I have been asked a few times in interviews which items will be the hardest to leave behind. I particularly remember an interview with a Japanese breakfast TV programme, where they were very interested in small personal mementos which would be hard to let go of.
I picked out my koala bear as an example of something that will be hard to leave behind.
One of my reasons, or perhaps the main reason, for what I am doing is that I have a house filled with items that have sad memories attached to them. There are however quite a few items that are reminders of happier occasions, and my koala is one of them.
I became an Australian citizen on Australia Day, 26th January, 2006. This had been a goal I set before leaving the UK to live here, and it was a proud day when I achieved this goal.
After the Australia Day ceremony we went to a friend’s house where we had a traditional Australia Day back garden party, eating food from the barbeque, drinking beer and enjoying the sun. Dress code was the traditional stubbies, singlet and thongs. (Translation: shorts, vest and flip-flops). We listened to the Triple J Hottest 100 countdown, and each had a bet on what we thought would be number one, with Longy being the winner.
In the evening we wandered down to a great vantage point overlooking the city, and watched the Australia Day fireworks.
My good friend Em gave me an Australia Day package, which contained among other things, a big bottle of VB (Victoria Bitter), a bottle of Vegemite, and my koala. The beer and the vegemite are long gone, but I still have my koala sat on the shelves in the front room as a reminder of that day.
He will be hard to leave behind, but stay he will, along with everything else.
You can see a video of that day below:-