Team Australia are working as administrators for a company concerned with aged health care. This means data entry and filing. Remember that period of insanity I went through last year as Secretary Girl? Well I'm there again, baby!

But I'm not whinging this time. Why? Because I really don't care. I know I'm not here forever, and Rhi's working with me. So we're going batty together. We spend our days in a teeny tiny office, typing in medical details for old fogies and climbing over staff to reach the shelves to file things. The longer we're there, the more loopy and juvenile we seem to be become.

SHAUNY:  What would you like us to do now?
SCOTTISH DUDE:  Umm. I'm afraid it's more filing. Do you mind filing?
SHAUNY:  Noooo! I was born to file!

It gets rather depressing occassionally, seeing all this information about people in their twilight years. Some of them are really in a bad way. It's quite an eye opener. I spend a lot of time sitting there wondering if they're happy or if they're lonely, if they're alone in their house watching godawful Coronation Street or if they're got enough legs to pop out to the Bingo. I type in their contact details and wonder who will be my contacts when I'm old and grey and need someone to come over and pick up my wrinkly bod when I've fallen over in the garden. Perhaps I should be nicer to people now.

And it also scares me, all these things that can go wrong with your mind and body. We've seen stomach ulcers and paralysis and hernias and cancers and dementia, all manner of things. Sometimes I feel like nicking out of the office and to go do things like climb some hills or write a book or shag some kilt guys while I'm still relatively spritely.

All this musing aside, the urge to be unprofessional quite often prevails. We amuse ourselves by setting challenges to find the oldest client (101), the most common geezer names (Mary and Alex), the one with the weirdest ailments.

The first one to find someone with a goitre wins a fiver.

RHI:  Hey look at these two old ducks. They're sisters.
SHAUNY:  Oooh er. Just like us!
RHI:  Do you want to be Margaret or Mary?
SHAUNY:  It depends who's got the worse ailments.
RHI:  Well, you have to be Margaret because she's older.
SHAUNY:  But I don't wanna be! I'm arthritic and blind in one eye!
RHI:  Well how do you think I feel? I've got bowel troubles and I'm mildly confused!

Cross-posted to Lost In Transit

I finally understand why tourists go beserk over kangaroos when they visit Australia. Until a month ago I'd never been up from Down Under, so I had no idea what this stranger in a strange land caper was all about.

Then last week I was on a dinky little bus tour through the Scottish Highlands. I'd never been so utterly gobsmacked by the beauty of a place. The landscape was so unlike the red heat and dry that I've always known. I gawked at the snow on the mountains and squealed over those funny hairy cows as my camera clicked madly, trying to capture the colours and scale of it all.

We walked through hills, bouncing along on the peat. I couldn't stop grinning. I'd become one of those over-excited tourists that I'd always scoffed at. But now I see why someone could go cuckoo over a koala. It's just such a thrill to see something new, so unlike anything you've ever seen before.

Australia 1 and Australia 2 are working now, and there's no internet access there, so this getting online thing affordably has become a little more dicey. So this is to let you know I'm alive and well with heaps written that I hope to post very soonly. Hopefully tomorrow. Watch this space. Unless of course I become incapacitated from almost falling down the stairs again due to lack of coordination when it comes to disembarking from double decker buses.

The romantic part of me thought living in a share house in the UK would be a bit like an episode of This Life. I would be doing a lot of shagging, drinking lots of red, perhaps snorting some illicit substances. Or at the very least scampering around in my sexy bathrobe to scoff cake at midnight by the light of the refrigerator, Nigella style.

But it hasn't quite turned out that way. For the start there's my crappy bathrobe. It's very thick and pink. It was a size too big but it was on sale. I look bloody ridiculous in it, especially when combined with my purple slippers with the lilac sequin lovehearts on them, also on sale. I am a vision of frumpiness. I look like the lost Jedi Knight, Porky-Wan Bathrobi.

There are seven chicks living in our house. Luckily there are two bathrooms. But there is one tiny fridge. All the chicks seem to live on cans of soup, yogurt and ready-to-eat lasagna from Sainsburys. There's not a vegetable in sight. But the fridge is crammed tight with condiments. I've never seen such an impressive assembly of relishes and mayonnaise. Then there's the Jams Throughout The Ages, topped with bursts of mould. We have managed to carve out a third of a shelf for our own food, but I think the Glaswegian Chick's radioactive Cheddar Cheese has plans to invade.

It's also quite a challenge getting your washing done with six other rivals for the machine. It's one of those front loading ones. Our washing machine back home would briskly hurl your clothes around until they were reduced to a pulp, but this one gently tosses your undies back and forth like they were made of eggshells. It does a sterling job, but can take up to two hours for a cycle. Quite often I stake out the laundry with a big club in my hand, ready to knock anyone out who tries to jump the queue.

Well not quite. But I am holding three clothes racks hostage in my room. We don't have a dryer, so the racks are a prized commodity. I stole them in the dead of night and I am not going to give them up without a bloody fight. This morning I awoke to the sight of my socks and undies and bras all perched along the racks. They looked rather menacing. I should just try to buy some smalls that aren't black...

No more Hostel Horror Stories. We moved into a house last Wednesday, we've rented a room each. Our days consist of job hunting, wandering around town and just taking it all in.

For the most part I've got my head around these accents. One of the housemates took us out on the town Saturday night, and the more she drank the more incomprehensible her Glasgow accent became. Before long every time she spoke I'd shoot Rhi a bewildered look. She'd shrug back so we'd say, "Ah ha ha ha!" and prayed she was saying something funny.

There's a little supermarket just down the road that has one of those kiddie rides next to the checkouts. You know the kind. There's a plastic spaceship or dinosaur, you stick in 20p in the slot, plop a toddler in, and it lurches back and forth for a few minutes. The kid proceeds to scream in delight and/or terror for the duration.

This particular vehicle is a little red car. And it talks. Every two minutes or so a little recorded voice goes, "Have a ride in me!"

It is an obnoxious voice. It's the voice of a little bastard English schoolboy with knee socks and a freckled nose, the kind who'd kick you in the shins and steal your lunch money in the playground. "'Ave a ride in me!", it goes. Over and over. It fills me with an irrational rage.

I was queuing up with my overpriced vegies the other day when it bleated again, "'Ave a ride in me!"

"How bout a bloody sledgehammer in you?" I hissed.

"Heh heh," said the checkout lady from her perch.

"Doesn't it drive you insane?" I asked her.

"Ooh yes it does," she said. "Just the other day I was saying to it, ooh you fucking piece of shite, I'll kill you, but then the boss came over and says to me, what did you just say and I said I said nothing boss and he said well that's not what I heard and then..."

At this point her speech sped up, the accent thickened and I lost her completely.

After awhile she stopped talking and grinned up at me.

"Ah ha ha ha!" I said weakly.

"Erm. That'll be threeeee fifty," she repeated slowly.

"Oh. Sorry!"

"'Ave a ride in me!" said the car.

Quickie before I head off to Job Agency #457. There's a million entries written on my iBook, just need to figure out how to get them online. Am too poor for a landline, you see. And I have heaps of emails to answer too. So this is a general "hellooooo" and miss you all. I feel a little lonely and isolated right now. Staying in contact hasn't been as easy or affordable as I would like.

I must write soon before you all forget about me. Sniff.

Any ideas where we should go for Easter?

Last night we had a lovely Canadian chick in our hostel room, her name was Natalie. She was witty and smart and the three of us clicked instantly. After awhile her American friend showed up, and the four of us headed off to the pub for dinner.

We were hauling our unfit arses up the hill when Natalie said, "I'm really sorry, I've forgotten your names already!"

"I'm Shauna," I said.

"I'm Rhiannon," said Rhiannon, "And I'm afraid I can't remember your names either!"

"I'm Natalie," said Natalie.

"You can call me America," said American Chick.

"Oh right," I blurted. "You can call me Australia 1." Then I pointed to Rhiannon, "And this is Australia 2!".

I was all set to cackle at my own genius when I realised that American chick was not laughing. Hmm.

Over dinner, after a half hour speech on life as a Kappa Sigma (Beta Gamma? Whatever) sorority sister, American Chick treated us to the tale of her trip to Disneyland with her Mom, and how "The Japanese" like, totally ruined the holiday for her.

"The Japanese were everywhere," she explained. "Getting in my way, shoving in front of me in the lines for the rides, all to get their photos, click click, that's all they ever do, click click. I mean, like, they don't even savour the scenery, The Japanese.

"They are the worst tourists ever, and they are so rude and come into my country, which is like the Melting Pot of the World, they're worse than The Mexicans because they have all this money and think they have the right to be rude."

"Well," said I, seeing an opportunity to be a smart arse, "Why didn't you just say to them, Don't forget who won the war, buddy!"

Rhiannon and Natalie burst into giggles, but American Chick just sputtered, "Well yeah, that's right! And then we rebuilt your country too, dammit!"

??!!?!

Our two new companions were off on a Haunted Edinburgh walking tour and asked us to join us. As much as we liked Natalie, we didn't think we could quite stand any more of American Chick's stories, so we called it a night. First we exchanged email addresses.

And that is when it finally dawned on me, Shauna the Slow Arse. American Chick's name was America. My terrible "Australia 1, Australia 2" joke replayed over and over in my head and I looked at Rhi and thought my innards would burst from trying not laugh.

Finally we parted ways, and Rhi and I cackled all the way back down to the hostel.

My first born child will be named Lichtenstein, Rhiannon's will be Buenos Aires.