In the name of....

Do you know, Iota mentioning about Daniel the Spaniel reminded me I had completely forgotten to tell you my choice of name for our dog.

I wanted to name him after the famous self-appointed king of Albania. A king whom many people have heard of even if they don't know where exactly Albania is.

His name was Zog. King Zog.

Zog the Dog. The dog for a family who once lived in Albania.

Perfect.

But the joke would probably wear off. Quite quickly.

And "Zog" is quite hard to call, & people would probably mishear & think I was calling "Dog".

Which would make me look a bit silly, & lacking in creative imagination.

I mean who has a dog called "Dog"?

Well, or Zog, for that matter.

And if people didn't know about King Zog, then perhaps they would just think it was Zog because I'm into easy rhyming doggerel. With made up rhymes. Zog -Dog. Like Dr Cheat Zeuss.

So no, fear not King Zog, I will not take your name in vain.

Puppy Power

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I have been rather preoccupied....




This little 7 wk old thing came into our lives 11 days ago. As I expect some readers may remember, I rashly promised our son that when we moved back to England (in the foggy, out of focus future) , then yes we could get a dog. I have not heard the last of it since getting back from our holiday in October (the last obstacle & the other reason for my silence).

I had set him many, as I thought impossible, obstacles to over come, namely:

This dog mustn't shed hair (I do enough of that for one family), mustn't smell, mustn't slobber, not need 5 mile mile walks every day, be good with children, & be easily trainable. i.e as unlike a dog as possible really.

So my son, bless him, went away & researched it, & came up with a cockapoo (cocker spaniel crossed with poodle) It's true, they do meet all those criteria. He even did some empirical research (mainly on the beaches on the Isle of Wight) Whenever he saw a cockapoo-like dog, he approached the owner & asked questions about their canine. All in the name of research & grist for the 'Mummy Convincing' mill.

So, reader, I caved. 3 against one. The pooch won. I grew up with a dog, loved it, took it for walks, even took i t to school to give a talk about it. But since then I see it as one more thing on the 'To Do List'. One more 'person's' needs to meet. And I do a lot of that already....

So for the last few months I have been looking on the Internet but golden female cockapoos go very quickly. 2 Saturdays ago I realised I hadn't had my quick daily search, so that night i had a look & found 4 females for sale in Newark. My husband, much to his chagrin having not travelled for 3 months, also happened to be flying to Ghana that day so I drove up with the 2 children on my own to what turned out to be a bit of a puppy farm; a very nice owner & clearly full of those sorts of people who are slightly nutty about 4 legged creatures, but nevertheless a puppy factory.

We pulled up into the concrete yard & got out to a cacophony of Blood hound- Spaniel- Westie- Bassett- Poodle - & er ...other breeds barking their proverbials off. There was a farmhouse with the requisite horse brasses, horseshoes & china figurines in the windows & an outbuilding full of puppies amidst the unmistakable odour of straw & dog wee.

After years of intense longing on the part of my son, I was rather surprised at how quiet & seemingly non committal he was. Turns out he was in agonies over which to choose, the ones not chosen, what if he made the wrong decision, how would the others feel about not being chosen etc. (Oh dear anthropomorphising already.....)

Anyway as I imagine often happens in this situations, she sort of chose us. My husband had chosen the name: Bingo, after a PG Wodehouse character, a very gentle amiable soul who would frequently fall hopelessly in love. Relevance? None. Rationale? Good name for a dog. This is an unusual departure for my husband who is not an aficionado of English Literature, or anything much literary at all in fact. Science & maths yes, art & literature, no. So who was I to knock this foray into literary allusion?

And so I am a new mum again. It really is like having a needy new born & a very mobile active toddler rolled into one. I am potty training again, dealing with separation anxiety, need child locks again, must leave nothing on the floor & offer lots of reassurance & cuddles.

The first few days it was doing my head in, she needed constant monitoring, she whimpered & yelped vociferously when left, in fact she has quickly developed a quite impressive wolf howl for such a tiny animal; she kept trying to climb into my lap whilst driving, & I kept inadvertently stepping into her 'offerings'.

However she has quickly wheedled her way into my good books. It is quite sweet being adopted as someone's mum; she finds a shoe or item of my clothing to drag into her bed when I leave her. When I stand still for a few minutes she curls up on my feet or leans heavily against me for reassurance, or just because she wants to be near me. They're very cunning these animals. And it's certainly true they do give you an amazing welcome. Unconditional love has a lot to be said for it....

My son has already trained her to sit on command & I have got her (mostly) performing on newspaper now, though she does like to throw a random curve ball in occasionally (usually early in the morning when I come downstairs, the light is off & I am in bare feet.....)

And I have found a practical use for her as a hot water bottle even as I am typing now, in our very cold house.

But most of all, we have had such a laugh as a family, the children adore her. To our daughter she is a 'live teddy' who gets cradled & carried around the house incessantly. She arrives home from school & tells Bingo,

"I've misssed you SO much. You're so precious, yes you are. You're my special girl!"
I keep thinking she's got the wrong person, but no, she's definitely talking to the dog.....

She is very entertaining & we are looking forward to taking her out into the big wide world once she is fully inoculated. And a bit bigger. However, a male friend gave my husband a friendly word of advice, saying that perhaps it would be better, for the preservation of his macho image, if he waited till she had grown a little before taking her out for a walk. Or he might receive some unsolicited attention (& not from other dogs).....

Below, our puppy enjoying her "dog's life"

Shopping Errands

My husband went to the supermarket this morning. First time this century I believe. To buy bread & milk.

What did he buy?

Wine, port, pate, a size 4 rugby ball, an All Blacks rugby shirt for our 11 y-o, & a South African rugby shirt for himself (he was born there) .... so he's covering all his bases.

Honestly, I despair...

Falling Foul of Rule Britannia

Coming home should be easy right? Easier anyway. I had lived in Britain for 38 of my 39 years before we left. I knew the language, the customs, traditions etc. However, things change, things move on.

Two things which have been 'doing my head in' are recycling & health & safety.

We have been putting all our rubbish in one bin for the past 5 1/2 yrs abroad, & taking it to the roadside skip. Or if you are a very good citizen you burn it yourself, poisoning your neighbour with the fumes. If not, you dump it in the river, or throw it out of the car whilst driving along, leave it on the beach, wherever...

In fact before we left the UK, we were composting but there was no recycling collection. We took bags & cardboard & bottles to the bottle bank bins. That was it. Now we rinse, & separate our (soft) plastics, card & paper & glass. At least it all goes in one bin. But it reminds me once again just how law abiding & obedient Brits are, by & large. This would just never work in Albania.

But I have often wondered how it gets sorted & recycled. Or if it does even...My parents told me the story of how a friend in their village asked what happened to all the recycled stuff when he saw it being mashed up all together, in what looked like the regular rubbish lorry. The two Polish guys on the back of the truck said "Oh, it goes to landfill"

When this gentleman phoned the council they were, unsurprisingly, rather cagey about this, before admitting that once they had met their 'recycling quota' (for that month, year??) it all indeed went to landfill. So not only are we obedient, we are gullible & mugs too spending ages sorting stuff that is never recycled. The trouble is you don't know when it will be recycled & when it won't. I'm all for recycling, but only if it really is being recycled.


Now that we have a puppy, the recycling box is one more source of treasure & doggy delights & the cause of a few Mummy Meltdowns too as plastic chicken trays, milk bottles & cardboard get raided & strewn round the kitchen. That's not the council's fault of course, but mine for getting a dog.

Then there's Health & Safety. Where do I start? Let's just say it is a completely alien concept in either of the two overseas countries we have lived in, in recent years. So it has been a steep learning curve. I know about booster seats,, I am not sure about riding in the front seat & I definitely don't know at what age you can leave children alone in the house. But 2 health & safety rules recently took me completely by surprise.

1.) I went to fill the car up with fuel & my son got out of the car to watch & help (he had never seen self service!) Within seconds an authoritative & urgent voice came across the tannoy asking, "the woman at pump number six" to put her son back in the car immediately before any petrol defied gravity & splashed upwards into his wide eyes. Children, evidently, aren't allowed on the forecourt, I was informed. I dutifully obeyed, I was so dumbstruck (the art of public humiliation works well in Britain). My husband announced it was lucky for Tesco, he had not been there. He sees red at most Health & Safety rules in this country & can't stand any sniff of being 'nannyed'. I would love to know what he would have done! I presume though it's more an American import: the fear of litigation.

2.) I went to the tip to dump one of the many loads of abandoned tenant-detritus left in our house & my hapless son got out of the car again to help me. Within seconds a man, unmissable in his fluorescent jacket, marched over to me & told me to put my son back in the car as it was dangerous for him to be out amongst the hazardous skips of cardboard & garden waste. This was followed by "Can't you read the signs?" I had been looking right at all the skips trying to identify where a broken sandwich toaster might go, however, the signs bearing a 'crossed out child' were on the left hand side of the road, so no, I hadn't noticed.

Of course the thing I do now, which is infinitely more dangerous, is driving with a puppy in the car. Talk about distracting. She chews my hand as I change gear, tries to climb on my lap, so I have my largest handbag with me, barricading my lap. If I put her in the back she scrabbles through to the front. If I put her in the boot, the protesting howls & whines are very offputting, not to mention the sight of an off white ball of fluff pogo-ing in & out of my rear view mirror as she tries in vain to leap the back seat.

Now there should be a law about that. In fact I'm off to 'Petworld' or some such place tomorrow to find the canine equivalent of a strait jacket...
The picture is of the dog sitting on my boots (she misses me when I go out) poised above the recycling box, ready to find a delicious plastic milk container.

Observations of a OneTime Outsider.

People ask what we notice coming back here & I hardly dare mention two of the glaring ones because they are such sensitive subjects. But for the sake of documentation accuracy I will tell you. Suffice to say, I am not passing judgement, I am just observing:

1. the number of seriously obese people
2. the number of different nationalities living here.
3. the cost of living in Britain.

1. I have been to America many times & it feels like America in this way now. According to statistics 1 in 10 adults in Britain are obese. British women are the most obese in Europe, though still behind their American counterparts. In 1980 the average BMI for women (body mass index, healthy being anything between 18.5 & 25.9) was 24.2. Now it is 26.9 for British women. fro British men it is 27.4 (the 4th highest in Europe if you're interested)



2. Ok, so we live in Oxford & visit London, both of which are highly international places. We also have lived in the most homogenous society in Europe, so the contrast is stark. Nobody 'immigrates' to Albania, so apart from its handful of missionaries, NGO workers, embassy staff & for some reason a small Chinese population (the communist connection perhaps??) EVERYONE is Albanian. So much so that they really don't know how to treat ethnic minorities at all. A West Indian friend living there used to get called 'monkey' & such like in the streets.

But where I live here in Oxford, when I travel on the bus, I am a minority in terms of language certainly & colour sometimes. When I shop at Lidl, apart from elderly couples, I only hear other languages around me. I can't work out why other normal British families don't shop there. Ok so you can't get everything there but it's SO much cheaper, yet it's pensioners & foreigners who shop there, because, like me, they find Britain frighteningly expensive. Maybe other Brits aren't feelign as crunched by the economy as we are.....

The net result overall of all this is, it just feels very different &, to be frank, a bit disorienting. I am surprised it has changed so much in 6 years, but it really has. I guess living abroad you feel your 'Nationality' much more, I felt very British & identified strongly with my British roots. Coming home, I'm not sure anymore what that means....

3. As for the credit crunch, much as I said I want to have some space before commiting to anything, as well as training the puppy when we get it, decorating the whole house (which I keep putting off) & helping my children adjust, as the cracks are beginning to appear, I think I may have to go out to work to supplement the charity salary my husband earns. Maybe it's just 'set up' costs & once we have replaced the boiler, bought a car, decorated the house, things will ease up a bit.

One thing I loved about living abroad & working for an NGO, is they look after you & we could live within our means. Easily. And you could afford to have a cleaner, a shared driver, believe it or not, for the school run (it was cheaper than me driving everyday), eat out, employ babysitters frequently, travel, get private health care as part of the package, & stuff like tennis lessons etc were really cheap too. I guess I was very spoilt in some ways despite it not being an easy place to live. It's quite a shock, & one of the anomalies that whilst living in a developing country, with infrastructure issues, power cuts, pollution, horrendous traffic & much less available in the shops, you did have these significant perks, which I must admit, made the frustrations a lot easier to cope with. So I need to adjust now to a different & much more thrifty lifestyle.

The good news is I can do supply teaching, which is well paid; the bad news is it's soul destroying, & the very worst aspect of teaching there is. I have just met anAmerican woman who has moved here & put her children in the local state school (in middle class Oxfordshire. Ha!) & frankly it's horrific. The kids swear at the teachers & nothing is done about it, the walls inside the school are covered in grafitti, their daughter says there is complete lack of respect for the tecahers, the children talk all through the lessons, they have had no homework in 3 weeks, the Head of year has told the parents that they don't need to keep coming in (this was on day 2) when they have had NO information at all, the kids haven't had timetables even. her son went to the wrong lessons for an entire week. How could that happen? I couldn't believe it. Ok so not all schools in Oxfordshire are like that (though the primary schools have the worst Key stage 1 results in the country & are in the bottom 10% for Key Stage 2) I have taught in 6 of Oxfordshire's secondary schools & whilst 3 were pretty tough, none were that bad & certainly had better discipline & support structures in place.

So I am not looking forward to the prospect which couldn't be further from my 'perfect job' in GDQ International School in Tirana. I fear this reverse culture shock is going to take me a while to process....