This speaks for itself so it's hardly worth mentioning. But I have to admit now that I'm leaving that Sydney must have one of the best climates on the planet. Even in the middle of "winter" I could often go out to get lunch without a jacket and in even in the worst of the summer heat you'd don't need to worry about sweltering humidity. And you can't beat being able to sit outside late at night in shorts and a t-shirt (especially as I don't have to worry about being burnt). By and large when it's not raining it's sunny, and when it is raining it can often be accompanied by some fantastic storms. Heading off to a Northern winter, where I'll have to spend December through to April (and possibly more) moaning about the cold and the rain is enough to remind how much I've taken for granted all this time here how great it is.

This is probably another one of those things that goes hand in hand with a nice climate. Lots of places selling mountains of gelato. As opposed to frozen blocks of ice cream.

In almost every pub/bar and in many cheat-eats places once you've ordered your food your given a beeper to take to your table which then buzzes and beeps when your food is ready for collection. Why isn't this everywhere?

I was surprised to see that schiztel was a popular food here (maybe something to do with wartime immigrants?). Anyway, while probably not as large as those from more germanic speaking locales, I will miss being able to order a giant wiener-schitzel for a reasonable price.

Good idea for cold beer in a hot climate. And still comes in a manly pint-style glass. Also will miss: twist top beer bottles - simple and saves a lot of dental wear and tear. And also on the topic of beer, I will miss Coopers.

Complete with ye olde' time squat bottle and ring pull cap, this certainly does his the spot on a hot summer afternoon of which there are many.

I know meat pies are originally from the UK, but before coming here I'd hardly every had one and I'm pretty sure you can't get them at all in Ireland. But whatever about their origins they're firmly established in Australian culture and this particular chain (popping up absolutely everywhere in Sydney recently) has been pretty good to me on lunchtimes..

This probably comes as a necessity in water-scarce Australia but they're a simple addition to the humble loo and save tonnes of water.

I was a little surprised by the level of courtesy you can generally expect in any shop and department store here from retail staff. Plenty of "How are you going?" (not How is IT going) pleasantness and a genuine friendliness that I initially thought was just an Aussie automated "Have a nice day", but soon realised was a little more when I started observing customers having a real chat with staff all the time. Staff genuinely seem to treat customers with something other than contempt, which something I probably won't get much of where I'm going..

I was originally going to write that I'll miss having food courts everywhere. They serve huge portions, are found in most major buildings in the city, usually underground, providing a million different places to eat. Having been here three and a half years now though, the novelty has worn off (especially for the $5 boxed lunches that consist of fried rice cooked that morning and are barely edible). When I go to the one in the shopping centre next to my office for lunch its hard not to think they all share a huge kitchen out the back from which every similar-tasting meal is served.' But what I will miss is the easy access to Asian food many of these places provide. I can pretty much walk in to any food court or down a restaurant-line street in Sydney and be guaranteed the availability of a bowl of Laksa, Bibimbap, Pho, Ramen, Gyudon or a million other dishes I haven't had the guts to try to pronounce yet alone order. The quality will vary a lot but it's easy to find a place serving the best of it.

No, not sheila's. Birds. And Aussie birds are the best - even the ones who ruined a full months sleep. Kookaburras, Lorikeets, Ibis(s?), Galah's, Cockatoos, Lyrebirds...they're all class. So many crazy looking parrots with every possible colour. And the ones that just look brown and boring have the most amazing songs or cackles. Even the common-as-a-pigeon Aussie magpie sounds great. There're plenty I've only ever been able to hear, and listening to some Whipbird or Kookaburra with the strong smell of eucalyptus in the air after the rain makes Australia feel so authentically exotic.

I must have drunk more coffee in the last four years than I did in all previous years combined. Coffee is a big thing here, much more so than back home. As I'm sure I mentioned before, in our previous neighbourhood I could count more than 30 cafes off the top of my head within 500m of our apartment, and only one of them was a chain. Two of them stayed open until 10pm every night. The very fact that Australians know their coffee and cafes was one of the main reasons Starbucks had such a hard time here, having had to close most of their outlets. I used to wonder how, with so many cafes competing with each other, they could all stay in business. But walking around in the Saturday morning sunshine you can easily find all of them bustling; plates of breakfast and coffee served to tables on wide terraces, people reading newspapers or with families and friends. Lingering as long as I wanted over a perfect flat white, under a big parasol on a warm afternoon is something I doubt I'll have much chance to enjoy again and is something I will sorely miss from Sydney.

Now that we're committed to leaving Sydney and Australia, and it's beginning to sink in, thoughts start to come around to what I'll miss about living here. So in same vein as other blogs I'm going to compile a list of some of the things I'll miss and won't miss about living in Sydney. Some things will no doubt be common to living in such a warm climate, but seeing as I'm heading back to northern Europe the points still stand. So to start things off, the first thing I'm going to miss is Sydney Harbour and Circular Quay. Just recently I had the good fortune to enjoy a Sunday afternoon beer in near perfect Sunshine at the Opera Bar just metres from the Opera House. Backing on to the water and with the Sydney skyline and Harbour Bridge as a backdrop. It's been mentioned in plenty of guidebooks that Sydney has the best harbour in the world and while I'm not sure I'd go that far (how many harbours have I been too?), it certainly is something I'll miss. I've take countless photos from Circular Quay, sat out on plenty of warm summer evenings at harbourside cafes and not felt a chill at 10 o'clock at night. I won't be able to do that any more.