When I came to Australia in 1973 from England, via seven years travelling the Caribbean, I was well equipped to assimilate into my new society, but ill-equipped to deal with the vast variations of weather and the enormous number of creatures out ‘to get’ me and my little family.
My first drink was also an encounter with my first murderer, my milkman won beauty competitions, and I nearly died at sea, having sunk the ‘tinnie’ I was in, miles from shore.
As if crocodile and snake handling, savage geese and a one in a million chance with some spiders wasn’t desperate enough, my attempts to fool gravity by falling off a ladder and out of an aeroplane make me either a hero or an idiot.
Make up your own mind; I’m still not sure!