November 2010

So, here we are in Blackpool in northwest UK. Jon describes our time here as an ‘adventure’ - hence the blog title.

I’ve been here about 10 weeks now with the children. It’s 15 years since I last lived here. It's very strange being in England, as I'm not used to being 'the norm' any more. I’m used to being the foreigner.

And so, some things change but the weather never does! I did wear a pair of summer trousers and sandals for ONE WHOLE DAY not long after we arrived, but that came and went in the blink of an eye. It will be about another 7 months until I can wear them again. Summer clothes and sun screen last forever in the UK! He he.

One day it was so rainy that when I turned up to an event, the water was literally dripping off me. It looked liked I'd stepped out of the shower without drying myself, so I had to go into the bathroom and dry myself with paper towels. What fun.

Jon has taken to wearing a vest / skivvy for the first time in his life as he hasn’t acclimatised yet. I kept telling Jon and the children how cold it was going to be, but would they listen to me…???

Kira is possibly even worse than me, and typically wears 5 layers of clothing around the house, including her coat!

Given that it’s the children’s first time living here, they have adjusted really well.Jordan (or Gordon as his mates call him at school) has taken to using the word ‘well’ instead of ‘very’ as that seems to be the local vernacular, and can often be heard saying such things as “That’s well cool”.

They have both adjusted to their schools, Kira’s teacher saying “You wouldn’t know she hadn’t been to an English school.” I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not! She’s doing well, and has taken up netball, been on a cycling course and met the mayor a couple of times. They have a trip to France planned in June next year, so she’s looking forward to that. Sacre bleu!

Jordan has managed to cope with the culture shock of a very different form of schooling, and is doing well. He goes from 8.30 till 5.30 most days, except on a Monday when he is there from 8.30am till 8.30pm as he does hockey after school. He is ‘forced’ to do rugby, which - despite coming from New Zealand - he really doesn’t want to do, and lets us know that on an almost daily basis in case we forget ...

However, he does get to do other interesting things such as rifle shooting and an activity called CCF, where students choose army, navy or air force activities. He’s chosen Army, has all the camo gear, and has been on a day’s trip to one of the local barracks.

The school believes in work hard, play hard and have long holidays. I quite like that as a life philosophy, actually.

Not only does he get called Gordon, but also Harry Potter. The school really does look like Hogwarts (J K Rowling visited the school and modelled Hogwarts’ dining hall on Rossall’s dining hall), and Jordan in his uniform does look rather like Harry Potter with his dark hair and glasses. When he was five he fell through a glass pane and so even has a scar on his forehead!

Not long after I arrived I went to an evening event at Jordan's school. The first person I spoke to was from South Africa. A few days after I went to a networking event where I found myself sitting next to a (white) woman who comes from Uganda. A few days after that I attended a course where I was sitting next to a man from Nigeria. Yesterday I was on a course with another Nigerian man and someone who was in Kampala few months ago. I must be a magnet for African people, as they are hardly in plentiful supply in Blackpool.

After the simplicity of life in Jinja, I find there is TOO MUCH choice over here.Trying to choose an electricity and gas company, for example, was a nightmare. The man at the utility supplies told me there are 2000 ways to get an electricity supply here!

Even if Umeme (the electricity supplier in Uganda) was awful and even if there were no gas suppliers there, at least you only had one choice - you either had electricity or you didn’t. Much simpler.

Even going round the supermarkets is a bit of a mission - there are too many aisles offering all kinds of things I’m sure I don’t need ... or do I? The marketing is so clever I have to constantly make decisions as to whether I need something or not. I didn’t have that problem in Jinja. However, the one good thing about the UK is that they have decent CHOCOLATE here! I am very happy.

So I found a nice house and moved in about a month ago. It’s two streets away from my Mum’s house, and we like living here. It has 4 bedrooms, is on three storeys (you can't see the 3rd one in the photo) and has a small garden which has birds and squirrels in it. It also has nice stained glass windows. It’s the first time the children have lived somewhere with central heating.

It took a long time for our furniture to arrive. We had all our furniture from New Zealand sent over. It comes by boat from - literally - the other side of the world. It arrived quicker than the few boxes we had sent from Uganda which came by air from a much nearer place. Good old Uganda, never fails to make a simple job very challenging.We asked the Uganda company to send the boxes by air as they said it would only take 2 weeks. It took 2 months.

I asked how long it would take if we sent them by boat and they said ... 8 months.

“Is it coming by rowing boat?” asked my brother.

It only takes 5 weeks by boat from NZ! Can't possibly imagine where the boat would go to for 8 months.

We have way too much stuff to fit into the house, have thrown a lot away and have about 12 boxes of stuff, plus some furniture to sell. I can’t believe how much we spent to store our goods for two years and have it sent over when there is so much we don’t need.I found myself taking things out of boxes saying “What on earth did I keep this for?”

The base of our bed is still in our dining room as it won't fit up the stairs! We have a queen size bed, which is normal in NZ, but not normal in the UK. Apparently the only way to do it is to saw it in half, take it up the stairs then fix it together again.The house had three beds in it already, so we are using one of the beds here, but we haven’t decided what to do with our bed base yet.We actually have 6 beds here now, so one of the bedrooms is full of spare beds and stuff that won’t fit anywhere else.

Anyway I now have new contact lenses, which is very exciting! The ones I was using weren’t fitting very well and I couldn’t get the type I wanted in Uganda, so I had to stop using them in January.

Mind you, I couldn’t get the type I wanted in most opticians where we live so ended up having to go to a specialist contact lens place in Birmingham (a 3 hour journey from here). Of course the ones I need are state-of-the-art monovision lenses costing VAST amounts of money. Oh well.

Jon came back from Uganda a month after he had planned to, as he was offered another contract. In fact, in order to be able to leave he had to pass the work over to someone else otherwise he would still be there. He came 2 months after us, by which time I had sorted most things out, and fortunately he likes the house and car I’d chosen.He arrived in Blackpool on Monday three weeks ago, had a meeting on Tuesday and was offered a couple of contracts, so we were very pleased about that.

I’ve taken up zumba dance classes with my sister once a week - great exercise and the teacher makes it fun and enjoyable. It’s also nice to do something with one of my family members as I haven’t been able to do that for years.

I was also able to go to one of my friend’s 50th birthday party. I’ve known Pauline for ... well, 50 years actually, as she was born a bit after me in the house next door ... so that was really nice. The photo is of me and my friend Liz who lived next door the other way and who I've also known since I was born.

(It really isn't my pint of beer, by the way!)

And talking of going to a ‘do’, I somehow managed to get my photo in the upmarket local magazine - and I’ve only been here 5 minutes. http://lancashire.greatbritishlife.co.uk/article/sefton-womens-business-network-awards-formby-hall-golf-resort-and-spa-26350/

The clocks went back recently (not a concept you have to get used to when you live on the equator), so it gets dark early in the evening now. Only another 6 months to go until we start getting lighter evenings...

(Tell me why I’m here ... in the cold and dark with too many choices to make...?)

Sunday was Halloween and it is celebrated big time over here. The shops are full of Halloween dress up clothes, pumpkins, Halloween food and Halloween sweets you can give out to trick-or-treaters.We bought lots of sweets and fruit to give out to children (and parents) who came to the door. Kira and her friend went trick or treating with some older children. Jordan didn’t want to go “I’m 14 now”, but the lure of lots of free sweets made him put on a mask and black coat and go round with Kira and the others! They came back with a carrier bag half full of sweets, hundreds of them.

Blackpool is famous for The Illuminations, which is 10km of light displays along the coast road. Blackpool has a tower similar to the Eiffel tower and you can see it lit up in the background of the photo.

The lights are on just after the summer holiday season finishes in order to make the tourist season last a bit longer.

We walked along part of it one evening - wrapped up in our coats hats and gloves. It’s always very impressive and there are lots of amusement arcades and gift shops open along the way. Jon and the children bought some doughnuts.

So, my cunning Master Plan is to set up a new business - it's a service offering personal and professional development for women. Some of it will be locally based, for example presentations training for women. I have revamped my women’s course, have included a psychotherapist along with dance teacher, reflexologist and massage therapist - all of this combined into a wonderful course to help women who are nervous when speaking to groups. A big part of the business will be an online service as I need something that isn’t geographically based because we plan to move country at some point in the future. So there will be a team of advisors offering online advice and coaching to women regarding a variety of personal and professional development areas.

If you are female and haven’t done my survey, and you have a spare 5 minutes, please go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/78HPZPG

Thank you.

Also - I need a name for my new business. This is proving to be a bit of a challenge, as every name I think of has already been taken.If you have any suggestions, do let me know. Even if it seems an unlikely name, still let me know as it may spark off another idea. Merci!

And finally, I have been invited to speak at a couple of events next year. One in Uganda in April and one in NZ in July.

Ha! You thought you’d got rid of me.

If these eventuate, I’ll let you know the dates so you can lock the door and pretend you’re not in.

Bye for now, Kim x