#TheTippingPoint & #Syria

Do you have blog? If you don't have a blog, do you tweet?  Even if you do neither of these things, tomorrow is a chance for you to get involved in a collective protest about recent events in Syria.

Tomorrow (Friday 1st June) I - and many other bloggers - will be blogging and tweeting about Syria.  In my case, it will be specifically about what happened in Houla last Friday.  We will also be linking to and retweeting other people's posts and tweets, in an effort to raise awareness of the situation there and in the hope that in some small way we can add to the impetus to stop the killing.

We don't have the answer.  And yes, our contribution will be only words.  But if we don't try using words, then the alternatives - as featured in yesterday's Times - are just too horrific to contemplate.

Please join us.

Check here for more details.

The Gallery: Sunshine

This post is for Wk 101 of Tara's Gallery - click here to see all the other entries...

So, the prompt for this week's Gallery was 'sunshine'.  And Tara, bless her, threw down a direct challenge to me when she wrote in her post 'I must also apologise to a certain Russian blogger who is going to find this a veeery tough theme . . . '

Once upon a time - before I lived here - I would have agreed with her that finding sunshine in Russia might be a big ask.  But after two and a half years I have to say that in summer at least, finding sunshine is not a problem.  So much so that rather than having to trawl through the archives for a suitably sunny photo, I decided instead to hold fire and simply take a photo on the walk to school this morning.  It's not art - but it is sunny.

So. Trees, and sunshine.  What more could you ask for, Ms Cain? Unless, of course, you were expecting snow and ice.  In which case, I can always show you this...

Although, just to be clear - the second photo was NOT taken today. That was a March shot from last year...  What do you mean, you don't believe me?

What If?

I fell over in the street yesterday.  It was a Proper Incident; there was chance meeting between my foot and the ubiquitous nail-left-sticking-out-of-the-pavement so beloved by Russian workmen, followed by a crazy lurch forwards, a lack of free hands to stop myself hitting the ground (I was just walking out of the supermarket), a set of impressively grazed knuckles, and a nasty thud as my right temple hit the bumper of a parked car.

I lay there for a couple of seconds, wondering why my head was pounding so and whether the noise in my ears was normal after such a blow, before realising that the impact with the bumper had set off the car's burglar alarm.  (Do nothing by half measures, that's my motto.)

I was shaken, but felt fine once I'd brushed myself off, wiped the blood from my hands, and driven home (I know, I know, but it was the only way).  Then I sat down with an ice pack held to my temple for about 3 hours and watched a kids movie.  I was a bit teary, but after a visit from a lovely neighbour who checked my pupils, and some time on the sofa I felt sure I would be OK.  Of course, I wasn't - not completely - in hindsight I had a mild concussion, but all's well that ends well.  Yes, I have a bruise, and a slight headache still, but that's only to be expected when you do a reasonable impression of a crash test dummy without the air bag - or, indeed, the car.

Would I have gone to the hospital to get myself checked out if we'd been in London? Probably, yes.  Not because I really thought I had done myself serious damage, but just to put my mind at rest.  As it is, I picked up the kids as usual in the afternoon, had a reasonably early night, and woke up this morning feeling much better.

But I have a confession.  When I put my sons to bed last night, I made sure that I gave them proper hugs, and told them that I loved them.  Not that I don't do that most evenings, but you know how rushed these things can be at the end of a long fraught bedtime routine.  And whilst we were going through our own long fraught bedtime routine last night, I remembered a woman that I met when Boy #1 first started nursery.  I didn't get to know her well; we'd only chatted a couple of times at the school gate before she left London on a short trip with her 2 year old and her new born son to go and visit her parents in the US, to introduce them to the newest member of her family.

You've probably guessed that the reason I'm telling you this is because she never came back.  She and her family arrived at her parents, they went to bed, and she - well, she never woke up. She had developed DVT on the flight, and died in her sleep that night as a result of it.

Clearly, this made an impression on me.  I don't think of her often; I have to be honest and admit that I can't even remember her full name, but every now and again her story comes back to me.  And whilst yesterday I knew I was going to be OK, that I hadn't seriously injured myself, the thought kept crossing my mind.  What if?

So without making a big song and dance about it, I made damn sure that my boys knew I loved them when they went to bed last night, and did the same again this evening.  I'm sure it won't last long, this new initiative - probably only as long as the next underwear in the loo incident when they get undressed for their bath - but it's already garnered me some extra cuddles and some 'I love you, Mummy's back.

Because you never really know what tomorrow morning might hold.

Pleasing all of the people some of the time...

...Or - On the thorny issue of buying teacher gifts at the end of the school year 

 A Russian friend recently asked me to help her select the end of year present for our children’s class teacher.  I knew that this was as much for my expat point of view as for my exquisite taste (noticing that would be a neat trick when, like so many foreigners here, I live in a home almost entirely furnished by Ikea), so I happily agreed and we spent an eventually fruitful couple of hours wandering through Izmailovosky Market in search of the perfect gift.

It took a while, because my friend was concerned that we hit the right tone with whatever we chose; the class our children are in has a fair proportion of pupils with Russian parents whose expectations were for us to buy something sophisticated and memorable as a ‘goodbye and thank you’ gift.  I, on the other hand, am a hick expat who loves Russia as much for it’s brash in your face kitchness and bling factor as for it’s wealth of culture and history, so my expectations were somewhat different.

Plus, if I’m honest, I don’t much care what the Russian parents’ expectations might be; you can only please all of the people some of the time, and in this case it seemed to me that it was more important to please the teacher – who like myself is an expat, and without baggage about the impressions other people might form of Russia from a simple end of year gift – than to worry what message the gift might convey.

This seems to me to be a recurrent situation here: Russians who are showing off their country are often very concerned with ensuring that visitors know there is more to their capital city than matrioshka dolls, Lenin’s mausoleum, and vodka.  And of course there is; far, far more.  The cultural opportunities available here are astounding, the number of museums astonishing; hell, even a short trip on the metro will show you that this is a city full of unexpected wonders and marvels.  I could wax lyrical for endless pages about the parks, gardens, art galleries, walks, and exhibitions all within easy access of most people here. 

But these are all the experiential foundations of happy memories, and we were looking for something to wrap up in pretty paper and ribbons and hand over at the end of the summer term. Something that can easily be bubble-wrapped at the end of the teacher’s posting in Moscow; not such an easy call.  So it was that when my friend, thwarted in her search for something uniquely Russian that also ticked the boxes marked ‘sophisticated’ and ‘affordable’, turned to me for guidance, I had only one suggestion.

It’s not sophisticated.  It probably won’t impress the local culture vultures. But it is memorable, beautifully crafted, and uniquely Russian, and whilst I’m not going to tell you what we bought – it’s not yet the end of term – have a look at the picture at the top of this post and take a wild guess...

Silent Sunday

Click to enlarge.

I'm navel gazing - again. This time, it's all about anonymity...

God, I wish this blog were anonymous.

If it were anonymous, I could write whatever the hell I liked, about who I liked, when I liked.  I wouldn't have to consider hurt feelings, the possibility of backlashes, the damage that I might do to relationships with an ill-thought out flip sarcastic remark about - well.  I can't actually say what I want to there because, you know, the person I'm saying it about might read this and then they could get upset.  Even if what I want to write is so damn funny that it makes me laugh out loud, sometimes I just can't do it.

Instead, I measure my words.  I pace out my sentences.  I consider my sentiments, and try to ensure that on-screen at least, they are as clearly phrased as possible.  I do everything humanly possible to present myself, my life, and my circumstances in a clean and tidy manner (a place for everything and everything in it's place), when in reality I want to scream and shout and be unreasonable and just fxcking swear out loud sometimes for fxcks' sake.  And I want to write FUCK without using an 'x' instead of a 'u', or worrying that the wrong searches will pick up this blog and get me banned from google or put me on the 'Avoid at All Cost' list for bloggers who care about such things. (For the record, I don't, particularly.  A well placed and relevant expletive is worth more than a glass of wine in lowering my stress levels - or it would be, if I were allowed to use such words as a clean-living mother of two small boys.)

You might be wondering what my problem is.  After all, The Potty Diaries is anonymous, isn't it?  Well, no.  Not really.  Not where it counts.  Sure, there may be one or two members of my family who don't know I blog (my 98 year old grandmother being one of them), but not that many if I sit down and think about it.  And you know what?  I did this.

I. Did. This.

I brought it all on myself.  Oh, I started with good intentions, certainly.  I began writing it late at night, when even my husband was in bed (or away from home), and didn't tell a soul.  I kept it close, kept it secret, worried that if I had to care what other people thought of my writing it would stifle my creativity.  (Yes, yes, I know; it's a blog, not a great novel, for goodness' sake.  I shouldn't be so pretentious about it).  But then - well, then I began to get proud of it.  I started to get readers.  I made friends online.  And not only did it make sense to explain to people what was taking up some of my time (and why, if I'm honest, I was less frustrated with my lot as a stay at home mum, because as you may know; if you do it right, blogging provides some of the best free therapy there is for recovering career women), but I wanted to show it off.

I wanted my nearest and dearest to see how bloody clever I am.  Look at me!  I've taken nothing and made it something!  Aren't I great? Because really, that's one of the big appeals of blogging for me; showing that I still have a brain.

But was giving up my anonymity worth it?

I am aware, of course, that the moment you admit to writing anything online, if it bears any relation to your 'real' life, a determined searcher can find you with very few problems.  So if I'm honest about it, the chances of a blog's author remaining undetected and truly anonymous are practically zilch.  And then there's always the future to consider; once you write something, it's out there.  For as long as this is an internet-fueled world, it's out there.  No matter that you might take down your blog, delete your posts, consign all your musings to the metaphorical circular file; somewhere they will be on record.  So screaming like a harpy about your child's issues / love life / family concerns / general gripes and moans could be seen as inadvisable if you don't want a  curious teen to learn all about mummy's secret thoughts in 10 years time.

So I guess it's a moot point, really.  Unless I want to go back to the old technology and simply write a diary, stuffing it under the mattress for safekeeping and leaving instructions with my solicitor to burn it when I'm gone to save my children's blushes, I need to accept that sometimes I have to self-censor.

I mean, pen and paper is all very well, but I would be the only person to read a diary.  And where's the fun in that?

The Gallery; Picture Postcard

This post is for Week 100 of Tara's Gallery; click here to see all the other great entries.

The prompt for this week's Gallery was 'Picture Postcard' as in; the photo you have that you would like to see made into a postcard.  What with my self-imposed ban on posting photographs of members of my family online, I'm reduced to choosing my entry this week from more situational shots.  Except, that isn't quite right.  'Reduced' gives the impression I don't have much to choose from, but Moscow is a city full of photo opportunities, from the grandeur of the onion domes on the churches and cathedrals, to the imposing splendour of Stalin's Seven Sisters, and the sheer bustle of living alongside 15 million people.  Frankly, I wasn't sure where to start.

So I went back to my current favourite photographic hunting ground; the Moscow Metro.  I took this one on Monday.  I quite like it; what do you think?  (Click to enlarge)