You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

You complain to a colleague about how much of a pain Visio is and to your amazement she tells you how much she loves it! :blink:

....especially when he gives her shoulders a good going over! :rofl:

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

What does Visio have to do with AU?
I use it - I get by with it!

I've seen people help out with colleagues by giving them a quick massage!

Cheers

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

When it's the first week of August and another winter has rolled by in rapid time. And you know some of the flowers will bud in days.
And you camp in the snow at the snowline, and have skis sticking out of the ground yet can see over snowgums to the lower slopes with no snow....

when you have long forgotten the UK and can't really remember life there at all - just through the prism of distant memories!
When you know parts of the AU backcountry like the back of your hand..

Cheers

B

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

When, in our corner of woop woop at least, the summer sun makes the lawn go brown, and just as it is recovering by winter the frosts hit and the lawn goes brown again. That irrigation system and $700+ summer water bill was a great investment :cry_smile:

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

Not a lot other than a random experience in Australia. It certainly made us all laugh out loud. Could easily have been a line out of The Office.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

Had something like that where many of the plants I introduced and carefully cultivated of last summer got wiped out by the frosts. Given up on the grass - the only things that seem to grow well on the lawn are the weeds. Going to replace it all with wood chippings in the spring..

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

...some people believe Coleslaw was invented by Coles.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

... people still sit in their garage, in the middle of winter, with the door up, recreationally.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

...people are incapable of taking shopping bags with them when visiting supermarkets

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

A very strong indicator they will be bogans.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

Where does this occur?

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

It's the beginning of August and the shorts are out.

I have the shorts on today. The weather, despite a little windy is lovely and warm.

Even more bizarre. Putting the skis on the roof racks wearing shorts and a t-shirt. That soon changes when you get to Cooma.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

Anywhere bogans have a house with a garage.

The thing that surprised me was they still did it in the winter.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

I need to venture further a field.

Not many garages in my neighborhood. However I have one and so does the guy opposite on the side street. On the odd occassion we find ourselves in the garage with the doors open chatting away to each other while we both are sorting (finding) garden equipment.

I must get a chair for the garage and do a bit of sitting. I feel like I am missing out.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

They cook and eat in them around here. Especially in Pascoe Vale and Fawkner.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

...Your neighbours' double garages look like antique shops.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

....Another driver nearly causes an accident ....and they curse at you!

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

....Nearly everyone seems to own a petrol lawnmower and a chainsaw

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

.... Flymos, nor any other electric mower, are by far the least popular choice.

.... lawns are simply green (occasionally), not green with stripes. I miss mowing my lawn and getting stripes.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

.... Driving laws change, and nobody gives a monkey's.

Actually, that's pretty much the same everywhere. Sometimes not even the police follow the law. In NSW is law to have to indicate off of roundabouts. I followed a police car across six roundabouts on one drive, he/she didn't indicate once.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

Bunbury WA. If you pulled into my aunt and uncles driveway in Bunbury and the garage door wasn't open and the two of them were not sitting there having a beer and a ciggy, you knee that they were either not home or both in the loo.

You'd wait 2 minutes and if nobody showed up, you may as well not waste the energy of knocking on the door.

My uncle died 10 years ago but I'm sure the rules still apply.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

You know you're still in Australia when... "Footie" can mean any one of four codes. I was brought up in a Rugby League town, and that's what "footie" meant there!

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

I've never seen people sitting their garages around these parts

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

...And Aussie lawns get those massive dandelion-like weeds that when you you pull them out they leave a very noticeable bald patch.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

​​​​​​
Nothing wrong with a bald patch 😃

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

I lived in a street in north Brisbane for a while where all the neighbours used to do it.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

Fair enough. I guess it's no different from council estates or poorer areas in the UK where all the adults seem to be out on the street or in their front gardens in the evening

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

Maybe they don't have a patio but still want to sit outside under cover? I don't think there's a law that states only cars can use a garage.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

Examples I'm thinking of do have (small) back gardens, so the smoking idea doesn't sound right.

It's not so much 'law' as I've never really worked out why they do it and why it is so prevalent. There is some kind of cultural thing about garages and it being a halfway place between 'outside' and 'inside' I think.

It's very much an australian thing.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

Man Cave. With the outside connection as you mention.

I am kind of thinking about garages in the UK and they are typically small if they exist at all. Not really appropriate for a man cave large enough to house all the junk, tools and a social space.

McMansions in Australia often have large double garages. Perfect for a cave.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

It's partly the man cave thing, but with the addition of 'the third place' vibe. The garage door is up not because it has to be, but as something of an 'open for non-business' invitation.

As I say, it's a weird cultural thing, akin to the unwritten rules of 'buying a round' in the UK.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

All the houses had good back garden space but people didn't use it,It was more a case of sitting out front, being nosey and commenting on all the other neighbours. I was viewed as "odd" even by my then OH because I preferred to sit in the privacy of my own back garden!

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

I quite like the 'nosey neighbour' concept! In our last airbnb rental in Liverpool, the old bloke next door sat out the front day in day out. He'd set himself up with his book and a flask of tea, and chat to everyone going past. Everyone knew him and most would stop for a brief conversation and catch up.

I think it's nice, and it's one of the things I loved about the UK. Lots of little communities, instead of everyone locked away in their own houses. Makes for a friendlier and safer place to live in my opinion.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

There's a house around the corner from me (not boganland) where the elderly couple sat in their chairs in the garage and watched the world go by (a few cars, it's a no through road). Sadly the guy died and the garage door was shut for about a year. Not long ago the old lady was back watching the world go by with an empty chair next to her. It's very sweet and seriously bloody sad. Nothing bogan about it at all. If the sun's out, and neighbours wander round, we may chat on the drive with a beer in our hands. We did that in the UK as well.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

You want to have a barbie but first you gotta get past those pesky snakes :rolleyes:

This video of an 81-year-old grandma removing two pythons from a BBQ is the most Australian thing we've ever seen

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

My Wife would definitely give that a go, I already asked her specifically, "They're not Poisonous" was her flippant response.. Should have seen her trying to sort out a Tiger Snake when we had our onsite Caravan and Annex up at Nagambie, she destroyed it's hiding spot as it had swum over the Goulburn River to our heavily grassed bank and she wasn't having it hiding in there with our youngsters running around. She was out there pulling and picking and banging the thick couch grass within a minute of it's arrival. She's not so brave with spiders though.

I'd say a few people on here would at least open the bbq to let the Pythons go in their own time.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

Interesting the 'noisy' concept. Sounds a bit 'twitching curtains' Midsomers Murder sticky beak sort of thing so well executed by the English, particularly in Middle Class localities where neighbours are too often kept at arms distance. Not so much in working class areas where I recall folk, often older, sitting outside their premises, passing greetings and seemingly knowing everybody. Something akin to Southern Europe, but too a far lesser extent. No idea if still very prevalent in this age and suspect it has declined considerably, but one poster made a note of it up north, so suspect it goes on, but far lesser, otherwise an individual would probably not have provoked a comment.

A shame these things die out. No wonder so many, especially aged folk, complain of loneliness. It seems the more connected the more this becomes a problem.

Returning to Australia a few weeks ago, even after only a little over two months away, the sighting of so few pedestrian traffic about and houses, that for all intent and purposes, could be empty with a complete lack of life, always is a reminder I'm back in Australia.

Re: You know you are (still) in Australia when.....
 

Quite a bit of foot traffic around here Troub, Well in relation to a Lot of Aus... . So not the whole of Australia :)

Lots of crowded footpaths about 800 meters away from me, and they stay crowded all the way into the City.

However Nosey I do understand. The twitching net curtains were the bain of my Childhood and Youth back in London. It's not Aussies hiding behind the nets of UK Suburbia, They're generally doing it out in the open.