Can we make our own 'from our own correspondent'

[teafortwo]

I love love love this radio show...

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/default.stm

Can we please please please have a thread that has a vibe a bit like this?

We can have a bunch of parents who live all over the World in all kinds of countries (including Blighty), with all kinds of neighbours and themselves living in all kinds of situations (rural, city, suburbs and anything inbetween) explaining what is happening where they live. Day to day things (what is on sale at your local market, what you ate for lunch), portraits of figures in your community (e.g a lovely old village character), big news stories (e.g student riots), little news stories (a much loved dog has died that used to wander around the town centre), arguements in the cafe (sport, politics, religion), music and dance (e.g I notice all Parisian teenagers like to do this weird wiggling dance and they even have lessons for how to do it on national telly), observations on things that are different from where you come from (I don't know...e.g a New Yorker's take on living in the Lake District), interesting discussions on languages spoken... etc etc... I think it could be fun!!!

So tell me...

Am I making sense?

and..

What do you think? Shall we give it a go?

Good luck with the sausages and cool box. Those cool blocks were 25p for two in wollies this week!

Well it is harvest time here, so MIL is in a bitter mood as FIL is out till dark everynight. He would have harvested a couple of weeks ago, but it has been too wet. As I said it is a daity farm, so the crops are to keep for feed for the beasts. It is a small farm (120 acres) and he is currently milking about 40 cows and getting 19p a litre for his milk, which is sold on for about 70p a litre in the supermarket

My DH grew up on outskirts of the farm in a bungelow his dad built, but spent lots of time on the farm with his grandma and grandad. It is such a different place and I think were he got his hoarding instints from. Kitttens and cats roam the place and FIL feeds them occasionally. The boys love feeding the newborn calfs and oh my they do have strange tounges.

I was a bit of a townie myself and really believed my FIL that cows didnt like to eat wet grass and that weas why they sat down when it was going to rain!!!! One thing it has made me do is rethink my opinion of farming - it is a hard life, esecially as my MIL hates the farm with a passion. More about the farm later.

What can I say about the seaside apart from it is a traditional English seaside town. Small peir, valley gardens, miniture steam train that runs through them and oh yes - Northern capital of surfing. It is fantastic, both my boys have shortie wetsuits and will and do stay in the sea until they have turned blue. We are often found there after DS2 has had a nap at 3pm and then have chips out of the paper for tea - yummy hot chips with salt and vinigar that stings your eyes as you pop it on.

5 minutes the other way are the North York Moors, vast and sometimes bleak, espeically in the winter. You can not drive too fast for fear of running into sheep or lambs in the spring. They are just starting to change colour from green to purple from all the wonderful heather. The moors are dotted with small villages that are often snowed in during the winter months, but at the moment are full of tourists.

My two love visiting Hutton le hole and paddling in the stream or visiting Danby (the national moors centre) and enjoying the walks. You need to pack a flask and drinks and just enjoy the countryside.

Anyway bit of an essay from me, but I returned to my Native North Yorkshire after 12 years down south once my boys were born and have rediscovered its charms, espeically for children. In fact we are off for a walk on the beech to fly the kite and have a lemon top icecream one DS2 wakes - TTFN

You have my sympathies Sue, my friend from here regularly brings back huge icebags full of sausages and bacon and seems to manage no problem, however, Kenya is a little closer than the UK, good luck. Now if you had our postal system I could send you some of Kenya's finest.....

We have gone from being washed out every July and August in Cameroon, to bugger all rain here. Once it had rained so much that the whole garden flooded and nearly came into the house, small children were banned from going outside for the fear they would float away and 20 year old Toyota Corrollas would disappear down hidden rain filled potholes never to be seen again.

We would go to a black volcanic sand beach about an hour out of Douala where Mount Cameroon rose straight out of the sea. You would be guaranteed to be rained on at some point in the day. In fact the wettest place in the world is approximately 5 kms from this beach. No one thinks of Africa in terms of rain I hope you managed to get your daily constitutional Ninedragons!

Here in Nairobi it is much drier and dustier. When it rains it hardly pours, more of an English-esque drizzle, just enough to send your hair ever so slightly frizzy. It is of course a serious problem for the farmers who need more rain this year. Also it is quite cold here at times and for once we can wrap up warm. Tea i did ROFL at your 'we are british' comment, fabulous.

As for playgroups, like the French, everyone here has an Ayah, and it is the Ayahs that go to the playgroup with the children. Normally they take place at someone's house, the kids all play fight over the toys, eat lunch together and then go home. A bit difficult if you have a pfb and not working and you would like to go to a playgroup, because unless you wear blue gingham and speak Swahili you might feel a little out of place

Love the images from the Independent and the stories of Durex and sausages The latter topic is near to my heart and reminded me to post the following about Lincolnshire, where I have been for a few days (both our families are from the county, mine from the north and DH?s from the south). Sorry again for the length! My next post will be wonderfully concise

Lincolnshire is an odd place. Cut off from the rest of the country like much of East Anglia but without the tourists (Skegness excepted), the main industry is still agricultural with a few offshoots into frozen vegetable processing and sausage making. Farms are large and mostly profitable and farmers (on the whole) well-off. It is the farm labourers that are exploited. Menial piece-work used to be done by locals (especially women, my mother has strong memories of picking brussels sprouts) but is now mainly covered by immigrant workers, especially from Eastern Europe, many exploited by gang masters. Staying with my MIL at Easter, the local Catholic church was full of Polish worshippers, all togged up in their best clothes and carrying elaborate Easter baskets.

The main problem with Lincolnshire is attitude. We are not on the whole a friendly and amiable lot. Part of this is down to a feeling of resentment at the Johnny-come-lately success of our neighbours. In the middle ages this was an important county as the centre of the wool trade, with important links to the Netherlands and mainland Europe. Vast wool churches still appear unexpectedly in small and remote towns, a testament to money that soon vanished with the movements of the trade westwards. The modern history of the county is very different. My own home town is famous as the starting place for the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. Since then... well, Tennyson went to school here (briefly, he hated it) and Jeffrey Archer was MP for a few years . It is not that we know we are unimportant: we know we used to be important and our current insignificance rankles.

Strangers are greeted with suspicion and an air of gloom pervades the whole area (and it is a big county). It is particularly noticeable in the Fens, encouraged by vast grey skies and painfully chilly winds. We are not even tolerant of each other: there is a strong North-South divide along the river Witham. Before the river silted up, northerners would travel to Yorkshire while the southerners had links with the Midlands. A strong divide (by accent as well as attitude) still exists.

But the countryside is astonishingly beautiful, the rolling Wolds and even the inscrutable Fens with their massive vistas. Things may be changing as well: there is now a university at Lincoln (though students still avoid the locals) and there has been an influx of outsiders in recent years who still smile at you and don't jump on every comment with a gloomy prediction of the apocalypse to come. I imagine such sentiments have always been around and that the stealthy hunters in their punts and stilts harrassing the 'Kings' Men' gloomed about the current state of affairs over their tea and stewed eels on some soggy island. C S Lewis's Puddleglum is indisputedly from Lincolnshire

You can come across some odd sights driving along the quiet roads. One Christmas, we saw a man in full ski gear, complete with poles and little wheels on the bottom of his skis, bowling along an A-road. He looked at us impassively through his googles. We no doubt looked impassively back.

LOL Effie. I grew up in Lincoln.

Oh and Cod has FOOC envy

Effie, that was wonderful. Lincolnshire sounds like an entire other country in its own right!

So the ice blocks were all in Woolies, huh? I searched Aberdeen for them but there were none to be had. Asked in our local kitchen/cook shop. Nope. They said try the hardware shop which made me . But joy - they had the motherlode! Slightly more expensive at £1.25 for two but they obviously have rarity value.

Tee hee, I really liked the grim-faced cross-country faux-skier Effie. What a loon!

Just back from a fantastic night out - started at La Defense where we watched the new Batman film, then metroed it to Champs Elysee and went to a Japanese restaurant in one of the back streets where there was a rather athletic man who several teenagers asked to have their picture taken with on a table near us. He was very sweet and humble - but I have no idea who he was!!!

Next we went for a walk around the area including a bowl of ice-cream at Hagaan Daz, and a last drink next to the Arc de Triomphe then we slowly walked home. It was nice being around so many tourists - we felt like we were on holiday!!!!

Effie, when I was at High School there was a girl who had webbed toes - we used to call her a 'Fenny' because our history teacher told us that in the Fens you find people with webbed feet due to eeeeerrrmmm inbreeding!!!

Have you ever come across many webbed feet humans in Lincolnshire? I would be interested to know as I have always suspected the webbed foot story was a massive set up because this girl was often showing off about her unique attribute ??!!?? - True story!

Just off to write something on icod's thread - but I haven't decided what yet!

our morning was spent walking in the bush - at a state forest.

here They have a walk about 1km and all the kids walk it - including the 17 month old! It is just the right size for them.

We then headed back to

here for morning tea.

Tonight is a big event on the yearly calendar for Brisbane called Riverfire -

here

IT is a huge firework display on the river choreographed to music culminating in a dump and burn by F-1 11's. We hear the dump and burn. It is televised for people who can't go or don't go into the city for it. family friendly time of 7pm BUT people will go to southbank and places like that for the whole day in order to get the best seats.

Unfortunately for us - it is one of those things that dd1 would flip out at and so the others aren't able to go at this stage.

Tea for two ? Paris
Suedonim ? Nigeria
QuintessentialShadows ? Norway
Califrau ? San Jose, Northern California
MmeLindt ? Germany / off to Geneva
ClaudiaSchiffer ? Adelaide
BrownSuga ? Montreal
SuperBunny ? Chicago
Sakurarose ? Tokyo
Cies ? Galicia
suzywong ? Perth
shells ? Wellington, NZ
SittingBull ? Close to San Francisco, California
Moondog ? Bangladesh
brightongirldownunder ? Sydney
Berolina- Berlin
Pollylogos ? Athens
WelliesandPyjamas ? Bosnia
AuldAlliance ? Luberon, France
Scouserabroad ? Southern Brittany
MrsSprat ? Toronto
MrsJohnCusack - Christchurch, NZ
Taipo ? Black Forest, Germany
Zazen - Dublin
Longwayfromhome ? Buenos Aires
Themadhouse ? North Yorks
Alipiggie ? Colorado
Ghosty - Melbourne
Eidsvold ? Brisbane
Frodosgirl ? Luxembourg
Albert ? Brazil
Themasterandmargaritas ? Nairobi
Meowmix ? Qatar
Cocobear ? central California
Ninedragons ? Shanghai
Sssandy2 ? somewhere in Germany
Anorak ? Bermuda
Arfishy ? Sydney
Gipfeli ? Basel
Briochedoree ? Paris?
CotedAzur ? S of France
Mangolassi ? Thailand
EffiePerine ? North London
Hellish ? Ottawa
4gotoindia ? Tamil Nadu
CSLG ? Zurich
Tinto ? Sydney
Litchick ? somewhere in UK

Themasterandmargaritas - I love icod's spoof - thanks for the link to it!!!

What's 'dump and burn' Eids? It sounds scary - you're really not selling Oz to me!

Look at this....

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/1375/596650

Teafortwo is speechless!!!! (There is a first time for everything you know!)

Teafortwo, Its true, I get up very early in the morning, [go running at 5.30]so may of you are still on line, so i come back and shower, put the kettle on and then have breakfast reading all your brilliant threads.

I grew up in Singapore, and have a South African DDIL, plus friends in Oz and NZ, so love reading this thread.

AttenSHUN all expats! There's a new MNetter here wanting support about having a baby overseas. I'm physically close but have no expereince so over to you.

mission accomplished, suedonim

Sorry for not catching up with all the posts, but a quick reply to the "what do you eat for breakfast in Buenos Aires?" question from a few pages back ... the answer is, of course media lunas (sweet croissants, literally translated "half moon"), or facturas (sweet pastries) with coffee (the coffee in cafes always comes with a little glass of water on the side). The coffee in cafes is often very nice, but I am yet to find good instant coffee in the supermarket here.

A girl from the US came to Bs As for 10 months last year, we got to know each other at church, and she blogged about media lunas - I attach a link here in case any of you want to see a photo!

Guys,
I havent been writing for some time, though reading with interest all these fascinating stories and little pieces of daily life and experiences. I have had a bit of an English writing lull, as working on a novel in Norwegian. However, I was chuffed to see this thread mentioned. (But not as chuffed as when I made quote of the week for my Midget Attack thread. )

Oh and Tomás Agustín was born in a local private hospital here on August 13th. In my experience, private hospitals here are excellent (for anyone considering having a baby in Buenos Aires!) - but probably with more of a US than UK model of health care, so it felt quite medicalised to me. The doctors in public hospitals and clinics (in general people without insurance would go to a public hospital - but if you have a job, then your employer should provide health insurance) are also excellent, and often the same doctors work in several different places, but in general there are fewer resources in the public system.

Congratulations on little Tomas (sorry, can't do accents on this keyboard). August 13 is my birthday so I feel he got off to an auspicious start in life!

Congratulations!

Congratulations again longwayfromhome! What a very nice name.

Quint... it is lovely to have you back... can I ask you a favour...??? Would you kindly give us just one reporting post pleeeeaaasse - just one seeing as you are so busy writing a novel we won't beg for anymore but we all need a little bit of your very special dreamy life in Norway...

Lol, Teafortwo, I am going to cheat, and unashamedly redirect you to the midget attack thread. This gives an idea of my latest blueberry picking adventure where my son catapulted himself off the mountain when I scared both kids senseless when the midges attacked....

I have nothing interesting to report from this week, I have been ill with chest problems and sinus infection, which is a damned shame as berries are ripening, and me, the eternal Hunter Gatherer is very frustrated at going stir crazy at home.

Congratulations on the birth of Tomas, longwayfromhome!

Congratulations longwayfromhome. I love the name Tomas Agustin (can't do accents on mn).

Last night was FIL's 82nd birthday, and we celebrated with a large family bbq in their garden. 26 people invited.

Most of the food wouldn't be out of place at a British bbq, but the star of the show is churrasco - slabs of pork ribs grilled together (i.e. all the ribs still attached to each other) and then cut up to serve.

The evening ended on a high note with a queimada. This flaming bowl is always prepared in wide ceramic bowl using a long handled ceramic ladle to stir. The basic ingredient is aguardiente (fire water), to which you add an apple and then set it alight. The alcohol burns and burns, giving off a bluish glow in the darkness. People take it in turns to stir the cauldron, and it's said that a spell or blessing can be muttered. After a while you add sugar and then mata el fuego - kill the flame by clapping over it. A bit of lemon rind gives a nice touch to finish off. Then the queimada is served in little ceramic cups. A potent, but sweet and warm way to send you off into the night!