“Wear your summer dress with sandals, it will be hot when we get there.”

There’s at least one metre of snow, I can see it outside my first storey window. More snow is falling, slowly settling on the window sill outside. Will it stop? I will be cold! “Maybe wear some socks, too, I have your coat here for the trip,” mum says. I’m ten years old.

We are dressed, incongruously. Soft summer finery, my two sisters and me. We have to leave the flat, one last round of farewells in the village. Feeling silly in my summer dress, do people know we are leaving? Mum has last minute things to pack for the trip, some ham rolls, some sparkling water (the bottle is refundable, how can we do this?). Dad takes us and we parade, like a wedding farewell, not a kiss and a hug, but a handshake, Danke for the well wishes.

“Fraulein Schmidt, I need some help to finish sewing the pillow slip, I am moving to Australia on Friday”.

Fraulein Schmidt knows this and obliges, everyone else has to finish theirs by themselves. It’s a red and white gingham pattern, small, perhaps I can take it on the plane. It’s not my first time on a plane. Two years ago we went to Dubrovnik and stayed in a fancy hotel. Other trips, by bus, to St Gallen, Innsbruck, last year it was Venice (I got lost in St Mark’s Square, mum found me two hours later, crushing cuddle), the train to Oma and Opa’s in the north. I wonder if they have buses and trains in Australia. How do you get to school, on horseback, I imagine. I can ride a horse, my father is an excellent rider, Swedish show jumping champion in 1966 (class unknown).

The night before I stayed at my best friend Nicki’s. There’s a photo of the two of us sleeping, her arms flung across my shoulder. We are smiling! We are accused of staging it, but we didn’t, we are just best friends. Maybe I’m dreaming of kangaroos and the hot weather.

The van is here, blue, eight seats (we are five, plus my aunt Ursula), Georg will be driving us to Frankfurt. A very long drive, leaving the village, the mountains, there are no mountains in Frankfurt. Well, I didn’t see any through the window of the van, just roads, trees, cars. My family are dressed in summer clothes (“It will be hot when we get there!”) and winter coats. My toes are cold, Ursula can’t stop crying. The drop off at the airport is a blur. It’s so huge, so many shops, underground it seems, not at all like Munchen. Lovely shops in Munchen, above ground, stuccoed, dado walls inside, iron signs and fine window displays.

We must have boarded the plane, I can’t remember, but we land and it’s hot! Hot and humid as we leave the plane, carefully picking our way down the roll-away stairs, it must be the air from the big engines. It’s not, the heat and stickiness continues as we cross the tarmac to the funny building. It looks like a tin and glass shed, only bigger. There are soldiers with machine guns. It’s not Australia, we are assured, the plane needs a rest, it’s being re-fuelled.

Everyone claps, the plane has landed safely in Melbourne!

I feel like I have to do something special, I have seen the Pope kiss the ground when he arrives in another country. I don’t kiss the ground, it seems too grand for a ten year old girl emigrating to Australia with her mum, dad and two sisters. But it feels like something special has to be done, to be actioned, it’s our ‘new’ life.

The TV is unpacked, my much younger sister is ecstatic “great, I can watch TV, I can understand it, it will be in German!” It’s not in German, and she cries. She cries a lot in the first few months, she doesn’t understand we’ve moved to Australia forever.

I don’t speak English, not really, a bit. “Hello, how are you?”, “I am from Germany”. Dad speaks English, a little. Enough to buy a farm, anyway. Within months, my sisters and I overtake him. We become proficient, move up a grade in school (different school system, should have been in this grade anyway). Everyone is nice to us, they teach us about the language, the customs. More relaxed, she’ll be right, I’ll be there tomorrow, sorry, couldn’t make it, next week? Drives mum and dad bonkers, how do things get done here?!

The teacher reads a story at the end of every day.

I think it’s called ‘Captain Midnight’, but it took me ages to work out the story. I looked it up recently, it’s not the same book. This story was about a bushranger, not an aviator, secret agent. New language and all that, skipped a grade – technically knowledgeable, it’s just the language needs fine tuning. I’m in grade six, my teachers are so wonderful and encouraging. I feel a little glamorous, it’s quite nice to be different.

High school the next year, and I’m considered somewhat exotic as not many Germans have settled here. I sometimes get the extended, stiff right arm salute. It’s awful, the kids are so silly, but I have a couple of nice friends. I think I love school, I’m not sure, I just want to fit in.

I’m twelve and riding my horse along the side of the road, with a gorgeous view across to Phillip Island.

And I’m thinking in English! I can’t believe it, what will change now? Not much as it turns out, a routine has settled over a short period of time, what was momentous only recently turns into humdrum. I’m no longer glamorous or exotic, just someone who has to clamber through a memory tree for reference to childhood far away, can’t catch a bus or train or ride a horse there.