Spring Fever

Spring has finally arrived & the weather feels properly settled in Albania now. I just love, love, love this time of year. Of course temperatures are already like a (good) English summer. It's 'sandals & cotton skirts' weather now. Even the evenings & mornings have warmed up. And everything is vivid green, our reward for SUCH a wet winter. It is a very small window here when the young leaves are bright on the tree & everything is bathed in a literal lime-light. A vivid & verdant citrus green. All too soon, everything will turn a dull grey-green as the dry dusty summer takes hold. For now, the light is dappled, the fields are waist deep in buttercups, strawberries are being sold along the paths, the park is full of Albanians emerging from their hibernation. It is said that Albanians 'exist' for 4 months of the year & 'live' for 8 months, because of the wet winters & miserably cold apartments, power cuts etc.

But just as things seem to warm up, the academic year starts hurtling towards its conclusion. School finishes in only 6 weeks. I always wish this time of year lasted longer. It feels like we spend most of our year here in winter, with 6 weeks of summer before term ends & 6 weeks of Autumn before winter really sets in; and most of the summer in England (partly because there is no one left around here to do things with.)

So events are stepping up. Spring fairs, international dances, more visitors, reports to write, exams to prepare & mark etc. with the net result that blogging has been squeezed out.

Added to this my 2 children have been ill/had a duvet day/thrown sickies (delete as applicable after you hear the story)
My son's day was last week. He loves school & is almost never off sick, & certainly doesn't fake it. At the weekend we had travelled 5 hours south to an outdoor centre my husband was going to use for a team building retreat for his staff. My son, as school council rep, had been with his school that day up to Shkoder to distribute toys & supplies they had collected to help the children of flood victims up there who lost their homes. Shkoder is 2 hrs north. So our son spent 4 hours travelling there & back before getting back at 5p.m, only to hop into our car to be whisked down to the south of Albania that evening. So in one day he went from the north right to the south of Albania, all 600 km of it.

After 2 days back at school, he woke the following morning with a headache, complaining that he felt very tired. He said 'In Maths yesterday I knew the answer was 11, but I couldn't get my mouth to say 11, it just came out with 16, my brain felt so tired' Clearly time for a day off, he reasoned. And I thought it would probably do him good.

So abandoning other plans, I resolved to nurse him & a very sick husband who now had the cold we had all had, except his had strangely morphed into man-flu overnight....9 y-o played happily with lego for a few hours in the morning, then decided to get out the infamous 'Kids in the Kitchen' cook book. After much deliberation, he settled on chicken & vegetable soup, & banana cinnamon muffins (with his special adaptation of- chocolate chips.) Our much sicker, adult invalid was very grateful, it may even have speeded his recovery. And I think it did 9 y-o a lot of good having a quiet day. One on one relaxed time with him. At the end of the day he said, “I really enjoyed today, mum.” And so did I. Chores can always wait........

The same thing happened a few weeks ago with my daughter at a rather busy time. I laboured the point that it would be very boring at home with just Mummy, doing boring jobs & not able to play with her.... She wasn't feeling well with a cold & was right up to normal but not quite a fever, so once we had agreed she could stay at home, she went into 'Full Sick Bed Routine' mode'. This involves, plumping up the pillows, sinking back onto them whilst asking, in special, slightly quavery voice, if she can have breakfast in bed, & then struggling to the end of her bed to play a story tape (the only time she ever listens to them...) before sinking weakly back into her plumped pillows to munch her cornflakes whilst listening to Fantastic Mr Fox.

However, after a few hours she usually tires of this, & on this occasion, she made a remarkable recovery, getting herself dressed & asking if she could come to the shops with me (our cleaner was there so could have watched her) She skipped all the way to the shops, AND back, & then suggested we go for a bike ride in the park as it was 'such a lovely day'. (Probably because she wasn't at school..... ) I was beginning to feel ever so slightly 'had'. She biked up the hill all around the park, we stopped for a coffee & one of the mousse-like hot chocolates they sell here, had a rather loud whispered conversation about why the lady at the next table had 'orange hair'; I explained she had dyed it to cover the grey, whereupon she said, again very loudly that she didn't think the lady had 'done a very good job' as she could still see grey. At times like this I am very glad most Albanians don't speak English.... Saves a lot of embarrassment. Though I couldn't do much about the rather pointed staring at this poor lady's head.

And then she biked all the way home again.

Once home, I said, in what I hoped was a firm, & authoritative tone, “Now I really must get on, I have lots of jobs to do. I did warn you it would be very boring being at home today, didn't I?”

To which she replied. “It's not at all boring for me, Mummy. I just like being with you'

Oh she's good, she's very good. And did I fall for it?

Hook, line & sinker.

Grandparents

Our children are very lucky. They have 4 fantastic grandparents. I only had three (that I remember) & my husband didn't have any grandfathers in his life. I remember my grandfather particularly fondly, simply because he made me feel special, & seemed interested in me, & in my opinions & ideas. He also seemed to like my humour & to share a joke or pull my leg. That's how I remember him anyway. But all three were an indelible part of my childhood & memories.

The only trouble is we live a long way away from our children's grandparents; one of the hazards of ex-pat life, & becoming increasingly normal for many in our global village world. I know they don't like it & to be honest nor do I, when I consider it very important that our children have close ties with their grandparents. And even though we are doing this now, I find part of myself secretly hoping (hypocritically), that my children don't make the same choices as us, as I would quite like to be 'down the road from my grandchildren'.

However, last week was one of the pluses when one set visited; & going home every summer is another, when we are based with their other grandparents & our children regard it as their home in England & do a thorough check of the house to ensure everything is in its rightful place & unchanged.

A friend, who lived overseas in Asia for 10 years, said she felt the children's relationships with grandparents were stronger as a result of being overseas. I didn't believe it at the time, but more & more I think I agree.

For example, if you didn't live far apart, the children wouldn't have:

1. The anticipation of grandparent visits here & trips back to England.
2. The fun of creating annual summer memories in Britain with grandparents
3. The chance to go through all the familiar routines every summer back in “grandparents' world”.
4. The chance to stay with grandparents for an extended period of time, rather than just seeing them for the odd w/e, several times a year.
5. The heightened appreciation of them because they are not around & being seen all the time.
6. Getting postcards & comics in the post.
7. Having them visit us here & being able to show them round 'our world'.
8. The fun of receiving all the goodies brought out.
9. The chance to do an Easter egg hunt in July at Granny & Grandpa's house & barbecues in the garage at Granny & Grandad's house & other such 'traditions' accidently developed.
10. The chance to have their undivided attention for a whole week or more at a time.

I'm sure there are lots more...

On this visit re. No 8, we received such thoughtful gifts:

For our son

A saxophone strap, to stop the earth's gravitational pull taking hold every time he lifted the instrument to his lips, causing him to pitch forward with the weight.

A book of easy tunes complete with play-along CD

For our daughter

A pint size apron & a “Kids in The Kitchen” cookbook because I had said she doesn't really 'play much' with toys (true), so she is very difficult to buy for. This was perfect as she loves cooking with me.

For me

REAL Vanilla extract for all my baking – very expensive & very yummy. & totally unavailable here in any guise.

For Hubby.

A DVD of some of the 6 Nations rugby which he so loves & we can't see here.

Then of course there was all the Earl Grey tea, Yorkshire tea, yeast, extra mature cheddar, ebay purchases to stave off the rapid disintegration of my husband's wardrobe, lego from my son's saved up pocket money, Easter eggs, birthday presents & so on.

Apart from our Grand Balkan Tour over Easter, the children wanted to show Granny & Grandad round, to get them up to speed on developments in Albania in the last 2 yrs. So apart from pointing out all the new tarmac, newly opened shops, street lights, newly paved park, finished apartment blocks, we showed them the large lime green toads which croak noisily in the zoo lake next door every spring, hanging in suspended animation, froggy legs trailing motionless in the pond water.

We also showed them the abandoned military vehicles & tunnels up on the hill behind our villa; the shabby little zoo which we live next door to, with its unkempt & bedraggled eagles (proud symbol of Albania. Am sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere), a 'lone' wolf, 2 shy, not sly, foxes, a scaredy cat locked in a cage inside an animal enclosure (domestic cat) & the entertaining brawling bears, as well as the new additions (last week 2 ostriches, this week somewhat bizarrely, a donkey in with the llamas & turkeys next to the lions.) It keeps you on your toes, you never know what will be there next time. We also went into school to meet the teachers & look around (again) All important rituals for the children.

They also enjoyed having stories in bed with Granny & Grandad every morning, & a particular highlight, doing the rocket 'science' experiment Grandad had brought out from a newspaper article complete with all the necessary equipment such as alkaseltzer to make the rocket 'blast off' etc. Great fun.

On the eve of their departure our daughter said “I hope I manage not to miss them too much”.

And so the next day, after they had left, we set to, with distraction tactics, making the gingerbread ladies in the "Kids in the Kitchen" book, complete with 2 piece swimsuits, which so appealed to my 5 y-o. Unfortunately we couldn't find the large cookie cutter, so instead of making 20 large ladies, we made 80 tiny gingerbread girls, & I laboured away icing them with itsy bitsy pink bikinis, whilst 5 y-o lost interest after doing about 3 & ambled off to watch a film. It's at times like this that you need someone with time, experience & patience, who is not in a hurry who could have iced them & engaged 5 y-o with stories & the novelty of 'not being mum', whilst I got on with supper. Someone like a grandmother would do nicely.........

'Paradise on earth' George Bernard Shaw

More visitors. Grandparents this time. Great excitement. We've been doing a Balkan tour, Monte Negro then into Croatia. Beautiful. Here's a taste.

Dubrovnik was called 'paradise on earth' by Shaw & 'The pearl of the Adriatic' by Lord Byron. The old city is entirely curtained by thick fortified walls which you can walk along the tops of (2km round). Inside, the city is bursting with churches, museums, monuments, the '3rd oldest' pharmacy in Europe in a Franciscan monastery, (selling potions & poultices since 1391) & polished cobbled streets, & uneven staircases. The water beyond is azure blue & sparkles with islands dotted across it.

This lovely city was bombed in 1991 by the Yugoslav army. No strategic point to it, sheer bloody mindedness. 200 military, sailors, police & 100 civilians were killed defending their walled city. It carried on being attacked for over a year. UNESCO & international aid funded the reconstruction & it has been done beautifully. When you look down on the terracotta clay tiled roofs, you fully comprehend the extent of the damage. So many are new, bright & clean. Tragically, it is probably the best it has ever looked, with such sympathetic restoration. Too high a price to pay. We remembered how shocked the international community was by this mindless act.

We also went to Kotor, in Monte Negro, another fortified, walled city on southern Europe's deepest fjord. Yes there are fjords even in the south. This city had walls built all the way up the mountain enclosing the fortifications at the top, a church half way up, as well as the labyrinth of streets down below. I love the way they have lit it at night.

I thought all the hillside terracing in Albania was quite a feat but these walls were something else.

Having grown up on an island, I love the novelty of simply getting into the car & driving over the border into another country, even if the Albanian border guards do seem to devise a new document requirement especially for us every time we attempt a crossing. Albania has borders with Greece, (& more than a passing resemblance to the Greek attitude to paying taxes too....),Macedonia, Monte Negro & Kosovo. And you can get a ferry over to Italy too. We've only driven into Monte Negro & Macedonia so far. But it's nice knowing when the going gets tough we can just jump in the car & drive somewhere a bit more civilised.

The 'antivenom'

I know this is very unBritish but I have to share a little praise I received about my children. After last week's hospitality debacle, I was gratified to hear that my children are not like this. You are never quite sure what they are like when your beady eye isn't on them. You just hope that the incessant drilling has paid off..

Last week the cleaner at my children's school saw me chatting to two of the teachers & asked one of them to tell me that she loved my children because they were always so polite, well mannered & helpful to her & other children. I was really touched a.) that she had noticed & b.) had asked one of the teachers to translate this & pass it on to me. (My Albanian doesn't cover vocabulary for politeness, good behaviour etc; haven't found much use for it).

Then on Sunday one of the mums, who takes a turn walking the school children to the ballet lesson my 2 partcipate in, told me how grown up our 9 y-o was becoming & what a gentleman he was, because he had offered to carry stuff for her & help her with her bags.

Also on Sunday it was my daughter's turn, in an unlikely area of model behaviour, to be praised. My daughter's Sunday School teacher came up to me & commented on how beautifully our 5 y-o ate the cup cake she had been given. I couldn't hide my astonishment & 1st established she knew which our daughter was, then asked if she was sure she hadn't licked the icing off the cake, discarded the cake uneaten & then licked her fingers one by one (which is what she does at home if she can get away with it.)

Still I couldn't believe it, 3 times in one week. They say, in customer service, that if you have a good experience you tell 5 people, but if you have a bad experience you tell 12. Well, old data, now my husband tells me but the point is clear. I certainly tell more bad experiences on here than good, which is another reason I felt justified in telling this little story. though it has to be said, too, that the bad experiences often make for the better stories.

AND: I also got my own little bit of recognition from someone whose son I teach. She was telling a friend of mine how lucky her son is to have me teaching him, how much he loves IGCSE English, is feeling really stretched by it, loves the lessons & even enjoys the homework. Honestly it made my day. What am I saying, it made my year. As a teacher I can probably count, almost on the fingers of one hand, how many students have thanked me or written me a note to thank me for getting them through GCSES or A Levels in the course of my teaching career. & I am always pathetically grateful for each one. You get precious little feedback as a teacher, especially from the kids & often wonder if you are having any impact, yet one thank you & you feel it's all worthwhile. My hosting might not have been appreciated last week, but my teaching is, by 1 student at least, which is probably more important.

It's also somewhat daunting & not a little disconcerting that, in this small foreigner fish pond we live in, I teach the school director's son, my doctor's son, my dentist's son, & a fellow teacher's son. It also makes for some surreal scenarios where 2 fellow professionals keep 'swapping places' depending on whether flossing, Fitzgerald or flat feet is the issue at stake.

I remember all too well, growing up in a similar small community situation, more goldfish bowl than fish pond, as my father was vicar of a small country parish with similar professionals in the congregation (one was even my bank manager-horrors!) & relishing the anonymity of going away to uni in a big city. Now here I am back in that scenario again. Oh well, at least I had good practie at it 1st time round.

So all that more than made up for my experience of ingratitude last week.

And finally my picture for Week 5 of The Gallery from Tara@stickyfingers has to be a picture of "Outside your front door" or the immediate environment where you live.


That was easy. This picture epitomises winter at our place in Tirana, Albania. Mud & water. This 'lake' is a semi-permanent feature of life in our road in the wet winters we get here. The drains are blocked, the landlord's bodge job didn't quite work, &, because he couldn't be bothered to dig down, he replaced the sewage pipes above ground, & concreted over them, thus creating a 'dam' effect in our road. Hence the lake. It gets much deeper than this, usually comes a third of the way up my bike wheel, to the point where my foot is in the water on the 'down' pedal. Of course when I say water I mean sewage water...

House Guest Harangue

Well,'it's official, I feel really old. Funny what triggers such feelings. I've been out of circulation because we've had a house guest staying for 9 days. This was the sort of house guest friends of ours in the foreign office in Tanzania had; i.e “a friend's 2^nd cousin's girlfriend's boss” type guest. i.e. Never met them before, don't know them from Adam, but 'you live in a great holiday destination & staying with you would give us free accommodation' type guest. Same scenario (except for the 'great holiday destination' bit).

Actually not quite, but we had an American staying with us for 2 wks in Jan who was coming as an intern to work for my husband, & this unknown house guest was a friend of his, whom he asked if we could put up. We said 'Of course'.

I loved having this intern to stay, though again it made us feel so old. He was very young, born 2 years after I left university, 2 yrs before we got married; a graduate fresh out of college, full of life & enthusiasm, whose favourite word is 'awesome', all of which just made me feel very staid, & rather jaded. So much of our frame of reference was of a time or things before he was even born or had heard of.

The children loved him. Of course they did, he was FUN. He used to have cushion fights with them before school in the mornings, challenge them to matches on the Wii etc. Although he did manage to break our sofa, a candle holder, & knock one of the speakers on the floor during one of the sword fights. He is just a big kid really. No, that's not fair, but he has a lot more 'kid' left in him than I do! That's why I felt old. I own stuff, I know what things cost, I mind (not a lot, but a bit) about mess & breakages, I like to know how many people I am feeding of an evening, I like a bit of order. I realise it's decades since I had a cushion fight, & to be honest I don't really miss it...

The children would throw themselves on him like bouncy puppies greeting their master when he got back from work. He was, though, full of gratitude to us, appreciated my cooking & brought gifts for the children & treated us to a meal out (with complementary babysitting thrown in) A model guest (apart from over exuberant sword fights) & great fun to have around. His friend, however, was not.

I think what got to me was what I will call the “thoguhtless selfishness” of youth. I felt like a hotel, I felt wholly unappreciated & I felt drained from looking after everybody else (whilst running on empty at the moment). In the end I asked her to let me know 'that morning' if I would be feeding 1 or even 2 extra people or not. Her response was “I guess we'll grab dinner with you every day except Tuesday & Wednesday” - Nice expression.

One day I came back from work in the afternoon to find all the breakfast stuff, including milk & butter still out on the table. She hadn't even bothered to clear up before going out. She used my laptop all the time, sometimes asking, sometimes not. She rarely offered to help & did nothing spontaneously to help. Yet she was very sweet & friendly. Just thoughtless. Does thoughtfulness come with age then, I wonder?

I must admit I found it hard to be gracious (inside). To start with, she didn't know us at all, complete strangers offering her food an accommodation for a week. We saved her a ton of money by not staying in a hotel, yet she didn't bring a gift or anything. There were no flowers, no thank you note. Zip. (which wd be fine if she was family, I wouldn't expect it.) I took her on a day trip, I changed arrangements to fit in with her, I fed them lunch some days, when they decided to just hang out at our place. I drove her to the airport. At the airport I said I would take my son off for a drink & told them where we would be. 20 minutes later our American friend came to find us without our house guest. I asked where she was & he said, "Oh she's gone through to departures".

What??

She had left without saying goodbye, without thanking us. She hasn't even emailed since to say thank you.

I couldn't believe it, I was gob-smacked.

Yet somehow I couldn't shake off this feeling that maybe I was just being middle-aged, old fashioned & pernickety. After all we had obviously been happy to have her to stay as we had offered, non? That's why I feel old, young people have a (probably unconscious) knack of making you feel that it's just you, who is out of touch with the way of the world, things have moved on, you are stuck in old habits & being too boring & reactionary about 'stuff'.

Still it's good preparation for the teenage years..... In the meantime though, I am going to continue to drill 5 & 9 y-o in the 'Ps & Qs'. I would hate to have anyone say the same of my children, however old fashioned it might seem.

Paradise Regained A Little

Well, turns out the sun DID come out. Gorgeous wall to wall cloudless blue.
And I have numbered things below which I shall call blessings,because that's what they felt like, small things but the sum of their parts added up to making me feel a bit less fragile.

We went for a walk on Saturday & I took deep draughts of Vitamin D. It felt good. Warm sun on the face, muscles unclenched, bones thawed. Wonderful.

Our P.E teacher friend, who has made our place his second home, asked us to supper on Friday. I was touched. We have people for meals a lot, to make friends, be hospitable. We rarely get asked back.

Then on Saturday the children came into our bed for stories. They started doing this a few wks ago, but before that they hadn't done it for months & months. We thought that little 'season' had passed too. My husband has been reading 'Wind in the Willows' to our daughter & our (now 9 yr old) son comes along because he can never resist a story, whatever it is. We read from an edition illustrated by Inga Moore. My husband's granny's cousin (does that make it his great cousin??) was Ernest Shephard who illustrated the original "Wind in the Willows", so we felt rather guilty betraying the family connection, but Moore's illustrations are just gorgeous.

So there we all were four in bed, husband reading in his soothing narrator voice, stopping every so often to explain what was going on, as the language is complex & the sentences long; passing over to me to explain the longer words, (not his forte & you'd be surprised at the words in the text), our son saying 'come on read the next bit' & our daughter busy playing with my hair & stroking my cheek. For her, stories are about cuddles, she usually tunes out, especially with the difficult language in it. She tries, but she hasn't got the world's greatets attention span.
When we finally finished Dad says, "So what did you think of that 5 y-o?"
She said "It made my brain go all twirly." Oh well, that great classic confined to family posterity as the book that makes children's brains go 'twirly'.

Sunday was "Summer Day" in Albania - a really big holiday & the sunniest day of the year so far. A friend who has lived here over 10 yrs said it is ALWAYS sunny on Summer Day. The 1st day of summer (in theory).
It was also Mother's Day in England. I am always so thankful that 10 yrs on I now AM a mother twice over & can celebrate the fact. My daughter made me a huge cardboard banner saying "I 'heart' u mummy" & my son made me a cross stitch book mark which said "I 'heart u, M". He didn't have time to write more, he said.

His class do cross stitch whilst listening to their class reader which seems quite a soothing idea & gives them something to do. Of course I had to feign amnesia (let's face it, not a trick I find difficult) as only the day before I had had to iron, for my daughter, a random selection of Hamma bead letters an "I", a heart, a 2 "Us" 3 "Ms" , & a "Y" , whilst under strict instructions not to look at what I was doing.

My husband took us all out to lunch. Always a treat.

My sister booked her ticket to come out & visit in May- the 1st member of my family in 4 yrs abroad to come & visit. I realise I don't live in very appealing places so I don't blame them.

My tennis friend phoned & asked if I wd like to play tennis this morning before she goes back to Italy on Wed for more test following her surgery a month ago. It is also good I have time on my hands as it meant I could go out for coffee with her afew wks ago - for 3 hours, after her surgery to talk to her. That to me is a good use of time. She needed a listening ear, I had the time to spend with her.

Paradise feels lost

Sometimes it's hard to pinpoint why one is feeling so depressed, though I do always look for logical explanations. Maybe it's the incessant rain we've had this winter; for days on end it rains. I bike everywhere because parking is a nightmare, so when it rains I don't go out. Or maybe it's that like last yr at almost exactly the same time, we have, again, had a rash of friends falling seriously ill. One good friend has discovered he has an AVM, (after a routine MRI before an ear op), a cerebral arteriovenous malformation (an abnormal mass of veins in the left side of his brain) which could cause a stroke at any time, or could continue having no effect as it has done for the last 46 yrs. Surgery is too risky, radiation treatment takes 5 yrs & is also risky. But now he lives with the Leontes syndrome ("I have drunk & seen the spider"- Winter's Tale) He knows it's there.

Another friend's father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer & a month later he was dead.

The 31 yr old Albanian who tries faithfully to improve my tennis, has got thyroid cancer & is awaiting further tests & prognosis.

All this has the knock on effect of making me once again (though I hardly ever seem to forget it) mindful of the fragility of life; it also makes me feel that here I am alive yet doing so little with my life. I constantly feel I should be 'doing more' I want to be doing more, but what? Especially with the children at school all day now, particularly living amongst so many needs, being more useful would probbaly make me feel better. People alway say, but look at what you're doing, where you live, your life etc, but actually what they mean is my husband. look at what he's doing. I'm just tagging alone behind, being the (not very) supportive wife.

I teach 2 mornings a week. The card project (Mangava), largely runs itself on a weekly basis. I'm more of a non-executive director; the women's group I organise hardly ever meets, because everyone (except me) is too busy. My Albanian teacher is at college this year & has home life complications, so we hardly ever meet either, & my tennis partner is out of action with her health.

Sudddenly it seems the few pegs that I hang the tapestry of my week on, are snapping off one by one (& let's face it there aren't many holding it up in the 1st place) - 2 weekly fixtures & 1 fortnightly fixture disappear & suddenly I have these yawning spaces in my week. And the community I know are all working or are much older than me & leading a 'ladies who lunch' life style which is just not me. Sure I can go running, to the gym, fiddle around sewing, like this I made for my niece, do the washing, shopping, I bake a lot; but all those things are on my own. God seems to have made me gregarious, a people person yet I spend 70% of my time alone I reckon. I STILL have days when I speak to no one till my children get home. And my husband gets home late & is too tired to talk much. Of course my closest friend here is away this wk, which doesn't help, but is a foretaste of what it will be like when she leaves in June.

This feeling of listlessness, & lack of direction or purpose, is exacerbated by the fact that my husband is SO busy & preoccupied & is doing such a worthwhile job, whilst I twiddle my thumbs. I love the job he does & so believe in what he is doing & what his organisation is about, but I stil find it hard, even 4 years on, being the trailing spouse, dealing with loneliness, lack of things to do, people to do them with etc. I want a role! Then there's the compounding effect that when I get really down, I lose motivation & just want to retreat into my shell & not go anywhere or make an effort. I am SO glad for an acquaintance who is a clinical pyschologist who tells me that I'm normal & that being told to 'snap out of it' & just 'get out there & join in' is a.) not that easy & b.) not helpful or necessarily a solution.

The other compounding effect is the sense that my children have really moved into a much more independent phase &, even when they come home from school, are quite happy doing their own thing, not being with me. So I don't even feel as needed by them & that's not my role in the same way anymore either.

Maybe I'm just having 'one of those "Bad Ex-pat Days", or maybe it's my "early menopause" hormones, which are wreaking havoc, or my thyroid. I wish there was a simple answer to why I burst into tears for absolutely no reason, why I feel so lacking in motivation & feel so useless most of the time.

Well, maybe the sun will come out tomorrow.