Down Mexico Way

We didn't do an awful lot this weekend.

We spent most of it buying some essentials to enable us to move into our new home, pictured left. I say ours, but it's rented.

The ship carrying our container, with almost all our worldly goods in, docked in Melbourne on Friday just gone.

Unfortunately for us it will take approximately seven to ten working days to clear customs and is unlikely to be delivered to us before the 19th September.

That's a shame, as we're moving house this Thursday, 6th September.

So, for around a fortnight, we'll be 'roughing' it without all our stuff from home. We've bought a double bed for the girls to sleep on, two sofas, which will double up as beds for the wife and I, a telly, fridge, kettle and some kitchen utensils. Just enough to keep us going until the cavalry arrives. Our friends Dave and Kaz live just down the road and have offered us use of their laundry services and anything else we may be short of.

The house itself is a big, spacious four-bedder with plenty of room for guests. So, if any of the good folk from home want to visit, we've got ample space.

It's in Wodonga, which is across the Murray River from Albury. It is also in another state, as the border between New South Wales and Victoria also separates the twin cities.

In days of yorn the border between the states was much more obtrusive. Different size railway gauges prevented the same train travelling between the two states - passengers travelling from Melbourne to Sydney used to have to disembark at Wodonga and get on a different train to continue their journey. That's not all. Apparently, and remarkably, the two places, at certain times of the year, were in different time-zones!

It is still forbidden to carry fruit across the border because of fruit-fly. Again, apparently, the searching of vehicles was commonplace in a bid to stop 'fruit-runners'.

Now though, the two cities have became a single entity in many ways. In name, the term Albury-Wodonga is used an awful lot now and much has been done to eliminate the 'red-tape' differences that had previously hampered commerce and general life between the two settlements.

There are some annoying regulations still in place though. Notably the fact that the wife and I will have to re-apply, at our own cost, for Victorian driving licences, having already forked out for NSW ones. Also, again at our expense, we will have to register the car in Victoria and change it's number plates having registered it only three weeks ago in NSW.

There also remains a certain amount of elitism on the side of NSW. Although mostly in banter, they feel Albury has the edge in many ways over it's smaller Victorian twin.

I'm fairly sure that it's not only a geographical reference when the NSW locals call Victoria, Mexico, and it's residents, Mexicans.

Which, rather neatly, brings me on to my favourite Mexican gag.

Why did the Mexican push his wife off the cliff?

TEQUILA, of course!