Jeremy Kyle addiction and why I don't mind paying council tax...

It’s hard to believe we left Paraburdoo just over a month ago; looking back on it, that life seems like a bizarre half dream, the type you get after you’ve drank too much champagne then fallen asleep in front of a blaring telly.

Life in our new home has settled into a comfortable rhythm; the older children head out across the frosty garden each morning, while the daylight is still struggling to establish itself, to take the (free) school bus to a neighbouring village where they attend their secondary school.

Having seen them off, I’ll snuggle back in the sofa bed (the marital bed is on a ship somewhere in the South Atlantic and won’t be here for another month) with a cup of coffee in front of Good Morning Britain, cuddled up to the smaller children until it's time to get dressed.

Watching this show should be illegal...it's a time thief! 

The four-year-old is now in (also free) playschool five mornings a week, something which has left me at a loss; rattling around the house is a strangely lonely experience and I’ve found myself slipping into some very bad habits. Yes, I’m ashamed to admit I find myself most mornings standing, open-mouthed, in front of the freak show which is Jeremy Kyle. I swear if this rather depressing display of humanity was all I’d witnessed of the UK before arriving, I would never have come, but my God it's hard to look away from the spectacle. 

But I’m realising that there are many benefits to living here. Yes, the council tax is an enormous pain in the arse, BUT as a result of this fee, I’m not expected to provide school books – neither text nor copybooks –  for the children, or even so much as a pencil case.

In addition, the boys are receiving heavily subsidised guitar lessons (it works out at something like £6 per lesson) while the school lunches they get are just £2 a day. This is wonderful for me - I absolutely loathe making school lunches, not least because I feel I should pack things their teachers would be impressed with (fruit, wholemeal bread) rather than what they'll actually eat (individual Cheerio bags, Fruit Winders) with the result they usually come back uneaten.

And then there is the NHS - oh God bless'em. Until now all I'd read about the world famous National Health Service was the overcrowded hospitals, dogged by waiting lists and with a reputation for poor practices and abuses.

When a couple of weeks ago the 10-year-old complained of (and there’s no good way to say this) a swollen testicle, I took him to the local GP for his opinion. Without hesitation he whipped out his notebook saying he was referring him to the John Radcliffe hospital immediately.

Within a couple of hours we were watching 'Tangled' on a loop in the waiting room of the children’s A&E before he was whisked up to surgery for an investigation.

He was fine, it was a relatively straightforward procedure, but I was gobsmacked by the efficiency and better, that the entire episode cost me nothing more than a little worry and several cups of vending machine coffee. I also got a comfy bed beside him in the ward for the night – a definite bonus considering our bed situation at present. And despite the pain and slight damage to his pride - not to mention his balls - I think he rather enjoyed all the attention.

Of course services – educational, medical or other – depend on the area you live in and I have no doubt things would be very different in a depressed urban setting, but I must report that our experience was a positive one.

So things are working out and the kids are happy. As for me, I’m casting about for ideas as to what to do with myself. With the four-year-old in playschool five mornings a week I’m keenly aware that I should be earning actual money (or at least break the Jeremy Kyle cycle). I signed up to a writing service website which allocates writing jobs to freelance writers. I was hopeful it would yield a bit of cash for writing dull blog posts on wood burning stoves or car maintenance (the jobs are quite diverse) but tragically it turns out the pay averages at less than 1p a word, an amount even I won't work for.

I could so do this!

Perhaps the Women's Institute is the answer although my knitting and jam-making skills are painfully lacking. Make that non-existent. Having said that I rather fancy doing a pottery course and becoming the next Emma Bridgewater; yes I can definitely see myself at a potter's wheel creating beautiful pieces. Or even bad pieces for that matter. Either way it's surely better than spending all day watching toothless men having DNA paternity tests, or screaming women being exposed by lie detector machines?

Well, just about...

Low expectations and nice surprises; why moving to the UK was a good idea...

When we first moved to Paraburdoo I wrote here about how one of the things I've really enjoyed about my life over the past few years, is the experience of stepping from one world into another; something which requires little more than a job offer, the will to do it and the cost of the air fare.

The Pilbara outback couldn't be more different to the Oxfordshire countryside; they are both beautiful and unique in their own right and I'm so lucky to have been able to live in both.

But moving to the UK was a daunting prospect and one I'd been avoiding for years. There's something predictable and prosaic about Irish people in need of work moving 't'England' and I squirmed at the idea.

Having spent my first ten years in the UK I was well acquainted with the Irish clubs and Paddy's day celebrations spent eulogising about home. I'd been to the pubs of Cricklewood and Neasden where the long-termers spoke with that funny half Irish, half English brogue.

For me the term 'expat' has glamorous connotations of gins on the veranda and exotic heat, it's not really a term used for living a forty minute flight from home.

I was also worried about what the UK would actually be like.  My impression of the place - gleaned from watching countless gritty dramas on the telly - was of a horribly overcrowded, unfriendly, tired-looking place, over run with shopping centres and retail parks.

And yes, parts of the UK would certainly fit this description, but happily my experience so far has been completely at odds with my low expectations.

The part of northern Oxfordshire we've moved to is breathtakingly beautiful, with village after village of old stone cottages and thatched roofs. I had thought that these sort of places were few and far between - a touristy charade reserved for culture-hungry Americans or film crews. I hadn't realised that entire counties looked like this. Our new home is surrounded by fields and the village school is a two minute walk for the children. As for the people, despite expecting them to be inflexible and unfriendly we've been met with nothing but kindness and helpfulness.

But boy do they drive fast and with purpose! I had become used to the relatively laid back roads of WA - (particularly after the insanity of the UAE roads); everyone here has a mission and the roads are fast and busy. I guess this is a good metaphor for the country as a whole - 'busy' - which is why I presume it has survived the recession in a way that Ireland simply couldn't.

But what I hadn't expected at all was to feel instantly at home here. Having been raised with the 'them and us' mindset many of us have in Ireland, I never expected to feel almost as if I was in Ireland. It is so similar to home here - especially if you've come from the Pilbara! - verdant, wet, rural although far less wild. Ireland has a rawness to its beauty; harsh and unyielding at times.

The village itself has little more than a school, a pub (the Griffin, which myself and DH escaped to last Saturday night!) and an enormous 13th century church, but with the market town of Banbury just five miles down the road there is everything we need on our doorstep.

But already my perception of distance is altering. London feels as if it is very far away although it's not much further than Tom Price is to Paraburdoo - a journey I made at least once a week to do my shopping without much of a thought. One local described the village as being 'far from civilisation' and I had to snort with laughter at that. And the barmaid in the local pub told me she wasn't local, but was from two villages over!

Cath Kidston handbags are de rigeur here

My passion for Cath Kidston fabrics - something I developed a decade ago - is unremarkable here. The girls' cloakroom at the kids' school is a sea of ditzy florals (helped no doubt by the discount Cath Kidston store in nearby Bicester Village) and the school even holds an annual Joules Clothing sale - a fact which sold the place to me instantly. And they don't hold Tupperware parties here, but Boden parties - yes you read that correctly. So you see, dear reader, I've found my spiritual home.

So it's all good and we're in the honeymoon stage of our old friend Culture Shock. Decorating the house and discovering our surroundings is fun although I may start to get a little vexed with the house if the so-called and inappropriately named 'handy man' doesn't quickly become handy. There is hardly a door that closes or a window that opens properly although I don't care, I am in love with this house, although DH wears a morose and vaguely suicidal look every time he thinks about the cost of renting it.