Time on my hands, feral children, and the Warlu Way...

I found myself uttering a sentence yesterday which caused me stop in my tracks, and dwell on what I had just said.

Sitting on the grass, watching the children's Twilight Faction Sports Carnival, I complained to a friend that life in Paraburdoo had "too many hours in the day".

Imagine saying that? But so many of the time consuming aspects of life - such as a school commute, work commute, two-hour round-trips to the supermarket - are non-existent here. It takes five minutes to walk to the local shop (I never drive), the kids skip off to school in the mornings three minutes before the bell, and DH's job is a five minute drive away.

The hustle and bustle of life has fled, leaving behind a simple, uncluttered existence of chores, family, and internet shopping. Lots of internet shopping.

I would be lying if I said I didn't miss the mindless shop-wandering I used to spend so much time doing, because I do - emphatically. I miss going into a newly discovered cafe and perusing a menu I've never seen before. I miss piling everyone into the car on a Sunday and saying, 'right, where shall we go today?' Oh and I miss bookshops with all my heart and although Amazon is generally better value, it's not the same as flicking through a book, feeling its weight in your hands, smelling the pages before you commit to buying it.

Of course you can pile into the car and head off on a Sunday, but unless you're a big nature freak, and are happy to spend hours just looking at rocks and grass and stuff, there's nowhere to actually go. You can literally drive for hours in any direction without even passing another car on the road.

We've taken the five hour trip to Karratha - our nearest 'shopping town' - a couple of times, just for a change of scenery. Although when DH announced, following a couple of circuits around the ugly, industrial, broken-pavemented eyesore, that it was a 'lovely little town,' it struck me that we'd been away from civilisation for too long.

But I'm not complaing. The children have quickly become feral, and play out until twilight, often requiring a search and rescue team to recover them when it gets too dark. As soon as they finish their school day, they joyfully kick off their shoes and run barefoot to the playground or skate park.

And we have a constant stream of children running through the house, all equally barefoot and feral.

I can honestly say I've learned more about Australia since I got here than I did during the year I spent in Perth. Being in a small community can force you to get up close and personal with your surroundings, engaging you in a way that would be impossible in an anonymous city.

The Pilbara

Learning stuff I didn't know...

I've been lucky enough to find a small amount of paid work from the local magazine, which has meant having to learn pretty quickly about all sorts of odd things. For example, when my editor emailed me some notes and asked me to write up a short piece about the NAIDOC celebrations, my first question was, 'what on earth is NAIDOC?'

Having read her notes, this question was quickly followed by, 'and what is a damper-making competition?'

'What is a Welcome to Country ceremony?'

'What is pindan dirt?' 

'What is spinifex?' 

'Can you use the word Aboriginal, or is it more PC to say Indigenous?'

(OK I didn't ask her all those questions, I looked them up on Wikipedia, I didn't want to talk myself out of a job.)

Anyway, in case you're wondering, NAIDOC is the National Aboriginies and Islanders Day Observance Committee, and is celebrated for a week every July. It acknowledges the contribution made by the Indigenous people and celebrates their culture. It's a big thing up here in the Pilbara, and every town has some sort of event to celebrate it. Perhaps they did something down in Perth, but I simply don't remember...

Damper being made...

Damper is a traditional bread made out in the bush, by swagmen, drovers, stockmen and other travellers, and is baked over the coals of a campfire.

The Welcome to Country is a ceremony used at the start of official meetings, launches or other occasions, and involves acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land. An Indigenous person performs the protocol, by either song, dance, speech or ceremony.

Pindan dirt is the blood red dirt you see up here in the Pilbara. It gets everywhere! Our silver grey rug which I lovingly bought in Abu Dhabi is now beige.

Spinifex is the spiky pale grass you see everywhere around here. It's almost silver in a particular light.

As for what to call the first settlers in Australia, well the jury is out it seems and depends not just on who you talk to, but where  you are in the country. Some consider 'Aboriginal' insulting, choosing instead 'Indigenous' or even 'Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders', or in some cases, the politically incorrect 'blackfellas', but it seems that the people themselves are quite happy with 'Aborigine'.

The Warlu Way

All around this part of the world, there are signs for the Warlu Way. I was curious about this - what did it mean, since some of the signs simply point into the bush? I did a little digging and managed to write a short piece about it for the magazine, but they didn't use it in the end, so rather than let it go to waste, thought I'd share it here.

The Warlu Way weaves its mystical pathway across 2,500 km of remote and rugged landscapes through the Gascoye, Pilbara and Kimberly regions.

The Warlu (pronounced Wah-loo) comes from the Aboriginal dreaming of a giant sea serpent – or Warlu – named Barrimirndi, who emerged from the sea at Coral Bay and meandered his way across the land, forming waterways as he went.

According to the legend, Barrimirndi had become angry with two boys who had cooked and eaten a Gurdarnkurdarn (Mulga parrot), and, following the smell of the singed feathers, he went in search of the boys. Travelling underground, the creature wove his way up the route of the Fortescue River, cutting gorges and rivers into the landscape.

Every now and then, Barrimirndi would break through the earth to the surface to check the scent of the trail, creating a waterhole, before disappearing back down below to continue his subterranean journey.

He reached his destination at Jirndawurrunha (Millstream), and coming up at Nhanggangunha (Deep Reach Pool), he discovered the boys.

Barrimirndi raised the boys up into a wananggaa (willy willy) where they were hit with flying sticks which broke their arms, leaving them useless. When they fell to the ground he swallowed them whole.

The local people wept and tried to pull the boys from the stomach of the serpent with sticks, but to no avail. Returning to their camp by the river bed, they wept some more. Angered by this, Barrimirndi rose and drowned them in a flood of water.

The legend goes that the spirit serpent still lurks in that same rock pool he created at Nhanggangunha, and the Yinjibarndi people believe you must approach it in the correct way or you will be harmed. Firstly, when entering the pool you must take a handful of water to your mouth, then spit it out and call out ‘nguru’ to let the serpent know of your presence and that you respect the land.

Traditional Yinjibarndi elders must do this first, to explain to the spirit who the strangers with them are, asking that they too are protected. The Yinjibarndi people also warn visitors not to stand so close that their shadow crosses the hole created by Barrimirndi - when he broke through the earth – for fear he might be disturbed and take them.

The Warlu Way is now an inspiring drive which takes you from Ningaloo’s most southern tip, through breathtaking Karijini National Park, with its stunning gorges and rock pools, and onto the equally stunning Millstream-Chichester National Park.

The trail continues on to the Dampier Archipelago, and up to the Burrup Peninsular, where the world’s oldest and largest concentration of petro glyphs (ancient rock art) is to be found. It finishes its journey on the white sands of Broome – the gateway to the Kimberley.

Boot camp for financial fuck-wits, and why I need to learn to drive a dump-truck...

One thing I've noticed about Paraburdoo is that it is very much a town on the make. Everyone here is working towards the day they leave, and making money is the name of the game. This sense of shared purpose is almost palpable here, there is no time for frills or fripperies, you get in, make your money, and get out.

This ethos is so at odds with the way DH and I have operated up til now -- money is made and wasted; if it comes in nice packaging I will most certainly buy it -- that in many ways this is the best place we could have come to; a financial boot camp if you will.

Chatting to just about anyone you meet goes something like this:

Me: 'So, how long do you intend to stay here?'

Person I've just met: (screws up face to mentally figure out how many years left on mortgage) 'Umm...I think about another two years at least.'

Nobody I've met intends to stay long term, but they won't leave until it's paid dividends.

This also means that many people I've met are working two jobs. What else is there to do? They will insist.

Haven't they heard of Facebook?

And no job is too menial or demeaning. The other day I casually mentioned to a new acquaintance that I was considering looking for a job:

New acquaintance: 'They're looking for people to wash cars out at the airport!'

Me: *unblinking stare* 

NA: 'It's good money!'

Me: 'Oh (you are actually serious?) I wasn't thinking anything too physical, you know...'

It has occurred to me that back in the low-fat-soy-latte-drinking-middle-class-real-world, we're very much obsessed not so much with what we earn, but how we earn it, or at least how we describe it. Nobody is just a Painter and Decorator anymore, they are a 'Colour distribution technologist'. And no self-respecting shop assistant would settle for anything less than a 'Customer experience enhancement consultant'. And in the chattering classes, nobody is ever unemployed, they are in the middle of a 'project', 'taking some personal time' or embarking on their own business start-up venture.

Here in Paraburdoo, there is no room for such affectation; it's all about the buck. I'd like to be part of this, but so far my only options seem to be the aforementioned car-washing job, or cleaning up after the men in the Rio Tinto accommodation. Call me a part-time-freelance-writery-person-who-rarely-gets-paid/full-time-not-very-good-at-it-domestic-engineer, but these options just aren't appealing.

I thought about starting a local newspaper, but honestly, apart from 'stray dog found on Ashburton Avenue', I can't think of what I might put in it (plus the town Facebook page has missing dogs covered). Of course I could write a very lively gossip column -- trust me, I really could -- but I don't think this would make me many friends. 

To be honest, in a town like Paraburdoo, if you want to make some cash your best option is to learn to drive a dump truck, and having a degree in anything other than mining is a waste of your time. I casually mentioned to DH that I might do a truck-driving course, how hard can it be? But he felt strongly that this was a very bad idea.

It's true that I can't reverse out of a tight spot without him yelling 'lock it hard, LOCK IT HARD!' repeatedly, and parallel parking and myself are as strangers, but to my mind it isn't a necessary life-skill, you'll always find another space a bit further away if you look hard enough. And besides, what does 'lock it hard' actually mean?

How hard could it be to parallel park this thing?

Yes it's odd in WA, but the more manual the position, the more money you earn. A trades person (or tradie) will never struggle to find a well paying job, but someone with a PhD might. In fact, I have a friend who's husband ditched a promising career in zoology to drive a drilling machine. That's WA for you!

Another thing I've noticed in WA in general (I'm not sure about the rest of Australia) and Paraburdoo in particular, is the way anyone who does anything vaguely manual must wear a navy and luminous yellow/orange uniform. From postman to rubbish collector, to council worker to senior architect, you must wear this costume. I briefly considered applying for an admin job in DH's office, but even the girl behind the desk is obliged to wear this unflattering get-up. Why, I wonder? Perhaps she's expected to wear a hard-hat to do the photocopying, after all, anything could go wrong...

Don't use the photocopier unless you are highly visible!

Having said that, DH is also obliged to wear this gear, and I for one am quite pleased about this since it saves me from the pangs of guilt I used to feel from my bed in the mornings, listening to him ironing his shirt before work...

Of course this is all in the name of safety (everyone knows that being a postman is one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet), and Paraburdoo is keen on its safety measures, although perhaps they are a little over-zealous? Many of the Rio Tinto bus-stops -- which service the mine and are dotted around the town -- bear the sign -

Seriously, if you need this sort of advice I'm surprised you've managed to put your shoes on the right feet, or indeed made it to the bus stop in the first place...

At trip to Karijini National Park...

Oh dear, we really need to get used to the idea that this is not a country which can be easily traversed in three hours by road. And when people tell you something is 'just on your doorstep', what they actually mean is that you don't need to take a flight to get there.

Yesterday we decided to visit the famous Karijini National Park, which had been described by several people as - yep -- 'on our doorstep'.

It isn't.

Setting off with a picnic, five bickering children and half a tank of petrol, we figured we'd be at the park in an hour.

And yes, we did reach its outer edges in just over an hour, however we quickly discovered that the Visitor Centre was 55 kilometres away, and all the attractions were of similar distances and in various directions. And the road had given way to a red gravel track making for a bumpy and uncomfortable ride.

I had imagined visiting the park would be a bit like visiting The World Showcase in Disney World, where you can visit eleven countries in an hour, shuttling from fake Marrakesh to fake Oslo in a matter of minutes. Sadly nature isn't quite as accommodating as the Disney Corporation; it takes time, patience and a lot of petrol, and to see all that Karijini has to offer  -- the falls, the gorges, the pools, the fauna -- takes many hours or even days, and many people choose to camp there and make a holiday of it. How naive to think we could simply rock up, park the car, check out the nature and still be home in time for The Voice?

Instructing the children to please put away their Nintendos and look out the windows, we kept our eyes peeled for kangaroos, dingos or anything else of interest. 'Is that a lizard? Look, LOOK!' yelped DH enthusiastically at regular intervals. 'Nope, it's a strip of tyre....' 

We drove for what felt like an eternity through bush land and I wondered what secrets the surrounding mountains held, and what we might be missing. Karijini is truly a stunning place, but oh so vast!

More termite mounds...

Not knowing which sign to follow, we finally opted to follow one for Kalamina gorge, which lead us up a bumpy, winding road to a smallish gorge overlooking a rock pool below. It was beautiful to behold although sadly nature doesn't come with a safety rail, and the splendour was rather spoiled by the three youngest children who hold little or no regard for their personal safety.

It was clear that there would be no swimming in the rock pool below (how would we get to it without literally jumping from twenty feet above?) so we opted to simply sit on the flat, four billion year old rock and have a picnic, while trying to prevent the baby from hurling himself into the water below.

The visitor centre is miles from anywhere....

After a fretful lunch, we decided to continue on the road towards the Visitor Centre where I hoped to peruse a gift shop and look at nature on a flat screen TV. Tragically it was closed, and it had also started to rain.

The petrol tank was by now starting to look a little thirsty -- we had been driving around for almost three hours -- and the nearest petrol station was an hour and a half away.

It was time to retrace our steps and head back, so we reluctantly turned the car around to make the two hour drive home. All we had seen was a gorge too perilous to get close to, a closed Visitor centre and at one point I thought I may have seen a dead snake on the road. 

Next time we visit Karijini National Park we will leave the children behind and book into the Karijini Eco Retreat, which offers luxury camping accommodation -- or as they call it ecommodation --  allowing us to be at one with nature while lying on our bed, viewing it on the Samsung Tab 2. Less perilous and far less petrol.

'Glamping' in Karijini Eco Retreat...

Postcards from The Bush....

One thing I like about all the moving around we've been doing over the last few years, is how you can walk -- quite literally -- out of one world and into another (and as if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared!) One day you're living in a house on the west coast of Ireland, surrounded by green fields and grazing cows, the next day 'home' is a 16th floor hotel room in hot and dusty downtown Abu Dhabi.

And where you once woke up to the sound of tractors chugging along the road and 'Morning Ireland' on the radio, you are now woken by beeping taxis and the international edition of CNN news on the TV. All that is required to implement this dramatic transformation is enough money to board a flight (or preferably an employer willing to relocate you) and the will to do it.

Just over a week ago we did it again, we left the Perth hills and tumbled -- head first -- from one world right into another.

The journey, which we planned to do in two days, ended up taking three (we stopped over in Kalbarri on the first night -- yay! fabulous! and Carnarvon on the second night -  boo! a tumble-weeded ghost town!).

It is hard to quite comprehend how enormous this country is, and I blush to think that in the past I've grumbled at the idea of driving from Galway to Dublin. Such a journey is but a mere trifle when compared with the drive from Perth to the Pilbara, which is just so arduously time-consuming that at times I contemplated simply turning back and taking a flight. And despite promising to share the driving with DH, I found that after approximately twenty three minutes behind the wheel, I would start nodding off so mind-boggling long was the road ahead.

You could be forgiven for thinking the scenery would be dull and unchanging, how interesting could it be?, but what was so surprising was how the landscape kept changing its mind; you could be driving through pale grassland for several kilometres, only for it to suddenly be replaced by red sand and rock; now red sand and blackened trees; and now we have dark and broody hills; and now  -- allakhazam! -- we're back to grasslands again! And there were mountains, and flat plains, and funny little rock formations at one point (which google tells me are termite mounds) -- which looked like miniature mud huts from a distance -- and which disappeared just as quickly as they appeared as we sped by.

My pictures turned out crap so I pinched this one!

What was also new to us, was the fact that there are NO shops along the route. As we pulled out of the car park of Bates Motel in Carnarvon (an homage to 1970s motel (very shabby) chic) on the last morning of our journey, DH asked me did I want to stop for coffee and snacks before we hit the open road. 'Nah,' I replied nonchalantly, 'we'll get something along the way'.

HA! BIG MISTAKE! Reader, if you are planning a long drive through outback Australia, take no chances and pack several picnics!!  After two hours I was fantasising about the Applegreen service station in Enfield, with it's cafe, Burger King, toilets, shop and play area  (you can even buy wine or a mug with your name on it if you fancy).

After four hours I was wondering which child we could do without...

Five hours after my oh so dismissive refusal of food and drink, we fell on a roadhouse and happily paid twenty dollars each for sausages and chips for the kids (no extra charge for the grey hairs in them either!) and twelve dollars for a very underwhelming cheese sandwich. The coffee, which was four dollars, turned out to be a mug, a water boiler, and an un-labelled jar of powdered coffee. We gave it a miss.

The coffee wasn't the only thing over-priced!

We arrive in Para-Para-Paraburdoo!

So here we are. First impressions? Basically I've moved to 1962 with wi fi capability. The town is small, safe (nobody locks their houses), everyone knows each other, and the children are now having the sort of childhood I had back before every stranger became a potential paedophile and every activity a potential death risk. They have free rein to wander where they want, can walk to school, walk to the shops or their friends houses. In short, it's heaven.

My main gripe with motherhood has always been the driving around and waiting bit. Over the years we've ditched dance classes and eschewed play dates because the waiting around to collect/drop off has always been just too much like hard work, not least because the rest of them have to come too. Here my participation is no longer required.

It gets better; on Friday night we put the 12-year-old in charge of the others, and DH and I took a leisurely stroll, hand in hand, through the green and across the road, to the local inn where we had dinner. I haven't known this kind of ease in years, and quite truthfully, I feel like I've been let off the hook from the demands of modern day living.

Our new home is a bit of a menagerie, with resident mice and termites, not to mention the frogs which playfully leap out of the toilet bowl at the most inopportune moments (I swear I've never moved so fast in my life), but this can be easily remedied by a visit from the local pest controller and the foresight to flush before and after you sit down!

The town is largely owned by Rio Tinto, whom are very much the main employer, owning most of the properties and subsidising local energy and amenities. They even have a community advisor who kindly talked me through any issues I might be having, when I accidentally bumped into her at the school.

This means there is a certain 'Big Brother' feel to the place at times, and I briefly felt a little like Jeanne Tripplehorn in the movie 'The Firm'. 

"I wonder if the house is bugged..." I pondered to DH, "Maybe we can never leave..."

 Of course such a small community has its drawbacks, and DH has warned me to be on my best behaviour, "You don't know who you're talking to" he warned forebodingly. He would say this of course, being from Innishbiggle, the original Valley of the Squinting Windows...

On the first day of school, chatting to the registrar about the long journey we'd just undertaken, and the rip-off road house, she interrupted me with "I'm surprised D didn't warn you about it!" 

-"How do you know I know D?" I shot back quickly, (D is a friend in Perth who used to live in Paraburdoo). 

-"Haha, everyone knows!" she chuckled, "we've all been looking out for you!"

On Wednesday's the Big Truck rolls into town bearing supplies for the supermarket. If you don't want to run out of milk or bread or anything else, it is wise to stock up before Saturday, as I learned three days in when we ran out of bread, and were forced to resort to an 80 kilometre drive to the neighbouring town of Tom Price (they didn't have bread either).

So, this is my first post from the bush, and I've still much to learn about the place. I'm going to start by concentrating on finding a decent radio station, since the only one I seem to land on here is a Christian one, and despite its promise to make sense of our modern age with a biblical slant, I'd much prefer my favourite ABC Classic FM thank you very much!

View from our front door...

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!

Back to school headaches...

First off, I want to say that so far I'm very impressed with the Australian primary education system - honest I am. Classes are so well staffed that last year I gave up asking the names of all the different classroom assistants I encountered after a while, settling instead for a nod and smile.

And the 11-year-old girl (AKA 'the tweenager') - following a series of interviews and auditions last year - has been offered a place in a high-school dedicated to the Arts for 2014. This is very good news considering the fact that many people send their children to private schools for their secondary education, and the school in question is not just of good repute, but also free. Winning!

Teachers here are well-paid and well-accommodated as far as I can tell (many work part time, sharing classes with other teachers for one or two days a week), and mercifully - apart from a brief mention in the school creed - they generally keep God out of the classroom.

Like anywhere, the standard of education a child receives rests almost exclusively with the abilities of their teacher, and for the most part we've been lucky in having some truly excellent teachers (although my eldest son's last teacher was, I felt, a little unable to understand his 'uniqueness', and seemed quite confused by the level of blood, excrement and Islamic zombies which made their way into every essay. And when I suggested we keep in touch via email, so that I could keep abreast of his progress, she looked as perturbed as if I'd just suggested a threesome with her and the principal.)

So yes, generally I'm a fan of the education system here.

That is until we get to the agony of the school stationary lists - of which we received four - detailing a long list of items expected to be purchased before the children return to school after the summer hols. I'm pretty sure these lists were churned out of an Enigma machine, since 90% of them made no sense to me whatsoever. The remaining 10% just seemed unnecessarily precise and exact.

My six year old - who has only recently learned to wipe his bottom effectively - had a list of 17 items on his, totaling $85, containing items (among many, many others) such as -

CODE      QTY  BIN                            DESCRIPTION      
2014796      4     410    BOOK EX WA 300X215 48PG 24MM THIRDS
1290053      1     940    PENCIL CASE OMAX 215X125MM TARTAN 1ZIP POUCH
1290126      1     941    PENCIL CASE OMAX 375MM246MM TARTAN 2ZIP POUCH
1689320      1   1145    COUNTER PLASTICS 30S

Mission Impossible

I read through the whole list several times, and apart from the question 'why does he need two tartan pencil cases? - and why TARTAN?' I was at a loss as to what on earth it all meant. The 11-year-old's list was even more complex and twice as long.

When I was six we were required to show up to school with our packed lunch - unless you had school dinners in which case you brought nothing - and that was it. And on PE day it was nice if you brought some shorts and a t-shirt along, but should you forget these items, you simply stripped down to your knickers and vest (which sounds a bit weird now to be honest, but they were simpler, more innocent times...) and pranced about to Music and Movement in your undies.

Now this I understand...

Last year, when we showed up on our first day of school with nothing more than his school bag, the six-year-old's lovely, wonderful, oh-I-miss-her, teacher, dismissed my apologies and said 'to be honest, all this stuff coming through the door is a bleedin' nuisance'.

She was a very wise woman.

Emboldened by this memory, this year we rocked up to his new teacher's class in much the same spirit, bearing little more than a pencil case and some crayons.

-'Does he have all his things?' she blinked.

- 'Oh, haha, no, not yet!' (cue to tell me it's ok)

- (Silence)

-'Oh ummm...sorry...!' my smile faltered..

She fixed me a stare and turned around to talk to another - better - parent, while two dozen parental heads turned to get a look at the bad mother among them. Taking my cue to exit, I slunk from the classroom, shamed and chastised, the two-year-old toddling behind.

It couldn't be put off any longer, I headed to Office Max to address the problem.

Two minutes in it was clear that a) anything we might need had been sold out, and b) I was losing the will to live. The specificity of the lists were making my brain hurt ('wooden ruler, unpolished - 30CM'. 'Scissors, blunt end, 150MM SS').

'Sod it, I'm going to K Mart'! I told the two-year-old defiantly. He nodded solemnly.

And an hour later I emerged from K-Mart laden down with several bags of brightly coloured plastic items which would 'do', vindicated that I had out-witted those horrid lists, PLUS I had saved myself a couple of hundred dollars in the process.

OK, so we still don't have half the items on the mysterious list, but so far nobody seems to have noticed....