Families: Who'd have 'em?

Well, I certainly would! What a joy it was to see my sister, brother-in-law and niece on Sunday. And to have my son and his girlfriend here too! It was almost perfect, but not quite. Perfection is Familyville. Now, everyone seems to think this is a VERY bad idea, but wait a bit........let me sell it to you. Sit back and imagine for a moment........
You buy/build a house. You live in it with your significant other and your child/ren. Child gets too big for boots, needs own space but loves mummy and daddy to bits and VV. So child buys/builds house next door to live in with significant other. This Sig Oth wants his/her brother/sister/cousin/aunt to live close by so THEY buy/build house in Familyville and so-on and so-on until you have ALL your relatives living round you but not WITH you. No more long journeys to visit Aunt Maudlin........just walk down the street. Birthday bashes are a doddle.....pop round the corner to the restaurant which is run by Uncle Fungle and his family. You wouldn't have to worry where your kids had gone, cos as long as they are in familyville, they would be with a relative. And finding a babysitter would be as easy as falling off a highchair.
Of course there are a few little problems with Familyville, and I am sure you will think of some, but as a concept, you have to admit it is brilliant! Maybe, in a sense, that is where we are at anyway, as I guess everyone is related to someone else if you go back far enough. Maybe my husband is really my 15th cousin 28 times removed. Maybe (and this is the dodgy bit) I am the 14th pale descendant of someone with a nasty streak. But, as the song says 'we are family'.
I still enjoyed seeing the family on Sunday. It is great to be able to laugh, cry, argue etc with them, knowing that they will still love me, whatever, and will want to see me again and laugh,cry,argue etc all over again. I think it is the sure and certain knowledge of this love that makes me such a keen supporter of Familyville. I mean, imported people (friends & lovers) don't have to make this commitment and you can never be 100% sure of them. Does that make me unlucky with my friends or lucky with my family?
Typing this Blog in Georgia, probably 12. Whoever thought that Times New Roman 10pt was a suitable default font for ANYTHING needs trepanning. Arial 10 is just as bad. Can't read it without a microscope, and it is Soooooooooooooooooo old-fashioned. First thing I did at my office was to change default font to something readable, and we currently use Tahoma 12, modern without being brash and big enough to read without specialist equipment.
Hey, I heard that the house next door to you is vacant................when can I move in?

On Sisters and kind people and being alone

Kind people. A bit like London Buses. You wait for ages then 2 come along at the same time. So there I am in my flat, on my own. Anyone who knows me also knows that I HATE being on my own. I mean...........what is the point? You have no-one to talk to, to moan at, to laugh with. No-one to see what you are doing. No-one to enjoy a CD with, or watch TV with. Existence is pretty pointless on your own..........thank goodness that for me it is only a temporary state, or I might be persuaded to buy a cat to talk to. As I was saying, there I was, on my own and my lovely son pops round, all sweaty from Kick-Boxing and didn't just stay a few minutes, but a very agreeable 45. Of course, while he is there, my equally lovely sister phoned for a chat and I had to say 'not now'.....which I hate doing to any kind people. (Last week I had 3 kind people contact me which resulted in 2 dinner dates and one, sadly, had to be refused until another time). Later I phoned my sister and had a heartfelt and heartwarming talk. She is the epitome of kindness, and after years of being my sister, seems to know just the right moment to inject a dose of reality, love, humour and common-sense. How sad to hear the news about her sweet cat Arietty, who has died after, it appears, ingesting some poison, despite the best efforts of the vet. It makes me wonder whether people who routinely poison cats and many other animals (as in Greece, for example) should be made to watch the suffering they cause. Maybe it would make a difference.
I am still home alone, but it feels different now. I have been reminded of the people who care about me, that they DO think about me and like to keep in touch. Makes me think about some of the alone people I know.......I think I will share some of this good feeling among them too.
Great stuff. Goodnight

Hot, Hot, Hot in Paradise

Well, I seem to have neglected my Blog lately.........its just so hot, it makes my brain go twirly. I am still resident in Greece, but this is about to change as I prepare to pack up and ship my life back to UK for a while.

It's funny, this paradise thing. When we arrived in Greece as part of our big European tour, it was nearly Christmas, and it was warm enough to spend Christmas day on the beach. Festivities included a beach barbecue. Now for a UK resident, this seemed like paradise. I hate the cold and wet. I loathe snow. I abhor wind and am frightened of storms. Here, by the beach, in the sun, with the temperature in the high 20's and the sea twinkling in the morning light, I thought I had found the place of my dreams. This, I told everyone, is where I am going to spend the rest of my days.

I think that all that sun must have affected my power of logical thought. If I had given just one hour to this process, I would have realised that a place that has winter temperatures in the high 20's was going to get pretty damn hot in the summer. By May, the midday temperature in the sun on my patio was in the high 30's, and I had turned into a recluse, going out only in the early morning or late evening, and spending the rest of the day in the comparitive cool of the house. Used to sitting outside in the long English summer evenings, I was disconcerted by the speedy onset of darkness here....about 1/2 an hour after sunset. Sitting outside in the cooler night air seemed a good option, except that the mosquitoes think likewise, and they want to sit on,and bite, ME.

And that's another thing......CREATURES! In my hour of logical thought, if I had one, I would have realised that any place that gets REALLY hot would be home to creatures that LIKE it really hot. So there are a geckos living in the house, snakes, scorpions and BIG lizards living in the garden and any number of wriggling, flying, stinging and biting things that just won't leave me alone. We have some nameless, possibly huge and violent, possibly small and creepy, creature living in our roof space, and I dread the day when he works out how to get into bed with me.

I found myself longing for English rain!! I want to live where, although there are creatures, they are known and mostly leave me alone (Why don't UK mozzies bite me?) Suddenly, paradise as a concept is suspect. Is there a place on earth where EVERYTHING is perfect? I imagine that I am going to have to compromise, wherever I settle. So I am coming back to England, I will be stoic about the unpredictability of the weather in return for a bit of nice rain and temperatures more suited for humans, rather than lizards.

Yesterday, the temperature on our patio in the sun reached 110 deg F. Enough is enough.

Wonderful Webcams

Although I am well over 1000 miles away from my son and heir, tonight we both managed to get our webcams and mikes working, and were able to see and talk to each other. Isn't that just the business? I don't think we have the best software, because both the images and the sound are delayed and jerky, but who cares? To be able to see him AND talk to him? Maybe I need a video phone next. mmmmmmmmm, now there's an idea...................

Musing on Coincidences and Cuppas

Up at 6am this morning, just as it is getting light. It is beautiful outside, and I took my first mug of tea and sat on the patio and listened to the dawn chorus. This time, and early evening are my favourite times outside, when the sun is mild and the air fresh. I sometimes wonder what I am doing living in the hottest part of one of the hottest countries in Europe! I seem to spend most of the day avoiding the sun!

Election fever seems to be hotting up and as I sat outside I mused.........this is something that has to be done at least once a day. My thoughts were all about coincidences, what strange things they are? It is easy to understand how some people think that there are external forces at work on our lives. Now who would have believed that actor Tony Booth, who was so funny as the Labour-supporting son-in-law of Alf Garnett in TV's 'Till Death Us Do Part', would end up being the Labour Prime Minister's father-in-law? And how come, when Neil yelled out 'What a Save!' at a football matchon the TV, I should just have placed 'Save' as my word for my computer scrabble game? Too many times to count, I would select a client's records on the computer at work (for no reason other than it was the next in line for routine checking) and that client would telephone, often for the first time in months. Weird! Sometimes I believe in a parallel universe that warps so close to our own sometimes that events cross over, other times I think this is just baloney and it is all just coincidence.

Another thing I mused on is the standard of tea-making amongst my family and friends. Now my sister and her husband believe that they make the best tea on the planet. So does my son. So does my husband. So do I. And we all make tea differently, using different types of tea and ways of making it. Neil and I went into a specialist tea restaurant in Dijon, early one morning when we were desperate for that first cuppa. From the 100's of teas on offer, we chose one most likely to suit......English Breakfast Tea. It arrived without milk, and even after prodding, was so weak it was almost a fortnight. It also came with delicate bone-china CUPS. We did the best we could, but I was tempted to inform the owner that no self-respecting English Tea-Drinker would drink this at breakfast. Breakfast tea should be a nice pleasing light-to-mid brown (kinda like beech furniture), should be served with milk and no sugar, and be in a MUG (bone china if you insist). This morning, I mused that this is only MY idea of a perfect morning cuppa, and that everyone I know probably has a different point of view. I am such a devoted tea-drinker that I enjoy a cuppa wherever, even gnat's in Dijon.

However, the drink-they-call-tea in Greece bears absolutely no resemblance to anything I recognise as such, and I avoid it. This leaves me in a quandary when it comes to selecting a hot drink when out and about, as I don't like coffee much and there isn't much else to choose. I tend to stick to cold drinks.. fruit juice or water mostly.

Time to get breakfast. Bye for now

Friday 22nd April 2005

Can't sleep. It's 05.40 and apart from me, the only other things awake here are the resident Geckos. When we first came here I would catch them and put them outside, but locals tell me they are a) harmless and
b) beneficial as they catch and eat mosquitos. Our Geckos are very small, probably no more than 4" head to tail, and they run and hide in the roof space when I put the light on.

Neil reckons he can hear them calling when all is quiet in here. However, I am not sure Geckos make a noise and can't find out. Anybody know of a decent website 'everything you wanted to know about Geckos but were afraid to ask'

Thursday 21st April 2005:- Starting Out

Having read my sister's Blog, I thought I would have a try at my own.

Why Sossij Sandwich I hear you ask? Well, Sossij is my internet identity, based on the nickname given to me by my dearest husband Neil. And I firmly believe that almost anything that is good to eat tastes better in a sandwich. The sandwich is quite probably the cure for anything that is wrong with the world, but it has yet to be put to the test. I mean, how can you harbour murderous thoughts whilst tucking in to a peanut butter and marmalade sandwich?