Lock the doors, call immigration - I'm coming home!

Alas, it won't be a permanent return to warmer shores, but I'm starting to feel like a bit of a toff. I'll be spending Christmas in Rome, and then I'm Summering in Australia - this is the life! Of course, that's a Northern Summer, which means it'll be Winter back in the Land Down Under, but I can almost guarantee that it'll be warmer there than it will here.

Now that I've finally gotten around to booking my flights, here's a few things I can genuinely look forward to without just dreaming about them:

• Proper fish and chips. I know the English claim this dish as their own, but really, no. Not a chance. I long for the days of nipping across to Beaches for a staffroom lunch, with crumbed and cooked to order reef fish - red emperor, coral trout, etc.
• Silverside with normal cabbage. Seriously - another supposed British dish that just isn't right.
• Prawns.
• Hog's Breath steak. I don't care what anyone says, Hog's Breath steak may not be the best steak in the world, but it beats the hell out of what you can get here.
• Mrs Bacon's roast lamb. It's tradition.
• Normal Cadbury's chocolate.
• Bundaberg ginger beer that I don't have to go to London to buy.
• Mangoes. Oh dear Lord, the mangoes!

Hrm, I've noticed that the entire list revolves around food. It's a given that I'm looking forward to seeing the family, as I will have been away for two years by the time I get there. Same goes for Samuel, the mischief-making chocolate lab who sleeps on my treadmill. I'm looking forward to more than one day (or more like one hour) of sunshine. I'm looking forward to going barefoot!

Sigh. 7 months and 2 days, but who's counting?