Sunny Darwin, rainy Gloucester

My parents have no power or drinking water and my friends are stranded in their homes in Gloucester... meanwhile I bask in 32C heat in Darwin. It's summer in England - winter in Oz...

Hmm going home suddenly seems so tempting. Of course, I'm missing out on the journalistic fun of it all and the cameraderie and solidarity of the Blitz spirit the brits usually display.

Normally, the people of Gloucester would be punching each other outside Liquid, moaning about everything and pushing their babies to their mums house on the way to school...

Instead, they are cheering the arrival of the army, getting their local rag delivered by canoe (seriously) and not taking showers.

Some of the pictures of the floods are crazy but if you will build half a city the flood plain of the River Severn... and as my dad put into perspective - 200 people were killed in floods recently in China but people getting their Barretts platforms a little wet in Gloucester are going mad.

Here in Darwin life is all about making enough cash to avoid having to return to Gloucester until December. So I'm working a cafe job, a nightclub job and doing casual events waitressing seven days a week.

Hours off (those rare ones) involve resting, sleeping, the odd moment of sunbathing or drinking.

English Jen's birthday was celebrated by us dressing as pirates and hitting the 'city'. Darwin is a large country town with two decent clubs and isn't a dissimilar size to the 'city' of Gloucester...

And like my hometown, you don't want to swim in the water here. Crocs to worry about in one city and skin-scalding pollution in the other.

The centre consists of a couple of supermarkets, about two fashion shops, a few pharmacys and eateries and souvenir shops.

But it has a lovely laid-back atmosphere, nice architecture and friendly people. There are swimming pools everywhere due to the intense heat, a deckchair cinema, wonderful markets twice a week by the beach. Last week, we went to watch the sunset on Mindil beach and wandered the markets where you can buy every kind of food under the sun and all kinds of trinkets.

So I may not be a hotshot journo covering the water crisis in Gloucester, but at least I'm warm. And dry.

Sunny England??!!

Would you believe it? It is actually warm, sunny and wonderful right now in England.

With temperatures pushing 25C on some days, there has barely been a dull moment in the sky for me to escape to update the blog.

Coming home for my dad's 70th birthday has been a wonderful treat. Fantastic to see my nieces, sisters, parents and brothers and sisters as well as all my friends.

It has been one of the few occasions when all six of my siblings, plus parents and kids, have been together in a very, very long time - and I think possibly the first time we have all been pissed together since Duncan's wedding in 1998.

There have been walks on the Malverns with my good friend Fur, numerous barbecues, gossiping over tea with my sisters, wine drinking with friends, lazy luncheons and reunions which have been both very pleasant and very painful.

And while I am muchly looking forward to the Return to Oz, and to see my darling Danielle, I haven't been quite ready to leave yet.

England is truly beautiful in the sunshine and, while Gloucester itself remains an ugly (though regenerating - they say) city, the Cotswolds make me proud to come home.

Painswick, the Queen of the Cotswolds, is just two miles from my parents home and is a quaint village of ancient Cotswold stone houses, windy lanes and a spired church which commands a stunning view over the vales below - not far from a place called Paradise.

When there are homes here which still have lead-lined windows, old wooden doors with huge knockers (boom boom) and even the old stocks by the churchyard - it is no wonder I find the modernity of Australian cities so strange and alien. In England, there is history around every corner - and an 800 year old tree in our field.

But I have postponed my flight almost a week, not because of an 800 year old tree, but to give me more time with my loved ones.

I have also shortened my trip to Dubai from six days to three - money concerns have dictated this rather than love affairs, fears of kidnap (worries held by my mother) or need to get back to Danielle.

So Perth is next on the Oz agenda - and for England, it is London. A weekend of catching up with uni friends for a superhero costume party, seeing my brother for his birthday and catching up with other various people.

It is also, so my parents believe, extra time to do the grocery run, cook up a bit of dinner, tidy my room, and not-go-out-in-a-skirt-that-short, and what-are-you-doing-seeing-that-boy-again and are-you-really-going-out-again-tonight? time.

Perhaps before I go, the weather will turn horrid and I look forward to the windy city with increasing joy. But right now, there is nothing prettier than England, and the Cotswolds, in Spring.