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?

FOOC in Chicago, USA

Well, this weekend was the last of the free live classical music concerts in Millenium Park I spent my Saturday night, lying on the grass, watching the clouds pass by whilst listening to Sir Andrew Davies conduct the Lyric Opera with the city skyline as a backdrop. It was wonderful. On the bus on the way home was a woman with a huge Sanrio bag. I couldn't help but wonder what was in it.

Interesting that teafortwo mentioned crumble and custard. I subjected an American friend to a lovely homemade apple crumble today and offered him custard. Sadly I was not prepared to make it properly so waved the tin of Birds custard at him. He agreed to try it but I did notice he didn't have a second helping of it when he took more crumble.

It's been cooler this week so we've been harvesting our tomatoes and grapes and have had to dig out our socks and coats from storage. I hope this means the weather will now be nice and summery for another few weeks. If not, are prepared! The leaves are beginning to change and autumn is definitely in the air.

FOOC northern Thailand

Can everyone who keeps asking us to say where we're foocing from, also tell us where they're foocing from? And post, already. Honestly, not being sarcastic, I loved the N London town planning update - there must be someone who wants to post from Yorkshire? And not just so we can be smug about the weather, I get homesick...

Mme Lindt - rocket festivals happen once a year in each village. There are a huge number of ethnicities in the region and lots of them have rocket festivals. For dp's group, it's attached to a bigger, sticky rice festival, and there's a very specific ritual they go through to work out when to hold that festival. For other groups though, I'm not sure. Monks have a calendar of auspicious days, but it can't be that or they'd all pick the same day, surely?? (It's a different day for each village, so you could spend weeks on a rocket festy tour if you wanted). I'll have to ask someone

Quint - I'm worried about your dh, can we have regular updates till he's back?!

Pmsl at planting pansies with a spirit level. Here you wouldn't use one to build a house. Everyone just knows the man in the village with the best eye and employs him at the most crucial times.

Superbunny - what a superconcert!!!

Kjaysmum - what an interesting post. Thank you. I am glowing - reading your writing was as good as going to a spa! I feel refreshed and ready for our 'out and about time'

Fooc - Tromso (Did anybody watch "The land of the Northern Ligths yesterday on BBC1, presented by Joanna Lumley?)

First of all, TeaforTwo, I really love how you described the market experience. I could really see the hustle and the bustle of the market - I have been to so many, and they are all so special, but I could envisage the little outskirts of Paris market outside my 1* hotel door on sunday september morning, and I remember THIS market story from India.

I only ever shopped with one fruitseller. My husband before me, on all his trips to this neighbourhood in Bangalore, also only shopped with this man. An old leathered man, with silver hair, one golden tooth in an otherwise toothless mouth, a t-shirt that I suspect had once been white, under layers of grey and brown dust. He had a turqouise cart, with apples stacked so neatly in pyramides, it would be a shame to take one, and ruin the symmetri, where huge clusterrs of small mini bananas were hanging on from the roof of the cart, along with the biggest cluster of grapes you can imagine. There were watermelons the size of yoga balls, pommegranades, and oranges, and other fruit I dont know the names of.

I would go shopping, with a backpack, and carrying my son on one arm, as buggies were a joke on such roads, and pavements were usually for parking bikes and scooters, and carts, and the odd cow. The fruitseller would always take a few grapes, clean them on his filthy shirt, and offer them to my son with a smile radiant of happiness of having something to give this little blonde blueyed boy. I would smile and thank him gracefully, and try not to think of the germs on the tshirt that my son was happily munching on.

One day, I filled my backpack with delicious fruit, and only when I got home did I wonder why my change indicated I had only paid 50 pence. And thank goodness, I mentioned this to my husband, when he came home from work, as he on the other hand had wondered why our fruitseller had demanded £4 for ONE apple! We laughed when we realize what had happened! He must have realzied his mistake and charged my husband for the lot.

ANYWAY! I am waffling on!

TROMSO
Mangolassi, my husband rang me last night, they were headed inland, and would cycle back to town through another mountainous region. Considering they have no tent, this is still madness. After a night of pissing down rain, I could not get hold of him this morning, and my dad has told me that regions has bears, wolves, foxes, reindeer, moose, and lynx. I managed to get through on the phone to his companion, and told them this, and yes, they are alive and cycling!

FOOC Ibadan, Nigeria
The rainy season seems to be coming to an end here as the days just get hotter and hotter and the skies get more and more blue. Given the all too frequent power cuts, we are faced with the dilemma of having the house heat up like a greenhouse or turning on the gen and trying not to think of the cost of diesel.
Today I am a nervous wreck as DS and DD are flying back to Nigeria from the UK as unaccompanied minors for the first time. They are in the air as I write. Despite umpteen reassurances from people who have been there and done that, I remain tremendously anxious at the thought of my little poppets being up there on their own (not really on their own but you know what I mean) Here's to the next six hours of worry and anxiety!
Who suggested that someone should start a FOOC from Yorkshire? I hail from Leeds and would like regular updates from my old stomping ground!

I've just had to post, how much I adore this thread, and say Well Done and please keep it up.

Sadly, I cannot join you on this thread as I live in -oh so exciting- South Bedfordshire.

Quint I watched the Jo Lumley programme last night and was telling my dp excitedly that that was where you lived.

You are SO lucky, I would adore to live in such a beautiful place, although you all make wherever you live sound beautiful, and me very , I think I've suddenly acquired a wander -lust.

Moonmother
As others have already said, we expats would love to hear some of the normal everyday things that go on at home. I am also a bit envious of the more exotic FOOCs.

Does anyone else find themselves experiencing something and writing a FOOC post in their head? I have been in Germany for 16 years now and this thread is making me take a second look at things that I now take for granted. So, thanks, Teafortwo for that!

At the moment I am battling buerocracy (sp?)trying to find out if the whole family still have health insurance when we move to Geneva. I wonder if the red tape is less in Switzerland?

FOOC in the Luberon, France

Ooh, the M&M, I used to live in the Indian Ocean (could have done some great posts from there for this thread, with a live volcano, cyclones, corruption and the works!) and your post has brought back heartbreaking memories: jacarandas flowering in Sept; flamboyants turning red at Christmas (they even sing oh flamboyant, oh flamboyant to the tune of O Tannenbaum/ Mon beau sapin); frangipanis smelling heavenly in all the cemeteries; going for a hike with a good friend and finding a huge block of earth which had been cut by forestry workers and had several agapanthus plants still growing in it, which we immediately decided to lug all the way back to the car. I bequeathed it to her when we left and she sends me pictures of the flowers each year. I am feeling very, very nostalgic!

Here in the Luberon, it was the rentrée last week and DS (3.6) started maternelle. He loves it, all the more so as they have watched Petit Ours Brun on the TV two days in a row now which, as we have no TV at home, is a huge treat for DS. I am not sure I approve, and I am sure Xavier Darcos, France's Education Minister, reputed to be old-fashioned about school curricula, wouldn't either!

We are house-hunting, watching prices slowly start to fall here, the priciest region in France after Paris, and hoping to find something soon. Fingers crossed!

"Does anyone else find themselves experiencing something and writing a FOOC post in their head?" Yes, MmeLindt

BORDEAUX

At long bloody last summer has returned - it has been hot/cold/hot/cold/sunny/showery for days now - but for the next three days it is going to be respectably over thirty - and I have just chucked out ds's tatty sandals. Dilemma - do I buy a pair for the month at most, or do I make him wear shorts with socks and shoes.

This is wine week here, before the harvest (vendange) starts in earnest. Every supermarket has huge wine displays, wine tasting evenings and the chateaux owners and producers in to sell their babies bottles of wine. It is all taken very seriously. As I am breastfeeding still, my participation is more planning than partaking (hmmm, this looks good, if we buy it now, I can drink it later) and dh has still not built our wine cellar, and insists on storing wine lying down in the correct manner, blah blah blah....

So, it is not going to be so much wine o'clock here, as wine o'week!

My DH hasn't built our wine cellar yet either. Hmph. Keeps talking about improving the basement for more chickens and better food storage. Boooooring.

Toronto normally (currently on the road)

Wow, what a lot to catch up on. I'm also running on empty laptop battery - DH having absconded with the UK/US adaptor for the day. Welcome to lots of new people - hurray!

So, I'm actually FOOCing from New Jersey today. We did a long road trip from Toronto over the weekend, and instead of taking the normal route through Niagara, we came round the other side of Lake Ontario. Now, I'm okay with general knowledge, but a fact that had eluded me by was that the Thousand Islands of the pink salad dressing fame, are in the mouth of the St Lawrence River as it spills into Lake Ontario. And what a beautiful spot it is. We stayed overnight in out-of-season Gananoque and the following morning drove over the border to the US by way of the islands and a very quiet observation tower, which gave us a fantastic view of the whole area. Had the storm clouds not been massing, it would have looked like the Amazon with so much green foliage. Not doing it justice really, but the power is dwindling!

A fairly dull and uneventful drive through upstate New York; Pennsylvania (incl. Scranton - home to the US version of the The Office, say no more) and then New Jersey, when we hit some, let's say rocky weather - v high winds, lots of debris on the interstate and vile rain. It was only when we arrived at our hotel and switched on the news that we realised that we'd been 'Hanna'd' by tail-end of the tropical storm in between Gustav and Ike. Ulp.

My battery life is looking well skinny, so better go (to the mall).

"Does anyone else find themselves experiencing something and writing a FOOC post in their head?"

Yes - all the time BUT Even worse than that, MmeLindt!!!

A few days ago our town put a massive blow up screen outside the town hall and made the town centre into an outdoor cinema for the night. My daughter and I were planning on going along. However, half an hour before it was due to start my daughter fell asleep on our sofa and I didn't think it was fair to move her. I was disappointed. Not because I wanted to see the film - I find films very difficult to follow in French and it was a film I have no interest in seeing - but because I was hoping to get a good foocs story out of the experience!!!!

Now that is really bad, isn't it??!!!???

and p.s respect to MrsSprat for her "currently on the road" report - now that is the foocs spirit!!!!

ggglimpopo my great grandfather was born in Bordeaux in an area called Cauderan. He emigrated to Australia - not sure when and managed to fight with the Australian Army during ww1.

Oooh - sounds like there is an interesting story behind that eidsvold!

Califrau - I wanna go to your dentist too. How cool is that???

moonmother - Bedfordshire has a special place in my heart for two reasons. Firstly I love saying "And so to Bedfordshire" when it is time for bed. Secondly I got my BEd in Bedford - it would make my day to hear some reports from that dear old place - please tell more!

teafortwo have not been able to find out anything about him prior to his marrying my great grandmother.

Teafortwo - he was gassed in a gas attakc outside Villiers Bretonneux. He was evacuated to England to recover and then sent back to Aus.

He was part of the reinforcements that were sent to Alexandria to make up for the troops lost at Gallipoli. He spent some time in hospital being treated for VD actually that was incredibly common. He then went AWOL when he was in France - possibly to see his family.

It seems he also was living in NZ at the time of ww2 in a place called Lower Hutt - he attempted to join up with the NZ army - no record that he made it BUT apparently family talk is that he had a whole other family in NZ. At the time his younger children would have been teenagers!!

I just with I knew all I now know about previous generations that came from the UK and from France - would have been so easier trying to track down information and resources in person rather than on the net.

Foocing in de Caribbean

Yes please to news from Blighty.

My DH always says it's 'Up the stairs to Bedfordshire' to the kids - his mother used to say it to him!

Well our day of National Rest and Reflection has passed off peacefully with none of the threatened power cuts or other apocalyptical events that the government tried to scare us with.

And after a Sunday of torrential tropical storms, it has been dry and sunny all day here today so many Trinnies will have enjoyed making up for their weekend by resting and reflecting on de beach.

The kids were very disappointed to have to spend a day at school as normal, they were hoping for power and water cuts just like we used to hope for heavy snowfall in the UK winters so they'd close the school. Never happened once in my school in dear old Slough.

T42 I'm so envious of your lovely market - the herbs here are few and far between - it's a question of what you can find and then you concoct supper around it.

Tonight, due to the US tennis final being slap-bang in the middle of tea time, the kids had finger tea in front of the telly, and DH had store-cupboard surprise again. Which at 3.80 GBP for a tin of imported Heinz baked beans was one hell of a chuffin surprise for him! Normally I hide the empty tins at the bottom of the rubbish bin.

Have only just realised my new laptop bought everso cheap on our last US shopping trip does not have a pound sign on it.

oops forgot

brisbane

califrau - I hate dentists with a passion and try really hard not to pass that on to the dds - I think I too would love going to your dentist.

Fabulous writing - I can picture myself along side you all enjoying the amazing adventures and wonderful moments of serenity.

I am currently along with the parent committee of our school organising a school disco/dance for our p - 7 students. We have a parent who is a DJ so he has volunteered his time. we do an early disco for the prep - yr3 students and then a later one for the older children. GLowsticks and sweets are the order of the day!!! The kids love it and it is a great fundraiser for our committee. We also have a sausage sizzle.

Dd2 and 3 as well as me - have been to playgroup this morning. We have it every Tuesday morning held in a church hall not far from where we live. The children play and do craft, then we have story and singing time, morning tea and then outside play. We have children from newborns to preschoolers. We pay $2 a week when we attend and that provides Christmas presents for children at the break up!! It is held during school term time. We bring a plate of food to share for morning tea and then whatever our children have. It is great to let the dds play with other children. dd2 loves it cause she gets to do craft and she loves art and craft.

Paris fooc

On entering Jardin de Luxenburg my daughter's dress had two completely empty pockets.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jardin_du_Luxembourg

On leaving the park gates she had managed to cram them full to the brim with conkers.

As we climbed down the metro steps she stopped, frowned and complained:

"Conkies, torkits, he-evy!"

(translation- The conkers in my pockets are heavy.)

We were soon home and counting her conkers - 19 conkers in two pockets - good going I think! We put them in cups and placed the cups on our mantelpiece.

Autumn is so near we can touch it here.

FOOC Nigeria

Having spent a relaxing day at the beach on Saturday, albeit with the mandatory hiccups that life in Nigeria entails, it was back to the fray on Monday when dd returned to school. This is currently the hot topic about the school - on the BBC, no less! School holds helicopter to ransom. Only in Nigeria....

And with reference to TV, Nigerians have been getting hot under the collar over Big Brother Nigeria. The government decided to curtail the broadcasts, due to BBN's 'immoral' content. Would-be viewers found their access to BBN cut off, unless they went to official offices, filled in umpteen forms, and no doubt, offered financial incentives. A large demonstration has taken place at the TV station's HQ, with people vehemently protesting their right to choose their own TV viewing. Thus far, there has been no resolution to the issue so the nation's morals are safe, for the time being.

califrau a small parcel was peeking out from our letterbox this morning when I went to take dd1 to school - imagine our surprise to see it was from some boys in Cali-eye-forn-eye-a!!

Thank you for the gorgeous hats - you made them didn't you?? They are fab - I am just going to put some elastic on them and will make sure I take a pic to show you. Dd2 is a sticker freak and she keeps bringing me the pkt asking me what we can do with these So you can tell calijungen that they have made eidsvolds' girl's day!!