Dear Prime Minister.....

The relative humidity is 82%, which entitles me to a long list of complaints. I shall be writing to Prime Minister Howard about the following points:-

Three weeks after arriving, we are still in our holiday accommodation waiting for the current tenants to move out of our new flat. This situation is getting us down for the following reasons.

1. The flat is short on storage space. The kitchen has three cupboards, one of which is half-filled by the fuse box. What storage we do have has been filled by the owner with things she things would be useful in a holiday flat. These include

(i) several thick woollen blankets
(ii) An enormous yellow glass punch jug and four matching glasses
(iii) two large lidded pots in the shape of a sheep and cow, of unknown purpose
(iv) a large picnic basket

This leaves little room for any food in the cupboards, so the food is strewn about the limited work surfaces.

2. We only have one set of keys. To get in, we have to use three separate keys and perform hand acrobatics worthy of Cirque du Soleil. It is impossible to do this holding bags.

3. Bringing the shopping in from the car involves enormous effort and a certain amount of grunting in the style of whats-her-face (the tennis player). It means an average of three trips from the car to the front of the building, wedging the security door open and throwing the bags into the communal hallway before trekking upstairs with them and throwing them into the flat. Ella cannot be left in her car seat while I do this because she’s well out of sight. The task is further complicated by the fact that the plastic carrier bags are flimsy and very liable to snap midway through the exercise. And it’s hot and sweaty.

4. We have one small square dining table which also serves as a high chair and desk. We have given up on clearing it off to eat our evening meal, we just shove an armful of paper and wires sideways and brush the crumbs onto the floor. All of our important documents, our box of stationery and box of medicines are stored on top of the microwave but it’s impossible to navigate them because of the mess.

5. The carpentry is shocking. The sash windows and doors all rattle in the wind, so we have to repeatedly wedge them open or closed to prevent them slamming onto Ella’s fingers or waking her up at night.

6. The washing machine is rubbish. It doesn’t get stains out of Ella’s clothes, so all of her whites are ruined already. To prevent further calamity, we have to strip her off whenever she’s eating, which she thinks is a game and unfailingly runs away from.

7. The laundry is downstairs and involves the use of yet another key. Even when we have plucked up the energy to go downstairs and load the washer, we usually forget about it afterwards. When we do remember, we have to peg it out in the communal garden, which opens onto a busy road. Ella thinks it’s a great game to try and run away while I’m pegging the clothes out.

8. The bathroom has no surfaces. There isn’t even room for a toothbrush holder, so the brushes just languish on the sink. We are in danger of contracting some sort of bacterial disease and being hospitalised before we even have a medicare card.

9. We have no air conditioning.

10. The Aussies clearly don’t trust their countrymen on the road. The list of things you must/must not do is ridiculous and includes having to park with your back bumper to the kerb (we got a $77 dollar fine within a week for parking forwards into a parking space) and having to park in the direction of travel when parking at the side of the road (when I unwittingly contravened this in the hire car, some helpful soul scrawled five question marks onto the windscreen in black marker pen). In addition, most of the crossroads/intersections are “no right turn”, so you spend your life deliberately overshooting your turn off and doing a u-turn, else planning your entire route in a set of left-turns. The highways people clearly think their country folk can’t be trusted to reverse out of a space or do the off-side thing at intersections. It’s frustrating, and you only learn the rules by breaking them.

Ahhh, cathartic!