Life in Adelaide is sweet. Some of our favourite friends have slotted right back into place, swapping dinners, herbs and gossip at any excuse. When her Melbourne contract ends in March, I’m sure Monica and I will enjoy the place even more. In a couple of weeks, the Adelaide Fringe starts so we’re trying to lock in a respectable number of shows to make up for the years we’ve been away. The annual Fringe is a spin-off from the Adelaide Festival of Arts which will also become an annual event from next year. It’s the world’s second biggest, after Edinburgh, so you can imagine the difficulty of choice we’ll face then. After the Fringe are four days of WOMADelaide (world music) that we’ve always enjoyed, taking us through to late March.
After that, we’re planning to take the long-promised trip back to England to catch up with everyone there and also to make a decision about whether we want to stay in Australia into our retirement years. Monica wasn’t convinced of the need for this (remember, we never planned to remain here beyond six months!) but Neil, for a laugh, sent me the link to Uncle Michael’s farmhouse, the Stank, that’s up for sale near Stirling. When I casually showed it to Monica, her reaction was surprisingly strong and, after checking out that place and many others for sale up and down the country, we realised that we’re still strongly connected to the idea of life there; and that there’s a real opportunity to do well out of the move while the two economies and currencies are in our favour. We’re imagining an old farmhouse with just a few acres of garden and orchard, probably back near Bristol but maybe around the Lakes.
I’ll probably come across first, leaving Monica with the dogs. Then while they’re in kennels for a couple of weeks we’ll travel together, visiting and house-shopping. After that, Monica will stay for a while with her family. If we’ve decided on the move, Monica will complete the tasks at that end while I pack up here. It’ll be a great shame to disappoint our friends here (again) but, at the moment, we feel the pull of the life we left behind.