Yesterday was my son’s 10th birthday and to celebrate his double digits we got the paddle boards out and paddled up the Thames to the village of Moulsford, where we stopped off for a roast at a riverside pub called The Beetle & Wedge. On our return, Pierre pointed to an old weeping willow, its branches stroking the water beneath its boughs. Camouflaged behind its hanging branches was large heron, peacefully gracing the banks of the river.
What a contrast to my son’s other birthdays, which had been spent during the school term, in Tasmania’s winter. He certainly appreciates being a summer baby again – but it has its drawback. This is the first birthday he’s had when all his school friends have gone their separate ways for the summer holidays. It was tough to watch him accept that fact – but his resilience was heartening.
The truth is, it’s taken the children a while to adapt to celebrating their birthdays in new seasons. My youngest daughter was born at the Royal Hobart hospital in January 2015, and has only ever celebrated one way – pool parties under the hot Tasmanian sun. Now she will swap seasons with her older brother and wake up on her birthday in the depth of winter, for the first time – but at last her school friends can make it to her birthday party!
Having spent so many glorious summer holidays in the southern hemisphere, I also have to adapt to life back in England. I miss my annual cue to pack for Coles Bay when I spot a Santa in flip flops (“thongs” have an entirely different meaning on this side of the equator).
It’s difficult to beat camping at Freycinet with the family. Adults and children alike could not contain the exhilaration of eating ice-cream on Richardsons Beach while taking in the scenery of anchored boats bobbing calmly on the water, The Hazards looming behind. The sunsets were the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.
Our kayaks, launched from the campsite’s sandy beach, will soon instead be launched from the banks of the River Thames. The kayaks in question have only just left Australia and are now en route to the UK in our shipping container. We will certainly be pleased to be reunited with all the items that ignite happy holiday memories of times spent as a family on sunny Tasmanian shores.
It’s simply not possible to have lived in Tasmania and not crave holidays by the sea. Soon, to honour those sandy memories, we will depart for our seaside property near Sandwich, in Kent. The pebble beach next to Deal Castle slopes steeply into the waves, where the North Sea and the English Channel meet. We will swap our squeaky sand for a stretch of beach where, more than 2,000 years ago, Julius Caesar and his Roman army made their first landing.
A summer holiday without Father Christmas, far away from our favourite Tasmanian spot, is no doubt going to be interesting. Let’s hope we can make new and equally happy memories. I’ll write you a postcard, Tasmania.
Clarissa Horwood grew up in Oxford, courtesy of her English father, and spent all her childhood holidays with relatives in France, courtesy of her French mother. She has a keen sense of the ridiculous, and can swear better in Spanish than either English or French. Despite being so thoroughly European, she married an Australian and moved to Hobart in 2013. Their three children are adept at switching accents. The family returned to Oxford in 2020 to be with Clarissa’s mother during Covid-19, and the move was such a major upheaval that it looks likely to be permanent. Her column, Letter from Oxford, will be about memories and connections between two cities a world apart, but it will be written in a Tasmanian accent.
