The top end

Everyone is asleep, apart from me, Shlok and my mother. I'm here on the computer, naturally, while they are draped in attitudes of restful relaxation watching a Hindi film with Saif Ali Khan in it. Actually, I have no objection to films with Saif Ali Khan in them. He tends to give them a redeeming factor. But no, it's quiet and hot and I have no energy to walk across the room, so this seems as good a time as any to write a little about Darwin. It's a fairly small town in the Northern Territories, which occupy most of the top end of Australia. Despite being the size of half of Europe, they have a population of 200,000, smaller than Southport and Formby. I find this amazing.

That said, not as amazing as various other things. Australia as a whole strikes me as what would happen if you took a whole bunch of British people, put them in the tropics and let them interbreed, which is more or less what happened. Having variously been referred to as a "Pommie" over the last few days, I can safely say I amuse the natives. Last night, watching Shrek 2 (really, I'd never seen it) I started giggling wildly at the sight of a giant animated piece of gingerbread, to looks of amazement from everyone else. Shlok turned round and said, "Dude, she's English," which explained everything.

Shlok is, as I have said before, one of my favourite people in the entire world. He's my cousin, thirteen but with the wisdom of ages, and his first words to me on arrival were, plaintively delivered, "I don't have to touch your feet, do I?"

"Please don't," I said, embarrassed, and on this moment of mutual understanding we have rebuilt a friendship that was previously established when fleecing each other at poker over Christmas.

His elder brother, Sunny, is also one of the good things about the universe; he was here yesterday, picking us up from the airport at four in the morning. The third flight was peaceful in the extreme, as I spent all four and a half hours of it reading HBP, and we landed only to get stuck in immigration for an hour. It was horrible, especially after thirty-six hours travelling, and I was only peripherally aware we'd arrived until some time later. My cousins live in a sort of bungalow, large and white and quite cool despite the heat, with palm trees overhanging the roof and two cats and a dog. I'm quite enamoured of the mini-menagerie, especially the dog, who is a solemn cocker spaniel with long fluffy ears, and the cats are notable for their habit of falling asleep draped over furniture. I sort of wish I could join them; the heat seems to sap everyone's energy.

Yeah, I don't do well in heat. The ironic thing is this of course is Darwin's winter - although it doesn't really have seasons in the traditional sense - and it would be much worse for me at other times. Still, I like the breezes and gently waving palm trees, and yesterday we went to the beach and I loved it. We'd only been here for a couple of hours, and I was shattered, but the sun was rising over the sea and it was gorgeous. The sea is blue. I don't mean in the generic of-course-it-is sort of way, but bright, shining blue that you even notice as the water laps over your feet. It's thickly salty, but the beaches are perfectly clean and the water stretches out clear towards Indonesia. The sound is the same, though. It's strange to have travelled so far and to still be able to hear the same sound I hear through my bedroom window at home.

Talking of travelling far, it is true. I really never have been so far from home in my life. Twelve and a half thousand miles, according to Pedar, and also by my reckoning I've probably hit half a million air miles on this trip, or at least I will have done by the end of it. On Thursday, we're flying to Sydney (via Adelaide) where Sunny is meeting us - he's at medical school in Newcastle. I wonder if people from Newcastle here are also called Geordies?

I'll scribble more on HBP when I get home, I think. I'll also have to type up all the fic I'm writing, or trying to write. My long crackfic involving psychotic wheelie bins is still on the go, but there are too many canon details to check up for me to write it in longhand, so back-burner. Strangely, katemonkey has got me thinking about (and writing) Rose/girl!Doctor fic. It's really rather fascinating to consider.

That's it. Back to lazing about in the sun.

Edited to add: a rec. This is a fic I read just before leaving and have been thinking about intermittently ever since; if a fic haunts you, I reckon it's good. I Speak For Gallifrey, by calapine.