©Julia Welstead, author of Island Life column, Saturday Scotsman, 2001 to 2006

How fine that Scotland has her Homecoming 2009 in full swing when we return to our beloved homeland next week. World-weary travellers, emigrants and immigrants that we are, it will be with great joy that we set foot back in Scotland. I will kiss the soil, as soon as we get clear of concrete and can find some. I may even persuade the teenage lads to do the same (but I doubt it, their emotions manifest themselves in subtler ways, a grunt, the blink of an eye, a lopsided half-grin, a stiffening of the shoulders and so on).

After three jolly years of life in the land of sunshine, barbies, blokes and shielas, cackling kookaburras, snakes in the grass, relentless heat, relentlessly blue skies, relentless sport, infernal bush fires and sharp-toothed marine life, I have decided that enough is enough. Australia has been a blast, but it’s time to come home. I need some rain on my face, some mud on my boots, and a long dark winter in which to hibernate.

So what have we been up to, these three long years? And why haven’t I been writing about it? Well, the three boys have done a whole lot of sport: swimming, basketball, hockey (yes, boy-hockey is a mainstream school sport there), swimming, volleyball, rowing, swimming, kayaking, tennis, swimming, golf, surfing, water polo and did I mention swimming? 

Swimming has rather taken over our lives. When we first flew in to Perth, Western Australia, I spotted something during the final approach to landing that was to change our lives forever. It was an open-air 50m pool and I was very excited about it. We have to live there, I declared, because a 50m pool is a rare thing. So we looked on a map and drove to the place. It was a school pool. Easy decision: live here, school the boys here, swim a lot under the scorching sun. For heat-phobes swimming is the ultimate answer to a long hot summer.

Ummm, well, hahaha, a 50m pool is a rare thing in the UK but here in Perth they are ten a penny. All that I, in my haste to settle us, unwittingly managed to achieve was that we live under the international flight path for three years. And, joking apart, that has taken its toll and taught me a lesson that I would like to share with any wannabe emigrants. Don’t live under an international flight path. Those huge lumbering metal birds provide a daily reminder of one’s itinerant status in a foreign location, a long way from home. Their regular to’ing and fro’ing does nothing to settle the soul, but rather encourages the inherent restlessness of the spirit.

Anyhoo, there we were, living under the sun, swimming etc etc. I bought a horse and rode through the bush two or three times a week. We ran a business for a while. We drove to the beach on weekends. We met folk and made some good friends. 

So why didn’t I keep writing? I could wax on about writers’ block or somesuch, but the truth is that there’s been nothing much to write home about: nothing wild and woolly or daringly different about this suburban lifestyle. We have had a few adventures, driven a few hundred kilometres into the huge interior of Australia, camped in the middle of nowhere, been bitten by fearsome, disease bearing mosquitoes, come face to face with the odd life-threatening spider and so forth, but none of our little forays inspired me to write. 

This lack of inspiration has been getting to me lately. Clearly Australia is a fabulous country that inspires a lot of folk: writers, artists and those who just live here and love it. So why not me? There’s a bumper sticker thing here – everyone has at least one – and the one that really got to me says, “if you don’t love it, leave”. There are a variety of cruder versions of course, but that’s the gist. After reading it a few times it began to clarify my mind. Australia is fantastic, there are not enough superlatives to do it justice, but I don’t love it on a personal level. It doesn’t fill my heart, it doesn’t nurture my soul. Australia is not my home. There is a place that I do love, and where I feel a great sense of belonging, and that place is Scotland. 

I found myself pondering on that Joni Mitchell line, “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone”. For some of us it takes time away from Scotland to appreciate the wonders of our wee country. OK, for me it’s taken a few trips away. I’ve been a bit slow on the uptake. But I’m sure as Hell coming home to stay this time. This woman’s Homecoming is not just for 2009.