I discovered this morning, as I slipped on to the ground as I stepped out of the shower cubicle, that I’m not wearing thongs any more. Well, at least I’m not wearing things called thongs any more. (You may at this point fear that Sarah’s taken over the website, but no its still Ray writing. And now, you may be fearing something even worse!).

Let me explain, a don’t mean candy floss, or whatever phrase you use to describe ladies underwear. I mean Flip Flops. For some reason they’re called something completely different Down Under. I don’t know why that should be, because Flip Flop is a perfect description for the noise they make (I’ve always wondered, if you put them on the wrong feet do they go flop-flip?). Anyway, I had to adjust to the fact that in Australia they were called thongs, which seemed a bit strange when I know that thongs are something completely different….

Where was I…oh yeah… after 3 months in Oz, I’d got used to them saying things like “Don’t forget your thongs”, and “You’ve lost a thong” and “Has anybody seen my black thong?”. But now we’re in New Zealand, I’ve just discovered that they’re called jandals. I know this for sure, because as I slipped over coming out of the shower, a passing Kiwi said “Ire you ilraght?” (I’ll save the lesson on Kiwi accents ’till later) and I said “I’m okay, I just slipped on my thong”. And the Kiwi looked at me like I was an idiot. And then he explained that a thong is a piece of ladies underwear, and what I should have said was that I slipped on my jandal.

Anyway, so there you go. I’ve been wearing thongs for 3 months, and now I’m not. I’m wearing jandals. I hope that by the time I get back to England I’ll be in good old flip-flops.