Sponsored by
The Bloke: Back to Blighty from trip Down Under
I would just like to say how happy I am to be back in Blighty after three weeks exploring Australia and New Zealand.
Sadly, as much as I honestly would like to say that, it would actually be a bit of a porky pie.
* Click here to watch latest YEP news and sport video reports.
Having spent nearly a month living a stone's throw from a sunkissed beach it's not so much a shock to the system to suddenly be dumped back in the middle of a still wintry Leeds, more a case of grievous bodily harm.
* Click here for latest YEP news and sport picture slideshows.
Swapping what felt like the middle of a blissfully warm July for the depths of January is what I imagine time travelling must be like. Disorientating doesn't do it justice.
* Click here to follow the YEP on Twitter.
I feel a bit like Marty McFly in Back To The Future – only in my case I unfortunately seem to have fallen victim to an uncharacteristally sadistic Dr Emmett Brown.
* Click here to become a fan of the YEP on Facebook.
And yes, I know we missed all the snow while we were away. But on the flipside I was forced to sit through Scouting For Girl's new single on the radio yesterday, so by my reckoning that makes us about even in the misery stakes.
I do like Australia, much as it pains me to admit it, and New Zealand's pretty spectacular too.
In fact, I learned that a sure-fire way to wind up an Aussie is to tell them how much you love New Zealand.
Imagine, if you will, a tourist telling you that Yorkshire's their second favourite place after Lancashire and you'll get some idea of the acute pain it causes them.
It was good also to continue my study of the Aussie male, begun on my previous visit four years earlier.
On the surface he seems a lot like you and me: he loves his sport, enjoys a beer or three and, as you would imagine, is not averse to a spot of barbecuing.
So far so good.
But worryingly I learned on this trip that many of them, a couple of friends included, have begun to exhibit disturbingly un-Australian and, dare I say it, even anti-male, tendencies.
That can be the only explanation why so many of them professed a new-
found love for the sport, and I use that term loosely, of mixed netball.
That's right. Netball.
Still, despite the strange sporting proclivities of its menfolk, Australia has plenty going for it.
Ok, so I'm mainly talking about the sun here but still, it's hard to disagree with the theory that everyone, whoever they are, looks so much better with a tan.
Now that my brown skin is beginning to fade back to its traditional chalky hue it's easy to see why blue-legged teenage girls from Falkirk are so ready to grill themselves to a crisp under a grotty sunbed somewhere.
Looking into a mirror and seeing a tanned face gazing back at you makes it so much easier to imagine yourself surrounded by palm trees and exotic wildlife. And no, I don't mean Tropical World at Roundhay Park, even if it has taken delivery of a crocodile.
A mate whose friend lives in Brisbane told me, with a commendably straight face, that his pal reckoned you got 'bored of the sun'.
That's true, I thought. But only in the same way as you might get bored of hanging out with cheerleaders or being the frontman of a massive rock band on a perpetual world tour.
In other words, it would take a bloody long time.
Unable to contain my hankering for such luxuries as a sky that wasn't permanently shrouded in cloud, I even went along to an Emigrate to Australia expo at the weekend.
Indeed, as I listened to the immigration expert valiantly battling to make himself heard above the various winter splutters coming from the noses and mouths of the people around me, it was tempting to dream of a stint Down Under.
Just so long as the mixed netball isn't compulsory, naturally.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Leeds
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: East
