Sometimes I go searching for non-existent cracks and crumbles. It just can't be right that there's nothing wrong. I've watched a lot of marriages come and go, and grew up thinking they all had to have a certain style and flair. So why aren't we throwing things? Where is the screaming? Where are the divorce papers? Where is the adultery? Where is the bit on the side that doesn't speak English?

Luckily when I fall victim to paranoia and cliched woman-making-mountains-from-molehills behaviour, Gareth is incredibly nice and patient. He's also not afraid to point out when I'm being a moron, as I was the other night with the bread.

SHAUNA:  Hey, I am just going to open up this new loaf of Tesco Multigrain loaf, I think I've had enough of the Warburtons Seeded Batch.

GARETH:  Oh good! Throw it away because it's boggin'.

S:  What? You don't like it?

G:  Nah not really.

S:  What? You don't like it at all?

G:  It's alright, but I like the Tesco one better.

S:  You do? But I used to have that bread at my old house in Edinburgh and you'd eat it for breakfast for over a year!

G:  Well I didn't hate it right away, it just sort of developed over time!

S:  But WHY didn't you TELL me? You have to TELL me if you don't like something so I can FIX it! Before it escalates into something worse! If I don't know about problems how can I solve them!?

G:  It's just bread!

S:  But for all those months you ate your toast and acted like you liked it when all along you didn't!

G:  It's bread!

S:  I wouldn't normally buy the Warbutons, you know. It's really like my Last Resort bread. I wanted to get Hovis Country Grain which is my Agreeable Substitute bread if we can't get to Tesco, but they were out of that... OH! What about the Hovis Country Grain? Do you not like that either!?

G:  It's great!

Later on, around midnight, I was drifting off to sleep when Gareth suddenly mumbled in the darkness.

GARETH:  I can't believe they did it!

SHAUNA:  Can't believe who did what?

G:  I can't believe the other Beatles let Paul McCartney record Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da. It's so fucking shite!

S:  Oh I agree completely.

G:  Mmmhmm.

S:  So... you really don't like that Warburtons.

G:  Oh man!

S:  Well?

G:  Nah. It's just too squishy.

S:  I don't really like it either, you know. The bread is almost like white bread with a few seeds tossed in to pretend like it's healthy, but they're not fooling anybody.

G:  Yeah. It doesn't toast well.

S:  I still can't believe you didn't tell me. All this time I've been buying this bread, all this time you've been unhappy!

G:  I'm not unhappy!

S:  But don't you SEE? If you can't tell me you're not happy with the bread, who knows how many other shitty things I'm doing but you're too polite to inform me about? If you don't tell me what I'm doing wrong you'll be stockpiling all these resentments for years and years until one day it bubbles over and you run off with some blonde!

G:  You really worry about this blonde, don't you?

S:  Well!

G:  Hehe. Well Oprah, it all started in 2005 when he confessed that he didn't like the Warburtons Seeded Batch! But it really wasn't about the bread at all!

S:  Arrgh!

G:  It was a symptom of something far deeper! A festering boil in their marriage!

S:  !!!

G:  I call it, the Warburton Effect!

S:  Ahh, shut yer guts.

There were three girls on the train trying to establish who among them had the shittiest job. Was it the sales assistant, the coffee shop girl or the Pizza Hut chick? While they were all equally mistreated by customers and The Management, Pizza Hut Chick won because she had to come home stinking of cheese and tomato.

GIRL #1:  Anyway. Enough about work. Who's coming to your 18th party?

GIRL #2:  Dunno yet.

GIRL #3:  Are you inviting Kelly?

G2:  No WAY. She's a bitch. She said I didn't get into St Andrews [University] because I wasn't middle class!

G1:  That cow!

G3:  Middle class? What you mean by that?

G2:  You know, middle class.

G3:  No I don't know.

G2:  Well you know, everyone has a class. There's upper class, and below that is middle class, and below that is... what do you call the other one?

G1:  Working class.

G3:  Oh right. So how do you know which one you are?

G2:  It depends on what your dad does. If he's something like a labourer or taxi driver then you're working class.

G3:  Well. Then I'm working class.

G1:  Me too! And proud of it!

G3:  What are you if your Dad's a doctor?

G1:  Depends what sort of doctor. There's different classes of medical professional.

G2:  Yeah, like a brain surgeon would be upper class but a GP would be sorta... middle-upper.

I angsted over sunflower seeds in Holland and Barrett today. Do I get the Normal ones or the Organic? Can there really be a difference in such a tiny little seed? And the organic ones were £1.20 more expensive than the Normal ones. That's like $3 Australian! Does it really matter when I'm going to drown them with yogurt and blueberries anyway? What do I do? What do I do?

My mate had the same dilemma this week when buying some eggs. These two little old ladies were cluttering up the aisle and debating.

"You cannae get those eggs, hen! You've got tae get the organic!

"The organic! They're so expensive!"

"Aye but you've got tae think of the poor wee chickens! No one buys those other eggs anymore."

My friend likes to save a penny and he normally grabs the budget ones, but now he stood there in a bind. How could he get Morrisons Extra Val-U eggs after that? And think of the poor wee chickens. Fine then, little old ladies; you win! He plucked a free range box from the shelf.

"See!" hissed the old lady, "I told you!"

There's a great article in the Observer today about how we've all become neurotic and fearful about food. We're freaking out about fair trade, organics, trans fats and additives, but on the other hand we're slaves to the supermarket and eat more fast and processed food than ever. These days not even a wee wrinkly lady in Scotland can boil an egg without being tortured with guilt.

I finally grabbed the non-organic seeds and tried to ignore the niggling guilt for buying them at this faceless national conglomerate instead of the local independent health food store. And I really hate Holland and Barrett; they seem to have formed some sort of alliance with that withered crackpot, "Doctor" Gillian McKeith. For those outside of the UK, McKeith is the star of You Are What You Eat, a series in which she visits some of Britain's unhealthiest folks. She rifles through their cupboards, examines their stool samples, yells at them, then leaves them with a juice extractor and whole lot of wholegrains. Four weeks later she returns and they're wearing smaller pants and the glowing smiles of the converted. She has educated the nation and made a killing with her cookbooks and Living Food Love Bars.

Now every shelf in Holland & Barrett is plastered with signs with her gaunt little face endorsing various items. Gillian Sayz, Eat brazil nuts! They're full of selenium! Gillian Sayz, Buy These Aduki Beans! They'll make you regular or horny or something. Gillian Sayz, Eat Quinoa! If it's good enough for the Incas it's good enough for you, fatty!

I really resent that she endorses my sunflower seeds. I don't want people thinking I'm only buying them because I saw them on Channel 4, or because some woman whose personality was clearly flushed out in her last colonic told me so. I've been eating sunflower seeds for years, dammit! I feel like one of those righteous Radiohead fans who curse lowly losers like me who only got into them after OK Computer when they've liked Radiohead since Pablo Honey, AND NOT JUST THE 'CREEP' SINGLE, YOU LATECOMING SCUMBAG.

So, and this bit has nothing to do with the above, I lined up to buy my non-organic chain store trendy sunflower seeds behind a young mum with a blue-eyed baby in a pram. It gurgled and smiled at me and I smiled back in that uneasy way I smile at babies because I know they can sense my fear.

A little old lady lined up behind me with a carton of rice milk and some organic ginger biscuits. There will never be a shortage of little old ladies in Scotland. "He's a nice wee bairn," she said, "Isn't he?"

"Oh yes, he's quite cute."

"You see a wee face like that and you wonder how people can be so cruel to 'em." She clucked her tongue and shook her permed head.

"To who?"

"To bairns!"

"Umm... yes."

"And they ARE you know," she glared. "Cruel! Some people are very cruel to bairns. It's a real shame."

"Oh... aye."

My latest bout of homesickness has come in the form of compulsive purchasing of Australian Women's Weekly Cookbooks. I have read Muffins, Scones and Bread about fifteen times now and it still makes me misty-eyed. In this age of verbose Nigellas and irritating Jamies, there's something simple and so darn sensible about step-by-step instructions, no fuss photography and precise measurements. You can be safe in the knowledge that every recipe has been triple-tested in the famous ACP Test Kitchen under Kerry Packer's watchful eye and gelatinous jowls. And how can you go wrong when it's edited by someone called Pamela Clarke? Is there a more trustworthy, wholesome name than Pamela Clarke? Florence Nightingale or Mother Theresa, perhaps.

Now I've started watching the cricket. I've always had a deep loathing for cricket, the way it hogged the television during summer holidays and stopped me from watching Days Of Our Lives. But because it's The Ashes and my native people have come to Britain, it's suddenly become interesting. Mostly because if an Aussie gets out or does something crap, everyone at work asks gleefully, "What HAPPENED Marshy?" as if I was the bloody selector and personally responsible for every ball.

So I swotted up at the BBC's Sport Academy so I could fake a knowledge of cricket beyond Those Blokes On The Weet-Bix Ads. The site explains all the rules and the jargon, so before long I knew what the guy in the oven gloves did and could then smugly answer questions from fellow cricket-virgin Gareth as if I'd known all along.

The end of the Second Test was magnificent. I could hardly believe I was wasting a rare sunny Scottish Sunday morning watching blokes in pyjamas grabbing their balls, but it was a true nail-biter. Gareth was hooked too, and asked afterwards, "Is cricket always this exciting?".

Apparently not. The commentators who seemed about to explode in their sensible slacks said it was one of The Most Thrilling Test Matches EVAH. So I don't know if I'll become a cricket fan, but I have a newfound respect for the sport and the team that so many of my countryfolk are obsessed with.

Take Shane Warne for example, who not only performed brilliantly in the Second Test, apparently tried to arrange a threesome with his wife and one of his squeezes in order to save his marriage. Forget self-help books and poncy counsellors, that's a genius idea! My marriage is still going strong but I might ask Gareth if he's up for one as a preventative measure.