Grey is so NOT the colour...

It's an evening of short posts, I'm afraid. But I really wanted to show you a couple of pictures.

I remember when I first visited Russia, back in 1995. I have to say that my expectations of the architecture I would see were not very high and I assumed, based on various gritty films that I'd seen, that the prevailing impression I would receive in person would be much the same; paint-peeling tower blocks, impressive and intimidating Stalinist monoliths, and grey, everywhere.

Surprise surprise, even 15 years ago Moscow wasn't like that. Sure, the monoliths and crumbling tower blocks were there, but so were fanciful palaces and cutting edge modern architecture. Now of course, capitalism has done both it's best and it's worst and there have been both improvements and architectural atrocities committed in the name of progress. However, even having lived here for the best part of a year, I imagined that outside of the cities utilitarian design would be all one would see.

As ever of course, Russia does love to prove me wrong...

These are some typical cottages that I photographed in the Tver Region (about 4 hours north of Moscow) this weekend. The area is not what you might call wealthy and yet, grey and utilitarian? I don't think so. (Pay particular attention to the window frames and please note; I did not have to search for examples like these; they were ten-a-penny...)

Help Wanted...

It seems like I'm shouting a lot about charitable causes these days. I'm not going to apologise for that, but I do understand that 'charity fatigue' is real and that we all experience it from time to time.

However, here's a short film from Unicef about Pakistan that I was forwarded today and I think is worth watching. (And I do think it's amusing that they sent me this one, what with it's featuring the quite watchable Ewan McGregor and all. What am I - an easily pigeon-holed Mummy Blogger or something?)

Observations #102

It doesn't do to make too good a job of it when you are asked to write the minutes for a PTO meeting. Otherwise all future written communication will suddenly become your job...

Getting a group of lateral-thinking women together to plan a school event (like, for example, a Craft Fair) is all very well and you will end up with some very creative ideas. Just bear in mind that when you try to translate your notes to write up the minutes it may take some time to join up all the dots, what with all the jumping around from subject to subject that you will do during said creative discussions.

There will always be one woman who is as much concerned with the colour & design of the team t-shirt as she is with making sure the event runs smoothly.

The 'C' word is not a four letter one in the school my son attends. The 'C' word, never to be uttered in the school for fear of upsetting the authorities who have chosen to ignore it (along with, let it be said, all other religiously based festivals no matter what the faith), is 'Christmas'...

...Consequently I am planning on making a trip to the Christmas department in Selfridges on my next trip back to England to buy as much offensively festive kit as possible, and may even do the school run from end November onwards in a Santa Claus bobble hat.

Keep your head down and take a step backwards when your son's class teachers ask for helpers. Do not under any circumstances stand there waving your hand in the air, admit to having written some children's stories and then offer to read them to the class. Or you will find yourself nominated 'Writer in Residence' and in charge of steering the children's first creative writing lessons. (It's 'put your money where your pen is' time...)

That low key party you've planned for your son's 7th birthday? There ain't no such thing as a low key party for a 7 year old...

In which I admit my involvement with the PTO...

Yesterday evening I spent a very pleasant hour or so catching up with some neighbours over a glass of wine. All of our children go to the same school so it wasn't surprising when that entered the discussion.

I can't quite remember how it came up, but one of my friends mentioned the PTO - a force to be reckoned with, and not an organisation you mess with at this school.

Many expat communities these days are full of ladies (and they are mostly ladies, though I hate to generalise) who formerly had quite high powered jobs and who now as 'trailing spouses' (god I hate that term, especially since it applies to me) find themselves with plenty of time on their hands and no project to use it for. So when these ladies are looking about for something to do, if they have school-age children they often fix on the PTO as a place to expend their excess energy and creativity. This can only be to the advantage of any organisation on the receiving end of their attentions, of course; the women concerned are often highly organised, no-nonsense go-getters who make things happen. And Moscow is no exception.

However.

From the outside I have to admit that these ladies can seem a little... intimidating... at times. Which is why I had to laugh when my friend and I had the following conversation...

Friend: "And then of course, there are those dreadful things organised by the PTO. Like the children's Craft Fair, for example. It's awful! All pre-fabricated stuff, no proper creativity involved at all. Stick on a sequin and you're done. Where's the craft in that?"

I start to laugh, somewhat hysterically.

Friend: "What? What?"

Me: "Guess what I'm doing over the next couple of months?"

Friend: "...What?"

Me: "Organising something for the PTO. And guess what it is?"

Friend (the awful truth starting to dawn) "...What?"

Me: "The children's Craft Fair..." (more laughter)

Money can't buy these moments.

Note: I did then get some very helpful hints on how not to organise a craft fair, and also some tongue-in-cheek suggestions on how to manage my PTO 'career' (their words, not mine) to ensure world domination in the shortest possible time. Suffice it to say that I was quick to explain that was not my objective; the only reason I got involved with this particular event was because I was told that as the first fair in the school calendar it was over quickly and I could then rest on my laurels for the remainder of the year. I'm not kidding myself, of course. Like that's going to happen...

British Mummy Blogger of the Week

Evening all...

Every Sunday when I sit down to write this post (oh, all right, most Sundays, when I'm not swept up in back to school fever like I was last week, for example), I take a look through my secret-oh-so-secret notes to see which of the new blogs I've checked out recently I would like to nominate as this week's reading. And then, just to check I haven't missed anyone new, I visit the British Mummy Blogger's Ning member's section and take a look through that and visit a few more.

Normally that takes a while. (Suffice it to say it's a good thing I only have access to Russian tv as I have no distractions to lure me away from the task in-hand. Well, it's either that or watching my way through the last series of '24' again and since I didn't stay awake the first time I watched it, well, thank god for blogging is all I can say...)

However, this evening on my visit to the BMB member's page I hit paydirt with only the second blog I visited...

We're at that stage in Boy #1's education where reading is moving from being a chore to him to something he loves. I'm a bookworm myself so it's a delight to me to see him with his head buried in a book, even if it is about Ben 10 or PowerRangers rather than something more edifying (he is only 6, after all). So any hints on finding new books for him to read - or for me to read to him - are gratefully received, which is why when I read this blog I was immediately interested.

Natasha Worswick writes that her blog is:

'...about lots of things really, but it tends to focus on children’s books (the ones I’ve enjoyed or not), the publishing industry, children’s marketing and tracking my son Milo’s reading habits.'

I liked her post about hospital books, and ideas of titles you can use to entertain children on long journeys. And as for the link to the Q&A page of Andrew Stanton's site - brilliant. I will definitely be adding his books to the Boys' collection.

For the British Mummy Blogger's Ning click here. (Note: it says 'Mummy', but Dads can be members too).

Sisters Under The Skin #blogladesh

If you are are a member of the British Mummy Bloggers community, I imagine that by now you will have picked up on the fact that 3 British bloggers have travelled out to Bangladesh with Save The Children to see for themselves the work that is being done there - and the work that still needs to be done. And if you are on Twitter, I can't imagine there's much chance of your having avoided the wealth of tweets with the #blogladesh hashtag that have been circulating for the last few weeks.

I'm not going to write here about their experiences; why paraphrase what has already been written about so honestly? You can keep up to date with their posts and tweets on their trip here, on The Save The Children site.

No, I just wanted to say how incredibly proud I am of these bloggers and what they are currently doing.

When I first heard about this trip I have to admit to feeling both envy that I wasn't going, and more than faint sense of apprehension on their behalf. To be pulled so far out of your comfort zone, to be confronted with the effects of poverty in such an in-your-face-manner, and to do that from behind the lucky side of the have/have-not division, well, that's got to be hard. I'm met all of these women; they're not saints, they're ordinary mums with families and jobs that they need to attend to, and yet they rose to the challenge offered to them by Save The Children and are out there right now, seeing it, feeling it, writing about it, for all of us who can't be there.

Why? Well, in the words of the Save The Children website:

Every year almost 9 million children under the age of five die. We can change that. Passionate about our work, our bloggers will be tweeting, creating video and photogalleries and writing about their experiences live and direct.

How you can help

Nick Clegg will be at the UN Summit in New York at the end of September with a crucial opportunity to ensure world leaders re-commit to the Millennium Development Goals - which are currently way off track.

Make as much noise as possible. Follow our bloggers on their journey, watch their videos and re-tweet their story.

Press for change. Help us collect 100,000 thumbprints. Together we can stop the scandal of 9 million child deaths a year.

I've shown my support and signed the petition at Press for Change; and if you haven't already, I hope you can find it in yourself to do the same.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls...

I'm running scared of the resumption of my Russian classes with Ludmilla. The first one has not been scheduled yet but, as sure as I'm going to not have lost any weight on my 'thinking about dieting but doing precious little about it' regime this week, I know it'll be soon. As a result I'm trying to reverse some of the damage that a summer of being out of Russia had done on my already negligible command of the language, and to that end have resurrected my dusty copy of 'Learn Russian with Rosetta Stone'.

I am now having great fun providing free entertainment for our neighbours (who can see straight into our uncurtained dining room where I do most of my computer-based stuff,) as I sit here with headphones on, shouting at the laptop along the lines of 'That's what I said, dammit! I said 'yellow bicycles', you bloody machine!' and frying my brain for as long as I can stand when Husband is out for the evening...

This does mean however that the hours between the Boy's Bedtime and my own, when I was previously free to witter at will into the ether, are now somewhat curtailed hence the lower frequency of posts.

Something tells me you'll live.

In the meantime though, here are some of the highlights of Boy #2's first couple of days at school:

Running full tilt down the corridor outside his class with outstretched arms, and hitting his rather round teacher in her rather well-padded stomach. Not the best impression to make on your first day of school - although I do think she could have taken the whole thing slightly better...

Saying to me, as we left together after his lunch time pick-up (a little first two week 'present' the school gives the parents) and I tried - unsuccessfully - to take his hand; 'The children here don't hold their mummy's hands, mama.'

Ah well. It had to happen sometime, I suppose...

(I'm comforting myself with the fact that on the other hand, Boy #2 has now stopped giving wet sloppy raspberry kisses and has started to give proper ones, along with hugs, when we say hello and goodbye to each other at the door of his classroom. It's a fair trade, I suppose)