Living costs, cellulite, and romantic gestures...

I didn't want to bring up the issue of living costs in my first post from Oz -- it seemed a tad déclassé to mention money so early on; but now that -- five weeks in -- I'm on my second, I can restrain myself no longer.

The cost of living here is ridiculously expensive, and for the first couple of weeks I wandered around the shops feeling like Alice strolling through Wonderland -- wide-eyed and bewildered -- since the prices seemed as fantastical as if they'd been dreamed up by the Mad Hatter and March Hare themselves; over a pot of something far stronger than tea.

'A bag of apples? Nine dollars seems fair!'

Having lived in three different countries, nay continents, in  the past 12 months, I'm well placed to make cost comparisons between them and I must say, the UAE wins hands down when it comes to being the most affordable for food, furniture, and of course petrol - naturellement, (although rent in Abu Dhabi borders on the farcical and of course who can put a price on free speech and liberty? And we mustn't forget that the reason for such low costs is the institutionalised slavery which passes for a labour market, leaving the victorious bargain-hunter feeling a little sullied if they stop to consider this fact for a minute), and Ireland suddenly seems dirt cheap for rent and clothing in particular, and I'm pining for the fact that 10 quid will buy dinner and a bottle of wine in Aldi if you seriously lower your standards (it has been known....)

And yes, I get it -- Australia, and Perth in particular, is pretty much the remotest place in the world and therefore shipping costs are sky high; but considering this place is so darn massive, and the population relatively well-educated, I don't understand why they don't have a go at growing their own fruit and veg, or building a factory or two and having a stab at manufacturing their own  ketchup or light bulbs or mandatory baby car-seats (absolute bottom of the market price $150 going all the way up to $600!) so that they don't have to charge the bollox out of everyone to have these things imported? (Mental note, get in touch with the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research and share my thoughts with him - he will no doubt be extremely grateful for my insights).

And Ikea, that last bastion of hope for the true bargain hunter, is three and sometimes four times more expensive, although it pales in comparison to the high street home stores which are the cost equivalent of popping into Brown Thomas's for your kettle or chest of drawers; even if they do look as if they came from Argos.  All this means that there is a thriving second-hand market here with dozens of buy and sell websites and facebook pages, through which I myself was forced to buy several household items -- including my fridge -- although I can't shake the feeling that someone may have died in it....

Thank god for Target and K Mart, or I'd have to resort to second hand tea-towels...

And just as we Irish scrambled to gain a foothold on the property ladder a decade ago, so too are the Australians in the thrall of the elusive 'home ownership' at present, and there is an estate agent on every street flogging over-priced, prefabricated and air-conditioned, tin-roofed shoe boxes, doomed to be worth half what they were bought for a decade hence if my feeble grasp on macro-economics is anything to go by (and it isn't).

The Body Beautiful....

The Aussies are curiously health obsessed I've noticed, and there are dozens of health and beauty magazines available covering everything from diet to positive thinking, and you'll find a gym or yoga studio on every corner.  It seems to have paid off; the youth here are uniformly slim and good-looking -- like a tanned, sun-bleached haired master race -- and cellulite doesn't seem to exist, which is curious since only the very young or the very thin seem to avoid it in Ireland, and sometimes not even then. It must be something to do with the cold weather, repressed catholic guilt, and the prolific tights-wearing among the Irish female population. It seems, as I suspected all along, that the nuns were wrong: baring your legs is not a sin, but covering them up most certainly is.

Hot pants - the answer to the scourge of cellulite in Ireland?

And skin cancer is a big obsession here too, with clinics devoted to the treatment of it dotted all over the place. Workers wear sun hats with helmets atop and long sleeves, and children are obliged to wear hats and sunscreen to school. And yet, every now and then you will spot a withered, mahogany-brown, sun-worshipper -- impervious to the warnings -- browner than any Caucasian has a right to be; like a walking, talking melanomic time-bomb.

And finally....

Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day and I fear for DH. You see I'm not certain that the petrol stations here in Australia actually sell flowers (and where on earth else would you find them?); add in the fact that there is no Lidl or Aldi for the obligatory 'luxury' chocs, he's really going to struggle to make the day special for me (a day which celebrates a match-making priest who suffered an horrific but ultimately unsuccessful stoning followed by an efficacious beheading as a result of his enthusiasm for the sacrament of matrimony) although if he actually asked for my opinion, a chance to pluck my eyebrows uninterrupted or an offer to take over bum-wiping duties for a week (five-year-old boy still refuses to do it himself....sigh), would make my day very special indeed. I can after all, buy my own chocs.

And so concludes today's flimsy anthropological analysis; I'm off now to see if I can find some hot pants that don't require I take out a small mortgage to buy, or Alice's shrinking potion to fit in to....