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 Bosnia

I saw a side-splitting advert on national television yesterday and immediately thought of the fooc thread . The advert was a private Gynaecologist in Sarajevo, and started out as you'd expect - a few shots of her offices, of her sitting at a desk talking with a happy patient, blah blah but the last shot before the contact details was a corker. It was the doc peering up a woman's fanjo, with the camera filming from over the poor unfortunate patient's shoulder . I guess the idea was to reassure potential patients that this doctor did indeed know where to find all the relevant bits! Absolutely brilliant, can't wait to see it again for another giggle!

Adverts on our local tv station are always dire. If you want to advertise your local business you must hand over the marketing campaign to the experts at the tv station... and the result is that every single advert is the same: a droning male or female voice (it is always the same two people who do the voiceovers), some 'funky' music (their favourite is Tina Turner's Simply The Best, whatever the product/service), and some wobbly and unimaginative filming of the premises and products (my favourite was of a new batch of wood-burning stoves in stock, but they filmed them still in their crates with plastic wrapping flapping about in a strong wind - very appealing!). It is always the same half a dozen companies that advertise locally because, well, it's a small town and there are only so many companies that can afford such crappy glamorous advertising! I got unwittingly caught on camera for a supermarket advert one month, scrabbling sweatily for change in my bag at the till. It wasn't my best look! I douby vert much that I got them any extra trade, but at least everyone knew where I do my shopping!

Superbunny - hope you're snug and warm indoors and that the weather improves soon. We lived in Cuba for a few years when I was a child and any time a hurricane hit or came close, we weren't able to open the door to our 25th floor apartment because of the high winds, so we were just stuck indoors until it passed. It got boring after a while, especially if the power went!

califrau see profile for pic of dd2in hat.

FOOC Auckland, NZ

yesterday AM - for the first time in months the rain stopped, the sky was cloudless and bright blue. The sky here is different to home, at home sometimes it feels so low you can touch it, here it seems a million miles away, at night you know the stars are untouchable. It feels as though it's been the wettest winter since we arrived so to celebrate the arrival of spring we were all outside by 8am armed with our gardening equipment. We dug, weeded, hoed, chopped down trees (much to the ds's delight - boys and chain saws), burnt unwanted wood, mulched etc etc...nobody was excempt from the attempt to civilise the garden, even ds1's friend who turned up to play. As the morning progressed and we moved to different areas of the garden you could smell the lemon balm, freshly mown grass, herbs, various native plants. All in all a very enjoyable and productive morning.

We stopped for lunch which we all ate sitting outside in the sun.

pm - after a much needed rest we decided to spend the afternoon gathering pine cones and kindling for the fire next winter. No central heating here, you want warmth you light a fire...so off we all trot down the paddocks to the trees. En-route the ds's noticed one of the sheep called Lily had escaped from the paddock. So started the frantic calling 'Lily, Lily' piercing the lazy, sunny SUnday afternoon air of everybody in about a mile radius. They decided between them they could round her back into the paddock. Ds1 teared off into the tress while ds2 was instructed to stay by the gate and frantically continue the chant 'Lily, Lily'. Unfortunately one of teh goats is called Billy, they must have thought they were being called but were tied up so started bleating frantically adding to the noise and chaos. Meanwhile I continued with the task at hand - collecting wood and cones. Eventually they gave up and started to make mud piles. Dh was riding up and down the track on his tractor with trailor attached seemingly oblivious to the chaos around him. Never one to do things by half I could see a nice collection of cones just out of reach down an incline so held onto a trusty sturdy tree to ease me down. Sadly the tree turned out to be neither trusty nor sturdy and I hurtled down the incline into the stream below. With everything but my pride intact I started to call dh and the ds's who were both so engrossed in their mud fights and riding of mower they failed to notice I'd disappeared or hear me. Eventually dh turned the mower off, heard me and after he'd compossed himself managed to pull me out. We all headed home back up the track with mud dripping from everywhere possible and some places you would have thought not so possible.

Showered and composed I set about making dinner when the power went out(regular occurence). We made do with what was already cooked and headed of to the spa where we all sat watching the clear starry sky discussing the days achievements!

And there ends the first non raining day of spring.

Signing out from NZ

FOOC in Saint Tropez

We spent the weekend in Saint Tropez, the little fishing village turned glamorous following Francois Sagan's "Bonjour Tristesse" (published when she was only 18) and Brigitte Bardot's "And God Created Woman".

This is not perhaps a popular opinion, but the much acclaimed sea & sand of St Tropez is not all that amazing. Its sand is coarse, and its sea is deep and dark. The unusual thing about St Tropez is the partying, and not necessarily in the nighttime. Beach clubs like Nikki Beach or La Voile Rouge are full and banging at early afternoon, and it is not unusual to see women stripping while dancing on tables at these places.

The worst thing about St Tropez is access - There is only a single lane road between the highway and St Tropez that takes a minimum of half an hour. Fridays and Sundays, it takes hours. A real pain to those of us who don't have a yacht or a helicopter

High season is July and August, and things quickly die down in September. Or so we thought. There were still thousands of tourists pouring through every narrow street descending to the port. Weather was quite chilly, especially in the evenings and most disappointingly, the water was just too cold to swim.

St Tropez is always an experience, but this is the first time I went there with kids and can safely say it is not the same

Thanks for such lovely posts today.

I keep telling everyone on other threads and some in rl how much I am enjoying the foocs. To be blunt I can't shut up about it! Seriously I am so proud of this little thread of ours and this real insiders glimse into what is happening all over the World. I find it quite brilliant!

Here on the outskirts of Paris it was a perfect end of summer day. The market was filled with fresh figs. We bought four for dessert but found them not sweet enough yet. After the market, with friends, my daughter sucked strawberry milk through a straw and I nursed a milky coffee beside a big pond/small lake in the Bois de Boulogne.

To get these drinks at the extremely busy bar area I had to put into practice some seriously out of practice student union techniques. In the process I got chatting with an old New Yorker:

Him: You speak good English! Why's that?

Me: Because I am English! And you... are you Canadian or American?

Him: Neither, I am a New Yorker. We are not American. Believe me New York is a country in itself!

Me: With quick talk like that I feel like I am in a Woody Allen film.

Him: Funny, I used to go running with Woody Allen! Come and meet my wife she is Australian!

When I and the tray of drinks eventually made it to the serene seating area it was complete bliss!

The four children ran back and forth between a little woodland area and our table. They ignored the conkers, instead, choosing to collect sticks to make a boat. In contrast to their constant activity the learned adults chose to speak very little as all were concerned with simply enjoying the last rays of sunshine before Autumn arrives in earnest.

TeaforTwo, I'm still trying to figure out where you are...at first I thought maybe Neuilly, after all the references to Bois de Boulogne, then I read a post where you said you were within walking distance of La Défense, so I thought maybe Puteaux or Courbevoie. However, given what you said about the multicultural nature of where you live, I think I'd have to go with Courbevoie...? Other than that, je m'y connais pas, I don't know the 92 very well. I'm becoming such a country mouse now, although I come to La Défense a lot with my two as DD loves running amok on the Esplanade (and DH works there and can sometimes meet us for lunch).
I think one of the most fun things I did with DS last week was a trip to the supermarket (!) When we walked through the door, they were having a honey promotion, so they had a hive of bees in a big glass case decorated with flowers (complete with information about how they were all very happy and being properly fed). DS was fascinated and has only just learnt to say "Bee" so this was pretty timely for him. They also had lobsters and crabs in the fishmonger's tank (I always feel rather sorry for them, they look so pathetic). There was lots of free food for DS - bread, fruit, yoghurts to try, and every old lady in the place must have come and cooed over him with his "true blond" hair and his "porcelain blue" eyes (I'm brown haired and brown eyed, as is DD, so we don't look particularly English, but DS does and stands out amongst the French kids).
Enjoyed the story about the sheep and the goats, and the mud. I'm particularly fond of goats as DH's family used to keep them. Last time we went to the local children's farm, I had them all queueing up to be rubbed behind the ears...

Infact it is Puteaux!

Although the cafe I described in my last post is in Neuilly - just over the bridge!

Top marks BriocheDoree!!!!

p.s - What a fab supermarket! We had a live goat in our market yesterday promoting goats cheese BUT markets are a always a bit crazy. Bees in a usually sober supermarket that is really really something!!!

Fantastic posts all of you. I too check in a couple of times a day, but haven´t had anything interesting to report from Galicia, as I have been taking it easy for the last week or so.

Blue skies though! So we may have a bit of a respite before autumn kicks in properly.

However, I did get taken out for dinner last week by some of DH´s clients, who took us to a local restaurant. The look was paper tableclothes, zinc bar, one harrassed looking man on front of house (Manolo) and his wife out back cooking.

But the food... ah, the food! It was seafood heaven. Our only complaint was that as it was a client we had to be on good behaviour and so felt a little restrained.

First, we had a small mountain of camarones (shrimp), which had been simply boiled with some bay leaves. Exquisite.

Second a centolla, or spider crab. I´m reliably told by a Cornish fisherman and crabber that most of the spider crab caught in UK is shipped to Spain because the Brits don´t like it! Well, all I can say is thank God, because it was DELICIOUS! But, picking the bits out in a ladylike way was not easy!

The final starter was a plate of navajas a la plancha or grilled razor clams. Divine.

I have to say I would have been quite happy with just this, but the clients had ordered more, so we tucked in! The main course was san martiño, which I think might be John Dory, whose firm flesh had been grilled to perfection. Plus chips to die for. And salad.

I was quite relieved when Manolo announced they had run out of the house pudding, which the clients had said was unmissable. Oh, all of this was washed down (except for by me because I was driving) with the albariñode^lacasa^, a light white wine that is famed in Spain for its affinity with fish.

All in all, a fantastic meal, and one that DH and I would not be able to treat ourselves to because it certainly didn´t come in cheap for the clients .

FOOC in the Luberon

Well, today I nipped over the hills to this village to pick up some work documents from a colleague. It was a gorgeous drive, as the weather has suddenly turned a bit cool - the car thermometer said 13°C at 9am, though it's more like 20° now - but the sun was shining crisply and the woods were just beautiful. A glut of snail's pace Italian camper vans and contrasting streams of motorbikes whizzing past on the hairpin bends were the only blots on the horizon.

I stopped off here to buy a cake for my hostess. We had once bought one in this particular shop before, about a year and a half ago, which we ate as part of a picnic in the cedar forest nearby. I had a clear memory of a delicious almond confection and had been looking forward to this trip as a means of renewing the experience. Luckily for me the baker's wasn't shut on Mondays, unusually enough, and when I mentioned my fond memories of almonds and preserved oranges to the baker he promptly found exactly the cake I'd been hankering after. "Good thing you came now," he added, "or you'd never had tasted another one of those again: I'm retiring in two weeks." So I bought two...

Yum. You are very wise, AuldAlliance

Sounds delicious, AuldAlliance. I like the name, BTW...with one of my children born in Edinburgh, and the other in France, DH and I always joke about them forming an "auld alliance" against us when they are older!

I can vouch for their deliciousness. I had a slice with my colleague for dessert and then a slice of the second one for goûter with DS when I got home.
Glad you like the name! An attempt to reflect my dual loyalties, really. One of the things the lovely baker in Bonnieux asked me this morning when he found out I was Scottish and DH was French was how tense things got at home when France play Scotland at rugby. His wife is Argentinian (don't ask me how she ended up in a bakery in Bonnieux) and he said they get into great fights during World Cup matches.
I put his mind at rest by saying that as long as England didn't win I wasn't fussed! He looked a bit stunned...

FOOC Nigeria

We are back to our merry little band of three in Lagos as dd1 has returned home to Scotland after her sojourn with us. As she waited for her connecting flight in T5 Heathrow, she unexpectedly bumped into her sil, ds2's wife, who was returning from a business trip to London. TeaforTwo, ds2 and dil got married last Nov near Neuilly, I forget the exact name of the place - it began with B.

Once again, my offspring are on different continents with ds1 in the US, dd1 in the UK and dd2 here in Africa. Meanwhile, ds2 is in Armenia, of all places, which is in Asia, as I discovered on looking in dd2's atlas. He gets back to the UK on Thursday and heads to New York on Saturday. I wouldn't care to have his jetlag next weekend!

FOOC Toronto

It's good fun catching up on what?s been going on. No evidence of horse-chestnut antics in North Toronto, but will keep eyes peeled. The temperature here has dropped about 10 degrees over the last week, so it?s feeling autumnal crisp. We are back from the sojourn south of the border, not many tales to tell really, but will maybe break up what I do have over a couple of posts. The journeys up and down were book-ended by the tails of Hanna and Ike, thankfully not as damaging as on the Gulf shores, but pretty miserable and yucky driving conditions.

We're getting to know the US hotel chains fairly well now, which ones to pull over for and which ones to drive on by. Hampton Inn, Westin and Doubletree all get full marks for their ability to accommodate an under-one very nicely, particularly the Westin we stayed at in New Jersey, who are clearly more attuned to business folk, but couldn?t do enough for their youngest guest.

DH has been working most of the week, leaving DD and I to our own devices. I?d be lying if I didn?t admit this involved a fair amount of mega-mall gluttony. The big outlet outside Philadelphia had me salivating. It is so big that they give the security guards segways to get around. People generally do not look cool on segways. Security guards look very foolish indeed. Imagine the farcical chase-scene if you will? ?Ma?am, there?s nowhere to run, we?re gaining on you!? We also celebrated Banana Republic?s 30th birthday (30% off everything!!) in fine style. More culture, less consumer, next time perhaps?

FOOC Chicago

We're going to need a new thread soon

I love reading all the foodie posts. MrsS, am glad you are enjoying the very best of America!

As with many large cities, the skyscrapers in Chicago are lit up every evening. Usually white but they change depending on the season - orange for October & Hallowe'en, red, white and blue for 4th of July & pink during breast cancer awareness month. Tonight, all the buildings are white except for the Sears Tower which is red and green. I am really hoping that this is in honour of Mexican Independence Day and not the beginning of the dreaded Holiday Season. When I googled to find out what was going on, I was read that you can 'buy' the lights for a night and have it lit any colour you like. Tempting...

I also read that the top tourist destination in Illinois is not the Sears Tower, nor any other attractions in the 3rd largest city in the US but a shopping mall about 30 miles away. That's right, forget the world class museums, galleries, theatres, orchestras, parks, restaurants, beaches, the lake and the city; the best thing about Illinois is shopping in the burbs

Talking about the dreaded holiday season, they had Christstollen in the supermarket today. It is only the middle of September, who buys Christmas goodies already?

FOOC New York City, 10 Sept

Okay, SuperBunny has shamed me into writing a worthier post about the US of A. Although I can sympathise with the call of the mall . Last Thursday, DD and I drove up the New Jersey Turnpike to spend the day in Manhattan with a friend. The drive up was fairly plain-sailing. New Jersey is unfairly maligned. I think it?s genuinely quite a pretty state with lots of variety. Some of that variety includes heavy industry and honking great chemical works, but it depends where you choose to focus. You get a wonderful view of the Manhattan skyline once you get through Elizabeth and Newark.

We left our hotel at 10:30am, got to the Manhattan side of the Lincoln Tunnel (about 75 miles) at 11:45am and then got to a carpark 3-4 streets away near Madison Square Gardens at 12:45am. Manhattan driving is stereotypically aggressive, nudge forward, some outlandish manoeuvres by boy-racers and SUVs, and bloody-minded stare-ahead not-letting-you-in-mo-fo attitudes. Luckily a precarious hand-pulled snack-cart veered into the street behind us allowing me to change lanes, just in time for my right-hand turn.

After meeting my friend we had lunch at a Korean restaurant, we were sitting cross-legged at a knee-high table. DD who has just learned to sit, loved it and thought she was amongst equals rather than giants, grabbing at the chopsticks (and soup bowls, less conveniently). After lunch we walked up 5th Ave to Central Park. For a shopping junkie like me, temptation was every step of the way. Luckily for my credit card, my friend is not similarly inclined, so we kept on walking with a pause for snaps at the Rockerfeller Center. Upon reaching the park, we popped into the zoo to see the sealions being fed and the penguins being hosed down, which DD found particularly entertaining and did not want to be torn away.

On into the heart of the park as the early evening shadows dappled the pathways and after-work joggers started pounding their route home. Before turning back, we stopped for drinks at the Central Park Boathouse, a swankily appointed interior with squashy leather sofas and stealthily efficient waiters and beautiful NYC-types. The office exodus was in full-flow for our return to midtown as we strolled down Park Avenue. Suits, fashonistas, little dogs, the occasional trendy stroller and a never-ending stream of yellow cabs. Walk. Don?t Walk.

Having covered almost 100 noisy blocks on foot, we were ready for another snack before hitting the road. We stopped at an unassuming café-bar for tasty 48-hour marinated chicken and spicy sweet potato mash. A three-piece jazz band struck up a few tunes as night fell and I contemplated a long drive back down the Turnpike.

It was a gorgeous day today so, inspired by this thread, DS and I went on a conker-finding mission. I decided the best spot might be the park by the lake with relatively old trees.

DS spent about an hour kicking the freshly fallen leaves, running through the dewy grass, kicking the football and admiring the view whilst I inspected every tree in sight, to no avail. I did get some nice photos though (one on my profile for a short time showing DS and the skyline).

Feeling rather despondent, we pottered off to the park where sat wondering where I would be able to find a conker tree, suspecting that my only hope would be the Arboretum way out in the suburbs. It's a lovely place with a great collection of European trees but is a very long drive.

As I stood up to leave, my foot slipped on something - when I looked down, I realised it was a CONKER! YAY! DS heard my shrieks of delight and came running to see what the fuss was about. I showed him the shiny conkers and suggested we collect some and bring them home. To which, I received a rather scathing and, 'Not me'

My Baby doesn't appreciate conker hunting. Wah!

I forgot to put FOOC Chicago

MrsS, your post brought back very fond memories of the East Coast. Thank you

Brilliant post, Mrs Sprat. I could almost smell the hotdogs and exhaust fumes

Superbunny
Had a look at your profile, your DS is a cutie. Did you make the cakes on your profile, they are fab.

Nothing to report here in Düsseldorf except that the LindtHaus has NITS So no school or Kindergarten for the DCs this week, their last in Germany

Nairobi

Gosh MrsSprat, I would really like to go to NY now, fabulous descriptions.

You can illuminate the Sears Tower any colour you like? Wow that is cool. Could you project a union jack onto it?

It is obviously the season for parks. So to keep up with you park walking folk we went to Nairobi City Park on Sunday. It is situated right in town with the main dual Uhuru Highway running along one side, the Serena Hotel on another and various churches of different denominations on the other. It is a very small park, surprisingly green given that we have not had much rain and water is too precious in Nairobi to waste on grass and flowers. For a very small park it was very full. Families on a day out, small church gatherings, holding hands and singing hallelujah's to the skies, lovers stealing a moment away from prying eyes, small children in polyster fire hazard party frocks. And Us. Two wazungu with 3 blonde haired white children walking around the park stand out quite a bit. White People Don't Walk In The Park. One lady papped dd with her cellphone. Dd happily obliged. We strolled around a monstrous monument to President Moi's era, featuring a hand holding a ice cream torch and various communist style plaquards celebrating industry, the family and Kenya. After chomping on a Kenya special, a Mandazi, which is a cross between a deep friend cupcake and a donut, we headed back to our white suburban enclave.

Btw teafortwo, I was a Colchester gal.

FOOC Lagos

On Saturday we visited a local conservation foundation. All the parks, and many properties with anything more than a handerchief-sized garden, in Lagos are being taken over and built upon so a trip to the 'country' is very welcome.

We arrived at about 4pm and as the day was dullish it wasn't too hot for our trek on the board walk. This has been entirely replaced since our last visit so there were no exciting episodes of jumping over swampy marshland to enliven our walk. Apart from the distant roar of expressway traffic it was pleasantly quiet in the forest - until a large group of locals arrived decked out in very fetching tribal costume. I'm not quite sure why you'd go on a forest walk dressed in your Sunday Best but eventually the peace returned as the revellers went on their way.

The foundation claims to be home to a number of different creatures but we saw little evidence of them. I think our sum total of wildlife was one monkey, two butterflies and a number of ants. There are some animals and birds at the centre's offices, in the shape of very large tortoises and some peacocks. The baby tortoises we saw last year are now bigger and allowed out to roam on the grass, while the peacocks mobbed us for food. We surreptiously obliged them with some Rich Tea biscuits, which they squabbled over amusingly.

Thus renewed by our adventure in the swamp, we made our way back to Lagos through the never-ending traffic jams and I am pleased to report I bear just the one mossie bite as a souvenir, unlike last time, when I forgot to take the DEET spray with me and was almost eaten alive.

MrsSprat, my parents lived near High Bridge in NJ for several years and I thought it was very pretty there. However, they got snowed in once too often and now live in ARIZONA! Actually, I want to take my DD to NY as she would LOVE it.
This thread is great, it's so wonderful to hear about all the interesting places people live - makes France feel quite pedestrian.
Tfor2, my DH would love to live in Puteaux - he could walk to work. I like it too, but out of our price range, I'm afraid, so we're a little further out on the trainline! I took DD and DS to La Defense yesterday, trying to buy clothes for them both, but it was difficult because all they wanted to do was ride on the merry-go-round. For those of you who don't know France, the "manège" is a regular feature of almost every market square or shopping centre, and you get lured in to buying lots of tickets because it's cheaper to buy 10 at once than 2 or 3, so you're then obliged to let your kids ride at least twice. The childrens' clothes shops in La Défense not only have a merry-go-round, but there is a shoe shop with a rocking horse and a clothes shop with a toy car, so it's very hard to get the DCs out of those and into the shops where you actually want to buy things!

Califrau Coins are on there way at last