The best thing about being an Accountant, apart from the
money and the fact that models are attracted to us, is the opportunity to travel.
This is particularly so if you work in the Fund Administration business like I
do. We look after the world’s tax dodgers and we can find work in exotic places
like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands or any other place that acts as a haven for
the world’s ill-gotten gains.
From my own point of view, I’ve had the chance to live in
England, Luxembourg and Singapore as well as back in Ireland of course, which
is a haven that likes to attract banks that help people avoid tax and yet expects
its taxpayers to bail out those banks when they get into trouble.
But apart from my homeland, I’ve lived longer in Australia
than I have in any of those countries. I celebrated my fifth anniversary here
last week and I thought it a good opportunity to reflect on the highlights
since I stepped on that Singapore airlines flight back in 2007.
I guess the highlight of the first year was meeting my now
lovely wife. Back in the days before the great crash I was travelling a lot
with work. Tipping up to Sydney once a month or so to see a client and to go on
the beer with my sister and heading up to Singapore occasionally to stay in
posh hotels and indulge in the best cuisine in the world.
The global financial crisis has had an effect on the
company’s budget to say the least. But I still managed a business class trip
around the world to spend a week or so in the wasteland that is Columbus Ohio.
I also managed to procure a visit to Bangalore, which to paraphrase Samuel
Johnson, is a place worth seeing but not worth going to see.
In 2009 I applied for permanent residency which was an arduous
process that involved travelling to Brisbane to prove that I could speak
English and handing over lots of cash to an immigration lawyer and the
Australian government. If nothing else, my residency allows my daughter to be
an Australian citizen which makes her the only one in this house.
2010 was my annus horribulis of course. They say bad things
happen in threes, so after I smashed my face in a bike crash and lost my
mother, I should have known that the grim reaper was stalking me. Nevertheless,
testicular cancer came as a bit of shock, particularly when I had been checked
two years earlier and told that I was too old for this disease.
The bike crash has left a couple of physical scars. I have a
thin blue line above my right eye in the spot where I received 12 stitches on
that faithful day. I should have known something was up when the doctor who
took the needle to me said that she was the only member of her large Scottish
family that couldn’t put a hem in a skirt.
Earlier this year when I had my eyes tested for a new set of
specs, I discovered another legacy from that fateful day back in March 2010
(although I thought it was April which got me a nice bed in the head trauma
unit). The optician made me stare into one of those strange machines that they
have and then left the room in a hurry. He came back with his supervisor who
asked me if anything traumatic had happened to my right eye since the last time
they had seen me. I said there was just the small matter of a titanium plate
being inserted under my eyeball after I fell off my bicycle and decided to head
butt St Kilda Road. Ah, they said, well that would explain why your right pupil
is twice the size of your left one. It seems that when you get a shock, your pupils
dilate. When it’s a particularly nasty trauma, like the one I went through,
then it can stick and I’ll go through the rest of my life with uncoordinated
eyeballs, unless of course I manage to fall off a bike again and come down on
my left hand side this time.
Once my face and broken arm had healed, I had to make two
trips back to Ireland to see my mother for the last time and then to return for
her funeral. I miss her but God replaces
everyone and my beautiful daughter came along a year or so later and has a lot
of my mother’s characteristics, with stubbornness being the latest one on show.
Testicular cancer was the third horseman of the apocalypse
to visit me. I lost my left nut, but perhaps that balances out against the gap
in my right eye socket.
2011 was a better year all round. I got married in New
Zealand, something that some of my friends in Ireland said would never happen.
It was a great day, but I hope nobody who was there will remember the music. I
spent weeks putting it together, only to find that the hotels sound system
consisted of a beat box with the power of a 1960’s transistor radio.
A few months later, our little daughter came along and 2012
has been all about looking after her. I know all Dads are biased but I think
she’s the cutest kid I’ve ever seen, although if she would sleep better at night,
it would certainly help.
So it’s been a busy five years. I’ve dropped a few kilos and
I’m getting more exercise and eating better now that I’m married. I kind of
hope that the next five years will be less eventful but life being what it is,
who knows what tomorrow will bring, never mind the any longer than that. I’ll
keep writing in the hope that all of you will keep reading.
