Care Package

I decided to try my hand at contributing to a Blog Carnival, so I wrote this post to submit to the Carnival of Australia, being hosted next week over at All for Women. 

In January 2000 only 3 weeks after our wedding, my husband and I set off from Perth on an adventure, with a one way ticket to London, via Vancouver, not knowing when we’d next be “Calling Australia home”. Beyond our plans for a honeymoon skiing in Whistler, and a stint in London (because, its a rite of passage, right?) we didn’t know where we would end up. We didn’t foresee that the next 8 years would include living in 7 countries*, in 8 cities, in 10 houses, having 2 children born overseas (in different countries) and becoming “long-term” expats in the process.

The one constant in all our travelling though has been regular trips back home, to Perth, to see family, friends and familiar sites. Even though we haven’t lived there for nearly 8 years, it has always been home and I’ve never felt too far away from it. Except when you’re looking down the barrel of a 36 hour plane journey to get there.

Apart from the people to see and places to go, a big part of each Perth visit involves enjoying and stocking up on the comforts of home. So many of those everyday things we took for granted take on almost mystical quality when you can’t have them anymore. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and the taste buds salivate. We return from every visit with a suitcase full of “treats” that we can’t find in our (temporary) home and every visitor we have receives a shopping list for the care package we want them to bring.

Of course, I expected to miss Vegemite (those travel packs are so handy, but they don’t last long in our house) and Milo(Tip: keep it in the tin in your suitcase. A zip-lock bag does not contain it well, although there are worst things than having all your clothes covered in chocolate powder) but my list of cravings just keeps growing and growing with every new place we go. Perhaps this is a sign of growing homesickness…

Here’s some of the things that I miss from home, and that are frequently on my care package wish list:

1. Lamb. Ok, its not easy to bring a leg of lamb in your suitcase, I know. Next best thing – on every trip home: overdose on lamb!
2. Minties. It’s moments like these…
3. Fry’s Turkish Delight. Turkish Delight + chocolate = guilty pleasure
4. Violet Crumble. Do you sense a sugar theme here?
5. Real bacon. The only other country we’ve lived in that’s had proper bacon is Canada. Everywhere else its that streaky bacon more fat than anything else or its really awful beef or turkey bacon. When we lived in Saudi, where alcohol and pork products are banned, I missed bacon more than alcohol.
6. Aussie Wine. Please, anything but Jacob’s Creek or Rosemount.
7. Australian Beer that’s not Fosters. Yes, Mexico has really great beers, you can’t complain about cheap Corona and Sol, plus the many, many more they have. I don’t drink beer that much (Really. See #5), but when I do, I am quite partial to a Boags or Cascade.
8. Bread that doesn’t taste like cake. I could die happy living off French baguettes (and pretty much anything in a patisserie) and a freshly made tortilla is seriously yummy, but when you just want a good old vegemite sandwich, it should not be sweet.
9. All-day Big Breakfast Fry-up. Preferably at a Beach Cafe.
10. Good Quality Chinese/Thai/Indian/Indonesian/Any kid of Asian Food. We’ve been warned that where we live, Chinese restaurants = food poisoning so the cravings for Honey King Prawns are growing.
11. Teething Rusks. Not everything on my list is made up of fat, sugar and/or alcohol!
12. Children’s Colgate toothpaste. And there’s even some non-food items in there. I object to Bubble-Gum flavoured Barbie toothpaste. It’s just wrong.
13. Weet-bix. Oh, for a breakfast cereal that isn’t “Frosted”. Given #2, 3 and 4, I need at least one sugar-free meal.

Obviously, some of these things don’t pack that well, so our trips home are a movable feast, as we tick of all the favourites foods we have been dreaming about, before rolling back onto the plane!

Thank goodness our next visitors arrive on Monday. I wonder how long the Violet Crumble will last…

* countries – Canada, U.K., France, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Mexico (in that order)