We'll take it!

I could be wrong, but I think there's some irony there.

Myths about life as a returning expat:

No.1 You might not like being back but you will be ecstatic about being able to do everything in your own language.

Living abroad is excellent fun, until you have to deal with a problem in a language that is quite foreign to you. My first experience of this if we don't count having to ask in Kaisers if the mince contained any horsemeat, came as a dreaded phone call to Kabel Deutschland as our pin code wasn't working. Talk about a cold sweat. It still gives me nightmares.

Eventually after overcoming numerous problems in a combination of poor German and excellent mime, you can't help but think back to life in your home country and think "there would be no problem big or small that I couldn't solve! Phone calls would be a breeze! Returning faulty goods would be something I would actually do! Oh the exotic plethora of words I would spill onto council officials and call centre operators!".

And to a degree this is true. You have a problem; you know all the words you need to describe said problem; you understand the response, and bingo! Problem *should* in theory be solved.

But somewhere along the line I wonder if I thought the problems wouldn't be as frequent or as frustrating in my own land. And now, on our return I find they are. The house we have moved into is awash with problems. As I have already listed them in a 32 page inventory that took me hours to complete, I won't go into detail again here. But suffice to say, it does not feel like it has been easier. From front door keys that won't lock the door from the inside because they are either snapped or bent, to french windows that leak so badly that when it rains the carpet soaks right up to the bed which is a metre away from said windows. *sigh*. Oh and everywhere was filthy. So dirty in fact that we couldn't have the boxes unpacked. *double sigh*

I couldn't bath the kids for most of the week because the bath couldn't hold water as the plug had no seal and there was a big crack in the bath which we weren't sure was leaking or not. Nor could we stick them in the shower as it was veering from freezing to boiling and back and forward between the two. The boiler needless to say is so old that it makes it quite difficult to listen to each others moans as it sounds as if someone is repeatedly starting up an old tractor in the utility room.

But don't worry. The landlord says we are "difficult tenants". So that's that sorted then. Problem solved. Except that it's not and he isn't very keen to do anything and when I raced down to the letting agent the first morning after we moved in to ask if there was a 'cooling off' period or a way out of this contract I was told that no we are stuck here for a minimum of 6 months because we signed the contract. You don't even want to know how much rent we are paying for this place. And I can't tell you because I might start wailing and not be able to stop. Ok, let's move on.

No.2 You might not like being back but you will be ecstatic about being able to do everything in your own language.

What? Yes, it's the same as number 1, but shoosh! wheesht! I'm thoroughly fed up and I don't care. Do you remember I lost my phone on the u-bahn a few weeks before we moved? Probably not, but anyway I decided to wait until I was back in the UK to get a new one.

So then I started looking at which phone I liked the look of. Wrong, wrong, wrong, said Stevie. You need to work out what functionality you want and then decide how often you would be on the internet etc. Having never had the internet on my phone before it was nigh on impossible to guess how often I would use it in reality. But he had me doing spreadsheets comparing deals with data, text, and calls and phone cost across a selection of the major mobile phone providers. Then, he had me researching the deals offered by the companies that offer mobile phone contracts bundled with home phone and broadband and tv. I hadn't even chosen a phone at this point because beyond knowing I wanted one that looked nice, had the internet, possibly had sat nav and a half decent camera, I didn't know what else to really look for. So I narrowed it down to approximately 3 phones, but multiply that with innumerable phone contracts and you have at least a few evenings of thoroughly boring work. And that's not even factoring in the fact that I don't know what I am doing in Excel.

By the time I had finished I was pretty sure I could live without a phone if it mean avoiding having to do this kind of thing, and Stevie's popularity rating was reaching an all time low. But I did end up with a phone which was nice, though the relief from being done with the dreaded spreadsheet was only temporary as Stevie announced that we were going to get a Parkers Guide, fire up Excel again and let it tell us which car we should buy. Can I just say, many, many days later, we still are no closer to knowing what we are going to buy.

Now let me tell you what would have happened with the mobile phone in Germany. As indeed when we arrived in Berlin I needed to get a new mobile phone. All I knew at that point was that I wasn't going to get a contract as we weren't sure how difficult it would be to get out of it should we decide to leave before 2 years. So we went to Saturn, the only place we had seen that we knew would have them. We wandered around and had a quick look at them and then I said "That one looks ok, doesn't it?" and Stevie said "yes" and we bought it. None of the faffing about that you see above. Why? Because we didn't have the knowledge to know where to find deals and bundles, and we didn't have the language skills to ask about them. And that was the way we bought a lot of stuff in Berlin. If someone told us you could get tv through Kabel Deutschland then we went to Kabel Deutschland. When we needed a new washing machine we pretty much bought the one that we saw first and looked a decent enough price. And maybe it cost us a few more Euros but it was easier and didn't involve Ex-bloody-cel and dark thoughts of boyfriend hatred.

Like I say, I'm not immune.

It's very likely that this could be the last time we have the joy of racing back to Berlin and waiting for a big box of goodies to arrive. So this time I thought I would share with you the kind of crap essentials that I buy to make my expat life more complete. The theme of this box is 'back to school meets supermarket sweep'. Enjoy it in all it's glorious minutiae. 

So where to start. Shoes! Kids shoes in Germany are far more expensive than in the UK, and although many Germans will argue that their price here reflects better quality, it's not really true. Shoes are just ridiculously expensive, and if I can time a trip back to coincide with a need for shoes then I'm happy. So from left to right (below) you can see where I started to go a bit shoe crazy: Orla got school boots, snow boots, Hamish got snow boots too, then Orla's school shoes, then Hamish's school shoes, both sets of trainers for sport at school (all from Clarks), pink sparkly wellies for Orla - from Mothercare (I managed to leave Hamish's at my parents) and lastly purple Nike trainers for me which were a bargain and bought with a voucher left over from Christmas.



Next up you can see some PE shorts, a Sylvanian Families Wedding Car, one of three cookbooks I had waiting on me that I had ordered from The Book People (Rachel Allen's 'Entertaining at Home, Delia's Complete Cookery Course, and I got Jamie's Great Britain for free.). And just before we went to Scotland I decided what I really needed was an ice cream machine. I found this one on Amazon UK for just under £20 and it gets great reviews. My first try was a little disasterous, but I am sure it will be great with a bit of practice! Anyway it was probably the heaviest thing in the box as it has a double walled insulated bowl which is really heavy.

Next up, clockwise from top left, a cake mould which is 6 little gingerbread men that I couldn't not buy from Wilkinson's, which is lying slightly on top of 2 double sheets which really are dirt cheap in Tesco. Next are a couple of things left over from Christmas which I decided to squeeze in for the kids: foam letters and foam face parts which I bought in the sale at the Early Learning Centre. Below them are some glittery craft shapes (always going to be handy for school projects! Though probably for me and not the kids!). Two books I picked up in Tesco, as I feel our bookshelves really do need a good refreshing. Two little tops and a card for one of my friends who has just had a baby boy, some food clips which are smaller than the IKEA ones, a DVD, and 3 bottles of Mr Muscle Kitchen Cleaner (yes, I know I could buy kitchen cleaner here, but I just like this best). Oh and right at the top is an extra large pencil case for all of Orla's felt tip pens.

Again from top left, I went a wee bit mad in Wilkinson's as everything seemed such a great bargain. I bought 12 (2 packs) of star shaped silicone cupcake cases, 2 children's mixing spoons, some stationary on a 4 for £1 deal that I could put in the kids Schultutes (though I brought a carrier bag more of this in my hand luggage for that purpose), 2 Crayola craft kits (maybe for presents?) and an awful lot of starry cupcake cases in paper. It always surprises me that while Dr Oetker is a German company, the range in Germany is far more limited than it is in Britain. Odd.

These things are all sitting on box number 2 which contains books I had sent to my mums ages ago. I bought the full range of Roald Dahl books for the kids - I think Orla is just about the right age for me to start reading some of them to her. I bought the cookbooks mentioned above, and a set of Harlan Coben books that my mum recommended but which I have never read. In front of the box is some chocolate, the kids don't see much white chocolate here and you don't really get buttons, white brown or otherwise, so...

Below those are some more craft things, patterned papers, glittery paper, and dinosaur stickers. Below those are some Winnie the Pooh cookie cutters (which were meant to be in a Christmas gift for someone, but which were discovered at my parents) and 3 packs of Crayola felt tips which can go into presents for school friends as a wee extra.

Now you can see at the top the tripod my dad bought for me in Aldi or Lidl which I used last night while a bit drunk at my friend's party. The purpose of which is to stop any camera shake, but weirdly the amount of alcohol I drank still seems to have affected the focus of my photos. Oh dear. Then a Lego book also from the Book People which contains Lego and guidelines on how to make about a dozen little toys. A swim cap and googles for Hamish's school swimming lessons, a blue stripy top (part of a set of 2) and a bear hat for Orla from M&S. Cream cable knit leggings from Tesco for Orla which I thought looked warm for winter under dresses. Make up from Boots for me. I planned on stocking up but they are changing the packaging this week, so all the old No.7 range was in the sale and there wasn't much left to buy. Two shopping bags from Tesco, a Cars jigsaw we never shipped back at Christmas, and some plasticine (perhaps left over from Christmas??)

Beside Hamish's swimming cap are a selection of DVD's from Granny Margaret, some tights from Mothercare for winter for Orla, a nice bright cardi from M&S, 1 pair (from a pack of 2) jogging bottoms for Hamish, and enough clasps to hopefully restrain Orla's hair until at least Christmas. I have stopped buying clasps that cost much as she seems to lose them on a near daily basis.

Beside the coloured tights, there are tights for school and a million pairs of pants for both kids, Orla's £3 for a pack of 5 from Tesco, and Hamish's £7 for 5 Fireman Sam ones and half price £3.50 for Thomas ones, both from M&S. Below those some swimming trunks in the sale for Hamish for his weekly swimming lessons, and packs of school socks for both of them from M&S.

 Finally, packs of vests for winter for both kids, 2 of Hamish's 'guys', a whole bunch of underwear for me, 3 pairs of pirate mix and match pyjamas for Hamish from M&S, a tankini for Orla in the next size up (it was in the sale), and 2 plain white polo tops which I can potentially sneak under their school jumpers even though they don't have the school logo. These were priced at £2 for a 2 pack in Tesco! And that's not even a sale price. And there we have it. Back to school shopping (more or less) in a nutshell.

I could be wrong, but this is what I think I saw.

And so we're back! I have to say that was one of the best trips back to Scotland that we've had. The flight was great and I was able to take a lot less stuff in my bag for the kids now I have an iPad. Much as I don't want the kids to get too into playing games on computers and so on, it made a two hour flight much easier and pass quicker for them. I had downloaded books and activities for them, such as colouring book apps, drawing apps, Lego apps, and a bunch of phonics and maths apps that Orla really enjoys.

Once in Scotland we had 6 days of shopping to do, which had I been child-free I could probably have done in a day! It was great fun though, and this time back felt different again to the other times. I had forgotten a little how different the weather is. I expected it to be a bit colder, even with my mum saying things like "oh no, it's roasting here!" when it was just over 20 degrees C in Scotland, but over 30 in Berlin. So, I did pack a couple of jumpers, and rain jackets, but I forgot the whole four seasons in one day thing. Even though you might set out on a walk with bright blue skies, it can be pouring with rain ten minutes later. I must have been caught out ooh, maybe 6 days in a row.

But the other things I noticed were the people. Wow! This time round the obesity crisis was really clear to me. Perhaps because of the stark contrast with Berliners, who are generally very slim and tall, but I was taken aback by the percentage of people of nearly all age groups who were seriously overweight. And it's not that hard to see why. Aside from the junkies (of which there seems to be a lot in Ayr), you can see alcoholism and poverty on the faces of a lot of people. It's not a pretty sight.

Talking to my sister-in-law, she told me how with a lot of product deals on at the supermarkets, these are the options that people are going for. Why would you buy a pack of chicken breasts when there are ready meals on offer that are far cheaper to feed your family. And the supermarkets do seem so full of ready made products. Admittedly when I was in, it was quite briefly, but my eye was caught by the increased number of products for kids. Things like packs of Tilda rice for kids - the kind that you can just bung in the microwave for a couple of minutes. But why is it for kids? What has it got in it that makes it more appealing for kids than normal rice?

Outside one supermarket I saw a billboard advert for Weetabix baked with Golden Syrup. I couldn't believe it. Why does anyone need that product? And how is this helping the obesity crisis? Of course it's all about money. I know that. And I know that while the government (presumably) is still harping on about the weight of the nation, and the growing pressure this puts on the health and thus the NHS, they don't seem to be doing very much to stop it from getting worse. Because the government could clamp down on all of this, but there must be too much money at stake.

Is this UK industry now?: the diet industry; the food industry; dealing with the effects of poor diet industry? Not to mention the advertising industry. And I guess there's a lot of tax in amongst all that lot. I'm starting to wonder if Ryanair were just saying out loud with their "fat tax" what the government is thinking. (or doing). The stark contrast to Germany even hit me when I was clothes shopping in Debenhams. Standing at the till, I had Orla pestering me with "Can you get me that? Can I try those?" and right beside me was a big stand with these 'grab bags' of chocolate! Why do you need to have food on sale literally everywhere you go? Putting all this temptation in people's paths is not helping anyone.

The 'High Street' itself is not in much better shape. Presumably Ayr High Street is not much different from most around the country. There have been a lot of closures due to the recession, and beyond the mainstays of M&S, Debenhams, and so on, the majority of shops seem to be really cheap clothing shops, and £1 shops. And everyone loves the £1 shops. As my sister-in-law said, "Why would you pay 60p for 1 bar of chocolate when you can get a pack of 3 for £1 in the £1 shops?". And she's right. Because it doesn't make sense. And people have got used to this sense of things being a £ being good value, and according to her the supermarkets have used this to their advantage too, and there are a lot of deals where things are now priced at the £1 price point. After all, "It's only £1!"

But oh! Forgive me! I'm not my usual self. I'm not that into politics and to be honest I don't know all the in's and out's of the situation nor can I even claim to have the smallest clue as to what the current government is actually doing to tackle Britain's problems, all you're getting here are my impressions from what I've seen. And, of course I am not immune to the whole thing too. I shopped like a mad woman when I was there. I couldn't believe the amazing prices I saw everywhere, and even things that my mum thought were expensive, I thought were brilliant value compared to here in Germany.

So it'll be no surprise if my next post is all about the contents of the big box we're expecting to turn up later today. I know, I'm weak. There are even some of those grab bags of chocolate in there....

Hello, Galeries Lafayette!

Macarons at Galeries Lafayette

My heart went 'ping!' today. I can't believe I've been here for 2 years and *not* visited Galeries Lafayette before now. It's not that I haven't been in the area; it's not that my loyalty to the lovely KaDeWe has prevented me from passing through a different store; it's just that about a decade ago I visited Galeries Lafayette in Paris and was a little underwhelmed. (Though I'm not sure why, probably my taste was just different)


Today though I had some time, and I thought 'why not?'. I was passing and I suddenly remembered a French guy in my German class saying that a lot of the French expats go there to buy really expensive yoghurt. What? Food hall? Expensive yoghurt? Why, doesn't that sound like it might be just like the KaDeWe?

Oh. My. God. It's lovely! It's smaller than the food hall in the KaDeWe, but it's beautifully, darkly lit, and it's like all the products you could ever need but in lovely French packaging! Oh to be a French expat with lots & lots of money! Not that they aren't catering for the Germans and the Brits. There are a selection of Cadbury's biscuits for the Brits and 5KG jars of Nutella for the Germans. (Why would you buy so much that you can barely lift it?). Oh and of course, the Americans haven't been forgotten: yup, they've shipped in more of that Fluff for you guys, ha, ha, ha! (scroll down for the photos)

Pretty cakes: I want to roll around in there with you with my mouth open.

I have very little use for these, but I just want to take them home, line them up and look at them anyway.

These can stay on the shelf though...

I want my peas to have a gold lid!

Beluga Linsen: One of life's essentials, surely???

I can't even imagine trying to explain to Stevie that I spent 40 euros on a tub of Nutella. 

Nuts: I've run out of photos.

You can find Galeries Lafayette at Friedrichstrasse 76-78 and online.

9 things I learned yesterday.

Yesterday I was back at the Burgeramt. (You can read the first part here) It was a 'valuable learning experience' for me. That's the nicest way I can put it. This is what I learned:

1. You can arrive as early as you like, but there will always be 80 people to be seen before you. 


2. You are there to undertake a task. Do not try and be *nice*.

I made the mistake of when someone on their way out passed the handle of the glass door to me of asking the woman behind the counter if she would like the door closed. She replied with a sentence I didn't understand. I said 'Sorry, would you like the door closed?'  again, and she said very sternly "WHAT DO YOU WANT??"

3. You will be punished for your bad German. 

I asked for the form for the parking permit and answered all the questions which she fired at me in what was obviously much more *fancy* German that she was patently getting a kick out of watching me not entirely understand. Except having been through this before I knew what the questions were and managed to get the answers right*.

4. Do not proceed to the waiting room with your numbered ticket. Stay. Move to the side a little, but stay. Ask the next person served what number their ticket is. 

Not doing this may result in the following. I was given a ticket which at the time would have sworn did not come directly from the machine. But, I didn't query it, because why wouldn't they give me the next number? Anyway, I went into the room and the number on the board was at 5 or something. I counted the number of people in the room and there were 43. I couldn't quite work out how I could be number 80, but it was a nice day and I thought that perhaps some people were waiting outside on the grass. So I waited 4 and a half hours. I waited until everyone who had arrived before me had been seen, and nearly everyone who had arrived after me had been seen. I waited until people who arrived 2 hours after me were complaining to other people in the room how long they had been waiting and how awful it was to have to wait longer because it was taking so long to get to 64. 64? 64?

5. It will do you no good to complain. You cannot win. They know you can't prove a thing. So go back to number 4 and check the next person's ticket. You probably will be told that they have some kind of special circumstance or something, who knows, but you will NEVER win. 


6. I will not be staying in Germany beyond June 2014 unless I have underground parking.


7. When you think things can't get worse: they can. Finding out you have booked the return flight from your holiday for the DAY AFTER you leave the hotel while waiting in the Burgeramt will see to that.


8. Drinking a whole bottle of cava while making dinner does actually cheer you up.


9. As does going to bed at 8pm.




*The questions never vary. It's like the questions you get at the airport.



1 thing I learned 8 minutes ago


1. You can renew your parking permit on the internet.

Jubilation

Funnily enough, I haven't heard of there being that many Jubilee parties at home in Scotland. In fact, of my friends in England that I have spoken to recently, I'm not sure that even one of them was doing *something* for the Jubilee beyond trying to avoid all the news coverage on tv.

And yet, here in Berlin, there has been quite a lot of Jubilee action. Patently abroad is where you need to be in order to muster up the enthusiasm for a party. We were invited to 4 Jubilee parties yesterday. Since we were invited to a staunch republican's party yonks ago, that was the one we went to.

Essentially, I think it was just a good excuse for a lot of us to get together, the kind of get-together that always seems too much of a faff to be bothered with at home. So it was good fun, and the kids (for it was all people from Orla's school) had a great time. We even had imported British weather just for the occasion, which was, um... lovely.

Stevie was feeling a bit tired though, and he's got a sore back, which might have something to do with us just having driven back from Bavaria. For oh yes, we spent the past few days down south visiting Legoland Deutschland & the Playmobil Funpark again. We got back on Saturday evening, and as I was baking for the party, that meant I got to spend last night getting Orla ready to go back to school today. Because of course you can guarantee that if you've been away for the best part of a week, come back and partied then of course it goes without saying that a fancy dress outfit will be required for the following day. Meet my vision of modern monarchy, Princess Orla:

Today they're having a Jubilee party at school and the kids were to come dressed up, ideally incorporating the theme of red, white, and blue. Because they love to make things easy o us parents. I struggled a bit with the royal theme. I would have loved to have dressed her as a corgi (too hard, & I thought (wrongly) too warm for this time of year), or as the Queen (as she is today, but where would I get one of those dress coats and matching hats and handbags in an age 5, and I'd still like to coordinate the look with a couple of corgi puppies on a lead - too hard and beyond my sewing abilities), and then I thought of dressing her up as the Queen as she looked when she was 5 years old, but when I Googled photos of her, she just looked like any other 5 year old in a fancy dress. So I just went for a nice easy solution: Princess Orla, a crown, a sash, and a robe.

I am never sewing with crushed velveteen again. It was quite hard. I could have done with an overlocker to edge it, and I gave up completely on adding an ermine (white fake fur with black marker pen) edge to it. The sash doesn't sit right because by the time I got on to it Orla had been asleep for early 4 hours, so I couldn't fit it on her properly. I also had to sew three ribbons together for that as I couldn't get anything Jubilee themed here. I do wonder whether when we go back to the UK I will continue to make outfits for the kids or whether I shall just go back to using good old Tesco.

Anyway, in other Jubilation news: today we have been in Berlin for exactly 2 years! 

I love it when a plan doesn't come together

Because today I should probably have been packing up our stuff, waiting for the removal men, spending the afternoon cleaning and scrubbing the empty apartment, and moving us into a hotel with a couple of suitcases, our passports, and our tickets home.

And that would have made me sad. Because it was a glorious day, nearly 30 degrees, and I'm not ready to leave Berlin. Not yet. So instead I bought some fresh strawberries and raspberries and sat out on the balcony with a nice book. And I had a quiet celebration in my head. Because I love it when a plan doesn't come together.

Here's to November! (Or maybe next May)

The Expat Experience for Third Culture Kids

I followed a link the other day from an expat community blog site and started reading some stuff about 'Third Culture Kids' or TCK's as they are known. I had heard/read a very little on this subject previously, but not so much that it had really grabbed my attention in any way. I had associated the term with Embassy kids, or Armed Forces kids who spend their childhoods and teenage years moving from country to country every few years, but it would appear that I am incorrect, and in actual fact it seems I have two of the little blighters myself. They don't neccessarily have to have grown up in more than one other culture.


A Third Culture Kid (TCK) can be defined as "... a person who has spent a significant part of [their] developmental years outside the parents' culture. The TCK frequently builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into the TCK's life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background." - David C. Pollock, (an American Sociologist)


So I read this paper, 'According To My Passport, I'm Coming Home' by Kay Branaman Eakin, which primarily looks at the issues of teenagers returning to their home country. And I found it really interesting reading. From a personal point of view she discusses all the issues that I was worried about for myself in returning home but shows that it's MUCH harder for teenagers returning home. 


"In the 25+ years of working with third culture kids, I don't find cultural identity confusion to be a big issue until the TCKs return to their passport country" - Libby Stephens 

For example, she talks about how when living abroad it's easy to feel like you are a Scot, or an American, or an Australian in a foreign land. You're different to those round about you. You have a different view on things, different cultural rules on how to behave, you might even look different to all the locals round about you. But then when you return home, all of a sudden it turns out that you're perhaps not quite as Scottish, American, or Australian, as the natives of your own country because you have picked up some of the practices, social skills, and customs of the land you had been staying in. For teenagers who traditionally are trying to work out who the hell they are during their teenage years anyway, unless they are saving up to 'find themselves' on a year's backpacking round the globe during their gap year, it can be a tough gig. For starters a lot about being at school is about fitting in, being normal, if not being awesomely cool. Nobody wants to stick out for odd social behaviour at high school. So this can be especially hard if you go back to your passport country and don't know what all the 'norms' are. You might have experienced a completely different way of growing up, have probably done different things, and culturally, you probably won't have seen all the tv shows that your peers have. 



"Brought up in another culture or several cultures, they feel ownership in none. An American TCK may find more in common with an Italian or Indian TCK than she does with a monocultural U.S. teen."


Another interesting aspect discussed is about the unresolved grief many children and teenagers feel as Third Culture Kids. It's a common fact that for many children living abroad their friends are always leaving, or else they themselves are always leaving. I talked a little bit about the nature of expat friendships in one of my earlier posts and I think I hadn't realised how hard it can be on people to have a constant stream of temporary relationships, and friends leaving every year.

"Most TCKs go through more grief experiences by the time they are 20 than monocultural individuals do in a lifetime."


- Isn't that something? That's not to say that the experience of a TCK is a negative one. Of course there are massive benefits to living abroad, experiencing different things, and mixing with others from a (or many) different backgrounds. I see it with Orla even. I think there are children at her school from around 50 other countries, and she benefits from learning about their experiences. She has a greater understanding than some of her UK friends about how people come from different places and speak lots of different languages. She's learned that there are different ways of doing things, different customs, and different foods, and while this is only a small amount, I firmly believe that all of this will benefit her. Even Hamish has learned that there are people from different places at his Kita. When it's someone's birthday, they sing Happy Birthday in German, English, Turkish, and sometimes the native language of the birthday boy/girl too. 


Page 59 of the report is the start of the section on the issues that younger children can face. But it's a long report and well, I'm feeling exceptionally tired, so I'll let you go ahead and read it yourself. :-) If you are interested in this topic, have a look at the links below for some more information.




Links:
Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_culture_kid
'According To My Passport, I'm Coming Home' by Kay Branaman Eakin (a PDF exploring the issues of TCK's)
Libby Stephens - The Evolution of the TCK - Stage 1 The Cultural Sponge
Libby Stephens - The Evolution of the TCK - Stage 2 The Cultural Chameleon
Libby Stephens - The Evolution of the TCK - Stage 3 The Hidden Immigrant
'Coping Strategies for the Hidden Immigrant' - Beginningwithi.com
US Department of State - 'Third Culture Kids: Returning to their Passport Country' (offers guidance for schools on re-integrating TCK's into US schools)
'Shut Up or Go Home' - Beginningwithi.com - I liked this as the author questions at what stage you win the right to criticise the country you are living in, which I talked about (in an earlier blog post) in relation to my life in Derby where I always felt I needed to be careful as technically I am an outsider, being Scottish.

EXTENSION!!!!!

Until NOVEMBER! At least. Maybe more! That's a whole summer! That's an extra 6 months of joy! That's 3 months of excellent schooling for Hamish! That's oodles more mid-week nights out! That's more time with friends! That's completely and utterly confirmed! And that's all!!! I'm thrilled!!!!!

Well, you know what they say about Brits abroad.

Hic. Stevie & I were invited to a do at the British Embassy by a friend of ours who works there. Scratch that, by the parents of Orla's best friend whose dad works there - we just live vicariously off of the back of her social life, and occasionally benefit from it. The event was arranged by the Embassy as they wish to engage more with the British community living in Berlin. So I asked some friends to come along, and just as well I did, because not only did Stevie get ill and thus decide to stay home, but I needed their steadying arms to lean on to get home. 

It was a casual enough affair. No ballgowns or cocktail dresses, no black tie. The dress code on our lovely white card invites stated "Business suit". Given that I haven't worked in business since I had the kids that proved more of a headache than I had thought it might. In fact, it was almost harder to sort an outfit for that than it was to dress Orla as a rainbow from her favourite book for International Book Day that morning. (It's the shoes mostly, I don't have the shoes any more for these things. Actually, I have yellow shoes or red shoes or turquoise or pink shoes that I could have worn if I had gone as a rainbow, but black business heels are slightly lacking.)

As it started at 6pm I decided not to eat beforehand. And then once I was there I didn't really fancy eating. Possibly because I'd already started drinking. The big disappointment of the night was that while there were silver service waiters complete with big silver platters, they were sadly not piled high with pyramids of Ferrero Rocher, but with tiny sandwiches, dates wrapped in bacon, mini skewers of cherry tomato, basil, and buffalo mozzarella. Oh, and free drink. Endless free drink. They gave up with the trays of glasses after a while and just followed me around with a bottle. I don't know how much I drank on an empty stomach, but I do know I very only a vague idea of what the message they were trying to get across through last night was.

I remember the prize draw, and all of us singing happy birthday to Orla's friend's dad, and I remember them wanting us to watch a film about, well it was either about the Olympics or about the 'Great' Britain campaign, but what I remember about it was that they had used M People as the soundtrack. You know, "What have you done today, to make you feel proud?..." - yup, that one. That seems to have been used for every promotional 'upbeat/patriotic/blah, blah' British event for the past 10 years. Seriously, has there been nothing else to replace that yet?

I took my camera with me because I thought the building would be architecturally wonderful to photograph. And it probably was, but at the beginning of the night I felt a bit self-conscious, and by the time I had lost that self-consciousness, the architecture had gone a little bit blurry. It was a great night though, I met a few people I knew from Rolls-Royce, and a few people I knew from the school, and a few more people like myself who were having more than a little trouble getting their sentences to come out straight.

We stayed beyond the official end of the event. In fact we stayed until the wine ran out and the waiters took the glasses from our hands. Though my good friend at the top did put up a particularly good fight for hers with a waiter with enormous muscles. He might have been strong, but he wasn't strong enough to come between a girl and her last dribble of wine.

So perhaps I am meant to be full of the joys of patriotism this morning, and blogging about how exciting it will be for M People to be back in the charts this summer, but it's all a bit of a blur. Oh, there was a bit about a gate as well, though I am not sure what that was really about. And there was a bit where I mistook someone from Rolls-Royce for one of Frau Dietz's friends from Uni, and nearly asked "How is it you seem about 6 inches taller since the last time I saw you?". But judging from the shocking deterioration of my photos over the course of 2.5 hours, I'd say it was a roaring success!

P.S. Completely coincidentally, I read this article in the Guardian this morning about national stereotypes which is quite funny. 

You got an expat friend in me.

Hey look! Isn't someone who lies in front of steam trains exactly the kind of person you want to be friends with? No? Really?? Oh, well can we be friends anyway if I promise not to do that too often?

Ages ago I started a post about expat friendships. They are funny things you see. I started off by saying:

It would be a ginormous overstatement to say "I'm in love!", but you know that feeling of excitement you get when you think of the person that you've just met where you get butterflies in your stomach and you can't help but exclaim in your head "Woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!"? Well, I feel a little like that. But, before you get ahead of me, I haven't traded Stevie in for one of those extra-tall Germans who have to bend in half to get on the U-Bahn, alas, no (though I dream of having one of those who understands what it says in all these letters I have to open and can gracefully steer me away from mistakenly ordering pig trotter stew with innard salad without having to carry round a German-English dictionary).

No, I have found a new friend. Or rather, as is the normal way of things in Fiona/Stevie world: Stevie found me a new friend in the swing park. I don't normally mention my friends in my blog; I'm not sure they are the types of people who like being flashed around the internet willy-nilly, and well, it seems a little unfair to write about them somehow. But I felt compelled to write about my new friend. I've been thinking a bit about friendship in foreign lands. Especially after another friend (also an expat) and I were talking about it.

The thing is, I have realised that friendship as an expat can be quite a different thing. For starters there's the language barrier. If like me, your foreign language skills are somewhat limited, it can be pretty difficult to develop friendships with native speakers. Once you've told them that they're not allowed to mount an aerial on their roof and asked after their mother's constipation and the failing brakes on her car, well, there's not much else to talk about. Especially if they're not willing to play out the part of the other person who is looking for a light for their cigarette as they hitchhike their way to Erfurt. So if you strike all the native speakers off your list, you're left with the people who speak your own language. And that can be a relatively small pond to fish from.

I know I am still lucky. I live in the capital city which frankly is awash with foreigners, and not only that, I speak English which is great. Admittedly, I wouldn't say no to speaking Turkish and Russian as well, but that's just not going to happen anytime soon

- and that's as far as I got with this post. I got distracted by nights out and parties and friendship-bracelet making sessions, etc, etc, and I forgot all about it. But allow me to continue. The thing I was going to say about expat friendships is that you have a smaller 'pond' of people from which to choose your friends and that is not always a bad thing. I have made friends with people who 'back home' I would probably not have given a chance to and therefore would have missed out on the different things that they can bring to a friendship. I've made friends with some very different, but very interesting people, so if there's one thing to take out of this foreign experience it's that I will hopefully be more open to making friends from all walks of life and not necessarily just go for people who on the surface seem 'my type'. Don't get me wrong, there have still been people who we have met and gone out with and thought afterwards that we just didn't like enough to want to hang out with- that's just life. But what I think we all hope for, is that we meet someone who shares our ideals, our sense of humour, or likes and dislikes, our cultural history perhaps: someone in other words who might just be a perfect friend.

It's easy to make friends in the same situation as yourself. All us expats thrown in together soon find each other and it's a bit like when you join a baby group when you have your first child, you meet a whole bunch of other people in exactly the same position and find you have tons to talk about, moan about, understanding shoulders to cry on, new experiences to bumble through together and laugh about, and it's all good. But sometimes somewhere along the line when the kids are out of nappies, and you've got more settled into your expat life, you realise that maybe you don't have as much in common with some of these people as you have thought and a few fall away from the group and move on, and that's fine. Chances are you will have met a few people who will be lifelong friends.

The downside of expat friendships is that people do move on, literally. Most English speakers I meet in Berlin are here for a couple of years, usually 5 at most. I meet very few people who are 'here for good'. Unless they have married a German that is. Some people struggle with the temporary nature of these friendships. But, it's not so bad. With Facebook and the internet in general, blogs included, it is much easier to keep in touch with people wherever they are in the world.

More recently though I discovered that some expats can be a bit brutal in their networking for friendships. I came to realise that someone who I thought was a good friend was actually not that interested in being 'my' friend but just wanted to use me in order to meet my other friends. Another friend told me this is not uncommon, and she has often found that newcomers attempt to make friends through her, though they may not be interested in her as a friend. She seemed to take this as just par for the course, but it all seems a bit callous to me. She suggested to me that my bad experience might have come about because the person knew that I was due to leave Berlin at the end of May. She says that she knows a few expats whose first question on meeting new people is "How long are you here for?", and if it doesn't meet some acceptable length of time in their head, then they don't bother any further with that person. I kind of get it, but I can't help but think that they might be missing out on meeting some potential good friends, and having some good times. Or maybe, just maybe, the other person has just had a lucky escape.

It seems that this is quite a common trait amongst expats. People feel that it's not worth their while investing in temporary friendships, and get bored repeating their story to a seemingly endless queue of transient friends. I read a post on another blog where the author talks of the superficial nature of expat friends, and discusses how expats often put other expat friendships on 'PAUSE' as soon as friends from home come to visit or someone more interesting comes along. But isn't that always the case. For someone like me who has always lived my adult life away from 'home' having friends or family to visit was never usually a case of a quick half hour out of my day and more often a weekend or a few days, and so because I saw them less often it seemed more important to spend all my time with these people even if that meant putting local friendships and plans on hold. So I am not sure that I entirely agree with that being an aspect of the transience or superficiality of these friendships.

Anyway, I think it's an interesting topic. What's been your experience of expat friendships? I'd love to hear all about it.

Hey Willie Wallacky, it's International Day!

There was a wee cooper that came from Fife
Nickety nackety noo noo noo.

Jings! It's no International Day already, is it? Awa'! As much as I would like to blog in the style of The Broons or Oor Wullie, I just can't keep it up. I seem to be heading down a wee Scottish blogging vein these days. Can't be helped with International Day coming right up behind Burns Night. I didn't get the email about International Day from the school until one of the other parents started talking to me about how she was "bagsying shortbread" as her international food, and when I didn't dive in with a "No way! That's not fair!" she realised that I hadn't been informed that we were going to have to bare our Scottish roots for all to see, and unleash our spectacular(ly bad) Scottish cooking on a class of innocent tiny children.

You'd think our house would be awash in tartan breeks (trousers) and sporrans, but we appeared to be a tartan-free zone much to my horror. The quest as revealed in the forwarded email was to send your child to school in their national dress, bearing some home-made foodstuffs from their home country (enough for all to try and with a comprehensive list of ingredients supplied). Not exactly easy, but I quickly Googled 'How the hell do I make a kilt when I can barely sew', and then swiftly chucked that idea and wondered whether I could pretend we were half-Greek and just wrap her in a sheet in some approximation of a toga, and sling a can of Irn-Bru into her rucksack. And I was more than disappointed to discover that there isn't an Edinburgh Woollen Mill in every town in the world. My mother does not believe this and says there MUST be one in Berlin - God knows, there's a market for it, they like their hellish-looking knitwear here too. And by Sunday night I would have run into any one of their 6 billion UK branches, launched a bag of cash at them and bought anything that I could have squeezed Orla into.

Instead though on Saturday I had to face the awful truth that I was going to have to make something. So I decided to make life as easy as possible for myself and take them literally, for I made her a national dress. My process leaves a lot to be desired. There were no patterns involved; just a lot of freehand drawing on the fabric (which I couldn't help thinking would make lovely cushions) with my expensive artists pastels (I appear to be lacking dressmakers chalk, but anyway, pastels come in much prettier colours) and confident if mis-judged cutting.

By Sunday, I had most of a smashing tartan dress that even Houdini would struggle to get on and off. Using my best imagination I decided I would construct *something* using multiple pieces of elastic and buttons that would have enough 'ping!' about it that a 4 year old could get all their wobbly awkward limbs through. I thought it was going to be a work of genius; there were moments when it was starting to look like something you could patent, and then after one shoulder contraption was finished I tried it on the reluctant model again and realised it looked crap. Plan S (by this point) was sew it up, hide the mess of elastic, and work on having one shoulder strap open with a button. I saved that until last night. Which was also the point I had saved to learn how to use the automatic button-holer on my sewing machine. 2 hours later I had it! Wey hey! Go me!

I daren't even tell you how badly the making of the potato scones went. Pity the poor wee kiddies having to eat them....

*UPDATE*
We were able to collect my mum's parcel from the Post Office today that was meant to save my bacon. Alas, it was too late for Orla, but at least I have a very happy boy!

Help ma boab, Hamish! Yer roots are showing!

Michty me! Some links:
DC Thompson shop (publisher of The Broons & Oor Wullie)
How to make a kilt
Scotland's other National Drink - Irn-Bru

Before every party, I Google my guests

The spy who went out in the snow.

Ssssshhhhhh..... the neighbours might be listening!

There are moments when I think that it would have been wise to have thought about this whole blog thing prior to starting it off. At times I have my regrets that I have used my own name and used photos of myself and the kids and all that malarky, and obviously if I had done that I could talk about anything I like without worrying about people I know either Googling me and finding out things about me that I wouldn't really want them to know, and I could have a good old moan about all the people who thoroughly annoy me, and I could talk about other things that I'd like to talk about but which I am rather reticent to because I want to keep some things a little more private.

But I didn't. And it's not that big a deal really. Sometimes though there are little moments when people say things to me and I jolt thinking, "How did you know that?". Sometimes I am surprised by the people I know from real life who read my blog. It's never who I think it would be.

Last night I spent some time trying to find out how strangers see my 'timeline' on Facebook. That was a whole lot of not much fun. For yesterday afternoon we went to a New Year/New Baby/New Neighbours party (yes, really, it was 3 times the fun) downstairs in our building. And about 30 minutes after we arrived the hostess and I had the opportunity to chat for a bit and her opening line was "I know your daughter is at the British School, but your looking at ###### School, aren't you?".

I couldn't help but be shocked and ask "How did you know that?". There was a slight pause and then she gave me an answer which didn't really answer my question, and eventually took it off topic. I could have pressed her, but my brain had already bolted back upstairs and was logging into Blogger, searching posts for references to this. It was just my body that was locked into being polite, and stayed drinking coffee for a while longer, and comparing apartment sizes with the rest of the neighbours.

For there is no way that this woman should know this. I haven't mentioned my plans to any of my neighbours, and I don't believe that we share any friends that would have mentioned this fact. So, the first thing I did once we got home after stopping Orla from crying, getting Hamish a drink, making the dinner, getting the kids ready for bed and settling Hamish down, was check out my blog and when I found no reference there, I checked Facebook. And then I considered that the apartment might be bugged. (Which led to some really bad dreams)

So, I might be a little more cagey about what's happening with us and our staying/going/relocating plans for a while. At least until things are little more settled.... and I have checked the lightswitches for tiny microphones.

Thinking outside the brown cardboard box

'Heaven knows I'm miserable now'

'You've got everything now'
(and for a bonus point, name the album which I have never owned but am strangely referencing in these captions)

The decorations in our house are down; the Christmas markets have been dismantled; and yet yesterday, for one day only, it was Christmas once again. For finally our big, annual box of Christmas goodies arrived. And there's nothing more fun than opening a giant box of presents you have already opened when you haven't seen them but have longed for them for ages*  (*or just over a week which can seem like ages to a 3 and 4 year old.).

This year we shipped one box less than last year. Not for any reasons pertaining to the recession, but because Stevie is starting to resist allowing new things into this apartment given our potential return to the UK in just under 5 months time. Still, very little can dent the joy of enthusiastic parcel receivers like Orla, Hamish, and myself, and we were more than satisfied.

The only dampner on the day was the news from work headquarters that we may not be able to request a years extension to our secondment. Stevie, immer upbeat, says that "this just provides us with more options". But still, I feel a little sad. I am just not ready to go back to Derby.

While I do miss my friends from there, I now feel like I have some really good friends here. People who I not only want to keep as my friends for years to come, but also whom I wish I had been able to have met sooner. People who share my new, altered view of the world; people who understand how awful & amazing all at the same time it is to live here and make me laugh like mad about it; people who...I am beginning to feel settled with. And the thing is that I would miss them terribly in a way that I didn't have to miss my Derby friends, because then I was departing on an unknown adventure, and the excitement of that offset those feelings, whereas a return to Derby feels like a trip into the known, and not much of an adventure at all.

BUT, of course there are things about a move back that I would love. So in fact, I am not wholly against the idea. In fact, let's face it, the fact alone that I have known that I would/could return is the reason I have been able to enjoy my stay in a foreign land so much. I could never deny that I have adored my little safety blanket.

And now, we have options. And more than likely over the course of the next few months, I'll start talking about what those are for us. In the mean time, my job is to investigate them and see which ones would realistically work for us as a family. And options are good, for in the very least I will have loads of big brown boxes to open somewhere, be it in Derby, Berlin, or somewhere in between.

Laterne, laterne, or the one where Stevie buys us a house-pony

Like he cares how many trees I cut out...

It's Laterne Fest time again. Seems like hardly any time at all since I was last coated with a fine layer of PVA and glitter, but here we are again. Last year it was all a bit of a mystery to me. I had no idea who St. Martin was or what exactly the celebration was meant to entail. All I knew was that I was told to make two lanterns out of cardboard and tissue paper and anything else that I could find that was highly flammable, insert two burning tealights, and set my children loose, swinging them and whacking each other until every last hair on their heads and eyebrow was burnt off. Fortunately, I had just misunderstood, and what I was actually being asked to buy was a 'Leuchtstaebchen' - which is a tiny light bulb on a stick powered by batteries and often with some kind of flashing mechanism. (Also doubles as a weapon/switch in the hands of a toddler, so you'll be able to coordinate your body glitter with the bruises across your knees and thighs).

Of course if you are embracing integration into German life with gusto, you can buy a 'traditional' kit and with a "Viel Spass!" to your toddling 2 year old flame-swinger, cast aside all your UK/USA Health & Safety ingrained paranoia. The irony of course is that your decidedly-non-German child will expose you as the hapless foreigner as they wander around setting light to all the other kids lanterns as they bash them together. So I would probably recommend spending an extra Euro or two and getting one with a bulb.

As regard the lantern itself, well you have 3 choices. You can buy one ready-made (most tend to look like paper ball-type lightshades with pictures printed on them); you can join all the mummies at Kita and make on on the day of your Kita's Laternefest (I have heard that it is normally a far more civilised affair at other Kita's, but it's a real 'elbow-sharpening' event at ours where there can be nearly 100 parents squeezed into a small room at a time all desperately snatching the nicest bits of paper); or you can make one in the relative peace and calm with or without child input.

In actual fact my greatest concern last year was not that there was a possibility of my children inadvertently setting the Kita alight, but that I didn't know what the 'theme' was meant to be. I assumed that all the lanterns should be decorated with let's say pumpkins or something representing the occasion, but it's a freestyle decorating event. Last year I made both Orla & Hamish's lanterns though they chose the materials. Hamish went for some lovely translucent flame printed paper that I thought would be hideous, but actually worked quite well. They also chose sparkly coloured card which I used to cut out the letters of their names - as I was clueless on the theme thing I decided to go 'neutral' in case ballerinas and tigers were a real no-no.

This year my work is greatly reduced as Orla is making her lantern at school. Hamish is interested in making a lantern as far as choosing the materials and giving the odd bit of art direction goes. He chose a black lantern frame with blue translucent paper, and green holographic sticky-backed paper. I was worried by my eh... creative limitations with the black on blue thing (I considered 'bruises' as a theme), but I decided on making it a dark sky with a green holographic forest and I am adding some foxes and a moon. Hamish heartily approves. Phew. I've started on it, but I have until next week to get it finished and I am bored of cutting out trees already.

Orla's Laternefest is this evening. Sadly, I don't think I can go as I already had plans for tonight. So Stevie will get to do his first Laternefest with Orla & Hamish. I was looking forward to it as well, especially after I did a double-take on the school newsletter which says "If the weather is kind the event will be held outside. There will be sausages and hot chocolate available after our lantern-lit walk through the woods. In order to cover the cost of the ponies we will have to ask for donations on the night.". Do you think we get one to keep? Or will we be eating horsey-sausages???

Links:
Info on St Martin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Martin%27s_Day)
Idee Laterne supplies (http://www.idee-shop.de/shop/index.php?page=vt_findologic&keywords=Laterne)
Songwords to 'Laterne, Laterne' - lower down they have the full song in both German & English (http://www.mamalisa.com/?p=444&t=es)

"There's no place like home" - or 'the worry of repatriation' (pt 1)

And why would you look at the Brandenburg Gate when there are giant bubbles to marvel at?

I can honestly say that I hadn't really thought much about repatriation. Of course it's always been on the cards, we are due (at this current time) to return to our Derby home in June 2012. Occasionally we have had chats about whether we want to stay on here; for an extra year, for a few extra years, for....ever....and while I practically get a funny shiver at the thought of staying anywhere forever, the prospect of another year seems nice, and another couple of years? Well, maybe, that would be ok too. But equally, I feel, or thought I felt, fine about going 'home' in June.

After all, what's to worry about? We still have our house, I have primed myself for the worst case scenario in terms of it's condition after renting it out for two years and am hoping that I can only be pleasantly surprised that it'll be better than my imaginings. Stevie would go back to work in the same job or better probably. The kids would go back to speaking English and still have their friends in the UK. Both of them would start at school where everybody would speak English as a first language and life would be nice and easy for them. I would have all my UK friends to go back to and all the wonders of UK shopping, and magazines and books!!! (Oh how I miss going into a bookshop and having more than a couple of shelves to choose from!). It sounds easy enough, a breeze even.

But October brought with it a couple of things that really got us thinking. Thinking specifically that going back might not be as easy as it appears on the surface. The first thing was a visit. Our visitors came to see us, not Berlin. Which is fair enough. I think we can be very enthusiastic about the city and we really like taking people round all the sites and showing them just how much this place has to offer. I'm pretty much convinced that no matter your hobby or interest, Berlin will be able to show you something on that topic that will rock your world. These visitors though weren't interested in the sites, the Brandenburg Gate, the emblem of the end of the Cold War garnered barely even a first glance never mind a second. We asked them (an adult and a child of under 10) what they were interested in, what they liked to do, and they said "nothing much". The adult liked going to the pub (tick) and playing on his iPhone (....we don't have one), and the child likes her/his Nintendo DS, watching DVD's and not an awful lot else. So we took them to the Zoo. What kid doesn't like animals, right? Well, um, this kid. It took a bit of persuasion, and when we got there he/she lacked any enthusiasm and wanted to leave because it was smelly and dirty.

Nothing to see here: even during the Festival of Lights.

The rest of their trip followed a similar vein, it was pretty much 5 days of iPhone apps and disinterest. The only thing they seemed to enjoy was Legoland, so that was good, but by the end we all felt a bit down. It made me think that life in Britain leans far too much towards an indoor life, where playing is becoming more and more often an activity done on a computer, and less inclined to getting out and about and discovering new interests. Of course even I knew that that was a sweeping statement, and not at all the way that everyone behaves in the UK. What we were looking at was (hopefully) a very small segment of society, but it still made us think. The weather for example is much better here for getting out and doing things. There are far more sunny, summer days, spring and autumn can be rainy, but mostly it is dry and unlike in Scotland where we were during the half term break, even if it has not been raining the ground is still wet! Winters here of course can be hard. We can have snow from November through to March, but it is manageable. The weather is a big issue for Stevie. He far prefers it here because he can get out and do things with the kids and enjoy it rather than look out the window and think it might be better to stay in. We led a far more indoors life in the UK even though we did still go to lots of places and take the kids to zoos and aquariums and see steam trains and all those sorts of things.

The other thing that happened was that I saw someone's Facebook status and it made me sad. It said:

"Anyone clued up on these Android tablets. Looking to buy one for a 4 year old for Christmas and no idea where to start?! HELP!!"

I hope I don't need to explain why that makes me feel sad. I realise that not all parents of 4 year olds will be buying their children iPads, but by the same token it's not uncommon for me to read on FB about friends whose 4 year olds will "do anything to get to play on the iPad!" or "really needs their own iPhone just for the apps". The more of these things I read the more I feel like things are changing if not beyond our recognition, but beyond our comfort zone. I can't think how to really describe it. I just have this weird feeling of losing that feeling of belonging  to the 'group' and it's wrapped up with kids having iPads, packs of pre-peeled boiled eggs (admittedly I was looking for a link to the pack of 3 you can buy in Morrisons at the sandwich/newspaper bit), and big plastic tubs of fridge pack Heinz baked beans (to see it in real life is to make a sound like 'uuuggghhhhh....'.

And with all these things in mind I started to Google that frightening word 'repatriation', and oh...that leads me on to part two ...tomorrow when I'll tell you what I found out.