I have gone. I’m not wintering this one out. I’m not falling for that again. With all due respect to Seamus Heaney, he can shove that. He might be my favourite poet of all time, but where we’re going we don’t need poetry. That’s because we’re in Australia.
I am summering this one out. Summer doesn’t need culture or poetry or anything with subtitles. Who needs words about feelings when it’s 30 degrees outside and sunny? There are beaches to be sat on, beer gardens to be sat in and ice creams to be eaten. If you’re in need of intellectual stimulation, there’s test-match cricket on the telly. If you’re still being precious, the Australian Open tennis is on the other channel.
In Ireland I read books. I wear real Aran knitted jumpers. I do crosswords. I recycle and catch public transport. But underneath it all is a burning desire to be sitting in my parents’ monster truck yoke of a V8 pickup, going 110km/h down the highway listening to AC/DC.
I will sit in the backyard with Mum, eating cubes of Cheddar cheese and yellow crackers in the sun. We will drink white wine as we float around the pool on untrustworthy Aldi lilos
I enjoy this time of year in Dublin. Every pub makes an effort with decorations: there are lights and trees even in establishments sitting at the end of the dodgier spectrum. I like watching people come into town for their socially mandated Christmas catch-ups. Especially their outfits. Especially if they are not from Dublin and have especially dressed up for their day out.
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The carefully co-ordinated belts that match the shoes that match the bag that match the gloves. They will go shopping at Brown Thomas and Arnotts, even if it’s just to smell perfume samples and buy one lipstick. They get their bits and then go for a drink somewhere nice, smelling of the whole Jo Malone counter.
Helen Garner, the peerless Australian author, once wrote that one of life’s true happinesses is a mother linking arms with her grown-up daughter and walking down the street. It is a joy to watch mothers and daughters in their good coats go about Dublin, drinking posh hot chocolates while they run Christmas errands.
But I miss my own variation on this and, of course, my own mum. Dublin is magic this time of year, but I need to be back in shops where it’s not uncommon to see someone in a bikini picking up the messages. The ones that have long-redundant “No shirt, no shoes, no service” signs above the till.
I will sit in the backyard with Mum, eating cubes of Cheddar cheese and yellow crackers in the sun. We will drink white wine as we float around the pool on untrustworthy Aldi lilos.
We will call it white wine. Not Chardonnay, not Riesling, not Pinot nothing. It might come from a bottle. It might come from a box. Either way it will be good because it’s Australian but also because we will be together after two years apart.
Christmas Day will not be spent inside. I am often mystified how Irish families can sit in the same space together for more than eight hours at a time and the same number of people come out alive as went in.
Sensibly, Australians go outside, where we can get space from each other. If you or your relative has a pool, then that is who hosts Christmas. Even if you don’t want to. That is the law. The passive-aggressive hints to host start in September.
The parents dumped their children on you the way people with kids do to childless relatives at events. If they come out of Christmas one child down, that's on them, not you. They made their choice
By 3pm, lunch is over and you’re floating about the pool on a blow-up unicorn. The only thing interrupting your relaxation is a particularly vigorous game of Marco Polo going on next to you.
Then the sudden realisation that no adult is supervising the kids. In fact you are the adult. Then it's a panicked calculation of exactly how many wines you had today and if you're in any fit state to be keeping kids alive in a body of water.
Until you come to the realisation that, actually, the parents dumped their children on you the way people with kids do to childless relatives at events. They’re cracking into the Ferrero Rochers uninterrupted. If they come out of Christmas one child down, that’s on them, not you. They made their choice.
When I was younger I longed to live in “Europe”. Yes, I said it like that, the way foreigners do, as if Europe were one big place. Not specifying if it was Paris or Offaly I was dreaming of. (I’ve been to Offaly but not Paris, so I guess that answers that question.)
When I am in Europe, I would tell myself as a teen, I will wear nice coats and possibly even a beret. I will write and drink wine at little bars. I will take an artist as a lover. I did move to Ireland. I do have a nice coat. I write and drink wine with lovely Irish friends in little bars. I don’t wear berets, because the Irish (rightly) would make fun of me.
But when I am there I miss here. After a few weeks in Sydney I will miss Dublin too. My other home.