Time before now

Many of you may be questioning why I didn't write anything between March 2010 and now. I guess the simple answer is life just got too busy. I started the blog as a focus for my writing and an outlet for my feelings. However, my depression and annoyance at being in Saudi was never going to be of much interest to readers. So I tried to make light of the experience by creating an iweb site and being a tour guide around Riyadh for my family back home. In doing so, I got myself out of the black hole.

And that is probably the best thing about blogging for me. It's not really a diary - that is too intimate and no-one is expected to read it until perhaps after you're gone. You are writing, knowing (or at least hoping!) that someone else will stumble across your words and take the time to read them. So in order to respect them for doing that, the least I can do is provide words worthy of being read.

So to broaden the subject field I will write about the other things we got up to and dealt with in our other postings round the world. I'll start with the most recent first - Saudi Arabia. The link below takes you to the earlier travel blogs about days out and about from Riyadh.

http://web.me.com/solenzara/Life_Around_the_World/Blog/Blog.html

Three Weeks In

A six month "stage" or the start of a new life in a new country? My emotions are on a roller coaster at the moment and possibly because of being away from my "home" country for close to 6 years I am currently wishing to be amongst those who speak my tongue and within a short drive of friends and family.

For the boys it is the end of the first 3 weeks of school. They have done fabulously well. I don't think I would have been too happy to be abandoned with a group of people that neither you understood nor could understand you. We have had tears mainly at school drop off from the youngest but the staff have been lovely and are really trying to reduce the pain of their transition. The school only has 2 classes; within each there are 3 different class groups. Our youngest is in CP - the first official year of school. But in reality all French kids have been at school in les maternelles from about 3. CP just formalises the learning and when they officially start to read. He has the Grand Section of maternelles with him in the morning and the CE1 (class above CP) with him all day. In the words of the teacher - she's not left with any time for the fun stuff in class because she is concentrating on the reading, writing and maths between the 3 ages. The eldest is in CM1, the second last year of primary school. He has CE2 and CM2 in the same room with him. His teacher is also the headmaster. He doesn't teach on a Friday so that he can do the paperwork that goes along with the job. There are no TA's and no school secretary. This is a French country village school with only 65 children.

The school has made efforts to accommodate those children who don't have French as their first language. This means that Monday and Tuesday they are in their respective age group classes following the national curriculum. Then on a Thursday and Friday those who don't speak French have special teacher who comes in to teach French language. There is a centre for asylum seekers nearby so there are a number of children who are in the group. The boys are coming out with more words at home, slotting them in the middle of english sentences.

The boys have also joined a football club. Unfortunately the training is at different times. The youngest on a Saturday and the eldest on a Tuesday at a village 15 minutes away. This makes it a logistical juggling ball to get the youngest to basketball in the village closest to the house at the same time the other is meant to start football! A french neighbour across the way has a son who does the football training and he has offered to take our eldest - so hope he remembers!

To sum up - how's it been so far? Well for the boys they are slowly making headway with the language and feeling more sure of what happens at school. My husband has headed back to work in the UK to ensure that we can still pay the bills. And me? Well I lost my best friend and am left feeling a bit liked a beached ship. I speak the language, but not as well as I would like and talking can sometimes be an effort. I end up restricting it to what I need to say. We are in the countryside and I am discovering that the beautiful sunrise over the Pyrenees, the huge numbers of birds of prey and deer loping over the fields is not sufficient. I need more stimulus, more options of courses and activities. And, I never thought I would say this, I miss like minded people - who have given up a birth country to settle in another. But that is why we decided to rent for 6 months whilst house hunting. We have committed to no more than a mobile phone contract and the cost to register the car in France.

Week four looms with 2 challenges - getting the headlights swapped over to LHD ones and a day's training in ski de fond (x-country skiing) for me so that I can accompany the school on their day out in early Feb. Just need to find skis to rent, find out where the course is and understand it! Not much then! Will update how it all went next week.

New Year - New Country

Well, almost 2 years since my last post. We've swapped sand for farmers' fields and views of the Pyrenees. Birds of prey everywhere - sitting on fence posts or tree branches or even on the ploughed fields. We've narrowly missed being hit by a deer streaming across the road in the dark and we've spotted 2 red squirrels. In the past month we've managed to move a houseful of our belongings to storage and travel with 9 bags, one box and 2 cats from the Middle East to France. Squeezed in a UK family Christmas and started our 6 month adventure in France.

The boys have started in the local school and we've managed to survive the first 2 and a half weeks!

Small Community Living

Living in a small, enclosed community like an expat compound, has benefits and many drawbacks. It is good to know all your neighbours and comforting to have them to turn to if you need help - for anything from that vital ingredient for your dinner party dish to looking after one of your children as you have to take the other to the medical centre. 

The main pool and meeting place

Flash floods

Our local pool

However there is no anonymity after a bad day at work for your spouse - because they all work together when one makes a decision it tends to affect everyone else. Resentment brought home from work can spread to their wives and before you know it you're being ignored for something that happened to their husband at work! Living in a closed community where the majority of wives cannot work also leads to bored women with nothing better to do than fill their time with coffee and gossip. Combine this with a culture that forbids women from driving and you have a recipe for a hotbed of gossip and misunderstandings as there is no escape and very little opportunity to find a different group of people to do activities with. Hence the pleasure and escape of the internet. Here I can visit different worlds and be anonymous.