Chronicles of a Trailing Spouse...

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 a...

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 brog...