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?

Mooching in Montreal: Warm but rainy

It was lashing it down last night, and first thing this morning. I had to schlep out the recycling, as DH is away, it's normally his job. He's over in BC and has seen a bear cub, most excited, but the camera was in the car boot. Not sure how he was going to drive, take a picture and avoid said cub all at the same time. We all know men can't multi-task.

An elderly gent was mooching up and down our street with large bin liners, going through the recycling boxes. I have noticed the elderly doing this, never young people. They fish out the cans and plastic bottles to take to the supermarche where they can get credits for them. (5c per item I think). Despite the large number of beggars on the streets downtown, I've yet to see one of them do the same. They sit on curbs with little signs saying, "food, change, cigarettes, anything" or "need money to get home", or even "money for beer". The influx in winter is astounding. They apparently come here deliberately, thinking that the large snow drifts and -30C days will see more people dropping them loose change in sympathy.

funnily - I knew there were homeless in Brisbane but I had never seen the level of begging that I saw when I arrived in London and was travelling the tube all the time when I first got there. It shocked me to see the no of people on the street begging. I now see more that I am back in Brisbane - when I go into the city there are a few. But even in our town high street where I first lived - really shocked me.

They're everywhere downtown here. Each seems to have their own patch of city block. I used to walk home a certain way, every day I'd see the same two fellas in the morning and at night on their corner. They don't harrass you and often just say bonjour, or have a nice days, as you're passing. Makes me feel tight not to give anything, especially on the way home from shopping, but it's a drop in the bucket and doesn't really help anyone in the long run.

Short update from Brazil.
Midwinter here now which is also mid dry season, not seen a drop of rain since early May and don't expect to see any until October. Temps in the low 30's so it's like living in a dust bowl. However, it's lemon season again and I have 9 billion lemons in the garden and about 5 billion bananas - DS is complaining about too much banana cake

Oh to have a garden, let alone fruit trees . My garden is about the only thing I miss about England.

Ooooh, masterandmargarita, nice name. Very glad Nairobi is working out after such a depressing start. Are things better and calmer or just simmering quietly?

yes, on the North American part of the tour. I keep moving, and my bank keeps putting a fraud hold on my account. I admire their diligence, but it's still annoying to have to ring them up every three weeks to unlock my debit card.

Albert, we are VERY dry here too. The papers are full of "how to clear trees and brush from your property" articles to keep houses from burning down.

Went to the zoo today. Lots of fun, but being in a place with so many children suddenly made me notice: there are a LOT of overweight kids around here. I guess I never really saw it before. Because it's really... noticeable.

Ooooh, masterandmargarita, nice name. Very glad Nairobi is working out after such a depressing start. Are things better and calmer or just simmering quietly?

yes, on the North American part of the tour. I keep moving, and my bank keeps putting a fraud hold on my account. I admire their diligence, but it's still annoying to have to ring them up every three weeks to unlock my debit card.

Albert, we are VERY dry here too. The papers are full of "how to clear trees and brush from your property" articles to keep houses from burning down.

Went to the zoo today. Lots of fun, but being in a place with so many children suddenly made me notice: there are a LOT of overweight kids around here. I guess I never really saw it before. Because it's really... noticeable.

Pardon my double post. My fingers are sticky from the Pepperidge Farm double chocolate soft baked cookies I've been munching. I have no idea where this weight problem comes from...

(Hey, for the first time ever on a trip to the US I've actually managed to lose weight. Which is because I'm eating nothing but the double chocolate soft baked cookies and nectarines. They must cancel each other out.)

Miraculously, sparkling clear skies in Shanghai - they must have closed down all the factories to look good on television; the Olympic football games are happening here. I haven't noticed any extra security beyond three soldiers on Nanjing Road (the Oxford Street of Shanghai) on Saturday. They all looked about 17 and wanted to have their photo taken with six-month-old DD. As a Caucasian baby she is a great novelty and is thoroughly used to being patted, squeezed, photographed and told she is fei chang fei chang ke ai (very very cute) by delighted strangers.

Lotus pods are in season and there are peasants with baskets full of them on their shoulders wandering around the streets.

The expats are all pouring with sweat and trying to cling to their little fictionalised bits of home; tonight I am off to a pub quiz at one of the two Irish pubs within a few blocks of my flat. There is also one called the British Bulldog on Urumqi Road. They crank the air con up to the maximum and give everyone the squits with their dodgy fish and chips. The English all love it.

Fabulous posts! I would love to visit China ninedragons, dh almost took a post in Chengdu, that would have been brilliant.

BrownSuga, I am quite at the thought of old people rummaging around in your recycling. We try to recycle here, we have our own compost heap into which we put food and garden debris, we burn the paper items and the rest goes to the garbage people, we have it down to one bag a week. Just like you in Montreal, we have people who come round the 'posh' areas and rummage through these bags that we leave outside the gates once a week. They take away things like plastic oil bottles, milk cartons, tins and take them to the slums to use for all sorts of things. They are so enterprising.

Eids, our shopping too seems to take place more and more in Malls. The big supermarket chain is normally found nestled in these new shiny places, which you don't really expect to find in Africa.

It all sounds delicious Coco, I think you deserve it after all that time living on bananas in Accra Kenya is peaceful just now, the coalition is holding, but needs desperately to deal with the underlying issues of land mainly, before it comes round to election time again. Tourism is bouncing back and the economy is as buoyant as it can be in this worldwide recession. People are finding the increase in living costs difficult to handle but it is not on the scale of South Africa.

Yesterday we went to one of those places only found in Africa. A glass recycling workshop run for some 30 years by a German lady. In the middle of nowhere on a very bad road, it makes you wonder how all the wonderful vases, bowls and glasses they produce make it to Nairobi in one piece. The place is an eclectic mix of fairytale meets Africa, with bits of glass and mirror built into concrete fairytale houses a Gaudi-esque swimming pool with a sauna whose walls are made of bottles. There is a small gorge which has a tiny wire suspension bridge crossing it, covered in glass beads from the workshop. Not for the faint-hearted.

I am happy to report that the sun has finally found its way back to Nairobi after 2 months of grey clouds it is a welcome sight.

I am loving this too
My (really not very interesting) update is that today DH and I celebrate 9 years of marriage and I keep thinking how our life has turned out, and how we couldn't have imagined it, and how fab it is in many ways

Glad to see everyone in the far-away time zones have boosted this thread overnight.

eidsvold at your library. Sounds like heaven.

brownsuga - it's the older ladies that go around the bins looking for plastic down on the adriatic coast during the holiday season too. You never see young people doing it and rarely see men.

themasterandmargaritas - the glass place sounds amazing! got any photos?

It's still horribly hot over here in central Bosnia, which I know I shouldn't complain about after the freezing cold winter but we have only had rain once since the start of July and the garden (and hence winter food) is suffering. All I can do is do quick bouts of weeding and run back indoors. Annoyingly, weeds still grow very well without water .

The most excitng thing that has happened here this week is that one of the neighbours got caught red-handed cutting wood on another neighbour's land and is rumoured to be selling the wood too! Police were called and the gossipers are having a fab time.

With the economic boom, resources are scarce and everything is recycled here. The recyclers have tricycles with little bells and they go up and down the streets and you sell them your shampoo bottles, paper, cardboard and cans.

We have two who base themselves just outside our flat. We have come to the agreement that we give them our recyclables for free and they help me carry the pram down the stairs. Works very well!

Chengdu is, by all accounts, a giant stinking industrial dump, so I think you dodged a bullet there. Shanghai is not bad - would be great if I weren't so homesick.

I have just taken DD for a walk. I saw some miniature replica models of the Eiffel Tower in a shop. They were blue. Perhaps there are groups of Chinese tourists in Paris standing at the base of the Eiffel Tower and thinking huh, it is grey. I thought it would be blue.

On the topic of recycling, Hong Kong is much the same - everything that can be recycled is.

We used to give our aluminium cans to our very, very elderly neighbours. They had a friend who was very poor but too proud to accept cash, but she would take peoples recyclables. Our neighbour used to sit outside smashing the cans flat with a mallet. I bought him one of those can-crusher things on eBay for Christmas. He smiled politely but on about January 3 he came running up to my husband (who speaks Cantonese) and said he had finally worked out what it was for - the packaging was all in English - and it was the best invention ever.

I spoke too soon. Now we have no water.

Because of our position at the top of a steep hill, the water company had to install a special (electric) pump to get the water to our house when they rebuilt the water system for the village two years ago. You can already guess that when we have power cuts (about once a week) we also have a water cut. But today it is only the water, which means that the pump has probably cut off or broken (disastrous because the 'special' engineers are based 3 hours away and usually can't come for days). DS and I are heading down to the water company now to catch them as they start work. They know us well down there . We will, as usual, try and look as grubby and thirsty as possible .

It has been almost a year since we've had this problem, after spending up to two months at a time without running water, lugging it up here in barrels in the back of the car.

Ironically, Bosnia is the 'land of many waters'. Everywhere you go there are rivers, streams, and springs. However this year, even the gushing mountain springs where DH stops to refill his water containers when out on tours, are now only offering a slow trickle. It's a dry year.

This is becoming part of my morning routine, eating breakfast then drinking a cup of PG and catching up on the MNetters in other time zones.

I love the storys of the exotic places that some of you live. Germany is not half as exciting, certainly no banana or lemon trees in my garden.

We are all a bit recycling mad here. It always used to irritate me when I went home to UK to see them throwing everything in one bin.

Here in Germany it is often young men who mooch around the bins looking for bottles that can be returned to the supermarkets for the deposit. There are beggars on the street here too, more in some cities than others.

We get a lot of buskers here, and I often give a coin or two to them. Except the strange panpipes bands from South America. They seem to be in every town in Germany and are pretty irritating. WARNING! Not just panpipes, panbipes playing My Heart Will Go On.

Wellies
Hope you get the water back on soon.

oh wellies we have had it dry here in Aus but that sounds terrible. I agree that only the weeds seem to prosper. The only thing covering my garden in huge amounts are dandelions and bindii weeds - terrible prickles from bindii come the summer.

We have a mango tree, an avocado tree and a macadamia tree. Not so many macadamia nuts but it is not a huge tree. Every couple of summers - mangoes galore. Avocado is not too bad either. The rest of our garden is more australian natives although a tenant of mine managed to plant some bulbs so I have some hyacinth in flower at present.

I love the native trees as they encourage the rainbow lorikeets to come and they are fab.

lorikeets here

We get the sulphur crested cockatoos after the macadamia nuts - amazing to wath them crack them open with their beaks.

sulphur crested cockatoos

we have huge recycling wheelie bins that get collected every second week with our rubbish collection. None of this sorting like in the UK - just one big bin - yellow lid - plastics, paper, cardboard, tins etc all in the one bin.

califrau, you are a truly lovely person and I'm glad they accepted it. One just doesn't think of there being such poverty in California, out of LA anyway.

Here as well, you don't really think about it, but reports yesterday say that 230,000 children in NZ are living below the povery line. That's 22% of NZ children, and it's pretty horrifying. It's hard to get my head round it. I remember hearing about schools that run breakfast clubs otherwise massive amounts of children wouldn't get anything to eat in the morning before school.

Paris FOOC

Thank you so much for your posts - each one is of deep interest or delight and I am constantly being hit in very emotional and surprising ways! I have a confession to make. I have taken to reading this thread with a tissue nearby to mop up tears of laughter or sadness which each of your posts bring out in me!

So... let me tell you about me...

I have been in the UK for just one week and I have spent time in London, Suffolk and a day on the Isle of Wight. Each of these places I have enjoyed and will treasure each experience for a very long time but... something new is happening inside me... I have started to develop a longing for Paris!

I want to leave our little messy bohemian appartment that sits above an antique shop, send a friendly wave to the man who runs the couscous restaurant opposite that boasts to be the only restaurant with a garden our end of town, nod at the barbar who gives my daughter free haircuts "because it is you" and the lady at the Chinese take-out with her many beautiful beautiful children. I want to spend the morning at the market and then sit into the afternoon at the cafe with friends and invite the staff to join us. I want to whizz across the city on the metro, meet more friends to picnic in the park and smell bagettes and croissants on the breeze...

As they say abscence makes the heart grow fonder! Or... maybe.... just maybe.... I am starting to think of this friendly little town sitting just beside Paris as my... dare I say it... HOME!

sounds very idyllic tea, and how life should be lived.

the master, love the sound of the glass place, and second the call for pics.

Eidsvoid, I had to smile at your little ol' nan being an avid Aussie rules fan, sorry to hear that she has passed over.
BrownSuga, that poor man, how awful having his head cutr of while asleap in the bus. I googled the story, and its frankly bizzare.

FOOC from Dover
Yesterday was the first nice weather for a week or so, so after work we went and sat on the beach with an ice cream, lovely white cliffs and the castle to one side of us, lovely sea in front of us and manky town behind us, then last night we had an amazing thunder and lightening storm, which was amazing to watch over the channel .. even if it was really late.