Not another tome from Woody

As the ExPat climbs on board the aircraft to return home. He is conflicted with the thought and emotion that what he now calls home and what he is leaving behind, both were home once. As the plane climbs into the sky and he settles back into his newly updated seat in Business or First he looks out onto a fairy land of twinkling lights, pockmarked with dark areas and only a strip of light designating the road between the villages. These little pockets of civilisation are in fact communities with a pub and shops, carrying on oblivious of the pair of eyes staring down, wondering and if truth be known, wishing for another pint and convivial company.
But the responsibility has passed to the new home which has been created on the other side of the world. The children and friends are in this new world, a vast place which when flying over seems empty of human habitation, well not quite. The cities contain 98% of the population, they are household names which fill our television screens with bold pictures of symbolic architecture, iconoclastic monuments to a society that thrives. But in those vast open spaces that lie below, tiny encampments of tough people live their lives, not much changed from when Banjo Paterson wrote his "Man from Snowy River" or Henry Lawson describing, in such gritty detail the lives of the Drover and his wife eking out an existence in lonely solitude. It should be compulsory for all Australian children to read these epic tales of fortitude, fertilising the open range with human endeavour making an embryonic industry of sheep and cattle farming which have become the huge farms of today with product labels known the world over.
These tough men and women with their Aboriginal workers pushed the boundaries of human endeavour, pushed the boundaries of deprivation, of loneliness, doing without all but the most basic things in life for their love of the Outback and the freedom it gave from the claustrophobia of city life.        
Back to our ExPat, 24 hours later, cramped and a little ratty, the passengers disembark into a sunny cloudless world of hello  "Good to have you back. What was the weather like" ? Carried along with the swirl of genuine good wishes the car noses out into the traffic along the familiar highway and into the suburbs. Drawing into the drive you glance at the mail box and wonder at the trick of distance, a letter posted a couple of days ago into one of those quaint red postboxes has beaten you home. Its from Jim. The door opens and one finally feels the weight of the miles slowly ebbing away and those dreadful suitcases need carrying no more. Next year we must half the stuff we lug around.
It  is crazy to bring our wardrobe with us on the remote chance we may need a particular piece of clothing. If push comes to shove, buy it there !
I must insist to the wife that she cuts back otherwise "my back" will be the problem!! But she is difficult to convince and since I end up doing most of the carrying, seen from her standpoint, (she who will be obeyed), will probably get her way and I better capitulate or suffer the many slingshots of sharp disagreeable comment. Perhaps a few trips to the gym will compensate ?      
Lets put the kettle on, hit the button and fire up the computer.
Who's message is that, not another tome from Woody!