I'm going to need a holiday after my UK trip

I've always known a lot of people. I'm not saying I'm popular, more I've been around—in the career sense—and met nice people worth keeping hold of after I've moved on from each job. This always means birthdays etc are big 50-plus people parties, sometimes in two locations (where I'm from, in Wiltshire and in London, where I know most people). So now, faced with 3 weeks back in the UK next month to catch up with family and friends, I'm having to plan this trip like a military operation. Thoughts of giving myself reasonable amounts of rest time to prevent burnout have long since gone out the window and somehow, despite my vow to only see the people who really matter, those 3 weeks in my Filofax are the biggest, multi-coloured, scribbled-out-then-written-over-again, circled, highlighted mess I've ever seen. And I like things neat!
To give you an idea, during this trip I have the wedding of a very dear friend in Wales, a baby god daughter to meet for the first time in Norfolk, an entire house worth of my worldly belongings to remove from a storage unit (and decide what to sell/chuck/store at Dad's/ship back to Oz), a big party in London, and quality time with my Dad, only sibling and other family to contend with. And that's before I see most of my friends. Phew!
All of this I am looking forward to immensely (apart from the dealing with my belongings part) but it is also instilling a kind of panic in me. Because even though I think I have enough days left to see all the people who matter, the realisation that I might only get to see each person once—twice at best—is already disappointing.
What I'm grateful for however is that I obviously have a lot of very special UK people in my life. And I already have a good few on this side of the globe as well. Can't say luckier than that...

Russell Brand on Jade Goody

Russell Brand blogged about Jade Goody today and it was an interesting post; honest, good natured, sensible, not overly sentimental and from someone who actually knew her, if only a bit. If you've been following this, I'd recommend you read it because it's real.
It made me consider a couple of things:
1. That I lost my mum to cancer, like Bobby and Freddie, when I was three years old, and how terribly sad that is for them; and
2. It is really not such a terrible thing that the general public took to this mere mortal. After all, she never did anyone any harm. She was just a nice, normal, working class girl done good. So what if she wasn't the cleverest? She was certainly entertaining.
As Russell sensibly points out: "One of the charges often levelled at Jade was that she was just a normal girl with no trade or practiced skills. Well people didn’t care and our heroes are not prescribed to us, we have the right to choose them and the people chose Jade. Fame has long been bequeathed by virtue of wealth and birth and this was the first generation where it was democratically distributed by that most lowbrow of modern phenomena – Reality Television. She was a person who, I think due to her class always had the propensity to irk people. When Big Brother 3 made her famous she was vilified in the paper and bullied in the house but through her spirit she won people back round and became a kind of Primark Princess with perfumes and fitness videos and endless media coverage – because people were interested in her. They remain interested."
For all his silliness, he's a smart guy.

Home news

Living on the other side of the world these days, it's always nice to see a bit of home news on the telly. NOT. Most of the UK news to hit these shores since I've been here has been about the dire state of the economy. Fair enough. That's big. But when something non-economic filters through you'd hope it'd be heart-warming, or quaintly English, or make me wish I was home. But no, it's this kid (above); Britain's youngest father at 13 years old, or so he thought. Turns out his 15 year-old baby mamma was sleeping with a variety of teenagers and a DNA test has proved this little guy—who would have been 12 at the time of conception—is not. Doesn't change the fact he was having sex—shudder—at the age of 12. He's 4ft tall, damn it!
The UK has a horrible rep as teenage pregnancy capital of Europe. Not only that, but a court made a ruling after the media initially went mental, that there should be no more reporting on this case, including the DNA results. Well guess what? The Mirror just went ahead and put it on their front page anyway! There's something else we have a bad rep for in the UK: our tabloids.
So there's no nostalgia and homesickness for me today. I'm just glad I met a Royal earlier in the week (did I mention I met the Queen's grandson?!) and had my British moment then.

Today I met my first Royal

Today I met the Queen's eldest and least well known grandson Peter Phillips, at an Australian British Chamber of Commerce Grand Prix lunch. How funny is that? I meet my first Royal on the other side of the world! 

When I was introduced to him I was sure he looked familiar and was wracking my brains as to where I'd seen him before. When my friend told me I had been chatting to, and shaking hands with, the Queen's grandson (son of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips and tenth in line to the throne), I said: "Ooooooohhhhh, that's it!"

He was thoroughly normal and pleasant. I have always thought his sister Zara was about the coolest thing to happen to the Royal Family—apart from the deliciously badly behaved Harry—and she always comes across as very grounded and modern. So it was really no surprise to find that this 30-something was so very unassuming and nice. Here he is pictured with his wife Autumn Kelly, being the first of the Queen's grandchildren to get married last year. Aaaw....

I've come over all British!

RIP Jade Goody

It's been reported by the BBC today that Jade died in the early hours of (UK) Mother's Day. How awful, whoever and whatever the circumstances, for someone so young, with two young sons, to die. I hope those little boys are well looked after.

I've been trying to avoid this hysteria/morbid fascination (what some media have described as our fascination with 'death porn') over a Big Brother 'star' who I do not know. But aside from it being really sad, this situation raises a lot of interesting questions about our society. I fully expect there to be some kind of national mourning in the UK like there was with Princess Diana (although not on the same scale) with people who didn't know her but felt like they did, turning up at her funeral to pay their respects. As sad as it is, I don't really understand that.

The media will of course go crazy, with every conceivable angle of the funeral and the boys' future scrutinised. Now I live in a country without tabloids as trashy as ours (which I won't pretend I didn't read from time to time in the UK, being a fan of celebrity gossip) I'm really starting to think the UK media is quite unique in the extent of its intrusion into people's private lives (and in this case we all know Jade invited it) and how we lap it up. I've not seen anything anywhere near like it in the year I've lived in Australia.

So here's what I thought of lovely Jade, who I of course didn't know, but saw more than enough of on TV and in magazines. She was happy and positive in the face of an awful situation, she looked out for her sons above anything else, she seemed thrilled to have married Jack, whatever your views on him, and she raised awareness of cervical cancer.

If you're one of those many Jade fans, why not make a donation to cervical cancer charity Jo's Trust in her memory?

How I 'cope' with the beach

So we all know I'm a bit of an English rose when it comes to the sun and the beach. I don't want skin cancer or the lobster pink look, so I slather on the factor 30 and try to keep in the shade. Today, I went to the beach in Rose Bay with my good friend Amanda. This is what we constructed, out of two golf umbrellas, to keep us out of the sun. You have to ask, what am I doing in this country?! Loving it! I came home with sand everywhere and one sunburnt (missed a bit!) shoulder but it was a good day!

Countdown to my return to the Motherland!

It's 20 days until I board the plane back to Blighty and I'm very excited. Apart from all the lovely family and friends I can't wait to see, there are a few things I am really looking forward to seeing/eating/experiencing again.

These include:

• Prawn cocktail crisps


• Proper English pubs


• The Queen's finest Royal Mail red letterboxes


• Stamps with the Queen on them (this is getting very patriotic, isn't it?)


• Underground stations


• Topshop, Whittards , Boots, Superdrug and WH Smith


• Fish and chips wrapped in paper and covered in VINEGAR


• The house where I grew up, which I've never been away from for this long


• The beautiful village of Heddington


• Trafalgar Square


• Big Ben


• BBC TV shows


• The Sunday Times Style magazine


• Marks and Spencers, especially the food!


• Heathrow Airport


• Black cabs
  
• Oxford Street, especially Selfridges

And most of all I am going to be devastated to see every High Street lacking a Woolworths. It was a British institution!