A madelaine moment

SOMEHOW, ALL day today, I'm haunted by memories of Australia, and I'm not sure why.

I mean it's a pleasant enough day, but nothing particularly antipodean about it.

It's just a lovely English spring day. We visit our friends, Mike and Helen, and so pleasant is the weather we even manage to persuade them to come out to their local for a couple of hours - bit of a struggle with Mike being so seriously incapacitated by his Motor Neurone. We manage, though, and have quite a social afternoon, what with so many of Mike's friends stopping by and having a chat.

Yet all the time, at the back of my mind, is the thought of our visits to Aus, to Sydney and the Blue Mountains and then, on the second occassion, to Port Stephens.

Both memorable trips, but why am I so preoccupied by them today, now? We've no plans to go back there at the moment; and it's not as if we've been talking about them particularly.

Odd.

Anyhow, we're driving home this evening. We've decided that for dinner we won't stop at a restaurant, but instead pick up some fish and chips and bring them home. It'll save us a bit of money, and it'll be a bit of a change.

And it's then, as I'm standing at the chippie, waiting for our haddock and chips to fry, that the penny drops: the last time we had fish and chips from a chippie was at Nelson Bay, Port Stephens.

Excellent they were, too - battered barramundi, I think the fish was, with a good dollop of salt and lemon.

And I can even the remember the occassion of it - it was the day we went to listen to jazz at the winery, sitting in the open air within sight of the vines, supping wine and listening to some really cool sounds.

Wonderful day.

And to think, the idea of fish and chips has brought all this on! It's like Proust and the taste of a madelaine buscuit bringing back a flood of memories.

Seems I've had a madelaine moment!