Queensland Flooding
I had been struggling to find a suitable “H” topic for Our A – Z of Australia. Mr O has a friend who lives in the USA and is here for a short visit to his wife’s parents. As Mr O starts work on Monday, about the only opportunity he had to enjoy a catchup with his friend was yesterday. I suggested that rather than drive after a social get-together, Mr O stay the night and come home this morning.
I got several text messages during the evening, one of them saying “There is no place like home. I miss my wife and kids.” He hasn’t even read The Wizard of Oz.
There is the personal perspective: we are now all together and yes, we could do with a bigger home, but we have a home and we are all happy. Yes, my family do miss their relatives back home and yes we are pondering my current medical journey: even so we are happy and we are home.
Australia is a great country to live in. We have clean water, the electricity stays on (there was much laughter and joking the one time it went off for 10 minutes), our education and health systems are wonderful compared with many others around the world and we have a stable and healthy economy, even if the politicians love to argue otherwise for political reasons!
The part of Australia we live in is both colder and hotter than Nigeria. The sun is brighter. The children don’t have to share their chairs at school and there is no longer corporal punishment in Australian schools (or homes for that matter). The boys have bikes. All have swimming lessons.
In some respects the last 8 months have been tough. Sending Mr O to school full-time was a financial commitment we found really difficult. Even now as he starts work and starts developing a career it will take us time to dig our way out of the debts incurred fighting to be together, but we are managing. Adjusting to the different economy has been interesting for my family. To them, some things are amazingly expensive yet other things are free or much cheaper.
Rules and regulations have been a bit of a shock to the new arrivals. Mr O values his driving licence so much as he appreciates how hard it was to get. He also now appreciates car insurance as he experienced his first accident last week when someone drove into the back of his car. The other person is automatically at fault and we don’t have to pay anything to have the car fixed.
All Australians should take time to consider how other parts of the world live and be thankful for what we do have. In some countries around the world, my current medical situation may not have even been detected and if it had we may not have been able to afford treatment. Two relatively young guests at our wedding have since passed due to such situations. We are terribly sad when we hear such news.
In Australia we don’t have the bitter cold of Europe or the tornadoes of Kansas and surrounding states. We don’t experience earthquakes such as those that devastated Christchurch in New Zealand or Japan last year. We do have bushfires in many states and up north certainly experiences cyclones. We had massive flooding in early 2010, illustrated above. As sad and devastating as some of these events have been, the number of lives lost has been far less than when natural disasters have struck other locations around the globe.
We don’t have malaria, we have plenty of fresh food all year around. Famine is not something we face. We are not in a war zone.
We have a relatively safe community as I discussed in C for Crime earlier in this series.
Australia isn’t perfect – no country is – but overall it is a damn good place to live! It is part of the reason I fought so damn hard to stay in my country.
H definitely relates to health, home and happiness for this family. We are glad to call Australia home.
Visit http://myatozchallenge.com to find more countries and articles on the A – Z Challenge.
Related articles on this site:
- A For Arid
- B for Balls and Barracking
- C for Crime
- D for Deprecation
- E for Employment
- F for Fair Go
- G for Grass, Greenery, Gardens
- Our A – Z of Australia
Random Observations of Life 
[…] H for Health, Home and Happiness […]
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[…] H for Health, Home and Happiness […]
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[…] H for Health, Home and Happiness […]
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[…] H for Health, Home and Happiness […]
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Enlightening video… 🙂
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Thanks! 😀
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[…] this! Perhaps instead of writing my “H” article in Our A – Z of Australia about Health, Home and Happiness, I should have written about Human Rights in Australia. I’ll consider this the flip side of […]
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Wonderful post, Robyn. Enjoyed the video . . . and the kanga at the end. 😀
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Thanks! That video is a little old now, but it is good.
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And now i am sitting here full of remembered patriotism for my land of birth and with a major lump in my throat…bad aussie, bad, bad, aussie…
🙂
🙂
🙂
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I did it to you twice in two posts? I’ll gave to make the next one less lovable for you! 😆
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I think so…I really think so…I can only stand so many lumpy throats…
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Oh my – that could be taken sooooooo many ways…hehe
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On the other hand – how often do you come back? After all, it is cheaper to fly NZ to MEL/SYD that MEL/SYD to PER most of the time! Not to mention faster!
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last time i went home I broke my back…been a little hesitant since, and the Demented Fox Terrier doesn’t do well in kennels (she is such a drama queen) that it turns in to a dram getting her sorted. But the daughter just went to work for Air NZ so i’m hoping for some cheap flights in the future to aid the travel bug…
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In Australia we don’t have the bitter cold of Europe or the tornadoes of Kansas and surrounding states. We don’t experience earthquakes such as those that devastated Christchurch in New Zealand or Japan last year
You do have enormous spiders though!
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They aren’t so big, just poisonous! We had a little visitor in the bedroom last night actually and I was not impressed and got out the insect spray. I don’t think Mr O was overly impressed I sprayed the little critter, but I did point out we have some nasty ones!
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It´s certainly a great country to live in, even though as you say it´s not perfect, but I doubt you could find a perfect one anywhere.
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Exactly Sami – there are always improvements that could be found. For example, Norway topped the UN list of most livable country, yet for me it would be too cold! Australia came second and New Zealand third.
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Great post… the UK isn’t so bad either ( though you certainly make Australia sound even better! ) Did you get the results of your scan? I still haven’t and I’m on holiday this coming week so going to leave the chasing until I get back..
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Thanks Hellen! No, results are due Wednesday this week, so two more sleeps, as they say. I think I’d have been chasing on January 7 had I been you!
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well I did phone a couple of times.. but I’m really not worried at all.. can’t see why they sent me as I’m pretty sure my problems are mechanical rather than neurological.. I will keep all digits crossed for you !
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I look at something growing where it shouldn’t be as mechanical! A foreign body pressing on things is, to me, a mechanical issue. I mean, it is not that I’m going nutty or anything! 😆
If you are not worried, I can understand you not chasing it quite as hard. I think. I can’t tell really, as I think I’d still want to know the facts.
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As a British ex-pat I am gratified that somebody thinks the UK is OK these days. I have only heard negativity of late. Australia is wonderful; I love living here and I never want to go back to the UK to live, but I still value my British roots.
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Just like I value my NZ roots – but my Aussie roots are stronger. 🙂
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