On the bottom rung of the employment ladder

TOMORROW, I will be the new girl at the office. I've landed a job at a publishing company and to be honest, I'm feeling a little nervous.

Not only do I still need the sat-nav system to help me get there, I also need to get the boys to school, drive the 20km trip, find a parking space and hoof it to the office. And all by 9am. However will I manage?

Nostalgically looking back with fondness, I had it easy in the UK. A 4-minute car ride separated my kitchen sink from my community news computer and there was on-site car parking aplenty.
It's been a long time coming, but me back in a job has brought with it relief. Not so much in the cash stakes but it was getting to the stage where my get up and go had got up, legged it round the block a couple of times, come back and locked the door on itself.

I heard one sad story a few nights ago in that a British family had come out on a sponsorship visa, the husband's firm offering him the chance to relocate to their Aussie branch.
They'd been here a month and he was made redundant, leaving them with no other option than to return to their starting blocks over the water.

I would have been devastated if that had happened to us. The first month is most definitely the hardest and to get through that and then have such a shocking piece of news is hard. Their container of personal belongings was probably just docking as they were boarding the plane back to British soil.

Due to red tape and a lack of identity, it took us the best part of a month to simply get a mobile phone, car and secure a house to rent. Then followed the boys starting school and learning to start again in building roads into new friendships.

Even I have stood at the school pretty much waiting for someone to make eye contact with me and strike up a conversation and it's hard. But after muscling my way in on a couple of social events, I can now stand and chat at the school gate with the rest of the parents. The ice has been broken.

There's loads of Brits at the school our boys go to and sometimes it can feel like 'Us and Oz' but I never wanted purely to rotate in Pommy circles.
I wanted to get out here and put myself about with the locals and it's only now, some five months in, that I'm no longer feeling like the square peg in a round hole and fitting in is becoming a tad easier, thanks to some key people who have taken on board what we're going through in carving out a new life.