Butter

"Do you want a brew Susie?” I asked as I passed the reception desk this morning. Susie is our other secretary. Kath’s away on holiday.

“No thanks Sarah, but how kind of you”

Kath always says the same when I offer to make her a drink. Nobody has ever offered to make me one. I’m fast coming to the conclusion they don’t brew up.

I didn’t expect to be at work today because it’s a bank holiday, but apparently that’s not the same as a public holiday. On bank holidays the banks are closed but everything else is open, except some banks, because, well, they choose to stay open. And public holidays are different from state to state; it’s not like at home where we have the same bank holiday weekend whether we live in Cumbria or Cornwall. Nobody tells you any of this, you find out because you hear it on the radio or notice it on your wall planner. If you’re confused, think how I feel not knowing whether I’m supposed to turn up for work

I was feeling a bit sorry for myself having to go in on a bank holiday so today I went off to look for a new coffee house on the way to work and found one grinding its own beans (and probably milking its own cows as well, judging by the price). The girl behind the counter was young and flouncy and wearing one of those fashionable smock tops that make most women look seven months pregnant. Suddenly I missed the woman in the deer-stalker hat.

And then she began a conversation with the girl at the head of the queue.

“What colour is it darl?”.

The Sydneysiders call each other darl all the time; darl as in Sophie Dahl.

“White. I mean, what sort of moron fits a white carpet in a rental property?”

“Oh look darl, I’m convinced they do it on purpose to keep hold of your bond”

“You think?”

“Sure. You spill a cup of coffee on it, they get a thousand bucks. That’s what I call easy money”

I wouldn’t put it past them, I thought. Our landlord still hasn’t been in touch to inspect the damp walls and it turns out the cockroach treatment he paid for was the cheapest one around.

Anyway, a new coffee stop means a whole new array of breads and cakes, including fig and white chocolate bread, a concept so dizzying I could think about nothing else all morning. I have no idea how the Australians manage to stay so healthy-looking with all this stuff on offer, though given that they can buy Xenical over the counter, perhaps all these thin thighs aren’t quite what they seem (Xenical is a drug that prevents your body from absorbing fat and expels it in a variety of unpleasant ways. I know this because I googled the side-effects when I saw five adverts for it on channel 7 in the space of two hours. Needless to say it’s prescription only in the UK).

When I finally arrived at work (on time for once) Jackie was already at her desk, the heating fan whirring cheerfully away as she sat hunched over her desk in a winter coat and scarf.

“How’s tricks?” I asked

“Oh that’s such an English saying” she replied. “I have friends working in the UK and they send me e-mails saying “Hi Jackie, how’s tricks?”

“Well if you’re going to the UK I’d better teach you a word a week”, I said. “I mean, you’ll need to be up on the lingo if you’re going to fit in”

“Okay, teach me a word. Something I won’t have heard before”.

It was hard not to see the potential in what she’d just said. Like the time I told our French assistant at school about how it was customary to address the police as “pigs” and he wrote it down in his ring binder and I could barely conceal my mirth at the thought he might go and try it out. Yes, I know, it’s hard to believe I was such a mischief-maker at school. I look so angelic in the photos.

Anyway, I came up with the first thing I could think of.

“Well you need to know what minging means. If something’s minging, it’s skanky but then men sometimes call women mingers and that’s really not very nice”

“What does it mean?”

“I suppose it means they’re ugly”

“Well then you might like to call someone a prawn”

“A prawn?”

“Yeah, it’s also a word we apply to women. Nice body, shocking head. Or then there’s a butter”

“A butter?”

“Yeah. Nice body, butter head’s shocking. That one's my favorite”