Witters from Down Under

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Frenchbean returned to Australia from Scotland in 2005 to see whether she'd fallen in love with the country, or simply with her husband, eight years previously.




The answer lies in the fact that she is still there, living on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, from whence she writes her Witters from Down Under. It is a life of hard work made bearable by sunshine, beach exploits and topless driving.




The Post Team are delighted to be able to publish her regular reflections on Antipodean life.

WOOHOO!! I am exotic!

A photo to illustrate this week's column, taken by Frenchbean

Hello Everybody smiley - smiley

One of my correspondents has mused that my life is sufficiently filled with the mundane and irritating (builders and real estate agents amongst others) to eliminate exotica1 and that the grass is always greener wherever we aren't.

Is my life lacking in the exotic? Are there some tracks over which I can spy greener grass?

Are my most exotic moments driving topless and wandering around the Eumundi Markets? I feel it's much more than that, so I decided to investigate.

The first stop was my favourite book: the enormous Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Exotic is defined as 'Belonging to another country, foreign, alien'. (First recorded use of the word was in Ben Jonson's play Every Man in his Humour 1598, in which he refers to 'Magick, Witchcraft, or other such exotick arts'.)

So, literally by definition, I am exotic myself, without actually doing anything whatsoever.

Woohoo!!

I'm exotic in Australia because I'm a Pom. I'm exotic in Britain because I'm an Aussie. And I'm exotic in the rest of the world because I'm both.

Further ferreting revealed that online dictionaries variously supply the following definitions of exotic:

  1. From another part of the world; foreign
  2. Introduced from another country
  3. Not native to the place where found
  4. Intriguingly unusual or different; excitingly strange
  5. Having a strange allure or beauty
  6. Of or involving striptease

1, 2 and 3 – Yes.

4 – I like to think so.

5 – Well yes, obviously.

6 – Occasionally, in private.

So whilst it is evident that I am exotic (I love that... and am repeating it again and again), what about the life I lead in Australia as a born-and-bred Brit? Is that exotic?

For the purpose of this Witter, I'll use a hybrid definition to judge it: 'Belonging to another country and excitingly strange' (the less said about the striptease the better, I think).

The following list demonstrates the things that I do, or things which surround me, which I consider to be completely un-British and which are—to my eyes at least—exciting and wonderful.

First and most important is the weather...

  • I know I will wake up tomorrow, and Sunday and probably the rest of the week, to sun shining through the trees outside my bedroom window and that it will continue to shine through a cloudless sky most days.
  • Rain, when it falls, is often in great torrents lasting a few hours. Then the sun blazes down again.
  • It is warm enough, even in winter, for shorts and a light t-shirt at some point during most days.
  • I mostly live outdoors, particularly during my leisure time. Even when I'm inside, the windows and doors are open all day.
  • Washing dries outside reliably within a few hours, all year round.
  • For several months through the summer the only tolerable clothing is either minimal or non-existent.
  • My toes, nose and fingers are the same temperature as the rest of my body for 95% of the year.
  • People look at me funny if I wear clothes on the beach.

The country and its inhabitants aren't too bad either...

  • The Aussie sea is blue; it's full of desert islands with proper palm trees, coral reefs and huge (delicious) fishes. And the water doesn't give you frostbite.
  • Rainforests or bush sweep down onto the sand line along most of the coast.
  • Where the towns meet the ocean, there are barbecues in the parks and restaurants that open onto the beach.
  • There are surf beaches, perfect for boogie-boarding, swimming and long walks.
  • Where there aren't surf beaches (in the tropics) there are crocodiles and box jellyfish to deter swimmers. (Deadly, but still exotic.)
  • Pelicans are as common as seagulls. Eagles, albatrosses and frigate birds aren't unusual.
  • Multi-coloured parrots shout and flit about the bush.
  • Kookaburras and lorikeets wake me each morning with their laughing and screeching. (Annoying, but nonetheless exotic.)
  • Cicadas and frogs lull me to sleep through the summer nights.
  • Roos bounce through the bush past the house morning and evening.
  • There are at least four different kinds of snakes in the garden and there are mammoth spiders sharing the house with me. (Nasty, but exotic.)
  • The fruit! Ah, the fruit is definitely exotic. Mangoes, lychees, paw paws, figs, persimmons and the like.

Finally the two most frivolous things that I cherish above all others about my life here:

Topless driving

My curly mop of hair

For a girl who has spent most of her 46 years in Britain, this life in Australia is most definitely exotic. I challenge anybody to conclude otherwise.

And is the grass greener anywhere else?

I don't think so.

If it was, I'd be thinking about going there. Right now; I have no inclination to be anywhere but here, so I guess this is as green as it gets.

Witters from Down Under Archive

Frenchbean

05.06.08 Front Page

Back Issue Page

1Interestingly, exotica is not a 'real' word. It doesn't appear even in the (presumably) up-to-date online dictionaries.

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