Get Dancing Woman!

This is a phrase repeated quite often from The Accountant. Usually at times when we need to save for a holiday or house. Raising three small children and making a living from contemporary dance do not really go hand in hand. But today I made my first teensy baby step towards a career in dance in the new country.

It turns out that you can apply to teach classes and workshops at Dancehouse in Carlton - AND THEY WILL PAY YOU TO DO IT. This is news to me running myself ragged all these years running my own classes and rolling around on the sticky floor or the East Oxford Community Centre. Watch this space I will be flying across that dance floor soon enough biting off the heads of snakes.

Things I miss about England

In no particular order and of course first and foremost I miss my friends terribly.
1. Radio 4 - in particular Woman's Hour and the Afternoon Play. Showing my age. Or my class.
2. Boots, Waitrose, Marks and Spencer.
3. Top Shop!
4. The view of Oxford from South Park.
5. Cowley Road.
6. My Saturday dance class.
7. Monday Hip Hop.
8. The journey from Barton out to Elsfield on the back road. But not Barton itself.
9. Carole's cakes.
10. Our garden.
11. David Hudson and I pissing ourselves about nothing in particular. Usually dance connected but not necessarily. I'm sure David Lyons does not miss it.
12. The Birds! The ones in the trees yes but I actually meant the girls and they know that.

Things I don't miss:
1. The Post Office: Especially that busy one on the Cowley Road that has no tables to put your bloody stuff on AND never has the correct supply of envelopes.

House!

We only got the bloody house! Oh the relief followed by the drinking. I suppose there would have been even more drinking if we hadn't got the house. Not moving in until October so hanging out here, there and everywhere until we get the keys. Maybe I did wear the right outfit after all.

Is it possible for things to seem too Australian?

Yes it is.

House Hunting

The exciting business of house hunting started on Thursday. Two days with our lovely Expat agent Jane was like two days on holiday in Barbados compared with being in a small apartment with three children.  We swanned around lovely Melbourne suburbs dreaming of cosy houses with lovely gardens. Close to cool shops, cafes, beaches, parks and schools.
Today is Saturday and now the whole thing has become a bit dreary as we have seen our dream house, put our names on the never ending list of others who want the same, and have to sit back and wait for the owners to pick us. A bit like being the wallflower at the dance waiting for prince charming. Maybe I should bake one of my famous vanilla cakes and take it over.  Or Frazer's favourite Swedish biscuits?
Melbourne does have amazing coffee. And most disappointments can be healed by drinking it.  Bring on the caffeine.

Springtime

Packed winter clothes ready for colder weather. Have not worn any of them and all of our coats and jumpers are laughing at us from the depths of our suitcases stashed in the hotel cupboards  So it is definintely springtime when it is 20 degrees and sunny every day. I've been out walking early most mornings. Much earlier than usual and feeling very virtuous about it as well - even though really it is just a case of jet lag not wearing off.

What I have noticed about what people are wearing
Melbourne ladies like to wear FULL ON OLYMPIC MARATHON POWER WALKING gear. It is hilarious. I am the only person walking around wearing normal clothes, and these women and yummy mummies are all wearing the same uniform. Long black leggings, with a go-faster stripe usually, black high neck sports top with long sleeves.  There is obviously a trend here for black and they are not letting go.  It is almost a rule. My bright pink pashmina gets some looks. Daggers usually.

You're only going on a walk sweetie, not training for London 2012. Bloody Hell.

Champagne and Woody Allen

Obviously the tears mentioned in my last episode dried up as soon as I cast my beady eyes on the lovely business class seat ready for baby Jonty and I. Seat? More like a little suite. Perhaps because they feel sorry for the person with the baby, but the space was huge for a girl who has only ever done the Flight of Death in economy class.

Due to the excitement of flying business class (and the fact that Jonty fell asleep as the aircraft was taking off) I downed a couple of glasses of excellent champagne, the homesickness just on the edges of my blurry mind. The joy of the champagne and seat was only matched by other two things. A film by Woody Allen staring Owen Wilson. I LOVE Owen Wilson. Midnight in Paris is a lovely little jaunt, a bit silly and very indulgent, but a nice change from ghetto/guns/sex films of late.

The boys were totally dwarfed by their huge seats and spent the first couple of hours in cinema bliss.  Henry noting that the airplane was very nice - "I like this one", he remarked very droll.  We have obviously set them up for future disappointment  regarding air travel after this trip.

The lovely Singapore Airlines hostesses were mesmerised by the children. Rufus even did a rendition of Smoke On The Water at 3am for one of the bemused hostesses, complete with air guitar.

Goodbye Fair England

In the end I didn't cry as much as I thought I would. That's what you get when you are trying to pack up 20 years of your life, being a good wife and mother (pasta three night running) and stupidly agreeing to teach a final few dance classes with a three month old baby at home. Crazy? Yes. Tears? A little.
What really got me going was looking around our lovely, empty house for the last time and seeing that there were no bags hanging on the hooks in the hallway. Nothing. Then the tears in the car in front of the driver taking us to Heathrow.

I guess in the end you start to think about the beginning and I remembered the goodbye tears - but in reverse.  When I first left Australia for England at 22 years of age. Naive but ready for adventure. And no idea at all. Really completely no idea.  David and I threw away the commonsense handbook of travelling around Europe and did our own thing. As young people do.  And it was full of ridiculous situations like having to hand over our passports at a youth hostel in order to get a pot to cook our rice in. And another for the vegetables.
Filling up our petrol tank in Austria, only to find that the petrol station did not take cards (!?) and they were not going to let us go for a few days until the banks opened.  What a lovely very white Christmas we had getting stuck in the snow and spending the coldest night of our lives CAMPING in Florence on New Years Eve.

So dear friends, there were tears in the end, for all the lovely things I will miss about England. Especially you guys reading this now.