Camping in Surrey - woo-hoo!

This weekend, we could have done some wonderful things that didn't require sleeping in a tent. (Staying home or going out to dinner with friends springs to mind...) But, no, we decided to drive to (what other people would call the suburbs) Surrey, pitch our tents and experience the English countryside full-on. Why Surrey? Well, the Ukrainians have a large plot of land upon which resides an old-age home, and they have allowed us to use the neighbouring fields to pitch our tents for many years now.

This photo is deceiving, because when we arrived, it started to drizzle. Stefa & Larysa were desperately trying to get their tent up, but it took 3 tries before they were able to get in out of the rain. Didn't matter much, since they had pitched it in a low lying part of the field and it turned into a veritable mud bath shortly thereafter.

Now usually in our house, I end up cuddling next to Orest in bed because he's like blast furnace while I'm numb in my extremities, but the first night was so cold that Orest actually abandoned his own air-mattress to take advantage of my body heat. Talk about roughing it!

Next morning was gloriously sunny and the kids went from one outdoor activity to the next without stopping. Can't tell you everything they did, because I was in the kitchen for the bulk of the morning, helping to make hundreds of pyrohy (potato-filled dumplings). It was a veritable assembly line, impressive, until the people came in for lunch and demolished our hard work in a blink of an eye. (That's why I don't like cleaning toilets either - all that hard work, then someone comes along and pisses on it!)

That night we had a campfire with the requisite skits and songs. I suggested that the girls do a skit, where they ask volunteers to pretend they are trees and describe how important they are. These poor unfortunates had water splashed on them (symbolizing the protection they give us from the rain) , hay thrown at them (birds use it to make nests in them) and dogs pretending to wee on them. But it was good for a laugh anyway. The girls are honing that one for summer camp as we speak.

The next morning, after we finished packing up, the girls got dressed in their scouting uniforms and were presented with badges and certificates having completed the 3rd stage of scouting requirements. We then sang a few songs for the old folks, had a dads against the kids football game (check out the photo below - those are the goalkeepers. Good job Dads! Especially like the unbrella in the middle of the goal.) and went home. I'm still cleaning out hay out of everyone's clothes!

Stop the presses! My neighbour is speaking to me!

Mark the time and date!
After living in the same house for almost 4 years, I have finally developed a speaking relationship with my neighbour!
Bea, who I have described to you before in previous updates, as the woman who refused to enter my house when I invited her in for a cup of tea, then proceeded to complain about everything and anything to us, included the sound of Jessie barking inside our house during the day, finally commented on the fact that Jessie no longer barks during the day. Well, I explained to her, when Jessie first came to us after spending 1 month in a German kennel she suffered from acute separation anxiety, so if we ever left her alone at home, she'd become extremely agitated that we were never coming back for her. It took her awhile to regain her confidence.

I could tell she was ruminating on this thought for a few days because today she came to the door and asked if she could do her gardening from our driveway for easier access to the side of her garden. Then she said:
"We didn't get off to a good start, did we?"
"Not really." I said. (I had to call a spade a spade - I couldn't help myself!)
"Well if you had only known what the owner of your house put me through...." (a complete re-hashing of her feud with our landlord ensued, with which I will not bore you further.)

So I suppose that's the closest I'll get to an apology from her, but I'm willing to leave it at that. It's not like we're going to be best friends or anything...

Other excitement today was the school's International Evening. The last time we had one of these at the school 2 years ago, we decided to host a Canadian table. This year, Larysa couldn't decide which to choose, we had both a Canadian and a Ukrainian table.

So this meant hauling out all our cultural "stuff" out of hiding (or otherwise) to decorate the tables with. I was amazed at how many Ukrainian 'coffee-table' books we have and yet so little about Canada. I had no trouble filling up the Ukrainian table with other artisan crafts: carved wooden boxes, ceramics, embroidery, and of course pysanky. The Canadian table was starting to look bare until I found a stuffed beaver and moose, as well as coasters depicting various scenes from the Rockies to fill it with. And of course the table-top air hockey to keep the children amused... Not bad showing in the end!

The headteacher had asked beforehand if anyone was willing to sing or dance in their native language, and this gave Larysa the perfect opportunity to be Ruslana for a night. (If all of you are up on your past Eurovision contest winners, you will remember the Ukrainian entry from 2004 - Wild Dances or Dyki Tansi - bringing home the first prize for the Carpathian lass.) It was unbelievable (and me without my camera!*), Larysa played the crowd, sang her heart out and for the grand finale, swooped her head around with hair swinging every which way - the crowd went nuts! For a 10-year old she's got amazing stage presence.

Britney, Christina and Ruslana - your time has come to step aside for the next generation of pop idol!

* (I'm hoping to load a photo of Larysa in action at a later date when I find someone who was snapping pictures that night.)

Wild Women in Warsaw

It finally came!
Noooooo, not the new phone books, but...

The weekend I've been waiting for since February! Orest reminded me back at the beginning of the year to check my Lufthansa frequent flyer miles as he thought they may be expiring soon. Sure enough, I had enough to fly anywhere warm in Europe, but in the end, decided to go back to my old stomping ground (where does that phrase come from anyway?) in Poland. I booked the flights and soon afterward 3 varying plates and bowls from my Polish pottery broke, so it looked like I had divine approval for this trip.
Then, when we went to visit the Whitesides in Lausanne at the end of February half-term, it seemed that other people were interested in making the trip as well and the ball starting rolling.

Next thing I knew, we had 12 of us flying in from all over the UK and Europe for the weekend. The excitement mounted as Sara booked the hotel for us (thanks Sara) and Deby & Mariola in Warsaw helped booked the evening entertainments.

We arrived a bit late only to find that the traffic had come to a standstill... a rare occurance in the Warsaw that I knew and loved. But we got to the hotel with only minor delays due to the ingenuity of our taxi driver. Lisa and I dumped our bags quickly and were off for some 'bole' shopping just a one block's walk from the hotel. Little did we know we had brought the crappy English weather with us and by the time we had multiple bags of shopping to carry, the thunder, lightning and rain were coming at us in earnest. We decided to get dried off and ready for the evening out rather than risk another soaking - good thing we did, Lynne, Sara and Vivienne were stuck in traffic for ages coming back from the Galeria. The Galeria could wait for another day...

That evening we were at Madame Gessler's newest restaurant called 'Ale Gloria', which seems to be a paean to the Madame herself. The interior was a study in extreme white and red colours, with white feathers, white fake fur, red strawberries and ribbons. I kept expecting Prince (or the artist formerly known as...) to come prancing out singing: "Strawberry beret, you know I love you..." Very over the top as only Gessler can achieve. As it was a mostly traditional Polish menu, I chose the venison pate followed by the duck, which were fabulous as we know how well the Poles make their duck. (I've never had a complaint about Madame's food or service, you just have to keep your head down to not drown in the over-indulgence of the decor!)


We came back to the hotel late and we all started drifting upstairs in dribs and drabs except Lisa, who ended chatting with a local from Finchley (on a stag weekend) of all places and then a Norwegian, who seemed to keep his cards close to his chest on what he was doing there in Warsaw, which leads me to believe he might be an assassin. Do Norwegians have assassins?
Anyway, I had falled asleep around 2 am and woke up abruptly at 5 am, just to check that Lisa was in her bed, but no one was there. In my sleep-deprived stupor, I sort of felt like Kevin's Mom in Home Alone when she realizes she's left a child behind. Just as I was trying to decide who to call: Lisa, the local morgue, the local lap-dance club in that order...Lisa came in. Pheeew! Imagine me having to explain to Lisa's family that I lost her on the first night there?!

Next day, started with a walk to the Stare Miasto to see what had changed (obviously not much - it's the Old Town for goodness sake!) and then my former regular taxi driver collected us to do the rest of the Bole shops of Warsaw. We ended by meeting everyone at a new mall Arkadia, then home to get dressed for dinner at 'Sense'. An excellent Thai meal ensued with 24 of us playing musical chairs all night, in order to have the chance to speak to everyone. The wait-staff deserved an extra tip for having to follow all of us around with our orders!

Next morning we were off to the Galeria to meet up with Deby and shop some more. (Lisa was able to go to the Russian market with Barbara M - but I just couldn't face it that morning.)
After lunch, we started saying goodbye to everyone and Lisa and I went back to the hotel to relax before our evening flight.
At the airport, it was amazing to bump into people we knew: Jenny and Jacquie. But that just goes to show you what a small place Warsaw is...

Sue, Barbara, Sara, Lisa, Louise, Christine & Debbie in the Radisson bar.

A day in Greenwich

Thursday I went to Greenwich on an architectural tour with the HWC. I was looking forward to the day since David Bellingham, my favourite speaker, was going to be taking us around. (I had previously done other walks with David seeing Roman London, Elizabethan London and Regency London architectures, and he certainly knows his stuff!)

Imagine to my chagrin when there also appeared an American lady who had hijacked the Borough Market tour. "Great!", I thought, "another colossal waste while she goes off on tangents which don't interest the rest of us in the slightest!" I've never met anyone so self-absorbed that they had no idea how irksome they were to others. The whole time we were at the market, she stayed on her cellphone, thus making the guide repeat herself once she finished. In the wine cellar, she tried to get the sommelier to admit that the Italian wine she was having us taste just couldn't measure up to any French wine. Then she proceeded to engage her into a lengthy discussion on how to ship wine to the States, when it was clear that we had a limited amount of time there. Afterwards, at the lunch, she invited a friend (a non-member) and refused to pay for her, then left with 2 complimentary cookbooks from the guide. As I told another friend, if she ruined this trip for me, I would have no compunction in telling her to "shut the f*** up!"

Luckily she was only mildly annoying with her constant references to Chiswick House. I felt like saying: "We're not at Chiswick House, you knob...we're in Greenwich!"

Anyway Greenwich was very interesting. I was surprised to find how close it was to home (less than an hour by tube and DLR) and I've definitely got it scoped for a trip with the kids next time. I'd also forgotten that I had been there before; 5 or 6 yrs ago, Orest's firm had their Christmas party in the Queen's House. We had traveled there by ferry in the evening and then I remember pulling up in buses to the front curved staircase, candles blazing everywhere, a lovely crisp evening. It was built by Inigo Jones (hence the constant references to Chiswick) as a summer palace for the King's wife. Then seeing the Painted Hall was stunning, it was built as a dining hall for the Royal Naval College. I'd love to have a meal there just for the atmosphere!

Chuckle-fest with the kids

Stefanie has recently told me I should write about Adriana and her marvelous adventures. Well, not so much adventures, as 'bon mots'.

She and I had a Sunday to ourselves one day (Stefa & Larysa were in a diving competition and Orest took them) and coming out of church, she was obviously trying to piece together her religious knowledge. She told me that there's this place where Mary and 'Jophes' were with the baby Jesus, but she couldn't remember the name of it. I tried stables?, the inn?, but she came up with it on her own: 'Bethany-hen'!

Next, she was telling me she'd learned a new prayer, the Ave Maria. It goes something like this: 'Ave Maria, Holy Mudder of God, the Lord is wit dee. I once saw 4 men swimmin'. Once she hit that last line, it was impossible for me keep a straight face. I tried to correct her that it's 'Blessed are thee amongst women', but she was having none of it.

Larysa has also caused us to have a fit of the giggles a few times as well. We were all around the dinner table and Adriana was horsing around with Larysa and told her to put 'this cup' on her head. Larysa misheard her and asked incredulously: 'What, you want me to put this crap on my head?' Stefanie was drinking orange juice at that moment, which came spraying out, causing her to start choking and eventually up-chuck. I meanwhile was thinking: 'Lovely end to a delicious meal!'

Another time we were driving to the pool for diving lessons and Stefanie piped up: 'I can tell time..' Larysa immediately interrupted with 'Me too!' and Stefanie finished her sentence with '...in French.' Larysa then deflatedly said: 'Oh.'

Same trip...I asked Larysa if she had brought underwear with her, knowing that she already had her swimsuit under her clothes and would need something to change into later. She pulled up her top, thinking I meant 'did she bring her swimsuit', and said: 'ding, ding, ding, ding!' as if I were on some gameshow. Completely bizarre, but anyway I repeated: 'No, your panties!' again she deflated and said: 'oops!'. I won't tell you what the end result there was....

The week that wasn't

Another low-energy week....did nothing much, but noticed that in many minute ways my girls are growing up.
Stefa, at 12 yrs, stopped believing in St. Nick, and that was confirmed by her saying: "Mum, I know it's just you buying the gifts!". I did ask her to keep the dream alive for her baby sister, who at 4, shouldn't have her imagination squashed at such a young age. But, when I allowed Stef to plan her own social event, (just a movie with her friends) it seemed like this was the beginning of her maturity. I did have to remind her to ring her friend to find out how they were going to get to the cinema, what time the movie started and how much money would she need, but other than that, she was on her own. Unfortunately, she ruined the whole independance thing by ringing us after the movie was over to ask how she was going to get home. ("The same way you came, silly!" was Orest's response.)
On the other hand, Adriana proved to me once again how much she disliked change when I decided to change her ice skating lesson from the 1pm slot to the 4pm slot. Upon being told that she wouldn't get her usual McD lunch (as lunch was over and still to early for dinner), she threw a hissy fit. Upon being told that she had to take the instructor by the hand and skate slowly across the rink, then walk around to queue up to do it over again, she threw a hissy fit. (She's used to doing her own thing on the ice with just some casual instruction from the teachers in the earlier session.) Upon hearing that the session would not end with a game of "What's the time Mister Wolf?", she threw a hissy fit. The third time tried my patience to the breaking point, so I hauled her off the ice and resolved to go back to the 1pm slot. So she misses some school, who cares.

I had a proper Mother's Day this year. Some of you may remember last year I had 3 opportunities to celebrate and in the end got bupkiss! This time I made sure my family were aware that I was expecting the "treatment" on May 14th, no if's and's or but's about it! They came through with breakfast and homemade cards in bed, followed by a finger-lickin' good lunch at Bodean's (the only place in London for ribs and pork butt - really it's not as bad as it sounds!) and a nice relaxing afternoon and evening lounging and reading. I did have to on occasion remind the girls that their father could load a program on the computer just as good as I could, but otherwise it was a great recharge. (And Lord knows we all need one of those every once in awhile!)

Borough Market tour

Last week I went with the HWC to Borough Market. As with everything here in London, it has a long and wonderful history dating back to Roman times. It's only open to the public on Friday afternoons and Saturday all day (the rest of the time it's for wholesalers only).
The market sells great fresh foods, made mostly by small vendors (or more like artisans) who allow you to taste before you buy. In the complicated world of olive oils and balsamic vinegars, this really came in handy.
I wasn't really sure what I was going to buy while there, but my purchases seemed to dictate the theme to that night's dinner. It started off with the oil and vinegar (which I needed anyway for salads), but when I saw those lovely ripe beefsteak tomatoes, I knew that I had to make a caprese salad. The bufala mozzerela looked grand and the avocados were the largest I've seen in London yet. So for the main course, I had a butcher in the market slice me some lovely veal and with a mix of fresh and wild mushrooms for the sauce, I was set for an extravaganza deluxe! (The only thing missing was fresh pasta, so I had to make do with some old spinach fettucine in my cupboard.)
Because I was with the HWC, they had planned it as a guided tour and we were able to stop into some pre-arranged places for tastings. First stop was Neal's Yard Dairy, where we tasted several cheeses and saw the massive wall o' cheese. I didn't buy anything there, but I picked up a fabulous Italian wine at Bedales and picked up some snack food (dried broad beans) at Brindisa, the Spanish delicatessan.

All in all a great day out, and I'm looking forward to more of these in the future.