Meet Mary Poppins

The new nursery school is like a dream. It’s an old fashioned type of place with staff who actually appear to like children, heaps of play equipment and an ethos of following the lead of the child (it calls itself “progressive”). The food looks good (home cooked) and Ella had a tantrum when we took her away. Best of all we’ve managed to get three days rather than two, which means I can potentially accept the job and still have a day to myself every week.

I slept on making a decision about the job. My main reservations are (1) the thought of the commute (the traffic is often gridlocked at peak hours, so tomorrow we are having a dry run from here to the nursery and then to the job) and (2) the idea of Darren at home on Mondays and Tuesdays four weeks out of six while I’m at work. We came to Australia to spend more time together and here I am talking about going out to work while he’s at home. I need to stand back and consider our priorities. Either way, we are taking the childcare place because it offers Ella what she needs and what I simply can’t give her seven days a week. We were incredibly lucky to find it.

The weather has returned to its glorious self after three days of drizzle and torrential downpours, so this afternoon we drove to the harbour beach at Balmoral and had lunch under a tree, watching the boats bobbing on the harbour. I’m reading a book called “The Secret River” which is set in nineteenth century Australia and it’s full of vivid imagery of the coast around Sydney (particularly Broken Bay, further north). I could easily imagine Sydney harbour (Port Jackson to give it its correct name) before there were any settlements here. It’s so odd to be reading a book then looking at the actual scenery (then again, you should visit Kefalonia, where every second tourist is reading Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – we cheated and watched the film on DVD before we went).

So after almost four weeks, we are very nearly settled into a proper life in Australia, complete with flat, furniture, cars, jobs and childcare. This week we must find a bed, fridge and washing machine and then we’re sorted. We are both exhausted but when we visited the nursery school and knew instantly that it was right for Ella, we felt that things were finally turning a corner, so once we are finally settled into the new flat, we can think about enjoying what Sydney has to offer.