My brother James is about six and a half years younger than me. I still remember being super pissed when he was born, since he’d taken my only child status away, and was a far nicer baby than I’d ever been, thus making me hate him even more. The hatred continued for quite a few years, but then gradually as we both got older, I found that I quite liked him.

Later, after I moved to Melbourne, he wrote me hilarious letters, sent me tapes of bands like Splatterhead, and came to visit with his crazy friends who slept on the floor after we went to see Suicidal Tendencies. I spent a mad couple of weeks “looking after” him while my parents went to Asia, and our friendship was fully formed during that time.

He headed off to the US for a student exchange when he turned 18 (I think), and on New Year’s eve before he left, we got drunk on brandy which was supposed to be used for some kind of Xmas pudding sauce, and I tearfully apologised for being such a hideous sister for so many years. He shrugged it off, gave me his rugby medal, and a note telling me not to worry about him, because he was born lucky. I’ve still got the note and the rugby medal, which my daughter sometimes wears.

Not long after he came back, he moved over to Melbourne, first living with me, and then not too far away with a bunch of friends. Now he lives just around the corner, and we speak nearly every day. He’s been taking the Divine Miss M to play basketball most weekends, which is fantastic, except he’s been teaching her to play hardcore street style, as I discovered when she elbowed me in the ribs as I tried to intercept the ball. Court hustling aside, he’s a truly lovely person, and always there for me when I need him.

Currently he’s in Tibet, checking out the Himalayas, eating yak twice a day, and having a ball. I can’t believe how much I miss having him around, and almost on a daily basis I’ll think about how I have to tell him something, or play him a song or whatever, and then remember he’s still away for weeks.

He’s got a huge amount of plants which I promised I’d water while he’s gone, and for some strange reason I really can’t explain, it took two weeks before I managed to do it. I was pretty sure I’d be faced with some sort of plant graveyard and a hasty trip to the nursery, but thankfully, they were all still thriving, even in the face of my gross neglect - or perhaps, because of my gross neglect. So he’ll never know how slack I was - unless he reads this post of course. And then I’ll just remind him he was born lucky, and therefore vicariously, so are his plants.

Today I’m loving: my coffee machine, which is working perfectly after a period of touch and go high pressure leakage. Hooray!