OUR children were born in Australia, their childhood featuring wide open spaces, beaches, sunshine, Vegemite sandwiches and lamingtons (little coconut and chocolate-coated sponge cakes which we’ve now found at the Lewes bus station).

Arriving in England in a Cotswold stone village, which due to an ancient charter was called a town, my husband was duly reprimanded for saying: “What a lovely village!” while queuing in the Co-op.

The children called it “the Midsomer Murders village. It feels like a film set. All that tweed looks like they’re going on a hunt.” There seemed to be some pavement etiquette we weren’t observing in that our “Good mornings”, “Hellos” or my husband’s “G’day, mate!” were not always being returned. We hadn’t seen the sea in a while so I suggested we spend a few days in Brighton as I’d had fun there as a child with my brothers and sister.

As we drove in, the sun was shining and one of the children started chanting, “I can see the sea!” the way they did on the way to the beach in Tasmania.

After dropping stuff at the “seafront” (oblique view!) guesthouse we zoomed from one place to the other, the beach, the Lanes, pier, and for four days we explored as much of Brighton as we could. Standing on a street corner in the sunshine one morning, waiting for my family to emerge from the guesthouse, a man came up and asked if I was looking at the graffiti on a wall. I wasn’t but said, “Yes it’s a good one” and he started telling me about the others around the town. After he left, one of the children said to me, “Did you see his T-shirt?” I hadn’t. It said, ‘Sex Instructor. First lesson free'.

The evenings were warm and we’d keep our windows open, listening to the partygoers singing their way home or screeching gulls. “Brighton never sleeps” said our son with great satisfaction. The welcome sense of energy didn’t seem to permeate our village in Oxfordshire. So for six years we came each summer, wondering if we’d get tired of it but never did. During this time some of the children left home but still came on holiday with us. When we were down to three, our son said, “Let’s go and live in Brighton.” I wasn’t sure. John and I are freelance so we were free to move. But it would mean leaving a routine I was used to, a house with a garden.

I liked the birds in it, the two robins that joined me when I hung out the washing, one perching on the peg bag. Two baby doves we’d seen from our kitchen window grew from peeping little grey fluffy heads in a nest to fledglings learning how to fly. Soon grown up, they’d come and visit the nest where they were born. I thought it was sweet and it reminded me of my own depleted family. My daughter would say, “Don’t say that!” One is not allowed to be sentimental as a parent.

It took six months of house-hunting on the internet, my son wondering if I was trying hard enough. After a few false starts where the places were too small or grubby one did finally come up that was just right apart from the ceilings being startlingly high. Now we live here and are looking forward to our first Brighton Christmas. John wants a real tree. We had a cardboard one in the Australian summer because he used to get hay fever. I just hope he doesn’t buy one that’s five metres tall.

Words and cartoon by Emma Macdonald