The world from my window

Belly boarding on Bondi, Mr Grigg says he does not need the board because his belly is big enough. The waves greet me like the famous scene from The Perfect Storm . I have a fear of being underwater that goes back to a time when I was saved from drowning at Instow, North Devon, as a child. So I slink back to the beach to watch the beautiful people go by. We are staying with The Fit Family in a cool Art Deco apartment building. Bondi suprises me because the residential areas are so green and shady. The city is like that all over, I realise, when I take in the view from the Sydney Tower. I look out across to Centennial Park, where at Sydney Showground my grandfather enlisted in the ANZACs nearly 100 years earlier. This is a holiday about the past as well as the present. Lord and Lady G near Noosa, My Beautiful Cousin and the Twins in Adelaide, The Fit Family in Bondi, Mr Grigg's cousin - officially Australia's Laziest Man - in the sleepy coastal community of Harrington up the coa...

In the migration museum of Adelaide, there is a verse by Mary Thomas, an emigrant in the 1800s: Yes, England, I have fled from thee Fast fades thy beauteous shore then flow my tears, for I shall see my native land no more In 1964, my father's brother took advantage of the assisted passage scheme and left Somerset for the heat of Adelaide, South Australia, as a Ten Pound Pom. He has returned several times since - for holidays - and the last time I saw him was twelve years ago. It is a hugely emotional experience for me to meet him and his family on the other side of the world. He walks out on to the pavement from his front door and playfully asks: 'Who's this then?' I hug him. I can feel the tears running down my cheeks. After 45 years or more, he hasn't lost that lovely and soft Westcountry burr. He tells me about my grandfather, who was an ANZAC and fought at Gallipoli in the First World War. He tells me about my great uncle, who left in the 1920s and never came ba...