Silent Sunday.

It's meant to be a silent sunday but I never told you that I did get my wonderful new camera for Christmas. So I'm getting to grips with it. Here are a few pictures I took this week. 

A lonely hare in the field on a frosty morning.



Even the spiderwebs were frosty!

Respect on the road

As you know, we moved to the countryside recently and I have noticed that when it comes to respect on the road, the people here are so much more civilized than in the city. Whether you are walking by the side of the road, or cycling or even driving, whenever you pass somebody by on the narrow little country roads, people wave at you. My brother went for a walk with his girlfriend and Marie while on their holidays and they were really surprised when somebody driving a big huge tractor slowed down and waved at them. Somebody they didn't know and will probably never see again. People here are much more courteous and have a lot more respect for each other when driving on those small country roads than they do on big huge motorways. We often joke that, in the city, you are more likely to see somebody doing a quite rude gesture (which involves lifting a specific finger) than somebody waving at you to say hello.
 Mr Foodie, for one, is a lot less stressed out when he comes home from work than he was before. You see, he had to travel on what used to be considered the biggest car park in Ireland, ie the M50, the motorway that circles Dublin. Disrespect is rife there, people not indicating, tailgating, horn honking, you name it, it happens especially in rush hour traffic. Most days, I would be on the other end of the phone when he was driving back (he always uses a Bluetooth though) and I was getting stressed just from hearing him give out to other drivers on the road. He was getting annoyed at blatantly disrespectful drivers who were hogging the fast lane when they should be in the slow The country air has done him the world of good though and he has now turned into one of those courteous, pleasant drivers.

AXA Car Insurance has launched a campaign called AXA Respect On The Road to try and restore respect and courtesy on the British roads. Having experienced what a difference a bit of courtesy and respect make, I went to their Facebook fanpage and gave them a big like, to show my support. If you feel, like me, that we could all do with a bit more respect on our roads, why don’t you do the same?

 They have created a YouTube Channel, on which they show the CabCam, normal people talking to a cab driver about their experience on British roads, lack of courtesy, road rage etc. 

 They have also created a YouTube video, called Road Rage Kids. Everybody has witnessed road rage at least once but this video has a particular twist. It is enacted by 5 year olds replicating behaviours they have witnessed from their parents. Despite being funny, it is also a big eye opener as most of us will probably recognize themselves in it. I know Mr Foodie did. He also commented that you tend to forget who’s in the back and that he is glad now that he isn’t as bad as he used to be.

 So for now on, I respect the road . What about you?
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A product of your environment?

A couple of weeks ago, we started watching a program on BBC3 (from what I have read on other blogs, BBC3 and BBC4 audiences differ widely, please educate me as I haven't got a clue what the difference is between them) called 'Peckham Finishing School for girls'. I know it sounds like a trashy, reality TV kind of program. We started watching it because some of Mr Foodie's relatives live in London and he did find himself in Peckham. I, on the other hand, wouldn't be able to place Peckham on a map, and had never heard of it apart from Mr Foodie's stories. Also, since Glee finished, we need to fill the big void that have become our Wednesday evenings.

Basically, the program centers around 8 girls, 4 upper class, rich girls who have never wanted for anything, and 4 girls from Peckham which I now know is one of the roughest neighbourhoods in London. I believe the aim of the program is to educate one extreme of the society spectrum with the other. The 'golden girls' are portrayed as your stereotypical stuck up upper class person, all about shopping, partying, playing polo, proper etiquette and have never met (it seems) anybody outside of their high upper class social circle. The Peckham girls are portrayed as the opposite stereotype, the somewhat aggressive chavs living on benefits, in a derelict crime ridden estate.

It's full of the usual stereotypes which make me cringe and it feels that none of them really want to learn from each other's life and everything will go back to normal after the show. Some of these 'fish out of water' programs sometimes lead to changes in people but I really think this one is doomed. They won't keep in contact, there won't be any life changing act of kindness at the end of it. It won't make for memorable TV and certainly won't be TV anthology. But, as there has to be a but, it got me thinking (oops, watch that steam coming out of my ears!): Are we a product of our own environment?

Of course, you can't answer this question without generalizing. I don't have enough knowledge and experience of what it's like to grow up on a crime ridden estate, or on the other type of estate (the one with mansions and horses) to be able to answer without generalizing. But I think the program really shows that, to a point, you are. The girls' speech, accents, vocabulary, dress sense, attitudes all prove to be the result of how and where they grew up and what they had to deal with in their life. Now, I don't believe for a second that you can't break free from your environment and are doomed forever to live on an estate if that's where you grew up. But you will always carry with you something, whether it be skills or knowledge from that environment.

What I know for sure us that I, for one, am a product of my environment. I grew up in a middle class working family in the countryside. Although I knew that it happened, I never really encountered drugs or crime until I went to college. I am not street wise. I am somewhat naive when it comes to all this. Where I come from, we are all pretty polite to each other, I never witnessed fights, bar brawls, shouting in the street, public drunkenness etc until I was in my late teens. I am comfortable with my own company having grown up with no neighbours my age. I love food because my mum and dad were into food. I love reading because that's pretty much all there was to do where I lived. I have the same political opinions as my parents. I am not comfortable with aggressive behaviour and name calling because I never grew up with that kind of thing. I am not good at answering tit for tat when being verbally challenged because I never really had to. I was kind of sheltered from some of the hard realities of life. I am, to a point, the stereotypical country girl even though I have lived in an urban environment for more than 12 years now.

I can safely say that Mr Foodie is also a product of his environment. He grew up in a working class urban environment and is a lot wiser than I am. He has seen a lot more than I have. He knows how to react in some situations in which I would only panic and be completely out of my depth.

We were recently talking to someone we know, who happens to live in what would be considered an underprivileged area. And I was amazed (yet slightly uncomfortable) at how they were describing the everyday life there. Police raids taking place, drug dealing, stealing from shops, people in and out of jail, name calling from a young age etc. Yet, they were relating these events in the same way my grand father used to tell me about his vegetables growing in the garden. Things I would personnally be horrified to witness on a daily basis were just 'normal' for them. Not that they approved of them, far from it, but they had developed a 'That's life, it does happen' kind of attitude, some kind of shell that I don't think I could develop. Don't get me wrong, I know it happens, I have seen it happen but it doesn't make me anymore comfortable with it.

I have also seen how children adapt to the environment they are in. Marie has sometimes come back from Noodleland using words we don't use, speaking differently to the way we speak, or with knowledge on some things that we didn't give to her (like how to french kiss age 5, anybody?). Children, in some socio-economic conditions, have to grow up a lot faster than they should. And I don't think that's right.

Which is why I am glad we are moving to the countryside. Some people might say that I am trying to shield my children away from reality and I suppose I am. I am just trying to give my children the best conditions for them to grow in (without making them sound like some kind of fruit or vegetable), keeping their innocence a bit longer. They won't be living completely in a bubble, ignoring even the existence of things like these but they won't get to experience them first hand, day in, day out. They will gain from my and Mr Foodie's experience and hopefully will become a product of our own environment, a mix of streetwise country naivety, if that's ever possible. I certainly don't want them to be like either of the groups from that program, one completely clueless to life outside their golden cage, and the other that has seen too much in too little time.

So what do you think? Are you a product of your environment? Or do you think my theory is completely flawed? Let us know!

This is the one.

I have been trying to write a post since last Friday. I have typed it, erased, started over more times than I can count. I really wanted to talk about that particular subject but whenever I wrote down my thoughts, it was never the way I wanted it to be. I am particularly stubborn so I kept on trying everyday to write it. And now today, I'm giving up. I will write about it sometime, when the words come flowing more easily.

A while back I wrote about how we had decided to move at the end of the school year. And now the end of the school year is near. We spent a couple of months looking on the Internet for places that we liked and areas that we liked. We did our research on schools and travelling times etc. We have a fair idea of what we want. A bungalow, with no neighbours overlooking, a nice garden for the girls, within a reasonable distance of Mr Foodie's job, not too far from a primary school with available places (not that easy to come by, really!) and that would allow us to save a couple of hundred euros a month on rent. We don't want to live in an estate, we want to get out of the city. I know it sounds quite picky, let's just say we know what we want.

The week before last we went to visit a house. It was a bad case of 'don't judge a book by its cover' reversed. The few pictures on the website looked great. The exterior looked OK, the couple of pictures of the interior also. So we went on a Saturday to view the house. And it was not at all was we expected. The wallpaper was a faded pinkish colour, adorned with big pink flowers which very much intrigued Noelie as she kept pointing at them asking: 'Wassa?' (we aren't sure yet if she is asking 'what's that?' in English or it's equivalent in French 'C'est quoi ca?). The carpet was the typical dark green, also adorned with big pink flowers. The wooden window frames looked very much rotten. And it was overlooked by an entire estate of lovely new houses. Sure, it was just across the road from the local primary school and within our budget, and the garden was also very nice. I know you're supposed to look for the potential of the house but with renting, there is only so many alterations you are allowed to do. So it was a no go for us. I'm sure though that somebody will find it to their liking.

We called a couple of places too, one of which was a magnificent renovated cottage, with stone walls etc. But the landlady didn't want pets and giving away our cats is not really an option. We also found out that it was the servants quarters of a 'castle' in which the land lady lived. On Monday, we arranged to view another 3 houses in the countryside. The first one was a nice 5 bedroom cottage (although we don't need 5 bedrooms, it was still within our price range). It was nearly perfect if it wasn't for the busy main road and the number of trucks passing by. The second one was only a minute down the road. We waited there for the estate agent and as soon as we got out of the car, were hit by an awful smell of sewage. We nearly left before the estate agent arrived as we knew straight away that this wasn't really what we were looking for. We had also read that these particular houses although newly built had a few structural problems due to the poor quality of materials used during building. We mentioned it to the estate agent who apparently did not have a clue about it (or pretended not to). The interior was nice although quite dirty. Unfortunately, it was even closer to the busy main road than the previous one and the garden was also overlooked by an entire estate. So another no go for us.

The last viewing of the day was only a few miles down the road but unsure of the directions Mr Foodie called the landlord and he very kindly offered to come to where we were so that we would only have to follow him. We were waiting in the car park of the local pub/shop/church/graveyard and were jokingly discussing what type of car the landlord would be driving. Mr Foodie, again joking, said that he sounded like a farmer that probably drove a big jeep. And to our surprise, a big black jeep turned up, one of those designed so that you can carry livestock at the back. And it was the landlord. We followed him on the 'scenic route' (his words). He obviously knew the road as he was swerving left and right to avoid big pot holes. Our poor little Punto had trouble keeping up with him. We even thought we had lost him at some stage. We got to the house in one piece though and viewed it. It was a little bit more expensive than the other two. It was also about twice the size of the other two if not more. There are no neighbours overlooking the garden, unless you count cows as neighbours. And the primary school is just a minute down the road. So we have made up our minds and this is the one. It is only 25 minutes away from Mr Foodie's job, in a lovely area, private yet close to the the school. Just perfect.

We're going to meet the landlord again tomorrow and pay our deposit. We won't move until the end of this month / beginning of next one. But the landlord didn't have any problems with this. I'm off to meet the principal of the school sometime next week or the week after. The biggest thing will now be to tell Noodlehead that we are moving about an hour away and (hopefully) find an agreement for the access. I have already come up with a proposal that, although reducing the frequency of the visits to once every 2 weeks, actually increases the length of them and gives him an extra overnight. So fingers crossed, he will accept it and we will be able to avoid going back to court and we can all be civil about it.

Wish me luck !