54 days to go!! Australia Day Koala Bear.

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.

click to see larger picture

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:-

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