The Potty Diaries

Parenting Challenge #987; getting the kids in the fresh air when baby, it's cold outside...

2012-02-17T05:34:00.003Z

Sponsored post

Having foolishly wished for snow to lift the interminable greyness towards the end of last year, I am now rather regretting my foolhardiness in longing for the white stuff. Obviously, there are things about it I like, but there are also plenty that I’m not so keen on. Dirty slush, for one. Nincompoop drivers, for another. And the fact that it becomes even more difficult than usual to get my sons to play outside.

Don’t get me wrong; at school they have outdoor playtimes no matter WHAT the weather, but by the time they get home and even at the weekends, their interest in playing outside seems to have waned a little. Oh, who am I kidding? They’re not that interested even at the best of times, but now - when the snow lies thick on the ground - rounding them up, into their snow kit, and out of the back door for some healthy outside time is like herding cats.

I can’t blame my sons mind you; snow is cold, and it can be wet, and living in Moscow we do get a little bored of it, but they can’t spend the whole of January, February and March skulking inside. I’ve been casting about for ways to get them out of the house then, so when I was contacted by Tiger Sheds with some suggestions of outside games to play at this time year, I welcomed the additional input.

All of the games Tiger Sheds suggested are old favourites but I have to admit, not necessarily ones I would have thought about reminding the boys of in cold weather. There was ‘Red Rover’ (where children form two opposing lines, link arms, and shout for a child from the opposite team to try and break through their line), ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf?’, (also known as ‘Grandmother’s Footsteps’), and ‘Stuck in the Mud’ (like tag but for two teams, and where a tagged child has to stand on the spot until a fellow team member slides between their legs to release them back into the game) which for some reason seems like it would be even more fun played in a foot of snow than it would normally.

The other tip Tiger Sheds have is to make hot chocolate and to take it out to the garden shed so the children have somewhere sheltered to drink it. Now, you may scoff at this as being a way of bringing their product – garden sheds – into the frame but it has one major advantage; it does avoid the problem of getting children to break off their outside play to come inside for a warming drink with all the accompanying removal of clothes that ensues. Have you ever done this and then tried to persuade them to put all their now cold and damp outdoor gear on again to go back outside for some more fresh air and fun?

With tv, ds’s and a warm bedroom with endless den-building possibilities calling, any sensible parent knows that just isn’t going to happen...

When I'm lucky...

2012-02-16T07:03:00.005Z

...one picture in 40 turns out the way I hoped it would.

The Greatest Photo I Never Took, #1079

2012-02-14T08:12:00.004Z

I bet this happens to everyone. You see something, for just a moment, and then a few seconds later - when it's gone - think "Damn! I should have got my camera out! WHY didn't I get my camera out?" Assuming you're not engaged in an activity that would make it dangerous for you to stop and make it happen, there's no excuse really; it's not as if most of us don't have the ability, what with mobile phones now doubling up as cameras.

I'm not sure there are really 1,079 shots that I've missed. I suspect it's far more, if I'm honest, but only a couple spring to mind right now. The first was of the top of one of Moscow's Seven Sisters buildings rising through the clouds on a particularly beautiful morning. I knew I should take that photo, but I was driving at 60km an hour on a 3 lane highway with no hard shoulder at the busiest time of day, so have had to make do with keeping that one as a mental snapshot. But oh, what a beautiful photograph it would have made.

The second - the one that prompted this post - was something I saw on Saturday. It was cold, about minus 18degC, and we were sitting in heavy traffic (yes, I know, cold and traffic; recurrent themes on this blog), driving along Leningradskoe Shosse. I glanced out of the car and saw 2 workmen taking 5 minutes by the side of the road. One of them was holding a pipe upright at right angles to the ground; it ended in a jet of flame at about shoulder level. The other was passing his bare hands through the flame, to warm them up. I reached for my handbag to pull out my phone, but the traffic had started to move again, and they were gone.

So desperately crazy. So bloody cold. So extremely Moscow.

Definitely one of the greatest photos I never took. What was yours?

Buns of Jello and other benefits of Cross Country Skiing

2012-02-13T09:37:00.004Z

I am Knackered. (Note the capital 'K'. That means I'm really knackered, honest.)

This may be because it is ruddy cold here right now - those on the Twitter-verse will perhaps have picked up on my pathetic bleats about it's being -30.7degC here this morning - or because both my Boys were at separate sleepovers on Saturday night. This meant that a) they were exhausted yesterday and getting them out of bed on time for school this morning was even more of a challenge than usual and b) Husband and I - perhaps - drank a little more than we should have on Saturday night to celebrate our temporary freedom from parenting duties, so I'm not quite as refreshed as I should be after the weekend...

Whatever, I have given myself permission to recycle a post of mine from my other blog over at the Moscow Times (Diaries of a Moscow Mum) rather than expend energy trying to write a new post here. (Long term readers may also recognise this as a post that originally appeared here last year. Reduce, Re-use, and Recycle, is what I say to them...)

So you've finally become what you can proudly refer to as 'an adequate downhill skier'. Sure, it's taken you 16 years of bruises, strains, aching muscles, embarrassing falls on the flat, freakouts on gentle slopes, temper tantrums with your husband when the easy blue he suggested suddenly became an icy red, and one or two tangles with snow-boarders, but after many years of effort you now feel reasonably confident with a couple of bendy boards strapped to your feet.

You can do it. Not elegantly, perhaps. Certainly not stylishly. And with precious little technique, it has to be said. But for what seems like the first time in all those years, you finally feel when skiing downhill that amazingly, you are no longer the worst skier in the group. Not even the second worst.

What better time, then, to take on a new challenge? Like, say, cross country skiing? I mean, you live in Moscow, where cross country skiing is the outside exercise of choice for many during the long winter. (Well, that and skating, but you aren't quite crazy enough to try that one; there's throwing yourself down a mountain at high speed and then there's stepping onto a frozen lake with a couple of razors beneath your feet and trying to survive the experience without any broken bones. No, I'll leave that to my kids, thanks very much...)

So you go out, buy what I can only describe as the most subterranean of bargain basement kit (as your Dutch - for which read 'careful with money' - Husband points out; there's no point spending too much cash on this just in case you don't enjoy it), and head off into the nearby forest with some girlfriends to work up a sweat and take in the sunshine on this frosty -10degC day, where you discover the following:

· You still know how to fall on the flat.
· There is still no way on earth to do that stylishly.
· This cross-country ski lark is bloody hard work (although if I keep it up I fully expect to have buns of steel by the end of February, based on the amount of pain my muscles are in today)
· It's just as possible to end up on top of a frozen lake - albeit covered with snow - when you're skiing as skating.
· Serious Russian cross country skiers get quite cross if they find their way blocked by a group of chattering women stopped to admire the naked - yes, NAKED - 50 year old lady taking a dip in the ice hole at the edge of said frozen lake (Jesus, just ski around us - there's a whole lake to use, for goodness’ sake!).
· There is a one-way system on the lake. A ONE WAY SYSTEM, you stupid foreign woman...
And yes, last but not least; you are once again the worst skier in the group.

(As I said to the friends I was out with; it's so nice to find a sport at which I'm a natural after all these years....)

Do you bubble-wrap your children?

2012-02-10T05:39:00.003Z

Well, do you?

I'm asking because, whilst I try not to, sometimes I wonder if I should. A couple of weekends ago Boy #1 had a nasty accident on a sledging hill. He was knocked into the path of an oncoming sledge and ended up with a deep cut that needed 5 stitches, just above one eye. And when I say 'just above one eye' I mean, just above one eye. As it was, he's just been left with a scar and a story and no lasting damage, but a centimeter further south and he might have lost his eye. It doesn't bear thinking about.

But that's just it.

Should I think about it?

Accidents like this happen to kids all the time. They're part of growing up, those broken bones and scars, aren't they? And yet, if the worst had happened, how could I live with myself that I hadn't made him wear some kind of a helmet?

It seems molly-coddling in the extreme of course, to suggest that an 8 year old boy should wear a helmet when he goes sledging, and yet it was icy - which I knew - and we live in Russia where emergency care, whilst excellent in this instance, is not as easily obtainable as back in the UK - which I also knew. So was I being neglectful by allowing him to be out there without wearing a helmet which, for all I know, may have made no difference in this instance?

Or was I simply allowing him to be an 8 year old boy and do the things that 8 year boys do, picking up the injuries that 8 year old boys acquire in the process?

In my saner moments, I know it's the latter. But sometimes, I still wonder; should I bubble wrap my children?

Black-out curtains, shutters, and other necessities for sleep-full nights...

2012-02-08T16:12:00.004Z

This is a sponsored post.

It’s dark here right now. That’s probably because I’m writing this piece at 10.30pm, but it would be almost equally dark if I were writing it at 8.45am, since sunrise isn’t until 9.15 in the morning at the moment. But it isn’t always like that in Moscow. Come summer time, the sun rises early, and doesn’t set until 10.16pm. Long summer evenings stretch out for what seems like an eternity, and there’s nothing like the blinding sun at 5.00am to make sure you greet the day bright and early.

That’s all very well for me and Husband; we’re grown ups; we’re supposed to be able to handle minor inconveniences like that (apparently). The Boys, however, are a different matter.

I’ve always considered myself blessed in that my sons are not early risers. Not for me those exhausted conversations at the school gate about Junior rising at stupid o'clock; historically, I’ve been lucky, and from an early age the Boys have slept through the night.

Or rather, they did sleep through. Until we arrived in Moscow, that is.

Here however, the sun rises at 4.44am in June and, by a not-so-happy coincidence, theirs is the first window that it’s rays hit. Soon after we arrived, I realised that blackout curtains were called for if I hoped to maintain any normal kind of sleeping pattern in the summer months, but it turns out that they are not the total solution I had imagined they would be. Light creeps in around the edges and over the top of the curtain rail; no matter how thick the actual curtain, it’s still lighter than is ideal in their bedroom.

It’s also noisier than I might like; we might send our children to bed at 8.00pm, but it’s light until 10.30 and not everyone else follows suit. You can hear other kids rampaging through the compound well after the Boys have been tucked up in bed (these children clearly need less sleep than my sons), giving my two yet another reason to shout crossly down the stairs about how bossy I am and how I’m ruining their lives. (OK, not the latter, not yet, but it’s just a matter of time, I know).

As we’re in a rented property, and building renovations are not a possibility, there’s not much I can do about this. But when I was contacted recently by Shutters Direct about the products that they offer, I have to admit that my interest was aroused. Apparently, not only do their interior shutters control the light, but they help to block out the noise as well, and also provide a safer alternative to blinds, since trailing cords are not ideal when you have young children about.

Sadly I don’t think Shutters Direct have an outlet in downtown Moscow just yet, so we’re continuing with our regime of blackout curtains for the time being to help combat the light pollution in the Boys’ room. As for the noise, well we’ll just have to put up with it, since I doubt that a stern word with our neighbours about suitable bedtimes for their children will make a blind bit of difference. They already think that I am beyond cruel to send my sons to bed when it’s still light in the summer.

It looks as if I may yet be one of those exhausted mothers at the school gates, after all...

My best tip for keeping your feet warm in cold weather

2012-02-06T16:02:00.007Z

Can the title of a blog post get any more glamorous than that? Still, I'm all about giving back, so here goes...

I understand it's a little chilly back in Blighty right now.

Obviously 'chilly' is a relative term; to me, 'chilly' was last week's temperature in Moscow - between -16degC and -22degC in daytime - so today's high here of -9degC seemed positively tropical. So much so in fact, that I chose to let Boy #2 play outside for the 20 minutes we had free after he'd finished school today. And no, I wasn't standing inside watching him - I was out there too, quite happily. Ah, how things have changed...

But this was not meant to be a 'you don't know when you've got it good' post aimed at all the people in the UK complaining about the cold weather; I'm the first to admit that 0degC in wintry grey and humid England is just as bad if not worse as -8degC and blazing sunshine in dry-aired Moscow. (No, I didn't believe that until I experienced it for myself, either, but it's true).

Rather, this post is to share with you the best tip I have for keeping your feet warm in cold weather if, like me, you have the circulation of a 100 year old radiator.

It's quite simple, really. Not attractive, necessarily, but simple.

Woollen. Knee. Length. Socks.

Forget your 2 pairs of thermal ankle length numbers; they will give you sod-all protection against the cold. You know why? Because when your feet get cold, it's not because your feet get cold; it's because your calves are cold. And once your calves get cold and the veins in them start to constrict, that cuts off circulation to your feet and hey presto, you have blocks of ice on the end of your legs. A decent pair of knee length warm socks will - in my experience - sort this problem out for you, and as long as you are wearing a decent pair of boots or shoes, your toes will be as warm as toast.

And that's it. Like I said; simple.

Trust me - I live in Moscow...

Silent Sunday

2012-02-05T08:19:00.002Z

Pragmatism, Russian style

2012-02-04T07:18:00.004Z

There are demonstrations scheduled in the middle of Moscow today. They are to protest against the alleged ballot fixing of the state parliament elections held at the end of last year and to demand greater political freedom. Before Christmas, there were also demonstrations for the same reasons, which largely took place peacefully (despite what you may have read in the media elsewhere).

No one knows how many people will turn up today; the largest demonstration in December attracted between 30,000 and 80,000 people depending on which stats you believe. The key difference today though is the temperature. At the end of last year, winter had yet to kick in and it was still - mainly - above freezing. Today, however, it's around -19degC, and let me tell you, no matter how strong your feeling of outrage, you do not want to stand still for more than a few minutes outside when it's this cold.

Having said that, it is still likely that there will be thousands of people who want to make their voices heard, so there will be a substantial police presence in the centre of the city today.

Here's where the pragmatism comes in. In a radio interview this week, a high ranking police official was asked how they planned to handle the demonstration, and answered as follows (please note; I have paraphrased since I don't have a direct translation):

"If there are 10,000 of them, we'll arrest them all. If there are 50,000, we'll do nothing. And if there are 100,000? We'll join them."

Appalling as that statement might appear, you've got to love the pragmatism...

Luxury Problem #78: Making and keeping friends as an Expat

2012-02-02T06:48:00.007Z

We've been in Moscow over two years now. I can hardly believe it, to be honest; it seems to have passed in the blink of an eye. I wouldn't change having had this experience for anything. As you get older it can become harder to shake things up a bit, to push yourself out of your comfort zone, to experience a grittier reality than you've become used to now that you have a mortgage, the kids are settled into school, and you're surrounded by people you've known for a while.

Moving somewhere like Russia provides a 'grittier reality' in spades.

This is, I tell myself frequently, a Good Thing. Life here is just so damned entertaining. From the jams, to the bureaucracy, to the queues (or rather, the lack of them), to the glorious winter days and the long summer evenings, to the black-humoured locals and the host of oh-so-foreign experiences hanging like ripe fruit waiting to be picked whenever you can pull yourself out of the daily routine, it's rarely boring.

But there's always a price to pay, and part of this is turnover. Turnover of people, that is. I remember when I arrived, I heard new acquaintances say that whilst they loved being in Moscow, they were ready to move on/go home. From my perspective, flushed with the novelty of living in an interesting town surrounded by interesting people, their lives seemed full and exciting. They and their families were happy, and they were reaping the rewards of their expat life-style. Why on earth, I wondered, would they want to leave?

But then they did, by which time they had become good friends - and I began to understand. It can be lonely being an expat in this town. The majority of foreigners move on within 2 - 4 years, and whilst there are the stayers, even they - unless married to a Russian - are unlikely to stay forever. Hell, I don't want to stay forever, why should they?

I learned recently that yet another good friend may be leaving this summer (in addition to those that I already knew of). For some reason this new news is hitting me hard. Of course we'll stay in touch. No doubt we will even meet up from time to time, on holiday or short trips. But they won't be here, going through the daily ups and downs of life in the same place at the same time, and I'll feel the lack of them.

I will, of course, pick myself up, meet new friends, have new shared experiences. But a little of the shine wears off each time I print out yet another photo for a friend who's leaving and I contemplate rejoining the expat dance, putting myself out there and building new connections in the full knowledge that at some point - probably before too long - I will have do the whole thing all over again.

It's a luxury problem, I know, and it's all about me*. But that knowledge doesn't make this aspect of my 'entertaining' life any more welcome...

* But then this is a blog post for goodness' sake - what did you expect?

Flowers, made of frost. No - really.

2012-02-01T17:05:00.006Z

Well, what do you know? It turns out that there are some things I will not do for this blog. Namely, going cross country skiing when the thermometer reads -24degC (that's -11degF) in order to take a photograph of myself with frost-covered hair to put up on here.

How do I know you get frost on your hair at this temperature, you may ask? Well, I went skiing on Tuesday at a tropical -20degC (-4degF) when I didn't think of taking a photo of how I'm going to look when I'm old and grey until after I had already reached home and thawed myself out.

But what I did take a photo of, was this. Frost flowers blooming on the surface of the same hole in the ice I jumped into last March, when it was an altogether balmier -8degC.

How lucky am I, that I get the opportunities to take this sort of photo?

Be afraid; children's birthday parties - Moscow Style

2012-01-29T18:34:00.003Z

I've changed my mind. Not so long ago on this blog, I wrote that the point of disconnect between cultures is music. But I've been giving it some thought, and actually I think I have another contender. It's that old favorite: kids' birthday parties.

I suspect that wherever you go in the world, the goalposts for little Johnny's birthday party have moved somewhat over the last 30 years. Even in sleepy Britain, it's no longer enough to invite his best friends, play a game of pass the parcel or British bulldogs, serve up some cheese sandwiches with crisps, and dish out the chocolate cake after a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday”. No, if you are foolish enough to offer up your home to the masses nowadays, in many parts of the world entertainers are standard, a glass of wine for any accompanying parents is expected, and party bags are non-negotiable. And don't even think about trying to get away with just putting some stickers and a piece of cake inside it, you cheapskate. Not unless you want to be unmasked as such by a pint-sized monster who rips the bag ungratefully out of your hand before commenting loudly on the contents.

But that, my friends, is nothing. That is plain vanilla. For now we are in Moscow, and you ain't seen nothin' yet...

Children's parties in this city are, to many non-residents, unbelievable. When I regale friends back in the UK with tales of 'Incredible Russian Children's Birthday Parties I Have Seen', invariably they don't believe me. Or, if they do believe me, I'm afraid it only goes to fuel the internationally held image of Russia as a country of extremes.

My back catalogue of recent party stories includes but is not limited to: those with added animal entertainment (not rabbits in hats and dogs jumping through hoops, but performing monkeys, look-but-don't-touch crocodiles and bears on bicycles; on one memorable occasion, Mummy Bear was even—heart-wrenchingly—accompanied by her cub); themed events that take all day with a 15-to-20-strong team of entertainers; 5-to-10-minute-long professional firework displays in honor of the birthday child; fully catered sit-down meals for both parents and children; sushi for the kids (in itself, not a bad idea, but I just can't get past the fact that we are many, many miles from the nearest sea); pink champagne for the parents; stunt policemen turning up complete with guns and handcuffs to arrest a wrongfully accused stunt Spiderman; 30-foot inflatable climbing walls in the back yard; and one borrowed anecdote from a friend who glanced into her neighbors' yard some time last year to see the 5-year-old birthday boy sitting resplendently in the seat of his present: a full-sized Hummer with a bow on top.

As an expat living here I couldn't hope to compete, and, indeed, I wouldn't want to. So our recent offering of a low-key party for one of my sons and his classmates consisting of snow games, pizza, chocolate cake and musical chairs was determinedly retro. The children all appeared to have a great time, and I even got a dose of exercise from jumping up and down directing musical statues. You might have almost thought we were back in 1970s Britain (except for the international backgrounds of the guests and the fact that the music was better, obviously), until one of the mums present mentioned that a couple of days previously one of her neighbors' children had had a party with not only all the requisite Moscow whistles and bells, but also the ultimate in animal entertainment.

They had a Siberian tiger, on a leash.

Ah, Moscow...

This post first appeared on my other blog, 'Diaries of a Moscow Mum' over at The Moscow Times

Breakthrough Breast Cancer's 90 Bloggers campaign

2012-01-27T08:18:00.006Z

Breast cancer has touched my family. My grandmother lost her mother and her sister to it, and had preventative surgery at a relatively young age to minimise the chances it might add her to it's tally. That's why this post is for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. It is part of Kate on Thin Ice's 90 Bloggers campaign, in which we've been asked to write 90 words about an important woman in our life. I can't single out just one; there are so many women who are important to me, so here 90 words on three of them, and some of the reasons why.

My mother, for her love and home-making skills, her enjoyment of having all her little chicks in one place, and her satisfaction in preparing - and seeing others enjoy - good food. My sister, for the fact that she makes me laugh like a drain, her feistiness, her lack of tolerance for crap, her determination, and her incredible ability to multi-task. My grandmother, 98 years old and still living on her own, who knows her own value, and who can still fire off a witty riposte when it's called for.

And that's your 90.

"Pink Ribbon Bingo have pledged to support Breakthrough Breast Cancer all year round with 15% of the gross revenue accrued through online play on the site being donated to the charity. Visitors also have the opportunity to donate a percentage of their winnings directly to the charity. Along with the fundraising element, Pink Ribbon Bingo and The Daily Mail online will be helping the charity to raise awareness by promoting their vital health messages such as TLC (Touch, Look, Check)."

Are you having nightmares with your child's bedtime?

2012-01-26T09:37:00.003Z

Boy #2 is going through 'a phase'. At least, I hope it's a phase. Please god, let it be a phase. Oh, right - you want to know what it is. Nothing unusual for a 6 year old, I suspect; he doesn't want to go to sleep - in his own bed. He's convinced that he has bad dreams every night and that sleeping in his own bed is the cause.

Heaven knows, I should be sympathetic to this. I am not the most peaceful of sleepers, as Husband will tell you. I've improved over the years, mind you, from the time that my then-roommate at university woke up (on the night of the Great Gale of 1987 - yes, I AM that old) to see me sit bolt upright in bed and scream my head off before collapsing like a dead person again until morning. In my defence, all hell was breaking loose outside and everything bar 10 ton trucks was flying past our window, but still, she never forgave me for the shock.

Anyway.

Boy #2. He claims to have nightmares, and that may well be true. However, a) I haven't noticed them, and b) I think - although perhaps this is the scary 'you're-not-sick-you-just-haven't-been-outside-enough' school of mothering that is my default modus operandi coming through - that if he is having bad dreams, they are probably unrelated to the bed he's in. Call me old-fashioned. Certainly I don't believe they will be sorted by a bed-swap with his brother, as he claims, and so for the last couple of weeks what has, in my 8 years of being a parent to-date, been a relatively calm bedtime (if you discount the 3 days of controlled crying hell with Boy #1 nearly eight years ago, an exercise that worked but which I have felt guilty about ever since) has become, instead, a battlefield.

There has been shouting (hardly any of it from me, I must add), jack-in-the-box impressions, weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth and repeated suggestions that I put myself in his shoes (bed at 8pm in the evening, someone else to get my clothes ready for me for the morning and to do the dishes from dinner? Yes, please).

This evening then, I decided to try another tack and as I tucked him in, announced that I would take a quick nap on his bunk next to him. Boy #2 was delighted. "DAAHling!" he said (I am not kidding, he really said it - just in that way, too). "DAAAHling! You will stay here all night. I guarantee it."

Well, obviously that was not my plan. So I announced that I was going to snore - and not just any snore, oh no, but in a Papa-styley. I commenced my best Husband-patented snore, all but lifting the roof off in what I thought was a very passable imitation of my beloved.

There was a moment's horrified silence.

Then; "DAAAHling! Are you feeling quite alright? Are you hurt?"

Needless to say, when I got out of bed a couple of minutes later, he didn't even whimper.

The Gallery; My Photography Resolution

2012-01-25T12:24:00.003Z

This post is for Week 88 of Tara's Gallery. Click here to see all the other great entries...

When I saw the prompt for this week's Gallery, I have to admit that I struggled a little. Of course I have 'photography resolutions' (that's the prompt, by the way). Getting better at it, would be a good start, as would actually attending a proper course (not without it's logistical issues, that one; living in Russia and not speaking 'technical Russian' would make it a little tricky to do in Moscow). But thinking about it more deeply, there is one resolution that, on reflection, wins out for 2012.

Print. It. Out.

After all, what's the point of taking photo's you love, if all they do is sit in a file somewhere and you never see them?

Just a small request...

2012-01-23T08:36:00.003Z

In the last seven days I have...

Unwittingly started a revolution in food safety procedures at our school's cafeteria. This was a direct result of giving one of my children a chocolate chip cookie purchased from there only to discover - via a race to the medical office where they hold our anti-histmanines and a thankfully still un-used eip-pen - that the chocolate chips were, in fact nuts. (The helpful member of staff responsible for making the cookies in the cafeteria kitchen decided to substitute the chocolate chips they had run out of with nuts - without actually telling anyone.)

Collected the same child, on a different day, from school, to be warned by his teacher that she thought he was a little 'under the weather'. We got home, where he proceeded throw up spectacularly all over the kitchen floor. This did not phase me however, since I was just thanking my lucky stars that we had got out of the car 4 minutes earlier and he had taken his snow suit off 2 minutes earlier. Let's see; sick on the lino, or all over the inside of the car, my son, and his brother? Call me glass half-full, but I know which I prefer...

Rushed to hospital with the other child (have you noticed how they hate to be upstaged by their siblings?) after he had a major collision while sledging on an ice run and needed 5 stitches just above one eye.

So, if anyone up there is listening, can we have a slightly calmer week this time around, please?

Aim High, Or: How Trying to Impress Your Children Can Alter Your Behaviour...

2012-01-20T05:37:00.007Z

The snow has finally arrived here in Moscow. We've been back from our Christmas break now for just over two weeks, and ten days ago what seemed like a never-ending cycle of snow-thaw misery broke, the temperature dropped below freezing, and the white stuff came to stay until - probably - April.

This can be a pain obviously, but in a city that is geared up for this type of bad weather (official sources claim there are 10,000 people working on keeping Moscow moving), it's not as bad as you might think. It is at least brighter out there, even on these dark mornings, and - hurrah - we get to cross country ski.

Don't get me wrong; cross country skiing is no picnic, it's hard work. But you're exercising outside rather than in, usually in beautiful surroundings, and quite often in sunshine bright enough to need sunglasses, so I love it - up to a point.

And that point? To be honest - as a non-natural sportsperson better acquainted with the sofa and a book than fresh air - I'm pretty rubbish at it. But after a successful initial foray into the woods last weekend with Husband and the Boys (all of us on skis - it never ceases to amaze me that two boys who complain about walking from the house to the car will happily cross country ski for an hour or more), I felt pretty good about my prospects when I agreed to repeat the experience with a couple of friends yesterday. One of them, I knew from last year, was pretty experienced, but the other assured me that she had only done this a couple of times before and was still pretty much a novice - so I thought I would be OK.

Ha! Ha! And thrice, HA!

I knew I was out of my depth when the supposedly inexperienced friend bounced into her skis as I struggled with my new bindings and quickly instructed me on how to put them on properly, before she skate-skied off into the distance like a professional.

Oh.

As Husband pointed out later, this friend is from Canada where cross country skiing is a little more common than in the wilds of Gloucestershire (where I grew up), and at one time was a national competition-level skater. What the hell did I expect?

In any case it was clear after I returned home yesterday, after more falls than I could count, that I need help. So last night, Boy #1 - also keen to tune up his cross country ski-skills - and I turned to the oracle YouTube in search of instruction. (What? If you can learn how to fillet a fish, put up a garden trampoline, and make a pinata on YouTube, why not pick up some tips on skiing?). Anyway, we found a whole host of clips offering helpful hints, and watched one of them.

Now, here's where this rambling post gets to the point of the title.

Boy #1 and I watched, with me laughing hollowly from time to time as I ruefully rubbed my bruised behind, while the presenter of the video showed us various techniques to improve our 'classic diagonal' ski style. Towards the end of it, the hints became a little more advanced, and the last couple of clips showed a man skiing at pace down a hill and round a corner both at the same time. I regarded this through narrowed eyes, wondering if I would ever manage to come down a hill without taking my skis off half way down the slope in disgust at my repeated tumbles.

Boy #1, however, is ever the optimist when it comes to my abilities. As the skier came pegging it down the hill, he turned to me and said authoritatively "That's you, in three weeks Mum." And as the guy went at speed around a corner, he looked at me, winked, and said "And that's you in four..."

Right. I'm off now to practise my cross country skiing. There's an 8 year old Boy out there with high expectations to impress...

By the way, I'm looking for ideas on how to celebrate my forthcoming 1,000th post on The Potty Diaries. Thoughts?

1000 Posts Ho!

2012-01-19T18:35:00.007Z

No, the title of this post is not some pathetic attempt to get down with the street speak, bro'. It's to do with the fact that, according to my dashboard, this is the 986th post that I've written for The Potty Diaries. (Admittedly, not all of them are still up there and indeed some aren't up there yet, but I'm going with the dashboard counter on this one because, well, it's my blog and I can)

Nitpicking over numbers aside, who would have thought I had that much to say?

However, it turns out that I do (and from potty training, to school-blues, to expat highs and lows, it's not over yet), so I have a couple of questions for any regular (or even non-regular) readers out there:

Based on my current rate of posts (about 3 per week), I will hit Post 1000 before the end of February. Should I mark this in some way, or should I just let it slide past unnoticed in a 'oh, this old thing? It's been sitting at the back of the cupboard for years, dahling, years' kind of a way?

And if do mark it, any ideas on how? Should I blog on a particular subject? Should I offer some kind of freebie*? Perhaps I should even come up with a loyalty badge for people who comment on the 1000th post - maybe reading something like;

"I've been reading The Potty Diaries for years, and all she ever gave me was this rubbish badge"

(Actually, I quite like that last idea. Except that no-one will want it except perhaps my sis and that would be too crushing, so...)

Anyway. Feedback?

*Any pr's who still read The Potty Diaries, feel free to chime in now with great offers of free holidays, designer goods or indeed a free box of chocolate for one lucky reader.

Would you like cheese with that? Or; Russian Radio's love of Golden Oldies...

2012-01-17T05:38:00.007Z

Music is, it seems, the point of disconnect for many cultures.

Once upon a time, I lived in London. My musical frame of reference has been shaped by radio stations playing indie, R&B, rhythm-driven, pop, rock, jazz, acid jazz, Brit-pop, metal, alternative, punk, dance, and electronic heaven. But "you never know what you've got 'till it's gone," as countless cheesy tunes tell us.

Now I live in Moscow, and lord do I see what I had in London. You see, as I freely admit, my Russian is not great, and consequently, my musical options when I switch on the car radio are somewhat limited. It's not that I don't enjoy listening to Russian music, you understand. It's just that I don't want to hear it all the time. My tolerance levels for gravel-voiced men singing either to acoustic guitars or to a background of heavy rock in a language I can't understand so well tend to wane after a while, and so my radio stations of choice here tend to be those that play more international music. The international music that is mostly played here? Well, more often than not, it's unadulterated cheese.

Golden oldies from the last three decades eddy around me in the car as I nose my way through rush-hour traffic. I've heard more 1980s "classics" since living in Moscow than I heard in the previous 20 years. Mike Oldfield, anyone? Or a spot of Aha? Perhaps, just to shake it up a little, some 1990s Duran Duran? Admittedly, the DJs are not prejudiced against any given nationalities in their love of all types of musical cheese. You can start your journey listening to some classic English cheddar, followed by a ripe Camembert, then move on to a tasty piece of Dutch Gouda, and round it off with a nice piece of plastic Kraft from the US — all within the space of around 10 minutes, if the radio presenter is in a hurry, which, it seems, they often are. (Listen to a song all the way through to the end? What kind of foreign craziness is that?)

All this musical cheese fondue does have a point, however. And I'm not talking about the wonderful aptness of being driven through a snow storm along Leningradsky Prospekt by a mad taxi driver to a backing track of Boney-M singing "Ra-Ra-Rasputin" — though that has to go down as one of my all-time classic Moscow moments. No, the point — for me, at least — is that it's almost impossible to get road rage while singing along to "Take On Me" or swooning to Sade's "Your Love is King", no matter how close to your wing-mirror the dolt of a driver on your right gets as he edges into your lane on the way to work.

1980s and 90s music: Prozac for the masses. You heard it here first.

This post first appeared over on my other blog, 'Diaries of a Moscow Mum', at The Moscow Times Online

Teaching your child to lose

2012-01-16T05:42:00.006Z

We all want our child to be one of life's winners, don't we?

We encourage them to do their best, try harder, put just that little bit more effort in. Not for ourselves, oh no, of course not - perish the thought. I mean, obviously it's nice to watch little Amy / Jimmy standing on the podium to receieve their medal, but it's all about them, isn't it? Isn't it? Yes, of course it is (and for the times it isn't, well, I'll write another post), and we push our children for their own sakes, because we want them to get the best that they can out of their lives. The best results. The best opportunities. Even - ultimately - the best jobs.

Here's the thing though, and it's an old chestnut but for all that, it's true; for every winner, there has to be a loser. In fact if we're honest about it, there have to be a whole host of losers. And unless they are a prodigy of some kind, at some point in time, your child - statistically - will be one of them.

This issue is top of mind for me because at the weekend Boy #2 had his birthday party. We try to keep things as simple as possible for these events; no entertainer, just us, some other parents willing to get down and dirty with the kids (or in this case, cold and icy for the snowman building competition), hot chocolate, pizza and birthday cake. Oh, and party games.

These party games were pretty simple; musical chairs, musical statues, pass the parcel and of course, that stalwart 'calm everybody down' standby: Sleeping Lions. (I tried to call it 'dead lions', which is how I remember it from my childhood but apparently that's not on for today's little eco-warriers). These party games were fun - and they were also revealing. Whilst many of the children at the party were perfectly able to keep the whole thing in perspective and simply enjoy the fun, some previously sunny little souls, when told that they hadn't won the game, promptly burst into tears and were inconsolable.

And yes, I know that they're 6. And that they will learn. But the experience highlighted to me that at a time when the importance of competitive sport is being down-played in many schools (football matches with no recorded score, anybody?), we may be failing to equip our children with the very important life-skill of how to lose gracefully. Because surely, if we avoid all the situations where our child is potentially a non-winner, a - say it - loser, we are not helping them in the long run.

I'm not for one moment suggesting that we all become Competitive Dad (see the clip below if you have no idea what I'm talking about) and take every opportunity to get one up on our kids in the name of educating them in Real Life. I do think though that as parents we should spend some time helping our children understand that whilst winning can be important, it isn't everything.

Children need to understand that losing a game does not mean becoming a Loser in life. Once the scrabble and ludo are put away, once the Wii has powered down, and once the mud has dried on their trainers, it's over, finished. It's one moment in time. Now, on to the next adventure.

(And then, maybe, children's birthday parties will be a little less of a minefield...)

What do you think?

I am SO easy to please...

2012-01-13T17:48:00.006Z

What does it take to almost reduce a grown woman to tears in the middle of a hypermarket on a cold and dreary day in Moscow?

Not much.

Just this, actually.

I like cheese, almost as much as chocolate. If I had to choose between the two I think the only reason chocolate would win out is because, not having a refrigerated handbag, cheese doesn't provide such an ever-accessible treat. Mind you, thinking about it, that might be a reason for me to prefer it; it's less accessible, not such an instantly obtainable cheap date.

Sadly for me, Moscow doesn't really cater for my tastes in either cheese or chocolate, although it fares a little better for the former than the latter. You can get decent cheese here - mostly of the continental European kind - more easily than you can get decent chocolate. Unfortunately, what I hadn't yet come across was affordable decent cheddar. And, being a West Country girl, 'decent' means just that, not the plastic blocks masquerading as cheddar that were available in some supermarkets. Frankly, I would rather eat my (home-made) chutney on dry toast than waste it on the rubbish чеддер that is normally available.

So today, when I saw this beauty* smiling up at me from the cheese fixture at Auchan, I cracked a huge smile - and bought two packs. It would have been more - if those weren't the last.

Husband will be delighted. Not because he loves cheddar as much as I do (as a Dutchman his heart will always belong to Old Amsterdam), but because, if this proves a reliable supply, he won't have to keep lugging blocks of the stuff back with him on business trips. Little does he realise that that simply means there will now be more room for him to bring back the essentials to feed my other 'ch' addiction...

* Other cheddars are available. I even prefer some of them to Cathedral City, actually, but since this is the one that has made itself available to me in this decent-cheddar-less desert, this is the one I've bought...

The Gallery; Week 86

2012-01-11T10:34:00.006Z

This post is for Tara's Gallery; click here to see all the other entries...

Tara's prompt for this week was 'phone photo'. So here's one of mine, taken on my Nokia N8-00 (thank you again, lovely people at Nokia) this morning, not far from our house.

Altogether now; 'walking in a winter-wonderland...'

On being kept in the dark...

2012-01-11T06:51:00.004Z

Last year, the powers that be in Russian government decided that Daylight Saving Time was for wimps. (Well, I think they actually said it was because it was old-fashioned and unnecessary, but let's not split hairs). They took the unilateral decision that we in Russia would not be putting our clocks back at the end of October, and this post was the result...

Tell me it's not just me. I surely can't be alone in thinking that the abolition of daylight savings time here in Russia is simply not working.

My husband says it is - just me. He thinks I'm being ridiculous when I mutter and grumble about it being dark outside as we eat breakfast, as we drop the kids into school in the morning, as I drive him to the station and as I battle the traffic on the highway — all, seemingly, in the dead of night. I need to get with the program, bite the bullet, just ruddy well get on with it and stop complaining.

I never thought I would care, to be honest. I mean, winter is winter, right? It's supposed to be dark and gloomy, for goodness' sake. But when I caught myself writing a note to Mr. Medvedev as I waited for the sun to peep over the horizon somewhere around 9:50 a.m. this morning, I decided that my husband is right. I do need to get over it.

I mean, does it really matter if the centers of business in Europe and the United States are now one hour further behind us and, in the case of London, now don't start work until just about the time we in Moscow are deciding which filling to have in our sandwich? I suppose not.

Does it matter that the extra hour of darkness make what is already a challenging commute even more "entertaining" and more likely to result in "little" accidents? Not if you have a driver, I guess.

Does it really matter that most people outside Russia are unaware that the time here has not changed here and so merrily go on their way scheduling telephone meetings for what they think is one time, but which is, in fact, another? Only if you do business internationally and you actually want to be available to take the call, I suppose.

And don't get me started about every electronic source of time outside of Russia — and, I suspect, many of those inside Russia — having updated incorrectly to the time that the computers think it should be rather than the time it actually is, leaving many people — oh, OK, just me again, probably — unsure of whether their on-screen clocks are referring to Russian time as it is now, or as it would have been this time last year. For example, that automated e-mail from the airline informing you of your arrival time: Should it read 5 p.m. or 6 p.m.?

But no. Obviously none of this is important, and we'll get used to it all eventually, I guess. Until the end of March, anyway, when the rest of the world puts their clocks forward and the confusion starts all over again.

Oh goody.

This post first appeared over at my other blog, 'Diaries of a Moscow Mum' on The Moscow Times website

Jumping on that old Bandwagon; An open letter to PR's

2012-01-09T09:20:00.012Z

If you're a blogger, do you sometimes hate opening your blog-related inbox? Mine is full-full-full of emails from people who think that, just because I write a blog, I am waiting with bated breath for content ideas to drop into my lap from people who clearly have not read anything I've ever written other than the title of 'The Potty Diaries' (and nor indeed have they picked up on the fact that - to-date - I write all it's content MYSELF).

Normally I just hit delete and forget them. Sometimes I'm inspired to write a witty and concise (ha!) 140 character 'Dear PR' tweet to get the frustration out of my system, but mostly I move on. However, Tim at 'Bringing Up Charlie' has just posted 'an open letter to PR's everywhere' (click for the link) which is crammed full of useful advice for any PR looking to interact with bloggers. I agree with every single thing he has written and have just one addition to make.

Please, dear PR, check the location of the blogger you are writing to before hitting 'send' on your message.

For the last 2 years I have been living in Moscow. That's Moscow, Russia. I don't hide this fact; it's clearly signposted at the top of the sidebar on the right hand side of the page. Under 'About Me', see it? Right under my blog name. This, I hate to say, does limit my availability to attend events rather more than living in Central London did.

Now. There are times when I am willing to make the trek from Moscow to London to attend your seminar / be at your press briefing / experience your no-doubt wonderful product in person but if I'm honest, they are few and far between and usually involve decent financial recompense or happen to coincide with a pre-planned trip. It's one thing to hope a blogger is happy to stump up the tube, bus or rail fair to be at your event, quite another to expect me to come up with the average cost of £300 for a flight. And of course there is the small matter of childcare for me to sort out for the time that I'm away from home; I do write a parenting blog after all (isn't that why you have me on your list in the first place?) and whilst getting cover to look after my kids for a few days is possible - anything's possible - that is not necessarily the case at the drop of a hat, and it had better be worth my while*.

So for example, inviting me to a premiere 36 hours before it's due to happen is unlikely to get a positive response (note: I'm not taking umbrage with the short notice; if I were living in London I would no doubt be delighted). Likewise, tempting me to the launch of your new skin care range** on the promise of a visit to a swanky retail location and some free cleanser probably isn't going to cut it, either...

You might think that by writing this I'm potentially cutting off interesting contacts from PR agencies. But you know what? Given that the overall likelihood a PR person is actually reading this post*** is not great, I'll take my chances.

* What is 'worth my while' however is something I am willing to discuss.

**This does not refer to a specific event. The product type has been changed to protect the innocent...

*** If, however, you work do for a PR agency and have taken the trouble to read this far, please get in touch - you already seem like someone I would like to work with...

Help wanted for sufferers of Childhood Cancers

2012-01-07T10:34:00.003Z

Just over a year ago, a good friend of mine received the shocking news that her daughter has cancer.

After a year of treatment, things are going as well as could be expected, and today, she sent out the email below:

Hi, you are being sent this email because you have very kindly shown your concern for A's condition. So far the chemo seems to be working for her and she is doing well. There is however still a while to go.

Many of you have been kind enough to ask if there's anything at all you can do to help? (thank u ;-). And yes - there is!

While the drugs seem to be working for A, this is not true for others we know. Two young kids we know have died ( - one buried today & sadly, there will probably be more). I can only imagine what their parents are going through.

If that's not hard enough to swallow, imagine if it was YOUR child who had this life threatening disease & you knew there was a potential cure to save your child, only it's not available in the UK (and this is the case for some cancers). Also, the money spent on finding a cure for childhood cancers is miniscule compared with that invested on most other cancers.

So how you can help? We have started a petition that demands that ALL kids with cancer in UK should get vital treatment & be given the chance to live. We need to get 100,000 signatures supporting our appeal before we can present it to the government:

I am not asking for your money, just your voice to show you care. It takes one minute to sign, I promise.

And if you're still reading this - thanks! And I'll get off my soap box now.

Go to this link to add your signature;

Thanks for your support

I don't want to be mawkish but if tugging at your heart strings is what it takes to get you to click through, I will. At the start of this new year, take a look around you at you own children, thank your own good fortune that you haven't had to write the email above, and please, click on the link.

Thankyou.

In the stratosphere and Ikea, no-one can hear you scream

2012-01-06T17:31:00.005Z

I'm torn. Which is the better way to start a new year? Is it:

1. Flying home from London to Moscow via a one hour stop-over in Zurich, convinced that the total saving of, oh, about £150, is completely worth it because, what's an extra hour or two on your journey when you have two sons who absolutely love flying? Until, that is...

...the plane for the first leg of your journey leaves 20 minutes late, cutting your 1 hr window to change planes to 40 minutes in an unknown airport where you don't know how long the disembarking / changing gates / re-scanning bags / resubmitting passports for visa checking / embarking process takes...

.... and your husband notices in an annoyingly relaxed fashion just after you have boarded the first of your two flights that he only has baggage tags for 3 of the 4 bags you checked in (WTF?)...

...and your younger son proceeds uncharacteristically to throw up on not one but both of the flights you take.

Or...

2. Spending a grey and drizzly Russian Bank Holiday afternoon in Ikea with most of the population of Moscow, all of whom seem to be there with their extended families on a lovely day out, as you stagger around with jetlag and (look away now, any gentlemen reading this) period pains, trying to hold an intelligent conversation with your husband about bathroom cabinets and frying pan lids. Although not in the same section of the store, obviously.

Hmmm. The jury's out on this one, I think.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T18:39:00.004Z

These are not resolutions. No way, no how. These are instead declarations of intent for the forthcoming year...

In 2012, I will:

Keep my family close, no matter how far away.

Know what's important, and if necessary, fight for it.

Have the courage of my convictions.

Trust my gut instinct - it's right more often than I'm tempted to give it credit for.

Be healthy.

Be happy.

Have decent chocolate to hand. A little of the good stuff is usually better than a lot of the rubbish alternative (this last applies as much to wine as it does to chocolate, by the way).

Remember that life is too short to make your own mayonnaise.

Not eat if I'm not hungry.

(The author reserves the right to change the order of this list depending on the time of the month and prevailing weather conditions).

Great things about blogging #979

2011-12-29T20:43:00.006Z

It allows you to record moments like this which would otherwise be lost in the post-Christmas haze...

This evening, my sister (the erstwhile blogger 'Footballer's Knees'; far funnier than me, in case you were wondering, but also far busier -which is why she is no longer blogging), and I happened to be in the same room at our parent's house when an Irish jig popped up amongst the medly of Christmas songs on the cd player.

Imagine it; the music seamlessly segued from Mr Crosby's dulcet-toned 'White Christmas' to the sort of thing you would expect to hear at your school assembly on St Patrick's Day. Or at least, what you would expect to hear if you went to a Roman Catholic primary school, as FK and I did.

Reader, you would be pleased to know that, despite our lack of immediate Irish heritage (oh, it's there, alright, but you need to go back a few generations through Lancastrians determined to hide it before you get there, and frankly, find me an English Catholic without it), FK and I lined up and immediately assumed the stiff-backed, knees up to our chins, feet going crazy, heel-tapping, tippy-toed leapage that we all know and love from River Dance. Well, not exactly like River Dance, perhaps. But close enough, begorrah.

We cantered sideways across the (very small) dining room, straight arms linked to each other's shoulders, before repeating the exercise in the other direction, and then forward and backwards in perfect (PERFECT, I tell you) synchronicity with each other.

My older son and nephew had no idea what the hell we were doing, but were obviously incredibly impressed by our display.

Although I think the chances of either of them wanting to take Irish dancing lessons may just have been blown to smithereens by the sight of us.

Sorry, great great great great grandmammy...

I didn't get where I am today without knowing my own mind...

2011-12-28T21:11:00.004Z

My grandmother is 98 years old. She is a feisty lady, who knows what she wants in life - as evidenced by this recent conversation with my mother during the run up to the festive season...

Nana: "Now. Your Christmas cake, this year..."

Note: My mother is a goddess in the kitchen. A goddess, I tell you; a living legend in all things culinary, and her Christmas cake is no exception. There is just one teeny little issue, and that is that - delicious, tasty and moist as her cake is - we (as in 'the family') are generally too stuffed by the time we reach the cake to do it full justice. As a result, over the last 20 or so years Mum has got into the habit of giving a good 1/3 to 1/2 of the cake to Nana to take home with her at the end of the Christmas break. And Nana, as we shall see, has got into the habit of taking it.

So, back to the conversation in hand.

Nana: "Now. Your Christmas cake, this year..."

Mum: "Yeesss..."

Nana: "You don't need to bother to ice it. I don't really like the icing. Too hard, and too sweet."

Mum: "But I always ice the cake. We all eat it, and we all like it iced."

Nana: "Well, you don't need to this year."

I suppose that you don't reach the age of 98 without learning how to speak your own mind. Or, indeed, without putting yourself first.

(Needless to say, Mum did ice the cake...

Silent Sunday

2011-12-18T07:42:00.001Z

How not to give yourself a manicure...

2011-12-16T18:42:00.004Z

So which one of you jokers out there knew that cutting up a pumpkin would give me brown stained fingers and palms, and chose not to tell me?

Hmm?

Because it was all oh-so-funny when I was mugging it up for the Boys as they ate their dinner, girding my loins with an apron for an epic battle with this 5 kilo monster squash, attacking it with my sharpest knife and asking my enthralled audience if they wanted to see it's intestines. And before you call me ghoulish, to be fair the stringy stuff inside did rather look like something's insides, especially if you're a 5 or an 8 year old boy (or a 44 year old mother with an over-active imagination).

It may not have been wise, however, to wave the sectioned and vanquished vegetable (fruit? vegetable? Fruit? It does have seeds, after all) over my head in triumph at this point. It might even perhaps have been a rather a silly thing to do, since the pumpkin spitefully proved to take what I thought at the time was it's last revenge, showering my newly cut hair with seeds in retaliation for the inconvenience of being cut up, but I was on a roll, my sons were laughing hysterically by this time, and it seemed like a good idea at the time Your Honour...

Less funny however were the 10 minutes I had to spend with a pumice stone removing the dried up and brown-stained skin on my hands afterwards. Turned out that in fact the seeds on my head were only a foretaste of retaliation, since the pumpkin's last act was to use it's juice to give me hands that looked as if I worked in a tannery or on a tobacco farm and which felt like I had spent the afternoon moisturising with Cif.

I had the last laugh over-all, though. The soup that I turned my victim into is delicious...

This post was brought to you by a rainy Friday night in Moscow with no new dvd's to watch. Normal service should be resumed shortly.

Lost: One Friend

2011-12-15T17:43:00.006Z

I lost a friend. Not today, not yesterday, and not in the eternal sense; as far as I know, she's still out there, somewhere. Scratch that: she's not 'somewhere' - I know exactly where she is. It's just that wherever she is, it's not in my life, not any more.

I don't know why she doesn't want to be in contact. I've turned it over and over in my mind, and am no closer to a real answer. Maybe it was when I did this. Perhaps it was when I said that. It was probably the time I didn't do the other thing. Possibly I wasn't forgiving enough of whatever, or understanding enough of 'that' situation. Or did she just finally lose patience with my attitude to something I didn't even realise was an issue for her? Was I so self-involved that I couldn't see her drowning / moving on / washing her hands of me when she needed me to?

I know friendships are often cyclical. People come into our lives and go out of them when the seasons change; as an expat I see that happen now with alarming regularity. But there are some friends that you imagine will always be present in your life; whether you see them weekly, monthly, yearly or once every 4 years, there's still that bond. The time in between your meetings doesn't matter when you finally get your feet under the same table with a bottle of wine or a cup of tea in your hands, and this friend was one of those.

I have others, of course, some as close and who know me as well as she did. Friends who've also been there for the mountainous highs and the lows so deep that walking into the kitchen cupboard, turning the light off, and closing the door behind me to shut out the static seemed the only viable option.

Thank god, they are still there. But for whatever reason, she's not. And it turns out that some friendships will stay with you, whether they are are active or not. So I think of her, maybe when I'm listening to a piece of music that reminds me of a shared memory (I'm listening to Adele's '21' as I write this and I just know she would bloody love it), and wonder what is happening in her world. I wonder whether it was a conscious act to cut me out of her life, or if that's simply how it turned out, and that I'm just not relevant to her situation any more. I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that question, actually.

From time to time, I wonder if she ever thinks of me & mine. I wonder if she reads this blog. I wonder if she's reading this post. But mostly, I just miss her friendship.

I've been thinking about this post for a while but was inspired to write it today by this piece over at Jane Alexander's Diary of a Desperate Exmoor Woman

You can leave your hat on...

2011-12-14T12:57:00.007Z

No, please. Let me. Leave my hat on, that is. Because 'that' time of year has arrived — The Time Of The Eternal Hat.

I've never had an easy relationship with head-gear. Throughout my childhood I managed to avoid them as a rule. Sure, there was my uneasy truce with a dun bobble-hat when I was in the Brownies, and then the airline stewardess look-alike cap I had as a Girl Guide — the things I did for Queen and Country — but overall, I was always aware that generally, hats were not for me.

I'm not sure why that was. Oh, alright, I know exactly why that was. I have a big head and fine hair, a disastrous combination for any aspiring hat-wearer, and one that invariably tends to leaves me either looking like I borrowed my younger sibling's titfer (hat on), or (once I've taken it off) with hair so lank, straight, and flat against my head that I might as well have tipped a vat of cooking oil over myself. Not, I am sure you will agree, desirable outcomes in either case.

But, here I am in Moscow. Where the temperature for, oh, I don't know, five or six months of the year is so inclement that only a fool would venture outside without 'protection.' At times, it gets so cold here that if you are silly enough to set foot on the street without a hat, you will be accosted by well-meaning but more than a little scary babushkas berating you for your idiocy and prophesying doom in the form of cold, pneumonia and imminent death if you don't immediately put the woolly bobble hat your mum knitted for you back on. (Mind you, they make the same pronouncements about drinking beverages with ice in them, so...)

But this s the start of my third winter here, and having spent the previous two in an adequately warm but frankly unstylish wool confection from (name deleted to protect the innocent), I was determined that this year, THIS YEAR, I would find the perfect hat.

Reader, I promise you, I tried. It's not as if Moscow is short on hats. They come in every shape, size and material, and surely there must be at least one within my price range to suit? But therein lies the problem — the "within my price range" disclaimer. Certainly, I saw lots of beautiful hats. Some of them — in the right light and with half-squinted eyes — actually suited me. But amongst the ones I could afford? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. If only I could make like my sons and simply throw whatever happened to be warmest and fit me on top of my head.

Instead, I've ended up with a velour number that looks distressingly like the sort of thing your grandmother would sport on a trip to the dentist and which, whilst it fits, doesn't even keep my ears that warm. To add insult to injury, despite it's being too loose, it still manages by some Moscow static magic to glue my hair to the sides of my head by the time I take it off, leaving me with a daily dilemma: add 40 years to my age and keep my hat on inside like some misplaced Edwardian lady on sabbatical from a BBC drama, or remove the offending item and look instead like a drowned rat?

Decisions, decisions.

This post first appeared over at my other blog, 'Diaries of a Moscow Mum' , on The Moscow Times.

Guest Post: Slummy Single Mummy on the lies we tell our children

2011-12-13T06:38:00.006Z

Every now and again the opportunity comes up for me to run a guest post on The Potty Diaries. I normally give an unequivocal 'no' in reply; this is my blog, I like to write the content. Call me controlling, or just come right out with out it and call me anal, I don't care; this blog is the one area of my life where what I say goes. But when Jo at Slummy Single Mummy offered to write a post for me, I deliberated for about - oh, I don't know - 10 seconds, before biting her hand off.

I love her writing. Plus, she won the undying affection of myself and some other 'veteran' bloggers at our first face-to-face meeting during the 2010 CyberMummy conference when she rocked up with a nearly full bottle of wine she'd half-inched off a pr, announcing that she had decided to share it with us because we were 'the coolest'. Since we could all give her at least 10 years and had been feeling somewhat like school prefects at 3rd form disco, you can imagine that went down quite well...

Enjoy!

A good friend phoned me the other day.

“I’ve ruined Christmas!” she wailed, never one to underplay the drama in a situation.

“What have you done?” I asked, in a muffly I-answered-the-phone-with-a-mouthful-of-sandwich voice.

“Derek asked me straight if Father Christmas is real and I told the truth!”*

“Oh dear,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic whilst at the same time keeping half an eye on twitter. “It’s so hard isn’t it? Belle asked me to absolutely promise that I wasn’t the Tooth Fairy this week.”

“What did you do?” my friend asked.

“I lied.”

...

I don’t know if it was the right thing to do. Belle certainly didn’t seem happy with my response.

“Swear on my life Mummy that you’re not the Tooth Fairy,” she said.

Awkward pause.

“I swear on your life that I have never dressed up as a fairy and taken a tooth from under your pillow.”

Not very convincing.

“I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!” she shouted, folding her arms across her chest and turning away from me. “Mummy’s aren’t supposed to break promises. How will I ever trust you again?”

The questions had come on the back of a visit to see Santa in his grotto, a visit which Belle had treated with a good deal of scepticism. “How can that be the real Father Christmas,” she asked, quite reasonably I thought, “when I saw a sign earlier saying he was going to be somewhere else in town this afternoon?” It was a fair point. “Besides,” she added, “I could see the line where his beard was stuck on.”

This bit wasn’t fair at all, as his beard was real, and one of the most impressive Santa beards I have ever seen. She wouldn’t have it though, even when I zoomed right in with the camera and showed her the individual hairs growing out of his chin. (In a photo afterwards, not on the actual man).

They grow up so quickly don’t they? A couple of years ago she was completely taken in by a visit to what was genuinely a teenage girl in a Poundland quality fake beard, and yet now, faced with an elderly man with impressively bushy white facial hair, who almost had me convinced, she’s doing everything she can to pull him apart.

It’s a tricky one, because actually I still really want to believe in Father Christmas myself, and I want to keep the magic of things like the Tooth Fairy alive as long as I possibly can. Pretending that you believe is surely almost as fun, so isn’t it OK to try to keep up the pretence? Or should you be honest with your children, even if perhaps they don’t really want to hear it?

When did your children stop believing?

*Not his real name. Seriously, who would call a kid Derek??

You can find Jo blogging over Slummy Single Mummy, amongst other places...

Potski Mumski gets all domestic with Apple & Raisin Chutney

2011-12-12T09:06:00.006Z

I am addicted to cheese.

There, I've said it. I love cheese. Loveitloveitloveit. Soft, hard, creamy, nutty, tangy, smooth; I love it all. I'm not quite as bad as one ex-colleague who claimed that there is no dish in the world - sweet or savoury - that doesn't benefit from the addition of a little of the stuff (her favourite combination was curry and cheddar, which goes a little too far even for me), but I have to say that cheese does feature more often than it healthily should in my diet.

However. Cheese on it's own? All well and good. But cheese with a little bit of pickle or chutney? Culinary heaven. And in my opinion, there is no condiment in existence as well suited to a cheese sarnie as the Apple and Raisin Chutney that my mother makes, and which she has done for as long as I can remember.

Of course, there's a problem with this; I live in Moscow. Getting my hands on an extra-large jar of Mum's chutney is no longer as easy as it used to be, so I've been forced to take desperate measures. Yes, aged 44, I have become that cliche; I now make my own. And not only is it incredibly easy to do, but it's ruddy delicious if I do say so myself.

I happened to mention this on a previous post and as a result have been asked for the recipe. I can't remember the name of the 40 year old cook book my mother pulled this out of for me, so I will just call it West Country Apple & Raisin Chutney. And please note; this chutney does not only go well with cheese; it's perfect for that Christmas night turkey or ham sandwich as well...

West Country Apple & Raisin Chutney

Ingredients:

1.75kg (4lb) cooking apples; peeled, cored and chopped (please note; I have also used eating apples from the garden and it tastes fantastic - even sweeter and tangier if possible)
4 medium sized onions, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
Juice of one lemon
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
900ml (1 1/2 pints) white (preserving) vinegar
450g (1 lb) raisins
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons salt
1 kg (2 lbs 2 oz) soft brown sugar (I used dark brown muscavado and it gives a gorgeous dark brown colour, but light brown will do too)

Method:

Place the apples, onions, garlic, lemon juice, mustard seeds and 600ml (1 pint) of the vinegar in preserving pan (any large heavy bottomed pan will do).
Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 1 hour until the mixture is soft.
Add the raisins, ground ginger, salt, sugar and remaining vinegar and simmer, stirring frequently until the chutney is thick. (This bit can take up to 20 minutes or so; don't lose your nerve and go too early, but likewise don't expect it to set or to be much thicker than a loose apple sauce. It will thicken up as it cools).
Put into sterilised jars*, seal with a waxed paper disk and lid, and label with the date. The yield is approximately 3.2kg (7lbs)
This is ready to eat as soon as it's cold, but tastes even better a week or so after you've jarred it. Store in a cool dark place. Attack with a spoon when you fancy a sandwich. Or a salad. Or pretty much anything savoury, actually...

* To sterilise the jars, wash the jars and lids thoroughly in warm soapy water, rinse, and then heat the jars (not the lids) in a moderate oven (180degC) for 5 minutes on a clean baking tray. Remove and allow to cool for a few minutes before using. Or, you can do as Expat Mum suggests in the comments for this post and run clean jars through the dishwasher to be ready to use just as your chutney is ready...

Is it just me, or...?

2011-12-09T19:50:00.005Z

Is it just me, or is this equipment slightly over the top for recording your child's Christmas concert?

Or am I just being a grinch?

(I probably wouldn't have minded, but she was blocking my view of Boy #1 with all her paraphernalia, stopping me extending my paparazzi telescopic lens all the way out, the selfish witch...)

The Gallery Wk 84: My Awesome Photo

2011-12-07T09:47:00.005Z

This post is for Week 84 of Tara's Gallery. Click here to see all the other awesome photos...

The prompt for this week's Gallery is 'My Awesome Photo'. Before I started to write this post, I decided to go over to Tara's blog and check out some of the other entries. Big mistake. One might almost say 'awesome' mistake. There are some (no, am not going to use the 'a' word again - 4 times in the first two paragraphs would be too much, even for me) fantastic, incredible photos on there.

I can't compete, clearly. I mean, I could compete, but only if I was prepared to show you photos of my family, which is not possible, however much I want it to be. (If I'm honest, my natural competitiveness might have won out if unchecked, and I have would picked one of many 'awesome' photos of my sons, but since Husband reads this blog occasionally and I have faithfully promised him I would never cross that line, no dice.)

So then I thought, which photo to choose? There are a number of contenders, most of which have appeared on this blog before, but I decided to go with one that hasn't. It's not deep and meaningful, with a sense of the brooding menace that one often finds here - like this one - or visually interesting - like this one. It's simply an image that I took whilst on holiday in Croatia this summer, which I think works. I hope you like it, too.

It's not Christmas...

2011-12-04T08:44:00.004Z

...not yet, anyway. But check on this blog and you might be forgiven for thinking that it is, because today, instead of joining in with Silent Sunday as I usually do (but can't because the weather has been so gloomy I haven't been inspired to take a single photo this week), I'm taking my cue - again - from Tara and answering her question about which is my favourite Christmas song.

It's almost impossible for me to answer this question. I have so many 'favourites'. But Husband and I watched 'Elf' on Friday for the first time, so I decided that the following clip, of Zooey Deschanel in that movie, singing two of my Top 10, would do nicely, thankyou very much...

And then, because for me nothing brings in Christmas like the performance The Messiah at St Martins in the Fields on Trafalgar Square, here's a flash mob performing the Hallelujah Chorus on a food court back in 2010. I think I've featured it before; I KNOW I've watched it before. But every time I do, it makes me cry. I suggest that if you're at all soppy, you have tissues handy.

The Twelve Days of a Parent's Christmas

2011-12-02T09:38:00.008Z

This post was inspired by Hot Cross Mum and Expat Mum, following a Twitter conversation about boys, loos, and needing to clean the bathroom floor more often than we might like. I'll leave you to join the dots together yourself on the subject... At any rate Hot Cross Mum took that start point and created her own version of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' - and challenged us (in my 'oh, I'm not competitive at all' head, anyway) to do the same.

Obviously she's already mined the rich seam that is boys and the loo, so I was forced to look elsewhere - to something else that is currently at the forefront of my experience - and have re-written The Twelve Days of Christmas to a children's illness theme...

To be sung - in your head only, please - to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas...

On the first day of Christmas, my children gave to me: a headache and a high temperature.

On the second day of Christmas, my children gave to me; 2 snotty tissues, and a headache and a high temperature.

On the third day of Christmas, my children gave to me; 3 hits of Calpol, 2 snotty tissues, and a headache and a high temperature.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my children gave to me; 4 missed appointments, 3 hits of Calpol, 2 snotty tissues, and a headache and a high temperature.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my children gave to me: 5 broken nights.... 4 missed appointments, 3 hits of Calpol, 2 snotty tissues, and a headache and a high temperature.

On the sixth day of Christmas my children gave to me: 6 concerned grandparent messages, 5 broken nights.... 4 missed appointments, 3 hits of Calpol, 2 snotty tissues, and a headache and a high temperature.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my children gave me to me; 7 hours internet shopping, 6 concerned grandparent messages, 5 broken nights.... 4 missed appointments, 3 hits of Calpol, 2 snotty tissues, and a headache and a high temperature.

On the 8th day of Christmas, my children gave me to me; 8 days missed homework, 7 hours internet shopping, 6 concerned grandparent messages, 5 broken nights.... 4 missed appointments, 3 hits of Calpol, 2 snotty tissues, and a headache and a high temperature.

On the 9th day of Christmas, my children gave to me; 9 doctor's notes, 8 days missed homework, 7 hours internet shopping, 6 concerned grandparent messages, 5 broken nights.... 4 missed appointments, 3 hits of Calpol, 2 snotty tissues, and a headache and a high temperature.

On the 10th day of Christmas, my children gave to me; 10 messed up bedrooms, 9 doctor's notes, 8 days missed homework, 7 hours internet shopping, 6 concerned grandparent messages, 5 broken nights.... 4 missed appointments, 3 hits of Calpol, 2 snotty tissues, and a headache and a high temperature.

On the 11th day of Christmas, my children gave to me; 11 sweaty pj's, 10 messed up bedrooms, 9 doctor's notes, 8 days missed homework, 7 hours internet shopping, 6 concerned grandparent messages, 5 broken nights.... 4 missed appointments, 3 hits of Calpol, 2 snotty tissues, and a headache and a high temperature.

On the 12th day of Christmas, my children gave to me; 12 'I'm so boo-oo-red's, 11 sweaty pj's, 10 messed up bedrooms, 9 doctor's notes, 8 days missed homework, 7 hours internet shopping, 6 concerned grandparent messages, 5 broken nights.... 4 missed appointments, 3 hits of Calpol, 2 snotty tissues, and a headache and a high temperature.

Update:

Nappy Valley Girl has jumped on board with this one too - click here for a link - and so has Iota at Not Wrong Just Different. If you're inspired to do like wise, leave a comment telling me where to check and I'll add yours here too...

The Gallery; Wk 83

2011-11-30T08:36:00.004Z

This post is for Week 83 of Tara's Gallery. Click here to see all the other photos...

The prompt for this week's Gallery is 'My Kitchen'. We're currently living in rented accommodation here in Moscow, so I suppose that essentially my kitchen is not really 'my' kitchen. But, apart from the last two homes we lived in in the UK, we were always renting, and yet I always felt at home in my kitchen - wherever it was. Thinking about that, I realised that as with so many things in life, it's not the geographical location or the details of ownership that matter, but the things within it.

Pictured here, then, are what I would consider the essential ingredients (see what I did there? That's because I'm such an experienced blogger, that is...) for my kitchen.

Bought or made locally, in no particular order; salt and pepper, obviously, two types of olive oil (extra virgin and ordinary), balsamic vinegar (not only for making salad dressing but for adding to any tomato-based sauces, it really brings out their flavour), onion and garlic, a jar of the home-made apple chutney that no cheese sandwich is complete without (I admit it, I'm showing off here, but having made some for the first time this year I can't believe it's so easy and that I left it so long to get round to), and ginger and cinnamon. Well, you can't make muffins without them and there are almost always muffins of some kind in our house.

Then, there's my folder of recipes, mostly from the Sainsbury Magazine but also ripped out of any other publication featuring what I like to call food porn, which has moved around with me since 2000.

And finally, there's my Travelling Arsenal. These items have been all over the world with me, stowed in my hold luggage and meaning that whenever we arrived at our destination, be it Australia, Russia, the UK, Barbados, France, you name it, I was able to cook healthy meals for my family. They are: Marigold Vegetable Bouillon, a fan steamer, a Sabatier knife, and my trusty easy-to-use-I-would-hate-to-have-to-manage-without-it vegetable peeler.

With the exception of the vegetable bouillon, I know you can buy most of them anywhere in the world but I ask you; is running to the nearest cook store the first thing on your mind when you arrive somewhere on holiday?

What makes a kitchen for you?

How do you know...

2011-11-28T10:13:00.002Z

...when your child is living too secular a life?

I'm supposed to be a Roman Catholic. I have to admit though that, since living in Moscow, I have let my attendance at mass slide somewhat. It's not only because the nearest service in English is in the middle of town and conducted in a not particularly charismatic way; I also, like many Catholics I know, have 'issues' with various situations within the church recently, but I never planned that my concerns would impact on my sons being able to understand the faith they have been baptised into, or interfere with their making a fully informed choice for themselves on whether to embrace it or to look elsewhere in the future.

However, you can't drop your children into a foreign (literally) environment and expect them to absorb your religious education and beliefs by osmosis - as I am discovering. You have to work at it. And following a conversation I had with Boy #2 this weekend, I think I need to prioritise that.

We were discussing who in our family will have the next birthday. Boy #2 knew full well that his is the next birthday, but he just wanted further confirmation of that (when you're 5 going on 6, these things are important).

Me: "Well, yours is the next birthday, Boy #2."

Boy #2: "Yes, yes it is..."

Me (tongue in cheek): "Unless you count Jesus as being in our family, of course. If you do, then his is the next birthday."

Boy #2: "Is it? When?"

Me: "You know when it is! It's on December 25th."

Boy #2 gave a sharp intake of breath "Wow! That's amazing! Jesus's birthday is the same day as Christmas! How lucky is he?"

We got it sorted out, eventually. But I wonder how much actually went in, because the next day...

Boy #2: "You know how my birthday is quite close to Christmas?"

Me: "Yeeees."

Boy #2: "Well, if my birthday was on Christmas Day, and Jesus' birthday was on my birthday, then I would be God!"

Yep. Still a little work to do there, I think.

Silent Sunday

2011-11-27T07:38:00.002Z

Love Train

2011-11-24T07:09:00.004Z

Boy #2 has a new obsession. It is, of course, for a form of transport, and if you've acquainted yourself with his adventures on The Potty Diaries before, you won't be at all surprised to learn that it is for a train. But not just ANY train, oh no.

Boy #2's current object of desire is the mag-lev train.

Almost every waking hour is occupied with unending discussion on how it works, how fast it might go, how many passengers it carries, how it works, how fast it might go... Oh, am I repeating myself? Well, welcome to my life.

He has it all planned out. When he grows up, he will become a mag-lev train driver by day, a singer in a band by night, and after he has finished wowing the crowds at his gigs he will return to the mag-lev where he will sleep, because he is going to sleep on it, oh yes he is. He is not going to have a wife and family because, apart from the fact that girls insist on wearing lipstick on their wedding day (and he can't abide slidey lips), there will be no room for them in the sleeping compartment of the train.

When he learned recently that some good friends of ours are moving to Japan shortly (where one of the two commercially operated mag-lev's operates), his joy knew no bounds. We are going to visit this family, he decided, we are going to 'take a hotel' (his expression, not mine), and we are going to ride on that mag-lev train. Our conversations quickly evolved from general discussion about the train's advantages onto exactly when we were going to visit our friends in Tokyo to experience those advantages for ourselves.

If only he knew that not only were they going to be in Japan but that their mother is planning on using a train (not the mag-lev, thank heavens) to take the children to school every day, that would be the absolute end of any rational discussion about 'if' we visit, and his trunkie would be packed and ready to go before you could say 'magnetic levitation'.

Last night, I heard that our friends' planned move has been temporarily put on hold. It will still happen, just not straight away. And I am thanking god, not only that I get to spend a little longer with my friend, but that Boy#2 no longer has any immediate reason to force me to book flights to Japan...

The Gallery: Week 82

2011-11-23T09:49:00.013Z

This post is for Week 82 of Tara's Gallery: click here to see all the other entries...

The prompt for this week's Gallery is 'Something I am Proud Of'. Wow. Like everybody I'm sure, there are things in my life that I'm not proud of (the unpacked boxes from our move nearly one month ago, the fact that after nearly two years in Moscow my Russian is still - to use a technical term - 'crap', my procrastination when it comes to any and all things financial, etc etc), but over all, there's a lot in my life that I AM proud of. So, where to start?

It's lucky, in a way, that I don't post photographs of my family, because I am inordinately proud of my children. Not just of their amazing characters, their achievements, and their resilience but - if I'm honest - how goddam beautiful they are, too. They may be boys, but that doesn't stop complete strangers stopping me and telling me what good-looking sons I have. (It's all from my side of the family, obviously.) However, as I have frequently said, I don't post photos of The Boys here, so you're saved from those...

Instead, then, I'm going to show you some photos I've taken since I've been in Moscow. Not only am I proud of them simply as images, but I am proud of them for what they represent to me: living here, making it work, and not just making it work, but - if you'll pardon the expression - taking this experience and making it my bitch...

The one where I get mistaken for security...

2011-11-21T16:12:00.005Z

I think that perhaps I should be quite offended.

Today, I took a formal guided tour around The Moscow Kremlin for the first time. (I say 'The Moscow Kremlin' because most old Russian cities - and indeed, many cities outside Russia proper - have their own 'Kremlin', as the actual word means 'fortress'; not something you might be aware of if you've never visited here).

It was fascinating, and I'm very glad I did it. Shame it was ruddy freezing and that it's taken me nearly two years of living here to get round to it, but there you go...

Anyway. The moment that caused offence. To enter the Kremlin one has - of course - to go through a security gate manned by armed soldiers. You step through the metal detector, submit your bag for a cursory search and that's it, job done. At least - job done for the four ladies I was on the tour with.

However, after I had gone through the standard procedure, the soldier pulled me to one side and mumbled something in Russian. I couldn't hear it properly so asked him to repeat it - and then I still couldn't understand it. At this stage, he realised I spoke English and asked me very matter-of-factly if I had any guns in my bag.

Guns? In my bag?

Well, I laughed and said no, of course not. But when I discovered that none of my friends had been asked the same question (we were clearly part of the same group), it all became horribly clear.

The soldier thought I was their body-guard.

I guess you can't blame the poor man; two of my friends were tricked out in expensive fur coats, whilst the other two were looking significantly more designer-clad than dressed-for-warmth North-Face branded me, but still. A body guard? I mean, I knew my hat was bad, but really...

Silent Sunday

2011-11-20T16:33:00.002Z

Self-publicity, Kindle, blogging, and other embarrassments

2011-11-18T07:15:00.007Z

Sitting at the Boys' school yesterday, fruitlessly trying to sell tickets for a forthcoming event (yes, I AM that masochist you see sitting in the hallway with a fixed grin and an empty cash-box in front of them), I was chatting with a friend. "Do you still blog?" she asked - more to fill the time than anything else, I suspect. "Yes, I do, actually." "And how's it going?" "Well enough. It keeps me busy, what with my normal blog (The Potty Diaries) and the blog I have over at The Moscow Times."

Mention any newspaper and it seems to pique people's interest. Suddenly, blogging is less of a self-indulgent solitary pleasure and seems more glamorous, for some reason. (For me, too, if I'm honest).

"Really? Do you blog over at The Moscow Times? I was just on their site yesterday - funny, I didn't see you on it."

"Well, I don't blog as myself. Obviously. I use a pen name."

She looked at me suspiciously. "Well, I did see a blog on there by a mum in Moscow, but it wasn't you."

"It was, actually." (I was fairly certain on this point, having just checked the Times blog roll that morning).

"No, no. She had another name. I can't quite remember it now..."

"It was me, really. I use the name Clare Taylor on there."

"Was that it...? She wrote a post about politeness, or something. And having been in London this weekend. Oh my god - you were in London this weekend! It WAS you! I can see it now..."

It's interesting, being caught up in a situation like that. Within my circle of friends in Moscow, I don't hugely publicise the fact that I blog here at The Potty Diaries, but I'm happy to mention what I do for The Moscow Times, since what I write there is even less reflective of our family life than what I write here. Since I've never been very good at self-pr, however, I don't even mention that very often.

If someone asks me what I do with my time (other than being a mum - which as we all know leaves us with endless hours in which we do nothing but sit around chatting, drinking coffee and eating chocolate, with the odd flower-arranging class thrown in for good measure) my answer usually involves mumbled references to blogs, writing for other sites, proof-reading, writing for myself and sometimes - sometimes - The Moscow Times.

But, having been inspired by Emily over at More Than Just a Mother to sell this blog on Kindle (it will be an interesting experiment, if not anything else), I need to start publicising that fact. Imagine, then, the following paragraph as being written through metaphorical gritted teeth;

I've just put my blog up for sale on Kindle. I know that if you read it here, the chances of your wanting to pay the princely sum of £0.99 a month to do so on your Kindle reader are slim - and I wouldn't expect, or indeed want, any different. However, if you are inclined to at least take a look, I would be very appreciative of some positive review comments on Amazon.

There. That wasn't so hard, was it PM?

*PM pulls her head out of her hands and, blushing furiously, slinks out of the door...*

Show me your caption...

2011-11-17T07:31:00.008Z

Tara over at Sticky Fingers is running a fabulous competition right now, to win a Tassimo hot chocolate maker.* Despite the fact that I'm not in the UK right now I have entered, and - what? I live in Moscow and if there's any place in the world where you need - that's right, NEED - hot chocolate, it's right here, right now and that gadget is mine I tell you mine! And - breathe...

Aaaand - I'm back in the room.

Anyway, I entered the competition. To do so, you need to leave a comment on the post telling Tara what you would write on your ideal mug, and the winner will be drawn at random from all the entries received. Some of the captions, let me tell you, are hilarious, and so what I would like to know is; if you could write anything you wanted on your very own bespoke coffee / tea / hot chocolate mug, what would it be?

This was my entry, by the way:

Yes, I DO know everything.

Now go back and flush.

So come on, spill (not literally, of course. Hot chocolate is terribly sticky); what would you write?

*I suspect that this machine also makes other brews, but let's be honest, it's the hot chocolate that is the main event as far as I'm concerned.

The Gallery: 11.11.11

2011-11-16T06:34:00.007Z

This post is for Wk 82 of Tara's Gallery - click here to see all the other great entries... (And if you don't check in there regularly, please take the time to read her posts on her recent visit to Indonesia with Unicef - they will open your eyes)

This week's theme for The Gallery was to record what we were doing on 11.11.11. Now, today I'm sitting in Moscow, it's -4degC, and it's trying (rather pathetically, if I'm honest) to snow. But last Friday, I was - well, no prizes for guessing where.

God, I love London.

I enjoy living in Moscow, don't get me wrong, but London? London is home. And no matter where else I live in the world, I suspect that it always will be.

Service with a smile...

2011-11-15T07:01:00.004Z

This post first appeared over at my other blog, 'Diaries of a Moscow Mum' on The Moscow Times website

I spent the last four days in London, without my family. This was an interesting experience because not having the children to entertain and wrangle freed my attention sufficiently to notice a few things that I wouldn't normally remark upon. Perhaps it's because I used to be too close to the city — it was my benchmark of "normal" — whereas now, nearly two years after leaving, my expectations and measures of "normal" have changed.

Once upon a time, for example, I would not have been at all surprised by courtesy as a part of everyday life. On this visit, however, I was impressed to see how many people were polite to each other. And I'm not just talking about the service culture being a little more established over there than it is here, no, this is politeness as a two-way street. Not only were cashiers, servers, waiters and suchlike helpful and polite to their customers, but — get this — their customers were polite back!

No grunting, no muttering, no avoidance of eye-contact, no shouting across restaurants waving your hand in the air for service. Instead, people were politely chatting at tills, exchanging pleasantries (invariably about the weather; the British do run true to type on this one), and even smiling at each other.

There could be any number of reasons for this difference in day-to-day life between what I experience here in Moscow and what I saw in London. It could be that I just happened to strike lucky while visiting the latter. Certainly, if you speak to a Londoner, they will say that it is a very unfriendly place to live these days and remark on how standards have dropped. It could be that that people are simply glad to either have a job selling products or the money to spend on them given the economic gloom in the country. Or, it could be that my benchmark for common courtesy has been significantly lowered by my time here.

At the risk of offending a city of 16 million people, I suspect that it is the last of those.

I understand that Moscow is a hard place to live. Money is tight everywhere, the traffic is terrible, the weather is often inhospitable. Families live in close quarters, competition is fierce, you never know what's coming tomorrow. The world is a frightening place, and it's tempting to batten down the hatches and simply conserve the energy it takes to engage socially with another human being at the supermarket, the petrol station, or the cafe, and save it for the fight.

I also know that many people believe there have been great strides in recent years, and to a certain extent that's true. Certainly the goods and services you can access here nowadays are not so different from those "back home." But a decent service culture is only a part of the puzzle and is unlikely to be achieved without some positive feedback from those on the receiving end.

Moscow is a great and exciting city, as I'm constantly telling those who've never visited. But from my limited viewpoint, I would venture to say that life could be so much easier if we were all a little nicer to each other.

It's all very well to expect service with a smile. But you can expect it all you like; you won't see anywhere near as much of it if you aren't prepared to give one in return.

How you know you've lost the edge...

2011-11-14T09:49:00.004Z

How do you know you've lost that sartorial edge?

Obviously, this post is not about me. I am, of course, a mere whippersnapper of coughcoughmumblemumble, only buying my clothes from Top Shop, Miss Sixty and other places that cater to the stick thin and trend-led such as myself.

Pause whilst PM picks herself up from the floor, laughing hysterically, and pops upstairs to change her sensible M&S underwear. Pelvic floors ain't what they used to be...

So, how do you know when following fashion is no longer your top priority?

When you show your best girlfriends the new pair of highly desirable boots you picked up on the Kings Road, with patent leather and everything, and the aspect of them that everyone agrees is amazing?

"Look at that! That's fantastic! Do you know how difficult it is to find a pair of nice-looking boots with a decent tread on them?"

We are becoming our mothers.

Netmums Blog of the Week? Why, I don't mind if I do, thankyou very much!

2011-11-10T19:09:00.004Z

May I point your attention in this direction? Having uploaded my blog to Netmums some time back, I promptly forgot all about it, so being singled out as Blog of the Week was a doubly nice surprise when I found out about it this evening.

Thankyou, Netmums!

Things that make you go; hmmmm....

2011-11-08T18:27:00.005Z

An acquaintance of mine was talking recently about how, having written his Christmas list at the end of September, her son announced last week that it was now out of date and he had changed everything on it. Everything. Which, if you are as poorly organised as I am, not doing your present shopping until a week before the big day, would be no biggie, but this lady is slightly better sorted than me.

So much better sorted, in fact, that the September list presents have already been purchased and are awaiting collection at various relatives houses.

You will be pleased to know, Reader, that I did not revel in this proof that my slightly haphazard approach to the Big C is a good thing. No sirree. Not in the slightest. But that was mainly because I was too busy trying to keep my face expression-free as she continued with the story to tell me how she was now frantically trying to buy everything on the new list.

I mean, surely a quiet word with her son about how Santa already put the order in with the elves for the previous list - or at least some of it - wouldn't have gone amiss? Just because they ask for it, should kids automatically get it?

I've already written - here - about my approach to presents for the Boys. (Basically, whatever they want as long it comes in lots of pieces that can be wrapped separately for maximum gift-wrap-rippage opportunities, and as long the total budget comes in at less than £70- £100). But how far would you go to accommodate your children's Christmas wishes?

In which PM shows how good a student of Russian she is...

2011-11-07T05:54:00.005Z

The eagle-eyed reader may have spotted a reference in one of last week's posts to the fact that we moved house recently. Not far - 200m, to be precise - but it is a different house, it did require a total boxing up of all our possessions (so they could rattle precariously from one side of the compound to the other on the back of a flatbed truck), and, of course, now that we're in, it also requires a number of visits from The Workmen.

Because, you see, we are not allowed to do anything to our house ourselves.

A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. And 'anything' not only includes sorting out shower curtains and putting up shelves; even knocking in picture hooks and changing lightbulbs would put us in breech of contract.

Seriously.

I've been through this before of course, when we first moved here, so you would think I would be prepared for it all, but honestly? Not so much. My Russian, I'm afraid to admit, has not improved that much since the last time - nearly two years ago - that we moved into a house. I'm handier with a dictionary now than I was then, but otherwise... And the workmen's attitude to me has similarly not improved. I thought I was imagining it, but was lucky enough to be visited by an English Russian-speaking neighbour during one of their recent sessions here. "It's shocking how they shout at you just because you don't understand them so well" she said before she left. Which, now I come to think of it, is probably how English workmen treat Russians in the UK, so I guess there's some cosmic payback going on here.

In any case, I was going to treat you to another of my interpretations of what the Russian Workmen might be talking about in an alternate reality, but realised that I actually I've already done that, so instead I am going to cheat and reproduce what I wrote about this in February 2010...

It's just before 9.00am and the kitchen is currently full of Russian workmen, replacing our new - and broken - washing machine with an old - unbroken - one. Lots of instructions are being bandied backwards and forwards, one of the guys has his head under the kitchen sink and is making a muffled commentary from there, and every now and then there is a worrying silence, punctuated only by the wheezing sighs of habitual smokers. As I type, the dishwasher has been pulled out (please god, no! Don't take the dishwasher!) and the tumble dryer is being balanced precariously on top of it.

Frankly it's the sort of thing which, if I owned any of the appliances they are currently messing about with would give me kittens, but since I don't, I'm just enjoying the show.

The thing is, in my non-Russian speaking bubble, right now I have no idea what's going on. For all I know, the conversation could be as follows:

Young Mild-Mannered Foreman: "Come on guys. I know it's early but we need to get this sorted out."

Workman #1: "That's easy for you to say. You haven't got at dishwasher balancing on your head. What did the stupid cow do to break the washing machine anyway?"

Workman #2: "God knows. These westerners and their crazy wash-every-day ideas. Every one knows you don't need clean clothes every day. No wonder the damn thing's broken "

Silence, broken only by panting and puffing...

Workman #3 (head under the sink): "Would it be out of the question to light up a quick fag, do you think?"

Workman #4: "Better not. You know how arsy they get about that type of thing. Not a decent ashtray in the place as far as I can see. Somebody pass me the monkey wrench?"

Workman #2 "What am I, your servant? Get it yourself, Comrade!"

Workman 4: "Comrade? That's behind us now. I don't need to answer to you, commissar."

Mild-Mannered Foreman: "Hey! Hey! Stop with the political discussions and eyeing up the chocolate biscuits and pass him the monkey wrench for pete's sake. We're all new Russians now. Right. One, two, three, lift..."

Workman #1: "Watch out for the laminate flooring! It's brand new! We didn't take up the perfectly decent parquet for you to scratch Ikea's finest laminate that we replaced it with."

Silence and more wheezing...

Workman 3: "OK. One previously perfect Samsung out - one slightly ropy Ariston alternative in. Give it a wipe down with your handkerchief, comrade, and let's be off."

Workman 2: "Let's see how long it takes the Western Imperialists idiots to break this one with their compulsive washing habits... We do know she doesn't understand us, I take it?"

Silent Sunday

2011-11-06T06:56:00.002Z

Sky High and a sponsored post...

2011-11-05T11:42:00.006Z

This is a sponsored post.

The Boys (and their father) are watching Sky High. Well, it's the end of half term and they've been so well-behaved that... Oh, alright, I admit. We all love a bit of cheese from time to time; so sue me.

Rather than bore you with details of the fiendishly complicated plot unfolding on screen (although I have to say I did quite like the comment I just overheard about one superstrong hero vs a technical superstar; "Yet he'll be the one on cereal boxes. Show me the justice in that..."), may I direct your attention to Feather & Black's website, where right now there is a sale going on?

I have to say that whilst I personally have not bought any of their childrens bedroom furniture to date (Feather & Black are sadly short of retail outlets in Moscow at present), the boys were lucky enough to be sent a pair of their Jaws pyjamas each last summer and despite the dropping temperatures (it's due to hit a low of -7 degC here tonight), these are still firm favourites. That may of course have something to do with the fact that Boy #2 is going through a growth spurt and whilst he's grown up, he hasn't grown out; rather the opposite, in fact. As a result all of his other pj's are now too loose in the waist, leading to some interesting builder's bottom situations at the breakfast table...

Whatever the reason though, the quality of these pj's is good enough that I will be taking advantage of the F&B sale myself when I visit the UK next weekend.

This may have been a sponsored post but I was serious about the sale and taking advantage of it...

Greater love hath no mother...

2011-11-04T14:16:00.004Z

...for her children than to stay in the kitchen cutting up pizza for them whilst the volleyball scene from Top Gun is on...

What's your idea of a 'supreme sacrifice' for your kids?

Oh, and whilst we're at it, I've been blogging over at The Moscow Times again. Click here if you want to read the pearls of wisdom I could have shared - but didn't - with some new arrivals recently...

Staycationing is the new Expat black...

2011-11-03T07:33:00.005Z

It's half term here in our corner of Expatville and unlike most of our peers, we did not head for the hills the moment the school bell rang last Friday afternoon. We stayed put, brave and trusty souls that we are and have been forging our way through the wasteland that is Moscow without school, scheduled activities or - crucially -playdates.

Oh, who am I kidding? It's been brilliant. We have got up late, hung out, unpacked boxes (for yes, Potski-watchers, we have moved house), and generally had a really really relaxing week. When I think of the alternative - packing suitcases, rushing for the airport, flights, picking up hire cars and moving from pillar to post for 6 days - I am so happy we have just stayed put.

And the best thing?

The Boys are loving it. Sure, there have been a few utterances of 'I'm bored!' but judicious application of board games, stories, football, monster sessions in the playground (guess who was the monster...) and yes, the odd session of playing on ds's and watching dvd's (don't judge me - there's only so much roaring and racing around that a monster-mother can do) has soon sorted that. It's been a fantastic example of how children really don't need their time scheduled to the nth degree, and how well they can react to needing to entertain themselves.

Obviously I'm not intending that we should never go on holiday ever again. But on Monday, when my sons return to school rested, delighted to be back with their friends and ready for the second half of the term, and are surrounded by jetlagged and exhausted children who have spent the last week racing around the globe, I have to admit that I won't be sorry we stayed put this time around...

The Gallery: the letter 'T'

2011-11-02T08:55:00.005Z

This post is for Week 80 of Tara's Gallery (click here to see all the other entries), and the prompt is the letter 'T'. Not having a 'tache easily to hand as Tara does I've had to reach somewhat more for a suitable photo, and my offering is nowhere near as entertaining as hers, but here goes.

I took this photo on Sunday afternoon. It's from the bridge between Bolotny Island (where the old Red October chocolate factory used to be) and Christ the Saviour Cathedral, and it shows a beautiful sunny afternoon, the newly built cathedral (an exact copy of the one in the same spot that was knocked down by the communists 80 years ago), one of Stalin's Seven Sisters (the tall building in the background), and in the far far distance the soaring sky-scrapers of Moscow City (the Russian equivalent - sort of - of Canary Wharf).

And where does the letter 'T' come into all this? The buildings, the sunshine, our being in this city in the first place; whether we like it or not, they're all Transient. Or Temporary. You choose; either will do...

Where did it all go so wrong?

2011-10-31T16:32:00.005Z

Yesterday Husband and I decided to exercise our Culture muscles and expose ourselves and The Boys to a little more than Halloween candy and dvd's for a change, and headed off on a trip to The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in downtown Moscow. We ignored the round the block queues for the Salvador Dali exhibition, and instead joined a much shorter one that gave us access to two exhibitions; Kandinsky and Annie Leibovitz. The former was interesting, although not very extensive, but the latter was amazing.

However, this post is not about the genius of Annie Leibovitz; I'm not an art critic, I wouldn't be able to do her photography justice. This post is about one particular photograph of hers that got my attention among a host of other attention-getting images. I'm not going to reproduce it here - I don't know the copyright laws well enough to feel comfortable that I wouldn't be breaking any of them - but I will describe it to you, and provide a link in the paragraph below.

This photograph was taken in 1993, I believe for Vanity Fair, and shows Cindy Crawford wearing only a boa constrictor. It's an arresting image in it's own right - she was then, and is now, a beautiful woman - but the thing that really stopped me in my tracks was her shape. She looks like a real woman. An amazing, incredible woman, who could charge $10K simply to get out of bed in the morning (allegedly), but still, a real woman. Unlike many of the size 0 models held up as having the shape we should aspire today, she had a shape that I recognise, that women I actually knew, friends of mine, were not so distant from.

Fast-forward to today, when girls as young as 12 and 13 will refuse dessert on the grounds that they are watching their weight, stick-thin models sashay down the catwalks on legs that look as if they would snap if their heel turned the wrong way, and magazines berate celebrities for not losing their baby weight fast enough or for showing a couple of inches of extra flab around their waists on the beach.

In these supposedly emancipated times, when women have more control over their own bodies and destinies than they have had throughout history to date, how did we let this happen? How did we get from Cindy and her ilk - incredible bodies, yes, but not so far removed from our own as to be unrecogniseable - to the size 0 culture of today, in less than 20 years?

Where did it all go so wrong?

Please note; no Boys were corrupted in the making of this post. Neither of them paid much attention to the naked women on view, much preferring to fight each other for space on the seats than to pay close attention to the photos being exhibited. Although Boy #2 did comment on a series of shots of a crying baby, still covered in vernix, that had just been born, saying that it looked very unhappy and as if 'it wasn't having much fun.' See this previous post for my sons' views on childbirth...

The Gallery: Faces

2011-10-26T11:30:00.003+01:00

The prompt for Wk 79 of Tara's Gallery is 'faces'. This being a pseudo-anonymous blog (cue ironic laughter), that one presents me with something of a problem. No names, no pack drill, and - crucially - no identifiable faces. Other than my own, on occasion, but I figure you deserve better than that.

Russia is famously full of beautiful faces. Natalia Vodolononiavonoviifcokeo (or whatever her name is - can you tell I'm behind on my Grazia and Heat reading?), and many other supermodels hail from this land of the gorgeous. I'm not sure why Russia seems to have more than it's fair share of beauty; I suspect it's a combination of genes, eating habits, and the women here ensuring that whatever they have, they make the best of it in a way which isn't necessarily a priority to many of us from elsewhere.

Sure, Western women may not particularly like the way sexuality is used as currency here, and there's certainly a different style of dress and make-up involved, but it's a fact of life that Russian women take more noticeable care of their appearance than many of us elsewhere. Whatever else they may be, they certainly don't feel invisible as they grow older in the way that women often complain about back home.

But.

I am here to tell you, ladies, that there is a counter-culture. Women who wear their experience on their faces rather than smoothing away their wrinkles and blemishes with potions and lotions, perhaps not by choice but all the same, they don't fit the mass-export version of Russian beauty as shown in the meja.

I took this photo outside the Pushkin Museum last spring. This woman is simply sitting, probably on her break (she may well be one of Russia's redoubtable Museum Curators I refer tohere, she certainly has that look about her), enjoying the early May sunshine.

To me she looks formidable; not a bad thing to be in this city. And whatever else she may be, I would say that one thing this face isn't, is invisible.

When More is more...

2011-10-25T09:40:00.010+01:00

It is too early for a Christmas post.

Way, way too early

But a certain retailer (who I won't name because I have a generally good relationship with them and don't want to mess that up) sent me a pr release today listing their 'Top Ten Toys for Christmas', and being of a nosy disposition I took a look.

You know what I noticed?

Whilst the cheapest toy on the list was approximately £11, the average price (their words, not mine) was £55, and the most expensive £109.

Which is all very well and may - these days - be good value for money, but one thing occurs to me.

AREN'T WE SUPPOSED TO BE IN A RECESSION, PEOPLE?

Everywhere I look I see news about rising prices, falling wages, the increased cost of living and how we're all supposed to be tightening our belts. Now, I know that Christmas is different. I know that we all want to spoil our little angels at this oh-so-special time of year, and I also know that I will almost definitely spend between £70 and £100 on each of the Boys by the time I include big presents and stockings (or in our case, pillow cases) into the mix.

But this is the issue that I have with the Top 10 list I was sent this week; with only one exception, if I were to buy any of the items which are featured on it I would blow a big part of my Christmas present budget without even blinking. And the thing with young kids? For them, unless they have a specific toy in mind (which, so far, neither of my sons has), the number of presents they get is almost as important as what those presents actually are.

When you're a child, less is not more. More is more.

So I realised that I will not be rushing off to buy the latest must-have toy for a paltry £49.99. Instead, I will be hunting around for less expensive items that my boys will still love, and which will still give great play value, but which will allow me to give them a variety of items and still - crucially - give the Boys the that ripping off the wrapper fest which kids love.

This got me thinking; in these financially tricky times, I can't be the only blogging parent with this philosophy, surely? So why not do a McLinky giving other bloggers the chance to join in the fun and list the Top 3 Christmas Presents under £20 (or thereabouts) that they may give their children this Christmas. If there's enough interest I'll pull together a finite list (crediting whoever came up with the idea, obviously, and linking to their blog if they have one) of what comes up and publish it sometime around mid-November for anyone who's interested.

So here, without further ado, is my current list of Top 3 Christmas Presents under £20:

1. Operation game (available online from £9 - £13.00)

2. Twister game (available online £12 - £14)

3. Junior Scrabble available online from £18 - £20)

What's your list? If you want to join in, either add your list via the comments box or write a post and link to this post here...

Waiting for Winter...

2011-10-24T07:37:00.003+01:00

So apparently we should expect our first - proper - snow of the season in Moscow this week. In a way, I will be glad to see it; Autumn here can be beautiful - and currently things are considerably brightened up by the all the golden leaves floating around - but even in the occasional sunshine there is the spectre of Winter looming in the background. It's almost like a 'well, we might as well get on with it' feeling - for me, anyway.

Having said that, the Potksi Familiski is far from ready for extreme winter. We have no winter tyres on the car yet, the snow trousers I ordered online for Boy #1 turned out on arrival to be unlined (what the hell is that about?) so need to be returned and replaced, and I've not yet replenished my supplies of chilblain cream...

But I'm going for glass half full today, so on the plus side once it does set in, there are of course far fewer tricky wardrobe choices to be made once it gets to winter proper. As soon as there is a good covering of snow on the ground it's jeans, sturdy boots and duvet coat and no-one (in the expat community, at least) judges you for that when it's -15degC.

Admittedly, the hat hair issue is a problem. A big problem. Or rather, in my case, a 'fine, flat, fly-away wispy can't do anything with it' problem. But I'm lucky in that I am not alone in this, so once more, no judgements are made (by the expat community, at least).

See? Glass half full, that's me...

Note: Whilst typing this post it has started to snow. I may now write a post entitled 'Waiting for that last 3 kilos to drop off' and see if it has a similar effect.

Silent Sunday

2011-10-23T11:47:00.000+01:00

The one that starts off well but degenerates into schoolgirl humour quite rapidly...

2011-10-20T17:42:00.006+01:00

I guess I've lived 'an international life', friends-wise, for about 6 years now; pretty much ever since Boy #1 went to day nursery, in fact, and I discovered that he was one of only two British passport-holding children in his group of 16.

It's great to interact and become friends with people from different cultures, I love it (this may account at least in part for my having married a Dutchman), and since moving to Moscow it's become even more the case for me. It's unusual, in fact, for me to be sitting in a group of people with more than one Brit apart from myself nowadays; I ate last Sunday's lunch, for example with one other English woman, two Russians, an American and my Dutch husband. The previous evening had seen me sitting down with Kiwis, Russians, Americans, again one English woman, and two Dutch. The time before that had been Dutch, Korean, Canadian, Kiwis and Russians - and so it goes on.

But there are some conversations that you can only have with other Brits. The Monty Python 'I were brought up in a paper bag & had to lick 'road clean for breakfast' conversation. The 'Hyacinth Bucket' aka 'More tea, vicar?' conversation. And the one I had with an English girlfriend yesterday which went completely over our Russian friend's head, but which had us both cracking up over a reference to a character's beautiful furry muff in one of our children's library books.

Even when you explain this one to a Russian - and let me tell you, trying to do that that can be painful beyond imagining - for some reason they don't find it funny. She was stony-faced.

Sadly, I must admit that this is not my first experience of having to brave these waters; there was also the incident last year when a friend and I were trying to explain the double meaning of 'beaver' to a Russian after she found us wiping the tears away in a particularly undignified manner following our discussion of the fact that there was one living nearby under a bridge. (A mutual male friend of ours - not British - was particularly interested in visiting this beaver on a regular basis and, I'm ashamed to say, this situation was particularly easy double-entendre land for ex-convent girls such as myself.) Our rather hiccupy explanation as to why we were nigh-on hysterical (OK, there might - MIGHT - have been a contributory white wine factor involved in this) fell on extremely stony ground with our Russian acquaintance.

At the time I was confused by this (who wouldn't find references to a beaver funny, surely? Oh. Just us Brits, then?). But then yesterday, after the unsuccessful attempt at explaining the humour in a furry m... the furry m - god, I can hardly even write it - I remembered my trip to the banya last year when it was evident that extreme waxing is something of a patriotic duty in Russia. And suddenly, it all became clear. No wonder the Russians don't get these particular cultural references! The chances are that the only beautiful furry muff's they have ever encountered really are something which you would use to keep your hands warm in, in cold weather...

What?

In the swim - or not...

2011-10-19T08:40:00.005+01:00

I just put together a post for Tara's Gallery this week only to realise, just as I was about to hit publish, that she's had the temerity to take the week off (what, is it half term or something?), so have shelved that post and instead put before you this Mummy dilemma.

Boy #2 has had a nasty cough for the last 3 days. He has no temperature, no runny nose (yet, at any rate), and is perfectly well other than the frankly awful noise he keeps making. So he's ill, but not really ill enough to keep home from school (especially since two thirds of his class are making the same noise). Consequently, I've been sending him in for the last couple of days. I'm not asking for ratification on that; I know my child well enough and he's more than capable of a school day in this state of health. And for those worried about the other children in his class, well I'm afraid the damage was done last week by whichever child brought the virus in with them then...

No, what I'm asking is whether I should have allowed him to join his class swimming lesson today. Generally the rule is; if they're not well enough to swim, then don't bring the child in to school. If they can't swim, they get to sit on a bench with the Teaching Assistant either reading or watching the other kids in the pool; they don't get the chance to stay in the classroom as they would be unsupervised.

I knew this, but still decided this morning that I would not take Boy #2's swimming kit in with us. Whilst he's generally fine, and certainly not ill enough to stay home and miss a day, he does have this cough and it seemed foolish to me to push our luck any further. I mean, we've managed nearly 2 years here without having to visit a doctor, and I'd like to keep it that way if at all possible. Consequently, I spoke to his teacher and the TA when I dropped him off this morning, and offered to go in and sit and read with him by the pool during the lesson.

My children go to an unusual school. Parents are allowed anywhere on the premises at pretty much any time, because we give so much support to the teachers. In fact, the parents' help is actively sought in getting children ready both before and after their swimming lessons (and the amount of time spent drying and styling the little girls' hair by Russian mums panicking about the slight possibility their child might leave the pool area with one wet strand of hair verges on the ridiculous - but that's a subject for another post...). But when I offered to come down and sit with my coughing five year old on the benches by the edge of the pool, thus freeing up the TA to look after what I knew would be at least 4 other children also not swimming for the same reason, I was told no thank-you.

Boy #2 - according to the TA - would have to sit watching the other children swim for 45 minutes. No books or colouring allowed.

This seems to me to be inflexible, unnecessary and also, frankly, to be making a rod for her own back since she's the one who's going to have to deal with probably 4 or 5 bored five year olds. I imagine that this is aimed entirely at making me feel guilty for not following the party line and sending him swimming whatever. And the frustrating thing is that it's not as if we are on record as a hypochondriac family; last school year Boy #2 had only one day off sick, for heaven's sake.

However, I stuck to my guns and for all I know the intransigent TA stuck to hers and made Boy #2 sit without anything to do for 45 minutes.

But what should I have done? Kept him home all day for the sake of avoiding a 45 minute swimming lesson, or sent him in and dealt with the consequences of his being in the water?

What would you have done?

Can the Real Potty Mummy please stand up?

2011-10-17T10:30:00.004+01:00

I never thought I would be 'that' mum; the one who stands on the edge of a football pitch in all weather, shouting support at her children. Well, let's face; sporting prowess does not run in my family, and whilst Husband's is a little more athletic than mine, the signs from the first few years of the Boys' lives were that sports were not going to be that high on their list of priorities.

However.

Saturday morning found me standing on the edge of a football pitch somewhere in Moscow, shouting encouragement to Boy #1, and bringing on the team snacks and drinks as required. Which in itself is something of a shocker, but when you factor in the weather - a measly +2degC and snowing, for goodness' sake - I do rather wonder what the hell is happening to me...

Admittedly, the snow was mixed in with intermittent rain and sleet, for light relief, but it is still only the middle of October...

Silent Sunday

2011-10-16T18:21:00.001+01:00

That's ENOUGH!

2011-10-14T09:57:00.004+01:00

I am slightly exercised about something. No, dammit, I am extremely exercised. I'm living in Russia, for goodness' sake and yet every day I am confronted with the creeping Amercianisation of my children. Hang on - move to Moscow, and have my kids become American? Ummm - no offence to any Americans reading this blog, but that's not quite what I was hoping for.

No. It has to stop.

I realised that yesterday evening during dinner. I had spent the previous hour, following school pick-up, correcting their pronounciation yet again. I had gone from cheerful remonstrations of "No darling, it's not 'kindergarDen' it's 'kindergarTen' ", through "No sweetheart, it's not 'scooDer', it's scooTer' ", to an increasingly tight lipped "It's not 'caint', it's 'caahnt' " and others I won't bore you with.

So when Boy #1 picked up his fork, held it back to front in his right hand and started to spoon his rice and casserole into his mouth, followed by a cack-handed attempt to cut his sausage into smaller pieces before transferring his fork back into his right hand and repeating the process, I snapped.

I don't know why, but it seems to be peculiarly representative of the difference between America and Europe, that way of eating. In the past I've watched Americans eat that way on film and wondered to myself; is that for real? Do they really go to all the trouble of cutting up their meat etc (fork held straight up in the air, knife used like a saw), before discarding one of their utensils, bending low over the table and then shovelling food straight into their mouths with their forks?

Well, based on what I see at the school - and now at my own dinner table - some of them do.

This of course begs the question; should I even care? Am I being a ridiculous snob for bothering which way my sons eat? Well, the answer to that is mixed. Of course, I am a ridiculous snob in many matters - I'm happy to admit that - and this is most definitely one of them. But pretentions to grandeur aside, this bothers me on a practical level as well; at some point - and it may well be within the next 12 months - the Potski Familiski will be leaving Russia, and it's extremely unlikely that our next destination will be the US. We will most likely move back to the UK, where eating like that in the school lunch hall, for example, will get you singled out for unwanted attention which would hardly help what seasoned expats refer to mysteriously as 'the transition'.

I know, I'm probably worrying too much. But I care enough to - last night - make it clear to my boys that whilst eating at home or in company (they can of course do what they like in the school cafeteria), they will eat the way we do back in the UK.

Fork in left hand, knife in right, napkin on their laps, casserole all down their shirtfronts and rice liberally scattered all over the floor.

Call me nothing, if not realistic.

What do you think? Would you bother to teach your children how to eat the 'correct' way (whatever that may be)?

Gone Writing...

2011-10-11T09:43:00.005+01:00

A while back I posted about starting to write a book. It's been a little 'stop/go' since then, if I'm honest. After an inital burst of enthusiasm, and a lot of thinking, Real Life started to get in the way and it's only now - that an event here in Moscow which I was doing some work for is done and dusted - that I've actually sat down and started to have a proper go at My Masterpiece.

It's such an interesting process. I should come clean here, and say that I haven't had 'The Big Idea' burning away on the back of the stove for years now. There was no blinding flash of inspiration where I sat up in bed in the middle of the night and shouted 'Eureka! I've got it!', no, nothing that impressive.

When I started writing I knew only two things, in fact. I knew what the location for the opening page of the book would be, and based on a fascinating piece of family history that a friend shared with me about a few months ago, I had an inkling that it would involve a search of some kind. And that was it. That was all I had to go on.

If I'm honest, I thought this book would be about me, or someone like me. Some slightly more mature version of chick-lit perhaps; lighter on the bags and shoes than some of the offerings out there, heavier on the international travel (so far, so Potski Mumski), but essentially something that I knew.

Imagine my surprise then, when I started tapping away and discovered this book - my book - is not about me at all. How very dare my subconscious?!! My protaganist jumped from my fingers straight onto the keys, almost fully formed. I know his name (for yes, it's a guy - go figure!), I know what he looks like, I know his shortcomings, I know what stage of life he's at. I know his family, I know his girlfriend. Hell, I can even visualise the colour of his rucksack and the scuffs on his shoes.

And I know he's at a crossroads and that there is something which must be resolved before he decides which route to take. I even have a fair idea of how he's going to get there.

And the more I write, the clearer this all becomes to me. It's incredible - and I love doing it.

Whether this work of art (for which read amateur drivel) will ever see the light of day anywhere other than on my laptop is questionable. And it's all taking rather longer to get going than I thought it would. Seventy thousand is a LOT of words, people. A lot. And I'm nowhere near that total yet, mainly because I can't stop myself re-reading and then editing the previous days' work before I start on the next, but I'm hoping I'll move on from what is probably a classic beginner's mistake shortly and just write more fluidly.

In the meantime, though, please excuse me if I am a little distracted...

Silent Sunday

2011-10-09T13:30:00.000+01:00

A conversation with my sons about childbirth...

2011-10-08T10:43:00.006+01:00

The question came out of nowhere as I was driving - late - to Boy #1's football fixture this morning.

"Mum, how do babies get out?"

We didn't actually have a car crash as I wondered how to answer my older son's query, but that was mainly because it was early and most Russians are far too sensible to be on the road before 10 o'clock on a Saturday morning.

I decided to bite the bullet. "Well, ladies have a special hole between their legs, and the baby comes out through there. Mostly."

Silence whilst this was digested. Then, in a very sceptical tone of voice; "Reeeeeaaaaallly?"

"Yes, really."

"How big is the hole?"

"Well, normally it's very small. It has to stretch - a lot - for the baby to get out."

There was a sharp intake of breath. "That must hurt very much."

I laughed ruefully, wondering if I might actually be managing to educate a male in how amazing women are, that they can bear the pain of childbirth. "It most certainly does."

Then; "Wow. Those poor babies."

"Yeah" piped up Boy #2. "Those poor babies..."

Dear Lord. Give me strength.

Older siblings rule OK

2011-10-07T15:54:00.004+01:00

Blogging isn't all about humour and rants, you know. OK, more often that not, on The Potty Diaries it is, but just for a change here's a classic 'mummy blogger' post...

My sons are normally excellent sleepers, closing their eyes only moments after the lights go out and not opening them again until about 10 minutes after I ask them to get out of bed (well, you can't have everything). However, yesterday evening Boy #2 did not want to go to sleep. It was 8.10pm and having been in bed for all of 40 minutes (oh, alright, if I'm honest, 15...) he was still bouncing about like a tightly wound yo-yo. I could hear him across the landing as I was folding the laundry (oh, the glamour of the expat wife's life), and I could also hear Boy #1 becoming increasingly exasperated as he did want to go to sleep.

Suddenly, it all went quiet. I left it for a moment, and then picked up a faint murmuring coming from the Boys' bedroom. Intrigued, I crept quietly towards their open door and stood silently outside to find out what was going on.

Boy #1 was gently singing his brother to sleep.

At the end of the (made-up) song, Boy #2 heaved a happy sigh, rolled over, and nothing more was heard from either one of them until the morning.

I don't mind telling you; I was heaving a few happy sighs myself...

The Gallery: Colour

2011-10-04T20:00:00.006+01:00

This post is for Week 77 of The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers, and the prompt for this week's photo is 'colour'.

Which is ironic, because at the moment in Moscow you can have (to paraphrase Henry Ford's famous saying) any colour you like, as long as it's grey...

Moody enough for you?

Update

OK. Having looked at the fabulous photos over at The Gallery now, I'm feeling a little out of things on the colour front, so I've found a summer photo from our holiday in Croatia just to lighten things up a bit...

Ode to Traffic: a Haiku

2011-10-04T10:38:00.003+01:00

I tangled with the traffic this morning (something of a recurring theme on this blog, I fear), and on returning home read an email from a friend containing a number of haiku's lamenting the shortfalls of computer technology. So I was inspired to write my own. No prizes for guessing the subject matter...

Oh Moscow traffic jam

You are never ending

Sprawling down highways

Like some lazy teen

Too indolent to move

New bus lanes

Add to the chaos

And all but the buses and the ambulances

Are locked

In your choking embrace

With the exception obviously

Of the blue buckets*

To whom normal rules

Do not apply...

With apologies to all the more experienced haiku writers and their fans out there who no doubt can point out a million mistakes in format etc.

*Non Muscovite readers should click here for an explanation of what a 'blue bucket' actually is...

The best blog advice I have ever received is...

2011-09-27T10:37:00.004+01:00

I'm feeling a little low on blogging inspiration right now, so BritMums Prompt of the Week was something of a godsend for me today. It's not that I have nothing to say, you understand; just that I have nothing I want to commit to the ether and - essentially - have it rattle around in cyberspace for eternity. Because, even if you post, and then think better of it and delete what you've written from your blog, it will always be out there - somewhere.

Having said that, thinking before you hit publish is not the best blogging advice I have ever received. It's not bad advice, you understand - (my personal approach is that if I'm writing something I think may be controversial I write it, save it, and re-read it the next day to see if it still holds true and if I am happy for it to be 'out there' for ever, then I publish it), but it's not the best advice I've ever read or been given on blogging.

No, the best bit of advice that I've ever been given about blogging is that the you shouldn't over-think. (Which, now I consider it, completely contradicts the paragraph above this but what the hell, it's my blog, if I want to be contrary I will). And by 'over-think' I mean, spend time fretting about writing the funniest post, the most popular post, the one that will get the most mentions on twitter, the most comments, the highest number of hits, the most links. If you start to worry about doing all of those things you are - or at least, I am - lost. You will lose your identity and spend all your time floundering around for the next hot issue to blog about, and will be at risk of losing any originality or individuality you have.

Sure, you should - or again, I do - ensure that when you post something, you are proud of it, if not in sentiment then at least of the way that you write it. But you shouldn't sit there in front of your keyboard worrying that what you write might not be good enough, might not be entertaining enough, and get yourself all tangled up in knots about that. That way lies bloggers block.

Which leads me onto the next snippet of the best advice I ever received, which is - to borrow a well-known advertising slogan - just do it. (Feel free to add expletive as required). What you need to do - if you want to be a blogger who enjoys what they're spending their time doing - is just write. Even when you think you have nothing to say, just log into your blog, click on 'new post' and write. You'll be amazed by how easily the words flow if you can just find that first sentence - even if it's nonsense.

And then, the third part of the best piece of advice I ever received about blogging. Say what you want to - and then stop.

So I will.

Silent Sunday

2011-09-25T09:35:00.001+01:00

And in other news...

2011-09-23T18:19:00.007+01:00

...I've just had an email asking me if I am interested in buying accessories for my washing machine.

Excuse me? Accessories for my washing machine? Before I clicked on the link (for yes, I am that mug), I spent a happy few seconds imagining what they might be. Perhaps a jaunty little hat for those trips to the farmer's market? A natty pair of leather gloves for those chilly days, now that autumn is here? Or maybe an autumnally coloured scarf, for wear whilst out mushrooming in the forest?

No, of course, don't be potty, PM. Let's get real.

Perhaps, then, the term 'accessories' when matched with 'washing machine' could refer to some swanky go-faster stripes, colour-coordinated to match the granite work surface in your kitchen. For obviously, no washing machine that would need something as grand as an accessory could possibly be seen anywhere without a slab of granite or corian close to hand. Or actually, maybe the granite or corian IS the accessory, and this is the manufacturer's way of branching out into a new market-place? Or, perhaps it refers to some washing machine bling; a cheeky little swarovski crystal tattoo around the base of the door? (Don't laugh - I actually think Sub-zero have already done this with a fridge).

But no. 'Washing machine accessories' actually means 'detergent'. And, if you're going to push the boat out, it can also mean 'descaler'. Who knew?

Oh yes, and my older son just asked me if, when he's 12, I will let him watch that well-known movie 'Pirate Caravan'. I said yes, naturally. Well, a film about pirates on holiday in a 4 berth caravan, perhaps on the west coast of France, squabbling about who's turn it is to empty the waste container, who ate the last weetabix for breakfast, and who's responsible for their getting lost and ending up at a nuclear power station instead of at the unspoilt beach within easy reach of a local vineyard - what's not to like?

Seasonal changes; Autumn in Moscow (Part 1)

2011-09-23T10:49:00.006+01:00

So, it's Autumn in Moscow. I know this for a number of reasons, the first of which is that it's tipping with rain outside and only 15degC. Mind you, this on it's own is not conclusive proof because I remember similar conditions 2 years ago in August when we visited with the Boys to convince them that this would be a wonderful place to live...

So supporting evidence is needed, and I present that as follows;

The mushroomers are out in force. Russians go crazy for mushrooms, it seems, and on any trip out of the city at this time of year you will pass a number of home-made stalls on the edge of the road with (usually) babushka's perching on upturned plastic crates, behind a plastic sheet on the ground covered with interesting looking fungi. I'm not a great mushroom lover myself (can't really be doing with the texture, I'm afraid), but Muscovites will happily load their car up with their family, some charcoal, some shashlik and some beer and trek out to the forest to make a day of their foraging expedition for nature's bounty. I'ld quite like to try it, actually - the trip out, that is - just as long as I don't have to eat the results.

The supermarkets are full of empty jars and lids. This is not only for the home-prepared stewed fruit, jams and vegetables from the garden at the family dacha which are brought back into the city in triumph, crammed into the back of the car, as the weather turns colder. The jars are also used to store the mushrooms mentioned above, which are often preserved salted. Note: if you are not keen on mushroom's texture in the first place it ranks somewhere in the 7th circle of culinary hell when you are presented proudly with a dish of salted mushrooms prepared to an old family recipe by your host, and which you really feel you must try or cause offence.

*shudders theatrically*

The traffic gets significantly worse. This morning it was an 8-lane day as I joined the highway. 8 lanes where 3 are marked, that is. Gosh, I just can't wait for the first snow in a few weeks time when no-one has their winter tyres on yet and things get even jollier...

The new parents at the school start to lose the 'rabbit in the headlights' look that they had in the first few weeks of term when they would arrive to drop their children off, having battled the traffic all the way across town** and made the mistake of thinking that they were driving in an environment where 'normal' traffic rules apply. They don't. Luckily it only takes 4 weeks to get used to that, and in any case most of these expats rarely sit behind the wheel of a car, letting their driver take the strain...

And finally, I know it is Autumn because I have already seen Russian children dressed up in snowpants and hats. In September. At 15 degC. I mean, I know it pays to be prepared, but...

** This is invariably the result of allowing their working partner / working partner's HR department to choose their accommodation on an earlier - solo - visit to Moscow, when proximity to the office was ranked more highly than proximity to the children's school. Which is all very well until you realise that whilst one member of the family only has a ten minute commute, everyone else is sitting in the car for around 3 hours a day...

Spreading the love - one jam at a time

2011-09-21T17:52:00.003+01:00

I've blogged before about driving in Moscow. So far, so good on that one, but I know I'm just on borrowed time before the first accident / stoppage by the traffic police / running out of petrol in heavy traffic situation.

I'm trying to be optimistic, however, which is why - (oh no, I hear you thinking, she's not going to... is she?) - I'm going to suggest you take a look at what I've posted over at my other blog at The Moscow Times (yes, Expat Mum, I only ruddy am...) where I've been waxing lyrical about spreading the love on the highways of the city, and about how it might - just might - be starting to pay off...

Help wanted...

2011-09-20T08:32:00.006+01:00

I should be proof-reading, tidying up, checking what we're going to have for dinner tonight, or editing photographs, but I'm not. This post has been metaphorically burning a hole in my pocket since Friday, and until I write it I can't properly focus on anything else.

This is Sergey*.

I met him and his mother when I was at a riding centre for the disabled in Moscow. He has, amongst other things; cerebral palsy, bilateral spastic diplegia, and a very rare chromosomal disease. It's the last that is the real problem and as a result of it, he's slowly fading away. There seems to be no help available to him here in Russia, and his mother is desperate. Desperate enough to approach a complete stranger with no medical knowledge or expertise, who doesn't even speak the same language, to ask if there is any way I could help. She wasn't looking for money (specifically), but instead for any information she can find on where to turn for assistance in treating Sergey's condition outside Russia.

Since I had a Russian friend me with me, we were able to exchange email addresses and she has sent me a translation of his medical diagnosis.

Now. I know that there are millions upon millions of children out there who need help. I know that Sergey is just one amongst them, and that they should all have a shot. I'm told by others who are more experienced than I am at dealing with charities that it's possible to tie yourself up in knots over one child, when in fact you should keep the bigger picture in mind.

I know all that.

But I've met this little boy, and his mother. I've seen first-hand his condition and smiled with him as he was helped to ride a pony and undergo therapy which - whilst it can't cure his condition - can at least ease some of the symptoms. And I can't forget the quiet desperation in his mother's voice as she repeated for what must be the thousandth time the details of his diagnosis to yet another complete stranger who might - somehow - be able to help.

So I'm trying, via friends in the medical profession back home, to see if there is anyone I can put her in touch with, and since I have this blog, I'm trying here too.

Please, if you know of anyone who may have contacts in the area of treating chromosomal diseases, ask them to get in touch with me via the email listed on the 'contact me' page of this blog and once I've checked out their credentials I will forward them Sergey's translated diagnosis and put them in touch with his mother.

Thanks for reading.

*Not his real name

Sign Away Meningitis

2011-09-19T11:12:00.004+01:00

Meningitis Awareness Week starts in the UK tomorrow.

The Meningitis Research Foundation is calling on the British government to pursue the widest and earliest possible implementation of vaccines to prevent the diseases of meningitis and septicaemia. You can help; take a couple of minutes to watch this video if you can, or just click here to go straight through and sign the petition.

Thankyou.

Silent Sunday

2011-09-18T18:53:00.000+01:00

Third Culture Kids - and what it can mean.

2011-09-15T18:27:00.008+01:00

I was at a talk today about Third Culture Kids. For those of you who have never heard the term before, here's a brief explanation:

“A third culture kid is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside their parents’ culture. The third culture kid builds relationships to all the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the third culture kid’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of the same background, other TCKs.”

I have to admit to being just a little sceptical about the TCK phenomenon. Surely, we're all Third Culture Kids to a certain extent these days? Most people I know back in London are not living in their town of origin, and a large minority are not even in their country of origin. Life moves so fast these days, and technology has developed at such a rate, that our lives today don't just bear little relation to our parent's at the same age, but have few similarities to that of our own whilst we were growing up, or even 15 years ago.

Having said that, the longer I live in this expat environment, the more I start to see that there is merit in coining a term for the ever-increasing numbers of children who live away from their parent's culture and who experience repeated moves from nation to nation before they even leave the parental home for university. One of the statements I heard today that pulled at the heartstrings was that these 'global nomads' experience more loss and separation (from friends, family, and cultural touch-points) before they're 18 than most people do in their entire lives.

I've seen for myself, twice now, the turnover of families at the end of every school year. The 30% exodus from school as soon as the final term bell rings leaves gaping holes in the lives of those left behind, not only for the children but for their parents too. It's one thing to be the leaver, moving onwards and upwards to new experiences - no matter how unsure you might be about it, no matter how much grief you may have for what you've left behind, it's still exciting and engaging - but it's quite another to be a 10 year old child returning to school knowing that the chances are you're going to have find a new best friend, a new mentor, a new favourite teacher, because all of those you spent time with last year have moved on.

We live in an increasingly mobile world, of course we do, so most of us have to deal with this from time to time, expat or not. But it seems to me - from the sidelines, since I don't really see myself as what I jokingly call 'a serial expat' - that this must be an incredibly hard thing to do time after time after time. Because that's what these families do, many of them every 2 - 3 years. And the children often think of themselves as belonging everywhere - and nowhere.

There are positives, obviously. Third culture kids often grow up extremely sociable. They know how to handle themselves in almost any given situation. They are open to new experiences, thrive on change, are often able to speak multiple languages, and are devoted World Citizens, appreciating and tolerating cultures different to their own in a way it's more difficult to do if you've spent your whole live living next to your grandparents. TCK's have seen some of the best and the worst that the world has to offer, and have opinions on both.

TCK's make friends easily, too, although interestingly once they move 'back home' or attempt to put down roots in an environment that is more settled than the expat one which they've known, this can prove challenging in itself. Why? Well, one of the ways that they make friends easily is to skip the 'getting to know you' stages that most people take for granted. They reveal more about themselves, more quickly, than less-transient people are used to. Between TCK's this is a useful time-saving exercise and helps them learn quickly if the person they're sharing information with is one they something in common with. With those who aren't used to moving around so much however, this can backfire and to them - used to a slower pace of friendship - a TCK can come across as being 'intense', 'full-on' or just plain 'weird'.

Now, as I said earlier, I don't see myself as a serial expat. If anything, I feel as if I'm just taking a sabbatical from my life in London, that's it's always there for me, and that one day the Potski family will be able to drop seamlessly back into the world where we left off. But deep down I know that's impossible. Nothing stands still - for anyone - and even if we went 'home' tomorrow I would be 2 years older and changed by the experiences we've had in Russia. Some of them for the good, some of them not, but I am undoubtedly changed, and perhaps I won't fit back in as seamlessly as I might like.

Much like a Third Culture Kid, now I come to think of it.

Update: I just had to include this fantastic excerpt from one of the comments on this post, from MsCaroline who writes a wonderful blog over at AsiaVu. (Read her post on foot care - it's hilarious). I'll let her have the last word, since she actually is a Third Culture Kid herself:

'I read this book ('When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit') when I was 9 or 10, and this quote has always resonated with me as a TCK. Anna and her family are refugees from Hitler, and have escaped first to Switzerland, then to France, and eventually to England. Anna asks her father, "Do you think we'll ever really belong anywhere?"
“I suppose not,” said Papa. “Not the way people belong who have lived in one place all their lives. But we’ll belong a little in lots of places, and I think that may be just as good.”

If I could start my blog over I would...

2011-09-13T09:04:00.005+01:00

(Thankyou to the BritMums site for this prompt, by the way - click here to see how a bunch of other bloggers have used it)

If I could start my blog over, I would;

... remain totally anonymous. (Not to other bloggers, pr's or advertisers, obviously. That would be silly). Then I could rant and rage to my heart's content about various people and places without fearing of upsetting anyone. Of course, in reality this is practically impossible, but it's nice to dream.

... choose a different platform from the beginning. Blogger has done me proud, but it is limited and when I cast an envious glance over other peoples' sites, I do wonder why I didn't do a little more investigating before hitting 'publish' that first time.

.... never have used that teeny tiny font which for some reason I did for the first year or so, until a very kind commenter was brave enough to request I take it up a size

... have asked Liz at Violet Posy to give the blog a make-over a whole lot earlier than I actually did.

... be more organised about keeping track of pr approaches, who paid for what and who I should be invoicing for continued space on the side bar etc. I mean, I love spreadsheets! Why didn't I just set one up to track it all?

... archive more often. The shock of Blogger's tantrum a few months back suddenly made me realise that I could have lost everything. And at 915 posts and counting, that's a lot of work to potentially say goodbye to.

But the biggest thing of all?

... I would have sat down and seriously thought through the potential embarrassment of having to stand up in a roomful of professional people and say, with a relatively straight face; "Hi. I'm Potty Mummy."

What on earth was I thinking?

Reflections on Boy #1's 8th Birthday Party...

2011-09-11T18:14:00.006+01:00

1. Always take your own advice on the subject of chocolate and go for quality over quantity. Otherwise you will find yourself at 10.00pm the night before the party (during your last-minute birthday cake-baking rush) looking sadly at what should be a 'glossily combined' bowl of chocolate, condensed milk, sugar and butter and decided that based on the greying glutinous gloop in the bowl in front of you, yes, it is necessary to go out to the 24 hr supermarket to buy the expensive chocolate you were too mean to buy just a few hours earlier...

2. Just because it didn't rain last year's birthday party treasure hunt, that doesn't mean it won't rain on this year's birthday party treasure hunt. Prepare for a soaking. Dig out the wellies. Abandon any hope of looking stylish. Take heart; the designer-clad Russian mummies probably won't hang around to get the heels of their stillettos caught in the mud during mad dashes across the grass to run relays or arm-wrestle security guards in any case, so frankly, what does it matter if your wellington boots are Homebase specials rather than Hunter trendies?

3. Remember; if the cleaner you paid to come in and help out at last year's party was a disaster then, needing constant supervision and showing no more initiative than a sulky 13 year old girl, the chances are that nothing will have changed over the last 12 months.

4. You can never have too much pizza for kid's birthday parties. Think of a number, and double it. Then add on 10.

5. Don't waste too much time peeling carrots and slicing peppers etc: vegetable sticks really are there just for decorative purposes and to save face in the Healthy Eating stakes. (FFS - it's a party. Do you really expect them to eat raw broccoli?)

6. Never - but NEVER - leave your 2 beautiful Smartie-decorated chocolate ganache-clad birthday cakes (you know; the ones you were up until midnight the night before making) out in the kitchen with your cleaner there unsupervised. Otherwise, when you ask her to turn on the oven and put the pizza in you will only have yourself to blame when you just happen to go into the kitchen 5 minutes later to find she has put the fully-iced cakes in the oven instead of the pizza.

7. Should the unthinkable (as detailed above) happen, however, hold your nerve. Once you have whipped the cakes out of the oven, stuck them in the fridge to re-set the ganache, and have recovered from the shock with a medicinal glass of white wine or two, you may just find that slightly molten smarties actually taste quite nice on top of warm chocolate cake. And of course this is the perfect moment to thank your lucky stars that the birthday candles weren't already in place.

And finally...

8. There will always be one child who, on seeing the Ben 10 jigsaw and Milky Way bar you have prepared as a going home present, will say "I don't need the jigsaw, thanks. I'll just take the chocolate."

So, you think you know everything...

2011-09-09T06:29:00.002+01:00

"How do you know that?" Boy #1 asked me when I pointed out that he hadn't made his bed today and reminded him that if he wanted a star for his chart, he should go and sort it.

"Because I am the Mummy. And I know everything" I replied.

................

"But how do you know that?" Boy #1 asked again during a conversation about ancient Egypt, sarcophogi and canopic jars.

"Because, I learned it at school. And of course, because I am the Mummy. So I know everything about Ancient Egypt..."

................

"But how do you know that 23 is 'greater than' 18? How?" during his maths homework.

"Because it just is - here's a number line to show you, and 'greater than' means 'more than' or, 'a bigger number than'. And, of course..."

"...because you are the Mummy. And you know everything."

"That's right, my child. You are finally getting it."

But Boy #1 had had enough. "You don't! You don't know everything! Who was it, in Star Wars Episode 2, who had their head severed off in the arena?"

"Ummm.... Count Dooku?"

"No! You see, you DON'T know everything. Ha! It was Boba Fett!"

Dammit. Apparently I don't know everything. I'm going to have to find another tag-line

A man walks into a bar...

2011-09-08T06:07:00.004+01:00

Have you ever heard the one about the swine flu, the school and the cloves of garlic? No? Then click here to read my witterings on about it over at my other blog on The Moscow Times website...

The Gallery, Wk 73; Shoes

2011-09-07T09:15:00.006+01:00

This post is for week 73 of The Gallery - click here to see all the other entries, and this week's theme is 'Shoes'.

When I saw this prompt, my first thought was to put up a post about walking in another man's - or woman's - shoes. I do have a picture that fits, but then I changed my mind, mainly because I recently bought myself some new shoes in the sales back in the UK, and well, if a girl can't show off her new shoes on her blog, where can she?

I love shoes. Or rather, I love the idea of shoes; I don't actually possess that many pairs because I'm not good at shopping. That being said, some of the most expensive items in my wardrobe are for my feet. The ones below aren't in that category, however, but I love them all the same, mainly because I'm a closet bling worshipper. I don't have much shiny-shiny stuff, I'm not that confident, but I do like to look at it on others. And every now and again, I buy an item that allows me to include something burnished and/or metallic in what I'm wearing, without sending me over the edge into fantastic Beyonce-ness.

These shoes, ladies, are my Autumn homage to a very understated bling-tastic look. I wear them with skinny jeans and in my misguided 44 year old mind, the colour on it's own lifts what I'm wearing from dowdy school-run mum to someone who might, once upon a time, have been a bit funky.

They're not that comfortable, mind you. But I suspect that excessive wear will soon sort that out...

Note to self #168

2011-09-05T07:53:00.003+01:00

It's a good idea to check that the new tracksuit bottoms you have bought for your older son fit before the day he actually needs to wear them to school.

Otherwise you will find yourself - having discovered at 7.45am (on a morning when you are flying solo in the child-care department) that despite being marked 'Age 6 - 8' they are too big for his skinny frame and refuse to stay up even with a t-shirt tucked inside the waist-band - frantically searching for a needle & thread to take them in.

Too skinny at 8 for size 6 - 8 tracksuit bottoms? He clearly gets his body-type from his father, is all I can say.

5 year old boys, PMT, and self doubt; a dangerous cocktail

2011-09-02T08:37:00.003+01:00

Five year old boys and PMT do not mix well.

That is my considered opinion after a morning when I raised my voice more often than I should have during breakfast, harrassed beyond the end of my already hormonally-challenged temper by constant requests to read him his train-tastic railway magazine (Boy #2 is a train spotter extraordinaire in the making) and his tantrums over his too-sloppy weetabix, his too-sloppy cornflakes, and his napkin - which he refuses to tuck into his waist-band - falling repeatedly onto the floor.

So, whilst sorting the Boys' breakfasts, their lunch boxes, the pack of chopped vegetables that Boy #1 needed to take into class for a project today, getting them to brush their teeth, put their shoes on and check that they had all the various kit they needed for their day, I shouted. Loudly. There may have been swearing in there, too. There was certainly a great deal of hissiness and general crossness on my part, and if I'm honest, a remark that I may well go back to work and leave Boy #2 with a nanny if he continued to behave like this every morning. Which was not a helpful thing to say, since if it comes to that, it will be nothing to do with his behaviour and everything to do with financial realities and / or my trying to re-establish myself as an employable human being.

And it's too close to being a real possibility for me to allow him to think of having a nanny as a punishment.

In the heat of the moment I'm falling into the trap, I think, of imagining that what I say to him won't be remembered in years to come and yet, he's 5, for goodness' sake. He already remembers events that happened last year and the year before. Hell, he remembers that the blasted train magazine he was leafing through this morning was a present from his cousin last February. I can no longer rely on the fact that he is too little to process and store away things that are said and done; he isn't.

It's just unfortunate that his end-of-week tiredness, his kicking against the restraints of going back to school after a summer of doing what he likes, when he likes, collide with what seems to be an increasingly fierce PMT as I get older.

I need to take a step back in those situations. I need to take a deep breath. Is it really worth getting wound up over too-sloppy weetabix, for example? Why not bite my tongue, simply throw it away and start again? Because it's one of those battles that really, really aren't worth fighting, and in any case, desperate to get him to eat something, anything for breakfast before a long school day, that's what I did this morning. Crossly, yes. Muttering about over-priviledged little pashas and starving children in Africa, yes, but eventually, that's what I did; throw it away and start again.

Writing this down here, it's glaringly obvious that in situations like this, I need to aim for the high ground. I am the parent; I am the grown up. I am the one who should be able to keep their temper. Perhaps I need my own star chart here? Awarding myself points for fulfilling the promise 'I will keep my temper when Boy #2 is having one of those mornings'? It's certainly worth thinking about.

In the meantime, I'm off to make the vanilla cake that I promised him when I dropped him unwillingly off at school this morning. Well. Given the circumstances - and the time of the month - I think it will make both of us feel better...

Travelling with under-12's and planning on hiring a car?

2011-08-31T08:39:00.005+01:00

This is a sponsored post

If you read 'The Potty Diaries' regularly, you may have noticed that we move around a fair bit. Living in Moscow as we do, a trip to see family or friends back home always - but always - entails a flight, sometimes even two. Consequently, I've had a fair amount of experience in packing suitcases over the last couple of years, and the holy grail when I'm faced with an empty suitcase has become Travelling Light.

All very well, but the places that Husband and I call 'back home' - The Netherlands and the UK respectively - are not what you might call reliable on the weather front. This means that unless we want to spend time and money buying what we need on the spot for any unseasonably cold / hot / wet weather, we have to cater in advance for most eventualities.

So our clothes quota alone often fills our suitcases to overflowing, leaving no space for travelling essentials such as booster seats for the boys. And believe me, these are essentials. The traffic and the high incidence of accidents on the roads here mean that you do not want your children travelling in a taxi to the airport without one - but the chances of your taxi driver having one in his cab are about 1%. And the chances of his having two, non-existent. So we take our own as a rule, and stow them in a bag once we get to the airport before putting them into the hold with the rest of our luggage. On the plus side, this means that we also have them available for us to use when we reach the hire car at the other end of our flight and saves us the £6 - £8 per seat a day most rental car companies charge for the pleasure of using theirs. On the minus side, it means we have one less bag available for filling with life's little essentials (like Weetabix, golden syrup and, of course, Green & Black's chocolate) on the way home.

All of which is a rather long preamble to lead into the fact that when I saw the BubbleBum inflatable car seat reviewed on another blog (here), I didn't hesitate to throw myself on producer's mercy and ask to be one of their reviewers. I promised that if it performed as well for us as the promotional blurb promised I would write them a glowing review. It did, and so here it is:

The BubbleBum Booster Seat is ace. It saved us a whole car seat's worth of space in our suitcase (which was helpful after a summer spent stocking up on those essentials I mentioned earlier in the UK and the Netherlands), and despite my concerns that it would require a superhuman amount of puff, was incredibly easy to inflate and took less than a minute to be ready to use. The valve on the side that you twist open and closed worked perfectly, and when the seat is deflated can be shut to minimise the amount of space it takes up in your luggage.

Obviously it's not suitable for every-day use as a replacement for your normal car seat, but it's comfortable and sturdy enough for the kids to use on your holidays, or as an emergency seat to keep in the car for visiting children (it fits in the middle of the back seat of our car between our two normal booster seats, for example). So as a space and cost saving alternative to taking your own booster seats on holiday, or hiring them along with your rental car, the BubbleBum is a fantastic solution.

This was a sponsored post...

School uniform, Moscow style

2011-08-23T19:12:00.003+01:00

The Boys' school has just introduced a new dress code for it's students. Personally I'm not at all concerned about this; when we were still living in London Boy #1's school had possibly the most outrageous uniform in all central London, so really, the changes that have been instigated at the school here in Moscow are water off a duck's back.

Just to illustrate how bad his London get-up was, I was once having coffee with a fellow blogger and we were watching some children walk past from his then school. She was unaware that this was where he went. "Look at those poor little things, being made to wear that ridiculous outfit" she said. My answer? "Yes. Well... That's my son, the second from the back..." But I digress...

Back to the here and now, however. There are any number of parents at our Moscow school who are less sanguine about the new dress policy than Husband and I. Their issues range from the new uniform being hard to get hold of (true), to it's being pointless (who am I to question the administration?), to it's being a security risk as it makes the children identifiable as being from an international school when they are out and about. (Note, this uniform is so inoffensive that both my sons already had various items of it in their wardrobe, so I'm not sure that last holds water).

And then, of course, there are the 'only in Russia' concerns of some of the parents, some of which are directly related to the fact that many women here like to make the most of their femininity - and expect their daughters to do likewise. (And yes, I know that many women the world over like to do the same but ladies, we Brits are not only on a different page to our Russian counterparts on this matter, we are in a different book. As in, we are at the Magic Key learn-to-read stage, whilst they are somewhere around Tolstoy...)

Consequently, interpretations of the fairly basic school uniform for the girls can vary. Today I've seen custom-made pinafores, lace tights worn with pleated skirts, designer cardigans, cashmere sweaters, and sparkly shoes worn with knee-high socks.

And this afternoon, whilst chatting with a member of the school staff, I heard this apocryphal tale. At the end of last term, my acquaintance was manning an information desk designed to show parents what the new uniform looked like, and to give them contacts on where to obtain it. She was approached by a Russian mother who said, in high dudgeon, "I haff complaint to make about this uniform." Conscious that what came next could cover any number of problems, the teacher asked how she could help. "Vell. I haff complaint. My complaint is that this uniform is lesbian uniform!" And with that she stalked off.

Only in Moscow...

Boy #2 offers a spoonful of sugar

2011-08-19T09:29:00.004+01:00

It's fascinating to hear children's interpretations of objects we adults take for granted. Boy #2 illustrated that to me yesterday when he cheekily waved a spoon at me and offered it for use as 'half a boobie-putter'.

A 'boobie-putter'?

Perhaps you have to be a mother of boys to work out that he meant a bra.

Which is all well and good, and since I don't want to instill a sense of shame in talking about body parts in my sons (at home, at least - we've already had the conversation about what is and isn't appropriate on school premises), I thought it was funny.

What I didn't find so funny, however? The spoon he was offering me was teaspoon.

Star Wars 3, Potski-style...

2011-08-15T18:02:00.006+01:00

Boys #1 and #2 watched Star Wars 3 this afternoon. This was not their first viewing of the movie, but since we've been on the move and away from their dvd collection for the last 7 weeks, it was the first time they've seen it in a couple of months. As a result, the magic (or should I say, The Force) was strong with them after they had watched the galaxy's cutest babies being delivered to their foster parents at the end of the film, so I was not suprised to come across them shortly afterwards acting out their own version of not one but a number of scenes, all squashed into a 'best of' composite action sequence.

Boy #1 was the Hero, Boy #2 the Baddie. I'm not sure which Hero, or which Baddie - it's best not ask in these circumstances as you are then at risk of being set complicated Star Wars questions worthy of University Challenge - but Boy #1 was writhing on the floor as Boy #2 electrocuted him with his Evil Power. Cue the following conversation:

Boy #2 "And now, and now I 'lectrotute you. AHAHAHAHAHAAHA!"

Boy #1 : "And then, and then, I fight back. 'I have the high ground. Don't do it!'"

Boy #2: "And then I jump over your head!"

Boy #1: "But I slash at you with my light sabre and, and your cloak catches fire. But don't forget, when that happens you have to stop."

Boy #2: "Why?"

Boy #1: "Because when you catch fire, you have to stop, drop, and roll..."

Boy #2 commences stopping, dropping, and rolling.

Now, if only Anakin had known to stop, drop and roll in the event of his clothes catching fire, we might have been spared the Darth Vader years. You've got to love a modern primary school education...

I've been shortlisted for an award, by the way. The very kind judges at Gurgle have included The Potty Diaries as one of the 5 possibilities for 'Best Funny Mummy Blog'. If you have the chance and the inclination, click here and I'm not too cool to say that every vote for me would be appreciated....

Jamaica Ginger Cake, sticky toffee pudding, and Rusty Lee. What's not to like?

2011-08-13T08:49:00.004+01:00

I love to bake, but my repertoire is limited to a few favourite recipes; chocolate cake, shortbread, vanilla sponge, and fairy cakes, and I don't often have the time to get round to making those. And shop-bought cakes, on the whole, are not great in Russia. They look purty, no doubt about that, but to my British tastebuds they are usually too sweet, too creamy, and just don't hit the spot. Add our family's nut issues to the mix, and unfortunately they aren't much of a fall-back for us in Moscow.

So when I was given the chance to write a sponsored post for McVities about their newly repackaged Jamaica Ginger Cake, it brought back a host of delicious memories and made me long for it to be available over here. Not only is it delicious to eat straight (or even - gasp - buttered), but I have been known to use it to make a cheat's sticky toffee pudding by simply slicing it up and pouring toffee sauce over the top before baking it in the oven...

Anyway, enough about my day dreams. Sigh. Visit the official Jamaica Ginger Cake Facebook page for the chance to enter a fabulous competition to win a 'dream holiday' and to see the fabulous Rusty Lee (remember her? More importantly, remember her wonderful laugh?) making delicious recipes with ginger cake. Or otherwise, just watch the clip below before adding the ingredients to make Rusty's truffles to your shopping list...

This was a sponsored post...

Laying the table & cutting the cord.

2011-08-12T20:07:00.006+01:00

Boy #1 came a step closer to growing up today. I'm torn on how it felt to watch him do it...

I introduced a star chart to the house recently, the aim being that if the Boys complete a certain number of the tasks listed on it each day - and record that fact by awarding themselves a star - they will qualify for their pocket money at the end of every week. To be honest, I thought it would be a good idea as much to act as a prompt for me to remember to give them their earnings (I believe I currently owe them around £10 each) as for them to remember to do the tasks in the first place.

We've had mixed results so far; Boy #2 is still having to be cajoled into clearing the table, for example, and needing rather more help to do it than I would like (one serviette on the kitchen worktop does not a cleared table make), but what the hell, he is only 5. He'll get there in the end. Boy #1 is a lot keener to increase his total of stars each day, and I imagine that's because he has a better grasp of the disposable income he can access than his younger brother does. However, he too has a very different view of what the various tasks listed actually entail than Husband and I do.

Which is where my statement about growing up comes in. This morning at breakfast, Husband was explaining to Boy #1 that 'laying the table' doesn't only mean fetching your own place mat, spoon, and glass to the table, but that it also covers doing the same thing for everyone else in the family. (Note; the fetching and carrying distance involved is approximately 2 metres...). Boy #1 was aghast. Laying the table - for everyone? Every day? That wasn't at all what he signed up to when he, his brother and I sat down to agree the list of tasks on the star chart...

In the past, when confronted with such an unpalatable fact as this, there would have been moaning and complaining aplenty. A bit of wailing, possibly. A lot of noise, definitely. This time, though, he simply went very quiet whilst processing this information. He stared into the middle distance. He teared up, a little. And then, as I watched, he tried to smile it away.

We spotted it, of course. Husband gave him a hug, and tried to explain that laying the table wasn't the prison sentence it seemed to him at that moment in time. We told him that we were proud of the fact that he was trying to be grown up about it.

But I watched him trying to moderate his emotions, to act in a grown-up way, to do what he knew was the reasonable thing, and I'm not ashamed to say that the sight of my seven year old son doing this made me want to cry, too.

I'm not sure why. Maybe because I know that it's just the start of a lifetime of biting his tongue, of holding back. I'm not saying that's always - or even usually - a bad thing, mind you. God help us if we all gave in to our emotions and stamped our feet and shouted 'but it's not fair!' every time things didn't work out as we wanted. It's just that, well, he's my son. And I love him, and want to protect him. And perhaps, watching him struggle to control himself and retain his equilibrium when faced with this realisation - even though it was something so trivial - gave me a brief foretaste of how it's going to feel to have to watch him do the same thing as he deals with the - I hope, not too frequent - disappointments that life will throw at him as a matter of course.

He's nearly 8 years old. I have to step back and let him learn to take the rough with the smooth; I can't always make it better for him. But it's going to be very hard to resist the impulse to wrap him up in cotton wool whenever clouds loom on his horizon.

It's said that this parenting lark doesn't get any easier as your kids get older. I think I'm beginning to get a faint understanding of what that actually means...

Bikini summer - against all expectations

2011-08-07T14:58:00.008+01:00

What does it take to get a mid-40's woman back in a bikini for the first time in 10-plus years?

News flash; it is not, as one might think, losing a stone since last summer. I tried that; it turned out that losing weight through controlled eating is one thing, but toning up your bod is something else entirely. As I looked at myself in the mirror, it became clear that a bikini-fit body (in my humble opinion) requires exercise as well as turning down that danish pastry, dammit. (Or surgery I suppose, but I don't have access to Ms Moore's contacts or funds, sadly). Who knew?

Well, I did, actually; it's just that I buried my head in the sand and hoped that this inconvenient truth didn't apply to me. Turned out, it did (even Moscow's most flattering mirror, a pulled-in tummy and squinting at my reflection couldn't hide that fact), so pre-holiday, I sadly put my bikini away in the cupboard yet again and packed my safe and trusty one-piece instead.

And yet, here I am, on holiday, sporting a bikini.

It turns out that it's not the body in the bikini that is important; it is the country that the body is in. And Croatia, where we're currently soaking up the sun for a few days, is utterly - UTTERLY - the land of the 2-piece. To the extent that if a reasonably modest woman turns up on the beach in her 'shape-wear' one-piece she will look like a freak.

Add to that the fact there are plenty of other people on the beach who seem far less concerned about body issues than I do (even though they might have reason to be more so), and that in fact it's actually too hot for a one piece, and my only course of action was to retire to the beach-side market to source an emergency bikini. I managed that - it's amazing what desperation will do for a person's body image - and bravely wore it onto the beach whilst hoping to high heaven that a) I wouldn't scare the - metaphorical - horses and b) that it wouldn't fall apart the moment I hit the water with Boys #1 and #2 (not, for any new readers here, a euphamism for certain parts of my anatomy but simply the way I refer to my sons on this blog. Although, now I think about it...).

And you know what? Nobody noticed, or cared. There was no horrified intake of breath from the entire beach, no blasting of whistles as the body-police raced out with tent-sized kaftans to cover my embarrassment, no clicking of cameras to document the event. There was, in fact, far less interest than there would have been if I had put on the one-piece from John Lewis which I had originally intended to wear.

Mind you, whether said bikini will ever see the light of day anywhere else is doubtful, unless I can bring myself to do those sit-ups and abdominal crunches before next holiday. And the chances of that are so slim that I suspect I should just dump it at the airport as we leave...

E-buzzing Tart...

2011-07-30T13:05:00.003+01:00

...that's me, right now.

Mainly because I'm taking not one, but two ads into the shower of my sidebar today. I didn't intend to, you understand; it's just that I installed the Intel ad on the right (Havainas, the previous incumbent, just didn't seem appropriate given our current British Summer weather) and then on the ebuzzing site I also saw the one above it, with Jensen Button and Lewis Hamilton. I'm afraid to say that to my jaded eyes at least, that was far more entertaining...

However, just because I'm not bowled over by the Intel ad, that doesn't mean others won't be, which left me with the dilemma of which of these ads to use for blog decor for the short term future. (Oh, the dilemma of the big-hitting blogger, haha...)

So I've put both of them up there.

I mean, Jenson, Lewis, and the chance to pimp your facebook page? What's not to like?

The curious case of the interchangeable grandads

2011-07-29T14:42:00.003+01:00

On a trip out with Grandad yesterday afternoon, Boy #2 followed him across a carpark and temporarily lost sight of his grandfather when Dad walked around the back of the car to put something in the boot. So I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by the confusion that followed when, as Boy #2 reached the side of our car in the busy carpark he saw an older gentlemen sitting in the driving seat of the car next to ours with the window open and his head down as he sealed an envelope. Like my father, this man had grey hair, glasses, and was wearing a checked shirt. The similarities ended there, but when you're five...

Boy #2 walked up to the car and then inquired incredulously what the man was doing, in that car. It was immediately clear to me that he had got grandads confused, but of course the man didn't know that and was quite shocked to be accosted by a small boy when he was quietly going about his business.

I cleared the situation up for both of them (Boy #2, that's not your grandad; Non-grandad, so sorry, he thought you were his grandad), and they proceeded to have a short chat about what the man was actually up to. It transpired that he was writing an envelope to post to his grandson, and was delighted to have the chance to chat with a substitute. This made Boy #2's next pronouncement - thankfully made from within my father's car just before we were driven away by the Real McCoy - all the more embarrassing.

"Mama? That man looked eeeeeevillllll."

He didn't, by the way. Luckily the windows were closed so I hope he didn't hear my son's libellous remark..