However! I am totally unable to resist anything Australian. I went through a period of being glued to Neighbours on the BBC, relishing such treasures as ‘Aw, get off the grass!’ or ‘Ya wouldn’t dob me in, would ya?’ I sighed at the gum trees and the barbies and gasped at the magpies’ curdled cadenzas. This passion has faded (there is a limit to the number of Madge’s hairdos one can stand), but I still marvel that the seating arrangement for Ramsay Street meals remains unchanged, with everyone crowded together to leave space for the camera, and that the most frequently spoken line is ‘I’ll get it’ whenever the doorbell rings.

I feel somewhat justified in my Neighbours phase, as I happen to know that the late, great Stephen Spender was an addict and never missed an episode.

I greatly enjoy certain items on ABC radio. On this visit I have noted the following:

1. Male voice, interrupts slow movement of Mozart Symphony K 444. ‘We’ll never get through this if we don’t jump a bit, so I reckon we’ll skip’ and plays the close of the last movement.
2. Female guest on Margaret Throsby program: ‘My favourite singer has always been Maria Calais.’
3. Disgruntled Queensland politician after the election: ‘They’ll be as popular as a brown snake in a sleeping bag.’

Sadly, this could never happen on the BBC.

Today we visited our favourite Adelaide building, the Botanic Hotel on the corner of North and East Terraces. It was one of those brilliant, shiny Adelaide days with not one shred of cloud in a dazzling Reckitts blue sky (remember Reckitts?). The hotel, with its three floors of elegantly stepped-back balconies, looking as if Clint Eastwood might hitch his horse to the verandah post, always gives us enormous pleasure. My husband still regrets that he didn’t manage to include it in the1988 Adelaide Festival of which he was artistic director – perhaps in some Son et Lumière event. Imagine a script by David Malouf with bush rangers and boundary riders swarming over those wonderful balconies.

Nearby is the Oyster Bar, an excellent establishment where my spouse and a cousin of mine once earned plaques on the wall by each consuming four dozen of the delicious mollusc. Suddenly tempted, we went in. The place was almost empty and we sat in the cool interior looking at the brilliant sunshine outside and suffering pangs that we were soon to leave and return to a land of train crashes, blizzards, and foot and mouth disease.

We ate our oysters (two dozen each, not four) and drank our white wine facing the Oyster Bar’s astonishing display of bottles, which can only be described as an unusually well-fortified igloo. The bottles are piled up, tops outward, below a stream of crushed ice which collects around them from top to bottom. Every now and then the ice shifts unnervingly, suggesting that the Eskimo within is preparing to fire.

Above all this is a sign saying ‘85% of statistics are made up on the spot’.

The good parking fairy was hard at work yesterday. We went to the Jam Factory, always a favourite. As we approached, a ute obligingly slid out of a space right in front of the door. Inside we bought two essentials for air travellers, a large wooden bowl and an enormous glass platter. Then we went to the Oyster Bar. No sooner had the words, ‘How about some oysters?’ passed our lips than, lo and behold, a car pulled out right in front of us.

Later, on the way to dine with an old friend in North Adelaide, we parked in a pay and display area. Before we reached the ticket machine, a smiling young man called out, ‘Do you want a ticket? I’m leaving’, and gave us his which was valid until seven fifteen next morning, thus saving us one dollar and ten cents, which, with the exchange as it is …