In Canberra, I live in an apartment building in the middle of the city, near a park. That in itself feels strange on the page – having lived in other capital cities, such as Dublin and London, the rent for something similar right in the heart of the city would have been impossibly high. As I look out the window of my home office several floors up, I’m once again struck by the impression that Australian teenage girls seem uniquely bad at planning for rain.
A thunderous downpour has come, suddenly and violently, to ruin their hair and make them regret their choice of flip flops. They run from the park screaming, hands held aloft over their heads as though it will save the hair they carefully styled before leaving the house. I’ve been there, though a Limerick upbringing will make you a hair realist relatively quickly.
In Limerick, the air is a liquid about nine months a year.
You get used to it.
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Behind the panicking girls, a complacency (is that the collective noun?) of adolescent boys shuffle out too slowly as the girls shout back at them to hurry up. The boys move as though determined to signal that the downpour leeching into their baggy jeans and creeping kneeward doesn’t bother them at all. Watching them, I know that I’m no longer young because there are no conditions under which I would choose seeming cool over being warm and dry. None at all.
Contrary to popular assumption, it does rain here in the Australian capital, even in summer. You might experience seven days in a month when it rains, though some of those might just be showers. It rains more now that we are mincing into autumn and everyone is constantly saying “it’s getting chilly, isn’t it?” to one another just as spring creaks into being back at home.
Seven days of rain in a month is a wild luxury in comparison to my life in Ireland. So much about living in Canberra feels like a luxury because – if you have lived in Ireland or the UK, it simply is luxurious by comparison. When people at home ask about the life here, I want to tell them that it’s not necessarily the dream they imagine. The streets are paved with neither gold nor Tim Tams. I don’t want to tell anyone that things are better here than they are at home, but they are easier.
[ The voice note is anathema to the values that uphold Irishness as we know itOpens in new window ]
Smoother. They are less strained and stressful.
At a recent work event I met a lot of new Australian people, many of whom had travelled in from Sydney and would be heading back the following day. Everyone I met that evening who asked if I live here in Canberra looked slightly horrified when I told them I did. It’s a political city. Most people you meet work either in the military or a government job. Despite real efforts on behalf of local government, the cultural life of the city does not compare to Sydney or Melbourne.
And why would it? They are older, larger, more organically evolved places. They draw in more creative people.
Canberra was designed as a home for the Australian government, and it certainly can feel like it at times. A bit of an “organised fun” atmosphere. People move in and out for short periods and there can be a feeling of transience. It can be hard to make friends, to feel rooted, or to find your niche in a place that owes its existence to bureaucracy.
This is why Australian people always seem to look at me as though I’ve told them that my dog just died when I tell them that I live in Canberra. And yet, it may be a sign of how good life is – on average – in Australia that so many people here are horrified by the idea of living in a city which, if less cool than others (and it is less cool), nonetheless offers the most stress-free life I’ve ever experienced.
For my birthday last week, my husband took me to my favourite steak restaurant here in the city. While we waited for our food, he asked me what I considered the most and least favourable aspects of living in the Australian capital. In the con aisle was the slightly clinical feeling that the place can have, depending on where you find yourself.
The most favourable thing is that ease. How easy everything is compared with life in Dublin or London. I rate that very highly. That lack of friction inside your own life. The lack of weariness involved in living in a place brimming with culture and activity and life, but which you are generally too tired or too cash strapped to fully take part in.
No two-hour commutes to work. No spending a vast proportion of your monthly income on getting to and from the office you work in. I haven’t had a single cold since I got here. Everything is easy to access. The climate entices you outdoors and makes you more active without you even noticing (though do check the weather app before you put on flip flops). The natural world is awe-inducing. The food is spectacularly good – nutritious and varied and infinitely more affordable than at home. The people are warm. After years of experiencing the NHS and the HSE, I feel genuinely shocked to be able to see a doctor at all, let alone the same one every visit.
While Canberra is considered an especially expensive place to live by Australians, the cost of living is so much lower than it is in Dublin that I regularly think about it and feel mild despair. Everywhere has its flaws, but living here has proved that it is possible to have sufficient housing to meet demand. It is possible to have a healthcare system that doesn’t routinely leave people waiting years for treatment so that a problem becomes a chronic problem. It is possible to have an excellent steak dinner for two with drinks and notions asparagus with pancetta on your birthday and not pay more than €50 per person.
It just isn’t possible in Dublin.
It’s even less possible in London.
I’m grateful to live in Canberra.
