A daily delight

Soon we will move from the UK back to Australia. The relocation is causing me mixed emotions. I'm looking forward to being closer to my family and friends, to the climate, to the familiar and the many and varied things that make Australia the wonderful place it is.

I'm also sad this chapter is closing. We started married life here, we started our family here, we've made lovely friends here and somewhere along the road Oxford started to feel like home.

It certainly didn't feel like that when we arrived. I found those first few months unsettling. I wasn't a visitor but I wasn't a local. I needed directions to get around, I didn't know where to get my groceries, or where to find a doctor, or get a decent coffee. Yet I was a resident.

Particularly unsettling was not knowing which newspaper to read. I love the comfort of a familiar paper. In my opinion, no ritual is sweeter or more satisfying than sitting down to read, skim, browse and flip the pages of a newspaper I know and love.

It is my daily delight. I read news online but it's no substitute for the paper version. A day feels incomplete without at least a hasty flip. Weekends feel wanting without an hour to languish with the newspaper.

At home The Sydney Morning Herald was my paper of choice. I knew the schedule for supplements. I had my favourite writers, columnists and regular features. I had a routine for browsing. It was all lovely and cosy and I felt secure in that familiarity.

When we arrived here I didn't have that. My confusion at the newsstand briefly became a metaphor for my life. I didn't quite know what I wanted or where to find it. I didn't know the writers, the sections, the columnists, the weekly schedules. I didn't have an order for reading. I didn't feel at home.

I set out to find my paper of choice. I experimented. I tried out The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Financial Times and I'd alternate on weekends. It took many weeks, even a few months, before I settled, coincidentally about the same time I started to feel at home.

It happened gradually, almost snuck up on me. One day I was an imposter, the next I felt like a local. As I became better acquainted with Oxford, I became more adept at navigating The Times.

Suddenly I realised I knew who would write on particular days, which columnists I'd agree with, those I'd side against, the supplements I most looked forward to. I'd found my newspaper.

I now enjoy the blissful familiarity I had at home. Only it's possibly better. The Times is the best newspaper I've ever read. I look forward to it every single day. I fall asleep on Friday night's perfectly content knowing the pleasure the next morning's paper will bring.

The weekend editions keep me reading and thinking for almost a week. I won't pretend that I read every word in every issue, because I don't. But I always close the paper feeling better informed, more curious and more connected to this big crazy world, than I did when I opened it. And that's why I love it.

Recently we spent a weekend in Dublin. As I strolled through the beautiful cobbled streets around Trinity College on Saturday morning, I stopped in to pick up a paper and discovered The Times was not stocked.

I was shocked and even tried a few places. Eventually I bought The Irish Times instead. It was a good read but it didn't deliver the satisfaction I'm accustomed to. It happened again on Sunday. I really missed my paper.

It had no bearing on our time away – I'm not that unreasonable - but it confirmed something I'd started to suspect. I'm really really going to miss my English newspaper.