I’m a legal alien, like a prawn.

• By Alison
• 14 December, 2009
• 6 Comments

I am finding myself in an increasingly intriguing position in life, in that I’ve started to feel a bit like an alien in my own land.

It’s my own fault, of course. It’s a kind of karmetic payback for going to England and forgetting to come home. For raising pommie children, losing my accent and saying Yog-et instead of Yo-gert.

It’s not the people that I feel out of odds with – they are the same old generous, leathery populace that was here when I left – with the addition here and there of more sun hats and UV t-shirts on the beaches. Plus half of china appears to have moved in too. Oh, and less safari suits on businessmen. But still the wonderful shorts and long socks ensem that the old duffers wear as Sunday best wandering near the local RSL club.

It’s time. It’s the weathering and erosion of things that I know. The inevitable changes the time brings. When you live through change, it’s invisible to you. But when you are somewhere else, then come back – the changes seem insurmountable. Almost an affront. How dare they change things on me!

A small part of it is how much the streets that I grew up on have grown. It’s like they got together and planned to rebuild everything I knew so that  I’d get totally lost when I next came home. Where there were once two laned roads, now six land highways roar past. Highways that ping $4.99 out of your bank account everytime you zoom under a metal scaffolding bridging the road from side to side. I see hints and remnants of roads gone by as exits loom and pass.

Is Sydney turning into one giant daisy chain of roads?

It feels familiar and at the same time futuristically alien. Like a really sunny trip through a time machine.

Another part of it is how different the newer houses look. I was pleased – in an anti progress sort of way – to see some fibro houses still standing as squat ugly reminders of a yesteryear that had “70” in the year. But so many of those are being gobbled up by massive tributes to vulgarity that look like the owners want to be unseemingly intimate with their neighbours. What happened to having a side entrance to the house?

Before living in the UK I’d never really taken notice of the style or architectural history (short though it is) of Australian buildings. It’s almost as if I went searching for meaning, beyond the basic “I wanted one, so I built one. Mate.”

But these massive new houses have no soul. There is one near here that is so big, it apparently hs its own indoor pool AND tennis court. Does the occupant wish to avoid all other human contact? Because if so, that is NOT the australian way I grew up with.

Surely that’s not changed?

When we finally move here from London it will be like going from one extreme to the absolute other. From our tiny postage stamp sized terrace to the taj mahal. But knowing our luck, the dollar will have become so almighty, that we’ll end up in a house smaller than our English one.

I have found that living away from Australia has given me the opportunity to look back at my country in a more objective way when it comes to certain things. For example, as I came to love the English victorian houses, I started to look critically at the architecture styles in Sydney. I need a house that has character. I’ve now decided that the kind of house I want to live in will be the classic federation style of house, squat brick with a semi enclosed front patio that wraps from front to side. I am not 100% sure if that’s federation, or slightly later, but I plan to find out. They look cool and shady, as it’s essential to grow wisteria over the front.

They also make me think of my grandmother – who didn’t live at all in that style of house, but seems to suit the era. My grandparents lived in a sun drenched brick house built by my grandfather. It always felt cool and dark inside. Actually when it did warm up, it was apparently hard to cool down again. But my memories of it are always cool. My grandfather chose the bricks for the front of the house specially – he couldn’t afford to build the whole house from them, so chose more standard ones for the back. It broke my heart to hear that after he died the house was painted white. Who paints bricks? Dickheads. I can never drive down that street again, because I just don’t ever want to see his house ruined like that.

More than houses, more than roads – the things that make me feel out of place are the empty holes left by the trademarks of my youth. Brandnames, habits, tv shows, sayings – all have moved on to the future leaving me slightly off balance. Some of them I can’t even remember well enough to name, but I seem to be aware of the holes left behind.

It’s such a shame that Grace Bros was sucked up into Myers, leaving my husband with no opportunity to make jokes about decrepid old men and underwear. I can’t think of Myers as the same store.

My parents sold the house of my childhood and moved into a duplex (how english!). It’s filled with the furniture of my youth, but it’s not home. It does have a lot of gum trees around it though, which is good.

But at least the vegemite is still here. (Wasn’t it supposed to be replaced with “Aussiemite” or something? Thank God they didn’t do that to me!)

Long live Vegemite.

Oh and by the way – I never really did like barbecue’d prawns. That Paul Hogen has a lot to answer for!

So I am going to go off and practise saying G’day a lot.

G’day!