11th October 2000

It's turning autumn.

There's a chill in the air. The sunlight's still pretty bright, and its warm, as long as you keep walking. It's incredibly clear today, for the first time in a while; the skie are clear blue and the trees are sunlit in the brightest greens imaginable. The only hints of autumn are the chill in the air and the leaves on the ground; the trees have only just begun to change colour.

Autumn's beautiful in its own right, with the myriad colours that the trees become (hasn't happened yet) and the way the trees are constantly moving, moving in the breeze. That's the reason there's a chill though - that English breeze, constantly there, not terribly cold in its own but never quite easing off, alternating between a bone-chilling gasp and a mild carress. This morning, I stepped out of the house and I could blow out my mist clouds again; it wore off on my 5 miute walk to the National neurology hospital. Just a stone's throw from the Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children, which someday, God willing I will work in. For a while, anyhow. It's an English autumn, and an Australian winter. Some of my ozzie friends used to gripe to me about their winters, about getting wet in the rain, about being cold, cold cold. Well, it stops there for you - for us, it gets colder, and greyer. The prospect doesn't really cheer me up any.

Australia. It's the holy grail for everyone English, it's where people go when they want a retreat from it all; it's where friends and relatives are, it's where it's at. It's warm, it's cool, it's beautiful, it's got everything England hasn't. It's that something unattainable, just out of grasp from ordinary, mundane everyday life - and yet, strangely, it's anathema to the English, and we (yes, we. I've been here so long I feel part of it) laugh and slag off the Ozzies for their slow, relaxed manners. As we do the Welsh.

I might be doing my elective in Australia. I'd never really considered going there, it was always between South Africa and America for me, but D. has asked me to go with her on elective there. And so I've got to make up my mind. South Africa's what dreams are made of, it's the road of the solo, lone-dreamer that I am. I've always wanted to See it, to See everything that we haven't got in Singapore, and indeed in the UK. I've never been, but I want to see - lions. Wildlife. Vast open fields. Safari. Elephants. Gazelle thingies. Australia on the other hand is comfortable; I've been before but I will be happy there, with D, and indeed with Anna too. Anna's tried to not-so-subtly influence my decisions in favour of Australia, and she puts forward a convincing case. So it all boils down to whether I want the road of the dreamer, alone, uncomfortable, but wondrous, or whether I'll choose the pragmatic, happy option in the company of friends I trust and enjoy.

Sometimes I wonder how I ended up in the UK. Looking out the window now, at this instant, I don't regret it - it's so beautiful here! The trees are waving madly at me, and the sky's such a shade of blue. But of course summer and autumn are transient, and in a very short while I will be writing about winter and the dreariness of it all. I used to think it wouldn't matter to me, that the trappings - the weather, the run-down buildings, the greyness - wouldn't affect me much and that work and medicine would be my joys in life. But they do, they do. And Australia, boring, mundane, non-cerebral as we tend to think of it as - "we" being Brits of course, and although I'm not a Brit, I'm living in rome and doing as the romans do - doesn't get dreary and grey. It's warm and happy the whole year round. So why didn't I choose Australia over the UK? *groan*

Have you watched a movie called "one last kiss?" It's about a woman dying of cancer, and it's very good. It's one of those box-office flops - who wants to see a depressing movie with the female protaganist dying in the end - but it had a lot about inter-continental movements. I didn't come over... because... you didn't ask.

But of course, I'm here, and for all the griping - it's still a beautiful day outside. No regrets, we have our moments of beauty, and compared to Singapore, London is, so much, much more diverse. I've grown here... and I have no regrets. It's still wonderful outside, and I'm not going to waste it.

Carpe diem :)