Still Foreign

Even after a few years here, things still happen that make you say: "That would never have happened at home."

For Sara recently, it was leaving the office to walk to the car and watching three blokes trying to wrestle a goat out of the back of a ute and into the vet's surgery.  For me, it was a visit to local masseuse, Glenda ,who lives round the corner.  Glenda used to work on prawn trawlers in the Gulf of Carpentaria and regaled me with fishy tales as I lay on the couch.  I tottered home afterwards, listening to the surf, under a sky full of stars, and thinking about the sweet smelling sea slugs which had sparked a violent allergy that made her swell up like a balloon.