Have Faith

That's easy for you to say, Faith Bandler. You come round here and have a squizz at these shoes and then tell me there's no need to notice the rain.

nb have a squizz, vt To have a look. Australian (slang)

Rigsby's Shoes

The final day of the advent calendar reveals a festive sight indeed - a pair of Darren's shoes and one of his suits I've just rescued from his wardrobe, which abutts the outside wall. I'm not sure what the future holds for the shoes, perhaps a good clean and a blast with the hairdryer, but the suit is going to the dry cleaners this afternoon.

It hasn't rained for 24 hours now and the forecast for the next few days is drier and warmer, which is a good job because my joints are really starting to creak in the damp. Even our letter box is copping it because it faces south and it's taken a real battering when the rain has been coming from that direction. We had a credit card bill that was so wet I had to peel it out of the envelope with a knife and dry it out flat on the worksurfaces overnight last week. I don't know why they put up with it, why don't they get some heating?

I phoned the estate agent, who was reluctant to speak to me because I only ever phone when there's a problem. I got through in the end, with some persistence.

"I think the owner of our flat ought to know we've got a huge problem with rising damp"

"How high up the wall?"

"It's risen about five feet in the past week. If this was my property, I'd need to know"

"Okay, I'll ring him"

"Is this normal in Sydney"

"Oh yes, if it rains. You should see all the terraced houses in Paddington, they're soaked through"

"Why don't you have heating?"

"We don't need it most of the time, just a couple of months a year"

I'd say a couple of months a year more than justifies some effective heating.

Anyway, to add to our woes, Ella has broken the zip on her winter sleeping bag so I'm off out to locate a new one before tonight.

Tomorrow we're off to a big hotel in the Blue Mountains, one that has radiators and roaring fireplaces. We're meeting up with Steve and Scott, my ex-stepbrother and his partner, for a five course Christmas dinner, carols, bagpipers and a visit from Santa. And a radiator. Steve flew back from Warrington last night so I'm expecting there will be some proper cadbury's chocolate in his bag. If he forgets it, he's toast.

The Night Before Christmas Eve

'Twas the night before Christmas eve and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a cockroach"

Christmas minus two days.

bill's

"Sydney loves Bill Granger's with it's sun-filled room and huge communal table. Breakfast dishes like ricotta hotcakes with fruit and honeycomb butter, and sweetcorn fritters with roast tomato, spinach and bacon are worth writing home about"

Or so says the Lonely Planet's "Best of Sydney". So here I am, writing home about it.

The first thing to say about bill's is that bill Granger dislikes the way his name looks when you spell it with a capital B, which is why his restaurants are called "bill's" and why I'm deliberately using the lower case, much as it pains me to do so. The second thing is that the toilets in his Darlinghurst restaurant are outside. An outside dunny is no laughing matter in the middle of the winter. Never mind the aesthetics (or otherwise) of his christian name, he needs to get onto a plumber. Sharpish.

If you haven't heard of bill Granger, he's a famous Aussie chef, as you've probably gathered. He sometimes used to turn up on the BBC programme "Saturday Kitchen" and perhaps he still does but since it switched to ITV it's never been the same and we gave up watching it ages ago.

bill has three restaurants in Sydney and they never fail to make the "best of" guides so they've somehow earned a place on the definitive list of "must-do" Sydney experiences, especially for foodies. We've been meaning to go for ages and finally pitched up there this morning.

Everyone in Sydney knows bill's and everyone advises first-timers to go to the Darlinghurst restaurant because it's the original. The restaurant sits on a quiet corner of Liverpool and West streets and it's hard to spot because it doesn't announce itself as you approach. It's not far from St Vincent's, a hospital styling itself as boutique, which presumably means none of their theatre gowns fit and the nurses sneer at the punters. Like I've said before, if I ever get ill, I'm heading for the Royal North Shore.

Anyway, bill's attracts the hospital crowd as well as wanabees and journalists and media savvy types, all of whom apparently want to sit at the communal table and rub elbows over glossy magazines. There's a nice atmosphere inside but I didn't spot the famous communal table or the glossy magazines because I had my head stuck in the menu trying decide between his signature dishes, the ones everyone raves about, like the toasted coconut bread apparently so popular that he daren't take it off the menu.

In the end we ordered two coffees (long black with a jug of hot milk on the side) and two portions of the corn fritters with a side order of mushrooms and eggs. And this was the first sticking point because bill is so proud of his scrambled eggs (another signature dish) that you can't have them any other way. Not poached, not fried and certainly not boiled. Now I've got an issue with this because eggs are another of my obsessions. I'm a great fan of eggs and over the years I've collected a number of egg-related implements including a long-handled spoon for boiled ones and a double-decker egg slicer for salads and sandwiches.

Of course, I wasn't going to reveal the egg hobby for obvious reasons, you know, what with revealing the stuff about bridges and planes and ornate tiled verandahs, but there comes a time you have to stick up for what's right and I'm sure you'll agree that serving only scrambled eggs is fundamentally wrong, especially in a restaurant famed for its breakfasts.

Anyway, the breakfast was okay. No, it was nice, but the guide book is wrong because it wasn't anything to write home about, not even the scrambled eggs, which aren't a patch on the ones at the Lowry Hotel in Manchester. The toasted coconut bread was tasty but too dry and the butter was so hard I had to rub it onto the bread with my fingers to get it to melt.

The only thing to write home about at bill's was the bill. $64 for two breakfasts. We're going to try the one in Surry Hills, just to be sure, but there are far better breakfasts to be had down at Coogee beach for half the price.

Sniffles, By Ella

Look, it's survival of the fittest round here. It's cold and it's damp and there's one radiator between the three of us so I've hatched a cunning plan which is working a treat.

First off, you have to develop a bit of a cold. Nothing too serious, just a snotty nose (green being this season's must-have colour) and then you have to tell anyone who'll listen. Like my mum always says, it's her fault for talking to me in the first place.

Second, you ask for lots of cuddles and get all snuggled up on the sofa in the afternoon with your mum to watch a film. If you're only two you'll get away with Fireman Sam or something like that, but don't fall asleep because you'll have to sniff a bit every five minutes to make your point.

After that you're laughing all the way to the sleeping bag. Since I turned on the sniffly bunny act I've managed to wrangle almost total custody of the radiator. My mum heats my bedroom all day so it's nice and toasty by bedtime; then I get the warm towel treatment straight form the bath and a wash and blow dry every single night. Tomorrow I'm going to push the boat out and ask for a pedicure, frosty pink or something like that.

The only down-side to the sniffly act is that the olds went to K-Mart and bought me some long-sleeved thermal vests.

Rats.

They've got me done up like a kipper and it's only a matter of time before my mates find out.

Snowballs

Christmas minus three days and my mind turns to the practicalities like booze and wrapping paper. I'm usually much more organised than this but this Christmas in July tradition is still confusing me, even if the weather says it's midwinter.

Anyway, tonight I came out of the gym, you know, wet hair, beetroot cheeks and went into the Liquorland bottle shop in the mall to buy some snowball or some advocaat, because there's a rule somewhere that it's not Christmas without snowballs, isn't there?

I searched the shelves but couldn't find it so approached the desk.

"Have you got any advocaat?"

"What?"

"Have you got any advocaat?"

"No, I mean, what's that?". The cashier was about fifteen and I could see what a tragic figure I cut with my wet hair dragged back into a bobble and my rainproof coat. Didn't her granny teach her anything?

"You know, you make it into a snowball drink"

"I've never heard of it"

"Okay, well the Americans call it egg-nog so perhaps I'm speaking your language now"

"Oh egg-nog, yes, it's yellow isn't it? No, we don't stock it and if I'm honest you won't be able to buy it unless you do a search on Google and see whether there's a shop downtown stocking specialist stuff. Sorry"

Specialist stuff? What sort of place is this that they don't drink snowball at Christmas? What sort of Yulefest is this going to be?

Bugger.

Insights into the Aussie Psyche - The Sickie

In 1982, Australia won the Americas cup for the first time.

Afterwards, the prime minister Bob Hawke, declared that "Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up to work today is a bum". You have to shout that line in a half-intoxicated voice and replace "bum" with the aussie version, "bam" to get the full effect of his statement.

He was a bit of a drinker himself, Mr Hawke. A larrikin almost. Anyway, then the ockers thought "streuth, he's one of us, bloody good bloke!"

So that's like Tony Blair (or is it Gordon Brown yet?) telling the captains of industry they would be a bunch of tossers if they didn't expect their staff to take a sickie the day after Tim Henman finally etches up a Wimbledon title.

The "sickie" is now a significant part of the aussie culture and I know this because I've read it and have also been told as much by one of my collegues.

The first known sickie was taken by a Mr Conway, a butcher who had travelled from Kent on the first fleet having been convicted for stealing a sheep's testicle. It was supposed to have been a prank but I suppose you could say he ballsed it up.

Anyway, he served his sentence and afterwards he found some work, but couldn't resist chucking a sickie to go off and watch a guards versus convicts footie match. Unfortunately his boss was at the match too and his punishment was being beaten to within an inch of his life and forced to work without pay for several months afterwards.

Since then, the Aussies have turned the sickie into an artform, an artform that costs the private sector $2 billion and the public sector $5 billion every year. One in five sick days is a fake, compared to one in eight in the UK.

It's such a part of the culture that we get a set number of sickies every year (fifteen in my contract, though it's pro-rata) and we can use them as carers leave if that suits better. Brilliant isn't it?

nb Ocker, n. See also Ockerdom, n A part of Australian society made up of boorish, chauvenistic and uncultured people (slang)

The Fish Shop

I took Ella to the fish markets this morning, you know, as it's her new hobby.

All sorts of huge fishes are swimming in the seas round here, Ella loves them all, especially crabs and lobsters.

And then she threw herself onto the floor for a tantrum and I had to take her home. The floor of the fishmarket isn't the best place to fling yourself, all things considered.

Geek or Unique?

"I keep thinking about our radiators back home" I said to Darren as we got into our cold damp bed last night. "Especially the big one in the kitchen and the one in the bathroom. I wish I had somewhere to dry wet towels and teatowels"

"You're weird"

"I'm not"

"You are; you like planes and bridges as well"

"That's not weird. Don't lots of people admire bridges?"

"Only geeky people. You're a geek"

"I'm not a geek. I'm.......unique"

This is the Anzac Bridge linking the city with the western suburbs, as seen from Sydney fish markets this morning. Actually I'm not all that fussed on this one. So I'm not a geek then, am I?

Glamour

So you thought we'd come to Sydney and I'd put lots of glamorous things on this blog, lots of sunny beaches and tropical fish?

Well, yes, but actually I'm just as interested in showing you exactly what it's like to live in Sydney, so you're getting the rough with the smooth.

And this is the rough - the patio doors and flyscreen in our bedroom, as seen this morning. I've never seen rising damp before (with the exception of the Leonard Rossiter variety), and I didn't realise it crept upwards so quickly.

Most of the people I know are facing the same uphill struggle to keep their homes relatively dry; everyone is complaining of wet clothes and condensation like this. Nobody has heating. And now the laminate floor is so full of moisture that it's lifting up in huge great areas of the flat and the bathroom door has swollen and looks like it might jam.

You don't see this in all those programmes about whether you ought to emigrate, do you?

Direct

I have a new patient. She lives in Double Bay, which the locals have dubbed Double Pay because that's what you'd need to be earning to afford to live there.

I rang the patient's mum to arrange an appointment time for a Monday or a Tuesday, neither of which was very convenient for her. She has a two year old son who's "a bit full-on", as two-year-olds tend to be. She'd rather come when he's at nursery, which is understandable, though she could make it during my lunch hour on a Tuesday.

So after I'd spoken to her I went to see Jackie, my colleague and immediate line manager, who's eight years younger than me, a situation I still find a bit odd.

"Mrs Jackson can't bring Heidi on Mondays or Tuesdays" I said. "Can anyone see her on another day?"

Jackie looked up from her desk and shook her head. "No, we're chocka. You'll have to ring her back and tell her how it is, tell her direct"

"Right. So what would I say to her then?"

"Well you'll have to say "look Mrs Jackson, We're trying to offer you a service here and we're doing our best but we need you to be a bit flexible too. I realise you have a toddler but that's the reality of your life right now, it's not going to change, it's time to consider your priorities"".

There was a pause while Jackie waited for me to agree this was the best course of action. I said nothing because I was trying to think of exactly the right words to sum up why I wasn't going to say that. In the end there was no other explanation so I just came out with it.

"I can't say it. I'm too British. Sorry"

"But that is the reality of her life. At the end of the day, she had him"

"You're right" I said. All was lost. I went back to my office and left Mrs Jackson a message offering an appointment during my lunch hour.

It'll never work, I'll never get citizenship.

Ducks

Christmas minus four days.

I loaded up the UK Sky news at work before I left this evening. The system is much quicker than the one we have at home so I can watch the news on video, which is just like being at home in the UK. I do this quite a lot and if I'm really thinking about home I load up the Granada news or Warrington Guardian as well, which sounds even worse now I've written it down.

Anyway, I see the north has been flooded out, just like Sydney. Actually you've had exactly the same weather as us, right down to the temperatures, so at least I don't feel as though I'm missing out on the summer.

The weather here continues to make headlines and smash records for things like "most rainfall in fifty years" and "most number of storms out at sea since 1960" and "most number of umbrella-related accidents since records began". Or something like that. It's nice weather for ducks, though since the parent of one of my patients picked up on my pronunciation of "duck" this afternoon, I'm reluctant to even try saying that anymore in case it attracts attention.

"I see you've started turning your sentences up at the end" said Peter. "You'll be sitting the citizenship test next".

"Oh I'd pass that right away" I replied. "I know all the words to Tie Me Kangaroo Down and I'm working on the national anthem. How much harder can it be?"

"I have some British friends who tell me the upturning sentences has become really common in the UK, something about all those new towns they built and all of the accents merging in to one"

"Oh that's old research. I think they did actually blame it partly on teenagers watching Home and Away. Anyway, it's true. Come to think of it, why do you all turn your sentences up at the end?"

"Oh some people are worse than others. Women do it more than men, it's like a lack of confidence thing, you know, like they're seeking approval for what they've said"

I thought about it for a minute and hesitated because I didn't know whether he'd be offended by what I was about to say.

"The lack of confidence and seeking approval thing you just said, that's really interesting because it sums up how I feel about Australia as a nation"

"How do you mean?" he asked. I'd have to tread carefully now.

"Well this is a great nation" I started. "But the people here are always seeking approval that the nation is good enough on the world stage. They're falling over themselves if a celebrity flies into Sydney - Sophia Loren was here recently and it was all over the breakfast news, you know, just that she'd flown into Sydney airport that morning. People fly into Heathrow all the time and if we reported it we'd never get any other news.

Then they'll be interviewing someone on he radio - I heard them interviewing Beyonce recently - and they'll be seeking approval that Beyonce likes Australia and seeking approval that she thinks the audiences here are the best. And she'll play along with it and say Australia is her favorite place in the world because the atmosphere at her gigs is awesome, then the DJ will get all carried away and start asking whether it's true she's considering buying a house on the northern beaches because he's heard a rumour she might be, you know, seeing as how she loves Australia. Then Beyonce will put the skids on and start backpedalling and saying, well, no, her home is in the USA but sure, she'd consider buying a house here, one day.

And then it makes me cringe because I think oh, please, this country has such low self esteem. The rest of the world admires you so much and you can't even see it".

Peter paused for a minute and looked taken aback. I often have that effect on people. "You're right" he said, to my relief. "I bet you've been asked loads of times "how do you like it?". We're always keen to hear that foreigners like our country".

"What, in Sydney? No, they're so over tourists here. The place is crawling with poms, the Sydneysiders don't care what we think. Australia has low self esteem, but not Sydney. Sydney has a very high regard for itself"

He laughed. "Yeah, it's all true. Anyway, one small thing Sarah - when you're working with Nadine, you need to watch your pronunciation of "duck". I don't mean to offend about your accent, my parents were from Leeds so they had that same, I think you call it "north country" accent that you have, but I can see she's not understanding you"

"So what do you want me to say?"

"It's dack, you know, rhymes with quack"

"Dack" I repeated. It sounds wrong, I feel stupid even saying it.

Nice weather for dacks?

Product Branding

Now I'm no marketeer but all the same I'm a bit befuddled by the rebranding of familiar products for the Australian consumer. At least I think I'm befuddled and I hope I'm befuddled because it's a lovely word I've seldom had the opportunity to use, but as my dictionary is 12,000 miles away I can't look up its specific meaning, so perhaps I'm not after all.

Anyway, my point is, I don't see why Cilit Bang bath cleaner had to be renamed Easy Bam Off or why Petit Filous fromage frais are called Petit Maim or Sure deoderant masquerades as Rexona.

And then there's Coon. Can you imagine selecting this from alongside the Cracker Barrel and all those other brands of cheese I can no longer remember? I assumed this wasn't a bad word here in Australia but then I checked with Sally Dawson and she said yes, it was very offensive but the cheese was called Coon ages before Coon became an offensive word, so the manufacturers have stuck to their guns and stuck with the name.

I suspect we'd have rebranded it in the UK. We're too polite not to.

Still Damp

Another damp Monday morning, a fine mist shrouding the Sydney Tower and rain threatening from the Pacific. As I drove off to work I noted with amusement that the sofa that had previously been rescued has now been returned to its original position on the pavement outside our block. Presumably whoever offered it a home changed their mind when they realised how uncomfortable it was to actually sit on, even if they had decided to put up with the hideous floral fabric and the whiff of old man. Still, it was pretty decent of them to bring it back. The council are coming today to put both of them out of their misery.

At nursery this morning I bumped into Niamh Dawson’s mum, who immediately apologised for not having telephoned in relation to the roast dinner she’d promised to cook for us over the weekend.

“Sorry about that” she said. “We had some other friends come round, some Canadians. We weren’t expecting them but it was nice to see them”

I felt better about it until she added

“So we cooked up a roast for them instead”.

“Oh don’t worry about it” I replied, “I cooked up a joint of beef so all wasn’t lost”. What I really wanted to say was “and I met up with some Brits because they’re more reliable”.

“I’m sick of the weather” said Sally. “I heard on the radio it’s the most rain we’ve had in fifty years. Our flat is so bloody damp, even the sheets on the bed feel wet when we get in”

“Me too” I replied. “And my clothes feel sort of cold as well. Is it always like this in the winter?”

“Well it’s the humidity, that’s the problem. I used to live in England and the cold there was biting in the winter but it wasn’t a damp sort of cold, not in the house anyway. I’ve had enough of our flat with no heating, we’re moving out to one of my mother’s houses in Marrickville, it’s much bigger and she’s put reverse cycle air conditioning in so we can take the damp off”

It’s a bit of a theme this “I’m living in one of my parents’ properties” thing. The generation coming up for retirement lived in the days when property was much more affordable and took advantage of all sorts of tax incentives for higher rate tax payers to buy second and third properties in the city. The rules still apply but as they advantage higher earners, it does seem a case of the rich getting richer. More recently there have been some further incentives to sell their properties and invest the money tax-free into their pension savings. This has caused even more problems for the rental market than already existed because a significant number of rental properties then went on the market for sale and were no longer available for rent.

My colleague Allanah has a flat at Kirribilli, right next to the harbour bridge. The view from her sitting room is a line shot across the water to the opera house. The flat belongs to her parents and she lives there rent free because they’re based down in Canberra. The downside is having to vacate the place on December 30th every year so they can have their wild NYE party with the best view in the world. Can you imagine how much of a bummer that must be?

Christmas minus five days.

Brunch

Considering this is a country that had a whites-only immigration policy until relatively recently, the non-white immigrants have been making up for lost time since things changed. I suppose you don't get a reflective cross section living in Sydney; the honey-pot that attracts most immigrants to come and live in Australia, but it's certainly multi-cultural these days and as far as I can tell, it doesn't cause much trouble.

That doesn't mean that the immigrants don't stick together and live in enclaves because they do, but in general it seems to work, which makes me wonder whether it's down to the government's tough stance on the immigrants themselves, and in particular, their view that if you came to live in Australia, you live as you please providing you respect that this is a country with a white anglican heritage. There doesn't seem to be the same racial tension I feel in Britian.

Being British, I'm sort of used to living alongside Pakistanis and Indians. Here in Sydney your neighbours are much more likely to be from Lebanon or China or another south east Asian country.

I haven't spent much time in Asia, three weeks in Thailand and a couple of days in Hong Kong is pretty much my limit, but it was enough time to pick up on the cultural differences and to realise that people from this part of the world have different expectations and different ideas of what is and isn't acceptable behaviour. This evening at the gym for example, I spotted a naked chinese lady shaving her legs in the steam room. I'm assuming it wasn't an isolated incident because the management have actually stuck a notice on the wall which reads "Please Refrain From Shaving Your Legs in the Steam Room". Their error, of course, was to write the sign in English; Cantonese or Thai or Mandarin might have been more effective.

It's not the only sin against western culture I see committed in the changing rooms. Others include south-east Asians sitting on neat piles of other people's clothes while they tie up their trainers and the same people sitting naked on other people's towels after they get out of the shower. And there's a whole load of other stuff too horrible to write about here. It's funny, I'm probably seeing as much Asian culture as Australian culture in Sydney. Perhaps we should have gone to Coober Pedy instead.

Anyway, this morning one of the sofas has disappeared from outside our complex, which is lucky because we had another downpour last night. The other one is looking even more sorry for itself since a good soaking and the departure of its twin.

As Darren had been working nights, I took Ella down for a walk along the seafront and brunch at Coogee and met up with a lady called Lucy who I met in the admission queue at Sydney Aquarium a couple of weekends ago. I do realise this sounds a bit desperate, but the thing you have to understand about being an expat abroad is that you learn not to waste any opportunity to make new friends, particularly not ones from your own culture, and in my case, especially not ones from the north west as they tend to offer the closest match to my own sense of humour. They get Peter Kay - the aussies have never even heard of him.

In any case, although it was me that struck up the conversation, it was Lucy who suggested taking my phone number and Lucy who rang me to arrange brunch this morning, just before she disappeared into the giant shark's mouth and turned left towards to potato cod. If she'd been Australian, I probably wouldn't have heard from her again - remember Britney's promise we'd meet up this week? It went the same way as Niamh Dawson's mum suggesting she cooked us a roast dinner this weekend and promising she'd call.

Lucy and Paul are from Clitheroe in Lancashire and they have a daughter (Imogen) two months older than Ella. They left the UK seven years ago and lived in Auckland until Lucy's job was transferred to Sydney eight weeks ago. Unlike us, they had full relocation assistance (practical and financial) and have shipped 98% of their belongings across the water. No crappy top-loader washing machine for this lady.

We sat on the beach steps with take out coffee watching the girls chase one another on the sand. Paul was wearing a woolly hat.

I had a friend called Jo at school. Her dad used to wear hats exactly like that to go to the chippy because he could put his fish supper on his head and the hat would keep it warm on the journey home. We're not quite so desperate during the Australian winter, but it says something when a pom think it's cold.

"So what do you think of Sydney so far?" I asked

"Well, I'm really surprised how cold it is" she replied. "We have central heating in the house we're renting, which is like, rare as rocking horse shit. We have it on all the time".

"Lucky you. I'm freezing. Last night was a real two-dogger"

"Two dogger?"

"Yeah, it's a new Australian term I've learnt. I'm trying to learn them all. A one-dog night would be when it was cold enough to have a dog lying on your bed to keep you warm. A two-dog night is twice as cold.

And what about creepy crawlies. Have you seen the cockroaches or Huntsman spiders yet?"

They both looked horrified.

"No. And we didn't have nasty creepy crawlies in New Zealand either. What do they look like?"

"Well I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but the full-grown Huntsmans are exactly like tarantulas, though their legs are a bit skinnier. Anyway, they're dead hairy and they have a beige stripe on their backs. And the cockroaches.."

Paul jumped in, his eyes like saucers - it's clear Lucy's going to receive minimal back-up when it comes to removing unwanted critters at night. "I've heard they're huge"

"Yeah, and they fly" I said. This was definitely news to them, and not welcome news either. Like me, it had never crossed their mind these buggers might be upwardly mobile. "Sorry to have to tell you that as well. But look, don't worry about the Huntsman, it's not poisonous and it's actually quite useful because it eats flies".

Christmas minus six days.

Hideous

Requests to Chopperdoc filter through the system remarkably quickly, especially with Christmas only a week away.

Today we took possesion of our new (second-hand) sofa from its previous owner at Bondi Beach, who has tried and failed to convince us that it's twelve months old. The man who came to move it also helped us take the old ones downstairs as we have arranged for the council to collect them on Monday. You will see from the photograph that they're not only cruel on the eyes but also remarkably small; the shopping trolley adds great perspective.

What you can't see is the smell of old, damp sofa.

I did try to give them away by advertising them in the local free newspaper. The advert ran as follows -

"Two hideous floral sofas, totally knackered but suitable for backpackers or students or anyone else who doesn't care about their home. Available for collection on the morning of Saturday 23rd. Call me or they're going to the tip".

Unsurprisingly, this attracted no calls, not until this morning after we'd arranged them artistically on the pavement in the hope someone would take pity. Then a lady rang, a lady who confirmed my suspicion of Australia as a nation of skim readers for whom irony and sarcasm goes straight over the head.

"Hi, how are you?"

"Erm, good thanks"

"Oh that's great to hear"

"Sorry - who is this?"

"I'm wondering if the couches are still available"

"Well as far as I know they're on the pavement outside but they might have gone by now because there's a shopping trolley parked right next to them"

"Okay, what's the address please? I'll send my husband down to look at them"

"Your husband? Oh look, if you're not a backpacker or a student then you won't want them, they're hideous. They're small and uncomfortable and they smell like an old man"

"Really? Okay, well thanks for telling me, you've saved us a trip"

The removal man was more optimistic for their prospects.

"They're not so bad" he said. "I mean, I've shifted worse. I'll give them four or five hours on the street and they'll be gone. If this was Bondi I'd say an hour".

Christmas minus seven days.

Woollomooloo Finger Wharf

Last night we headed out for dinner to Aki's Indian Restaurant at Woollomooloo finger wharf, Russell Crowe's local Indian takeaway (and the place where the Indian cricket team eat when they're playing at the SCG). The locals refer to the area as simply "the Loo" and until a few years ago it was a bit of a no-go area; something like Hell's Kitchen in New York.

The finger wharf is a disused wooden passenger terminal built between 1910-1914. It was where the ten pound poms landed when they came to Sydney and it was where the Gallipoli soldiers waved goodbye to their loved ones, so it has some considerable history. As time went on it was used less and less, partly because air travel took off but also because they built the overseas passenger terminal at Circular Quay, admittedly a finer introduction to the city.

By the 1980's it had fallen into such a state of disrepair that it was listed for demolition but then the locals got hold of the story and managed to get a green ban placed on it, which wasn't lifted until the city council promised to restore it.

These days it's split into restaurants and apartments and one end is a swanky hotel. At the tip is Russell Crowe's $14 million penthouse - you can see right into it when the lights are switched on, which they were; mildly concerning if you're a celebrity, particularly one nobody much likes.

The inside of the structure is much more atmospheric at night; halogen spotlights pointing at the rafters until you can almost hear the voices of the men who used to work here loading and unloading the big ships.

Anyway, the food was great, you know, modest portions, delicate flavours, signature dishes infused with tamarind. I mean, it was the best Indian we've had in Sydney but it still doesn't beat the Grappenhall Tandoori, I don't care who lives nextdoor.

Happy Birthday Amy

My little sister turns 20 today. How time has flown since I was changing her nappies and telling her stories about the Jelly Monster who lived in the garden.

Anyway, in honour of your birthday - an audience with The Pussy Cat Dolls, whoever they are. Ella's even wearing pussy cat ears, though if I'd known she wouldn't agree to share them I'd have bought two pairs.

Things I Don't Like About Australia - III

Living with the knowledge that there are huntsman spiders in the vicinity and that every Australian will tell you they're harmless, nay, useful, because they kill flies. I kill flies but that doesn't give me the right to take up residency in your architraving so I can scare you witless.

Here's one I killed in the living room last night. He's just a baby but if he looks like a tarantula now, imagine how he'll look when he's grown to the size of your hand.

And more to the point, if he's in my living room, where the hell is his mother?

Things I Don't Like About Australia - II

The customs laws, especially the bit where they scan all your mail and rip open anything they think might be prohibited.

Especially when it's your daughter's birthday presents.

Things I Don't Like About Australia - I

The damp in the winter because of the lack of central heating. The condensation on the bedroom windows and mould growing on the curtains.

Clive James - An Apology

Yesterday at Circular Quay I took some photographs of the best of the inscriptions in the "Writers Walk". There are perhaps twenty of these plaques in the pavement stretching from the Opera House all around the quayside as far as The Rocks and they all have something reflective to say about Australia or about Sydney, which as I'm in love with both, you'll understand I could read over and over again.

Anyway, I've taken the same photographs before and they're in an album at home but my absolute favorite is this one by Clive James because I read it the first day I ever came to Sydney, just after we'd gone sprinting down to Circular Quay to see the bridge and I was blown away by the colours and the sights. I can almost feel the longing he has and the reason that Australians almost always go back home in the end because they're like the feelings I struggle with when I consider whether we ought to emigrate.

(Incidentally, his book "Unreliable Memoirs" details his growing up in Sydney and it's a cracking read).

However, in the absence of my photo albums, I've been liberally misquoting Clive James all over this blog for the last five months. For the record, it's crushed diamonds on the water and powdered sapphires in the sky.

Sorry.

Chopperdoc - an Update

And speaking of medics, after weeks of not knowing what we were doing, I can finally give you some news about Darren's job situation.

On Monday he spoke to his boss and formally resigned from his post at the hospital, which means he's now working his notice. He has to reapply for his working visa, so if there are any glitches, you'll be seeing us much sooner than you thought.

The boss was more sympathetic to our cause than we had anticipated. The main sticking point has been the upcoming merger of two hospital departments, one of which provides us with extra private income. With the merger, the private work will dry up, hence the financial implications of staying in the job. The boss is a reasonable man because he seems to understand that we can't have half the number of swanky holidays on what the government salary pays, so after negotiations at work and negotiations at home (I want a new sofa) the deal was done.

From the end of July he'll be working for a not-for-profit organisation out of Bankstown Airport where his mission, should he choose to accept it, will be the recovery of patients from road traffic accidents, crocodile maulings and snake bites in more remote places than the eastern suburbs. The job will take him to outback NSW as well as up to the "top end" of Australia, where Ella and I will be accompanying him on his tour of duty and checking out the local banana bread.

And once every eight weeks he'll be working for the international arm of the organisation. I'm trying not to think about this because the last job that came up was a five day return to London Heathrow and when we came to Sydney I hadn't agreed to being abandoned in this country, no matter how much duty free perfume and Cadbury's Dairy Milk he can smuggle back in his (business class) overhead locker. He tells me these trips pay very well, what he doesn't realise is any trip to London will cost him at least twice that in jewellery.

The amusing news is that he has to wear a jumpsuit and gloves so I'm hoping they'll complete the look with flying goggles and I can nickname him Dr Biggles for the purposes of the blog. I've also struck a deal about being allowed to go in the chopper, which started off as "just up off the helipad and back again" and has grown into "all the way up the harbour and over the top of the bridge", so he's going to be working on the pilots when they're not busy.

Anyway, I've had to measure him up for the flying suit, including instructions to measure the "seat of his pants". That sort of instruction just calls for some sort of quip, so I'll let you think up your own.

Onlookers

This morning we went off to Pacific Square to do our weekly shop. I can't always be gadding about in museums, sometimes I have to be a (slack) housewife.

I've given up on the separate butcher/baker/candlestick maker since Ella decided she enjoys being let loose in Coles to help Mummy with the shopping. It takes forever to get round the shop and afterwards we have to find a $2 coin to ride the Wiggles big red car so we can easily spend two hours just hunting and gathering.

The fish shop, however, is a different matter. Ella loves the fishmongers, not just this one, any fish mongers she can poke her nose into. Every night when we put her to bed, her last words aren't "love you" or "night night", every night she says "fish shop" to remind us that's where she wants to go tomorrow, and sometimes she adds "see lots of lobsters" as she snuggles down into her blanket. It's so endearing that you can't ignore it.

Anyway, today we stopped for lunch at the cafe outside Coles and just as we were munching away on our respective salad and pasta, an Italian lady fell over in the optician, letting out a blood-curdling cry which stopped the entire shopping centre in its tracks. Then her daughter started shouting "No...Mama" and shrieking and I realised all those CPR refreshers they give you in the NHS mean bugger all when you're faced with a real-life incident and a toddler wearing almost an entire plate of pasta carbonara.

The lady lay on the ground in the opticians for well over half an hour while various onlookers tried to help. It wasn't clear what was happening, I could just see her leg sticking out from the crowd that had gathered around her while the security guard spoke frantically into his radio and everyone wondered where the ambulance was.

The other shops had emptied as people came to watch from a respectful distance, the nail salon customers half-manicured, one lady with one eyebrow waxed and the other in it's original state, which was even more compelling than the events in the optician. The owner of the optician was showing more concern for his carpet, rushing to the massage shop nextdoor and returning with a bundle of white towels to clean up whatever had been spilt. The chinese shoppers stood at the optician's doorway leaning in. They have a very different concept of personal space and it doesn't change when they come to Australia.

Things like this usually happen when Darren's around; on one trip to Australia years ago he looked after two patients on two different planes and a man who suffered a stroke outside a restaurant on Bondi Road. I think he attracts this sort of trouble and I'm always amazed how he switches into medic mode and becomes organised and logical, a skill he saves for special occasions at home.

The thing is, as a doctor's wife, I always feel I ought to be able to help, you know, like some of the knowledge ought to have rubbed off in the way you'd expect an actor from Holby City to know how to perform an emergency tracheostomy. Anyway, it's not true, I'm hopeless, though I do have new skills in calling for medical assistance, which is something.

For her part, Ella finished the pasta and smeared her hands across as much of the leather bench as she could manage while I was distracted by the asymmetrical eyebrows. The ambulance still hadn't turned up as we loaded our shopping and drove out of the car park. Expensive service yes, but rapid response it ain't.

Christmas minus eight.

Customs House

Just behind Circular Quay is the lovely customs house building. It probably had a great view of the harbour before they built the railway station and the flyover and all those 1960's office buildings. The whole area is an eyesore and only really fit for waiting for taxis and buses.

This is where the authorities kept out all of the undesirable stuff they didn't want corrupting the good people of Australia, you know, like non-whites and Cadbury's chocolate and Lady Chatterley's lover. And of course, it's produced a nation of Chinese immigrants, fake flake and internet porn, so it worked out well.

Anyway, they've tried to preserve the building though I don't think they knew how to fill the space so there's a huge area for browsing free newspapers, some computers where you can learn about the history of the indigenous Cadigal tribe and this bizarre model of Sydney under a glass floor, which is a bugger to photograph because of the glass atrium. Actually it's incredibly detailed and you feel kind of dizzy just walking on it.

Spoodle

You see some odd people in Sydney, especially around Circular Quay. Today I saw a lady smoking from a cigarette holder and another lying on the grass with pigeons literally crawling across her head.

And then I met this man, who kindly posed for a photo with his dog, a spoodle called Prince Charles because "he has the same face".

I don't see it myself, but I like the dog anyway, much more than I like Prince Charles. He's a cross between a spaniel and a poodle.

As for his owner, a cross between Captain Flasheart from Blackadder and Adam Chance from Crossroads (if you don't remember the latter, well, he looked just like this), he'd dyed his hair but not the roots and was wearing a floor-length leather trench coat and matching leather trousers. He was also carrying a yellow "pooper scooper" bag over his shoulder, which brings a whole new meaning to the Paul Calf classic phrase "bag of shite".

(I've no idea why the italics and I can't put it right)

Winter Clothes

After almost three hours researching on your behalf, I headed straight down MacQuarie street in the direction of the harbour. Catching sight of the bridge from this angle still makes me want to run the rest of the journey shouting "wheee!".

Anyway, I hardly ever appear on the blog, so here's me and the opera house in our winter clothes (me sporting wet gym hair and a hoodie, the opera house wearing a crane and scaffolding, which I've cropped out of the shot). All over Sydney they're digging things up and replacing things. This is a city geared to the foreign dollar. In the winter it goes to sleep.

And here's the view towards Circular Quay, above the opera bar. On any day of the year, with the exception of those when it rains, you'll find people sitting here with a beer unable to take their eyes off that bridge.

Marriage Prospects

Loads of women came unaccompanied to New South Wales in search of employment or marriage. The archeologists who excavated the building found their treasures hidden under floorboards, christening robes for their babies, sewing kits, jewellery made from non-precious metal, rosary beads. They were women of "little means".

Many were fleeing the Irish potato famine or the workhouse. God knows I found it hard enough so it says a lot about the conditions back home that they'd be prepared to come here before the days of Bondi pavillion and skinny lattes.

Anyway, I have a few single friends who might enjoy this quote. You see ladies, the only thing standing between you and a suitable match is the inability to milk a cow. Either that or you're too lady like.

Nits

The museum was deserted except for me and a group of ten year-olds from St Gregory's school so I loitered around them to listen in on what the curator had to say.

Predictably, she turned out to be the shock-jock of the museum world. It was all nits, whips, darkness and rats.

"Can anyone tell me what a convict is?"

"Someone who steals stuff. They committed a crime and came on the first fleet"

I expected at least one of them to lay claim to a convict great-great-great granfather but I was disappointed.

"Well they weren't treated very nicely. They got hit with this whip here, a cat of nine tails, sometimes for something small like swearing or wearing a dirty shirt to church. And the hospital surgeon took notes, things like "he screamed a lot", then they took them to the rum hospital nextdoor and rubbed salty water into the wounds to make sure it didn't get infected".

And this was my absolute favorite quote of the day.

Livestock!

Settling In

Much like my own introduction to Sydney. Especially the bit on the train where Ella shouted she had a stinky bottom.

Work Ethic

Reminds me of my last job in the NHS.

Hammocks

And this is the top floor, which is pretty much how it looked at the time.

They slept in hammocks thirty to a room until the place changed into a refuge for vunerable women. Then they shipped in a load of iron bedsteads because, as everybody knows, it's not ladylike getting into a hammock.

Muck

Descendents of Les Dawson, however, need not bother with checking that database.

Sarah Hunt, female convict, 1800's.

Convict Strides

Between 1788 and 1868, 160,000 convicts came to Australia, mainly from London and Birmingham, but a significant number came from Liverpool, which proves my point that nothing really changes.

Interestingly, 30% of the transportees came from rural Ireland. As I have an Irish surname I was interested to check the database of known convicts on the top floor of the museum and even more interested to discover not a single record of anyone with my maiden name, yet five pages of convicts with my married name. Just goes to show what a band of ruffians I have married into.

After serving some of their sentence (eg eight years of a life sentence), they could apply for a ticket of leave and go off and work for themselves provided they kept checking in with the screws. If they reoffended, they might be put on the treadmill or sent somewhere even worse like Norfolk Island (in the Pacific) or Tasmania. Then they'd have to wear something like this, with space for their leg irons and no pockets for their mobile phones.

Streuth - semaphore it is then.

Transportation

So they unearthed some of the foundations of the building and they discovered all sorts of stuff, including ratacombs, or places rats had hollowed out for their dens. They're on display in the first room in the museum, along with my bic biro, which I accidentally dropped onto the exhibit.

Bugger.

Anyway, on with the story. We had loads of convicts in Britain, some were proper criminals (you know, murderers) and some were petty thieves stealing hunks of meat to feed their families in the manner of a black Richard Curtis comedy. They were all treated the same, sentenced to prison hulks moored on the Thames and in Portsmouth and Plymouth or else sent to the colonies in North America.

Then we lost the American war of independence, so we needed a new colony, preferable somewhere strategic, close to the trade routes and whaling seas of Asia. Hence Australia, or New South Wales was proposed and we started sending our convicts to Botany Bay.

(Australia, you know, that famous Terra Nullius (empty land) as the first explorers labelled it. Empty, except for a sophisticated indiginous population. I suppose you could say we stole it from them, making us the biggest load of thieves in the running).

The painting is a 1790's caricature of what the middle classes thought convicts looked like. You know, all wonky eyes and crabby legs. Come to think of it, some of the Aussies do look a bit like this, especially once you get away from the cities. The bloke who painted it later nicked a load of stuff from one of the big galleries in London, but got off on a technicality so avoided transportation himself.

Hmm

It took about 250 days for the first fleet to sail from Portsmouth to Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour), including 60 days in stopovers, during which they filled up on fruit, Captain Arthur Phillip, commander of the fleet, being keen for the convicts to get some proper food down their necks because the British government was paying him a bonus for every man delivered alive and well to the new colony.

Hyde Park Barracks

You might remember that we arrived in Sydney just before the Australia Day celebrations on January 26th. And we took a bus into the city to join in the fun, which turned out to be not much fun at all because Ella was in a stinking mood.

So we got off the bus at Hyde Park, having explained to the driver that we were new in town and he should let us know when we got there. "Welcome to Hyde Park" he had announced as he pulled into a layby. "The most famous park in the world".

Well, yes, but somehow, no.

Anyway, in the interests of your continued sightseeing and education, all in the comfort of your armchairs and without the jet lag (or the credit card bill), today I'm taking you to the museum at the Hyde Park Barracks, but not until I've fortified myself with two cups of that coffee and read the guide book.

The barracks were used to house male convicts. Then later they were used to house "vunerable women" who arrived in Australia without employment, or without family who could come to meet them straight away. It's a brilliant museum, and what's more, if you're feeling poncy, you can take a photo with the reflection of the Sydney Tower in one of the windows and start crapping on about the fusion of old and new, the link between the present day and the past.

If you're poncy, that is.

nb, crapping on, vt, Australian, "To talk incessantly or irritatingly or in a rambling way".