Still Laundry and No Words

Still attacking the laundry pile. Why does it never diminish? One son has disappeared to the world of school not to be heard from until he needs something. Sniff.

Littlest back to school this morning and that leaves gorgeous ginger son home for the day before he heads off to school tonight. Sniff.

Words will begin again tomorrow. They must. It is imperative that I finish A Cornish House before the rush towards the move begins which it will soon. This morning I was quite weepy handing in a term's notice on littlest school. She began there as a wee thing in a pinafore and now has grown to kilts and proper big girls clothes. Times flies.

I thought I would speak about my wonderful trip to Florida. The photo above was taken by littlest who wrestled control of the camera during a visit to Corkscrew Nature Reserve. The Dh and the three kids went there while I was packing. Out of 40 photos - fifteen are in focus, five are of the family and remainder are of what looks to be leaves and branches and grass. The one above if you look closely has some bird at the centre. It is wonderful when you put a camera in the hands of child. Some of my favorite holiday photos have been taken by the kids. Their perspective is so different to adults. Therefore I will cherish the photo of half a gecko amongst the 40......and post my favorite picture of DH and me taken taken by littlest three years ago in Cairo........

That leads me back to the expat life again. I'm originally from Boston, MA. I left in 1989 and moved to London and since then I have lived in Calgary, London (again), Moscow, Houston, Jakarta, Dubai, London and ????. So going to visit my parents in Florida was very strange this time. I hadn't been back to the States in two years. I felt very strange. I was so out of touch with my native land. I spent hours discussing with friends of my parents the different perspective you have of things when you are away from it. We were specifically discussing the Catholic Church. I was living in Dubai at the time that the Archdiocese of Boston blew up with the abuse scandal. It was reported and discussed and then moved on. Because we didn't have the media harping on about it every two minutes it didn't have the impact it clearly had there. Once it was out and new safe guards put in place it became an issue of the past that needed to be dealt with but didn't affect the daily life of the Church outside Boston. I couldn't understand fully the angst of friends back home who were on the verge of abandoning the Church. It didn't make sense to me dealing with different issues like being a practicing Catholic in an Islamic country - which in Dubai was easy but not so in Jakarta. The issues of poverty and how much more spiritual the Catholics from Asia were seemed to occupy my thinking.

This was just one of the things that struck home when I landed in Florida and thought how far removed I have become from those of my homeland yet I am not one of my husband country either. I am a global nomad now. My perspective has been shaped by my upbringing but all my expat experiences have put a very different twist of how I look at life. I can no longer look a problem from one side..........this I take as being good but there are times when it would be wonderful to have the blinkered vision that comes from being firmly rooted in one spot. It is something my children will never know having been dragged round the world...........

Enough rambling for today. Back to laundry and name tapes. Tomorrow my reality of writing begins :-)