Another suitcase in another hall....

I'm sitting on a mattress in the middle of my bedroom, surrounded by suitcases, boxes and deconstructed IKEA furniture, contemplating our next move.

We're moving to the Bush and once more I am heading into a harsh, dusty and unyielding landscape, inhospitable to human life and far away from civilisation.

I have a habit of doing this.

Of course the difference is that -- unlike living in  RAK or Al Ain, which are not unlike the Pilbarra in terms of sand and rock -- in the bush I can't simply jump in the car, drive two hours down the road to buy some gold from a vending machine in a gilded palace, more's the pity. No, this will be like moving to a village in the Empty Quarter, a 16 hour drive from Perth, where my local shopping options are confined to an IGA supermarket.


I'm really not sure how I'm going to cope with a life that doesn't involve hours spent mindlessly wandering around shopping centres, waiting to be seduced by things I don't need and can't afford. Hitherto I have considered this to be a pass time, and the prospect of not being able to do it fills me with a fearful awe.

I'm also worried about whether there are any TV channels up there, or even a decent internet connection! If not, I may have to -- gasp -- get dressed and go out and speak to someone! I've forgotten how that works.

But the set-up was too good to turn down; DH has been offered an excellent job with -- and this was the deal maker -- free accommodation! No rental agreements to sign, no sniffy inspections, no sycophantic letters to prospective landlords, begging them to rent us their house. Hooray!

I'm going with a very positive attitude, this is a chance not to be missed. We're getting to live in a part of Australia which many Australians never even get to see, and best of all, the children can walk to school -- another deal maker right there.

I'm seeing the whole thing as an experiment; life stripped down to the bare bones of existence, centring on the simplest elements of home and family. I'm hoping to rediscover my old passion for cooking; to concentrate on writing something decent; and maybe even take up belly-dancing -- yes, there are classes! (This is hugely ironic since I tried several times to attend a class in the Middle East, but kept getting the times or days wrong - how strange it would be to learn to shimmy to the sound of an oud in the Outback?)

Our new home is to be in the small mining town of Paraburdoo, in the Pilbara region; a town so small that apparently each house has its own unique number. 'Paraburdoo' comes from the Aboriginal word for 'white cockatoo' which according to DH are to be seen everywhere in the town.

So, dear reader, next time I post I will have left the beautiful Perth hills behind me, and travelled fifteen hundred kilometres north, to embark upon the next chapter of this bizarre life I seem to have stumbled into. Wish me luck!

A cursing toddler, fighting fires, and the next Jean Butler...

A new problem has developed in our house; we can't stop the baby from swearing.

It started innocently enough with him hissing 'I HATE you!' every time he was annoyed about something -- which was actually a little bit funny; there's something intrinsically hilarious about a three-foot-tall tot, with the face of an angel, spouting such venom -- but he's fast developing the vocabulary of a sharp-faced docker.

What did I say?

Strolling around Target with him the other day, he sat bolt upright in his buggy lisping 'You stupid bitch!' over and over again to anyone who so much as looked at him, much to the distress of an old woman smiling in at his pink, plump, ringletted-self.

This has developed into him yelling 'Oh SHIT!' every time he throws something over the balcony outside (which is often, and in fact when we had our grass cut recently, a treasure trove was discovered down below -- kitchen implements, toys, electrical gadgets --  tossed mercilessly over the top by this rambuncious two-year-old).

It's hard to avoid this sort of thing when there are four older siblings for him to copy, and he mimics everything he hears, and although we have tried everything we can think of to stop him -- ignoring him, scolding him...err actually that's it really --  it is proving to be pretty much impossible once he's warmed to a particular profanity.

It's a stubborn age, the proverbial 'Terrible twos', and the most innocuous of events can descend into a flinty-eyed battle of wills. When he toddled into the kitchen chewing a plastic tampon applicator the other afternoon -- which he had valiantly rescued from the bathroom bin -- it took a two minute struggle and half a block of cooking chocolate to release the offending item from his grasp.

A smart business card isn't everything....

However, truculent two-year-olds aside, we are once more in the proverbial shits, since DH was let go from his job four weeks ago. He seems to have a unique knack for carefully selecting employers who don't seem capable of planning beyond a nice logo and swanky offices, and the four years of work he was offered (which to be fair I didn't want him to do anyway, what with it being the hateful FIFO and all) materialised into little more than a few months up in the Pilbara.

As I type he's being interviewed for a city role, for which I'm crossing my fingers and toes, although worryingly, I've seen this company's offices, and they're pretty swanky....

Yes we are little more than surf bubbling onto the sand, swept along in a fickle and precarious economy, in a permanent stage of 'reaction' rather than 'pro-action'. I would like to be able to charge in -- Joan of Arc-like -- and save the situation, but sadly am qualified to do little more than answer the phone (and speak on it long enough to actually get fired -- this happened once), or write about two-year-olds'. And so it remains for DH to once more put out this fire. Perhaps he should have been a fire fighter....? Certainly the mindless idiots who like to regularly start bush-fires up in these here hills would keep him gainfully employed for much of the year. Well it's a thought....

And finally...

Forget the fabled Dubai Stone (in fact I lost a stone within three weeks of arriving in Abu Dhabi; this had a lot to do with 50 degree heat and an inability to flag down any taxis), I've gained at least a stone since arriving in Australia.

When discussing the many attractions that Australia has to offer, 'outdoor lifestyle' is a much touted phrase, with 'wonderful beaches' and 'ubiquitous parks' being some of the biggest attractions to life Down Under.

All this somehow lead me to imagine that I would be long, lithe and honey-limbed within weeks of getting here, spending my days frolicking with the children in the sand, while DH looked fondly on, turning steaks on the barbie.

It hasn't happened, in fact quite the reverse. Living up in the hills, while undoubtedly beautiful, has meant that I drive everywhere. Add in the fact that unlike Galway city -- around which I could wander for hours --shopping is mainly confined to shopping malls, and it takes approximately forty minutes to visit every shop in my local mall; the freak-magnet which is the wonderful Midland Gate.

In addition, and much to my regret I'm not that fond of going outdoors. Not at all. Yes I do love a bucolic scene as much as the next person, but I'd rather look at it through the prism of a window. Or perhaps on the telly.

No, heaven for me is a book, a fireplace and an open bottle. And so I decided the only way to lose some of this excess poundage was my old friend, the dance class.

And so I took myself off to an Irish dancing lesson last week, in the hope of dancing away this extra weight, while rediscovering an old passion. I suspected I may still be rather brilliant in fact. A career in Riverdance may still beckon, I reasoned.

My hopes were dashed within minutes of arriving as I realised rather quickly that my brain can't remember steps as efficiently and quickly as it used to. And despite the very patient male teacher taking me through them six, seven, eight times at a go, I struggled to reproduce them the second the music started.

Quietly confident this will be me quite soon

To be honest he looked genuinely alarmed as I huffed and puffed -- beetroot of complexion -- thighs, bosoms and bottom repeatedly rising then pounding into my body, as I hopped up and down, and he kindly ignored me while I sweated and hyperventilated alone in the corner for a minute during the hornpipe.

For three days afterwards I shuffled around like a ninety-year-old on death-row, my calves in shreds, albeit with the satisfaction that the pain was due to exertion, rather than over-indulgence and stiff-jointed laziness.

My Perth Pounds will be gone in no time, I'm sure of it!