Weeks Fifty-one and Fifty-two: Home.

Fifty two weeks. Crazy. This time last year I was going out of my mind, preparing for my year abroad. I would stress out and panic whenever anyone mentioned the Southern Hemisphere. The word 'Kangaroo' would bring me out in paroxysms of terror. The sight of my barely-packed suitcase could induce tears.  I was gearing up to move 10,000 miles away from home, from everyone I know, for a whole year. I was terrified. At my leaving party, I cried.

Fast forward a year.

I am in Elvington, sat on my bedroom floor. I can do this because this floor is not the undulating mass of cockroaches upon ancient ground-in sand, which made up my bedroom floor in Newcastle. For breakfast, I made a smoothie in the blender that works properly, unlike any of the appliances which inhabited the Church Street kitchen. I have spent the past fortnight catching up with so many of the people whom I was so terrified to leave. But despite all this... it feels different.

I'm not the same person who left this house a year ago.

The changes are subtle. My pyjamas consist of the same scruffy t-shirt and shorts, but this t-shirt is green and gold, emblazoned with a fabulously tacky southern cross and 'AUSTRALIA'. My fringe has a faint ginger streak in it, from a year basking in the hot, southern sun. A pair of ridiculous harem pants have taken up residence in my wardrobe, alongside floaty Aussie dresses and Big-W bargains. I gained a ferocious appetite for avocado, that long-despised green slime-fruit, to the extent that, slathered upon thick-cut spelt toast, it becomes my new favourite breakfast. My ipod, whilst hardly a stranger to dulcet croonings and whiney ballads, now harbours vast collections of Angus and Julia Stone, Ballpark Music and Kimbra.

Coming home, I can see the changes that have occurred in my absence, like the newly festive-wallpapered hallway, in the aftermath of the Great Christmas Day Inferno of 2011 (Mum left the candles burning and they set fire to the entire dresser, LOLZ). But far more than that, I have started seeing unchanged things, those areas of static similarity, in a different light. The English summer, long a bastion of the cold and the wet, feels like a muggy prison. How did I deal with this much rain, every year, for two decades?! The pollen, Oh the pollen! A year away has left me spluttering and wheezing; a short run through the village leaves me gasping for breath. The hayfever gods have seen fit to smite me down once more. This small island nation suddenly feels forlornly landlocked, adrift upon an ocean of green fields and rolling hills. I have not gone any longer that 5 days without seeing the ocean, in a year. Now, two weeks in, I feel starved of that brisk, salty breeze and glittering blue surface. I'm longing for road trips to Whitby. Not that the North Sea ever glitters, but it would at least be something.

This is turning into a long moan about England - and it's not! There are so many wonderful things about being home. My gorgeous family, friends and boyfriend. My beautiful University campus, home to gambolling bunnies and grassy-breathed shetland ponies. My lovely home, with its plentiful supplies of Yorkshire tea and crunch creams. The English countryside (disregarding that bloody pollen!). Iced glasses of pimms with strawberries, cucumber and mint. My 21st birthday! My lovely new car. Being reunited with old, different clothes, alternatives to the same wardrobe with which I have grown so tired. Decent internet connection, because seriously, Australia? Sort it out.

My year abroad changed me, in small but meaningful ways. Ever the couch potato, the warm sunshine and endless beaches enticed me to take up running. My faint Yorkshire accent, absent to Northerners, yet derided by Southerners, has apparently all but disappeared. A year of minimal footwear has exchanged the soles of my feet for the human equivalent of hooves. My itunes library contains Carly Rae Jepson....

For all the distance though, I'm surprisingly similar to the girl who left a year ago.  My freckles, once overtaken by my tan in the blazing Christmastime sun, have returned to prominence. I have retained, even strengthened, my aversion to wearing shoes. I am still a hoarder, to the point that reducing my suitcase weight to 30kg was a mammoth struggle. My itunes library still contains Westlife...

My first two weeks back in the Northern Hemisphere have been lovely. I knew the time would come when I would start yearrning for Australia again; for distant beaches, endless cobalt skies and squawking mohican-ed birds. I just never realised it would happen so soon.

This will be my last post on this blog. Thanks to everyone who has put up with my ridiculous rants and lengthy, over-emotional odes to Down Under. Hope you've enjoyed reading it :)

This beautiful country and these beautiful people have given me the greatest year of my life. Australia, I'll never forget you.