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.