattresses on the lounge room floor. Before bedtime, windows were shut and the place was fumigated with Aeroguard, which was surely toxic, to kill mossies (mosquitoes). 

There was a carport where meals were eaten and the tribe hung out, playing cards, chatting, trying to keep cool in the hot summer months. Stan was in charge of barbequing, always with a tinnie (can) of cold lager in his left hand, while he usually overcooked the meat. Stan was fond of charcoaled meat. Stan was also in charge of activities, which meant going to the beach, prawning in the estuary or fishing on the lake. When we had cabin fever, he would march us out to the car and take us down to the beach. Or get us up at the crack of dawn to fish. Or swing lanterns in pee warm estuary water and wait for the prawns to run – head out of the estuary to the sea – catching them in drag nets.  If you are looking for a fictionalised description of this life by the sea, read the greatest Australian novelist, in my view, Tim Winton.

The Weekender was the poetry of my youth. It was wild and free. I ran around barefoot like a kangaroo and swam like a dolphin. My grandfather, also Stan, Stan Senior, taught me to swim in the sea pool. He would chuck me in near the edge and I would swim a few strokes and then go back and hold the edge, repeat the same. One day he chucked me out much further from the edge, saying, “Go on love, swim…” And suddenly I could dog-paddle, then crawl and once I started, I never stopped. I would spend all day swimming, hair bleached white. In and out of the pool, diving, bombing, holding my breath, floating head down until my lungs almost burst, floating upwards looking at the sky.

Stan, my Dad, taught me how to swim in the surf, so that the waves didn’t pulverise me. He would take my hand and we would dive under the breaking wave to the sea bed where it was calm and wait for the crashing roller to pass overhead. Eventually I let go of his hand. Eventually I went out on my own. Until the day he died, if I was at the beach with Stan, he watched me like a hawk to see if I was okay.

Today, back to Hampshire to the Old Rectory, as I have tennis training.

The warmer spring weather is stabilising. I am very happy. Domino is loving it too, exploring the garden after a long wet winter.

Yesterday dropped off rings to the royal jeweller (or one of them) to be resized. This meant a trip to Chelsea – my fav place in London. My father, Stan the Man and my mother, Bev, who he called The Duchess, loved the General Trading Company (GTC), with all its Sloane kit. It’s long gone from Sloane Street. It’s where pheasants and stags once chose their wedding list (Prince Charles and Camilla had their wedding list there), along with Peter Jones.  In the early years, my family visited me in London, but also to travel from the tip of Scotland to Land’s End at the foot of Cornwall. They hadn’t left Australia before. It was an eye opener.

At first it was hard for Geoff to understand what my father, Stan, was saying a lot of the time, as he spoke very fast and with a broad Aussie Battler accent. A look of bafflement would appear on Geoff’s face when Stan was in full throttle, rabbiting on about his pet topics, the corruption of Aussie politics, sport, beer and grub (food). He also had a surprising love of fine objects, especially clocks, which he collected. Hence the love of the GTC, with its Empire finery. He also loved Aspreys on Bond Street. He wandered in one day in his trainers and the sales assistants treated him as if he was the King of England: charming beyond charming. He bought a carriage clock. “Nice young bloke that served me!” he declared. 

When Stan was bellowing away like a gale force wind, Geoff would give him his full attention as if he was the most fascinating man in the world, but later say to me, “I simply can’t understand the man.” As a result of Geoff’s impeccable manners, Stan thought that Geoff was the best thing since sliced bread. They were an odd couple.  Stan grew to love Geoff deeply over the years and on his death bed, told him he had been the best son-in-law he could have wished for. We have the Aspreys clock.

Two things that gravely upset Stan on the trip were British food and beer. At one pub he ordered a minute steak. Stan was used to mega steaks called T-bones, which covered most of the dinner plate. Stan was a carnivore on a cave man scale. He would consume as much red meat as possible on a daily basis. I remember the look of disgust when the minute steak was put in front of him. “Strewth, are British cattle the size of lambs…” He ordered a lobster in Scotland and a small crustacean not much bigger than a king prawn in Oz was put in front of him. “Strewth, our prawns are bigger than this little bloke.” And the beer, “pee warm”. Dad loved the British pubs. He loved the Padwell Arms beyond the field at Geoff’s parents’ house, Stone House. But he always drank cold lager with Geoff.

On another trip, we went to the Loire Valley in France, with the plethora of chateaux. Stan’s solution to not speaking a word of French was to increase the volume. 

“Gidday love. Can you tell me where I can find the steaks?” he said full throttle to a bewildered female shop assistant. We had come to a small supermarket in Descartes to pick up supplies for our rental.

I said, “Dad she doesn’t speak English. She doesn’t understand you.”

Stan looked at me, “Of course she bloody does. I can see it in her eyes.”

“Dad that is a look of horror. You’re yelling at her.”

Geoff could speak French so he intervened. A look of relief flooded the woman’s face.

Today I am going to meet The Hon. for lunch for more tips on life in the upper class. Then out for supper at the Hurlingham Club with Mr and Mrs Jetset (this couple travel the world in great style).

Yesterday, sunshine. Fed and weeded the lawn. Gathered wood and lit another bonfire. I am becoming a pyromaniac.

These days life is more about manual work, but in the first five years of marriage, before the children, it was about brain work. I spent my days thinking and writing in a legal context. That is what I was paid for.

I made two trips to the States with Justin, my boss. We flew business class, which was something, as I had only been on a plane a few times in my life. In those days, you could smoke on planes, so everyone was puffing and huffing around me. Hated that. Couldn’t even open a window. Foul.

The Windy City was stellar. One piece of litigation was filed in Cooke County, Illinois, so Peterson & Ross (P&R) in Chicago were engaged as our local attorneys. We had many conference calls with the two hot-shot lawyers involved, Tom and Greg, before I finally met them. No video links at that time. They sounded like movie stars on the phone. I was excited to finally meet them, and although they were quite nice looking, they were not in the Tom Cruise league.  Films based on John Grisham’s legal novels were just about to start hitting cinemas on a regular basis.

Outside of work hours, we had a lot of fun: jazz clubs, baseball at Wrigley Field, dinner at fantastic restaurants and shopping at Bloomingdales. On the weekend, Justin hired a big American tank of a car and we drove clockwise along Lake Michigan (more like an inland sea) to stay with the senior partner at P&R, who I’ll call Mr X. He had a lake house. I was nervous, as Mr X, who was ancient by the way – old as Stan the Man – had asked me out in London a few months earlier. One day Justin rushed into my office and said that Mr X was on the phone and wanted to ask me out. He’d asked Justin’s permission to mix business with pleasure first. I declined on the basis that I was dating Geoffrey. Dodged a bullet.

It was time to go to the beach for a swim. I was not keen on baring my body, so I feigned tiredness and stayed at the house reading back copies of Vanity Fair. But it was fun that evening. Mr X had a look-out at the back of the garden and we climbed up there to star gaze, drinking very good red wine and chatting. It was a surreal experience, being at the top of the world with an Englishman and a Yank.  I enjoyed the access my job gave me to people far cleverer than me.

Even with the excitement of the international legal world, I missed Geoffrey terribly and couldn’t wait to see him again.

Today, popping along to favourite jewellers, Robinson Pelham, on Chelsea Green, as I need to have my engagement ring enlarged. Arthritis methinks. They made Kate Middleton’s wedding earrings.

Friday was lovely weather at the Old Rectory. Then, despite the weather forecast (hate when they get it wrong), it caved in and we had howling winds all weekend. The garage door almost blew off, so the hinges are damaged.

We had workmen here cutting up logs from the ancient beech tree, which was felled a few months ago. Hugo and I dug up the woodland path nearby, which has been in disarray since we bought the house. The idea is to create a scenic walk. It may take the rest of my life!

After living at Geoff’s parents’ house in Kent for a stint after our wedding, I was glad to relocate to our little house in Clapham. It had a garden the size of a handkerchief. Now we could concentrate on married life, entertaining friends, having fun and work.

Work: I worked the in the City, the Square Mile, the Midas mile, from the end of the 80s to roughly 1998, when money was being made faster and faster after the Big Bang in 1986, when the markets were deregulated. It was an exciting, heady time. You felt that you were part of something, BIG. You felt bigger. It was just an illusion. It was money being made in vast quantities that made you feel that way.

Interview for my first job (August, 1988): I walked into a conference room at Barlow, Lyde and Gilbert (now merged with Clyde & Co, my next employer) and there was this really young looking, blonde guy, Justin Codrai, not much taller than me, obviously not much older than me. He was the PARTNER interviewing me. He opened his mouth and he had the poshest voice!  More than Geoff’s, which is saying something. “Please take a seat.” He pulled the seat out for me, for strewth’s sake! He had impeccable manners. Kept on saying, “Many thanks.” It was the contrast between the baby looks and the old boy manners – totally threw me.

He asked what I knew about Lloyd’s, as the firm worked mainly for Lloyd’s. What I didn’t know was that Lloyd’s was a huge ‘market place’, where insurance is sold on the spot with Underwriters taking a part of the risk, like a slice of the cake, until there is 100% coverage. There is always the first Underwriter who takes the plunge, the Lead Underwriter on behalf of the Lead Syndicate (which when I worked in the city was comprised of individual investors like shareholders, but with UNLIMITED liability). I smiled and replied to the question, “Well, yes, of course, I’ve seen the banks around the place. They are very good…” In other words, I didn’t know a flipping thing about the question and had got it 100% wrong. Failed. It was a Bridget Jones moment. There would be many more to come.

Justin gave me the job. He was only in his early 30s. I was 26, but I got the job. Many years later I met him for lunch in a smart restaurant in Piccadilly, my shout, and I asked why he hired me when I was such an idiot. He said that he could tell I would try to learn, FAST.

Justin came across as a public school boy, but he had an unusual upbringing. His father had worked in what would become the United Arab Emirates, when it was still like in biblical times (1950s to mid-80s), before oil made it rich. Instead of going to Cornwall for holidays, he hared around the sand dunes in the Middle East like Lawrence of Arabia. There was no hierarchy in his team. He was classless, despite the accent.

Justin was earning the most money for the firm, as he had two prestigious and large pieces of litigation, with suits filed in London and Chicago. He had a maverick way of litigating, but with a genius mind, that was effective. Not long after I started working for him, he walked into my office one day and said, “How would you feel about a trip to Chicago with me?”

“Yes please!” I said.

So I was off to the Windy City, Chicago, one of my very favourite places.

Today I am going to hit the garden hard and apply weed and feed to the lawn and try to pick up all the twigs and sticks that the wind blew down.

Back in Hampshire. Very nice weather and more forecast for the weekend.

Yesterday was spent travelling. Your flight may only  be 2.5 hours, but the getting to the airport, immigration, waiting to board…after  the flight, immigration, baggage reclaim, then to get the dog and finally back home  – let’s face it, short haul is often best part of a day.

We were back at the Old Rectory at 6pm after leaving the hotel in Lisbon at 8am.

The second half of our honeymoon was in Taormina, Sicily.

Shrewd move on Geoffrey’s part. A week of sightseeing in Tuscany: Siena, Florence, Pisa. Then a week by the sea.

We arrived at the hill top resort and were told by the concierge, a man who looked like a frog (not to be froggist), that our room would not be ready until the next day. Our pleas that this was our honeymoon fell on deaf ears. Instead of a room with sea views and a double bed, we were shown to a room with two single beds facing the road. And then, when we finally moved into our sea view room, there was a peculiar smell. It was the plumbing. I kept pouring shampoo down the ancient cistern, but to no avail. It kept on smelling.

But hey ho, when you’re in love, it hardly matters, right? Well, it did matter, but we just had to get on with it. It was the days before carbs were bad for you, so we gorged on pasta at lunch and dinner. Visited the Roman ruins above the town and Etna, the live volcano. We mostly just read and relaxed by the pool and down by the sea.

Geoff and I bought a little house in Clapham just before the wedding. He had sold his bachelor flat with the avocado bathroom some time before. But there was a hitch, the roof needed redoing. I was naïve in such matters, but this meant that we were delayed moving into our new home by a couple of months. Geoffrey’s parents Tony and Eve, who we called Pops and Mutti (Geoffrey studied German at Durham), were visiting Africa for several months so we moved in to house sit.

We had left England in winter and after our honeymoon, returned to summer, not spring. There was a heat wave in May that lasted all summer.

I thought to myself, this can’t be all bad. The Poms exaggerate when they talk about tepid summers.

My one job was to pick the fruit in the orchard for Mutti and freeze it: blackberries, raspberries and gooseberries. And water the rockery. After a hard day’s work at the law firm in the City, I would don old clothes and start harvesting. Geoff would mow the four acres on a sit down mower. I was exhausted. Adjusting to married life in a new country, establishing myself at work, harvesting, commuting to London (the trains were often delayed) and trying to be the perfect Sloane wife: all a bit much. To my horror I managed to kill the rockery. What would Mutti say on her return?

I fell ill. Which meant that I missed a few weddings and in particular, Ghislaine and Peter’s, at her brother’s, the Lord’s, house in Scotland.   

Neverthless, for that first summer, the sun shone and shone and shone. But the clouds were brewing.

The children are coming to Hampshire for the weekend and there is a lot of gardening to do. Time for the first mow.

Last breakfast in Lisbon before legging it to the airport.

Yesterday we spent the morning on the No. 1 red tram, winding up and down impossibly narrow streets in the humble Alfama district. At times we were so close to the shops we went past, I could have reached out of the window and taken a leg of lamb.

One of the trade-offs of leaving the East Coast of Australia, with its big, booming, spraying surf, was European travel. I made a bucket list very early on and I am almost done, with a handful of destinations left to see. It has been a wonderful adventure. I have dragged all the family along, as much as they were willing. The children, as fledglings, were duped into thinking that these vacations were “great fun”, but despite the occasional ice cream to bribe them, it was a lot of walking, looking, experiencing, sleeping…walking, looking, experiencing, sleeping and it went on. They saw a lot and now they love it too.

Our wedding in April, 1989, was a blur and stressful, as so few of my tribe were there. I had the honeymoon to look forward to after being the centre of attention. Ah, perhaps that is why I was so uncomfortable with Geoffrey’s musical soirees. He was the centre of attention. Something I loathe. Unless I am in actress mode, when I become someone else and entertain with funny stories.

Our honeymoon was in Tuscany, Italy. My favourite film up to that time was “A Room with a View” (1985), based on a favourite novel by E.M. Forster. Vintage performances from Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter and Daniel Day Lewis. They have stayed in the spotlight for all these years. National treasures. 

I adored those period films before and after my exile: adaptations of – Forster (Maurice, Howard’s End, Where Angels Fear to Tread, A Passage to India); Henry James (Age of Innocence, The Portrait of a Lady); Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband), Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility) and Kazuo Ishiguro (Remains of the Day). And all with our Brit favs: Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Hugh Laurie, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Colin Firth, Kate Winslet and some of the Hollywood lot donned posh voices and joined in – Reese Witherspoon and Cate Blanchett spring to mind. 

But A Room with a View is my Number One. One evening, snuggled up to Geoffrey after he’d popped the question some days before, I told him how I adored that film, made by the amazing Merchant Ivory Productions. It is romance on steroids.

The Arno (river) flowing under the ancient Ponte Vecchio bridge in Florence: where Lucy (who is a Sloane essentially, played by Bonham Carter) faints after seeing an intense argument between two Italian men, which escalates to a stabbing and death. As she swoons, she is caught by George (who is working class). The backdrop is Florence: with all that history and naked statues everywhere. Overseen like a godfather by the monumental, terracotta, domed roof of the Duomo (cathedral).

Fast forward to a Tuscan hill side: where George manfully embraces Lucy, against her will initially, but she of course relents, as he kisses her passionately amongst the blue violets and poplars, whilst the other English guests from the pensione picnic elsewhere. Lucy pretends to be offended, but she really loves it.

Fast forward and now everyone is back in the English country side, Surrey, which is Home Counties, near to London and therefore not quite the right sort of country for some snobbish people. Lucy is engaged to a prudish, frigid, self-important Cecil (played by Daniel Day Lewis). George continues to kiss her from time to time and she eventually chucks Cecil and she and George get married. They end up honeymooning back in Florence. In the last scene they are sitting, framed by a window and George kisses his now wife, Lucy. Love is classless. Can I say more?

Geoffrey got it right for our honeymoon! Hint taken. We stayed at La Cisterna in San Gimignano. I had no idea at the time that the film “Where Angels Dare to Tread”, starring Helen Mirren, was predominantly filmed there. But the hill top view from our shuttered window of the olive groves and finger like poplars pointing to the sky, was just as good as the view that Lucy – Bonham Carter – had on her honeymoon in Florence. 

Nevertheless, this was my very first stint in Europe and I felt like a novice. I felt unsophisticated compared to the beauty around me. More of that tomorrow.

Today is travelling and collecting Domino from The Whippet Hotel and heading to Hampshire.    

Our final day in Lisbon. Yes, it is sunny again.

Yesterday we went to the charming towns of Estoril and Cascais on the Lisbon Riviera. We walked along the promenade and found a sea pool, not exactly like in Sydney, but in the same ilk. We walked past the marina and found a ramshackle restaurant perched above an emerald green inlet, facing a decaying mansion. Geoff ate grilled sardines. The old town in Lisbon is full of grand things decaying. And graffiti everywhere. However, in Cascais we located some mansions in pristine condition. And had a glimpse of what Lisbon would have been like in its heyday.

Wherever you go in the world, you find music, which like love, is part of the universal language. In Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”, Orsino proclaims, “If music be the food of love, play on…” As we wandered around Lisbon, we were greeted by the sound of music on the street and from darkened restaurants.

One of the things that Geoff loved to do in the early days of our courtship and marriage was to serenade me. I found it intensely embarrassing. He would strum away and sing songs like “Lady in Red”, by Chris de Burgh and “Stuck on You”, by Lionel Ritchie. As Tony and Eve had so many children, they had double unisex loo cubicles (toilets) installed downstairs, so no one was caught out on the hop. To make me laugh, Geoff would come in and strum and sing whilst I was on the loo.  Whilst I found the whole Elvis-like renditions excruciating, his friends were, without exception, enthralled by his musical talents.

One outlet for Geoff’s musical prowess was Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night, which is celebrated by the Brits on 5th November. It is the anniversary of foiling a Catholic conspiracy in 1605 to blow up the Houses of Parliament. A stuffed dummy of Guy Fawkes, who was caught with the explosives under the Houses, is placed on a bonfire and incinerated. Fireworks are part of the festivities. It was a male Wilmot tradition to build a humungous bonfire in the orchard at Stone House and have a big party. People would bring fireworks and wine.

I attended one of these bonfires shortly before our engagement. After the bonfire burnt down to glowing embers, Geoff, to my horror, brought out his guitar. There he was in his element, surrounded by a crowd, swaying away to his dulcet tones, sipping mulled wine. No one found it cheesy, except me. No doubt a cultural difference, I have yet to get to the bottom of.

I am sad to say that he played less and less as our marriage progressed. My apologies, Geoff, for smothering your talent!

Today we are going on a tram trip and to Belem to the monastery. Our last day before heading home.

      

Today it is sunny and hot in Lisbon, AGAIN. Yesterday we spent the morning in the Principe Real district, recommended to us by Inca, as she lived in Lisbon for a time whilst her father worked at the Peruvian Embassy. It is teeming with antique shops (ancient tiles) and art galleries.

We enjoyed a pleasant lunch in a Café Martinho Da Arc, opened in 1782, in the Praco do Comercio by the sea.  We had just returned to the hotel when we heard the most enormous “Boom”. It was thunder. For the next fifteen minutes we were spectators of a monumental electrical storm.

Large scale, majestic, terrifying thunder storms are commonplace in Australia. I love the offbeat song by GANGgajang, “This is Australia”, with the lyrics, “On the patio we sit, The humidity we breathe, We watch lightning crack over (sugar) canefields…”

Only 10 percent of Australia is inhabited and that includes the large tracts of land, which are grazing or arable land.

From the window of the many planes that have flown me home to Oz, I have gazed, amazed, at the sheer vastness of the uninhabited rust-red desert and the treeless grasslands that comprise so much of the interior. From hitting the coast at the top of Western Australia, to finally seeing settlement just before reaching Sydney, hours go by where there is no sign of life below. But, I would occasionally see thunderstorms and lightning striking the lifeless ground. No-one but goannas and kangaroos to witness the show. 

Lightning, as a child, meant get out of the water or be fried. It also meant bushfires if there was vegetation, especially eucalyptus trees, which release their seeds in the heat in order to reproduce. My parents, Stan and Bev, relocated from Sydney to the scenic Illawarra peninsula to settle near Shaun and his family in early 1999. The settlement along the peninsula is bookended by the sea on one side and a large, bushy ridge or escarpment on the other.

For one Christmas we were in Oz for the festive season and on the day itself, a huge cloud rolled in from the West. Not a rain cloud, it was smoke. The food stuck in our throats as we realised that out West people could be losing their homes and possibly their lives. Bush animals would be dying. The fires came precariously close to my brother’s, Shaun’s, house. Only the creek separated them from the flames. All it took was for a spark to fly over the water and it would have been curtains.

For days after we could see smouldering fires along the top of the ridge, threatening to erupt with a high wind and advance down to the houses. I was down at the beach with Shaun’s wife, Wendy and our children one morning in the early 2000s, when a huge helicopter came over the ridge. It was Elvis.

Elvis is a huge helicopter from Memphis that the Australian government hires during the summer bushfire season. It has a long nozzle like a mosquito, which sucks up to 9,500 litres of seawater and then spews it out on the flames. Everyone on the beach stopped their activities to watch the show and cheer Elvis on. In seconds the smouldering fires were quenched as Elvis chucked out its load of water. During these seasons the Australian Fire Brigade, including rescue fighter, Rob Kilham, work full throttle to save homes and lives.

Summer means surfing and sunshine and fun, but it is also a time of intense heartache for those who lose their homes or loved ones to bushfires. One summer I was down at the local fish and chips shop at Austinmer Beach, near Mum and Dad’s home, when an old bloke got out of his ‘ute (utility truck). He was covered head to toe in black soot and looked tired. I asked what had happened and he told me that he had disobeyed the fire brigade when he was ordered to evacuate. Instead, he had sat on the roof of his house all night and kept hosing it down as the street was engulfed in flames. The rest of the street burnt to the ground. This is the Aussie spirit. He told me, “I wasn’t bloody well going to lose my house!” A man’s house is his castle after all.

Today we are going to the Estoril and Cascais, seaside resorts, half an hour by train to the West of Lisbon.

The weather today is sunny and hot. Hot, hot, hot. I am in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, with Geoffrey. No coat required today. Just a shirt and a smile. I am a happy Kangaroo.

On Friday we were reunited with our son, Hugo, home from Warwick where he is studying Chemistry. He seemed thinner and taller. A milimetre further into adulthood and away from being my baby boy. The dismay I automatically felt when I saw his unshaven face evaporated as soon as he smiled. Hugo has a great smile.

Even though it is sunny this morning in Lisbon, thunderstorms are forecast for this afternoon. The run up to our wedding in April 1989, was just the same. I was ecstatic to have found Geoffrey on the other side of the world, after all, what were the odds, but it was the other side of the world.

The top floor of a terraced house in Battersea, which I shared with Nicky in the first months of life in London, was not my natural habitat. Nor was the little house Geoff and I had bought not far away to start our married life. I grew up in suburbia. With space and jacaranda and eucalyptus trees and heat and barbeques and kidney shaped swimming pools. I spent my weekends in the sunshine, swimming in frothy, pounding surf or in sea pools carved out of the rocky headlands.

I was delighted to see the sun making diamonds on the Atlantic sea, as we ate our breakfast on the roof top terrace of our hotel. And then I felt the familiar thump of homesickness grip my chest. As Peter Allen’s song goes, “I still call Australia home…” I call England home too. Can you love two countries? Yes you can. I do.

Leaving Australia also meant leaving my family and friends. Would my family love Geoffrey? When I told my father, Stan, over the phone that I was marrying Geoffrey, he said, “Who the bloody hell is Geoffrey?”

You can imagine my nerves when Stan the Man and Bev, my mother, together with my brother, Shaun, and his wife, Wendy, arrived to meet Geoffrey for the first time in London. We went to Heathrow to meet them. The first thing we could see was the tip of surfboards. Both Shaun and Wendy surfed in those days and had planned to hit the waves in Cornwall. Stan was holding a pair of Ugg boots for Geoffrey. The Aussie Battler was meeting the toff.

Dad was a typical Aussie Battler. An Aussie Battler is the sort of bloke that does an honest day’s work and despite the odds, makes a go of it. They are “fair dinkum”, meaning honest, true and fair. Stan was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Bev’s family were the posher ones. He was born on the outskirts of the CBD (Central Business District) of Sydney. When I was growing up, people with money did not live in the small terraced houses fringing the CBD. They lived in leafy suburbs, preferably on the water. This all changed in the 90s when the yuppies moved into the terraces and those areas were gentrified.  The same thing is happening in Lisbon with urban regeneration in areas like Principal Real.

Today we are going to walk around town and have lunch down by the sea.