Santy

I was lying by the pool yesterday listening to the i-pod, and during the course of fiddling about with it I came across the Nat King Cole Christmas song with the lines "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose". It's Christmas in just over three weeks, but not in my brain it's not; Christmas was in July.

So today I thought we'd take Ella into the city on a Christmassy adventure, the sort of adventure where you leave the car at home and take the bus. And she loved it.

We got off the bus next to Hyde Park so we could look at the Christmas window displays in the David Jones department store, which are a bit like the window displays at Selfridges on Oxford Street, only not as good. This year they're telling the story of The Nutcracker and I couldn't help noticing that the first window is almost exactly the same as the last one, right down to the spooky Thunderbirds-esque puppets dancing around by the tree. You'd have thought they could have made a bit more effort.

Anyway, Ella liked them and that was what mattered, though I noticed she also liked the windows displaying Prada shoes and handbags so Darren better keep a tight hold on his wallet.

Afterwards we took the lift to level five of the store to see Father Christmas (or Santy as Ella's taken to calling him, probably because she's been hanging about with Niamh Dawson, who's half Irish).

It's free to visit Santy at David Jones, but it's another $23 if you want your picture taken, which we did. She was a bit wary to begin with but eventually warmed up enought to sit on my knee next to him. And then she proclaimed "you're not scary!!" and "I want presents" and "I've been good". And then, just for good measure, she told Santy she had a DVD at home with him on it.

"Yes Santa" I added. "It's you and the Wiggles, and the music's really annoying"

"Sorry about that" he said.

So with Santy in the bag we let her loose in the toy department to give us some idea what she'd like for Christmas apart from the fake dog poo Darren's bought her (it's a dad thing, apparently, which might explain why I never received one myself). The answer is she wants everything, but especially anything that makes a blaring noise.

After David Jones we went to have a look at the tree in Martin Place, the city's main Christmas tree. It's real at least, unlike that piece of tat in Melbourne.

Sydney 1, Melbourne 0.

And then it was tea-time so we headed for Pancakes on the Rocks where Ella used the visual menu to choose a burger with a big smiley face drawn using ketchup, though when it arrived it looked more like Gerard Depardieu than the picture she'd pointed at and she was a bit non-plussed. And then she needed the loo.

Now don't get me wrong, the toilet training is going well, in fact she's been great so far, with the exception of one flying turd, one trod into the carpet and one I found on the bottom of my foot as I was stepping into the shower. I'm assured it could have been worse.

But tonight she said she needed a poo in the restaurant, so there we were sitting on the loo in the cubicles and there's hardly any room for me to crouch so she's put her forehead against mine.

"My bum smells" she said. "My bum smells of poo".

"Shh. Don't talk about poo here, it's rude"

So instead she sat making comedy straining noises interspersed with noisy farts and I could hardly find the strength to stand up again because I was helpless with laughter. She's so incredibly funny, so uninhibited. She's gorgeous.

Blue Groper

We've had a glorious couple of days weather in Sydney, despite forecasts warning of storms and showers. I'm fast coming to the conclusion that the rain only materialises when it comes directly from Manchester airport, as it poured down when Kath and Annette arrived and did exactly the same when my step brother flew back in earlier this week.

Now you might be wondering why Darren never appears to be at work recently and that's because I forgot to mention that he's been on annual leave since last Wednesday; a period of leave we'd hoped to use for a trip to New Zealand, that was until we realised that dragging Ella round the north and south islands looking at glaciers probably wasn't the relaxing holiday we wanted. And anyway, we can't afford to go, the holiday coffers having been well and truly emptied now I've given up my job.

And why pay for accomodation elsewhere when we've got this flat near Sydney's beaches? I've seen lovely beaches all over Australia but still you'd have to go some way to beat the ones here in the city, especially the ones with adjacent tea rooms.

Yesterday we went over to the north shore, to the harbour beach at Chowder Bay, which is directly across the water from Shark Beach. Like Shark Beach, it has both a tea room and a restaurant, but unlike Shark Beach, it also has a newly-built playground at Clifton Gardnens, so it was a hit with Ella. It's good to be in Sydney in this sort of weather; optimistic. And it's good to still find ourselves in the process of discovering new beaches and bays, the ones on the north shore of the harbour being more tricky to visit when Darren's on call from home because they're further away form the airport, so with summer offically beginning on Saturday, we have a whole load of new exploring to do.

Today we were child-free so we went snorkelling off the rocks at Clovelly, where I spotted an enormous Blue Groper like the one in the picture; the sort of fish you'd be pleased to spot anywhere along the barrier reef. And then I got out of the water and spotted the surf lifesavers attending to a bloke who'd collapsed on the side of the rocks so I alerted Batman to the situation and he came steaming out of the water in his snorkelling gear, like a regular action-hero.

So now we have Action Man Snorkel to add to Action Man Helicopter. I just can't decide which one to get him for Christmas.

The Maritime Museum

So having waddled out of Sufalo's bakery, we faced a rainy day in Sydney; albeit with about half a pound of ricotta safely tucked away on the hips in lieu of lunch. It was so gloomy this afternoon that you couldn't really see across the harbour from one side to another, weather I've never seen before in Sydney and certainly didn't expect at this time of year.

The thing about the rain here is that once it arrives, it stays for days on end, sometimes a whole week or a fortnight. Darren has a theory it's something to do with the weather systems being completely enormous, much bigger than anything we get at home, so they cover a wider area and they take longer to move away. I don't know where he's getting his information but this is the same man who scoffs at my theory that small children need the support of properly-fitting Clarks shoes (especially around the ankle) so there's one bit of evidence I'm classing as dodgy to say the least.

As tour guide, the only thing I could come up with was a visit to the National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour, or rather, everything else I could think of revolved around browsing in shops, and that sort of thing makes Darren's eyes water.

(And at this point I'll have to add that now we've been to every single museum in Sydney, the tour itinerary has worn very thin for rainy days. Any more of this rain and it'll definitely be a punch in the wallet).

The maritime museum is one of the only places that doesn't charge an entrance fee for browsing the general exhibits. As someone who's always been bored rigid at the very mention of ships, I'm assuming that the government decided they'd never be able to get people through the doors if they charged for entry, though you do have to pay to go on board the ships and the submarine anchored outside.

Anyway, we paid to go on board the ships and ended up passing a really enjoyable three hours poking around and learning all sorts of things about ships that we didn't know before (and in my case, didn't even realise we wanted to know), like how the rivets used to be hot welded onto the iron and what the plimsole line is.

The submarine was interesting - a thirty year old decomissioned vessel that used to belong to the Australian navy; very long and thin inside and impossible to imagine sixty or so people all living aboard in such cramped conditions (I mean, when you think about submarines, you think of periscopes and that funny booping noise and you think, God, I wouldn't fancy going under the water in one of those, but you don't actually think about the practicalities of living on board one, which makes our flat seem like Windsor Castle).

But the best of the lot was the replica of Captain Cook's Endeavour, the first European ship to chart the east coast of Australia (or New Holland as it appears on the map), which was built according to detailed plans that still exist for the original 1700's Endeavour.

The new Endeavour was built in Fremantle, a harbour town just south of Perth in Western Australia (and if you ever go to Perth, Fremantle is well worth a look, if only for Miss Maud's cake shop on the main street). We were first in Fremantle in 1996, which was just after the Endeavour was built, so my Uncle Gordon had taken us to have a look at it sitting gleaming in the sunshine in the docks there. Funny therefore to see it again in Sydney, a bit like an old friend, though perhaps not quite so shiny as it was eleven years ago.

(And why is it in Sydney anyway? Why couldn't it have stayed in Freo? Because the Sydneysiders nick everything for their de facto capital, that's why).

All four of the vessels at the museum are manned by very well-informed volunteers, most of them retired professionals with an interest in history, just like the retired zoo friend volunteers at Taronga, who know every last detail about every last animal and can't wait to share it with you. And the great thing about these older people is that, unlike us, they're not in much of a hurry, so not only did they have loads to tell us about navigation and astronomy and mathematics but they had all the time in the world for us to ask questions and all the time to explain some of the finer details of life on board a ship like the Endeavour

Still, I know a bit about the local history myself.

"Do you reckon Captain Cook wore all those formal clothes all the time?" I asked one lady, "you know, even in really hot weather?"

"Oh I suppose not" she replied

"Because Governor Phillip definitely wore them when the first fleet landed in Botany Bay. I read it in The Fatal Shore" I said

"Oh I haven't read that" she replied

"Yeah well, you should, it's really interesting. And when they landed ashore, the aborigines couldn't tell whether these Europeans were male or female. The aborigines didn't wear clothes, so their sex was pretty obvious. One of the tribal elders pointed at his willy and pointed at Governor Phillip indicating he wanted to know whether he was a man or a woman"

"Really?"

"Yeah, so Phillip made one of the other sailors whip down his tweeds, you know, to show him. And the aborigines gave great shouts of astonishment and admiration" I finished, feeling smug about telling the history guide something she didn't already know.

Whether she wanted to know is a different matter, but from the look on her face I don't think it'll be in her talk any time soon.

Weapons of Mass Destruction 1 - The Panzarotti

I think I've said before that Sydney's a city obsessed with food and coffee; probably more so than any city I've ever visited, so it stands to reason that any recommendation from a Sydneysider on anything you can shove into your gob is probably worth following up on.

(And as an aside, I always think it's rather ironic, possibly even a bit insulting, that Sydneysiders are so blessed in the food department. The original European Sydneysiders very nearly died of starvation and suffered years of malnutrition and now here we are with the most incredible selection of nosh on the planet. Then again - perhaps the history of starvation feeds the obsession).

A couple of months ago I received specific credible intelligence of this particular weapon of mass destruction; the panzarotti. In fact, the intelligence was so specific that it practically included the map co-ordinates for Sulfaro's bakery on Ramsay Street in Haberfield, where they bake them fresh every morning (Ramsay Street in Haberfield being almost right nextdoor to Boomerang Avenue, two adjacent street names that never failed to raise a smile on my Monday morning home visits from the university).

Haberfield's an area in the west of the city where loads if Italian immigrants originally came to settle and generations later it's still populated by their children, so if you walk down the main street you'll find large Italian ladies spilling sideways out of aussie singlets and men with armfuls of bread discussing the morning paper in Italian. And the coffee's to die for.

So after a crappy start to the day, what better way to soothe the foodie's soul than to go hunting and gathering (and anyway, I've been rehearsing the name of the bloody things all these weeks - like Lanzarote but with a P - so it was time to go get them). And we weren't disappointed, the fresh dough surrounding a centre of sweet-tasting ricotta cheese so delicious it's impossible not to smile while you eat it.

Always put your faith in credible intelligence. Always trust the locals.

Cushy

It's raining in Sydney this morning, pouring down at times, and though the temperatures are still in the mid twenties, Sydney doesn't half look crap in the rain. To quote my former colleague Hilary, it looks like a shanty town.

The frustration of city life has taken it's toll since January but today I feel particularly cheesed off because once again the frustration of city life has combined with the frustration of being a wife and mother; one of those days I feel like a pressure cooker with the top thingy just about to blow.

This morning I drove Ella to nursery as usual, though we were half an hour late leaving the flat because Darren was letting me have a half hour lie-in (you know, 7am being a lie-in) and he forgot and didn't wake me up until 7.30. Then about a third of the way to nursery I noticed there wasn't a drop of petrol left in the car; Darren had been driving it yesterday and seemingly hadn't noticed, you know, like blokes don't.

You see, behind every man there's a great woman, picking up the pieces and mopping up the mess, and that includes most of the women I know. And yes, Batman's a clever bloke and yes, he's lovely, but like many clever people, he has absolutely bugger all common sense, so not only does he leave the car without petrol, he leaves wet swimming costumes in bags for days on end, forgets to pay his bills (to the extent we've had a mobile phone debt passed onto baliffs while we've been in Sydney) and generally goes through life in a bit of a daze. So when he says "Ella's ready for nursery", he means she's standing by the front door, it doesn't mean he's brushed her teeth or brushed her hair or put on her shoes. I'm sure all blokes are the same, so it amazes me that women want to have more than one child, because dealing with a husband and a child at the same time is sometimes a bit like being a zoo keeper, only you don't get paid.

And the thing is, I do actually remember what it was like not to have all this to deal with, and I'm not one of those earth-mother types who wants a child hanging off every available nipple, one of those who doesn't notice when their child wipes a spaghetti bolognaise hand on their jacket. I do still notice that, which is probably why dealing with a toddler drives me round the bend. I don't mind admitting that at times I'd like to go back to being a single woman earning a proper income and driving a nice car without biscuit crumbs on the back seat, you know, thinking about handbags and boots and how long to grow my hair. I don't judge those who enjoy all the mess and all the hard work, the lack of sleep, the poo everywhere. I just don't really believe them.

Anyway, having noticed we had no fuel, I had a quick mental reccie of the petrol stations along our route and realised the car would actually cut out before we reached any of them, so had to turn around and head back home again to get to the nearest garage. And then when I tried to join the road again I found a whole series of no right turns and realised I'd have to take a completely different route, a route which left me stuck in shocking traffic in shocking rain, wondering what the hell I was doing.

The problem is, Ella loves going to nursery, and perhaps just as importantly, I love her going to nursery as well, but the nursery is a good forty minutes drive away, and by the time you've parked up and sorted her out, you're looking at at least an hours round trip, twice a day. The alternative is, well, there isn't an alternative. The nursery place was the only one I could find and even then we jumped an enormous waiting list. It wasn't so bad while I was working because the nursery was round the corner from my office, but now it all seems an enormous hassle, especially when you've been left without petrol.

We got there in the end of course, an hour and ten minutes after we left the flat, and it was worth it to see Ella's eyes light up when she saw her friends crowding around Vilma's mystery bag, all trying to guess what she'd pull out of it next. And that left me free to go to the gym, the gym I haven't been to for a whole six weeks, either through exhaustion or through lack of time. At least something was going to go right today.

When I arrived at the gym half an hour later, the queue to enter the shopping centre car park was stretching all down the high street. There was nowhere else to park because the spaces on the street are limited to thirty minutes. I gave up, I went home.

Darren was lying on the floor underneath our other car when I got back to the flat, his feet dangling out into the rain. He was changing the tyre after it was slashed by the man in flat number 38, you know, slashed because he didn't like us parking it in a visitor's spot. It happened months ago but we haven't got around to fixing it, so the car's been in the visitor's spot ever since. He's changed the tyre, but the car's been sitting there so long it won't start.

We have a cushy life in Sydney, but sometimes I wouldn't mind swapping it.

Election Night

I deliberately haven't talked about the Australian elections on my blog, for two reasons.

Firstly, well, politics is boring at the best of times, but it's even more boring when you haven't got a clue who the candidates are (or who the parties are, for that matter). And secondly, I sort of expected John Howard's government to be re-elected. Status Quo. No change.

Then yesterday we saw this in the sky above St Kilda and we began to wonder. Was the government going to lose the election? And was the Prime Minister actually going to lose his seat? Surely not?

With Ella in bed, we poured the wine and checked the TV listings. Our hotel had Foxtel (which is like Sky) but still there was bugger all we wanted to watch. Or rather, we were both secretly interested in watching the election coverage, but who was going to be the first to admit it?

"I don't mind watching it" I eventually conceded. "In fact, I'm secretly quite into it"

So we watched as Koshie and Mel covered the breaking stories. Koshie and Mel are the breakfast TV presenters on channel 7 and I seem to be the only person in Australia who actually likes them. People say David Koch is cheesy but sometimes cheesy is good, especially when you've got no real friends and Koshie is the only other human being who's going to talk to you all day.

Anyway, by half ten it was all over. The liberal party had lost (that's the conservatives to you and me) and the labor party were in office. Mr Howard left the PM's residence at Kiribilli House (great view, right opposite the opera house) and he also lost his seat at Bennelong. He lost it to a former television journalist who fancies herself something rotten so I've got my eye on her as the next PM as well.

"I feel so sad" I said to Darren

"Why?"

"I feel sorry for John Howard. He's just lost his job, and he's so old"

It struck me then that the reason I felt so sad is because the thought of old Mr Howard being out on his uppers at Christmas is a bit tragic. I mean, who'll pay for the turkey? I had visions of Bob Cratchett's house in The Muppet Christmas Carol, Miss Piggy stirring the pot while John Howard tries to explain there's no bird to go in it. John would be scared of Miss Piggy. I'm scared of Miss Piggy.

"He probably doesn't mind losing his job" replied Darren. "He's getting on, probably wants to retire"

"And look at Jeanette's face" I continued. "God, she's thinking, he's going to be getting under my feet at home now". The Prime Minister's wife didn't look happy.

"Anyway, it's the end of an era" I said. "He's been there for eleven years. Every time we've been here, John Howard's been prime minister. He's been PM all through our year down under. Now Australia's moving on without us. Sort of drives it home that our year's coming to a close I suppose"

"Yeah, I know what you mean" said Darren, "though it's all a bit 1997. Like when labour got in back home"

"I wonder whether they'll go the same way now then?" I said. "Kevin Rudd's promising all these health and education reforms for Australia. Good luck with that, Mr Rudd"

We drank a toast to John Howard, like a pair of old colonials. Mr Howard stood in front of the Australian flag at the Wentworth Hotel in Sydney giving his speech. Suddenly we felt part of everything. Ten months ago we couldn't have cared less. Now we had an opinion.

"It's the end of that flag, I reckon. The beginning of the end" I said

"What do you mean?"

"Well the liberals are conservative. They support having the queen as head of state. Last time they had a referendum on whether to get rid of the queen, the left wing wanted a republic. They'll have another referendum now and they'll word it differently and bam, the Queen will be out on her ear. Give it twenty years and they'll change the flag as well, get rid of the union jack part of it, you watch. The aussies can't stand Prince Charles; they don't want him as head of state"

Another toast to John Howard and one for the Queen as well. Nothing for Prince
Charles though. We don't get a choice on the matter; the aussies get to vote him off.

The Rialto Tower

To end the afternoon we had dinner in Chinatown, though having munched her way through half a plate of prawn crackers, Ella decided she preferred her Dora the Explorer sticker book; that and the lobsters in the lobster tank. Do you want to break her little heart or shall I?

Anyway, before dinner we headed up the Rialto Tower to walk around the observation deck and get a handle on the city.

Photos-

(1) The city looking towards the Yarra River
(2) The main shopping and business district
(3) The casino
(4) All hail the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground). Also known simply as "The G"

To the south of the city I could see the ferry "Spirit of Tasmania" waiting to depart. And then it hit me we're right on the bottom bit of the continent. Properly down under. Wow.

Luna Park

So having had our wicked way on Acland Street, we waddled back towards the beach to check out the surf and the fairground at Luna Park. (And by the way, the cakes were typically Australian because this country does an excellent impression of a cake shop but when you bite into these jam-encrusted creations, you are almost always disappointed and end up muttering something about how Mr Kipling could have done better).

The beach at St Kilda is alright but there's no point comparing it to Sydney. For a start, the water isn't the same colour and the sand isn't so golden. And when you add the litter and the bottletops on the shore, well, you get the point. You don't come to live in Melbourne for the beaches and you don't come for the weather. The more I think of it, I can't really see why you do come to live in Melbourne, though loads of people think it's great.

Anyway, the sun was shining so we took Ella onto the fair, another Luna Park with one of those big scary faces like the one on Sydney harbour. And Darren took her onto the ghost train, which I was a bit dubious about, though she doesn't seem to have suffered any ill effects (well, not unless you count her coming off the choo-choo train saying "I wanted my mummy", but that's dads for you).

At lunchtime she matched our cake-scoffing by doing the magic disappearing trick with an illuminous pink hot dog (see the ketchup around her mouth for details). I managed to persuade her to leave before she spotted the fairy floss though, it could have been much worse.

St Kilda

Saturday November 24th

It's election day in Australia, which means the aussies must cast their vote or face a nasty fine, voting being a compulsory requirement for all Australian citizens.

But not us. We're residents, not citizens, and temporary residents at that, which means we can pay all the right taxes and claim none of the benefits, not even the child benefit or the nursery vouchers that everyone else can claim. It irks me to be honest, that we pay our taxes here and they won't even let us claim child benefit, seems a bit of a cheek really. It irks me even more that I've queued up three times at the benefit agency to be told this, but you live and learn.

Anyway, this morning we headed out to Melbourne's beach suburb, St Kilda. St Kilda is famous for a number of things, including the number 96 St Kilda Beach Tram, the fairground at Luna Park, and all the Eastern European cake shops on Acland Street.

So where do you reckon we began?

Healesville Sanctuary

Continuing though the Yarra, we stopped at the Healesville Animal Sanctuary, which has a real-life animal hospital to rival anything they've got going on at St Tiggywinkles.

Now bear with me here because when I was a kid (okay, probably well into my teens as well), I dreamt of visiting an animal hospital because I genuinely thought it would be full to the gills of poorly hedgehogs tucked up in miniature hospital beds with gingham sheets and tiny thermometers under their tiny tongues. Yeah, yeah, I know, ridiculous isn't it? I realise now they'd use rectal thermometers for wild animals.

The sanctuary at Healesville receives government funding to treat injured wildlife from a wide area in the Yarra Valley and beyond, the admission price covering most of the day-to-day running of the place. 75% of the animals coming through the door have been injured by vehicles on the road.

As soon as he saw the tiny operating theatre, Batman revealed his true identity to the receptionist, who quickly fetched one of the vets to open up the theatre so our caped crusader could fiddle with the oxygen tubing, discussing anaesthetic gases with the sort of glee he reserves for the switches on all those beeping machines he carries in the back of the batmobile when he's out on patrol.

Ella and I wandered off to look at a joey who was being nursed in a sheepskin pouch to emulate it's (presumably dead) mother. Batman returned to tell me they'd had an admission, a trauma. Did I mind if he stayed to watch the surgery?

They anaesthetised the galah, as you can see, but the injury to his wing was too serious so they put him to sleep forever. I suppose Rolf Harris stories don't always have a happy ending either.

The Yarra

With Ramsay Street in the bag (and is it me or did Ella look a bit embarrassed to be there?), we headed further east into the beautiful Yarra Valley, a wine-producing region where you can stop at all the cellar doors and taste their standard stuff for free (and their reserve stuff for a reserve).

This is the view around the vinyard at Domaine Chandon; we didn't buy their wine, we bought some from Coldstream Hills instead, but Coldstream Hills isn't nearly as good-looking.

Bottoms Up.

Rack Off, Ramsay

Friday 23rd November

Okay, well here it is - the picture you really wanted to see; the money shot.

We don't even watch Neighbours, haven't watched it for years, but the fact we recognised this street immediately betrays too many afternoons spent wagging RE lessons as teenagers.

And I'm sorry to have to report it's not called Ramsay Street, it's called Pin Oak Court, off Weedon Drive in Vermont South, which is about a half hour drive from the centre of Melbourne (and right on the edge of two pages in the sodding UBD, just to be awkward).

The street itself is the last cul-de-sac of many similar cul-de-sacs off Weedon Drive so it's hard to tell why they chose this one for Ramsay Street over the others. You can actually take a Grundy Television-approved tour bus out here, which might well be marginally less embarassing than turning up in a hire car and standing there with your camera while the residents mow their lawns.

So that's it, we've been to Ramsay Street; we can come home victorious.

Cook's Cottage

As if we needed any more reminding of Europe, this afternoon we wandered through Fitzroy Gardens to let Ella off her lead and came across Cook's Cottage.

This cottage was built in 1755, making it the oldest building in Australia.

And if you've been paying attention (which I suspect you haven't because I think at least 50% of the readership of this blog come here to look at the pictures), you'll know the Europeans didn't arrive until 1788. So yep - you guessed it - they shipped it here in crates.

The house was built by Captain Cook's parents and stood in the Yorkshire village of Great Ayton from 1755 to 1934, when it was dismantled brick by brick and brought to Australia as a gift from some British philanthropist or other. And then they put it back together, which must have been unbearably painstaking for them, and now they charge $4.50 for entry to have a squizz at the bedroom where young James Cook used to dream of sailing the seas.

The gardens at the back have been planted to re-create the sorts of plants and vegetables you can grow in Yorkshire, which might explain why it's such a familiar shade of green to compliment the house.

A little taste of home in Melbourne, even if it's the wrong side of the Pennines.

Train Station

Flinder's Street Station.

Hardly New York's Grand Central, but nice try.

Laneways

One of the unique things about Melbourne is the laneways shopping. Laneways as in little lanes running at right angles to the main streets, where, apparently, you can discover a treasure-trove of unique shops and restaurants to suit every taste and budget (and you can tell now how many bloody guide books I've digested in the last ten months).

And yes, there are these laneways with little shops, and there are nice little places to get a coffee and a cupcake (the likes of which I cannot find in Sydney). And there's even all this lane art, though some might call it legalised grafitti. I mean, really, with all these delights on offer, is it any wonder Melbourne's been ranked the best city to live on earth in terms of quality of life?

But the thing is, if you've ever been to the south of France, or even Brighton, you'll know what laneways really means. It means higgledy-piggledy cobbled alleyways full of interesting jewellery and paninis, a couple of cosy pubs and a nice shop to buy shoes. Melbourne's tried harder than most and it's done a good impression of Europe, better than anywhere else I've ever been, but you've got to admit it's hard to hit the spot.

Europe's fantastic. I'd forgotten how much I like it so thanks to Melbourne for reminding me.

Black and Macs

There was an article about Sydney and Melbourne fashion in the magazine that comes with the Sunday paper a couple of months ago; one page written by a Sydneysider, one by a Melburnian.

Now I've had a bit of trouble with Sydney fashion, as you might remember. It's not just that I can't find the right clothes, but I can't find the right colours either, in fact some shops have window displays so gruesome they hurt my eyes just walking past, yellow and fuschia pink being permitted combinations all across the city.

And then ding! The penny dropped. That was what was different about Melbourne. Everyone was wearing black.

So the Sydneysider in the magazine article was revelling in the fact you could go straight to dinner from the beach in a swimsuit in Sydney (though I'll have to beg to differ on that because I'm pretty sure I'd be knocked back in a couple of my beach ensembles; cellulite chic having completely failed to take off in the eastern suburbs).

And her description of Sydney fashion included the following.

The younger fashion set in Sydney have a bowerbird approach to clothes - the more items that can be worn at once and still look acceptable, the better. They love to push the boundaries, putting together pieces that should never work.

The Sydney woman of a certain age will not disappear into black like her Melbourne counterparts...Sydneysiders don a kaleidoscope of colours....offering more glitz per square centimetre of fabric than anywhere else in the country (except the gold coast).

While the Melbourne writer had the following to offer:

Melburnians prefer the classics over planet fashion's fickle fads and follies that seem to dictate the way Sin City (Sydney) dresses.

and

Melbourne has more style in it's little finger than Sydney will ever have. Melbourne's style is structured in a European kind of way, subtle and genteel rather than slap-in-your-face. Sydney, on the other hand, is built around monumental showpieces; like the harbour brige and the "look at me" Opera House - and it peddles a showy fashion aesthetic, there's more flesh, more flash, but definitely not more style.

So that's it. I like to wear black and grey. I like macs. I can't wear yellow, I feel uncomfortable wearing patterns and a bracelet with a necklace at the same time seems somehow overdressed. I'm a Melburnian at heart, a plastic Sydneysider. But could I put up with the rain?

Shopping

We started the morning at the Queen Victoria Markets. All the guidebooks to Melbourne say they're not to be missed, though for a while I was beginning to think I'd misread several of them because the markets were full of Chinese junk, the sort of crap Ella loves rifling through.

So having relieved us of $5 for a Chinese digital watch (from which she repeatedly informed us it was a quarter past four), we were looking for a swift exit route and finally stumbled uopn the delicatessen section, where all our foodie dreams came true amongst the french cheeses (St Agur $65 per kilo, much cheaper than in Sydney), polish kabanos, lebanese dukkah and German patisserie stalls. The place was awash with eastern European housewives in headscarves dragging their shopping trolleys full of fruit and veggies and fish. If we lived in Melbourne I'd most certainly be joining them three mornings a week, tartan shopping trolley and all.

Anyway after that we found the Block Arcade, where we had a delicious lunch in a laneway cafe (more about the laneways later) and I sat watching the world go by and proclaiming I could live in Melbourne because the people walking past all looked different. Different how? Different good; I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Pictures:

(1) The Block Arcade
(2) Chocolate snowmen in Haigh's Chocolate Shop. But where's the snow?

City Square

If there's a tree in City Square, it must be Christmas.

So much for Europe though - hardly a Norwegian Spruce is it?

Pah!

Melbourne

Right then, more about Melbourne.

Well, flights leave Sydney for Melboure every half an hour, and the plane down here was a Boeing 767 and it was almost full, so you can imagine how important this city is and how it comptetes with Sydney for trade and commerce. The last time I flew in such a big plane from city to city was in a Boeing 747 laid on to transport cricket fans from Sydney to Perth, so I was surprised to the amount of traffic between Sydney and Melbourne.

And the other thing to mention about that is that the flight between Sydney and Melbourne is apparently the most expensive air ticket in the world, mile for mile. I'm not sure why this should be the case, but suspect it might have something to do with all the female Sydneysiders going on shopping jaunts with the credit card and returning with loads of heavy bags and shoes, you know, so they have to load up with extra fuel. Remind me to ask the bloke on the Qantas desk next time I'm checking in.

Anyway, we're staying to the west of the city centre and the approach into Melbourne itself isn't exactly inspiring. They say it's very European-feeling, but from this angle, the only bit of Europe it reminds me of is the arse-end of Manchester. In the rain.

But when we arrive in the city and park the car, then yes, we have to admit it's all very European-looking and there's all these grand buildings and trams and if it weren't for the drizzle and the western approach road then we'd be in love with it already, in a funny European kind of way.

"The thing is" I said to Darren, "Yeah, it's got all these buildings that remind you of Barcelona or Edinburgh or Paris, but God, why don't they think up their own style instead of trying to emulate Europe? And anyway, if Europe's so great, why not stay there?"

"Well Australia doesn't have a style does it? It doesn't have a culture beyond the aboriginal stuff. The people here are European, so they're just re-creating what they're familiar with and what they admire. It's understandable really".

I know what he means, but still it all feels a bit weird, a bit unsettling, like I'm in Europe but then again, no, I'm most of the way to Antarctica.

The real problem lies elsewhere. It's not like Australia, I think to myself. It's like someone's picked me up and dropped me in Edinburgh, which reminds me I have to go home in less than eight weeks, and though I long for my home and my friends, actually, I can't imagine not being in Australia anymore.

Arachnid

Thursday November 22nd

And here's our room mate for our stay in Melbourne; a half-grown huntsman spider who's taken up residence on the wall above the air-con unit. I spotted him this morning as we were tucking into our cereal.

The thing is, Steve Irwin's made a bit of an impression on me really, so having noticed the spider I thought I'd wait for Darren to wake up before alerting him to the arachnid situation, but when I showed it to him, he was reluctant to kill it.

"What would Steve Irwin do?" I asked him

"He'd say, Crikey, look at this spider. Isn't she a beauty?"

I think that's batman-language for "please don't make me kill it because I think it might be one of those jumping spiders"

Anyway, I'm letting it stay. It's character building, you know, having a big spider sleeping in the room nextdoor. It was either that or tackle it myself and since I saw him rearing up onto his back legs in attack mode, I've granted him an emergency visa, no restrictions, no red tape.

Jeeeeesus.

Welcome to Melbourne

Wednesday 21st November

We weren't far south of Sydney when we came across the enormous bank of cloud heralding our arrival into the state of Victoria. The Sydneysiders are unanimous in their distaste for the Melbourne weather and on first impression I'd have to agree.

We glanced at one another as the plane dropped beneath the clouds. It looked exactly like the approach to Manchester airport, complete with driving rain and poor visibility and a pilot in a sort of apologetic tone of voice. The outside temperature was fourteen degrees. We didn't pack the the right sort of clothes for fourteen degrees.

"God, it's Ringway" I said to Darren, a term they used to use for Manchester airport, though I haven't heard it said in ages.

"I'm just scanning for the roof of John Lewis at Cheadle and the M56. What a bloody nightmare"

And then I remembered we're going home in January and I felt sick.

Dog Story

I see the Westminster Dog of the Year competition was won by this lovely rescue dog called Max, seen here with his owner, the (very dodgy-looking) right honourable member for Weaver Vale.

I believe the right honourable gentleman is considering his options with regard to showing the pooch at Crufts. His wife, apparently, will need several new outfits if she's going to be seen waving encouragement on camera.

And I'm sure the right honourable gentleman used to have a moustache. Doesn't he know it's Movember?

Off to Melbourne

We've been to Australia three times, and so far we've spent a combined total of twelve months and one week on this continent without ever once visiting the second largest city; Melbourne. Something's got to give.

If you've been reading this blog for a while then you'll know that Melbourne and Sydney are like a pair of bickering siblings. What you might not realise is that they get along so badly that neither of them would concede to allow the other to become the nation's capital when Australia became a federation in 1901.

So as a last resort, the nation's capital became Canberra, which was chosen because it lay roughly halfway between Sydney and Melbourne, thus limiting the degree of offence either city could take at the decision. All of this reminds me of that parable in the bible where the two women claim to be the mother of the baby and, because DNA testing's not an option, the judge decides to split the baby in half to settle the matter, (only if you look at the journey time between the Capital and the two cities, Canberra is actually quite a bit closer to Sydney, so perhaps that's why the Sydneysiders are so bloody smug about something; perhaps it's that).

Anyway, it's 1020 km from Sydney to Melbourne (just a bit less than Land's End to John O'Groats, without so much as the toffee shop at Moffat to break the journey), so we'll be taking the flying kangaroo rather than the hopping Honda, a 1.5 hour flight being preferable to an eight hour drive.

And when we get there, we'll see whether the Sydneysiders are right that Melbourne's not worth bothering with. I've been researching the highlights of Melbourne and discovered that most of them revolve around cake and/or coffee. That's us sorted - see you on Sunday.

Clandestine

A stunning day in Sydney today; I spent a long time looking for a single cloud in the blue sky and couldn't find one, but even better than that, I didn't have to go to work.

And Darren's started calling me a conformist because I've taken to having a morning walk around Centennial Park decked out in a cap and sunglasses, though it was the addition of the i-pod that did it really, so now, apparently, I have all the requisites to pass as a Sydneysider par excellence. (Though being called a conformist by a man sporting such an enormous moustache is a bit rich to say the least. He bears such an alarming resemblence to the cricketer David Boon that people are beginning to mutter boonanza when he walks past).

Centennial Park is one of the things I'll miss most about Sydney because living in the eastern suburbs is like living nextdoor to London's Hyde Park. By eight in the morning the place is full of joggers and speed walkers and in-line skaters; mothers two abreast pushing jogger prams and all of this with the backdrop of shiny sky scrapers and glittering lakes and the sulphur crested cockatoos swooping about from tree to tree. And it's all a public space.

And that's one of the things that really strikes you about Australia. In Britain, there's always a sense that someone else owns the land, though it's not always clear exactly who, sometimes it's just the local council. So it's don't walk on the grass and exact change only and £100 penalty for dropping litter. I suppose the roots of this lie in Britain being a nation of landowners, I don't know, but anyway, it all seems a bit pessimistic and negative, as though there's an expectation that people will always do the wrong thing unless they're instructed otherwise.

It's very different down here.

In the Botanical Gardens they actually have signs that read Please walk on the grass, hug the trees and talk to the plants, and what's more they mean this (with the exception of a few rare or odd-shaped trees that are fenced off to prevent the Japanese tourists from posing on top of them). And as a general rule, you can park for free near to most of the open parklands, and the barbeques are free and the toilets don't smell, not even in a big city like this.

Last week we took a train from the city to Bondi Junction when we were shopping for my eternity ring and I noticed there wasn't a single piece of litter in the underground station at Martin Place, despite the fact there were no bins. If my memory serves me correctly, the railway stations in London have both bomb-proof bins and copious amounts of litter, and thus begins my rant about kids at school not doing litter duty any more because of health and safety regulations, though I'll spare you the proper rant for another (rainy) day.

As quality of life goes, Australia could beat most places hands down, which is why it's such an attractive place to raise a family. When I think back to Britain I feel gloomy and pessimistic and I wonder what on earth the Aussies must think when they land at Heathrow and get a £1 coin stuck in a dirty drinks machine at terminal 4.

Anyway, I like Centennial Park and I like the fact it's public property and I like the way it's respected. Perhaps the public ownership issue stems from the aboriginal belief system, where the land owns man, man doesn't own the land (though tell that to the lands rights commission and check the response - it's all very confusing). Or rather, I'd like to think that's where it comes from, but it probably doesn't.

Today we spent the day at Shark beach without Ella. We've been to Shark Beach without her before, so it's beginning to feel like some sort of clandestine meeting place that we haven't told her about; so clandestine that I'm beginning to think I might be having an affair. We kicked off with brunch at the lovely (1932) beach cafe, where we had home-made granola with yoghurt and berries. Then it was a couple of hours on the grill, the shore at Shark Beach sloping conveniently towards the sun, and a dip in the harbour waters, which have reached 21 degrees already.

This is the life I came to Sydney for. It's just taken me ten long months to achieve it.

Like Blokes Do

Sometimes you just have one of those days when everything goes wrong in bucketfuls, and all before eight o'clock. Today was my last day at work and it turned out to be one of those days.

We got off to a bad start this morning because Ella woke me up at ten past six to announce she'd removed her nappy and done a poo on the toilet. Closer inspection revealed she had indeed done a poo on the toilet but evidently she'd had trouble deciding between the toilet and the potty because she'd tried them both out for size, and I knew this because of the poo deposited in both of them, and on most of the floor in between. Darren missed all of this because he'd slept through the whole thing, like blokes do.

I made sure I woke him up after that though, despite the fact it's his day off. And as it was his day off he offered to go and pay my salary cheque into the bank. Problem was, the salary cheque had disappeared; it was no longer on the bookshelf where I'd left it. And because it was my last day at work, the cheque would have to be re-issued if we couldn't find it, and it would have to be re-issued today.

So we tore the place apart looking for the bloody thing, took the books off the shelves, emptied all the baskets and checked all the drawers and all this when I was ready to go out of the door for work, bag over my shoulder, the lot.

After a very frantic ten minutes I found the cheque - it was tucked away in Darren's wallet where he'd evidently put it for safekeeping and forgotten all about it, like blokes do.

So by now I was running late and when I drove the car out of the garage I noticed the clutch didn't feel right; it had been difficult to get the gear stick into position for a few days, but now the pedal felt spongy as well.

Darren had noticed it last night but didn't think it was dangerous, thought it would be okay to leave it, like blokes do, but when I drove it this morning I wasn't convinced.

The thing is, we'd had the Honda in for it's annual service the week before last. The Honda is one of our only assets here in Australia and it's something we need to sell so we can bring some money home. Anyway, the annual service cost a whopping $1700 (About £600) but we had no choice other than to pay it, as usual, so when the clutch started to feel odd a few days ago I assumed they'd changed something about it when we'd taken it for the service

So with this in mind, I stopped by the garage at the top of the road, the garage where we'd gone for the service. Eventually I managed to flag down a mechanic, who came out for a look. Ella sat in the back kicking the driver's seat and demolishing her fairy wand with her teeth. The look said it all.

Something was wrong, definitely. At first he poured some fluid into a hole under the bonnet, then he shook his head. The fluid wasn't moving, the clutch was buggered.

"Look Darl", he said, "If you've got any way of not driving this, I'd advise you to take it".

So that was that. I wasn't going anywhere in this Honda, and neither was Ella. The pair of us were stranded and getting later by the minute. I'd have to phone Darren.

And therein lay the fourth problem of the morning, because I had no credit on my mobile phone, so not only couldn't I phone Darren, I couldn't phone work either. Darren was supposed to buy me a top-up card at the weekend, but he forgot, like blokes do.

Now in his defence, he forgot because of the incident with Ella wetting her knickers in the checkout queue at Coles, though as I wanted to point out to him, this wasn't much of a defence because (1) she wet herself because he didn't take her to the toilet and (2) the reason he got into such a tizz about it was because he'd forgotten to take a change of clothes for her, like blokes do.

Anyway, I managed to borrow the mechanic's phone to contact Darren, then Ella starts saying she wants a wee and this means trouble because I want a wee translates roughly as sit me on a toilet right now or your shoes get it.

So I have to go into the garage with Ella and ask to use the loo and yes, they're happy for me to use the loo, but it's a man's loo they explain, and they can't possibly let me go in there until they've cleaned it up a bit so I have to wait a couple more minutes while they wipe it down and remove the calendar, which might be offensive to me as obviously I'm giving off those lady of integrity vibes I'm very good at, you know the ones.

We escaped unharmed from the loo in the end and Darren turned up in the old banger (footwell full of empty cans, lady of integrity look now totally ruined) so we finally got on the road half an hour late. This meant hitting the rush hour and even worse it meant Ella falling asleep in the back of the car after her late night at the park, and all the while I'm driving on a knife-edge because I'm convinced she'll be doubly incontinent in her sleep and I'll be scraping poo off a seat for the second time in two hours.

You'll be glad to know we made it to work and nursery eventually and not another single poo incident on the way, though the verdict on the clutch was another $1100. With nine weeks to go, we're forking out on second hand cars left right and centre; whoever buys it's getting themselves a bargain.

Never mind all that though. Today was my last day at work. From now on, it's sun, sun, sun. I'm trying not to think about cars, just bring on the grill.

Yoga in the Park

Ella sat beautifully for most of the performance and even asked some questions about the play - Was that the bad fairy? Was he going to fall off the wall? Why had the fairy queen gone to sleep?

At the interval she set about dancing, prancing and generally rolling about on the grass and the couple behind her were so taken with her efforts to impress them that the guy got on the floor to show her some yoga moves.

They called that sort of thing showing off when I was little.

Fairy Dancing

Just before the performance began, the master of ceremonies invited all the fairies onto the stage to do some fairy dancing; a sort of audition for the fairy to dance in the show.

Ella stayed with us, but just as the little fairies got twirling, she decided she wanted to join in. The gasps from the audience as she ran up the walkway leading to the stage brought tears to both our eyes - the littlest fairy of them all by far.

And surprisingly she was perfectly happy dancing on the stage in front of the audience and didn't look for us until the whole thing was over. They didn't choose her, which I was hugely relieved about, but I reckon she stole the show all the same.

The photos I took came out too dark so I've applied some lighting to them. It's not the greatest photo ever but you get the idea and if you click to enlarge, you can see Ella having a lovely time in her frock.

Shakespeare in the Park

There's an amphitheatre in the north east section of Centennial Park, though you'd never know it was there if you stuck to the main walking and driving circuit because it's really tucked away.

During the summer the amphitheatre's taken over by the moonlight cinema, but before the cinema season begins there's usually some sort of open-air play by moonlight and at the moment they're playing A Midsomer Night's Dream complete with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It's quite a spectacle watching theatre by moonlight, but especially here in Centennial Park because the skies are teeming with enormous fruitbats after the sun goes down and the crickets make such a loud noise that the actors have to shout to make themselves heard. An aeroplane going overhead can really finish them off.

Anyway, we thought it would be fun to take Ella along; an evening out for all of us and no need for a babysitter.

The theatre company encourage the kids to dress up as fairies and every night they choose on fairy to dance on stage with the fairy queen in the play. Ella came dressed as a fairy-cum-princess because it hadn't registered that fairies have wings and not tiaras. Still, she had a lovely time and she'd hit the booze even before the sun went down.

God help us when she hits her teens.

The Batphone Rings - 6

One of these days Darren's going to stop using his door key and come shimmying up a rope to the balcony with a box of Cadbury's Milk Tray, I'm convinced of it.

The thing is, whenever he comes home from a mission I get the full run down on the night's events and it's hard not to visualise what he's talking about. Today I realised I actually visualise him trundling through the Australian bush in a black cat suit, despite the fact I know full well he goes out to work in that comedy Early Learning Centre doctor's outfit. And the catsuit makes the budgie smugglers seem decent, if you catch my drift.

Last night he was sent on a helicopter mission to Moruya, which is down the New South Wales coast. And from there it was four wheel drive ambulance, two hours drive into the bush to rescue a caver who'd fallen and dislocated his shoulder.

The patient's fine. By the time the batmobile reached him, so had the paramedics, police, Uncle Tom Cobbly and all. All that faffing about with the zip up the back of the catsuit came to nothing.

Nothing except a lot of wildlife. Driving through the Australian bush at night is like watching some sort of feature-lenght David Attenborough programme because it's teeming with wildlife, mainly wombats and kangaroos but a lot of eyes in the trees as well; big shiny eyes, no idea what they belong to.

And alas, still no Milk Tray. And not even a calling card.

Budgie Smugglers

Saturday morning, thirty degrees in the city and my life has come to this; waiting for Dorothy the Dinosaur to appear on stage at the grand re-opening of one of our local shopping centres. If you thought it was grand before, think again because now there's a dollar shop. Maroubra's going up the world.

And I wouldn't mind, but her microphone stopped working halfway through, so just as I was really getting into The Fruit Salad Song (you might say a little too into it) the sound went off.

Anyway, Ella loved it, though she'll be looking for Dorothy every time we do the weekly shop at Coles now, especially as the only reason I could come up with to answer "Where's Dorothy gone now?" was "she's gone to do her shopping". Arseity arse.

This afternoon we've been lightly toasting on the beach at Clovelly, otherwise known as toddler heaven. And there's been a lot of jogging going on on the path at the back of the beach and all I'm going to say is that men really shouldn't go jogging in their swimming trunks, especially not if they're budgie smugglers. and I'll leave it at that.

nb. Budgie Smugglers, n, A term referring to Speedo swimming trunks on account of the bulge at the front resembling a budgie having been stuffed down them. Speedo swimming trunks were designed in Sydney and have attracted a number of other nicknames, including dick togs and lolly bags (Australian, slang)