1. How's married life?
2. When are you going to have babies?

Together, we brainstormed over the best way to counter such well-meaning conversation starters. Together, we shared our most frequently used comeback lines.

To question number 1, I found out that Tony's answer of "Married life is great, everyone should do it" was very similar to that of Sarah and E-gene's "Married life is great, we highly recommend it."

I also gave Sarah my ultimate buzz-off-will-you comeback to question number 2: "Stop discussing my uterus." We then came to the conclusion that while most people are very game with asking when we plan to have babies, any discussion of female body parts which are very much a part of the baby-having process becomes an absolute conversation stopper. It works a charm.

I don't think people realise how intrusive it gets when they decide that tick-tock-can't stop chatter is the way to go with newlyweds. Honestly, we don't need to be told that it gets harder to have babies when you're over 30.

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I'm really glad to be back in Canberra. I've spent this whole week rediscovering wedded bliss (watching bad TV I want to watch, with someone who's interesting to talk to) and taking long breaks from work. (Whole day on Monday, half day on Wednesday because the power got cut in the office.)

There's nothing like bad company for a week to make you really, really miss your husband.

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The house stuff is moving forward. We've basically gotten a new house inspection report that says everything is in good to very good condition, and the sellers' solicitor has finally replied to say that the changes we recommended in the contract are good to go.

We've also managed to find a couple in church who'd love to take over the lease for the Palmerston house once we move out. I'm thrilled to bits over this one. I'm a hugely sentimental sap at times, but because Palmerston is the first house Tony and I officially found and moved into as newlyweds, I'm finding it hard to let it go. The fact that it's going to be taken over by people we know is a huge plus, because that way we can invite ourselves over, walk around and go, "Aaaahhh... we used to live here!"

What I'm a little alarmed about is how everyone involved in the housing process talks only to Tony. I must really seem the rather financially daft future mistress of the house, methinks. Just 2 nights ago, Bonnie-from-the-bank called and left a message on OUR answering machine for "Mr Tony". I apparently dropped off the face of the house purchase process. The solicitor calls him, the housing agent calls him, the mortgage broker calls him. The only time they call me is to find out how to call him. Am starting to feel a little like the clueless bimbo wife who only knows how to spend the mulah on shoes, and leaves all the 'hard money stuff' to da man.

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Had a rather unsettling conversation with an old friend this past week. It had something to do with that weekend when I - here it comes - chucked a nana, and got all emotional about not having enough fun.

Seriously, if life imitated art - and if The Sims were art - I think I have a higher 'playful' quotient than Tony. My need for fun far outstrips his on occasion. I can literally feel my Fun bar start to go into the red if he doesn't suggest something different, pronto. I have also, on extreme occasions, stood around and waved my arms God-ward when desperate and feeling kooky.

Part of being opposites, I suppose. Part of living in suburbia. Part of living in a different part of the world that doesn't know the meaning of retail therapy. And perhaps, part of being married and settled into a routine.

The friend I was talking to meant well. She suggested I stopped apologising for needing to spend money on myself, and start asking for more equality in opinion regarding how money should be spent. (I am paraphrasing big time here.) Privately, I think she fears I'm being walked over and I'm not representing my needs adequately in the marriage. I also don't think it helps that I referred to the new house as "that stupid house" in frustration. Sucker of money and all the fun it can buy.

The truth is, it isn't that I don't go shopping on occasion and have a girly splurge... I just don't find the time to do it anymore. Australia's absolutely frustrating retail-wise, because the shops open when you're working and close when you're not. What is the logic in that? Weekends for us are spent cleaning the house and preparing for church etc, and I end up lying on my bed some Saturdays yelling at the husband as if it's his fault his country doesn't cater to my habits.

The other truth is that the husband really doesn't find joy doing some of the things I love doing (i.e. playing pool, shopping, going out on a whim in the middle of the night just because.) And while others might like to jump up and down and insist that isn't fair to me, I think it's fairer to say that my key problem is my total lack of real girlfriends.

And cheap petrol, with access to a car.

And Canberra not being Singapore.

I used to resent it when the young marrieds in the church in Singapore suddenly swanned off to have their own rendezvous of newlyweds-only. I used to think that frustrating, selfish as heck, and cliquish. But I would love to have a clique like that to lean on now. Because honestly, single people don't feel like they can be close friends with us anymore and I find them leaving us out of stuff all the time now. Doesn't help that Canberra's idea of distance is anywhere north of Lake Burley Griffin - and we are far, far north of Lake Burley Griffin. Doesn't help that I didn't grow up in Australia either. These aren't real reasons not to form close friendships, but they sure make it trickier.

I just read this gorgeous, gorgeous book called Almost French. It's a autobiography of Sarah Turnbull, an Australian journalist who moved to France for a Frenchman she barely knew. There are whole paragraphs I read over and over because they struck such a chord with me. I KNOW what she's talking about. I feel it deep down and I identify completely with stuff she's gone through. The bewilderment. The frustration with a different culture. The loneliness with not having girlfriends you can trust.

"His own Australian-born children are studying to be lawyers and teachers. To them, Sydney is home. But for him, the choice is not so simple. ... His life is a constant dilemma: in Australia he feels Greek; in Greece he feels Australian.

'It's a bitter-sweet thing, knowing two cultures,' he sighs. 'Once you leave your birthplace nothing is ever the same.'"


"Such is the nature of expatriate life. 'Betwixt and between' was how one Paris-based American writer described having two homelands at a literary evening I attended. Stripped of romance, perhaps that's what being an expat is all about: a sense of not wholly belonging."