Ladybirds

We got off to a good start this morning; out of the flat before 7.45am, hair straightened and eyeshadow in all the right places. It's such a victory when it all comes together that you want to punch the air.

But then we hit the traffic, which was stuffed up because there'd been an accident, and an hour later we'd managed to crawl about a hundred yards up Alison Road. Now there's only one thing worse than being stuck in unfathomable traffic and that's being stuck in traffic with a baby or a toddler, neither of whom suffer car journeys very well, especially when the car isn't actually moving. I sat tapping the steering wheel to the radio and pretending not to notice a tantrum was brewing, my hands running white with the tension of it all; a white knuckle ride, I suppose you'd say.

"I want go on bus" she started, pointing at the vehicle in the lane to our right.

"Well you're in the car, so you can't"

"I'm stuck" she suddenly shouted, trying to get out of her seatbelt.

"You're not stuck, you've got your seatbelt on, just like Mummy"

"I'm stuuuuuck"

"No you're not" I replied, then realised I'd broken my own rule of not conversing with Ella in the car because, like the queen, Ella prefers you not to speak to her unless she has specifically requested it and persuing a conversation on the way home from nursery can result in significant amounts of shouting and kicking the back of the chair, hence the rule to keep quiet.

I got my mobile phone out to make a call to work as it was obvious I was going to be late.

"I wan't play with Mummy's phone"

"No, you can't, it's not a toy"

"Waaaaaaaaa"

"Oh for goodness sake" I said, turning up the radio. It was now impossible to make the call. The call would have to go hang.

"I want Bono, I want my Bono" she cried. I looked at her in the rear view mirror, real tears streaking down her cheeks and just behind her I caught sight of the woman in the car behind me, rubbing her head and having some other inane, frustrating conversation with a two year old, her face betraying the same pain I was feeling at being unable to see the cause of the hold-up or how long it might take to get moving.

The delay brought out the very worst in the Sydney drivers, none of whom were prepared to give an inch of their place in the queue; no waving people through, no taking turns, just lots of car horns and edging forwards pretending not to notice the other people sharing the journey with them. I gave in and turned on a U2 CD but no, she didn't want that one, she wanted HTDAAB, the album I played constantly when I was pregnant, our bottom line, the only thing that's ever succeeded in instantly shutting her up. The off switch.

"I want my Bono" she continued

"This is Bono" I said, "Listen"

"No, not Bono. I want Bono waaaaaaaaaa"

So I changed the album and calm was restored and I managed to call work without civil unrest breaking out on the backseat because Bono was babysitting.

And then she dirtied her nappy.

When we finally arrived at nursery we were an hour late and she'd taken off her socks and shoes; the shoes having made their way under the front car seats. Ella was crying about the dirty nappy and my eyes were watering at the aroma of it all and the resignation to the fact that it would be bad etiquette not to change it myself when we got into the building. I phoned Kath to tell her I would be even later than I'd originally said. "We're having a nappy situation" I explained, knowing full-well that a "nappy situation" is beyond the experience of my collegues, nor would they care what it meant, just that I was once more late for work, very late.

At playgroup I got the kids making ladybirds out of foam card - get me, Tony Hart - and it struck me how much easier it would be to stay home with children cutting card and sticking on googly eyes. It's not natural for them to be tearing through the backstreets of a city before eight in the morning and it's incredibly stressful for mothers. Perhaps it's time I gave up the career and fell backwards into the abyss of household drudge. Dust off the Marigolds, I fancy challenging Dame Edna for the title of Australia's premier housewife.

Distractions

So the saga of Jackie's wedding continues; her future mother-in-law becoming progressively more over-bearing with every week that passes, all of which provides an entertaining distraction from doing any actual work on Mondays and Tuesdays. At the weekend she telephoned Jackie's mother to say "it's as much our big day as yours - they're both our precious babies". Apparently she refers to Dixon as "my prince". I deliberately haven't passed judgement because what I really want to say is that she's a typical Sydneysider and that's probably not what Jackie wants to hear.

"I want to slap her" she said, hunched over her soup at lunchtime. "And then I want to scream "he's not even yours, not even your offspring. You couldn't even have children, your body couldn't even have them, so he's not technically yours anyway".

Jackie makes me wince when she talks, not just because of the direct way she says things but because her opinions are so totally at odds with my own. Like the time she described her past job working with kids who have special needs and how she hated it and wanted to tell the parents "your child is a blob. There's nothing I can do with a blob". And still she talks about coming to work in Britain next March and now she's even talking about buying a house while she's there, you know, just for something to do.

"We'll come for nine months or so and buy a house or something. I don't like to talk about our property portfolio, it makes me uncomfortable. People will think I'm bragging; talking about money makes me itch"

"Where will you buy a house?" I asked her today

"I have no idea, somewhere we can go for holidays"

"I'm not sure you'll be able to, not if you're there short-term. You might have to be a resident"

"Really? But you British are always buying property in France and Spain and Greece and you're not resident there"

"No, but we're Europeans. We all have European passports and you don't. That might be the problem"

And suddenly I felt defensive on Europe's behalf, defensive against outsiders thinking they can rock up and buy property when so many of our own people struggle to get a foot on the property ladder. I hope there's a rule about it but I'm not sure.

"We're still looking for something on the north shore" she told me later. "We can spend about 1.17 mill". Funnily enough, it's not the first time she's told me this, though oddly, I've never seen even the slightest hint of an itch. I think she might be bragging.

Dee Why

Sunday afternoon and I'm relieved to tell you that Chopperdoc survived the buddy shift without getting lost in the outback. He did return home fashionably late (the shift finishing at 10.30pm but not getting back until after 1am) but there was nothing more dramatic to report than a blue-light inter-hospital transfer in the back of an ambulance, which apparently leaves even Batman unsure exactly where he's been.

(And they went spear-fishing for a Chinese take-away, so the baked beans live to see another day).

So this morning we were up bright and early and over the harbour bridge to deliver my mother's birthday present to my ex-step brother, who's flying back to the UK this afternoon. Only we didn't know what number his flat was, and as he had his mobile phone turned off, the whole thing was a disaster. I did manage to gain entry to his tower block but also gained entry to the emergency stairwell, where I found myself stuck without a key to gain access to any of the exit doors, an experience I'm not particularly keen to repeat. Needless to say, after some amount of frustration, the birthday present has returned home with us, it's fate now in the hands of Australia Post, which is a bit of a gamble with the postal service in the UK staging on and off strikes.

Then it was up the coast to Dee Why, another of Sydney's northern beaches, where we met up with Lucy and Paul and their daughter Imogen and cobbled together a barbequed brekkie of bacon and snags and alarmingly over-cooked eggs. They pitched up with their camp barbeque, we supplied the HP Sauce. Is there any greater civilised society than this, I wonder?

nb snags, n, Sausages, Australian (slang)

Letters to the Editor

I'm embarrased to report that we are continuing to bask in blue skies and warm temperatures down under, embarrased because I can't help thinking Britain has been cheated of almost an entire summer this year and that by the time we get back you'll all have such chronic cases of seasonal affecive disorder that the NHS will finally have collapsed under the strain of the bill for Prozac and other mood-altering drugs.

This morning we went down to the beach at Clovelly, which was blissfully quiet, with the exception of a few eastern suburbites, you know, shih-tzu dogs wearing red hair bobbles, their owners sporting fashionably large sunglasses, both of them paused for drinks at Seasalt cafe, perched on the cliff above the swimming pool. We tried this ourselves but found the people who work there so utterly rude (12pm, no, breakfast has finished, no, lunch hasn't started. We'll sell you a muffin and that's it) that I'd rather walk over hot coals than try again, so after an hour or so mooching about the water's edge, we retired to sit outside a cafe on Clovelly Road instead, still a bit poncy but not nearly as poncy as Seasalt.

At the Cafe we picked up a copy of "The Beast", a free monthly magazine for Sydney's beaches and bays of the east. It's always a bit of a cultural revelation reading local newspapers and The Beast is no exception to this despite it's glossy cover and wannabee kind of vibe. This month's "letters to the editor" section is dominated by some tit-for-tat between dog owners and beach-goers, the latter championed by a man who has written to complain about the number of unprovoked dog attacks and the leniency of the system of fining their owners. True to form, the letter is headed "Four Legged Shitting Machines" despite the fact the writer of the letter makes no reference to this at all. I don't know who finances The Beast, but the editor's a law unto himself. At least Kyle and Jackie-O don't actually commit themselves to print.

Buddy Shift

And so to work.

Batman's first shift is a "buddy shift", which means going out on a job with a more experienced colleague, though he does have to wear the full get-up, which makes him look as though he's raided the dressing-up box at the Early Learning Centre.

The trousers have eight pockets; nine if you include the one on the leg for scissors (though he originally told me it was for a knife and I believed him). I think he's a bit lost what to put in all eight of them because he went to work with a tin of beans just in case. I'm expecting him home at eleven this evening, but at least if he doesn't show up I'll know he's got something to eat while he waits to be rescued.

He cuts quite a dash in the full garb, though if I really was stuck in a bushfire, I'm not sure I'd feel much better if I saw this fella emerging through the smoke.

Your life in their hands........

The Kit Bag

Well I've been right the way through the box of issues and I can't find a cape, which raises obvious questions about health and safety at work.

However, I did find some flame-retardant goggles (Batman informs me this is in case of being sent to rescue people from bushfires. Mrs Batman is now having kittens but it's too late to back out unless we fancy an early bath), a beanie hat, fleece jacket and unfeasibly long socks. My immediate reaction was that he'd never get them over his knees in a month of Sundays but apparently you roll them down at the top. How was I supposed to know?

Anyway, spot the two boxes of long johns. Apparently it's cold up at six thousand feet, though it's not likely to be cold once they get back on terra firma. Especially not if there's a bushfire.

Bat School, Day Five

This morning the new recruits went to Sydney Aiport, which is where they keep the fixed wing aircraft used for retrieval of patients. The aircraft has three seats and room for two stretchers so Darren has already bagsied one of the latter to catch a bit of kip on the way to and from, which I'm not sure is what they're designed for, but there you are.

Then there was the warning about the low-flying approach in the outback, where the plane has to fly low enough for long enough to get the kangaroos off the runway before they can touch down.

In the afternoon they were taken to the control room to see how the air ambulances, Royal Flying Doctors and helicopters are co-ordinated. Still no word on me flying over the harbour bridge but watch this space. There's a staff barbeque next month and once he's pointed out the pilots to me I'll be working the room.

Electric Blue

It's impossible to describe the electrical storms we've experienced in Sydney, so I'll let my camera do the talking. This was the view across the gully from our flat at 6.20pm this evening, the lightning forking onto the Pacific Ocean beyond the houses and flats across the way. No thunder at all, but when it does thunder the sounds are so loud you can feel them rumbling in your chest.

The low cloud you can see billowed upwards into the great big wide sky and made us wonder why the skies are never as spectacular or as colourful at home. I'm reading a book called "The Commonwealth of Thieves", a history of the early settlement at Sydney Cove, and even this describes the wonder the first Europeans here felt at the "electric blue summer skies".

I love Australia.

Bat School Day Four

Apparently there's been a lot of repetition at Bat School today. Either that or he's been sitting at the back passing notes and throwing paper aeroplanes.

Anyway, he's got a big box of uniforms, you know, flying suits and boots and things like that. I'm going to have a rummage through to find the cape and when I can persude him to dress up, I'll show you how he looks.

Pedicure

Well seeing as how the sun has come out I thought I'd bite the bullet and use that voucher for the Chinese pedicure salon, especially as it was a case of use it or lose it (by Monday).

I was pretty sure they recognised me because the woman I'd had the altercation with last week (you know, before I swore at the man in the Telstra shop) came over to the girl filling the footspa and whispered something in mandarin and they both looked up at me and smiled the least genuine smile I think I've ever received.

The girl doing the pedicure didn't speak much english so communicated with me using a series of taps on the foot and the leg indicating where I should poke my feet. Then the altercation lady came over and switched on the back massage chair I was sitting in and then I knew she remembered me because she turned it up to full and left the remote control where I couldn't reach it. So I had to suffer a slow grinding massage in the bony part of the middle of my back whilst reading Woman's Day with a facial expression indicating I wasn't feeling the pain.

Still, I had the last laugh when I got home. I phoned them three times this afternoon booking three separate appointments under three assumed names, none of which I intend to keep. As Ella would say, Ha!, they shouldn't have been so flaming rude.

Bat School, Day Three

And for today's lesson....

Who's in charge at the crash scene, medical priorities and decision-making and a recap on airway and breathing emergencies.

Then again, we all know that Carl Kennedy is the only doctor in Australia and can fashion a tracheostomy out of a coat hanger and some hairy string at a moment's notice, so I've a feeling all this training will be in vain.

Garden Birds

Still, never mind the jammy dress offered pessimistically to the crappy washing machine, after Ella went for her nap this fella landed on the balcony and took fifteen minutes out of his day to treat me to some squarking and some feathery head bobbing, and in return he relieved me of half the box of nuts and seeds I sprinkle onto my Allbran.

Never seen a garden bird like this in Warrington - my joy knew no bounds.

Trials

We've had a gorgeous day here in Sydney, blue skies and twenty-something degree temperatures, which reminds me why we came here in the first place. When it's cold and damp you can't help thinking you might just as well be at home, where at least you've got a choice of shoes.

I took Ella up to Jessica's salon for a haircut this morning, which was long overdue because I've tried three times to cut her fringe myself and three times I've cursed the blunt Ikea scissors and vowed to have it done properly. I have an unhappy history when it comes to cutting Ella's hair myself and ought to know better than to try.

The process of getting out of the door was even more complicated than usual because we're having a stab at toilet training and she's on and off the loo every ten minutes trying to win a magnetic sticker for her star chart. The reward system is working well, but she's a crafty so and so and once she's up on the loo she usually orders me out of the room and pretends she's done something when I come back. Anyway, then Kate rang for a chat and Ella thought it was one of her Nanas and clung to my leg wanting the phone until I had to buy her off with one of the fairy wand biscuits from the caterpillar tin, which is where she knows I keep the treats.

Now as you know, Kate has a tendency to talk and talk while Rome is burning all around so despite the obvious fracas in the background and the stuggle I was having to detatch Ella from my leg and open the tin at the same time, she continued to fill me in on all the lastest news, and as I haven't seen her since we went to the trots, there was quite a bit of it.

Kate and her husband are typical of some of the people who rock up in Australia with a dream of a better life but no real plan for how they're going to achieve it. I find it incredibly brave of people to up sticks and sell their lives in the UK when they've no job to come to because it's a hell of a risk. Loads of people do it without ever having set foot in Australia before but these tend to be the ones who get homesick after six months and are back in the UK two years later because it wasn't the place they thought it was.

Kate and Andy have two children and Kate had been to Australia once before (for ten days). Andy was born in Australia so he holds a passport, which is how they managed to be accepted for residency, as neither of them has any of the shortage skills required to build up the points for entry. Their decision to emigrate was made on a whim and they sold their house in Sussex and gave up their jobs and came to Sydney.

The sale of their house gave them about £27,000 in equity, a large chunk of which they spent on a swanky holiday in Florida on the way out here. When they arrived, they came to stay with Kate's friend Paula, who's lived out here for twelve years. The arrangement was supposed to be temporary but nineteen months later, all five of them are still squeezed into a rented three bedroomed terrace and Kate's husband is driving a bus, which doesn't give them many options for affording a place of their own. The equity has been spent, there's nothing left but the large items of furniture they shipped out from the UK.

"We've been mad busy" she started. "The kids were off school and when they went back I was busy buying things, you know, saucepans and things. We've told Paula we're looking for a place of our own, so I've been looking at the estate agents as well"

"Have you found anything?" I said

"Not yet. We want a three bedroomed house but our price range is about $300 a week so I haven't found anything. What do you pay for your flat?"

"$440" I said "And it's got two bedrooms, not three. We're driving each other crazy through lack of space. Look, I don't want to be pessimistic but I really don't think you'll find a house for $300 a week. We saw over thirty properties and the houses were all at least $500, even the grotty ones"

"Well, I suppose we could go for a flat at a push, but only in the short term. We want to buy something as soon as we can". She sounded deflated. I felt guilty.

It's going to be interesting to follow Kate's quest to buy a property in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, especially as she wants a house within walking distance of the beach. Even a flat would cost around the £250,000 mark, but not one close to the beach. £250,000 might buy you two bedrooms in a block on a busy main road, not the sort of place you'd want to live with kids. With the equity spent and with just one wage coming in, there's no chance of achieving the Australian dream, not in Sydney at least, though I admire her optimism and her prevailing faith that emigrating down under was the right thing in the long run.

After Jessica cut Ella's hair we headed down to the beach at Bronte, then I remembered that almost all the mothers at Bronte look like Courteney Cox and as if that weren't bad enough, they were having a professional photoshoot for what looked like a kids' clothing company and judging by the look of the kids' mothers (all of whom could have been described as pushy), it was something swanky like Boden or Jojo Maman Bebe and certainly not Mothercare or anything like that.

And then we were approached by a little girl of two and a half wearing hoop earrings who's parents seemed delighted she'd befriended Ella and I because first they retreated to the back of the beach and then they took it a step further and installed themselves on two adjoining benches, stretching out in the sun and closing their eyes, so bugger that for a lark, Ella and I packed up and went for brunch in one of the cafes along the road, where she dropped her plate of turkish toast jam side-up onto her lap, preventing it from falling on the floor by grasping it to her chest, which only made matters worse.

Then in my dash to catch the plate before it fell on the floor, I knocked over her entire glass of apple juice, not the clear stuff but the freshly-pressed version with two inches of froth on the top (this is Bronte) so there she was covered in runny home made strawberry jam and brown apple froth, and half the toast was on the floor. The owner came out shortly afterwards and fixed me with a look because the seagulls had flocked to the pavement to hoover up the toast, just as I was attempting to wipe away some runny jam which had escaped and was streaming down the side of my chin.

As I've said before, Yummy Mummy I ain't.

Bat School, Day Two

Bat school continued in the swimming pool at Maroubra today, the new recruits completing their HUET (Helicopter Underwater Escape Training), which saw them strapped into one of these Helipet cages and submerged upside down before making an escape through the false window. I have an image of them all being wrapped up in a white sheet and tied with ropes beforehand but apparently that's Harry Houdini.

And like a packet of hobnobs, they required multiple dunkings, four in total, each with a different theme, things like "Crikey the escape route is blocked" and "Crikey it's all gone dark", the latter achieved through wearing blackout goggles.

After that they learned to survive in water by helping each other keep warm. You can survive for two hours in water temperatures of ten degrees but twice as long if you huddle together. And if you need a wee you should do it in the middle, which is charming, I know, but helps keeps everyone's legs warm.

And then they tried on some life jackets and started making involuntary movements, pointing out the nearest exits and demonstrating the brace position. He'll be trying to flog me a duty-free fridge next.

Sunrise

We might be living in a wet flat, but the view from the kitchen window beats the view of nextdoor's fence back home. Here's the sunrise at 6.40am this morning; the colours when the sun hits the bottom of the clouds at sunset and sunrise are beautiful, especially so at sunset.

We live backing onto a gully which is home to all sorts of Australian birds, especially black cockatoos and sulphur crested ones and rainbow lorikeets. The cockatoos give out a deep squarking sound and the lorikeets an ear-piercing shreik. The best bird by far is the kookaburra, whose call sounds like a long laugh. If you've never heard one, it's a bit like a monkey calling and we hear them every morning and sometimes even in the middle of the night. I'll miss that sound when we come home.

The other sound I'll miss is the sound of Kyle and Jackie-O on the radio. This morning they were discussing the Big Brother house and comparing it with the British version. The Big Brother house here is based at the Gold Coast, in fact it's actually inside the Dreamworld theme park, so I'm assuming you can go and gawp at the housemates if you pay to get in. They had Gretel on the phone, that's their equivalent of Davina, who we've both noticed is beginning to look more and more like Davina every time we see her (which is not often because we don't watch it). A trick of the mind perhaps, I don't know.

Anyway, here's this morning's offering:

Kyle: So Gretel, what's with all the wogs leaving the house then? Do you think there's a racist thing going on?

Gretel: No Kyle, not at all. That's like saying there's a sexist thing going on because Aleisha got kicked out, I mean, come on.

Jackie: Well Gretel, I'm hooked, but I'm also hooked on the British version and they've got this thing going on right now where they've got this actress in the house and she's pretending to be Australian but really she's British. And you know how bad they are at doing an Austrlaian accent...

Kyle: Yeah, it's like they couldn't get a proper Australian actress because they think we're so crap they can't even trust us to do our own accent, jolly good, what

Jackie: And the British version has a totally different audience because it's on at like, nine o'clock at night or something really late and it's full of freaks and weirdos. And the problem with that is that once you go down the route of weirdos you can't go back, it just has to get freakier and freakier.

Kyle: Have you been down to a Westfield shopping centre, Gretel? There's plenty of freaks and weirdos down there, people with ADD (ADHD) and obsessive compulsive disorder....

Coffee anyone?

The Caped Crusader

11pm last night....

"Daz, do you have to wear a cape?"

Silence.

"I think you should wear a cape. I'm going to get you a cape".

He thought it was hilarious.

Bat School, Day One

And so I waved a tearful goodbye this morning as Darren left to start his first day at Batschool.

Well, no, I didn't because it was a quarter past six and I just had one leg poking out from under the covers and I grunted a goodbye and off he went, all brave.

I can't help wondering do they have a bat bell as well as a bat phone. And if they do, does it ring or does it go dinner dinner, dinner, dinner, Batman? I'll find out and let you know.

Anyway, I asked him about it when he got home and he told me he'd learnt about the aerodynamics of the helicopter, potential hazards and, more importantly, where the boot is on the aircraft, which is handy when you need the picnic rug and flask between jobs.

Then they'd done some stuff about survival in the bush, which I'm disappointed to report didn't include eating witchetty grubs under the gleeful guidance of Ant and Dec, but did involve lots of boring things like carrying enough water and carrying a radio transmitter and knowing how much fuel you've got on board (you'll get three hours on a full tank).

And tomorrow Robin is joining them and they're going for their water training at Maroubra Seals and I'm trying not to think about saltwater crocodiles.

Foreigner Exchange.

"Are you coming back to live in Australia?" asked my senior line manager, Mary. I admire Mary immensely, she's got a lovely face and soft olive skin and always comes in toting a different handbag, but then it's much easier to look sophisticated when you haven't wrestled single-handedly with a two year-old en route to the office.

"I don't know, we feel a bit fed up right now, I miss the people. Perhaps I'll change my mind when the weather picks up"

"Well we'd love to have you back. I'll offer you a permanent position if you'll come back".

So there it is, on a plate. A nice cushy job at the university complete with a nice office and small caseload, and no taking a turn to go out to Tesco in the driving rain for some milk; Kath the secretary picks it up fresh every morning from a shop just over the harbour bridge.

But then I spoke to Lou on the phone and she wants me home, apparently. And Sarah rang and said she'd posted me some of the new Cadbury's Cookies because "you can have them with your brew" and I can't help thinking how I could never replace people like Lou and Sarah and neither would I want to.

Anyway, the weather is taking a turn for the better and the students are back out picnicking on the university lawn at lunchtime because we don't get that sodden grass you'd have in the middle of the British winter back home. Clive James is one of our former students; I like Clive James a lot and I'd like to think we've sat on the same benches drinking our coffee. You don't get quite the same feeling sitting on the benches of the bowling green at Longshoot Clinic in Wigan, and you certainly don't get the sunshine.

The lady who brews the coffee has become my barometer for the five days ahead and as she's ditched the deer stalker hat, I'm hopeful of more sunshine to follow. Back in the office, Jackie has got engaged to her long-term boyfriend Dixon (yes, I know, it's a surname in my book as well) and they've set a date for next February, which is optimistic because her future mother-in-law has turned into Bridezilla and even I'm starting to get irritated by her, sort of by proxy.

And what with all the stress of it all, poor Jackie is wasting away to nothing and keeps complaining about how loose her trousers are getting, which irritates me further still. The side effect of the weight loss (apart from attracting comments about Posh Spice) is that she's constantly cold and keeps whacking up the heating in the offices down our corridor, which means I have to keep sneaking off to the boiler and whack it right back down again, and so it is that we play this little game of cat and mouse all day long and one of these days she's going to leap off that chair the minute she hears the fan go off and she's going to catch me (literally) red handed scooting back into my office and we'll have to have a discussion about it.

"Well, we've made a decision" she said to me at lunchtime today. "We're heading your way. We've thought about it and we think we'd better do it before we have children so we're coming to the UK next March for eight months or so. I need a map, I need some advice, we need to get planning".

"Eight months from March you say? Anyone would think you're scared of our winter. Oh well, sure, I'll give you any advice I can and while we're on the subject, here's tip number one - don't, whatever you do, call your patients a silly twat. Or if you must do, just don't say it in front of their parents".

Westies

Just when I thought the Australian news had abandoned any thoughts of a world outside their window, news of the British floods turns up on the ABC nightly bulletin; images of people being winched out of upstairs windows, stranded cars and Gordon Brown making statements about the whole thing, though bugger only knows what he said because every time he opens his mouth he does that thing when he takes a breath and I can't concentrate on a word he's saying. He could send us into war with Russia and I'd be none the wiser.

It's funny how we report each other's freaky weather but hear little else about the other country for months on end between bushfires and floods and storms. The weather is a common obsession both sides of the world, especially recently, as everyone's talking about climate change here as well. A whopping great hole in the ozone layer hangs over Australia like an open velux window, the sun is so intense you burn in four or five minutes in the height of summer which never fails to catch the poms by surprise, especially the one who think they know about the sun because they take foreign holidays in Europe.

Today was Darren's last shift at the hospital so Ella and I went over to Featherdale to hand-feed some more kangaroos. Featherdale is out west, out woop-woop, along the motorway towards the Blue Mountains. Because of it's location (and the faff involved in getting to Taronga Zoo), it attracts its fair share of "Westies", the closest word they have to Chavs. I parked up with a load of them today, huge great families arriving in minibuses; massively overweight children, four year-olds in hoop earrings, mothers in Nylon slacks, their hair piled on the exact top of their head with a scrunchie. They have a completely different accent, like something from Kath and Kim and they're probably ten times more representative of the real Australians, not like these Sydneysiders with their flashy sunglasses and big watches.

I had a good look at them today, even the ones walking at the side of the road, one man looking almost exactly like Homer Simpson (minus the Giant Man of Cerne), dragging a shopping trolley behind him. From the look of them they can trace their Australian origins right back to the first fleet because they look uncannily like the portraits of the east-end crims I saw in the Hyde Park Museum.

Cooking, By Ella

We've been staying in the flat today because I've still got a cold and because my Mum says it's parky outside. I don't know what parky means and neither does anyone else round here but it's good with me because I got to make fairy wand biscuits with pink icing on top.

And then my Mum let me have the jar of sprinkles and I covered the floor with them and she said "flaming hell". Ha! She should have stuck to calling them hundreds and thousands like a proper pom then I'd never have thought I had to sprinkle them anywhere.

Hot Pink

So I came back home and had a long hot shower to keep warm and decided I'd go on a mission to Westfield at Bondi Junction with the aim of buying two new bras.

Then Darren came home from work and I told him about the Chinese people in the pedicure shop and how I was cold because I didn't have the right clothes for the coldest winter in twenty-odd years. Believe it or not, we are doing the year in Australia on the back of 23kg of luggage each (give or take some air-freighted books and knives and towels), and 23kg doesn't extend to a winter coat, warm jumpers or a choice of bags and shoes. It also doesn't extend to the lovely leather gloves I was given for Christmas last year, or rather, I didn't think I'd need them.

And then I just collapsed in a heap and started to cry.

"I want to go home. I want my stuff. I'm sick of these people and I need to go to Marks and Spencer because my Bras are running out. I'm not homesick, I just need to go home for a week or so and get the rest of my stuff.

The only warm coat I have is my fleece and my waterproof - I used to work with women who turned up dressed like that, I look daggy and I feel daggy and I just want my stuff".

So we went off to Bondi together and into Myer (which I've worked out is the closest thing to Debenhams), where I industriously gathered up eleven bras (avoiding the Elle McPherson line as Elle McPherson has designed a range of bras a size too small, just to remind you she's thin) before setting off for the changing rooms, where I was met by a Chinese bra-fitting assistant.

Now I'm not having a good day with the chinese, or a good month for that matter, so she's skating on very thin ice when she starts trying to interfere.

"I see those bras are all black" She begins

"Yes, they do seem to be"

"Well how about a bit of colour? We have some lovely lilacs". She pronounces lilac in the australian way, as lie-lack.

"Well no thanks - I specifically want a black bra. Especially with your top-loading washing machines because they'd eat lie-lack for breakfast"

"Okay, here, let me check the sizes. Right, well you have eleven bras and the limit into the changing room is five so I'll keep six here and you can come back out and get them"

"But I'll have to get dressed again to do that"

"Yes, you will."

"Right". I looked at her jolly,perky little face, eye-liner drawn meticulously across her lids in the way I used to manage before I had Ella. I was in no shape to stand up to such perfect maquillage.

"Before you go in though, we have this range of bras you might be interested in. They're called Bio-bra and they're Australia's leading brand, been on the six-thirty report and everything. Such great colours, a really playful little bra"

"Playful? I want it to hoik up these spaniel's ears, not beat me at Trivial Pursuit"

She hadn't finished.

"And tell me, as a B stroke C cup, do you find your breasts are very far apart?"

"Compared to what?"

"Well, I'm a little A cup and mine are very close together but some older ladies, or bigger-chested ladies find their breasts have spread out a bit"

Now she was officially pushing it because either she's saying I'm an older lady or a big chested one, and B/C cup certainly isn't large, not unless you're Chinese. Either way I had to think about what she was asking and concede that no, they weren't exactly whispering sweet nothings, they were a normal western-style pair of knockers, and yes, whatever, I'd try the sodding bio-bra on if it would put an end to this line of questioning so she went off and came back with one.

"Don't worry about the colour" she said. "hot pink goes well with anything"

Swearing

So the good news is that the visa will be finalised on Monday and Darren can start work and get paid for it. The bad news is that I swore at the man in the Telstra shop this morning, a bit disproportionate in the circumstances, but someone was going to cop it for the inefficiency and the rudeness and the fact that nothing works properly round here.

The day had started okay, Ella was having an extra day at nursery on account that they're having a visitor come in with a puppet show and the kids have spent all week making characters out of wooden spoons, which seems a bit rough for the ones who don't attend on Fridays. Of course, this is a ruse because the extra day at nursery is actually about the fact that Darren is working all weekend and under normal circumstances my Mum would offer to help me out with Ella rather than leave me to go round the twist. The nursery (and the staff) are an absolute lifeline to us; they've even invited me to go on a night out with them to see a band playing in Balmain, which is unbelievably kind and restores my faith in the Sydneysiders because most of the ones we've met just couldn't give a stuff.

Anyway, I had a plan after I dropped her off; I'd head back to the gym and pay the phone bill in the Telstra shop and take Ella's library books back (you know, high-minded stuff like "The New Puppy" and "Fluffy Kitten"). And after that I'd pop into the pedicure salon to ask about extending the date on the voucher that Ella gave me for mothers' day, after all, who wants a pedicure when you're wearing boots all day long.

So I parked up in the underground car park, the one with the piped music, and as I was passing the pedicure place I dropped in there first.

"I have this voucher" I said. "It was valid for three months from April 30th, which means it runs out next week. I haven't used the two pedicures because it's been winter, so can I extend it for a bit longer please?"

The lady in the salon in Chinese. All of the staff are chinese, just like in the bakery where I bought the wrong cake. She peered at the voucher and gave it back to me.

"No, sorry"

"What, you mean you won't extend it?"

"No"

"But why not?"

"It's not our problem. It's the problem of whoever bought you the voucher"

Now forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'd expected a bit more flexibility. I mean, if you're running a business, you extend a certain amount of goodwill to your customers or face losing them, right?

"I don't see why you can't extend this for a few weeks"

A second woman came to join her to see what the problem was. They started discussing it in Mandarin and counting on their fingers and then they started disputing the date and trying to tell me the voucher had already expired"

"No" I said "Three months from April 30th. That's May, June, July 30th"

They continued to speak in Mandarin and continued to shake their heads and count on their fingers. I've no idea how they manage to paint all ten toes if they can't count to three.

"Okay, so you can come in next week in sandals and we will do your toes"

"I don't want a pedicure right now. I don't want to wear sandals. It's cold"

"Then I can't help you"

"So if I want my toes painted every week through the spring and summer, you'd prefer I took my business elsewhere because you aren't prepared to show me any goodwill or flexibility"

"Sorry"

"Right, then I'll come back next week and you can paint my toes all lovely and I'll put my trainers back on and I'm never coming back here again"

I stormed out, absolutely fuming. And that was how I came to be in the Telstra shop, only I'd brought the wrong bill so I thought I could tell the man our phone number and he could call up the account.

"No, sorry, I need to see the bill"

"You can't just do it by the phone number or account name?"

"No"

"Okay"

I slung my gym kit back over my shoulder and walked to the door chunnering and then I couldn't hold it in any more.

"This fucking place. Fucking Australia"

Fluffy Kitten made it back to the library but after that I never did make it to the gym, I've got a cold and I didn't have the energy left.

Superhero, by Ella

My dad's got a new job as a superhero. He makes people better and gets dollars.

I want to be just like my dad when I grow up but when I told my mum, she laughed and said I'd need to start dressing a whole lot scruffier. I don't know what she means so I got dressed up as a superhero and tried to fly off the bed.

It didn't work but I'm sitting by the bat phone just in case.

Keeping Warm

As the cold snap continues, the Sydney Morning Herald informs us we're in the grip of the coldest winter in twenty-odd years. They're talking about it on the radio and the telly as well, you know, when they're not calling people twats and mongs (the latter being another corker from the Kyle and Jackie-O show this morning).

Sure, we've all got a cold, cracked lips and sniffly noses. And sure, the temperature on Monday night dipped to three point something degrees (almost as low as the record of two point something set in 1932) but I still can't see the justification for wearing a fur-lined deer stalker hat when you're brewing up coffee in the university ref. Personally I have far greater concerns at present, things like a mountain of ironing so large it's actually fallen over and the issue of how my chocolate pudding fruit is ever supposed to ripen in these antarctic conditions.

The national grid can barely cope with all these Aussies resorting to electric blankets and radiators and brewing up their kettles for the hot water bottle. At least, that's what the man from the national grid thinks they're doing, but I know otherwise.

Hats aside, the Sydneysiders are busy trying out the best ways to keep themselves warm inside the house. Anything to avoid buying another oil-filled radiator or, heaven forbid, install some proper heating so they're sorted out for next year, oh dear no.

Myself I've considered sleeping in the car, you know, with the engine running and the air conditioning cranked right up to "hot". I mean, I've actually sat daydreaming about it, especially after Ella got in there this morning and commented "ooh, it's nice and toasty warm in here". That was just before I went on-line to look at the autumn collection in Next because I've been dreaming about chunky knit cardies and simple shopping trips to acquire them in places like Next and M & S. Today I want to come home - ask me again come October.

But the Sydneysiders I've met have far more innovative ways to keep warm, including switching on their tumble driers without any clothes inside and turning the oven to full pelt and leaving the door open.

It explains a lot - they go mad for open plan living and suddenly I see why.

457

It's Darren's last week in the job he came to do and he's spending most of it using up his remaining annual leave, moonlighting in the private hospital to pay for the enormous credit card bill we racked up in Queensland. Five introductory dives is all very well but somebody's gotta face the bill when we get back.

Despite all the plans in the pipeline, the private intensive care unit still hasn't merged with the public one so the private work is still out there for the taking. We're pretty sure it will all go ahead but already it's two months late and it does make you wonder whether all the hassle over changing jobs will have been worth it in the end.

Let's just say that if the private work doesn't dry up and he needn't have changed jobs, I'll be livid when he gets sent overseas.

So this time next week it'll be all jumpsuits and choppers and hot calls on the bat phone and if you think I'm joking, remind me to show you his induction folder when we get back because it describes all the protocols for what to do when the bat phone rings, which I'm assuming involves pulling a black mask halfway down his face and hopping into the flying bat mobile with Robin, his junior registrar.

It's tempting to start a fist fight just to check whether we get a "wham!" and a "bam" when he throws a punch.

Anyway, it's not all done and dusted yet because someone's decided we could use a bit more hassle on top of the cockroaches and the crappy washer, and with this in mind, we're still waiting for immigration to re-issue his visa naming his new employer as his sponsor. So he can still start work on Monday, there's just the small matter that they can't legally pay him.

We came to Australia on a 457 visa, which means that although it lasts for four years, it's tied to whichever employer is sponsoring him to be here. My own visa is a spousal 457, which means I can work for anyone and Ella's is a dependents one which carries the same conditions, so we really could put her to work down the mines if she were a few inches taller.

The 457 is exactly the same visa held by Mohamed Haneef, the doctor arrested in Brisbane on suspicion of being involved with the Glasgow bomb plot. Since this guy was arrested, the government's been under scrutiny for "handing out 457 visas like sweets" to certain classes of professionals, doctors included, though I don't remember it being particularly easy to obtain our visas, especially not all the medicals we had to pass and the paperwork we had to get signed by a JP and the letter from our high school confirming that the language of our education was English. And that was before Darren had all of his qualifications lengthily assessed in Philadelphia and we were police checked in both countries. It wasn't easy and it wasn't cheap either so I don't know what the public here is crapping on about.

Anyway, with a bit of luck the visa will be issued early next week and if there's a problem and they can't legally pay him then the consultants have guaranteed that the registrars and fellows will cough up $500 a throw to tide us over and hopefully they've checked that with them beforehand.

Having said that, luck might just be the key. It's not a good time to be applying for a 457 visa, all things considered. Especially not if you're a doctor and especially one who wants to work with planes.

Halfway

I neglected to mention that yesterday marked six months since we left the UK, which means we're on the way home now and we'll see you in another six months.

It's been a great six months but it's definitely the bottom of a U-shape or a J-shape because living in a damp, cockroach-infested flat with a husband flying about on a helicopter wasn't exactly what I signed up for this time last year.

At the present time I spend 50% of my waking hours wishing I was back home having a normal life, am desperate for a glass of wine and a gossip with my friends, often feel very alone and miss my household appliances more than my car, which is a surprise.

On the other hand, when I think about leaving Australia, I feel very sad and upset. What I am struggling to work out is whether I'm sad because this is where I want to live or whether I'm just sad at the prospect of this fabulous adventure coming to an end. We'll need to work that out when we get back.

In the meantime, the current state of play is this:-

1. We love Sydney but we're not sure we like the people
2. This is a shame because we've discounted living in any other city
3. We could consider living in FNQ but it's too hot in summer
4. We like barbequeing things
5. We like the free parking but wish we could turn right to get there
6. We don't like living in a flat
7. The winter is colder than we thought
8. We're definitely coming home in January
9. I'll probably give up my job in November

and perhaps the most important one

10. We're coming home for at least two and a half years and we'll make a decision after that, depending on how much further they screw up the NHS and how many more crappy summers there are. And how often I cry about missing Sydney.

History

I drove to see my new patient in Double Bay today, you know, the place they call Double Pay because of the rental prices.

In the event I was twenty minutes late because I'd driven across the city from south west to north east, negotiating five pages of the UBD. The UBD, or the bloody sodding UBD as I've come to call it, doesn't give you any clues about which junctions will and will not allow you to turn right, so the journey from my patient in Canterbury took fifty minutes in total, of which roughly fifteen were spent over-shooting the junction I wanted and doubling back.

"Sorry I'm late" I said as I arrived. I'm Sarah, pleased to meet you"

"No dramas" said Heidi's mum, who was cradling Heidi in one arm and the phone in the crook of the other. "Look Mum, I'll have to go, the woman is here about Heidi".

"It took me longer than I thought to drive from my last appointment" I continued

"Where was it?" She asked

"Canterbury, well, no, Earlwood to be exact"

"Ah, Wogsville"

"Sorry?"

"Wogsville, where all the wogs live"

"And what do you class as a wog?"

"Lebanese, Greeks, Italians. Foreigners. They all cause trouble, the sons are treated as gods so they do as they please. I grew up in Bondi and they caused so much trouble cruising and speeding in their customised cars all night long. Little shits, the lot of them"

I wasn't sure how to react really. I mean, what can you say to that? She's right about the Lebanese treating the boys in the family as gods; I have two Lebanese kids on my caseload, both boys, both allowed to get away with murder, but I found her description of "wogs" offensive, especially as she was applying it to people I know, families who've invited me into their homes and made me coffee and offered me their Lebanese bread.

I recounted the story to Jim, our CEO, when I got back to the office.

"Is wog an offensive word in Australia?"

"Yes, it is. Some people still use it though, especially older people, and they don't stop to check whether they'll offend you. Thirty years ago this was a much more racist country and I think outside the cities or up north it probably still is, to a greater degree than here in Sydney anyway"

"Your country fascinates me. If it were possible to do a degree in Australian Studies I'd sign up tomorrow, I just have to content myself with reading books and trying to soak in the culture by living here"

"Culture? Ha! We don't have any. It's not what you'd call a complex society, it's raw. We're still pioneers to a degree, we're still settling the land and we have the rough edge that goes with it"

"You do, but I've never heard an Australian say that".

He smiled. Jim's a retired headmaster, he's been there and done that and he doesn't feel the need to justify anything now, least of all his country's place in the world.

"So what have you been learning about Australia?" he asked.

"Well I've read some books, some of them I bought on the internet over the last few years, some I bought in Australia on past visits. I've just got a new one about Queenlander houses and how and why they were designed the way they were"

"And what else?"

"Well I read "Platypus" on a plane from Sydney to London once, you know, about the battle between all those botanists and other scientists trying to classify what they found when they came here, especially the monotremes, which really puzzled them"

"Indeed they did"

"And I've got a book called "Sydney Takes Shape" about how the city grew around the water source in the tank stream and how it was planned after that"

"It was planned? You surprise me - the place is a shocking mess of roads"

"And one I got on the internet called "The Origins of Australia's Capital Cities", which is a geography textbook really"

"Boy, you're dedicated aren't you?" He laughed and looked at me sideways, a bit taken aback. "I mean, why does it fascinate you when you come from England and you have all that history of your own?"

"Well that's the thing I suppose, you don't appreciate your own history until you come somewhere like this. And anyway, I think history is badly taught in schools, it's dry and nebulous, they don't link it together in a way that makes sense"

He smiled and nodded. "I taught in Australian schools for thirty years. It's the same here, they teach more about British history than Australian history, it was the same when I was at school, all this stuff about the home country"

"Do you still think of Britain as the home country? I mean, British history is your history in a way"

"I suppose I do. When I was a kid, people didn't say they were going overseas to Britain, they said they were going to the home country because that was where almost everyone had come from. But things have changed since we put an end to the white Australia policy, you know, where you had to be white-skinned to emigrate here. Nowadays British history is less relevant to the kids because their parents are just as likely to have come from Italy or the Lebanon or Thailand, in the cities at least"

Kath came in with her lunch and a coffee and sat down to join us. She's a bit younger than Jim, but not much. She'd been listening to our conversation.

"Though if they'd taught us Australian history, well that would have taken up all of ten minutes wouldn't it?"

"I don't agree" I said. "There's so much to say. Jim just said your society isn't very sophisticated and I know what he means but that's got to be a result of the place having been settled and developed over the course of two hundred years. It took us much, much longer to get where we are today. So no, it's not sophisticated, but there are things that contributed to that situation and it's reflected in the psyche of the people and even in the language and the AQI. I have lots of theories about it"

I'd lost them now, I could see that.

"Quite an anthropologist, aren't you?" said Jim. "I'll talk to you some more when I've got the time".

Song for Kylie

The nation is in mourning.

Kyle Minogue is back with Olivier Martinez after all the slating he got for his caddish ways and for leaving her in her hour of need, the love rat that he is.

I caught the reaction to the news as it broke on the radio while I was driving home from work with Ella in the back of the car.

"Oh man we've all got egg on our faces now. We've been slating this guy for months and now we'll have to go crawling and take it all back because she's with him again.

So we're starting with a little song we've made up to say sorry to her. It goes to the tune of Meatloaf's "I would do Anything for Love". You ready Andy?


Oh Kylie, we're glad you're back in love
We sorry that we called him a rat

dum dum

And we're glad you're back in love
Even if he's a French twat"

It still takes me by surprise - I put my hand over my mouth in shock at that one.

Wish I Was There

The lady who makes the coffee in the university refectory is worried. She came to work in a thick belted cardigan and a fur-lined deer stalker hat, which she was still wearing as she poured the extra shot into my long black.

“I’ve seen the weather report for the rest of the week” she confided, “Thursday is going to be a shocker, thirteen degrees they’ve said”.

I glanced outside at the path leading from the coffee shop to the main campus where several people sat drinking coffee in the sunshine, albeit togged up in fleece jackets.

“You don’t know what cold is” I replied. “try the north of England in January, you’ll need that furry hat over there”

“Why, how cold does it get?”

“Five or six degrees, regularly”

“In the daytime?”. She stopped in her tracks, stopped frothing up the hot milk and gave her full attention to the prospect of five or six degrees in the daytime. It was obviously all too much for her because she pulled the hat a bit further over her ears before she carried on with the milk.

“That’s ridiculous” was her final word on the matter.

I’ll remember that when we get home and the pilot gives us the usual “we’re just beginning our descent into Manchester. The outside temperature is two degrees and it’s pissing with rain”.

When I got into work, my colleague Mary was standing behind the reception desk shuffling papers against her bosom. She’s had another weekend with the in-laws, who are driving her mad. I caught the end of her conversation with Kath.

“So she’s scattered him in the garden without even consulting Brian”.

“What, just on the lawn?”

“Under the tree in the corner. And the worst thing is, the thing I keep coming back to, when she dies and the house gets sold, whoever buys it will knock it down and start all over again and they won’t have a clue that Bill’s scattered on the garden. I mean, it’s hardly a peaceful resting place for him”.

I snook off into my office and drank my coffee, wishing I was back in FNQ. I never thought I'd say it but Sydney's such a drag after a week in the tropics.

Home

Or home to Sydney anyway.

After that absolute marathon blogging session, which may have cost me my marriage, you'll be pleased to know that normal service is resumed.

I am still in the pyjamas I woke up in this morning and as it's now 10pm, I won't be changing out of them.

But what of the chocolate pudding fruit? Is it still in Queensland or did we do a bad thing and bring it over the border?

Smugglers we are. Great big fruity-shaped felons. It had better taste good.

And Down Again

Heading back down to Smithfield, it's a better view somehow, especially crossing over the (croc-infested) Barron River and catching sight of the Coral sea and out to Fitzroy Island as you come over the top of the mountain.

No, grannies, it's a window she's sitting next to, not an open door.

Kuranda Railway Station

After an hour or so of flying above the rainforest canopy you arrive at Kuranda and you see the pretty little train station and the train you might have caught had it offered the same scare factor as the skyway.

There's plenty to do in Kuranda, including some very hilly walks, a venom zoo, a butterfly sanctuary and bird world, though after yesterday's breakfast, I was all birded out.

We had a picnic lunch on the village green, wandered through the Australiana market and headed back down to Smithfield a couple of hours later.

Barron Gorge NP

The views from the cable car speak for themselves - the Barron Gorge National Park and Barron Falls, halfway to Kuranda.

Up, up and away, by Ella.

Help!

No, I mean, HELP!

I know I've been a bit naughty recently but the olds have really lost it this time because they've got me strung up in these trees and it's a really long way down.

Rainforest Station

What I'd forgotten about the Skyway is that they chuck you off after about twenty minutes because there's a bend in the cable and you have to change cars.

Still, it's a good opportunity to go wandering through the forest and see things you wouldn't otherwise get close up to, though Ella was a bit non-plussed with the flora, even when I pointed up at the "really big stretchy tall trees".

To Kuranda

So we're heading back to Sydney today, back home.

But we've still got time to pack it in, so we left Port Douglas at a quarter past eight and headed back up the Captain Cook Highway to board the Skyrail to Kuranda, a little market town up on the Atherton Tablelands above Cairns.

Now the usual route for this trip is up from Cairns Central station on the Kuranda railway, a rickety old train weaving its way up a hand-built narrow gauge railway through the Barron Gorge National Park, returning later in the day on the Skyrail, a system of cable cars linking Kuranda with a site at Smithfield, north of Cairns.

The railway journey is lovely, the best part about it being the views, followed closely by the sound of "Waltzing Matilda" piped through the carriages as you trundle your way through the weatherboard Queenslanders on the outskirts of Cairns; enough to bring a tear to the eye of a lover of this great continent, and it has done.

But we've done that journey before and we can only imagine the horror of confining Ella to a railway carriage for two hours while we try to admire the view so we opted for the skyrail both ways because it's quicker and much less painful.

And craftily, we thought Ella might sit still once she saw how far there is to fall.

"Don't want fall" she said without the slightest provocation, as she wiggled back into her seat.

"I just sit here, sit properly. I just hold onto side".

Bingo. It worked a treat.

Headache

Saturday July 14th

Woke with a horrible headache this morning. We went out for dinner last night to a fish restaurant down by the marina, having left Ella in the capable hands of the hotel owner's personal babysitter, a lady who looked so much like Mrs Doubtfire that I was tempted to check the back of her neck for the underside of the rubber mask.

We offered her a glass of rioja as we left but she declined, saying "I don't drink when I'm on duty" with all the seriousness of a nurse, you know, one of those old-fashioned nurses who wore little paper caps. Unlike most nurses, however, her hourly rate was up there with accountants and lawyers. She might have looked like Mrs Doubtfire, but she was no soft touch when it came down to talking money.

Anyway, the food was good; the restaurant was offering a selection of swimmers according to the "catch of the day" so I ended up with red emperor and Darren had Moreton Bay bugs, yabbies and giant prawns, all on a bed of potato salad.

"How are the bugs?" I asked as he shelled them and left them face up on his side plate, staring at me and pointing their tentacles.

"Taste just like prawns" he replied

"And the yabbies?"

"Yeah, they taste like prawns as well. You know what, I think I'll stick to prawns in future".

It doesn't matter what you choose from a fish restaurant when you've just been snorkelling on the great barrier reef, there's always a certain amount of guilt involved because you can't get away from the suspicion that you're munching on something that might have swum innocently past your mask 24 hours previously. The red emperor was good but I felt like a traitor and had to remind myself almost constantly that it's all about food chains and the survival instinct, it's nature, we're supposed to eat fishes.

Afterwards we sat outside the Court House Hotel, which had a live act on. They were so good that many of the drinkers had got up to dance on the pavement. And so it was that we ended up sharing a table with Lucy and some other sixth-form aged kids who she'd made friends with on our boat out to the reef. They were busy laughing at the old people up there dancing, though they did sing along to the music, at least, until they cranked up Bryan Adams' "Summer of Sixty Nine".

Then they all went quiet.

"You not singing any more?" I shouted over the noise.

"We don't know this one" shouted back Zoe from Perth. "It was out before we were born".

"Jesus" I said to Darren. "Get me another gin, and make it a double".

Snake

It turned out Duncan was doing all of the keeper displays this morning, including this one of an olive snake. He gave a nod in my direction when we turned up, almost seeming to call a truce on the ribbing about the British, for today at least.

Lucy held onto Ella while Ella made friends with the snake. I just kept a respectful distance and clicked away with the camera. Rainforest or not, you wan't catch me touching that thing.

Heckler

After breakfast we wandered around the habitat, which had a great array of animals for a small park, though inevitably this doesn't give them much space to roam.

The good thing about being at a zoo so early in the morning is that you're bang on time for all of the zoo keeper talks and displays; you don't turn up five minutes after it's finished thinking "bugger".

And so it was that we met Duncan, who couldn't look or sound more Australian unless he grew a handlebar moustache, and in true aussie style, every other nationality became the butt of his jokes, especially the British.

"Whoah what a mistake!" he cried out when he heard where I came from. "Boy you guys really screwed up when you sent the convicts down here and kept that miserable old place to yourselves"

"Do you know, I've never heard that joke before" I replied, which didn't stop him continuing in the same vein.

"And then you taught us how to play cricket and now we beat the arse off you every four years"

"Except in 2005" piped up another Brit from the back of the crowd.

"Well, okay yeah, we let you have the ashes for a while but they're back where they belong now alright, back in Australia"

"Not strictly true". I couldn't help myself now. "They're in the museum at Lords, I believe. You know, where they belong"

"Ah well, I wouldn't thank you for Britain, it doesn't interest me. I spent two months there and put on 20 pounds with all your stodgy food and warm beer. Boy was I glad to get away, I'm not jealous of the British, I can tell you".

And then he came over and hugged me so tight I could barely breathe. Even so, he'd gone too far now.

"Well mate, you know how it is" I said, "you're all British deep down inside. As long as you've got the Queen on your money you're British when it really counts".

He took off his hat and held it to his stomach, shaking his head.

"Fair play lady" he said "you give as good as you get".

Breakfast With The Birds

As tour guide for the year I am trying to strike a balance between having a life-altering experience overseas and taking part in shameless tourist activities which are nevertheless well worth doing. So you can imagine my dilemma in Port Douglas, where they promise Breakfast with the Birds at the Rainforest Habitat, a chance to commune with nature while you select from their self-confessed stunning breakfast buffet, all for the bargain price of $39, which includes entry to the habitat itself.

The birds won, of course, so I spent the first half of the week hoping the breakfast might prove an incentive to Darren, given that he tends to be a bit wary of anything feathery landing within five feet. Alas no, he wouldn't be drawn on it.

But then it turned out that Lucy the Kiwi hockey girl was desperate to go, though her parents weren't interested because, well, I think they belong to that generation that watched the Alfred Hitchcock film and could never look at a budgie again without thinking it had designs on pecking their eyes out, so I offered she could come with me and hey presto, I had the essential extra pair of hands I needed to deal with Ella and a buffet and some birds - symbiosis is alive and well on the barrier reef, and it doesn't end at the coral.

As promised, the breakfast was stunning - a whole island of food underneath a canvas shade cleverly designed to minimise the impact of bird droppings on your bacon. The birds themselves ranged from rainbow lorikeets (see photo) to black cockatoos to wading type birds with a peculiar smug look on their faces, probably due to being in such close proximity to an endless supply of Cocopops.

"Please don't feed the birds" announced the officious official showing us to our table. "it disturbs our ecology".

What she should have said was "they're quite capable of feeding themselves".

Ecology schmology - and I've a nagging issue with the hygiene that just won't go away.