Twenty Years

Apologies for the break in transmission, but I've been away. I've been here in fact:



And also here........



And here....... in Anguilla.



Enjoying a bit of adventure. One cliff we needed a rope to get down it.

And even had a gallop along some stunning beaches. I encountered a spoilt brat New Yorker, who, as soon as I was offered the middle horse in the picture said "Oh I wanted to ride the palomino, the riding instructor said I could, Oh please let ME have that horse." This was not addressed to me but to the groom & to my husband, who gallantly assured her that I didn't mind in the least, & would be happy to swap." (Grr)
This was my 20th wedding anniversary trip to Anguilla, this girl had been coming every year for 10 yrs (she was 16) & rides there regularly. Hey ho. So I got put on the little pony behind called Biscuit. At least she was very game & very fast (my horse, not the spoilt 16 yr old). My charitable self says that the girl genuinely wanted to ride the 'palomino' & (was used to getting her own way) it wasn't at all that she knew my horse kicked out at other horses, or liked nothing better than a good roll, whether or not she had a rider on her back.....

Yup I had a genuine West Indian pony. About 15 minutes in to the ride we were cantering along the shore & then veered off up to the softer sand up the beach. My horse immdiately knelt down (never had this happen to me before) & I just had time to get my feet out of the stirrups & jump off before she rolled over kicking her legs in the air. The Anguilla guide rode up to me & said

"Ah yes Biscuit jaas lov dee saaf white san. It cool her aaaf when she all sweaty."

Oh great. Thanks for telling me. I spent the rest of the ride determinedly riding through the water & avoiding the delicous Caribbean powder that my patriotic little pony adored so much.

So that was our trip. We had left our children (for the 1st time in 6 years) with my In-Laws in England (who ensured they had an absolute ball) & swanned off to the Caribbean for a week in the sun to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary.

Still seems funny to say that; that I even KNOW someone who has been married 20 yrs, let alone that it is actually me.

We always joke that, when we met, my husband was a tea lady, which, strictly speaking, is true as he was working in an Isle of Wight tea shop between leaving Sandhurst & finding a job. I was just back from working in South Africa, & because of my involvement in the End Conscription Campaign, was very anti-military, very keen on going abroad again, whereas my husband wanted a dog & to live in the country. 20 years down the line, we've done the 'abroad' thing & looks like we're on our way to doing the 'dog & country' thing now. Amazing really that we got it together! But here we are 20 yrs on, having been through many job changes, unemployment, years of infertility & IVF treatments, 2 miracle children, mysterious illnesses, heart surgery for our daughter, nearly 6 years living in developing countries, & all the exigencies that brings with it, & now a move back to England.

What a roller coaster & what an adventure. But I am very grateful for the 20 years we've had together & hope for many more. My husband is incredibly stubborn, perfectionist, & a bit anal retentive. He works far too hard & he irritates the hell out of me sometimes. (And I do him of course, though much less frequently, because he's more tolerant...)

But he is also a man of faith & integrity; he is very patient, a fantastic father, & a helpful & supportive husband. He makes me laugh, he finds me funny, he gets angry at the same injustices as I do. In short he is still my best friend & I love him to bits. Even after 20 years, & even on our own without the children, we still never run out of things to discuss or talk about. And amazingly we still find out things about the other we didn't know, although that may well be because we 1st told each other so long ago & our 40-something brains are beginning to fail us, so we had forgotten.

And we had such a good time on holiday that he suggested we ought to mark our 25th Anniversary too, as that is an official 'landmark' anniversary. Why not, I say?

But in the meantime we need to sort the next stage of the adventure: Pack up, change jobs, move house, move country, send son to secondary school. It's all change once again in the Paradise Household.

Cruelty

I know Albania is sadly not unusual in this at all, but sometimes it feels like a really brutal country. Of course, I am used to stepping out of my car into a little stream of vermillion blood & disembodied chicken heads where the live chickens are selected & then decapitated before being popped into a bag to be taken home with the rest of the weekly shop. We are all used to seeing animals slaughtered on the streets & whole cows hanging on meat hooks beside the road in various stages of undress in terms of their hides. And it's no secret that animals here are not treated well at all, & I hate it, but when it's man's inhumanity to man, it just makes my blood boil. I must hasten to add there are many lovely & kind people, & I intend to blog about the amazing hospitality & about the things I love here, at a later date, but today I must tell you another story.

My friend, a Loreto nun called me 10 days ago to say she couldn't meet me the next day because of a crisis at one of the Roma camps. She works with traffiked woment & also the Roma. The Sisters of Loreto are an order concerned with social justice who do humanitarian work all round the world. These Roma live in shacks on a derelict piece of land near the railway station. Almost 40 families have lived there for 10 years. And they pay rent. They pay $20 a month for the privilege of putting up their corrugated tin & cardboard huts, no running water, no sewage system of course. The Roma are the untouchables in Albanian society. They beg, they hunt through the bins for tin cans & glass to sell. And they are ostracised by the Albanian population.

One night 10 days ago a group of men came to the camp with guns & ordered all the families off the land, they smashed the huts, set light to them & threatened to murder the men, rape the women & kidnap the chidlren. Again, as I said they pay to stay on this land. They weren't illegal squatters. These men were probably hired hit men because the landowner had finally resolved one of the many, many land disputes ongoing in post communist Albania & so could finally build (yet another) apartment block on the land & wanted someone to do his dirty work. They came back several nights in a row, intimidating the people until finally there were only 3 families left who had nowhere to go. This time the men burnt down the huts while they were still inside them. There were many children under 8 amongst these including a 5 month old baby.


They were found by my friend the nun the next day huddled against a wall. They had nothing left. We managed to collect together some blankets & camping mattresess, some old clothes etc for them & the Catholic mission offered to pay a month's rent at another Roma camp & buy them building materials to help them start again.

Helping the poor is never starightforward. I have worked with the Roma on my card project & it is not always easy. They are not used to rules, structure, routine etc. They are used to travelling light & moving on, so they often leave stuf fbehind. They sold all the building matertials because they neeeded food. In factthey should have got a team of volunteers to help build the huts as part of the deal.

This man here is surveying the devastation & seeing what he can salavge. He is 40 believe it or not, & actually has favour amongst many shopkeepers because he is always honest, always truthful, tries hard to find work & is courteous. So they give him credit, or food. And everyone speaks well of him.
But look at the poor man, how hopeless he looks, how world weary. The Roma are used to prejudcie, but this kind of inhumanity beggars belief.

A friend of mine, a very tall, striking & flamboyant Brit with a penchant for leopard skin shoes & bags & a former class mate of Nigella Lawson, visits them every week with her church; she hugs them gives them food, talks to them, takes tehir children to hospital. She just loves them & they respond. I hope she restores their belief in humanity a little.

There are many shining examples in Albania of 'Samaritans' & Mother Teresas, most of them are missionaries who came in when the country opened up & have stayed. They have started schools, set up churches, fought traffiking, visited those in prison. My son has a new girl in his class, she's a Roma girl born with a shortened & twisted arm. Her American mum, a single woman here since 1991, set up one of the first schools for Roma in Pograddec. She found this little girl being used to beg because of her arm, her mother was a traffiked prostitute in Italy & the rest of the family deliberately made her condition worse so she would get more money. This American lady adopted her & her brother & they are just delightful, well adjusted, balanced kids. Their mum is still single.

I have often thought Albania is a little like India. There are of course the bears with rings through their noses that appear with their owners to earn money at every festival, the man with the python charging exorbitant fees to pose with the snake round your neck, much like you find in the markets in Thailand & India. Then there are the beggars with horrific injuries or birth defects. The worst I saw reminded me of 'A Fine Balance' that terribly depressing but absorbing Rohinton Mistry novel. This particular man had no arms & no legs, he was just a torso sitting on a mat in central Tirana begging.

My friend (of teh leopard print shoes) told me that even here the beggars have pimps & they also maim beggars or exacerbate or neglect injuries in order to attract more money. What a brutal world it is.

But then the reality of the Roma's lives is brutal in itself. The children are often married off at 13. One girl from this camp is 26 & has 13 children. her husabnd is 17 & he now makes her work as a prostitute servicing much older men.

And brutality is in the very fabric of society which was so dehumanised under Hoxha, when people were encouraged to inform on their neighbours, where you were severely punished imprisoned or executed if wealthy, educated, intellectual; or if you did something as heinous as listening to the World Service on your radio or, Heaven forbid, telling a joke about Hoxha. A friend's grandafther was imprisoned for being an intellectual, in the infamous Burrel windowless prison. After many years, he was allowed home to visit his family for 1 day per year he had been in prison. So in his 60s he was on his way out for a 16 day visit when he gave a dying man in the prison a cup of water When the gurad saw him he beat him & kicked him so badly that 2 days later at home with his family, he died. The family in those brutal times saw this in fact as a blessing because it meant he was with his family & could receive a proper burial. If he had died in prison the body would not be released & who nows when the family would have been told even. I have another friend (who is only 30) whose mother sold her own blood in order to feed her child. everyone here, though, has a story like this.

But by far the worst story I heard was about Hoxha's double. A man who was a dentist was found who looked quite like Hoxha. He was arrested & placed under house arrest, given plastic surgery, then had to eat exactly what Hoxha ate, to maintain the same weight, read what Hoxha read & see no one. He often stood in to give speeches for Hoxha, who had the usual despot's fear of assassination. The plastic surgeon was inolved in a 'car accident' when his car went over a cliff. Anyone who knew about the 'double' was killed. At the end of communism the poor man was released only to find that people saw him & screamed (Hoxha had since died) & ran away or tried to attack him. He discovered all his family had been murdered soon after his 'arrest' distraught & mad with grief, he deliberately scarred his face with a knife & put out one of his eyes. Eventually he took himself off to live in a labour camp where people didn't know what Hoxha looked like before finally killing himself in despair.

I'm sorry this is such a depressing post, but this is life here & the legacy that Albania has to emerge from. Thankfully there are unsung heroes like my nun & my flamboyant friend here, as well as a handful of NGOs & mission organisations who are fighting for justice, showing mercy & trying to ameliorate the lives of those who suffer here.

A Moral Dilemma & the Word for Integrity

One of my husband's interns has just left for another job, (& a 40% pay rise) having been with him for nearly 2 years. She was exceptionally bright, talented & hard working. She was fun, friendly & reliable. Sadly she left under a cloud. Here's why:
3 months ago my husband sent her (willingly) on a course in Romania. A s is standard practice, he drew up an agreement which said that if she left before she had completed another year with his organisation, she would be liable to pay back pro rata for each month under the year that she hadn't worked. he asked her if it was ok & she said yes she was fine with it. However, being completely snowed under & working too many hours, meant my husband forgot to get her to sign it. the week before she left, somehow it cropped up with the finance manager so he talked to the intern about it & said "You only went on the course 3 months ago so you are leaving 9/12 of a year early for our agreement".
Her response was that she had hoped he had 'forgotten about it.' And as was apparent, she certainly wasn't going to remind him. Anyway, after lengthy discussion, it became clear that this 22 year old girl was adamant that she was not going to repay it. My husband admits he has no legal leg to stand on;
"A gentleman's word is as good his bond" according to Charles Dickens in "The Old Curiosity Shop" but that doesn't wash in Albania, or in England I imagine anymore; if it ever did. Hard to prove a verbal agreement, which of course she claims she 'doesn't remember' anyway.

My husband tried to meet her half way & offered her a retrospective pay rise, so effectively she would only owe half the amount, but no she wasn't budging on that either. Furthermore, she said she had consulted with her uncle who was a lawyer, who told her to stand her ground & that her CEO (my husband) couldn't 'make her pay'.
At this point my husband explained that he & she were working for an NGO, a not-for-profit organisation, so they weren't awash with money & more importantly trust, integrity & honesty were very important as it was a Christian humanitarian organisation working to help the poor.
We were talking hundreds, not thousands of dollars too, but in a small organisation like this one, it all counts.

Nada. Nothing doing. Immoveable.

Now tell me reader, what is your response to this? I confess I was utterly gob-smacked that this 20-something student had the confidence, verve & sang froid to eyeball my husband, admittedly a not very intimidating boss, but still 20 odd yrs her senior, & say effectively:

"Shan't. You can't make me."
All true, but the gall!

This girl won a sponsorship to that Boarding school in Wales (I forget its name) which is in a castle & did all her high school education there. Then she went to Dartmouth College in the States, very prestigious again, I'm told, because where Harvard & Yale have 20,000 stuents each, Dartmouth is Ivy League but with only 5000 students, so it's much harder to get into.
Smart cookie. But, as the saying goes "A person is not given integrity. It results from the relentless pursuit of honesty at all times." You can't learn that in college.

Confucius says "The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home." What hope has this girl got when her elders are advising her, not what is right or just, but what she can get away with?

I know this is politically incorrect, but this is the single, biggest problem with Albania. Everything here seems to be about what you can get away with & who you can bribe to get out of trouble. No one has to take responsibility for their actions.

It is endemically corrupt. Communism left a moral vacuum. And it is something I have come across time & again. Lack of integrity , or outright corruption. An Albanian friend told me they didn't even have a word for integrity in Albanian, they have Albanianised the English word. So it's Integritetin.

John Gardener 1912-2002 who wa s a US secretary for Eudcation, Health & Welfare sums it up very well
"Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that a s a people, we can live above the level of moral squlaor. We need that belief, a cynical community, is a corrupt community".

By contrast this week, several of my husband's Albanian colleagues have heard he will be leaving, & I have been quite bowled over by the kind words & observartions they have made. They have seen that my husband is someone who 'does the right thing even if no one is watching.' (these are verbatim)
"You strike me as someone who practises what they preach.
"You have been a good example to me"
"You are highly appreciated for your good example."
"We have seen enough people preaching one thing & living another."
"Thank you for your honorable leadership".
"In my long working experience with NGOs I have worked with many internationals, however, you will be one of the best, who has left an indelible imprint in my memory"
"Albania needs international leaders like you who role model the profile of true leaders, who inspire their staff by 'what they say' & lead 'through their example.' "

Ralph Waldo Emerson said "A little integrity is better than any career."
I am so proud of him. I wonder, in his heart of hearts whether this girl's uncle can say the same of her?

Mission Accomplished

Reader, my son has been accepted into the school we chose. My parents were sent the letter in the UK & they opened it 'on air' via skype. They got as far as "We are delighted to inform you......." and I didn't hear the rest.

Yay!

And even more amazingly, last Wednesday my husband was, out of the blue, offered a job working from home (ie UK), with the same organisation, with travel to Africa about one week a month. He had had a rather depressing round of meetings whilst in the UK & everyone had said
"What you're trying to do is really difficult" that is, stay in development but work in the UK.

We knew that, my husband has made a career out of unorthodox moves. But obviously word had got round despite that. The job is only a 2 year contract but I have got (slightly more) used now to living with uncertainty & in the current job climate this isn't anything new. We are just very grateful & very excited.

And having felt we were doing things in such a cock-eyed order, applying to schools before anything else concrete had happened, I feel much the same as Iota, who said

"Gosh it has all come together so quickly. Can't keep up with you! Cart before horse, then horse bolted, then cart went careering off down the road!"
Then added "Am so thrilled for you. Just what you need".

Yes, it was just what I needed actually. It takes a bit of getting used to, everything coming together so quickly. My husband was unemployed for 7 months before we secured our 1st overseas posting, then he got a promotion in Sri Lanka 6 weeks before his 1st job in Sri Lanka finished with nothing else in the pipeline. And we got the Albania job 4 wks before his job in Sri Lanka ended. So not going right up to the wire this time around is a rather pleasant experience!

I don't wish to cause the horse & cart to crash, but I think I could almost say Mission Accomplished. Who could have foreseen that only 10 days ago?

Operation Return Home (Stage 3)

Today was our son's interview at the school we've applied to for him. On this occasion I was very glad that I am naturally punctual & so had left plenty of time to get there. The reason being the police, who were stopping cars at a roundabout, decided in their random way, to stop my car en route to the school. This is my £450 eBay car which sits off road all year at my parents until I come back from Albania, like this week, & tax & insure it for a week.

The police told me they couldn't find my car on their system. Arghhhhhhh. Serendipitously (& bizarrely) I had my insurance certificate, car registration document, MOT certificate, driving licence & even passport with me. Eventually, after a 12 minute delay, they confirmed what I could have told them, that all was in order, & they let me go. My son told me to 'chill' as we still had 30 minutes to get there & it was only another 15 minutes drive away. Just not good for my nerves.

I felt like a fish out of water, parking my little fiesta alongside all the smart cars at the school. All the other interview candidates were in school uniforms or very smart outfits. Our son doesn't have uniform or smart clothes. No call for them in Albania. However, the registrar remembered 10 y-o from the open day & greeted him warmly by name. The headmaster was doing the rounds, sipping orange out of a carton, chatting to parents & then mopping distractedly at the spilt juice on his trousers. In fact everyone seemed very low key & normal, except the parents.

After his interview the teacher who had conducted the interview, lingered chatting about Albania. He taught 20th century European history so was fascinated by Albania.

Whilst my son went off to the loo, he said to me:

"You know I've talked to lots of great boys this last 2 days, but they all brought in a rowing medal or a cricket bat, but your son was so different and produced this fantastic 100 square quilt". H emadde it for his school's 100th day celebration (I knew his effort would be worth it one day!) He said it really had been delightful talking to him & getting to meet him.

I could have kissed him. It's such a relief when you've been living in a tiny little Balkan backwater, your son attending a little missionary school with few facilities & small classes. You think: is he really bright or is it just in the context of his small multi cultural class? What sort of competition is he up against? Will it matter he hasn't had so many extra curricular opportunities or a grade 5 in piano? Would it seem really odd amongst mini rowers, budding Beckhams, & 'rare wood' cricket bats that my son had sewed & brought in a home made quilt as his 'significant object'?

Clearly I needn't have worried. And in fact living in Albania, amongst blood feuds, money laundering, uncharted mountains, abandoned military vehicles & tunnels, not to mention power cuts, chaotic traffic & unmechanised farming only seemed to add to his appeal. What my husband had said all along in fact. I thought it would just make him seem odd & a little too different & too 'out of the UK educational loop'.

They have a very specific ethos & a certain type of boy that they're looking for. I hope our son fits the bill. I htink he would be very happy there. After all, he won't be at school with the parents......

We find out on Monday.

In Case of Emergency....

Today my husband & son flew to England for stage 2 of Operation Return Home. My husband has some meetings about his future, & our son has an open day at one of the schools we have applied to.

Tomorrow in Albania there is another protest, 1 week after the last one. As a result; largely because of the violence & deaths at the last one, the American embassy is closing all day & advised schools to do the same. So my children's school will be closed, the high school, where I teach, will be closed. As one of my American students commented,

"My friends in America have 'snow days', we have 'protest days' which close the schools."

Another organisation which supports missionaries here in Albania sent out the following guidelines today. Guidelines I think you'll agree are worthy of the American embassy. Perfectly practical, but a little excessive.

1. Stay away from large crowds. While things may start peacefully, they can easily and quickly get out of control.
2. Ensure that you have important documents where they can be easily accessed.
3. Try to keep cell phones and computer batteries charged in case the electricity goes out for a long time.
4. It might be wise to keep your vehicle filled with fuel – if there is a need to get out of the area (or country) quickly, you do not want to run out of fuel!
5. Let your teammates know where you are! Stay in touch with one another so that you can be easily reached in case of an emergency.
6. Be prepared to stay in your homes for a few days at least – that means ensuring that you have adequate food and other supplies to sustain you.

Right better go & buy some tins of tuna to put in the cupboard tomorrow...

Needless to say we have heard nothing from the British embassy despite being on their 'list'. I remember during the swine flu scare, we did get an email from the British embassy which basically said , (in the nicest possible way) "You're on your own chaps, we can't do anything to help, should there be a pandemic!"

so my husband wrote his own version of what he thought the British embassy might write should they bother to give us advice about the political situation:

Hello Chaps,
As many of you are aware, the Albanian Socialist party is revolting. Or, to
be more precise, demonstrating, in central Tirana on Friday 28th January.
Protestors are expected to start gathering from 1200 onwards. The
Demonstration is expected to start around 1400.
The Demonstration will create further traffic congestion in the centre of
Tirana and we strongly advise all members of the local British Community to
pack their G&Ts and ankle away from Tirana for a long weekend on a golf
course somewhere. After all, in Albania, incidents of violence cannot be
ruled out, and we wouldn't want to be a part of that, would we?

Mum's the word.

Consular Section
British Embassy, Tirana

I know it's a stereotype, but the pastor of our church on Sunday was advising all Americans to register with the embassy, not just to be on an email list but so that you have 'the full backing & resources of the embassy wherever you travel'. Then the guy says.
"I use it whenever I travel, even if I'm going to Canada!"
The exclamation mark is mine, not his. It wasn't a line in self deprecating humour.

I'm sorry but when you see the American embassy here, you do begin to think they're paranoid. I took my daughter to the American compound for a birthday party. We were late. well, not until we got there & had to go through security checks worthy of Heathrow.

We had to pull over & have our car examined with one of those extra lareg dental mirrors which looks under the car for bombs. Then we had to 'pop the hood' so the security guy could check our engine, only here Albania added a spot of pure Albanianism into the mix. My car bonnet wdn't 'pop' (it's very temperamental) I tried. The security guy (Albanian) didn't even try for me, he just shrugged, smiled & said "no problem" & waved me on. Unchecked, bombs n all. I then had to drive through the bollard chikanes, but even after being checked, I wasn't allowed to drive into the compound, so we parked outside the compound & then went into the office to walk through the metal detector & put all our belongings (including our suspicious looking birthday present) through the x ray machine, and then sign in with the security guard on duty, say whom we were visiting & for how long. And then the dad had to come & meet us & escort us in. I then left &, believe it or not, had to go through the checks all over again exactly 2 1/2 hrs later when I came to pick her up. I guess it's not really surprising the spouses don't leave the compound much. And why would you when it's so nice & safe &, well, American in there?

Once inside my daughter thought she'd 'died & gone to heaven' as the cliche goes. Lots of suburban white houses, complete with pillars & double garages, sweeping vistas of grass everywhere, housewives chatting in the street, a huge children's play area, a soccer pitch & a swimming pool. Even a shop! Like Eurocamp in France. All for 18 embassy staff families. To say my daughter was awe struck would be no exaggeration. 'It's like another country' she said.

Well yes exactly, America, in fact.

My daughter still talks about 'all that fresh grass' She couldn't believe, here in the land of city apartments or village muddy vegetable patches, & her own gardenless flat, that her best friend had all this grass to run around on!

I mean, I could understand if there was a terrorist threat or Americans weren't liked, but to Albanians America is nirvana. Everyone here loves America & wants to go & live there. Maybe there's a 'standard issue' American embassy compound design...

Anyway hopefully, it will be peaceful tomorow & things will have calmed down by Saturday so we can nip out, with full tank of petrol, charged mobiles & tins of tuna & make it to the airport to join my husband & son in the UK.

Tests & Protests

At 8 o clock on Saturday morning, having bounced out of bed with a "yay, this is the big day!"10 y-o & I set out to complete Stage One of Operation Return Home. Our son has been preparing for some school tests to get him into a school in September, should my husband be able to find a job in the UK, and we return home, and we return to our home town. so a tad tenuous. This seems slightly crazy, like putting the cart before the horse, but if we don't apply for schools now & we do go back to the UK in the summer, it will be too late to apply then. So we are doing things in a rather surreal,back to front way, before we have a job, a location, or anything concrete really.

This being Albania, even this Stage was not entirely normal & straight forward. Firstly we drove up the main boulevard where the protest/riot had happened 12hrs before. Half the boulevard was cordoned off & was still strewn with rocks & lumps of brick which protesters had 'dug out' of the paved road & thrown at police. Then, outside the prime minister's office was a growing memorial of flowers & candles for the 3 men shot dead, one in the head, 2 in the chest at close range. A fourth man lies critical in hopsital. And Albanian hospitals aren't good places to be in a critical condition at the best of times.....

Further on still, were the burnt out carcasses of 5 cars, poised drunkenly on the steps of Hoxha's former mausoleum pyramid. The centre was eerily quiet.

Arriving safely at school, we met the head of lower school & our son's teacher who had very kindly given up their Saturday morning to invigilate him. The school in the UK had, amazingly, suggested our son sit the test here in Albania so he didn't need to go back to the UK.

I had also had to bring my husband's scanner with us as the school had phoned to say that the school scanner wasn't working properly. So, because I am who I am, my husband gave me a crash course in how to use it. I just knew something would go wrong. Sure enough the scanner didn't copy my son's pencil answers, so the deputy head had to use the photocopy, sharpen twice, then darken twice every page of his tests: all 20 pages & then I scanned them for her.This had the added disadvantage of me seeing my son's answers, furiously trying to do mental arithmetic to guage which he had got wrong & reading his compositions, which, compared to practice ones he had written, were dreadful.

All in all not a relaxing morning. I am trying not to think about it anymore. If only I hadn't seen the papers, I would have only had my son's ebullient confidence to go by, which reckoned he had done a "pretty good job!"

Still Stage One complete. Stage two is travelling back to the UK for the open day & interviews & for my husband to have some meetings about his job situation. Of course there are about 47 more stages to go, but it feels good to have begun........