Chronicles of a Trailing Spouse...

Well I got the bronze award in the Expats Blog Awards -- so thank you to all my followers who gave me the thumbs up! Luckily I'm not particularly competitive so bronze sounds pretty good to me; I know my limitations. In fact when I came last in a running race when I was seven, it mattered not a jot to me for the simple reason that they gave me a consolation prize for being such a crap runner. I'm easily pleased like that.  In my eyes I WAS the winner! And although I came second last in a cross-country running competition when I was 12 (I was in front of Fat Tanya, which really didn't count), I didn't feel too bad about that either. We were running laps of the sports field, and as everyone was finishing their third lap, I was still on my first, but I don't think anyone really noticed (and besides, poor Tanya was still only half way around the track). After that I made the brilliant discovery that PE in any form could easily be avoided by hiding in the changing roo...

Well it's finally happened. Heralded by a a thousand clicking cicadas outside my window, the ticking clock of my mortality has struck forty. Forty. I'm saying the word but my brain can't keep up; my planets misaligned. Forty. I don't know what I expected, but to me forty speaks of pension plans, weekly trips to the hairdresser, a clean house, not to mention practical clothing. None of these things apply; the only financial security I can take cold comfort in is an insurance policy which promises to pay off my mortgage if DH pops his clogs unexpectedly. And apart from the monthly attack on advancing grey hairs, my hair hasn't changed since I was a child, and rather than nicely coiffed and hair-sprayed -- as my mother's was -- is permanently in scruffy-ponytail mode. As for the clean house, my idea of washing the floors is to place one of the baby's wet-wipes under each foot and simulate a skating motion around the kitchen until each one is black. Repeat ...

You will no doubt be relieved, dear reader, to learn that I -- after a year of living up in these here hills --  have finally come face to face with my neighbour, although I can't honestly say that my fears regarding any axe-wielding murdering tendencies he might harbour -- real or imaginary -- have been allayed all that much. Axe-wielding murderers aren't always easily spotted, particularly when they're wearing just their underpants. When I say face to face, what I mean is that the decaying wall which hitherto stood between his house and mine has been knocked down to reveal a building with a large glass window running from floor to ceiling, revealing the inner-workings of his entire life. In all its underpanted glory. He appears to live in just this one room, and there is a sheet-less double bed in the corner where he sleeps. He has made some efforts to conceal his world from our view, by stringing a couple of blankets across the top of the window,...

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Christmas is heroically attempting to make its presence felt here in Perth, but I remain unconvinced. There is something fundamentally askew about shopping in Woolworths , wearing thongs (no, I'm not in the habit of wearing several g-strings at once, I'm talking about flip-flops) and a halter-neck dress --  not to mention it being almost 30 degrees outside -- while Bing Crosby croons 'Have yourself a merry little Christmas' over the sound system. And although I've lived through several Christmases in the Middle East, at least it was actually winter there, meaning it was ever so slightly cooler than usual (and the locals would amusingly go around bundled up in jumpers and tights to fend off the slightly-cooler-than-normal weather). Here in Perth things are hotting up, and frankly the last thing I want to do is shoehorn a celebration which can only work if it gets dark at 4pm, is freezing cold outside, and one can comfortably drin...

I remember my first Gay; he was up the hill in the Christian Brothers School, and I had a little crush on him. Of course I now realise why; he was engaging, charismatic and yes, slightly effeminate. He was also able to look a girl in the eye without kicking a stone, muttering 'fuck', and gobbing on the pavement. He wore nice clothes - actual colours and patterns -- in a time where such things were unheard of, and he had nice hair too.... You didn't get many gays back then. Well there was that odd-looking guy who worked in the Chemist and lived with his mother, but his gayness was never confirmed beyond the odd scurrilous whisper. Gay happened on telly - Stephen in Dynasty was gay. Poor Stephen. But I can't think of another single case as I sit and type. It will come to me no doubt, but maybe not.... So when the boy from the CBS confided to my best friend that he was gay, it was big news. She of course immediately told me, with the impossible caveat that I couldn...

We recently took a trip down south to Pemberton (four hour drive from Perth, five and a half if you set the sat nav incorrectly). To be honest, my motivation for this trip was largely based around the fact that Pemberton sounds a bit like Pemberley - that great rolling Derbyshire estate owned by Mr Darcy in   'Pride and Prejudice' --  and I had some half arsed notion that I might actually spot Colin Firth's 'Darcy' emerging from a lake, ruffle shirt clinging, dripping with lake-water, brooding and proud.  Oh lovable, proud, Darcy! To an extent I almost did get a bit of Jane Austen's England. Pemberton, and the surrounding area, is astonishingly green and were it not for the red sand which bordered the roads and tracks  (oh, and the tin houses - lots of tin houses!) , one could almost believe they were driving through Derbyshire, with verdant hills and lush forests.  We visited the beautiful Karri Valley resort , which nestles snugly on the edge of ...

School holidays nightmares... I hate school holidays. They feel like a personal attack on those of us who are reckless enough to have more than two or three kids. I don't quite know who is inflicting this attack -- I haven't thought it through that far -- but probably some kind of 'one-child policy' conspiracists ...or rather, 'two-to-three-child-policy' conspiracists, who disapprove of the four-or-more brigade). I say this because, when I had just a couple of kids I quite liked the school hols; for one I could snooze late by locking the bedroom door so the children couldn't escape (they all slept in my bed anyhow), putting on a Little Mermaid DVD, and throwing brioches, muffins and milk at them so that I could snatch an extra hour of semi-dreaming, albeit with a Disney soundtrack. We'd eventually get dressed and venture out to a play centre or park for a couple of hours, followed by baby-bowls from Bewley's (ah for the days when the kids w...

A couple of months ago I wrote an article for a Perth magazine about the experience of moving to a foreign country, and the difficulties of coping without family around. In it, I advised building up a network of friends to compensate for lack of family. I also suggested getting out and about, joining groups, and generally keeping busy to avoid the inevitable homesickness which goes along with adapting to a new culture. Yeah I'm wise like that. Or as my family would argue, annoying. But then that was before DH went away to work up in the Pilbarra, leaving me to adapt to my new life and surroundings alone. Before he left I spent my days busily darting from class to coffee morning; ferrying kids to music and drama, as well as occasionally driving into the city to meet him for lunch. I had defeated culture shock! I laughed in the face of homesickness! I was FINE! I had adapted with as little fuss as possible! My life was a smug and self-satisfied...

After five months of humming and hawing, we've finally decided that in order to keep our collective sanity intact, we really do need to move out of our tiny treehouse. It has served it's purpose well; we have settled into our little community (by which I mean I know three people), the children are happy in their school, and the beautiful surroundings have provided a dramatic backdrop for our introduction to life in Australia. However, the truth is that pretty as it is, the house is really not much more than a glorified apartment, something which really doesn't work for a family of seven (albeit with the largest member absent two thirds of the time). It offers so little privacy that when I shower the children tend to gather in the bathroom to ask me questions through the misty glass (the bathroom door doesn't close) and our living room also serves as a kitchen/dining/dressing/occasional-conjugal-quickie-before-the-children-notice-room (there's no pri...

Ever since an illicit copy of the Ikea catalogue landed in my lap sometime in the early 2000s, I’ve had a love affair with the store. Back in those days -- due to Irish planning laws which deemed the store too big -- there was no Ikea in Ireland, and we were obliged to take the ferry to the UK (as we were/ still are for so many other things), or head north of the border to fill our cars to the ceiling with those sleek, Swedish and affordable designs. It moved beyond the dull, family-owned furniture shops which dominated towns and cities of the Republic at the time - with their ugly squishy sofas and mahogany nests of tables. It was revolutionary, it was exciting, with its effortless, clean designs and clever flat-packaging. <><> </> <><> </> <><> </> When the second boy-child was only six-weeks-old, we went on holiday to Tuscany. Yes I know, I know, six weeks old - what was I thinking? And worse was the dis...

Perhaps I was a little unfair to Aussies in my last post. I must admit I was generalising about Midland which -- it must be said -- doesn't fairly represent, well, anywhere. Midland is what you'd call 'red-neck' country, and what else can you expect what with all those houses hidden in the woods and chainsaws and stuff? Oh, and sensual massage parlours, lets not forget about those (my favourite of which is called 'il signore's Retreat - sensual massage' --  which is located between a petrol station and a tyre shop -- and which presumably comes with a happy ending, so to speak). Getting to know you! I reported three months ago that I had yet to lay eyes on my neighbours and as of today this remains the status quo . Although I would quite like to have a word with them, just to let them know that their house appears to be splitting down the middle and on the verge of collapsing and rolling down the hill (I don't think they can see that from their sid...