Australia

Word has it that the Australian Immigration Department will be stamping something in our passports any day now granting us Permanent Residence in this fine, fine country.

I'm delighted, and not just because it draws to a close what has been a dozen or more (actually, well more) years wandering around the world, living on one type of temporary work visa or another.

We (my wife and I) left Canada, the first time, to move to South Florida in 1988 because, as Canadians, the thought of walking out of a grocery stop Christmas week in shirts, t-shirts and sandals to warm air held enormous appeal.

HUGE appeal.

Once there we quickly adapted to the crappy service in the off-season, palmetto bugs the size of flying gunships and the thunderstorms. Holy crap, the thunderstorms.

As these types of things go, we were just getting comfortable when the company I was working for was bought by a company in L.A. ("Head west, young man!"). Because of my temporary work visa I was an indentured servant, unless I wanted to head back to Canada, a beautiful country unfortunately plagued with snow. So we went to L.A.

Now the thing I learned, quickly, about L.A. was that there were some very beautiful places there to live, and if I wanted to live in those beautiful places I'd have to add at least one zero to my salary, though two more would have been better.

We lasted there until the middle trimester of our oldest when the pre-programmed first pregnancy homesickness kicked in and we headed back to Canada.

First winter back we quickly - I mean VERY quickly - agreed that we were right the first time, and this snow shit wasn't for us, and further, that we would be best suited to a life between the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer.

That decision had us move to Virginia a couple of years later (not between the tropics, but a home base for some travelling for awhile) where number 2 was born. When that little bub was two months old we headed to Malaysia (3 years), then to Taiwan (1 year), Atlanta (two more years), US Virgin Islands (1 year), Singapore (four years) and now here, where we've been for almost four years.

Until now, and except for the three year stint back in Canada after number one child, we've been 'temporary'.

It finally ends, and it couldn't happen in a nicer country.

Now, Canadian friends and relatives, hang on for a minute. I'm not saying I hate Canada. It's a beautiful country filled with beautiful people.

But there's this snow, and the unavoidable cold temperatures necessary to make snow. I really don't have enough hair on my body to handle it. Even less on the top, lately, and they say most heat is lost through the head. Yeah, yeah, it builds character. I've got enough character, thanks.

I've got distinct memories of walking to school in February, head covered with a woollen hat, snowsuit with hood and scarf, the only visible skin the band slightly above and below my eyes so FUCKING cold I thought I would die. My eyeballs hurt from the cold. I layer of snot froze on the outside of the scarf.

No thanks, not when there's an option.

Australia is a beautiful country, with very beautiful people. It's winter here now, and the high tomorrow is 19C. Yes, I gloat.

Granted there are some of the nastiest creatures on the face of the earth hanging out here, but the act of living with these guys kind of warps your sense of life, or living. Puts things in perspective, I'm trying to say.

There's a red-back spider living in the fuse box. If it bites me I'm going to feel like crap, but the odds of actually dying from it is so remote as to be non-existent.

In Canada, a black-widow or a brown recluse spider would have been the worse critter I'd see, and while neither one would kill you, the thought of getting tagged by one of them would put the fear of God in you.

After four years here, the attitude has become one of (and no bullshit here, really) that which doesn't kill isn't that bad.

I've been stung by blue-bottle jelly fish twice, my son once, and sure it hurt like a sonuvabitch, but it doesn't keep us out of the water.

But I'm making it sound like a dangerous place to live. It's no more dangerous that South Philly, East LA or some places on Gottingen Street after dark.

Now that the permanence part of our life has returned I'm afraid we're going to have to adjust our way of life. We can actually start looking at buying a house. That thought scares the hell out of me.