1. Walk into revolving door and try pushing. Find nothing happens. Push harder. Security starts frowning at you and gesticulating at wildly.

    

2. Realise you need to swipe your smart card in front of a relatively obscure metal pole to activate the revolving door.

    

3. Swipe card. Wait for green light.

    

4. Step inside. Do NOT push at all; shuffle round until you reach nirvana (the Other Side).

    

The look on Big Boss Lady's face tells me I have some making up to do. 

xox

I am the kind of girl who is smart enough to know that she has it pretty good in life. I KNOW I am fortunate (as in, I don’t have a disability or disfigurement, I have a gorgeous, loving husband, my parents are still alive, I have a network of beautiful friends, my dog died of natural causes at the ripe old age of 15 instead of dying whimpering in my arms after being run over by a Humvee while chasing a ball I had just accidentally thrown on to the road ... for example), yet that doesn’t stop me complaining.

Why? Because fortunate, as the world has shown me since I was very little, doesn’t cut it. I may be fortunate, but in the looks-and-riches category, I am not Ivanka Trump. In the looks-and-talent-which-is-more-celebrated-because-of-my-looks category, I am no Stephanie Rice. In the adored-celeb-with-looks-and-so-so-talent category, I am not Delta Goodrem. (Yes – she is fortunate. The ultimate lemons-into-lemonade story. What normal person gets cancer and makes it glamorous? Who else has profited so astronomically from a horrible, insidious disease? Cancer turned Delta from an average, saccharine sweet, B-grade celeb with a fairly average album into a living Australian legend). In the no-looks-no-talent-and-how-she-became-wealthy-in-her-own-right-is-beyond-me category, I am no Paris Hilton.

And so, because I only rank somewhere around 3,301,112,001 in the World Fortunate List (in the various looks-talent-fame categories but not wealth because I believe about five billion people would argue they earn less money than me), I believe I have a licence to bitch and moan about my many, many flaws …

Lately, my husband and I have taken to lamenting the lack of decent quality ads in Britain. We usually lament in public places, quite loudly, so that passers-by will know we have the right to be superior because we are Australian and in case there are advertising execs looking to recruit fresh-faced talent.

Back to the ads. They really are the pits. They don't even TRY to be clever. If I wasn't the laziest person in the world, I would set up a website dedicated to showing the world how crap they are. It would be like You Tube, but just for British ads. I would call it:

www.badbritishads.com

or

www.britishadsarebad.com

or

www.bestofbritishads.dotdotdot.not.com

But ... I am 6/8ths pure laziness so the website won't ever happen. Though I may just register some of those website domains, just in case ...

Yesterday, husband and I decided to do the number one tourist rite of passage: The London Eye. Neither of us had done (or 'flown' as Eye administration likes to say) the eye before and we were both looking forward to it. It seems the gods were conspiring to get us on board by giving us the most precious of gifts; three sunny days in a row in October. So we bought our tickets at Leicester Square that morning and headed on over to Southbank around lunchtime.

I put it to you that job hunting is THE most demoralising, exhausting and humiliating thing to do in the world. If ever your ego is in need of a check, go job hunting in a new country during a recession. I think you'll find disappointment and rejection lurk around every corner and your idea of who you are and what you are worth soon takes a beating.

It's like the school playground all over again; approaching gaggles of cool/semi-cool girls in the quad, thrusting your credentials forward: your shoes (had to be Reebok in my day) and your hair style (the braid or half-pony was preferred) and asking 'Can I play with you at lunch?'. Only instead of giggles, stares or just a plain 'Get lost', you put your CV forward and get ..... silence. That, or a sympathetic note telling you your experience doesn't fit the job description (so I must have been BLIND when I read it, was I? I clearly remember my experience nicely checking the boxes) and congratulating you on making it this far. This far?! I only made it to your Inbox. You are congratulating me because you read my CV before rejecting me? That isn't very bloody far, in my book.

Then you are left with nothing. Because, as I have experienced, once they don't think you are right for position for which you applied, they act like you don't exist anymore. They do NOT (as they claim to do) save you on file for any other relevant positions. You are dead to them. There will be another thousand applicants out there for the next position they advertise and they will never miss you. Employment plankton that you are.

Actually, the above statement isn't true for everyone ...

My husband arrived in London less than a month ago. After spending nearly two weeks nursing me back to health after the Great Bladder Infection 08 (his nursing r'epertoire mainly comprising sympathetic clucks and a constant stream of hot water bottles) and then five days in Stockholm, he has managed (in record time) to be approached for an excellent job, drop in for a first interview (after which he surmised the job was all but his), spend some time sight-seeing, pop in for a second interview and get the position (which comes with a car). If I didn't love him and get to benefit enormously from his talents, I would be supremely pissed off.

Meanwhile, I have been here for nearly two months and I can't even get an interview for the jobs for which I am applying. Jobs with words like 'assistant' (yes: it means 'dogs-body' in the UK, just as it does in Australia) and 'executive' (see above) in the title. I mean, these are jobs I could have done four years ago.

I send out at least two applications a day and I occasionally get a nicely worded rejection email. Sometimes not even that. While it's teaching me good old fashioned values like patience, persistence and humility, I say SCREW old fashioned values and just give me the effing job!

I have had two interviews so far. The first I only got through a friend's recommendation and although it was the best interview I have ever had, it was a very senior position and the other candidates were far more qualified and the interviewer made the right decision in picking one of them over me. The second was for a role I was far too qualified to take on, but the money was good and the recruitment guy 'sold' it to me. Guess the reason I was knocked back? I was deemed over qualified.

Not sure what to do next. If only I was the sort of woman who could happily play house while her husband worked. If only I was the sort of woman whose husband was earning enough at work to support her decadent lifestyle choices (I like nice things. I make no apologies).

Maybe temping is the answer. However, I suspect I may have trouble competing with the people out there more qualified to type, file, answer phones and make coffee than me.

Woe is me ...

The trip to Stockholm went exceedingly well, despite the fact I was (and still am) suffering the after-effects of a nasty bladder infection. There was that incident where I took three small green laxatives instead of three small green herbal tablets* (oh, how we laughed and laughed!) but other than that, all was well.

Stevie Wonder and Coldplay were probably the highlights for me. I know, I know ... hardly Scandinavian, but very exciting to see an act you know and love perform in a different country.

Coldplay was on the Thursday and Stevie on the Friday. They were both at the Globen Arena (usually an ice hockey rink), which is this massive spherical (globe-like, you could almost say) stadium with a capacity of around 50,000. Actually, I just made that up. I have no idea of the capacity but it LOOKED like it would hold about half of the MCG. Both gigs were sold out and the atmosphere was amazing.

The biggest surprise of the Globen was the toilets. While at the Coldplay gig on Thursday I needed to use the loo. Nothing new there. It was before the concert started so the queue was looooong. The first thing I did after commandeering myself a cubicle was to look for the lock. There wasn't one.

"A ha!," I thought, "Another marvellous bathroom-based invention ... a self locking toilet." Perhaps there is a motion detector thing and when it detects motion inside, the door cannot be opened from the outside? I spent the whole time I was weeing looking around for the sensor and imagining the wondrous technology governing my safe stay in this little room. And it really is a little room. They are obviously big on privacy in Sweden, since most of the toilets close off completely. No gap for air at the bottom and/or top of the door, certainly no gap to either side of you so you can see judge your neighbour by the colour of her toenail polish (green is bad ... very bad). In response to your question, yes, it is slightly claustrophobic, yes.

On Friday night I didn't queue. We were late (I know! Shock horror!) so I ended up going to the toilet during the concert, while a song was on which I didn't recognise (not surprising, given Stevie released several albums before I was born).

It was then I discovered that these toilets were not self-locking. As I was finishing up and patting myself down, someone burst in on me.

I don't know who was more surprised: me or her. I was shocked that my new favourite bathroom-based mod con didn't actually exist but she was obviously shocked that there was someone in there. So shocked, in fact, that she stood there for a good four seconds before she shut the door again. So long, that I ended up saying, "Sorry!" to her while I frantically pulled my knickers up to regain some dignity.

Sorry??!! Why on Earth should I be sorry? Maybe I felt bad because she now knew what only Evan has suffered with for some time: I haven't had a bikini wax since the wedding.

What is the right thing to do in these circumstances? I couldn't pull the door closed myself because I never sit on public toilets so I needed one hand for balancing and the other for wiping-slash-pulling up knickers. So I looked even more awkward than if she had burst in and I was, say, sitting jauntily on the porcelain, smoking a pipe. I couldn't yell at her, because obviously I was the one who made the mistake.

But four seconds? FOUR WHOLE SECONDS! Was she committing it to memory? Has she never seen another woman in a state of undress? Perhaps it was my fuschia pink knickers. Perhaps she liked them and was looking for the brand label on the side. That must be it. That, surely, can be the only reason this stranger burst in on another lady in the loo and stood there with the door open, staring down at her frantically retrieving her knickers from her ankles, oblivious to the lady's pathetic apology, for FOUR INTERMINABLE SECONDS. I mean, four seconds is a long time for me. I hold the world record for speedy weeing. I once recorded a time of 8 SECONDS in a cubicle. That was just eight seconds to pull skirt up, knickers down, wee (like a hydrant had burst), close the valve, *pat, pat*, knickers up and off we go! So four seconds is almost HALF my entire private toilet cubicle time.

Needless to say, I was more than a little embarrassed and immediately commandeered hubby to investigate what the problem was with the fancy self-locking toilets.

After a visit to the men's, husband informed me that if I had read the sticker on the door I would have known to lift the handle up to lock and down to open. In my defence I have two arguments:
1. There was no sticker. No sticker for me. Since I read EVERYTHING, even the words on the little saccharine sachet they put in with your shoes to keep the moisture out, I would surely have read the sticker on the back of the loo door.
2. If there was a sticker, how the hell would I have read it? It would be in Swedish!

But don't let me fool you into thinking the holiday was one big embarrassment. It was lovely. So lovely that husband took about a million photos and we will post them soon.

Mwa xox

* Bizarrely, it didn't affect me. What the hell does that say about my colon?!

Friday night was THE night. The night I was waiting for all month. The night Evan arrived at Heathrow. I was expected to meet him there, to be there when he emerged from the big silver doors, which I was determined to do.

To really tell this story properly, one needs to think back ... way back, to when I was supposed to meet Evan at the airport after his soujourn to Nebraska or Ohio or Dullsville or wherever the hell he went in 2007 for his GIS conference. (NB: GIS is not the same as jiz. Though pronounced the same, one stands for geographic information systems while the other ... the other is what hormonal teenage boys use to, ahem, starch their socks.)

Evan's plane landed at 10.30 am. I confidently left the house with confidence at 10.15 sharp, confident in my ability to get to the airport in time to meet my then-boyfriend when he got through customs. Oh, how naive I was! Little did I know, that the one road I truly needed (the City Link) had been taken over by fitness fanatics on a so-called 'fun run'. Though why they would think it's fun to run for hours on a dirty, black freeway is a mystery to me.

I tried getting onto the freeway at my nearest entry, found it blocked so tried the next and then the next, becoming ever more frazzled until I finally reached the airport (nearly hysterical) at around 11.40 am. By which time, Evan could have practically walked home. I, of course, was not exactly a picture of loveliness with a big red nose and 'crazy eyes'. The reunion was not a success and a horrible experience I vowed never to repeat.

Which leads us to last Thursday.

I had been planning to use the tried and true tube and rail combo to get myself to the airport to meet my husband. I know the tube, I trust the tube (as much as anyone can trust public transport in Britain). But my Aunt M said there was a very convenient bus service to Heathrow that I could jump on from Harrow; just two short tube stations away.

Okay. So I looked up the journey on the UK travel planner. Hhhmmm. It seemed to be that the travel planner recommended taking the train, not the bus, to meet hubby. Well, not wanting to offend anybody (I AM half English, remember?) I decide to take the more complicated, less recommended and unfamiliar bus journey.

Getting to Harrow tube station was easy enough. Finding the bus port, again, proved simple. It was there, however, that things began to become unstuck. I asked a lovely German couple if this is where I need to be (Stand A) to catch the 140 to Heathrow. They nodded. Satisfied I continued to wait, not noticing the bus directly behind me rock up, fill up, and depart again with 'Heathrow' clearly emblazoned on the front.

A couple of minutes later, a worried looking ... um, foreign woman (OK, OK - terribly racist, I know, but with a burka on she could be Persian, Lebanese, or a multitude of other things which I am not equipped to define) asked me if I wanted to go to Heathrow. I told her politely 'No, thank you, I don't have any' (I know, I know - terribly racist). To which she again asked me if I was going to the airport. This time I actually understood her and said 'Yes'. She told me I actually needed Stand B, directly behind me. Damn those Germans! Haven't they done enough to the English?! (Yes, I am going to Hell).

Eight minutes later, another 140 bus rocked up and about 12,000 people tried to cram onto it. I was one of the lucky ones who made it. Others were trampled in the stampede and more than one hapless person was crushed under the bus as it moved on, oblivious to the throng desperate to catch a ride. I am not saying it was war, exactly, but when we left the station we hummed the last post and threw pieces of rosemary out the window in memory of our fallen comrades.

So there I was, on my way and already over 10 minutes late, sitting next to a Turkish man who desperately desired two seats on which to rest his 'bulk' and rather resented the fact I was taking up HALF a seat on his left.

An hour into this interminable nightmare, an announcement sounds: THE DESTINATION OF THIS BUS HAS NOW CHANGED. Followed, ironically and even more confusing-ly, by a second announcement reconfirming that this was, indeed, the 140 to Heathrow Central. What's a girl to do with these mixed messages? Well, I tried steadfastly ignoring it until one by one, all the people with suitcases left the bus and I felt it was only sensible to check that the destination was in fact still Heathrow.

It wasn't. I made my way down to the driver and asked him whether the bus went into Heathrow terminal 3. He said no. I said do you mean no it doesn't go to terminal 3 or no it doesn't go to Heathrow. He said no and something else in a language that may have been English but that I didn't understand. I said where DO you go. He said back to Harrow (my origin). I told him (by this stage quite concerned) that I needed to get to Heathrow and asked him what he recommended I do. He pulled up at the next stop, opened the doors for me, looked at me and grinned, "Panic?" he said.

I got off in disgust. The sign post said I was a half mile from Heathrow. Full of romantic notions, with Chuck Berry's I'm gonna find my baby playing in my head, I set off at a brisk trot towards the airport.

At first, everything was going well. Yes, I was crying because this was the most Harrow-ing (ha ha!) experience I had had, well, since the aforementioned last harrowing airport experience, but I was getting closer and closer to, well, to the jet streams of big planes taking off. So I figured I was on my way!

I was about to confidently step across three lanes of traffic and across a roundabout which seemed to lead to an underpass type structure when a bus honked and gestured wildly for me to come aboard.

He asked me what the hell I was doing trying to WALK up the M4 freeway tunnel. I told him I needed to get to terminal 3 and that my bus driver had abandoned me. (I figured the emotive language would help my case but I think, in fact, it was the tight top and jeans that won him over).

He offered to take me to terminal 3 but only on the proviso (an unspoken proviso) that I listened to him explain to me over and over again how this was a STAFF bus, for Heathrow staff only and that he shouldn't really be picking me up ... (pause: cue me to thank him profusely again) ... because this was a staff bus, see? So on and so forth.

So my old, black, toothless knight in shining armoured vehicle dropped me at terminal 3 and would you believe it? I was EARLY! I met Evan on his way out and we cuddled all the way home in a nice, respectable Black Cab. 

Needless to say, I am writing off the bus as a travel option forever more.

So now I am off to book my coach trip to Brighton for a romantic stay by the seaside with my husband. Well, a coach is not really a bus so much as a really large campervan, right?

xox