Last week I caught up with an old friend at home in Dublin. We had a video call, and I sat in the kitchen enjoying a Friday morning cup of coffee while she sat with elbows propped on her bedroom desk as the blackness of a December night in Dublin reinforced the distance between us.
Maintaining links with home after you emigrate requires scheduling and effort. Letting the calls slide too often can mean courting the possibility of losing touch completely. They always feel like a faff in advance – since the pandemic, video calls incite the worst of office job ennui until they happen.
Afterwards, though, I always feel better for having seen a friendly face. It’s the closest you can feel to old friends without travelling for 30 hours. My friend caught me up on her life lately and the current mood at home before asking how things were going over here as we sauntered into our first Canberra summer.
The e-scooters all around Canberra can be rented through an app, and I find them a highly efficient way of getting about the centre of the city
I relayed the apocalyptic scenes that unfolded in the Australian capital the previous weekend when locals were caught unawares by an afternoon of very heavy rain. My husband and I, having just escaped a perpetually damp life in London and still baffled by the idea that it’s somehow late spring, still carry umbrellas. Just in case. Sure you know yourself. A Limerick childhood has left me unable to trust the sky not to turn suddenly mean as an auld fella refused service by the barman.
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A no-notice drenching is so common at home that you will be roundly chastised for getting caught in a downpour. “And hadn’t you any umbrella?” everyone will say scornfully, with a tone of “good enough for you”. I recall just such an incident in my teens when, arriving home from school with sodden hair and scarf, shivering in boots squelching with water one Baltic March afternoon, my uncle, who happened to be visiting, declared “Ah it’s herself and no umbrella. Are you just in from the Riviera, is it?” In Ireland, we understand that the weather is sometimes just out to get you. If you “get got”, it’s always your own fault.
People in Canberra don’t take this approach because weather generally seems more stable and predictable here. As we took shelter from the deluge in a cafe, a shook-looking local informed me (as scantily clad teenage girls in sandals ran shrieking in horror through the downpour) that rain like this isn’t usual at this time of year. Nobody seemed prepared, apart from one particularly smug-looking man making his way through the sodden hordes with a golf umbrella and a slightly insufferable smirk. It was too wet, I told my friend when we chatted, even to scoot home that day. The splashing would destroy your clothes.
“Oh, Jesus,” she said to me. “You can barely mention scooters in Dublin without a national incident.”
I was intrigued, as new Irish regulations are coming to limit the use of e-scooters to cycle lanes, the over-16s and a 20km speed limit. They will also prevent users from carrying goods or a passenger on an e-scooter. I thought of myself scooting the short distance back to my apartment here with a bag of groceries slung over my elbow.
The e-scooters all around Canberra can be rented through an app, and I find them a highly efficient way of getting about the centre of the city. The only real downsides so far are trying to resist shouting “weeeeeee!” every time I go a bit fast on them – because this is The Irish Times after all and I’d prefer the Editor didn’t know I do that – and the fact that if you scoot too quickly near tall trees you’ll incur the wrath of Australian magpies. In their ire, they swoop down and have a good go at taking your ear with them upon their ascent back to their nests. Cyclists and seasoned scooter-users wear helmets porcupined by zip ties to discourage these local hooligans.
Otherwise, the scooters are pretty safe. They have helmets attached – though you might want to bring your own as sharing a helmet strikes me a bit like sharing socks – that is to say, inadvisable. The scooters are connected to an app so they automatically cap your speed depending on where you are in the city. When you’re in a busy pedestrian zone, they won’t allow you to gain speeds that may result in trundling over your granny as she shuffles home with her shopping.
People in Canberra break the rules, but the way the city is laid out is more forgiving and makes accidents and errors easier to avoid
My friend asked if I would use a scooter in Dublin. “Jesus, no,” I replied. The vast pavements of a planned city such as Canberra allow for the safe use of scooters. The infrastructure is there to allow plenty of space and keep you away from both traffic and pedestrians. You can only use a scooter on a road here if you’re in a residential area without a pavement. People do break the rules, but the way the city is laid out is more forgiving and makes accidents and errors easier to avoid. Kids under 12 can use escooters here provided they’re supervised by an adult.
Plenty of friends and colleagues in Dublin are devoted cyclists, but I don’t know any who haven’t occasionally been knocked from their bike on to the road or come out the loser from an altercation with a Dublin Bus. Scooters lose their efficiency on narrower, crowded streets.
Besides, some Dublin drivers still seem to consider the bicycle a chicanerous new British technology.
I’d risk an altercation with a murderous Australian bird over scooting along the quays any day of the week.
