A New Life

It's so beautiful here. The sand is golden, the sea and sky are blue – it's like an ad in a travel brochure. And we've always wanted to live here. It's our dream come true.

Or so we tell ourselves. The thing is, I cannot remember wanting to come here. I cannot remember scrimping and saving and planning, and the excitement of building our new life here. Life at home – in England – seems like a dream or a story, more like someone else's life than my own. Our life here – the last few months – feels like the only reality I have ever known.

But still, it is beautiful here. The house is small, but big enough for the two of us. Part of me thinks there should be a second bedroom, but that is nonsense. We have no family to visit, no friends from England who might want to come and see us here. It's just the two of us. We have a dining room and kitchen combined, with a breakfast bar and an "American style" fridge. I think "American style" means "huge". It's wasted on the two of us. The lounge has French windows that open onto a patio that overlooks the sea, and the bedroom at the side of the house has a view of green fields, exotic flowers and spectacular skies. It is beautiful here.

Of course, we have to work for it. The house itself is paid for (though, oddly, I cannot remember how we managed that), but we must work to pay the bills – electricity, fuel, food – the everyday things of life. I work in the supermarket in the town along the highway. Checkout work is dull, and part of me feels I might be capable of more, but it's a job and it brings in the dollars. My husband works in the bank. He seems happy enough there.

We have our weekends and evenings to ourselves to enjoy our new life. We walk along the clifftop and the beach. We swim. We drink cold white wine and watch the sunset over the sea. We had a barbecue on the beach on Christmas day. (So different from home, yet I felt more than the cold and the turkey and pudding were missing somehow.) When we have had a few days leisure we have visited Sydney and Canberra. We have seen kangaroos and koalas in the wild, and watched dolphins swim. We are planning a trip to Uluru soon.

It is a wonderful country. I love it here.

But still, I wonder and I worry.

Why do I remember so little of our life in England? What I do remember seems like something learnt by rote. "We have always wanted to live in Australia." "Our parents are dead, we have no children and no siblings, so why not make a new life for ourselves?" "We lived in a small town in Leicestershire. You won't have heard of it." "I worked in a dress shop, my husband was an accountant."

None of it seems real.

It scares me rather.