Handbag Contents and Liberia....

A couple of years ago, I wrote a fascinating blog post about the contents of my handbag. Don't worry, this isn't quite the same rant as last time, re civil liberties, chocolate wrappers and tampax.

This is about something I have been carrying around in my handbag for the last week as I wonder what to do with it – a copper circle, bent and green with age, something which would have fitted around the ankle of someone with very thin bones,or  possibly around their wrist.

It is something that was given to me very many years ago, in Liberia, and it has been languishing in a cupboard in my parent's house in Hemel Hempstead ever since.

When we lived in Liberia, my sisters and I used to walk, nearly every day, to Russwurm Island - The Island, as we called it - to swim. We walked past the Kru village, past the Grebo village, hurried past the Fanti village, where the women, with their long frilled dresses, their faces ridged with patterned scars, watched us with stony eyes, calling their children away if they came too close. Then, past the Masonic Temple, with its huge globe on the top, and its evil concrete breath, past the creamy walls of the Tubman villa, with its riot of tumbling pink bougainvillea and its stories of ritual murder and cannibalism; onwards through the warm, most air with its perfume of flowers and smoke and fish, past more crumbling villas, surrounded by gardens exploding with mango and paw-paw and Frangipani trees, past the screaming abuse of the chimpanzee, chained to its wall and its desperate grief; past the house of the Baptist missionary and our Filipino friends, the Africas. And then, finally, past the Lighthouse standing sentinel on the edge of the red-earth cliff and down the hill to the causeway and over to The Island. Here there was a sheltered, sandy beach and a myriad rock pools, encrusted with brown-spotted-blue cowries, like duck eggs, star fish, sea urchins, octopus, gazing at the sky with wistful eyes.

The owner of the motel on The Island – the Sea View – was Mrs Grey, a large woman with a queen-like bearing and, appropriately enough, a fuzz of grey hair around her head. I always got the impression that she disapproved of us – or of me, at any rate, but one day she gave us each one of these bent copper rings. Apparently, when she first came to The Island, the rock pools around it were full of such things – slave bangles, copper rings that the American slaves sawed off their limbs when they finally arrived in Liberia – the Land of the Free.

So I now have one of these bangles, in my handbag. I wanted to bring it home to our new house, because it was mine, it was given to me, and it represents a link to a country which has a very strong hold on my heart.

But what do I do with it now? Do I display it on the mantelpiece, next to the carved heads from our honeymoon in The Gambia and the procession of camels from Riyadh? Do I put it on the window sill, hang it on the wall? This piece of twisted metal which once marked a human being out as the the property of another? Or do I keep it in my handbag with the dead receipts and empty chocolate wrappers? How on earth do you deal with something like this?

Maybe I should write a blog post about it.

Getting There....

So, we now have all our children at school! 
After an extremely exhaustive process of hassling the council, hassling the schools in the area, we were eventually given a test date for Lydia and consequently a place at the same school as Sam. The school is 25 minutes drive away and an hours bus journey, but the only school closer to us - the one Juliette attends - is a sports specialist school and anybody who knows Lydia, knows that this would not have been exactly ideal. To put it mildly.
The difference in my child in the last few days makes me want to weep with joy. She has gone from a morose child, shuttered away in her room, skyping her friends in Brisbane and busy sewing a tapestry entitled "Australia" to a child who skips around the house, singing and chattering. We will not dwell on the hissy fit that occurred this morning because she still doesn't have her proper PE kit, but it still required to do PE at school...
Meanwhile, Rupert is frantically job hunting - so that from 6 am to around midnight every day he is either working for the Brisbane office, or talking to agents, preparing for interviews, etc. He is very happy that there is so much more choice here than there was in OZ - our initial and possibly primary factor in moving back here - whilst I sometimes wish there was only one job he could possibly go for and he could get some decent sleep for a change!
I am rather stuck in that I have to be around to pick children up all afternoon - they come home at different times every day, all in dribs and drabs and never in a bundle, of course. Though L and Sam take a bus, I still have to pick L up from the next village every day, in order to avoid her having to cross a busy and major road. This and the fact that we have strange conditions on our house insurance, means that I can't teach after school - a sort of blessing in disguise as it means that I can spend time with my own children instead! However, desperately need a job, so am hounding all the schools in the area, whilst violin gathers dust on the piano and I wonder if I will every play it again in earnest...
None of this job hunting is helped by the fact that both the phone and the internet are playing up at the moment, so cannot be relied on in any way.
One day we will look back on this time, count the white hairs and laugh, but at least, with three kids at school now, we are finally getting there.
And in other news, the starling who has been breaking my heart by sitting on his perch singing away, seemingly to no one for the last couple of months, has found a very pretty little bride and they are busy building a nest just outside out kitchen window.

The Fire of Flamenco

Less than a week after going to see Cats, Lydia and I were off to Sadler's Wells on Saturday – a belated birthday present for Lydia and I, of course, was forced to accompany her, poor me. 'Tis a terrible life I lead.

The Nacional Ballet de Espana. Sadler's Wells. London.

True to form, we were running late, so, instead of taking time to see a bit of London, we had to rush straight to the theatre from Euston station – made it with ten minutes to spare, nine minutes and thirty-three seconds of which was spent queuing for the toilets, of course. When they eventually build a theatre, somewhere in the world, which has enough toilets for women, the world will be a much calmer, less stressful place, though I suspect that this will not happen in my lifetime.

Anyway, Sadler's Wells. I don't think I'd ever been there before, in spite of the fact that it has been a life-long dream, ever since I was three and determined to be the next Margot Fonteyn. I was expecting the usual flourish of stony cherubs and flowers, the occasional gilt edged mirror, perhaps, but, after walking from Angel Tube station, past the temples to palm oil and Murdoch newspapers that seem to line the streets, we turned the corner and were hit in the eye by a jutting of red plastic signage and grey steps. This then, was the Great Sadler's Wells.

However, a theatre is a theatre, so, as we waited in line for our lavatorial experience, the excitement crept into our blood. Not only was this theatre, but it was London theatre – a world where men still wear dark suits with white scarves around their necks, where old ladies with heavy make-up, glittering with diamonds and pearls, stand tall and dignified, next to boys and girls in clothes that you thought had died out with Christopher Robin; where languages of every hue and colour bubble around you; where it is okay to wear either jeans, or an evening gown to a matinee, but always lots of perfume, if you please.

And then we were into the theatre proper, sitting in the red velvetine flip up seats, just four rows away from the vast, rippling crimson curtains, the light was dimming and the music began; the mysterious thrum of a guitar, the chukka-chukka of drums and the yattering of castanets, the howl of the singer.

But. Yes, you knew there was a but coming up, didn't you. And I know I am a grumpy old sod. But – as with Cats, before, as with many, many stage shows I have seen – in spite of the fact that the theatre is not the biggest I have ever seen and was PRESUMABLY built to be acoustically sound, the music was amplified to a point where – in spite of our being so close to the stage, in spite of being able to SEE the musicians, our ears were assaulted from vast speakers at the sides of the stage. The musicians may as well have been miming to a sound track – maybe they were? -as there was no way you could hear anything coming from under their fingers. I just don't understand why there is this need for such amplification, but maybe that is just my old soddishness.

And luckily, the dancing made up for it. The first half was flamenco – albeit choreographed and mostly danced in chorus. Lydia had never seen flamenco before, but was enthralled. The two little girls sitting in front of us were shocked into giggles by the unearthly wailing of the male singer – the sound of pure Moorish beauty – but even they were quietened by the thunderous heels and ferocity of the dancing. If you are ever on the lookout for a body guard, I'd recommend a flamenco dancer – nobody would want to mess with one of these guys, male or female. The second half was ballet/flamenco, with some profound story telling involving chaste priests and women throwing themselves at them, a bull fighter falling in love with a very female looking bull and all sorts of things which probably went over our un-profound heads, but was appreciated nonetheless. The costumes were stunning, drawing one into a world of fire and light, darkness and shadows, riotuous colour. It was quite a shock to emerge onto the streets of a wintry London with nary an orange tree in sight. 

In my next life I am going to be a flamenco dancer. In this life, I am going to a Zumba class today.

London Theatre-going!!

Music! Dancing! Leg warmers and cat suits!

Yes, we went to see the apparently immortal Cats, at the London Palladium yesterday, courtesy of the in-laws.

And what a strange, lovely, dreadful, incredible show it was too!

We were all so tired we could hardly keep our eyes open, after a big weekend of sixteenth birthdays and illness, but we dragged ourselves through the Arctic winds and all the way into London – my favourite city in the world – and into the red carpeted and faded splendour of the Palladium. And it was worth nearly every minute – even the awful parts.

The dancing and singing, was, of course, superb. And after a lifetime spent dissing Andrew Lloyd Webber, I have a new-found respect for him after having been subjected to the music from Wicked, Lion King and, of course, the world's favourite fart song, Let it Go. He might take his best ideas from other people, but he sure can write a good tune – one that is memorable, easy to sing and doesn't necessarily require one to whine. And if you think that Beethoven was the master of stringing out a coda, then just have a listen to old ALW.

However. I have never been to Cats, though have played the music from it numerous times – usually in lush orchestral arrangements. So it was quite a shock – and not necessarily a pleasant one! - to hear it in all it's original 1980's twangy synthesiser colour. In fact, I was (stupidly perhaps!) surprised as to quite how dated the whole thing was, with the big hair and make-up and, as pre-noted – the Jane Fonda leg warmers. They have beefed up one of the cats into being a New York street dancer – with beautiful British diction of course – and Juliette particularly enjoyed that, which was a relief after the digging me in ribs every time old Deuteronomy sang flat. Not that my children are at all judgmental,you understand. They have also beefed up the amplification, which was a pity as it meant that you could hardly hear the singers when the band was playing forte, so you had no idea why they were all singing about Umbilical cats, or dancing around with cereal packets on their feet or pink wings on their backs. But that didn't really seem to matter, as it was mainly about the spectacle of the thing.

After the show, we exited, with a mass of people all heading for Oxford Circus station, then on to Marylebone, all amongst crowds of chattering theatre goers, all perfume and spangles, faces alight, clutching programmes from various concerts and shows throughout London. And all this on a Monday night in February.

Oh, the intoxication of it all! You trundle up an escalator, past the posters for Wicked, War Horse, Carmina Burana - the ballet - The 39 Steps – now, along with just about every book ever written, a major singing and dancing triumph, (Just waiting for Wolf Hall, The Musical, starring Robbie Williams as Cromwell) Billy Elliott, The Lion King etc etc and your brain fizzes and jumps with the excitement of it all. This is London! It is all here for the taking! We could go to see anything!

And then you realise that no, that only applies to Millionaires. London is the city of beautiful people, the rich and talented, the famous and historical, the infamous and the mystical.

And you go home to your little village and get up four hours later to drive your children to school, everybody grumpy and tired and grey, in the golden light of dawn. Hey ho, the wind and the rain. Or something like that.

Half Term and Ponderings on Education...

In England there is a wonderful thing called Half Term. Instead of the four terms a year that we had in Australia, there are only three terms here with a half term break of a week, and in my opinion it works much better. As a teacher, I always felt like a fraud for the last two weeks of term – actually, I felt like a fraud most of the time, but that's another story - as the kids were always so tired in the 9^th and 10^th week of term that they would droop through the door when they came for their lessons and I felt awful trying to teach them anything. That might also have something to do with the over-active guilt gland I developed in childhood, but nevertheless, I do think that ten weeks – especially in the hot weather, is a long time for them to deal with. But here in England, the kids only have to go six weeks or so (I think?) and then they get to recharge.

That's the theory anyway. I think what generally happens is that everybody gets ill and spends most of the time snapping and snarling at each other. Like today. Frosty morning, but beautiful sun shine the rest of the day and nobody has felt like going for a walk, because we were up most of the night with coughs and colds and asthma attacks.

I can't really comment much about schooling here, as Sam doesn't communicate much (at least, not about school!) and Juliette has only been at school for a few weeks. But so far, I have to say that I am impressed that they don't use lap tops as much as they did in OZ. They have to write stuff with Pens and Pencils on Paper!! In six weeks, we have had no dramas over essays that have been eaten by computers, or lap tops that have stopped working and took two weeks to fix, with a resultant massive build up of homework due. I don't have to worry that the kids are spending their lesson time watching porn or playing minecraft, (this might happen during breaks, but I don't think it's happening during lesson time any more....). And assignments appear to hinge more on the content, than the visual impression of their power point presentation. 'Tis early days yet, however, so will be interesting to see.

What does puzzle me, is how kids here seem to have two extra years of education than they do in Australia, and yet, from my understanding, someone from Australia can come straight to university here from school. How does that work? Is the education there really so much better that they can do it all in two years less?

Answers on a postcard please....

Random Ironies

This is the irony of the situation.

Our stuff arrives, there is much too much of it, so what do we do? We go out and buy more stuff!!!!

The main trouble being that we have no storage space in this house, so it was off to our most hated place in the world – Ikea! - for under the bed storage etc.

Every time we go to Ikea, we say “never again,” but, within the course of two years or so, we are drawn inexorably, moths to the blue and yellow, woody, meatball smelling hell of it.

This time, I went into battle determined that we would come out with only what we needed, instead of loaded down with a ridiculous number of candles, photo frames, kitchen utensils which seem like SUCH a good idea, but remain untouched in a drawer for years and, miraculously, we won! But it was a hard fight.

Rupert, who hates Ikea even more than me, and who is usually the stronger one, had a particularly hard time of it. “But don't you think this might be a good idea?” “Oh look, this is just what we've been needing for - “, “Hey, this would be a great thing for the -” the sentences would flow from his mouth, even as his eyes begged for mercy. But it was the look in his eyes that convinced me to keep battling. Other couples passed us and you could see that they had lost the battle, for their eyes wore the dazed, zombified expression of the fallen, as they pushed their trolleys around, loading them up with items which would undoubtedly be unpacked later with astonished cries of “What on earth -?”

Maybe I am too much of a scrooge, but it appals me, every time. Maybe it's my Liberian upbringing, but it hurts to see so much stuff, such an orgy of buying, such a lust for homogenised THINGS that this place brings out in us all. After paying for our STUFF, it was almost a surprise to exit into the car park in England and not to find ourselves back in Brisbane again, the homogenisation was so complete.

Is it just me, or do other people feel the same way?? Answers on a postcard please – or better still, on this page or the facebook page! Actually, wouldn't mind a few postcards....

And meanwhile, we have added to our STUFF, against my better judgement, by buying a television. This is the first time in my life that I have had a television, except for a brief period during the Gulf War in Riyadh, when my parents bought one so that we would watch the propaganda machine at work. Back in Brisbane, we had a projector, so that we could watch videos, but it only worked after dark and we only used it a maximum of three times a week. However, we can't use said projector here, due to lack of space, so we caved in and bought a telly, which arrived this week. Now that the kids all have iPods and we have two computers, it seemed silly to hold out against screens. So now we have a TV and can waste our evenings channel hopping in a search for something to watch...and so far, it has sat in the corner largely unused, because when we have switched it on, even with a thousand channels, most of what is available is so mind numbingly numbing. Though there have been exceptions and a promise of exceptions, meaning that I have already mentally reserved an hour on Wednesday and Sunday evenings for goggling. Is this the beginning of the slippery slope? Is this the end of my novel, my memoir and my blog writing?

Oh well, I can comfort myself with the fact that I have a jar of pickled herrings in the kitchen.

The Tale of the Exploding House

Seven to ten days after the ship docks is when you'll get your stuff, the shipping company said. We'll let you know as soon as the ship has actually docked, the shipping company said.

But it turns out that saying and doing are not the same thing.

What actually happened was that we got an email, out of the blue, from the shipping company telling us that they were going to deliver our container in two days time and they hoped that was okay with us, as if they had to keep it for any longer, we would have to pay them rather a lot of money.

So the week we thought we had to redecorate our bedroom, turned into a day and a half - which was not a bad thing, though slightly stressful, considering our incredible joint gift for procrastination. And it is great to have our stuff, though it didn't turn out quite as I had imagined.

In my imagination, our stuff arrived in the morning, I had a lovely couple of hours hoovering and mopping the floors I have been itching to get to for the last few weeks and in the evening we sat down together at our dining room table and toasted ourselves with champagne. We then retired to sleep in our very own beds!

What really happened was that by the evening, the whole house was crammed with so many boxes we couldn't move, the floors were covered in a thick layer of mud from the boots of the delivery men, our bed was in pieces, as we had had to call someone out to take it apart before we could get it upstairs and the sofas were in the garage as they hadn't managed to get them through the door. My back was in agony from all the bending and carrying and Rupert was sneezing and swollen eyed from all the dust.

I know we are very lucky and I know that life could be an awful lot worse, but I have to say it has been quite an emotional journey, unpacking our lives here, our Australian Citizenship certificates, our maps and books about Brisbane, everything, of course, covered in a thick layer of black dog hair.

However, three days on and I am sitting on the one sofa we managed to get into the house, my feet up on one of our own footstools. We only have about fifteen boxes left to unpack and the house is now looking likes ours and is almost clean. Ish.

But here's the thing - to quote, as I like to, Mr Bryson. Back in Brisbane, I thought I had been ruthless about throwing stuff out and only bringing the essentials. So why then, have we brought case-loads of swimming costumes – when we now live in the village that is furthest from the sea in all of Great Britain? Why have we brought boxes full of old soft toys of both Rupert's and mine – toys that we never even brought out for our kids because they were stuffed at the back of the cupboard-under-the-stairs and we had forgotten about them? Why have we brought Rupert's old skiing outfit and boots (“The kids might go skiing one day”. “Yes, dear, and I am sure they will want to wear your old '80's style ski outfit.”) Why did we bring boxes of dreadful paintings I did, back in the day when I thought I might be able to learn how to paint, Early Learning Centre percussion instruments for one year olds, boxes of cards and letters that have languished in a box, unopened since we left England 15 years ago? Why have we brought books and CD's belonging to my cousin Meg and a sock belonging to the Reeves? And what on earth, pray tell, are we going to do with all this stuff now?