The North Shore

I met a couple from South Africa in the playground at Clontarf reserve. They had a miniature schnauzer and after five minutes of admiring him I finally went over to give him a good scratch behind the ears. And thus began a conversation that ran a range of topics from healthcare to taxation to the price of a pair of combat pants and whether we were to old to wear them (she was, I wasn't).

They'd been in Australia for twenty years and had lived in Perth and Melbourne before they came to Sydney. They reckoned the eastern suburbs would be a lonely place to live, "just like Mosman, full of snotty women trying to reverse park their huge BMW cars from behind Dior sunglasses". They're spot on. It's exactly like that.

"What did you think of Perth?" they asked me.

"Oh well I'm biased - we have rellies in Rockingham, which kind of puts you off"

The wife of the pair pulled a face. "Rockingham. Past Kwinana and all that industry. Bloody awful. Perth though, it's a nice city, but it's too small" they continued. "We wanted somewhere bigger, somewhere with more life, so we went to Melbourne"

"And what was it like?" I was keen to know. We haven't been there yet but almost everyone raves about it.

"Great for culture - old style, you know, old money. Not new money like Sydney, not flash. And the shopppng and eating is great, but the beaches are nothing like Sydney. And in the winter it's cold - the wind comes whipping from the Antarctic and it goes through to your bones"

"We thought about Adelaide" I said. They shook their heads in unison. The husband looked aghast we'd even consider it.

"No don't go there". That was it, his final word on Adelaide.

"We looked at Brisbane" the wife continued. "Too, oh I don't know". She raised her hands to her temples. "Small town. Small town mentality".

"It only leaves Sydney" I concluded.

"Yeah. Sydney's the only place you can live. It's got everything, except where you live. All those bloody awful people living in Mosman and the eastern suburbs looking to see how big your diamond engagement ring is".

I laughed and nodded. It's a bit of a theme, this checking out the carats.

"If you emigrate, move to the north shore. You'll meet your kind of people there. I'm Trudy, by the way. This is David. We're Jewish, we live in the Jewish community, but you'd want to live with the poms - there are plenty of them on the north shore. Oh sorry, I didn't mean to say poms, I never know whether that's going to offend someone".

I thought about the slashed tyres and the woman in the Clarks shop at Bondi Junction and the designer mothers at Bronte and I knew she was right. It's not something you can find out from a guide book, it's something that takes living in a city, appreciating the nuances and the politics and just, well, getting a feel for the place. I've got a feel for the eastern suburbs and though we like the proximity to the beach and the city centre, we wouldn't live here. It's a bit too London and we're a bit too northern to enjoy it.