Australia!

 Home. It has been a long while between posts as moving has taken up so much energy and time. But here I am, finally putting together my favourite sights and tastes of Australia for this blog.

Australia! It starts with the coffee. Superb, creamy milk, lovingly made, fanatically devoured by the locals; a gone trendy coffee shop in Oz is as ubiquitous as a Tesco Express refurb of heritage buildings in the UK.

I shouldn't compare though - after all my years in England pining for home, I have returned to discover the reasons why I left in the first place and had conveniently forgotten. My lesson is that wherever you are you must thrive, be awake to it's unique beauty, to find happiness in each day in however small a way. I spent so long thinking that a move home would fix my troubles, that my heart's restless waves were because I was an expat in a cold land, banished from the paradise where I truly belonged.

Who said paradise had to have heat and palm trees? I can now concede that it could also be found in misty moors, on an unwalked street just after snow, in a rented kitchen cooking dinner for family, in the excitement of arriving in a grand old city, and here, at the base of a eucalypt, squinting into blue horizon. Paradise is a place inside that can exist regardless of externals - duh!

And yet...

Dawn where we are currently staying on the Gold Coast is a symphony of colour and sound. The sky starts pink and fills with the screeches of hundreds of cockatoos as they make their way to breakfast in neighbouring playing fields. They come back to the trees at dusk, so many birds making so much sound, the sky again flushing out colour in all directions, as vast as sky should be, and walking in this noisy beautiful world more nature in my senses than things of man - this is Australia, the quintessential thing I miss in that unspeakable way when far from home.

New school cafe versus old school milk bar

I've been making lots of salads and getting very excited by the fabulous produce at the many Farmers Markets along the coast. Here's a little side dish I made with gorgeous taut young courgettes/zucchinis - it's an old favourite of mine, just fry off strips or slices of 3 to 4 courgettes in a fruity olive oil and when they start to colour add a handful of raisins (optional - the pic below was made without as I had none, but they do add a lovely sweetness), some pinenuts and a crushed garlic clove or 2. Season with seasalt and stir until the garlic has become fragrant but not burnt and the raisins have puffed up from the heat. Take off the heat and add dried mint, a squeeze of lemon and another small splash of the oil.
Serve room temperature.