Small town.

Let's face it, there are many strange things about going from living in the big smoke to living in the relatively tiny smoke. For example, there is a lot more smoke here because people have open fires. And the farmers usually have a pipe hanging out of their mouths. he he ha ha.

Something that struck me immediately and continues to knit my eye brows with the oddness of it, is the absence of choice. If you feel like going out for dinner, you can go to the Chinese or the Indian. If you want to talk about books you join the book club. The village has the pub and the school. It seems "a" has been deleted from the vocabulary of these country folk.

This also means that there is one supermarket. One village hairdresser (that also doubles as the village healer-seven pounds got me a hair cut and some relief from my rib pain) one doctor, one car park, one main road and about ten million sheep. There's no need for google or recommendations from friends, no websites or word of mouth, it's not about finding a reliable solicitor. You just go to the solicitor. And if you don't, then you do whatever needs to be done, yourself.

So, by this logic, I am the pregnant Australian lady that came to Wales to marry the youngest son of the family. People greet me by name even though i don't know who they are. There is no anonymity here. I found this out when i went to the supermarket in pyjama pants at 8pm on a Monday night to buy chocolate. I saw the hairdresser, the man with the fractured neck and a distant relative of Welsh's whom was interviewed in the local paper recently after being banned from all 14 pubs in the district. For life. He's the trouble maker. (I actually think he is quite endearing.) You can't really get away with anything here.

This lack of choice certainly simplifies things. But also drives me crazy. I like the distraction of research. I like shopping for the sake of discovering something new and unusual. I enjoy weighing up the pros and cons of bakeries. I like making choices. I like sitting in a cafe and going through a list of ten types of bread. Here, it's white or brown. I don't think i have said the words "brown bread" since I was a child. Oh what i wouldn't do for some avocado on rye.

I better go. I need to call the Australia embassy so I can get the hell out of here.