Australia - Racist? Nous?

What is it about weird people? Do I attract them or do I subconsciously seek them out?

Yesterday I responded to an ad in the Sydney Morning Herald for a Fisher Price dolls’ house at a bargain price. I should have known there would be something dodgy about this because the lady who placed the ad had three of them up for sale and she gave me painstaking directions to her house three times on the phone.

When we arrived, she was standing at the front gate; an enormous lady with no neck and a gargantuan bosom barely contained behind a sweaty grey tee-shirt. The inside of her house was indescribable, but if you remember the BBC series “A Life of Grime” (narrated by the late and lovely John Peel), you might remember Mr Trebus, the old man who hoarded rubbish until it was piled high to the ceiling. This house was not dissimilar; there were children’s toys absolutely everywhere and the furniture was no longer visible under piles of clothes and shoes.

The lady (Cass) claimed that her house was full of her sister’s belongings and that her sister had relocated abroad and left her to sell it all off. She said she had no idea how she would get rid of it all. I have no idea either. At this point, her husband (Ronnie) arrived in his shirt and underpants. The conversation went like this:

Ronnie: Ah g’day – are you another $4000 woman?
Me: Sorry?
Cass: Oh Ronnie, shut up, Sarah won’t understand what that means, she’s from the UK
Ronnie: Ah, well, our stupid government give $4000 to every woman who has a baby, I don’t agree with it but there you are. They reckon the population is falling. I think we need more white people.
Cass: Why are you in Australia?
Me: For my husband’s job
Ronnie: What does he do?
Me: He’s a doctor
Ronnie: Well as long as he’s not an Arab, bloody Arabs, we let them in all the time
Me: Erm, no, he’s not Arab
Ronnie: I’ll tell you something humourous, a friend of ours went to the hospital and saw a doctor – do you know what he was? A bloody Muslim, that’s what. Poor kid was scared half to death
Me: Right. So all of this stuff belongs to your sister-in-law?
Ronnie: Yeah, they’ve got plenty of money
Me: What do you mean?
Ronnie: He’s a crook, but they’ve gone overseas
Me: Where have they gone?
Cass: London
Me: That’s reassuring….

I paid for the dolls’ house and a sit and ride car and Ronnie helped me out with them to the car park across the road (still in his underpants). The flyscreen on the front door was locked shut and I struggled to open it, so for a moment I thought they’d lured us in to kill us but we lived to tell the tale.

In the afternoon Ella and I we went to visit some childminders. The first was a young army wife who really seemed to be doing it just for the money and said Ella couldn’t bring any of her cuddly toys for comfort because it might lead to the children fighting over them. The second was a lady from Thailand who’s married to an Aussie. She has the usual knack of Thai hospitality (told her I was fond of Thai mango sticky rice and she had a dish of mango in front of me before I had chance to breathe). Ella seemed to like the place – a large swanky open-plan house with teak floors and a garden under a sunshade, though she wasn’t keen on sharing toys with the other two girls. Vecky(the childminder) worked as an air hostess with Qantas for ten years but now stays at home with her daughter. She’s a bit mad, in a good way, so I think we will give her a shot and see how Ella settles in. I’m dreading it because I think Ella will go beserk if I leave her. Our childminders in the UK were wonderful and have set a very high standard that I don’t think anyone will ever match up to, so I’m trying to keep that in mind and not be too anxious about it all.