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?

DD (mix-fed from birth) has always been on SMA Gold. This scandal is not at all surprising if you live here, and I would never have trusted a local formula brand. It's not the first - a few years ago a couple of dozen babies died in Anhui province because somebody decided to sell fake formula that had been bulked up with plaster dust. At a guess, a Western brand would be two to three times as expensive as a local brand, which would be prohibitive for most families. Now they won't have a choice.

I doubt there are emergency supplies, unless Wyeth, Abbott and Nestle are air-freighting extra stocks in this weekend. We bought all bar one box that the shop had left. If we run out before my brother arrives with more we will just get our families to FedEx us some.

I have seen local babies being fed what I think is rice gruel, so people who can't afford Western formula may go back to that.

Today was a special day in the town I live in because it was a food festival! The esplanade outside the townhall was ladened with foodstuff and food related products from around France.

Lots of dried meats, fruits, cook books, cooking equipment, cakes and pancakes in white colonial style tents that zig-zagged across the white tiles reflecting the last of the summer sun.

In the centre a bandstand playing jazz and on the edge a tent for children to have their faces painted.

We bought some field mushrooms, jam and dried pork then dd had her face painted and we danced to the band until we got tired so instead sat on the floor next to the bookstand reading to dd and her little friend. We slowly arrived back at our apartment too full from our Moules et frites lunch to eat much more than cheese, bread and an apple each for dinner.

Such a massive massive contrast to the terrible milk crisis in China and talk of babies eating such things as rice gruel.

FOOC Nigeria

First things first. There is only one me, therefore this SueDonym person is definitely an imposter.

Second, it's also my birthday on Wednesday! Not telling you how old I'll be but 40 is a dim, distant memory. And a helpful hint to anyone who is about to be 40; don't do as I did and immerse yourself in books about the menopause. You may end up with a larger family than you'd intended.

Diddy, the Conservation Centre is on Lekki, further along the road to the Shoprite Mall, The Palms. You'd need to leave anything from 30mins to 1hr to get from The Palms to the Centre, depending on traffic. The Cafe Veragamo at the Palms is an ok place to eat, burgers, African foods, pizzas and salads all available. There's also a cinema at the Palms and a book shop. If you fancy a meet-up, I have some books I'm looking to pass on. I enquiredfor you about having a baby here but haven't found anyone with any experience, unfortunately. Sorry.

The baby milk scandal is dreadful, the news on Sky is reporting tens of thousands of sick babies. I was invited to a lunch-do last week but declined the offer partly because the person's dh is a big cheese with Nestle out here and I'd have felt hypocritical about accepting their hospitality. I'm even gladder I didn't go now.

Fooc Paris

Oh - the whole Nestle issue really annoys me.

When I was a teenager I boycotted nestle - thinking in not eating their chocolate, drinking the coffee etc I would be somehow not buying into it. The trouble is there is soooo much stuff nestle make and import and then once you find out about the terrible behaviour of one multinational company on a worldwide scale you start to become aware of others. You realise that inhumane policies are incredibly widespread and trying to live without funding some company that is somewhere somehow exploiting another being becomes actually impossible in this modern world.

There is a great Ani Difranco song where she says that the multinationals are going to buy chunks of air so is as easy as breathing to participate. It sometimes feels like they may have well of done it anyway! Especially in China this week!

wow - the foocs really get you thinking - hey?

oh and p.s

'appy birfdaaaiiiiyyy sue!!!! For Wednesday!!!

How strange that so many people once lived in Essex and now have birthdays on the same day ooooooooooooooohhhh wow!!!! It must be a sign that this is a very very special thread!!!!

And many happy returns to you and Eids, as well!

Re Essex, I'm a Maid of Kent but my oldest friend lives in Essex. Upminster, actually, which likes to think it's London but I'm tellin' ya, her address says Essex. And I rather like Essex. There's lots of lovely countryside and even the mudbanks flanking the Thames estuary have their own charm. 'Sarfend' is good for a day trip, too. Yup, Essex is an ok place.

brisbane sue I lived in the southend area for the first couple of years of my time in Essex. I livedin Shoeburyness first and then moved to westcliff-on-sea. I did find it amusing that the thames was called the sea - coming from Aus. It used to make me chuckle.

We then moved to a village near Chelmsford which I really loved.

My dh is a kent boy - born in Rochester. My MIL still lives in the are.

we are on spring holidays here. Dd1 has two weeks off school. Everything stops for us - so no swimming, no speech therapy, no playgroup, no school.

Yesterday we took the dds here - great for a good morning walk. Just big enough for them to spend a morning and not too big that they get cranky and fractious and you want to stay to make sure you get your money's worth.

This is about 5 minutes drive from our house

Sue - anything planned for your birthday? I sure don't feel forty - although some days I feel much older.

Happy birthday to all for 24th.

Hijack/Barge-in*

My little sister is off on a 6mo placement to Khartoum in October (she works for a medical charity). We were talking today and she was saying she has no idea how much Sharia Law impacts things like dress, women's behaviour etc in Khartoum.She will get a briefing before she goes but it is more focused on the work than cultural stuff. She is pretty nervous at the mo!

Any hints I can pass on?

TIA and apologies for butting in so rudely

oh forgot to mention... the dds and I were down the garden yesterday ( as we are most days). I was looking around trying to sort out what we are going to do later in the week when we try and sort the wildness out.

I was trying to see how tall some palm trees of ours were when I saw something move ever so slightly.

It was one of these I have seen one sitting on my clothesline at night but this was about 4pm and very much still daylight. Dd2 was fascinated.

eidsvold - thanks - that is really very interesting!!!

slouchy - Lets hope someone on here can help out your sister!

FOOC Vigo, Spain

Autumn is coming on quickly, although in the city it´s hard to see. There are only a few trees big enough and of the right species to fully display autumn colours. There is one avenue lined with horse chestnuts that are at present dropping their conkers on cars, but little else. The city has gone through an aggressive ´beautification´process in the last 10 years which has resulted in new wider sparkly granite pavements complete with trees, but as yet most are rather puny.

Even when you look out over the countryside it´s hard to see autumn arriving, because the majority of trees are acacia or eucalyptus - so still lovely and green. These trees are not native to Galicia, but were extensively introduced for wood in 1940s. Since then they have colonised large areas, growing quickly and sucking up much more water than the native chestnuts and oaks. This has caused huge problems of drying up springs and also contributes to forest fires. There is now a plan to repopulate the countryside with native broadleaves, but of course that will take time.

One of my favourite trips in Autumn is to drive inland towards the city of Ourense, where the countryside still preserves its oak forests which have a beautiful display of red and brown foliage. I love walking through the fallen leaves, hearing them crunching under my feet.

On Sunday dh and I took 3yo niece for a nature walk on the moorland above IL´s house. We followed the course of a boggy stream, in the hope of seeing birds, insects and amphibians. She was enchanted by the ´plopping´ noise that the frogs made when they heard us coming and jumped into the stream. Watching them dart around underwater was a lesson in adaptation that even a 3yo could understand.

Auntie Cies was also roped in for a piggy back ride, which incidently is called ´caballito` or pony ride here. Why do we say piggy back in English? Horse is much more logical. I wonder what it´s called in other places around the world...

p.s. No Essex connection here at all. In fact, don´t think I´ve ever even been there. I hail from sunny Devon.

slouchy there are a lot of folk here who do/have done living in Sudan, normally South Sudan, but I will ask around and see if they can fill me in.

Toronto

So yesterday was the first official day of Autumn. I walked pushing DD to Bayview Avenue which is a naice neighbourhood about 20 mins walk from where we live: full of frivilous chi-chi boutiques and pun-heavy names ("The Merchant of Tennis"), but good for a giggle. A lovely crisp sunny day. It being our first Fall here, I saw my first turning-red maple leaf. They are genuinely as red as the Canadian flag.

There's going to be a General Election here soon, so quite a few of the residential streets have campaign-boards up on their lawns. However, the contrast to the hype and hullabaloo over the US election seems remarkable.

I stopped for a coffee and browsed through one of the newspapers. Doesn't this sound like a refreshingly laid-back opener for an election that is about 1 month away...? One article started: "The National Post begins an occasional series on the resonant issues and interesting races in electoral regions across the country..." and the rest of the article noodled along nicely in a similar non-urgent vein. If they got any more 'occasional' with their musings, they'd be in danger of missing the whole election.

In the UK or the States, you could imagine something like that written, oooh, maybe 4 years before an election.

(oh and sorry no Sudanese expertise or Essex, for that matter, here)

Nearly time for a new thread FOOCs, see you on the next one, I hope.

FOOC Auckland

It still feels very strange that as Autumn approaches in other parts of the world spring is approaching here in NZ.

The past few days have been beautiful, clear blue skies with the odd fluffy white cloud. On Sunday we headed to a local beach with the 2 ds's and ds1's friend who had had a sleep over. Standing with the beach in front of you to your left is a huge grass verge with two play areas. During summer weekends you can barely see a blade of grass as day trippers park their picnic blankets, gazebos, bbq's, body boards etc...but as it's still early there were only half a dozen keen day trippers. Day trippers are usually pacific islanders and maori a stark contrast from the usual very white (pakeha) population of the area during the week and winter. Also to the left you can see Auckland city skyline dominated by the sky tower. Of an evening, as well as the city lights glowing in the distance, you can see the haze that hovers over the city glowing almost orange. For such a clean green country many of our cities are polluted to the point you can see the smog hanging in the air. In front of you are a few islands, waiheke being the largest jutting out from the sea and providing shelter for us beach goers. The sea was perfectly calm and dotted with a few sailing boats going nowhere fast, the odd jet skier and mad swimmer. Swimming in the sea traditionally starts here at Labour weekend - end of October - we dipped our toes in, these people were keen! We walked the 2.5kms round trip along the beach past sunbathers, children making sand castles, picnickers and swimmers past 2 jetties packed with fishermen of all ages. We lingered at the far jetty to see who had caught what.

The air was tinged with the slightly salty air from the sea, warmth from the sun and fish and chips from the chippy that was dong it's usual roaring trade with people queueing out the door and along the pavement.

Of course we finished the day with a few ice lollies on the sand before we headed home for a swim in the pool - heated and far more civilised at this time of the year

www.flickr.com/photos/oldwalker/2851920032/in/pool-seascape

Cies my ancestors ( my grandmother's side) hailed from Devon area and it is one place I really really liked in the UK.

brisbane - happy birthday to tea4w and suedonim.

So far today - we went to mcd's for breakfast - we were going to have a bbq breakfast but it has been a very bleak cloudy day and we feared for rain. So managed a quick park play after mcd's. My SIL visited on her way home - she lives about 2 1/2 hours drive away. Her dds and ds are the same age as my three - all were born within a few months of each other. Great to catch up with them.

The dds woke me up shouting surprise.... and gave me presents - a gorgeous chunky silver bracelet - a book and chocs. SIL gave me a voucher for clothes shopping. I went and did some shopping this afternoon - new shirt and shoes for tonight and coffee out with the girls on saturday night.

Very soon - the dds are off to grandma's - dh and I are off to dinner and a comedy show!

Turning 40 aint that bad!

I hope the others who share my birthday have as great a day. The weather could have been better - sunny warm days BUT it has not rained so far today despite looking very threatening.

califrau - hope ds is better soon. We have had colds and dd2 has a touch of croup!

Happy Birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday to yooooooouuuuuuuuu all, happy birthday to you.

(note: you are all safe I won't do the Nigerian version)

Have a lovely day Eids, Tea and the one and only original Suedonim.

FOOC Kapiti Coast New Zealand.

Oh dear what a lot of reading I have to do to catch up this correspondent has been very busy planning her forthcoming wedding so has neglected her FOOC duties somewhat.

The Magnolia trees have done their yearly dash, what a magnificent tree. The Kowhai trees, a native which produces a yellow blossom, have been doing a fansastic job of drawing the Tuis back from Kapiti Island. The Tui is a remarkable native bird whose range of sounds is so diverse and pleasing on the ear one has to stop to listen. Captain Cook was heard to say of the Tui in 1773 on his second voyage, ?Under its throat hang two little tufts of snow?white feathers, called poies, which being the Otaheitean word for ear?rings, occasioned our giving that name to the bird; which is not more remarkable for the beauty of its plumage than the sweetness of its note." As for our island of Kapiti, she is about 6 km from the mainland here and not only is a nature reserve which has been made preditor free allowing the rare native birdlife freedom to thrive, but also provides us with the protection which makes the beaches so safe for our children, we are very lucky to have her!

Teafortwo, I have just received an email from my relies in Europe, they are en-route to Paris from Italy, not exactly sure of their e.t.a. but must be fairly soon. Coincidentally their only planned site seeing stop is Monet's garden, so any other suggestions would be received with thanks from my future sister in law.

Now I have some reading to do......

¡Cumpleaños Feliz! to Eidsvold, Teafortwo and Suedonim! ¡Felicidades!

kjaysmum, your island sounds paradise. I will google and admire more later.

Thanks - happy birthday to Eidsvold and Suedonim too!!!!

New thread called - from our own correspondent