After a 32 hour trip back from India that involved a taxi, a flight, another taxi (and nearly a mugging), another flight, another another flight, a train, another train, and a walk through the mud, I’m finally back home. Alright, so I’ve been back a few days, but I’ve been a busy boy, so forgive me for being a bit late on the blogging.
Having been away for a while, I’ve been taking the time to appreciate everything I have here at home, in Gosford, NSW. It’s not hard, because it’s a pretty awesome place. There are beaches, bush… the Settlers Tavern, where I regularly get pissed. I’ve been to a lot of incredible places around the world (I’ve also been to Huddersfield), but few match Gosford and the Central Coast when it comes to jaw-dropping natural beauty.
This is my home. It’s where I first played football, where I first got drunk and where I first saw Johnny Farnham play. Deadset, I’m sitting on my balcony and I can see where Johnny Farnham played 25 years ago, back when he still had the mullet and the popularity. Everywhere I go, there are memories from my time here, but there are always new places to explore just around the corner. Most people here haven’t been to most of the cool places.
I’ve lived in Gosford for 28 of the past 29 years, and of course I sometimes feel like I’ve limited my experiences by staying in the one spot. I know people who have lived in England, Thailand, Indonesia, America, and they’ve all grown and benefited from their experiences. I’ve thought of getting a job overseas, but you know what? I like it here. It has great beaches, a thousand bush tracks I’ve yet to discover, quiet roads for me to drive sensibly down with the roof off, and cliffs for me to jump off if there’s ever enough wind for me to actually go paragliding. More importantly, it also has my family friends, and I wouldn’t have too many of either if I moved to Anus, France or Wetwang, Yorkshire.
I spent the weekend at a buck’s night, where we first went go karting (I came first, my brother came a lowly eighth – if he tells you any different, call him a fucking liar, even if he does produce multiple sources of evidence in an attempt to prove it was the other way around. He’s a fancy pants graphic designer, so he can fake stuff like that) before getting on the piss around a bonfire, underneath a glorious canopy of stars.
It was so good to be out on that farm with a bunch of good blokes, seemingly so far from civilisation, especially after recently escaping the unrelenting madness that is India. It was also great just to have people to talk to, people who know about football and gliding and whatever, people I have history with and who I could feel comfortable about. It’s so good to come home from overseas, where everything is strange, and just feel comfortable for a while. It’s like taking off a pair of arseless leather chaps and putting on a nice pair of trackie daks… or something like that.
I’m looking forward to checking out more of the Central Coast and other places around here as the Drunk and Jobless World Tour rolls on. There’ll be photos, there’ll be spelling errors, there’ll be drunken ranting at people I don’t like (especially that fuckwit Josh Thomas), all the good stuff. What, I can’t keep calling it the World Tour if I’m going home every night to play PlayStation and snuggle up with my ALF doll? Piss off, I do what I want!
The Drunk and Jobless World Tour 