from our own correspondent

[teafortwo]

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

New thread...

to be created below!

Enjoy!

FOOC Geneva
We are currently enjoying a day of rain. Enjoying as it is the first proper rain for weeks and it was extremely hot this past weekend. The Genevan hot weather record was broken on Sunday, the warmest May day since 1905.

We spent Sunday at this beach not far from our home. As someone who has spent the past 16 years landlocked in Germany, having access to a beach is bliss. This one is spectacular, the gentle slope into the water is ideal for young children and there are a couple of little cafés and restaurants right on the beach.

The other beaches nearby are stony ones so this fine, soft sand is a real treat.

Part 2
As I was disturbed by the very unfriendly Migros home shopping delivery man.

Before the weather got really hot, we were at the village Plage (beach) and swam in the freezing cold lake. The water at Excenevex beach is shallow so quite warm, here in the deeper waters it was still very cold.

I spent the morning there with a friend, also from Scotland and our DC. The DC were straight into their swimmies and into the water so we had to go in as well as they are not good swimmers. The faces of the locals when they saw us in the lake! They shook their heads and drew their cardigans closer as they watched the crazy Brits freeze their norks off. We were informed by a guy with a thermometer on a string that the water temperature was only 16°C that day.

Wow - that beach looks stunning

FOOC Gran Canaria

MmeLindt - wow, that beach looks stunning, we have a couple of very nice white sandy beaches. Unfortunately the one opposite our house is pebbly so have to get in the car if we want to experience "real" sand.

Well it's Día de Canaria on Friday. DS1 will be popping on his traditional costume and participating in lots of different activities. The school invites lots of different groups into the school and the children get to practice traditional canarian dancing, wrestling (Lucha Canaria) and making canarian pictures out of clay. Apparently the school is providing a bouncy castle, which (to be honest) I don't think is a great idea as there are definitely going to be tears before bedtime with all the children vying to get on it and not wanting to get off

DS2's Guarderia (Nursery) is also celebrating it and he could have gone dressed in a mini-outfit which would have looked adorable. Unfortunately the Nursery shuts at 2pm and DH and I don't finish school until 3.35pm Fortunately we have a lovely friend who is going to look after him for us.

These are the types of costume the children wear

FOOC Ibadan, Nigeria

It seems like a very long time since I posted on here. If I remember right, the last time was to recount the bizarre and totally Nigerian style birth of my baby - he is now 6 months old! Catching up with all your posts has been a couple of hours very well spent.
Sue, your post on Lagos was spot on. There was a very interesting article in the Guardian that my mother sent to me from 9th May about the population explosion in Lagos. This is a city with a population that is too great and too transient to be accurately counted (estimates put the population at around 18 million) in Africa's most populous country. Yet Lagos has no central sewage or drainage system, no organised refuse collection, totally inadequate power supplies, traffic chaos, and 90% of people living on less than $1 per day. You get the picture. It certainly is a mad city.
The rainy season is upon us again, and with that come the mosquitoes, meaning that the cooler, fresher evenings still must be spent indoors. However, the spectacular thunder storms and lightning displays are always worth watching.
There are parts of the world that sound much more attractive to live in - most of those being posted from right now!

I've been following this thread but seem to have been too bogged down with life etc... to post. Going back to work (very part time I have to say in preparation for ds2 starting school in August) seems to have zapped all my spare time!

The plus is that I have to do some travel for work (not too much) and managed to catch the end of the Monet exhibition at Te Papa in Wellington when there for 3 days with work the other week. I had 2 hours before the cab arrived to take me to the airport 2 days before the exhibition closed. Rather naively thought everybody would have seen it so was very surprised to say the least when I turned up to find a 1-1 1/2 hour wait . Now you could tell that the vast majority of white (pakeha) New Zealanders are British by decent by the VERY orderly queue that had formed snaking its way around the cafe and floor. Crowd control was a very charming gentleman who was 70 if he was a day and the daily papers were folded orderly over the rails that formed the queue. As it was I read my book that I had in my bag and was inside in 50 mins. I'm not much of an Impressionist fan but felt for $15 NZ (about 6 pounds) it was too good not to go. Renoir, Sisley, Monet and a number of other works strangely out of place in the stark modern museum that is Te Papa but made me feel closer to home and 'old things'. That's often the price for living in a young country, everything being new.

FOOC Bavaria

My parents have arrived from Yookay a few days ago and my sleep hasn't recovered. Why? Because the aircraft was delayed two hours on what was already an evening flight, meaning a wait in Munich airport and an arrival home after midnight. Why was the flight delayed?

Because the storm season in Bavaria is upon us. Extremely hot weather gives rise literally to hot air which is violently sucked up into the clouds above the Bavarian Alps which crashes down as violent gusts of wind and torrential rain. A drive to the airport with lightning all around on a dangerous Autobahn was ended with a return journey in equally atrocious weather. My level of adrenaline and arousal was so high I couldnt sleep until 5am. I was awoken at 10am next day by my daughter to sleeping parents in another room, an empty bed vacated by a wife off on a work trip to Dresden and a disgusting pile of plop on the carpeted floor which had seeped out of my potty training little boy.

Down to the German style allotment today to plant lettuce and spinach. I have a blog on this (which needs updating) so if there is interest I'll drop its URL here. Meanwile the quest for herbs for the garden has resulted in tansy being donated by my neighbour - just taken delivery of James Wong's "Grow Your Own Drugs" and find it wonderful. Our Bavarian balcony is now complete with hanging geraniums, a wine grape vine growing like mad which will later give a drinkable Christmas table red, and hanging baskets we bought in Morrisons back in Blighty as the German hb's are not so nice.

Still can't sleep since the other days events and emotions at seeing my parents again.

FOOC GENEVA

I just discovered this advert on a local radio station's website:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

For Sale - Armored B6 Blanket with for hanging on a window in a Hotel etc..

Armored B6 level Blanket made from Kevlar.
This blanket can stop bullits from AK47 and M16 with war munition.
It has a armored window to look out of your room to look save outside.
Perfect for traveling journalists or diplomats in warzone area's.
New price was by Omnis 4000US$ Now 2500CHF only

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Only in Geneva.

Priceless, MadamL. Every home should have one!

T42, your Liverpool post was great. I'll admit to just battering out my posts, correcting any glaring errors, then hitting Send.

Diddy, lovely to 'see' you again. We don't have such spectacular views of the storms now we no longer look out over the lagoon.The rainy season seems to have been pretty poor so far, with one storm every five/seven days. Last year I'm sure we'd had many more by now, with a memorable five storms from early morning one Friday to mid afternoon on the Sunday. Just when you thought it was safe to come out from under the bed....

I'm actually in the UK atm, having come home to sort dd1's accomodation out for next year and her birthday. Dd2 is with Daddy, so I'm home alone, hehehe! I'll be back to Lagos on Fri (not looking forward to the flight after this week's sad news) then dd and I will be coming back to the UK for summer round about the last weekend in June.

Dear FOOCers,

I dip into this thread occasionally and I notice that you don't yet have a FOOCer in Poland, so with your gracious permission: I shall be she.

I just wanted to share the fact that we are having our outhouse reroofed at the moment and I noticed today that the workmen have finished the actual roof bit and are just left with the guttering and so on. And up on the gable end at the top they've wedged a huge bunch of wild flowers. It's a folk custom (they tend to secure a baby spruce decorated with paper ribbons if it's a real house). The deal is that then it needs "watering" to ensure that the roof remains watertight for many years to come and tomorrow is a holiday (Corpus Christi) so they've headed off early with an advance on their final pay and that's the last we'll see of them for four days (I guess you also knew that the word vodka is a diminutive form of "water"...)

Incidentally, the word for a "workman" of the builder/decorator type in Polish is "expert" (fachowiec - from the German Fachmann). If there's one word in the entire human vocabulary that's misattributed, it's this one. God only knows how the Polish plumber got his reputation in the UK because I never met one who was even remotely blessed with any kind of expertise, and I've lived here most of my adult life. I exaggerate of course, the lot we've got here at the moment aren't that bad, but expert they are not, they're just less terrifying than the devil workmen we don't know yet.

Hi jessia. You made me smile talking about Polish plumbers

Not much to report here at the moment. DH and I suddenly realised that the 24th is San Juan here and last year the residents lit an enormous and I mean enourmous bonfire directly opposite our house! Fortunately the wind happened to be blowing away from the house but we couldn't even touch the front windows as they were so hot. I just hope if it happens again the weather will be kind to us!

FOOC GREATER MANCHESTER

Breaking news : its raining again!

Welcome Jessia! I remember when I was little in Switzerland (rural Switzerland I might add) builders used to tie a young tree at top of a newly built house when the work was finished, with ribbons and all as well!

MmeLindt, I so wish I had bullet proof curtains! just a bit on the expensive side though!

Gorionine - now there's a surprise

Actually it's clouded right over here as well and we've had some brill weather recently and were starting to think that summer had finally arrived .... sigh! I bet it's because we told DS1 we'd go to the pool this weekend!

PARIS FOOC

By late June everyone is tired in Paris and of Paris.

The weather is warm and beginning to get oppressive, school finishes next week, plays have been performed, frank and sometimes brutal report cards have been given and celebrated or sobbed over and now students fill their time in school with 'going for walks' and 'bringing in games'.

That is appart from secondary school lessons these have nearly all stopped so the schools are quiet for the important BAC exams. As a result of this half of Paris's foureen year olds are hanging around parks and playparks snogging or hoping to be snogged while somehow maintaining an appearance far more sophisticated and dignified than I could wish to be close to pulling off in my English fully grown woman's pale flushed skin. The other half have, of course, rather sensibly been packed off to Granny's in the country or are preparing clothes for Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain... frankly anywhere but Paris!

It is the time of year to squash birthday parties in before all your friends leave the city, to fit in that last dinner get togther, to picnic, to really take advantage of your two hour lunch break and basically all in all avoid working too hard.

The whole city feels like the last week of school and promises of things not happening now but instead in Sepember "Why Madam, that is how we do it here!" are as believable as the toothfairy.

Time to find a last minute train or plane ticket myself I think!

Jessia - welcome! I love your post it made me ...

Jessia
Welcome, loved your first post. I was actually wondering if there were any experts left in Poland, as they all seem to be on building sites in Germany. Isn't it funny how a nation gets a reputation for having hard workers? I must admit, the one Polish woman that I knew in Germany, our cleaner, was an absolute miracle worker. I still miss her now, one of only two things that I miss about Hannover.

FOOC Switzerland
Here in Geneva it is the last day of term and we are gearing up for a parade tomorrow through the village. The children are very excited about it and the whole village have had notes through the door about it. It is one of the lovely things about our village, that school celebrations are celebrated by the whole village, not just the children and the parents.

We had a guy here to see about the bunker. He had to fit a metal plate over the vent from the bunker to the laundry room. Otherwise, so I am informed, in the event of a nuclear blast the sound of the booooom will travel through the vent, into the bunker and damage our ears. Well, I am so glad that our ears are going to be ok.

Ah MmeLindt we hvae to be thankful for such small mercy's

Well things have been simultaneously rather quiet but busy here in NZ. We have all been sick, dh with the flu (we're not sure if it was the swine variety as we were told to stay away from the GP, quarantine ourselves and report to the hospital if we were very worried [hmm), rapidly followed by a tummy bug whereby I thought my innards were going to pop like a sausage bursting it's skin and now ds2 has either a very bad cold and chest or flu.........Amidst this I have returned to work although I am yet to work my full hours. I hate to confess but did comment this week to dh that this is why employers are reluctant to employ mothers!

Anyway the reason for my post........ds1 has spent this term learning about 'where do we come from' in a cultural sense. About 50% of his school are maori or Pacific Islanders, a few South Africans and the rest Pakeha (white) predominantly of UK descent. To celebrate the end of term yesterday the school held an Umu. An Umu is a Pacific Island version of a maori Hangi. It's a traditional way of cooking food using rocks and steam. The rocks are heated on a pile of burning timber. Once heated they are
then rolled into the cooking pit and wire baskets of food wrapped in foil or similar material are put on top of these rocks. The food baskets are covered with wet sheets and then with wet sacks. All this is then covered with dirt. The water in the cloths and sacks turns into steam that is trapped under the soil and cooks the food.

The children helped prepare the site and vegetables with several Samoan and Maori parents on Thursday and the shared feast was at lunchtime on Friday. As well as the traditional Umu, which was very much like a Sunday roast and didn't taste at all smokey as I had feared, we got to sample Chop Suey. This bears no resemblance to the chinese take away variety but looked like gravy and was deliciously ginger and garlic flavoured. Taro (a root vegetable) which I thought was stuffing and took a big bite of. It is shall we say an acquired taste!!!

All in all a fantastic way to spend a Friday afternoon.

FOOC Galicia

The Umu sounds such fun Sibble. And I'm glad Mme Lindt's ears will be safe in the event of a nuclear blast . I have to say I'm now rather worried - should we have a bunker? Does everyone have bunkers? I don't think a third floor flat could house a bunker very well. We might just have to hide under the bed.

Well, in Galicia the summer has arrived, in its usual unpredictable fashion. Two days scorching sun, one day rain, three days clouds, two days sunshine, one scorcher and back to cloudy intervals again. Makes choosing your clothes in the morning rather difficult. And the decision - do I need suncream or my umbrella?

DH, SIL, BIL and myself managed to catch two of the scorching days to head off to the Cies Islands, a set of three dramatic rocky islands with pristine white sandy beaches that guard the entrance to the Ria de Vigo (hence my name). The Cies are part of a National Park that includes 4 other Atlantic island groups off the Galician coast. As such, they are a protected area and the nesting and breeding ground for many sea birds. SIL and BIL are great experts on this, and didn't go anywhere without their cameras and binoculars. To me they mostly looked like seagulls , but I am assured there are many different types of seagulls, and these ones are endangered.

The sea off the islands is always FREEZING (due to some freakish effect that causes the surface water to be drawn down and replaced by the water from the depths) but it was so hot outside that we all swam repeatedly. Next time we will definitely take goggles and snorkles, because the water is so clear you can see all the different sea urchins, crabs, little fishes and starfish perfectly. It was a perfect weekend that really refreshed and recharged us all.

Now term has ended and there are children EVERYWHERE The parks which were once the sole preserve of dog owners during the day are now full of grandparents (the great unpaid childminders here in Spain) pushing their grandchildren on the swings and watching impromptu games of football. School holidays here are three months long and grandparents play a huge role in helping working parents manage such a long time off. Summer camps are also gaining in popularity, although they normally only last a week or two.

Today has dawned cloudy with promise of rain later, so we're off to PIL's house in the country with raincoats and walking boots. It will probably clear up later though, and we'll wish for our swimsuits. In this respect, Galicia is VERY like Britain.

Paris FOOC

If a bookshop piles one book up high and gives out free bookmarks with it, in general, I make a big effort not to read the book in question. I hate the idea of being tricked into reading something or believing something is good when acually it is nothing but good spin. I prefer hidden treasures to big successes.

So, I was in Paris's grand and beautiful English bookshop,WHSmiths at Concorde, when I noticed a big pile of books on a wooden table. They each had the same cover and because the cover was so very nice, out of character, I picked one up and read the opening line of course I was completely expecting to be letdown.

It went...

You?re 82 years old. You?ve shrunk six centimetres, you only weigh 45 kilos yet you?re still beautiful, graceful and desirable...

I honesly lost my breath for a second - it was so heart-breakingly simply and truthfully written that I immediately bought the book, crossed the street into Tuilerie and paid two euros for my little girl to jump up and down on the trampolines for what feels like ever (if you hit them at a quiet time children can stay on for as long as they like otherwise it is strictly five minutes) and continued to read and read.

A few days later I finished the little book which is infact a letter from Gorz to his wife. I was on the Metro with tears rolling down my cheeks... and a feeling of loss that I had finished it and........... well you will have to read it and fill in the space.

When I arrived home I was still feeling this strange quiver in my stomach. The writing had really touched me so much! So in a slight frenzy I took a crayon and wrote a quotation from the book across the entrance to our livingroom...

"An English romantic once summed it up in a sentence 'There is no wealth but life'."

My daughter took her opportunity to draw on the wall and created a stylised picture of her Daddy underneath my quote. Actually, between you and I, I am secretly deeply jealous of his current sassy muse status - but that is another story for another thread...

Lets just say, for now, I and (much to my dislike) WHSmiths Paris recommend this book...

www.amazon.co.uk/Letter-D-Andre-Gorz/dp/0745646778/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246229874&sr=8-1

Thanks for that, T42. I will look out for the book when I am in Scotland next week.

Just wanted to say thanks to teafortwo. After reading your post and description of the book I mentioned it to my parents and they managed to get the book sent to me here in New Zealand. It is a great book - I have only just stopped crying my eyes out. I don't normally like love stories - but this was a real true life, honest, love story. Thanks.

MmeLindt and lavenderbongo -

I was at Charles de Gaulle Etoile metro on the 15th July. A woman was waiting for a train with a ribbon in her hair. She was very small and the ribbon was very big.

My eyes, bleary from the previous night's Bastille Day celebrations, watched her open her book and begin to read and it somehow meant something important, but right now I can't quite remember what...

teafortwo, was that last post a quotation from the book? If not, maybe you should think about writing one yourself? A very enigmatic snapshot observation if I might say so. (And next time my mum comes to see me I think I might order the book, too.)

Mme Lindt do you know something we don't? I thought the Cold War was over? And Bush has gone (mind you, Putin's still around making noise, I guess).

FOOC Poland.

Summer in Central Europe is the worst time of year for making me feel guilty for being so lazy.
We have just come back from a sort of "grand tour" of the region (Slovakia, rural Hungary, Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia), and everywhere we went, blithely sightseeing, there were people haymaking. Whole families, from littlies to grannies, out in the fields in the 35-degree heat, with not a scrap of shade. And the worst of it is, these aren't your baler-twine-to-hold-the patched-trousers-up type of people who you kind of feel were just made for the job. There were women with perfect perms (and perfect figures) who looked as if they'd just come back from the office, slightly older ladies keeping the hay off their clothes with a housecoat (remember those scarily flammable nylon things? - my granny had one), young girls with their nails done...
And it's not just people in rural areas. In Poland at least, even if people haven't got allotments, they still go down to the market and buy 10 kg of gherkins or peppers for pickling, and the same again of strawberries and cherries to make compote with. Coca cola is strictly for chavs.

And here I sit, doing nothing but wiggle my fingers on Mumsnet for a living, with a childminder to look after the kids, and a huge garden given over wantonly to a lawn for them to play on.
I made cherry compote today, though [smug emoticon]