Dropping my tuna

Sometimes things take a while to settle in your mind before a moment or experience can be truly recognised as something beautiful or significant. Often, some of your best times, memories and experiences come to be exactly that; your best, after a little time and reflection. It's like going to a movie, reading a book or even listening to a song: when you're still thinking about it hours later, you know it moved you in some way.

My time in Adelaide and at Falls has been exactly that. Ok, so Falls was a washout. It was probably karma coming to bite me in the arse after incessant bragging about attending a festival in the glorious Australian summer. Summer my arse. Wearing 5 layers for 4 days straight, donning a lumberjack hat day and night* and having to sit in a car to keep warm probably serves me right, but pissing down with rain everyday too? Seriously? That's just cruel. But it was fun. Because of it, Vic may never go camping again and mum may never want to wear her socks, but still, on reflection, I had serious bouts of knee slapping, almost vomiting laughter, and really, you can't ask for more than that.

Skinner, Vic and I were talking about reconnecting with home and all of the things with which bind you to a place. Sure, familiarity of surroundings is great, and history plays a huge part too. But when it comes down to it, it's the people who make it home. For months I've been confused about whether the UK or Australia is home, and you know what? It doesn't really matter. If I had all of my friends and family in one place in the middle of nowhere to tease me about hoisin sauce, getting stomach aches come washing up time or calling me Dr Arnold Dowanger, it would feel like home.

So this is the start of another year. It's coming up to three years since I first set off from Adelaide. I could never have predicted any of this, nor would I want to. I love life's measures and looking back with intense fondness about the years gone by. This year I have no resolutions other than the one I made with myself when I put my life in a backpack and that was to live and be happy**.

*Teresa,your hat and wellies were the equivalent of the BBQ City staff hand feeding me shallot cakes followed by malteasers, mangoes and your pizza. Oh and biscotti too.

**I'm sounding like a hippy and/or high because I've been doing large interpretive festival dancing for 4 days and I have burnt, fat hands that don't want to rewrite stuff that's immediately come out of my head despite sounding incredibly wanky.