Within a couple of months of relocating to Melbourne, newspaper columnist Paul Dalgarno has a new baby, a new home and a new job. Words Isobel Palmer
“I am sitting in the shower with my wife. I’m rubbing her back to try and ease the labour pains. It’s about 9.30pm on Christmas Day in Australia, and neither of us realise the birth of our second son is imminent. There’s just us and the water.
The ensuite shower and double bed of our private room are a far cry from the Glasgow hospital ward where Kolya was born just under two years ago. Now, we’re in the Family Birth Centre in Heidelberg, Melbourne – the philosophy is home birthing in a hospital setting, with the emphasis on non-intervention.
We only arrived in Heathmont – a suburb about 24km east of Melbourne – at the end of October. For my wife, Jess, it was a return to her hometown and her huge, extended family. For me, it was a new life a long way from growing up in Aberdeen and my career in Glasgow newspapers.
We had been talking about moving for some time. Now, with a second child on the way, it made sense to be where we had family support. I had no relations in Glasgow – my parents live in Spain – but it was still tough saying goodbye to everyone.
So here I am, assuming I’m in for a long-haul labour. Kolya’s birth, our first, was a huge drama, which nearly ended in an emergency C-section after 10 or 11 hours. Here, we’ve barely had time to look around our room before the midwife is kneeling down beside us with her birthing kit. She is totally chilled. “Do you feel like pushing?” she asks Jess, “then push!” Finn is born in an hour. It’s all so laidback – but then Australia is so different.
Finn has settled into life here very well, especially now that we have our own home. We were lucky enough to find a place to housesit after a couple of months living in one room at Jess’s parents’. This means we can save up more for our own house, so it’s ideal.
Our family now has a home, a car and I have a job. I can’t tell you what a relief it was finally finding work. It may sound clichéd or sexist, but I think whoever is the main earner in a relationship feels the pressure to find a job and take care of those basics whenever you do a move like this. I taught English originally – Jess and I met while we were both teaching English as a foreign language in Italy – and I got into journalism via The Big Issue
in 2004. I worked at The Sunday Herald and The Herald, ultimately editing the Saturday magazine. I was a columnist, too, writing about fatherhood and my views on everyday situations. That gave me the idea to start a blog – it’s called Innocent in Australia – and covers my experience of coming here and what it’s like to cope with a new life and a new baby.
I started work in December as a section editor for a new website in Melbourne called The Conversation. We will be commissioning specialist pieces from academics and researchers to supply to other publications. I’m finding it fascinating being involved in a start-up and the job came just at the right time, because we were running out of money.
But I still get lost in the city, and my first day at work was a nightmare. I was two hours late and arrived absolutely drenched in sweat. I went 20km too far, getting more and more lost, then I got stuck behind a police car and couldn’t pick up calls from my boss!
I love driving when I’m not in the city. The roads remind me of computer games when I was a kid – the intersections, the traffic lights hanging down. But the city centre is difficult. There are trams and signs you don’t understand, rules about turning left – it’s a lot to get used to. We were very lucky to get given a car when we arrived, though.
My advice is to take a serious look into the price of things before you come. I was really taken aback. The exchange rate is much worse now – $1.50 to the pound where it used to be $3 – and we’ve found everything more expensive. Take plenty of money.
When we were packing up to leave, we knew the shipping on each tea chest was £45 and in the last couple of days we were running out of time and so started chucking things out, even new pairs of running shoes. We thought we’d save money and replace things when we got to Australia. It was such a big mistake.
You don’t expect to things to be different in a country that, on the face of it, seems so similar. People are much more direct here and sometimes I find them a little short. Scottish people say thank you about seven times when buying a packet of chewing gum – we are ridiculously polite.
I do like the Australian positivity, but it’s no surprise to me because I’ve been married to an Australian for six years. I worry that I don’t come across as optimistic. The Scottish attitude is to downplay stuff: even if you’re really happy you say I’m okay or it could be worse, and that’s what I’m comfortable with. They must find me a dour so-and-so!
People in Melbourne talk more about the weather than we do. It can be both boiling hot and pouring down with rain in one day. Jess and I joke about the fact that for so many years, she has had a long face every Scottish summer and couldn’t wait for an Australian summer. Our first one here has been one of the rainiest on record. Then sometimes it’s so hot we can’t go outside – the whole family had to sit inside yesterday because it was 40ºC.
I’m taking things day-by-day and enjoying my family – Kolya is really benefitting from having grandparents and extended family around.
I think the first year or two of a move like this are about taking care of the basics. Having a new baby at this point is a benefit – I don’t miss seeing my friends because I don’t have any here yet, so the isolation is fine.
You sense it’s a good time to be in Australia. Things are changing rapidly – there’s a real boom and so much building going on; capital projects going ahead at a time when that seems almost inconceivable in the Western Europe.
I don’t want to jump up and down and say this is all amazing, but I am happy. It seems like an adventure to other people but it’s different when you’re the one going through it."
To read and subscribe to Innocent in Australia, pauldalgarno.wordpress.com.
Follow Paul on Twitter at twitter.com/PaulDalgarno
