Culture Shock

We're noticing things about Australia which are, well, a bit different from home. So we thought we’d make an ongoing list of them before they become so familiar that we no longer see them. So here, in a completely random order, are some the first four observations:

1. Cafes are frankly marvellous in Melbourne, and there are tons of them. Just our little High Street here in Kew has five or six, and none of them Starbucks or Costa! Most of them do mouth watering breakfasts, and so we're getting into a weekend 'breakfast out' habit that's going to be hard to break when I finally stop needing the million extra daily calories that breastfeeding requires. The icing on the cafe cake is the babyccino, a child sized portion of frothy milk often extravagantly decorated with chocolate, marshmallows, or sprinkles, sometimes in dolls house style weeny cups and saucers, and a lot of the time totally free. Thea is becoming a connoisseur.

2. The spiders in Oz are much, much bigger. Thankfully haven't seen any huge ones round the house but down by the coast I saw a colossal* one on the car roof as I was on my way to get Dulcie out after leaving her to sleep there. AND I HAD LEFT THE CAR DOOR OPEN SO SHE GOT PLENTY OF AIR!!!! I wouldn't get in the car the next day till Will had conducted a thorough anti arachnid check.

3. The Wiggles. This is a phenomenon with both positive and negative aspects. For those not in the know, The Wiggles (www.thewiggles.com.au/au/about/) are four mildly irritating middle aged men who have made a fortune by dressing up like the crew of the SS Enterprise (not deliberately, I don’t think) and writing and performing songs for small kids on TV and in live shows. Wiggles endorsed products are everywhere. It’s inescapable, and most Australian kids have an addiction to them. Thea is going the same way, but with pleasing side effects. I bought her some Wiggles ‘toddler toilet wipes’ (pictured). She loves them so much that she keeps taking herself off for a poo with a satisfyingly high level of bum wiping success.

4. People here still use top loading washing machines. At first I thought this was a bad thing, as they look so 70s and use a ton of water, but now I am learning to love ours in an Anthea Turner perfect housewife kind of way. If you forget to wash something and find it lurking in a corner after you’ve set the cycle going, you simply open the lid and pop it in. Marvellous! Also, if you have a really deep hot bath one day when you don’t really need one, you can assuage the drought induced guilt by carrying your used water along the corridor, bucket by dripping bucket, and pouring it in the top loader to do a load of washing (not when you’re washing my clothes you don’t – Will).

*Every time I think about it, it seems bigger. May have been the size of Thea's hand...?