Sven's life in Oz

I wrote a blog post about how fabulous it was to have moved into my own flat and how optimistic I was about the future and blah blah bleugh; when I read it back today it sounded so falsely enthusiastic that I was embarrassed to publish it. The move itself was ghastly and efficient and terrible and not as bad as expected and all the things that house moves always are. You never have enough time to look around and thank the walls for the great memories; before you know it you’re leaving the building by the side door and that chapter of your life is over. Then you get to the new place and unpacking your furniture brings back memories of sitting in the linen cupboard as a child, or the project you did at university, or your friend who makes little gifts from newspaper cuttings and photos you would otherwise throw away. The walls of your new place are a blank canvas and you decorate them with your life.

The truth is that I have good days and bad days. Of course I tell everyone that I am having a great time and I mean it, too. Life is good. I am constantly amazed at how lucky I am and how fabulous the world is and how even when things are the most awful and I feel I might collapse and never get up, something changes eventually and things light up again. These miniature rollercoasters help me handle the big one and give me hope that it will stop dropping like a stone and start being an enjoyable ride again sooner or later. But I stick with the “life is great” routine from day to day because it’s easy and accurate for the most part, and if I let myself wallow in trepidation and heartache I will end up going mad.

So it seems that today is an up and down day. James and I have been out shopping for things for his new flat and had a great afternoon, throwing up all kinds of confusing questions like “why didn’t we have this kind of fun when we were together?” and “am I enjoying this because we did the right thing, or because it reminds of the old days?”. Both of these can be answered with the anthropic principle but are emotionally charged nonetheless. Then there’s the part of me that says that “yes, you did the right thing because isn’t this better than being unhappy?” and I want to give that voice a megaphone and a marching band but the others are easier to hear since they form a resounding chorus in the echo chamber of my soul.

There are days, like Friday, when I love being on my own. (I haven’t really given it a chance since James is still staying with me while they finish building his new home.) I spent all day doing things for me: I went to the fruit market, bought clothes, read books, wrote letters and got a haircut. I invested a whole day in achieving nothing but my own comfort and got heaps done. In the evening I had friends over and we drank wine and went out for dinner and dancing. Then James showed up drunk and we ended up going home because I only have one set of keys and I was angry and upset and said some wicked things as a result.

If that’s an analogy for how I feel at the moment then it isn’t a fair one because James is being  conscientious and understanding despite being in an unenviable situation himself. Hell, I’d get drunk if I were him, and have done for a lot less. He goes out for a nice night, has a great time and arranges to meet me, then suffers my wrath for having the temerity to get drunk but has to put up with it since I have the doorkeys. Each of us is irrational and unreasonable and gripping the restraints till our knuckles turn white, keeping it all in check and waiting for the ride to end.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Next week we are both flying back to the UK for a few weeks to catch up with friends, see some of them get married, and recharge our batteries. I will certainly be taking stock of who I am, what I am doing and where I am going. Everything here is so full on and right now that a break and a rest are desperately needed and will put off the Mr. Krook episode I have coming (though even that sounds like too much effort. I’d probably just crinkle up like a crisp packet in the oven and quietly shrivel out of existence).

I’m not writing this for pity or for reassurance or even to rationalise my own behaviour. I’m doing the best I can. I just feel so much better opening up my heart and looking inside to see what’s there, like turning out an old purse to find amongst all the buttons and fluff there are a couple of dollars at the bottom that are worth something after all. Things are getting better, but it’s up and down. But that’s what rollercoasters do, and in the end, even though they scare the shit out of you and make you swear you’ll never go through it again, everyone does. They also, perversely, remind you that you are alive.

Ahead of my big move, and inspired by Bossy’s Poverty Party, it’s time to talk about money. I call it my ‘big move’, but as a friend pointed out the other day, moving to Australia was a big move: moving ten minutes down the road hardly even warrants a ‘minor’ excitement. However, it is a big move for me because this Thursday I get the keys to my first ever flat where I will live alone.

It’s a pretty daunting prospect. Not only do I have separation anxiety from James, but I have never lived alone before, let alone in a different country. Everyone has told me I will love it and who am I to question the well-intentioned words of my friends? I’m sure it will be great fun but the price of independence is sticking to a budget.  Since straightening out my finances a few years ago I have developed a mortal fear of debt.

Living in Sydney is not cheap. According to stats I read in England it is four times more expensive to live in Sydney than any other city in Australia. I think that figure overstates it but suffice to say that it certainly feels that way sometimes. Being 10,000 miles away from my parents means I can’t just pop over to freeload if I run out of magic noodles or washing powder, so I’m going to have to watch my money carefully and hunt out bargains if I’m going to stay in the black. It can be done but it will take some self-restraint, which as recent events have shown is in short supply these days.

I’m no maths whizz but living with an accountant for the past four years has taught me a few things about handling money. The main lesson I learned was that it’s nice to have some. James used to run all the finances for us both (especially while we were saving to come to Australia) so all I had to do was live within my means. It was often tight but I stayed in the black for the most part.  There’s nothing nicer than a pay day where your balance is that little bit higher thanks to a surplus from the month before. My plan to stay solvent is as follows:

1. I get paid into an ordinary bank account – the “household” account – once a fortnight. (Don’t ask me why – it’s an Australian thing). All my direct debits and regular payments go out through this account.
2. I work out all the expenses to go out, then transfer my spending money to the “spending” account, and whatever I can save to the “savings” account.

That’s it! The only hairy question is how to pay my rent. For the first time ever I can pay it by credit card. So, do I trust myself to charge my rent to Visa every month and then pay it off, or do I forgo the reward points and stay in control? What would you do?

Can you believe Christmas is nearly here?  Where did the time go?  It’s funny to think that this time last year I was explaining to Jeremy (a work colleague from New Zealand) the benefits of a wintry Christmas and this year James and I are on the other side of the world enjoying the beautiful weather and planning to spend Christmas Day on the beach.  How things change!  I’ll avoid the usual waffling intro rounding up birthday wishes and weddings and just get straight on to the news.

(more…)

Let me start with heartfelt congratulations for Alex and Lisa who were married last Saturday. James and I were sorry we couldn’t make it but we thought of you both all weekend and were delighted to speak to you the morning after. Also, thanks to Facebook, we’ve been enjoying the photos and partying vicariously at the reception. Finally, happy birthday to Katie and a huge ‘Many Happy Returns’ for Ben who turns thirty today. We’ll have some drinks for you tonight.

So much has happened since I last wrote that I will have to summarise it rather than a day-by-day account or I shall be here forever. We are both enjoying ourselves immensely, but in true English style I shall start with the weather. It is still spring here and as a result the skies are changeable: yesterday was beautiful but in the evening it clouded over and this morning it hammered down. Still, I am sat out on the balcony on our newly delivered garden furniture whilst I write, so it is not all bad news. It’s the only furniture we have as the tanker with our stuff on it is still crawling past Sri Lanka, but it’s nice to have something to sit on and eat off at last. Customs say they may hang on to our stuff for longer as there is a backlog approaching Christmas, but we will certainly do our best to get it out as soon as possible; we are both starting to go a bit nuts without our belongings.

You can watch a BSL video letter home, or read on. (more…)

Life without any furniture is hard enough.  Life without internet access is almost impossible.  It’s like having having an arm chopped off (but without the pain, or the blood.  Perhaps this isn’t the best analogy).  Since Telstra won’t connect us till next Monday or Tuesday at the earliest, that leaves us all day Friday, all weekend, and maybe even the start of next week with no connection to the world wide web.  There could be e-mails waiting, twitters unread, or blog comments demanding attention and I wouldn’t know about it.  It simply won’t do.

The benefit of living in an up-and-coming apartment block in an up-and-coming area of the city (apart from the astronomical number of outlet stores in the vicinity) is that everyone in the building has wireless internet access.  Of course everyone password protects their internet, but there’s always one that didn’t RTFM and it’s just a matter of finding that spot where you can hitch on their signal for a few days and hope they don’t switch off their modem while you are BitTorrenting ‘The Tudors’.

This being a mac, joining a network is straightforward – just look at the list and pick one.  (I don’t know if a PC is more difficult, but when the Shut Down is in the Start menu it’s safe to assume the worst.)  There’s the usual suspects – netgear, D-Link, belkin etc – and these are your best bet for a free ride: if you can’t change the name of your router you probably can’t change the security settings either.  Sure enough, I write to you now courtesy of a lovely little network named ‘linksys’.

Next come the named networks; these are probably password protected and harder to hijack.  Still, a casual browse through the names gives you some idea of the people around you.  What an eye-opener!  Aside from the common or garden ‘Pete’s wireless’ or ‘Number 15′, our building seems to have some pretty ropey stuff going on.  ‘Jamescruise1′ is positively tame when listed underneath ‘man-pit’,  but both of these pale into prudish insignificance when faced with the mighty ‘Call 04120384X5′.  Perhaps I’m allowing the previous names to influence my thinking on this – ‘man-pit’ is hard to get out of your head – but how many innocent reasons are there for having your mobile number in your wireless network name?

It’s a 21st Century pool of Tantalus: ring it and resolve the mystery, or leave it.  I’m seriously considering the first option.  What would you do?