Am I back? Well, sort of...

The holidays are over (for us, anyway), the Potski family are back in Moscow, and Boys #1 and #2 are back in school which, after 9 weeks with them 24/7 is - I have to admit - a bit of relief.

It's not that I don't enjoy spending time with my children, you understand.

Just that it's quite nice have a bit of time myself.

I have a long list of stuff I need to get sorted, not least of which is editing Draft #1 of The Great Work*, and which I have promised myself I will have finished by the end of September.  There's other stuff happening too; planning for the future, putting the pieces in place to make that future possible, and of course, losing the holiday weight.

I know, I know.  You're supposed to lose weight over the summer months, not gain it, but put yourself in my shoes; I live in Moscow.  7 weeks of being away from Russia and the somewhat limited treats available here and then, come the end of June, being thrown into a life where suddenly fresh French bread and croissants are on the table every day for breakfast, delicious Dutch deep fried treats are available as appetisers to accompany all that gorgeous and reasonably priced wine back in the EU, not to mention un-fettered access to Green & Black's salted milk chocolate when we were in the UK...  It was never going to end well, was it?


*Not its' real title, obv...

On conspicuous consumption and turning into your parents

Husband and I are in London - without the kids - for a couple of 'days off' before we fly back to Moscow as a family.  I love London.  It's home (I believe I may have said that on here before...) and I hope that once we've finished our time in Russia, we return to it, but I must say that the extreme levels of conspicuous consumption that I see all around are slightly worrying.

The number of people who assumed that we were heading back here for the sales to buy more 'stuff' before we go back home surprised me;  for a start, we have two young sons who have just spent Christmas with their extended families.  How much more 'stuff' does one family need than the amount we already have to cram into our luggage allowance? (Admittedly, Husband and I are responsible for the purchase of much of the 'stuff', but I still reserve the right to mutter to myself about plastic crap when we try to pack it all away in a few days time.  It's my right as a mother, surely?)

And whilst we're on the subject of consumption, we went to the cinema last night, to see 'Skyfall'.  We don't tend to go to the movies in Russia - in fact, apart from the odd time that I take the Boys over the summer break, we don't really go at all, and certainly not just the two of us; by the time you factor in getting to and from the cinema, childcare, and then the cost of getting the babysitter home again, we might as well go out for dinner, so it's been a while since we did this.  We enjoyed the film (although Husband did wonder where all the blondes in James Bond films have disappeared to recently - to which I responded that there was only one blond who mattered and he was in the title role), but the experience left me with this question:

When did I turn into my parents?

It wasn't the sex, the violence, or the occasional bad language that makes me ask this (in fact, now I come to think of it, there was very little of two out of three of those - comparatively speaking).  It wasn't even the girl seated behind us, clearly on a first date, who was loudly sharing WAY more than was probably wise with a potential boyfriend (Mystery, ladies - where's the Mystery?).   No, what causes me to ask this question is my reaction to the constant - incessant - crunching and munching going on around me.  Sitting in that cinema was like being in the middle of a field, surrounded by cows chewing their cud.

Now, I've lived outside the UK for 3 years now, so I suppose I might have missed it.  When was the law stating that no movie experience is complete without a family-sized bucket of popcorn on your lap actually passed?