from our own correspondent

[teafortwo]

Old thread...
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/2423/576865?ts=1222265998268&msgid=12499051

New thread...

to be created below!

Enjoy!

Eastern Canada rather than Toronto, because I've been travelling around a bit this week

I was feeling negligent that I've not seen more of Canada since arriving here 5 months ago. To put this slightly right, DD and I took off on a trip to Quebec for a few days, while DH went off to the States.

Distances feel massive here, so unless you fly, it can be a tremendous effort to see lots of this beautiful country. Canadian long-distance trains are very nice though, and you get lots of help at big stations if, like me, you are on your own with push-chair, case and various clutter-gathering day-bags. I was a bit at the fares, but was foolishly judging against a UK benchmark of generally crappy service and limited investment.

Last Sunday lunchtime, we boarded a train for Montreal or Monn-Ray-Al, in a Quebecois accent(). We managed to get a cheapy weekend first class fare and I was wined (generously), dined and very comfortably seated. 6 hours later we arrived there to check into a hotel near Mont Royal and the business district. We grabbed a quick Italian meal before bedtime.

The following morning, I tapped up the concierge for some whistle-stop instructions for visiting Montreal before catching a train to Quebec City later that afternoon. So armed with a walking-guide, we headed to Vieux Montreal and the Port area to have a quick potter around and take some photographs. The Fall colours are looking just perfect at the moment. It seems like a really lovely city and I wish I could have spent more time there. I couldn't believe how properly French a lot of people looked - some very smart ladies and businessmen in dodgy adventurous coloured suits or leather blousons. We came back partly via the Underground City interconnected shopping malls (I knew it got cold but an average of 3 metres of snow in winter to hide from !) and grabbed a quick lunch at a salad/sandwich place before our check-out deadline.

..to be continued...

FOOC Auckland
Signing out from Auckland for 7 days of glorious sun and fun in Fiji (I hope). Looking forward to reporting when back in a weeks time. Ni doubt I'll have heaps of catching up on this thread when I get back.

FOOC Galicia.

Well, RL has caught up with me good and proper - the new academic year has started after 3 months of holiday for me! It has taken a bit of getting used to, and quite a few early nights.

I´ve been enjoying all your posts though.

lacrisis is being felt acutely in my line of work. I teach English, mainly in companies connected to the car/engineering industry, and all of them are cutting back on "non-essentials" i.e. English classes.

So, I´ve had to go back to kids classes, which are rewarding, but a total change from the last three years where I've been driving around industrial estates, meeting execs in their lunch hours to practise a bit of conference calling. Oh well, it´s a new challenge

On a lighter note, October means fruit. PILs have a large orchard, and after a disappointing summer with few peaches and even fewer strawberries, the autumn fruits are coming along well. FIL spends his free hours collecting apples and pears and arranging them on any available newspaper covered surface to last the winter. Less durable fruit comes in the shape of kiwis and feijoas I had never come across this fruit until I came here. It has a strange taste, sweet but almost like iodine. I remember the first time I tried it I thought "this tastes like medicine"...

Just popping in here to tell you - I just got recognised as a fooc by a (I think) non-fooc. Ladies... we are famous!!!!

Cies - I am an English teacher too - hence my deminishing input of late too! We should swap notes sometime!!!

Ooh, can I join the ranks with an observation from Zurich....

Swiss v English choccie:

Battle lines were set in my office today when I brought in a big bar of Dairy Milk that a friend had brought me from a visit home. Chocolate snobbery is of course rife here, and this gesture may have been interpreted by some as assertive, if not overly hostile.

My assistant swiftly retaliated by bringing out a big box of Lindt and Sprungli (proper fancy Swiss "confectionery") Apparently left over from the new joiner gift packs.

Both choices duly laid out in the kitchen. Sureptitious checking through the afternoon saw neck and neck consumption until about 4pm (a well known snacking time of day.) But state of play at hometime - Dairy Milk all gone, at least half the box of Sprungli left. Ha.

At least you aren't from America, and the only chocolate American chocolate beats is white chocolate with a high melamine content. And even then, I'm sure the melamine chocolate would win for taste.

OREGON

It is fall here!!!!!! It has been pissing (we'd use the word pouring, but I'm fascinated with how many meanings you have for the word pissing) down rain all day, and rather cold. Time to break out the fall wardrobe.

I was really excited, because I can't find figs here anywhere, as Oregon is probably as conducive to fig growing as the UK. Our neighbors have a fig tree, and they brought me some over today, as they haven't ripened until now. I made a blue cheese, pancetta, fig, and carmelized onion pizza with them. Yum.

On a really great note, the In-laws house is there and up, and they're almost ready to take possession. Their house burned down in June, and they lost everything. Thankfully they were gone at the time. It has been really hard, because they had so many pictures, family heirlooms, etc, and they are all gone. It has been especially hard because BIL died when his place burned down 4 years ago. They won't be in just yet, but will have it for a week, and paint it the way they want, and then the carpets and trim will go down and they can move in. They are renting a place, but don't have any of their own furniture, and finally will be able to get some, and not feel displaced any more.

Oh, I forgot my funny story from a few days ago. I was at the Home Depot looking for a bucket. I found a nice big one, but wanted a lid for it. An associate took me back to where the lids were. I asked him if he had a smaller bucket, and he showed me one. I told him it wouldn't work, because I couldn't fit a chicken it and put the lid on.

You should have seen the look he gave me. He thought I meant a live chicken. I gave him the biggest laugh ever when I told him I wanted it to brine my chicken in before I cooked it. He said people come in there all the time looking for buckets and have really odd reasons. He said my brining the chicken was different, but nowhere near the oddest thing someone wanted a bucket for, but when he thought it was a live chicken, that was at the top of his list for odd requests.

Paris fooc

DD and I found a film called 'Le Balloon Rouge' in the children's section of our local library yesterday.

We watched it three times in a row because we loved it so much - and once again today...

I found it on youtube - so you can watch it too!!!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xrqHQ1mGGk&feature=related

This is the 1/4 - I will leave you to find the rest!

I don't know if it is just us but we find it completely impossible to watch the ending without jumping up and down waving and blowing kisses to the lovely little boy!!!

Kapiti, New Zealand
I am opting to represent the worst spelling FOOC on this thread and we have English teachers reading ...oh no, no time to spell check today!
Cies, Ah Galicia, another lovely part of the world. I spent a great many years in the mountains of Portugal and we had we Kiwis growing there but they only ever flowered and never came to fruit, I don't know why. I'm quite surprised you have Feijoas growing in your part of the world, but then I too did not know what a Feifoa was until the tree in my garden here in NZ came to fruit, then, well what a treat. It's also a fantastic source of nectar for the native birds here.
Well today it is raining, again. Spring is slow coming and we are all in need of some sun, which I'm sure will be forthcoming as soon as the childern go back to school at the end of next week!
Today I am relatively unconcerned about the weather as in a few hours I am attending the word of wearable arts. I shall report back after the event which I have been in anticipation of since my future mother in law bought me a ticket six months ago.
Oh Dooneygirl having recently done a course in organic horticulture, which also touched on keeping chickens, I'm not sure from your post if you realised the bucket technique is said to be the easiest way to bring a live chicken into the state in which it can broiled!
And finally FOOC's on chocolate...[dribbling emoticon] from one who is allergic!

No, I know nothing about live chickens. Just brining dead ones, I'm afraid.

Falklands Hi i don't really have much to say but though that i would say Hi from windy Stanley.

Were just coming into summer here and i am looking forward to saving money on my heating and getting my annual dose of sunburn (on account of the hole in the ozone!)

Wow, the Falklands! How, why etc etc? Tell us all about it squidandchips

Melbourne

Spring has most definitely sprung here in Melbourne ... we have had some gloriously sunny days - yesterday a beautiful 21 degrees, today 16 degrees but bright blue skies
It can be changeable though, we left the house on Friday morning in bright sunshine and by 1pm it was pouring with rain. Melbourne is the city that inspired the Crowded House song "4 Seasons In One Day" for very good reason
Yesterday we went to a child's birthday party in a park. I love the communal BBQs at Aussie parks. You turn up and bring all your gear and just park yourself at a table by the gas BBQ. If someone is on it it is very relaxed and you wait your turn ... the little kids play in the playground and the big kids play cricket. True Aussie style relaxation ...

oh I love 'Le Balloon Rouge' - watched it as a child

incapable of anyt updates from here as feeling too darn ill. grrr. when i am feeling better I will do somehting

oh I love 'Le Balloon Rouge' - watched it as a child

incapable of anyt updates from here as feeling too darn ill. grrr. when i am feeling better I will do somehting

AHHH ghosty - the old communal BBQ at the park. The dds are desperate to have one at the park that we like to go to the most BUT the big day we had planned dawned - or should that be did not dawn - huge black clouds threatening to burst any minute. So they have a raincheck for that one.

brisbane

been out to the markets

here to get my gorgeous all natural soaps. I am tending more and more to use more natural things for the dds especially. Dd2 suffers from a heat rash/eczema which drives her nuts. got a lovely calendula and goats milk soap to try on that. Supposed to be good for nappy and heat rash. Dd1 ( still being in pull ups) seems to get a lot of heat rash on her butt.

The soap man is only there once a month so I have to remember to get out there and get some. The great part about these markets - there are some shops that are permanent - in old cottages that have been moved to the site.

here

They are open during the week - great for gift shopping - no crowds. They do scrummy food too, and have twilight markets over the summer.

Are off to the dam park or beach park later this afternoon - glorious warm summers day here today. Dd's have been playing out on the garden enjoying themselves.

Dd1 is back to school tomorrow. Last term of the year and then 6 weeks summer break.

islamabad

Hi, I have had a quick look at this thread but unfortunately not had a chance to read it properly. But thought I would add my own report while I still had a chance....

Since the Mariott bombing two weeks ago, we have been living under the continual shadow of threatened evacuation. Well, the decision finally came through last week and we're off in two weeks time, hopefully via a planned holiday in Phuket. Life has almost gone on as normal in the meantime, although most of us now think twice about taking our children shopping. We have only been here a few months so regret the fact that we will never have a chance to see anything of this country, in particular the beautiful northern regions. But overall, despite the fact we have only just started to feel settled here, I think the main thing I am feeling is relief. Doing anything or going anywhere is just getting harder and harder, with more and more police checkpoints and tougher and tougher security. We can't visit any restaurants any more and there is very little to do here at weekends. And over everything else, there is the stress of living with the unknown - where and when will the next bomb be, are they targeting Westerners, will they think we're Americans?

From your own correspondent in Islamabad, hopefully I'll soon be home!

Little bit more on the Falklands for Ghosty

We have a very small population, around 3,000. The weather used to be hard in the winter but seems to have mellowed with time. The summers are warm ish but very windy!

Every summer we get invaded by tourists, which is good for us but hard to handle because sometimes more tourists arrive in the Islands than there are locals! But we manage.

This is a trully amazingly safe place to live, we dont lock our doors, leave our vehicles unlocked (and some times still running) we have very low crime rates etc. We also have a perminant UK military pressence which makes us feel safe

On the down side, there arnt many shopping opportunities, and goods are expensive, especially taking into consideration the miles they have travelled. It is also very expensive to travel anywhere outside the Islands, and i mean very expensive!

Overall life here is mellow, and we are all generally mellow, and very lucky people

Clara, I was just thinking of you last week and wondering if you had ever arrived and now here you are leaving. Will they send dh on another posting or does he stay and it's just you and the dc that get sent back? It must be a scary time for you, such a pity you haven't had the chance to explore.

Wow squid that is amazing I have always wanted to meet someone from the Falklands! Have you lived there since a child or did you move there from elsewhere?

Paris fooc

Thanks for the posts today - really interesting and informative.

So - We are just back from a Pirate and Sailor 2nd birthday party on a boat on the River Seine!

Great fun - and a real treat!

Hopefully, clara, life will soon be a bit more fun for you! Thanks for sharing your story and thinking of you lots - love from teafortwo!

Oregon

It must be the day for birthday parties. DD went to her first one that just she has been invited to, not her and her older brother. It was at a gymnastics center. I felt a bit odd going, because her preschool has only been in session less than a month, but I talked to the mom giving the party and we went.

Loads of fun. DD just turned 3 a few days before the Sept. 1 cutoff, and the other girl was turned 4 a few days ago. All the kids were bigger than DD, but she was having fun, jumping off things that were taller than she was, and getting up with an ear-to-ear grin. I was glad we went in the end, because only 6 of the kids from the school said they were going, and only 3 actually showed up.

Thema i have sort of moved around a bit, between here and the UK. But this is my home, spent best years of my life here both as a child and now as an adult with children of my own. I was here pre 1982 and i came home in the 90's.

I was reading some other posts about not actually setting down roots when moving around a lot. It is true to a certain extent, but ultimately i had such a strong desire to come home it was overwhelming.

I have lots of family both here, and all over the world because the Falklands doesn't have a very big population and we inevitably dip into the wealth of knowledge around the world. Results a very cosmopolitan nation with people from all walks of life.

Weather today in the Falklands has been snow! But the penguins have started to come in to roost so it must mean summer is on its way! We have Monday off as a bank holiday called "Peat Cutting Monday" traditionally it was the day all Falkland Islanders went out to cut their annual peat requirements. We don't really use peat much these days but its still nice to have a day off!!!

Some of the problems of a small place, we all know each others business, and there is no hiding, but most of use are related weather it be second cousin or niece. We are family and we stick together when times are hard. That actually applies when not related by blood .

I don't think i would like to live anywhere else, this place just draws me back.

We have lots of Aussie and Kiwi contractors come down and they either love it or hate it, most love it and stay. So we must have something

Wow squidandchips, that sounds so nice and heartwarming ... My picture of the Falkland Island is only really what I remember about from news during the war so I was only about 12 then so it is very vague. It sounds amazing

Melbourne
First day back at school today and I felt sad making DS's sandwiches this morning. Term 4 is strict No Hat No Play term so we had to remember to pack his hat despite the pissing rain and grey clouds
I have somewhat recovered from my creepy crawley shocker last week but having a chat with my dear old dad in the UK last night I have to admit to shedding a tear . My Dad is very sympathetic to my phobia and rang up full of suggestions to find help: "Why don't you try Hypnosis but beware Charlatans" .
The newspapers this weekend were full of some Aussie motobike rider who has won the MOTOgp in Melbourne. I am afraid that most motorsports leave me cold ... mind numbingly boring.
Although I did go to an A1GP race in NZ two years ago and I enjoyed being there - it was exciting live.
I am boring myself here, talking about bloody motorsports

Ghosty, just reading your post about creepy crawley, forget to say we don't have bees, snakes, crocs, sharks or anything that bites....other than the mating sea lion!!!

I actually like the look of Aus for a look, maybe a holiday but its so expensive will have to just "look" for the moment!

Its actually taken me a long time to post on here, i have watched and though i would like to say hello but never had the nerve to do it.

Something i have noticed, its a small world, there is always someone somewhere who knows off or even related to such and such. That's nice

Its 20:30 here and as its a bank holiday tomorrow so i am enjoying a really cheap beer! {beer costs less than coke in the Falklands, makes me love the place even more!)

Welcome squid! . It's lovely to have someone posting from the Falklands. DP and I were only talking about them yesterday at a Barbie - he was on the Sir Galahad in the Falklands War.

I loved your bit about the penguins - we were playing spot the sulphur crested cockatoo flying wild on our way home yesterday. We saw about 80 in a few flocks. They are lovely.

It's a bank holiday here today too. It was 38' on Friday and has dropped down to 20 [sulks] so my big plans for a day out on the beach with a barbie have been foiled and so far today we have baked and decorated biscuits, played several games of uno spin and cranium hullaballoo and now a playdate has arrived so I've nipped onto mumsnet while they play connect 4 and DP de-snails the garden.

[Sydney FOOC]

arfishy, we have nothing but respect for the boys who served down here Big respect to the boys.......they saved our ass....