THESE people are crazy! And the really scary part is that I used to be one of them. I have been invited to take part in a few of the local celebrations in Devon, which is a large chunk of Britain’s West Country, rural heart of England, home of poets, sailors, kings and — now — mad people. Have they always been like this? Or did I need to get away and spend 17 years in the relative sanity of the Antipodes to realise that they’re… well… different.   In the space of one week we have been urged to take part in the Blackawton worm‑charming festival; the stinging nettle-eating…

  We’re in England. It used to be my homeland. I used to understand the lingo but no more. Especially in the West Country – it’s the bit at the bottom that extends south-westerly, like a leg that’s kicking Ireland into the Atlantic Ocean. It’s considered the tourism heart of Britain. But not at the moment, when the fields (sorry, paddocks) are mud, the sky is grey and the trees as far as the eye can see are skeletons (and no, they haven’t had a fire – it’s just that time of year). When I get back, if anyone complains about the heat, I’m going to kill them and lock…

New Year resolution: don’t do this again. I’m in England. How do people live here? How did I live here before I saw the light and found Australia? It’s cold. It was cold like this that wiped out mammoths several million years ago. Have you seen the size of a mammoth? I have no chance. Unless I stay indoors. But indoors the air is so centrally heated that you can’t breathe it, so whichever way you look at it, you’re stuffed.   But it’s neither the cold not the central heating that will kill you at this time of year. It’s the grey. I’d forgotten about the grey. They have…

Two more sleeps! Ohboyohboyohboy! There will be 14 of us. Ten adults and four children (if you ignore my wife’s pointed jibe about it depending on your definition of children). I am going to have a Jolly time. I’m determined. Jolly with a capital J. Without the capital J jollity is merely good humour. I am aiming higher than that.   The cat, which has widdled in the Christmas tree pot, is not going to deter me. Nor is the rogue thumbtack that went through my foot because Someone didn’t clear up properly after we’d hung the Christmas decorations. There are complete strangers roaming around my kitchen. I have been ordered…

MY mum is dead. Aged 86. She was born in 1920. Nothing was made of plastic then; television hadn’t been invented; in the street where she was born, in the suburbs of London, the muffin man walked with a tray of muffins balanced on his head, ringing a bell to advertise his wares. There were no high-rise buildings; children played in the streets with hoops and tops and if you wanted music you made it yourself, with a piano, or on a fiddle or flute. Men hadn’t walked on the moon. Indeed, the men who invented powered flight (Orville and Frank Wright) were still alive and arguing over the patent.…