Big move shows home is where your stuff is

WHY THE RUSH? The mocking kookaburra.

They say home is where the heart is, but it seems that it is actually wherever your stuff is. Right now our stuff is in suitcases as we wait at the airport for a flight back to New Zealand. The rest of it is somewhere in boxes lurking and awaiting our instructions.

Palmerston North people will be amazed to know that their city, smack dab in the middle of the North Island, is apparently a "port". We know this because that is the nearest "port" for delivery of our boxes full of stuff.

When the shipping company told us this we sniggered and asked if they were aware of how far it is from the sea.

They laughed and said: "We know, but don't tell anyone."

After two years in the Land of Oz, we are heading home to be closer to family.

It will be nice to be around to support them and be part of the Whanganui community again.

We have been fortunate to have the Aussie adventure and the experience of working and living in Sydney. We have both worked in specialised hospitals (different ones in different parts of Sydney) and learned a tremendous amount.

My day-to-day commute on the trains and buses has provided a treasured opportunity for people watching and, at times, some interesting encounters with fellow passengers. There is something about the shared early morning trip to work, the universal glee when someone running hard for the train manages to slip into the carriage just as the doors slide shut with a look of triumph.

We will miss the Australian birds - colourful, often boisterous and loud, they are not bothered by people and venture right up to the door. The place we rented was surrounded by trees so we had plenty of feathered callers.

The cockatoos always sounded like they were on the way home from a party, the butcher birds provided an early morning melodic song and the mocking of the kookaburras as they watched me walking to the bus stop. They seemed amused someone would do such a thing when the sun had only just got out of bed.

We have had a resident bush turkey et al (parent and teenager) living nearby.

They would emerge and dig about in the lawn and under the trees for bugs and grubs and stroll over to look in the sliding doors to check whether any interesting food-related activity was happening inside.

We will not miss the mall.

Although the supermarket areas were great for groceries, the artificial light and a layout that seemed designed to be disorientating and make it hard to find your way out again made them a trap.

Waiting to get a new battery in my watch the other day, I noticed for the first time that there are no clocks anywhere in the mall. Not only do these spaces create a confusing maze but an altered time vacuum - this deliberate manipulation of the time-space continuum is somewhat unsettling.

We are looking forward to catching up with family and friends. We will be in our own house again and know that, if perchance we want to bang a nine-inch nail into the wall to hang up a coat, we can without upsetting the landlord.

We will be able to get all our books out of storage and put them alongside those accumulated from the bookshops of Sydney and we will be able to have a cat or two. We have already started collecting appropriate pun-worthy cat names - all suggestions welcome.

Terry Sarten is a returning Whanganui writer, musician, social worker and satirist. Feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz