Welcome visit to Aus

I HAVE probably written too often about my brother who has been visiting us in recent weeks.

We have had a very enjoyable time together, but enough is enough! He and his wife are off back to England tomorrow leaving at some God-forsaken early hour.

I shall do the right thing brother wise and dump them at Brisbane Airport only shortly after you have finished reading this!

Relatives are like rich food; enjoyable regularly but in small quantities.

I will be interested to hear how they have coped with the change in temperature between their home and my own... March in England can still be very cold and sleeping on top of the bedclothes will have to be just a memory.

We shall miss them in a brotherly kind of way.

The Chronicle will lose an avid reader of every conceivable sporting snippet. My brother seems to be able to generate an interest in the most mundane detail of every local event, match, or competition.

It matters not that he might be the only reader excited about the recent match between the Oopsy-Woopsy Reserves and a Girl Guides representative team from just north of Brisbane. I love it and marvel at why he cares, but he clearly does.

Our roaming in the last weeks has taken us to Alice Springs, Darwin, Cairns and Brisbane (several times) and those places have a fascination for visiting Poms from west of London! I’ve told you more about that in earlier columns!

This latest visit was his fifth over the past 20 years or so.

It’s the first time in which I have been brave enough to ask him what he really thinks about Australia.

He has reminded me that the base for all his visits has been here in Toowoomba, staying with us at our home.

So, although we have done our fair share of tripping around during those years, he rightly acknowledges that his view of our city and our country is conditioned by the choices his brother and sister-in-law have forced on him!

I have just asked him two straightforward

‘‘ MY LOVE OF THIS COUNTRY CERTAINLY DOES NOT MEAN THAT THERE AREN’T THINGS THAT ANNOY ME INTENSELY! SPORTS COMMENTATORS WITH AN UNREASONABLE BIAS TOWARDS AUSTRALIA PLAYERS HAVE ALWAYS ANNOYED ME. I CAN LIVE WITH THAT!

questions.

“What, in your opinion are the best things about this country”? And, in your own words, “What particularly gets up your nose about this country”?

I asked him to be honest! His answers to both questions were straightforward... and incredibly encouraging!

To the first question his response was unequivocal. In summary, he admits to being enriched by the friendliness of Australians in general and their wholehearted willingness to be welcoming to him and visitors from the UK.

He says he has always felt comfortable with Aussies and the freedoms they enjoy as a matter of course. We are an “easy nation” to get along with.

His answer to the second question was absolutely consistent with his obvious affection for this country and Australians in general.

“Off the top of my head”, he said, “I can’t identify anything that particularly gets up my nose or anywhere else.” This came as a little surprise to me.

My love of this country certainly does not mean that there aren’t things that annoy me intensely!

Sports commentators with an unreasonable bias towards Australian players has always annoyed me. I can live with that!

A Federal Government that allocates responsibilities to states for individual portfolios, and then doesn’t tell me who is in charge of what, gets up my nose.

Is it a State or Federal responsibility sometimes really does need some clarity!

I personally like to know who I can blame when things go wrong. I like to know who deserves the praise when things go well.

Things do go well surprisingly often, believe it or not! That is part of the pleasure of being Australian and we should never forget that!