326 – 330. Xmas in Brisbane

The 23rd of December was my last day as an employee of the Emergency Department and I was shattered. I’d just pulled 22 hours in the Emergency Department with only 4 hours off in between thanks to a rostering mix up that went from bad to worse and saw me doing a transfer in the back of an ambulance to a larger hospital with a chap who had a massive sub-arachnoid haemorrhage the result of which also made me finish my last ever shift in the hospital 3 hours later that I should have done.

With my final shift in Australia finally over, I flopped into the flat, a red-eyed mess, realising it was after 2am and I was only going to be able to get about 5 hours sleep before catching my flight to Brisbane.

Christmas Eve was now upon me and in Brisbane I would be meeting up with Isla and her Dad who was visiting family and holidaying in Australia for the next 3 months. She had left her job at Channel 9 two week earlier, had flow up to Brisbane and had been doing a bit of a road trip with them, seeing some new sights in Queensland and the north of New South Wales. I had spent the last 14 days seething with jealously but I guess someone had to pay the rent and that someone was me.

Anyway, just before a passed out in bed I checked my phone messages and had one from Isla saying that they had been at the airport that day to pick up some other relatives and it had been complete carnage. Everything was delayed and as my flight was on the 24th December it was going to be even worse so the whole Brisbane contingent was advising that I leave with at least 2 hours to spare unlike the recommended 30 minutes that is advised for regular domestic flights. So with the lull of sleep coming over me I changed my alarm clock from 8am to 6am all the while cursing at nobody in particular then I passed out.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Bloody alarm clock. I wanted to smash the thing as it wrenched me unceremoniously from my sleep of the dead. In fact I was sure that I’d been abducted by aliens that night because I was sure that I’d just closed my eyes when the world’s most annoying sound started – there was no snoozing, no dreams, no sense of time passing and certainly no feelings at all related to being rested. One second my eyes were closing with the force of a falling port cullis and the next I was being skewered in the ear drums by my alarm clock.

With a mouth that tasted like I’d been eating road-kill and eyes the burned like an old man’s urinary tract infection I levered myself out of bed and into the shower which took considerable determination. The normally refreshing cool water did nothing to remove the sticky post-sleep film that had covered me during the overly warm night and it wasn’t till I was at the check-in desk before I actually opened my eyes properly.

And that was when I realised… I was at the check-in desk. The trains had moved speedily to the south side of the city and into the Domestic Terminal, there had been no airport queues to speak of, my e-ticket had scanned without issue, the kind lady behind the desk had taken my bags while wishing me a “Merry Christmas” and as I looked up at the departure board I realised that every single flight was on time, including mine.

“Brisbane 1100 – On Time – Boarding Gate 34 at 1030.”

With the tears welling up from overwhelming tiredness I looked at my watch and it mocked me by saying “0725”. Cheeky bastard. More than 3 hours before I would even be able to board. So much for arriving early.

About an hour later I was almost crying into my third espresso all the while trying to hold in a pee which was at least keeping me awake. Eventually I couldn’t hold it in anymore and had to scarper to the nearest loo. At that point I actually came to the conclusion that I was over-tired and it was unlikely that I was going to fall asleep by accident and wake up at 3am trapped in a toilet with all the lights out, so I went to the supposedly tax-free and inconveniently over-priced book shop and bought a novel to kill some of the time. The next 2 hours seemed to pass much faster and after the 326. Flight to Brisbane that was both uneventful and unexciting I found myself at last in Queensland.

Isla and some friends of her family were waiting for me at the lay by outside the airport and after hugs and introductions we jumped in their car and made our way to the house where we would be living for the next few days. The house was already full of people when we arrived and it didn’t take long to get to know everyone. Of course they were all excited as tomorrow would be Christmas but to be honest everything just seemed… wrong. I know that there is a northern hemisphere bias towards this time of year and most of us expect snow, mulled wine, sleighs, evergreen Christmas trees, hot chestnuts, wrapping up warm, carols in the cold and log fires but actually the Southern Hemisphere has the seasons the correct way round as the Earth is closest to the sun in January.

Despite this all their excitement seemed warped and misplaced. In the tropical conditions of Brisbane all the decorations looked like they had been put up 6 months ago and nobody had remembered to take them down. The TV continually showed hard ware store adverts saying things like “We’ve got everything you could ever want for a great Christmas. Come check out our out door furniture, barbeques and new decking kits. All the things you’ll need for a fantastic summer!”

What? Summer and Christmas in the same paragraph? It made no sense. Much like the fact there was an advert for Christmas trees followed by another ad for a “Summer Floor-Fillers” dance CD immediately after. The entire festive period seemed wonky and inverted. I guess that’s to be expected on the other side of the planet.

One thing that did occur to me is that in the Northern Hemisphere there is the summer holidays in July and August and only a few months later, during the horrid winter months, there is Christmas to look forward to. Unfortunately, for the Australians their summer and Christmas is combined and then the rest of the year is uninspiringly uneventful. That said, if you live in more northern side of the country then it doesn’t really matter as its practically summer all year round, with the odd rainy season thrown in to break up the monotony.

So after a few beers I was feeling a bit more awake and as soon as the rest of the household realised that they put me to work. That was my first encounter with 327. Moreton Bay Bugs which have to be one of the weirdest creatures ever to evolve on the planet. Although akin to langoustines and shrimp they really are a bit of an enigma with their flat shovel like heads and short curved tails and are pretty much only found in the Moreton Bay area of Queensland (no surprises there!). Apparently, as little as 10 years ago fishermen used to sell them for around $2 per kilo as nobody really knew what to do with them. Now they are seen as a lobster-esque delicacy and go for as much as ten times that price. I was given a big bag of them and charged with ripping off the heads and cracking open the carapace to reveal the meat that would eventually go into the most incredible seafood cocktail with mango mayonnaise starter for tomorrows Christmas dinner. Not the best job for someone who’d felt like he’d never slept ever and had drank too many beers.

Even thought I was sat round a table with three over people doing the same to several kilos of shrimp and king prawns the humour was good and the chat was brilliant so the queasy nature of my employment was soon forgotten.


Christmas day itself was a bit of a non-event. The household and all their respective families, kids and grandchildren appeared to be enjoying themselves but as it was 30C and the sun was shining it was a bit difficult to get into the Christmas spirit. In fact, to date only three things had actually made me feel remotely less bah-humbuggy. The first was a glass of mulled wine that German friend of mine has provided me with at a dinner party she had a couple of weeks earlier. The aroma of the hot gluehwein took me back to Scotland where my mum would have a big sauce pan of the stuff brewing on the stove every year on Christmas Eve for the arriving family and the pungent smell would travel through the house reminding everyone of all things Christmassy. Amongst my snowboarding buddies vin chaude was also a favourite après ski drink and that too made me think of the winter months.

The second was a bit more tenuous. During the last shift one of the nurses, an incredibly interested chap called Colin, had brought in some nibbles. One item was a box of crackers that were “Sea Salt and Rosemary Flavour”. I put one in my mouth and again I was transported back to the Northern Hemisphere version of Christmas. Each year we usually get assigned part of the dinner to cook and regardless of what ever other jobs I’m given I always get the potatoes – roasted, mashed and boiled (although nobody ever eats the boiled ones!). Not that I’m boasting but I’m a bloody potato expert and that mainly comes from being a total fatty and having eaten more spuds than anyone else since the Irish potato famine.

The boiled potatoes get… well… boiled! The mash I do with cream and butter mixed together with some wholegrain mustard and a load of fresh cracked black pepper and just a hint of salt. And then there are the roasters. They are part boiled first and then shallow fried in a deep oven dish with a mixture of vegetable oil and virgin olive oil. Every few minutes they are taken out of the oven and shaken to give them that fluffed, extra-crispy outer coating. But the key to this is the addition of some rosemary to the oil before the tatties go in. It’s the only time of the year that I use this herb and the crackers took me back to that memory with gusto.

After the small portioned meal of over-cooked turkey, vile pork crackling, mediocre roasted sweet potato, roasters (with no rosemary), salty stuffing and watery gravy everyone sat back and complimented the cooks. Actually the food wasn’t that bad and as I said before the seafood cocktail was completely gastronomic, it was just that it all seemed so misplaced. The heat, the humidity, the sunshine and the fact we were with relative strangers (no pun intended) really conspired to make the day slightly out-of-body-ish. I think also that Christmas dinner isn’t actually the great meal that every thinks it is – you eat far too much and the tastes can be a bit dull and uninspiring. However, you have a whole year to forget what you felt like afterwards and by the time it comes round again you are game for that feast once more and all the stomach pains and nausea that comes with it.

What also helps to counter the tedious Christmas dinner are all the other good things that you associate with it – the presents, the family, the wine and all things smiley – not that there hasn’t been a few festive fights in our home (I remember being mightily pissed off that I’d asked for a squash racquet and didn’t get one as my folks said they couldn’t afford it yet they’d shelled out for £50 face creams for both my sisters! No wonder they couldn’t afford a racquet!).

Anyway, I think the point I was trying to make it there is more to the meal than just the ingredients and what ends up on your plate. So without those other things it just felt like an undesirably hot meal in an undesirably hot climate. That was until Barbara brought out the mine pies. Again another thing that most people only eat once a year but as they are a free lance food and not necessarily associated with Christmas day I was again reminded of home and the holiday season.

So all in all only three tiny things had me thinking it was actually the 25th of December and then it occurred to me that surely Australians hadn’t just been mimicking the traditions of the winter Christmas’s for the last 200 years. Shouldn’t they have come up with some customs of their own? Well, in fact, they had, the main one being barbeques on the beach. All over Australia people were celebrating on sandy shark-infested shores flinging steaks and sausages on their BBQs like there was no tomorrow. Fortunately there was a tomorrow and that tomorrow was Boxing Day which is when, at long last, I would finally get to 328. Put another shrimp on the barbie. Actually it was a marinated king prawn, but close enough.

We had a slow start to the 26th but everyone was unable to sleep in too long due to the sudden blistering thunderstorm that shook the house for about three hours in the morning. The rain clattered and hammered on the roof like a thousand wood peckers but eventually it ran out of steam, halting as quickly as it had started. However, it had given us plenty of time to get all the picnic and barbie stuff ready and in true tropical style the sun came out by lunch time promising a wonderful day.

What a liar. We had just set everything up at Kangaroo Point Park on the south shore of the Brisbane River for the Boxing Day BBQ and the bloody heavens opened faster than you could say “Rain? Again?” For the next 30 minutes we were clustered under a collection of ridiculously inadequate umbrellas which failed to keep even a single drop of moisture off us. We’d have been better off with a couple of colanders on our heads. Fortunately, a large golfing brolly had been discovered in the back of one of the cars and this kept the shrimp, the snags (what a great word) and the isolated barbequer dry.

In time for the sun appearing again, the food was ready and everyone, soaked, sat down to lunch as the temperature soared and steam drifted off shirts, trousers and skirts alike.

Just as I was feeling like I could do with a siesta some bright spark came up with the novel and heart-sinkingly energetic idea of doing the 329. Brisbane River Board Walk. This comprised of heaving ourselves off the picnic benches and marching 7km up one side of the river and back down the other side. The pace set by Isla’s Dad was furious – almost military – and I thought it unlikely that the prawns and sausages were going to stay down, but they did.

The walk eventually became rather pleasant and a decent way to work of some of the excesses of the previous few days. It took us round several riverside landmarks and we had plenty of photo opportunities that we’d missed on our previous visit to Brisbane. It was almost predictable that the rain would start again and with about 2km to go we were all running for the pseudo protection of those rubbish umbrellas.

We arrived back at the BBQ site to find every other member of the family sitting in steamed up cars waiting for us. They were obviously as tired of the fickle weather as we were and soon we were heading home. So much for my first Australian barbie experience.

With one day left in Brisbane we decided to try our hand at another walk. Thankfully the sun blazed through the clouds and the rain held off. We made our way to a lovely little town called Redcliffe on the coast at Moreton Bay where we had a brief lunch at the Bellevue Hotel. Despite scouring both the menu and the Bay I didn’t see any of the Moreton Bay Bugs but I did have the “Under the Sea” song that Homer Simpson sings running through my head…

There’ll be no accusations,
Only friendly crustaceans,
Under the sea!

To that inner melody, we left the restaurant and undertook the long 330. Bay side walk round Flinder’s Parade to Shorncliffe and back. The onshore breeze kept us cool as we wandered south, chatting idly around esplanade. It took less time that we thought it would and ended up at a Brighton-esque pier that stretched far out into the Bay. We walked to the far end and watched the anglers wind up empty lines and certainly no bugs. Isla realised that the cool winds had tricked her into thinking that she wasn’t cooking under the Aussie sun but there was a faint blossoming of pink under her skin despite her factor 30 cream.

Soon we were back at the car and within the hour we were at the domestic terminal of Brisbane Airport. It had been good to spend time with some vaguely familiar people over the Christmas period but without wanting to sound like I am shirking the great hospitality we were treated too, I think that things would have been better if we’d spent the time in Sydney. We could have tried to do something original instead of mearly bastardising the Northern Hemisphere version and there were plenty of “Ways and Strays” parties that we’d also been invited to should things have become boring.

I suppose the flip side is that it never really felt like Christmas and because of that we never really felt like we were missing out. All in all it simply felt like a city break to Brisbane and not a great deal more than that.