World Cup Man!

My friend Daryl found this cool website song for World Cup widows like me. How many times over the past weeks have I had to forgo a CSI or Will and Grace so that we can watch tiny men kick a tiny ball into a gigantic net? (I've even lost a daughter to it - her school sponsored some sort of betting pool - organized gambling at a Catholic school, for shame!)

Check out www.worldcupman.com to hear or download the song.

I've also linked Daryl's website - if you want to find out what's cool in Belgrade.

I forgot to mention...

I forgot to mention how the trip back from Prague was marred by a couple who accused me of rudeness. I know! Hard to believe, isn't it?

It happened when we got to gate, Orest went with Adriana and Larysa to stand right beside the gate to precipitate boarding, while I fell back with Stefanie because I was searching for something in my bag for her, and wouldn't you know they picked exactly that moment to announce boarding.

I struggled to get through the people who were moving towards the gate, saying "Excuse me, I'd like to rejoin my family.", but at the same time, realized my bag was now gaping open, leaving access to the contents for anyone in the crowd to lift. As my head was turned, trying to zip up said bag, saying "excuse me" all the time, I inadvertantly jostled a woman who said to her partner: "How rude!"
"I did say excuse me," I said to her as I was moving towards the front.
"You did not!" she replies.
"I did!" I respond, although I cannot believe we're engaging in this purile argument, now across 20 feet of people's heads.
At the point Orest joins in, trying to be helpful,
"My wife is just trying to re-join her family, do you mind?"
Then the other husband joins the fray:
"Well, we're just trying to teach your wife some manners!"


Ouch!
Now at this point, normally I would freeze up with confusion at the jibe, then kick myself for hours afterwards thinking of what I should have said, but, having righteous indignation on my side, I had the presence of mind to finish them off with:
"I did say excuse me, but my head may have been turned the other way, so I'm sorry if you didn't hear me!"

Now that should have been the end of it, since we started moving towards the plane, but me being me, I agonized over it the whole plane ride home. If I was guilty of anything, I thought to myself, it was trying to do too many things at once. My whole raison d'etre came into question in that hour and 10 minutes. The worst of it was, the same couple were sitting right behind Orest on the plane, so I had no opportunity to discuss my soul-searching with Orest to gain an objective opinion. (I tend to veer towards paranoia, so it's good to have someone like Orest around to say: Snap out of it, you silly woman!)

So you decide, if you were in a similar situation, what would you say or do?

Prague Rocks! (not like E.L.P. or Yes)

(Finally I've been able to load photos!!! I was photo-less for a week and it wasn't until I installed Mozilla's Firefox as my internet browser that I cheived success. Down with Microsoft! Big up Mozilla!!)

Another opportunity to catch up with old friends came along this past weekend.

Sue and Tony Cabral celebrated their joint 50th birthdays in Prague and celebrated in style. Their friends had opened up their castle to them and it was just perfect. (Doesn't that sound pretentiously posh? It's not really, if you know Sue and Tony, they are the most down-to-earth folks you can find and they have great friends who take care of them. Plus the fact, that when you live in Central or Eastern Europe it's probably easier to get a venue like that than anywhere else. It reminded me of similar parties at some of the castles in Warsaw when we lived there.)

The Lobkowicz Castle is on the grounds of the Prague Castle, with fabulous views of the Charles Bridge and the centre of Prague. It was confiscated from the Lobkowicz family by the communists, and was finally returned to the family in 2003. This was the first event planned after remodeling and renovating some of the rooms.

We arrived in Prague Friday evening, and even though it was late, we still took the opportunity to walk over to the Charles bridge with the girls before going to bed. We stayed at a lovely place, called the Santini Residence, at the bottom of the Castle, with a newly remodeled apartment/suite for the 5 of us. (Check out www.santiniresidence.com if you're interested in staying there.)

We spent the day on Saturday touring Prague with the children, and their most memorable moment will be getting lost with their mum trying to find Tynske Square. But we found it in the end, saw the famous clock strike 5, and the little pieces move around (See the photo above).

While Adriana was being baby-sat at Sue and Tony's, the rest of us went to their party. The dinner was one lovely creation after another, and the drinks were prolific in number. They had a band playing music, which I thought would interest the girls, but they were fascinated with the long table cloths on the tables which allowed them to create their own "clubhouse" underneath with the other children.

We spent Father's Day back at Sue and Tony's so that Orest could watch a replay of Game 5 of the Stanley Cup playoff. We had to be in news blackout mode up until that time, which wasn't too difficult as everyone here is focused on the World Cup football at the moment. The Oilers won 4-0 against Carolina, so Dad was a happy camper. Last game will be watched on Tuesday afternoon with other Canadians here.

Check it out

I found the coolest website (cool for me, that is... you decide if it's cool or not)

It's called 'A Dress a Day', and it shows exactly that... one dress every day. She's got some vintage taste. It's www.dressaday.com/dressaday.html

Sunday, bloody hot Sunday

Man oh Man!

It's been like an oven here lately, and not the Easy-Bake kind-with-the-stupid-light-bulb-for-heat oven, but the real honest-to-goodness triple edged heatwave!

On a day like that, you just want to push your kids out of the paddling pool and wade in yourself, turning your body on a rotational basis to bathe each bit of skin properly. But no, we decided to go out. First to a Sunday brunch at Mimi and Owen's, where the boys kept cool by watching the World Cup football match on the telly, while I made iced coffees for everyone.

We then had to go get beat at tennis, since I had scheduled a match with another couple from the club as part of their annual club tournament. Orest and I lost 6-0, 6-3, by Savita & her husband. Pretty humiliating, but I always say: "It could have been worse!" It was acually, down in the other court where my friends got slaughtered 6-0, 6-1. We all sat down to some Pimms and lemonade afterwards, and it turned into a lovely social evening, with the alcohol dulling the pain and embarassment of our drubbing.


Now Larysa insisted that I tell a funny story about her since she's seen me do one on this blog about Adriana.

We were sitting down to do a verbal reasoning practise exam (this is preparation for Larysa's secondary school entrance exams next fall) and she does a lot better when I sit next to her, so she can pointlessly ask me for help, while I tell her "Remember, I won't be there with you when you're actually doing the entrance exam!". Personally, I think she just likes to have someone to complain to when she doesn't get the questions right away, and as we all know mums make the best whipping posts!
She was busy working on a section where you had to take one letter from the first word and somehow create a new word from the second; i.e. carp & flit become cap and flirt.
The words were horse and cad, which should be easy enough to see that it should become: hose and card. But, Larysa must have had some sort of brain fart because it took at least 3 minutes for her to figure out that the 'r' should be moved to create card, but then spent another couple of minutes repeating "Ho-say, ho-say. Nope, that's not a real word. Ho-say...."

In the end, to alleviate my teeth grinding into nothing, I advised her that perhaps she had the accent on the wrong syllable, and instead of calling out for some Mexican boy named Jose, she should try making the e silent.

I just hope to God she can figure these out on her own by November, otherwise no school will have her!

Out at night

Summer is here full force, with hot days and warm evenings.

Last week was busy socially (I know, doesn't happen often here in London), so I didn't have a chance to post this then. We were out on Tuesday night with ex-Warsaw friends, Meredith & Jean-Louis playing bridge and catching up, as they are on their way to Miami. It's the first time I'd actually seen their flat in daylight, which just goes to show you how long it's been since we've seen one another. (In the short daylight hours of winter, we'd always get to their place when it's already turned dark.) We were complaining about just that; that it's easier sometimes to see people who live farther away, than the ones just down the road. You keep thinking to yourself; "Oh, I can see them anytime, they're just down the road..." And next thing you know, they're moving!
Oh well, perhaps we'll see more of them in Miami.

Wednesday, we were at the Kensington Roof Gardens, a lovely secluded green space, 6 floors up, which had been converted into a massive party venue. Since we were there for a business function it was all very boring for me, but I know that Orest got quite a bit out of it, so I was happy to be there with him. The lobster tails were an added bonus.

Thursday was my one night in, as Orest flew to Stolkhom for the night for business. Apparently he missed his brush with greatness that evening as his colleagues met Mats Sundin (the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey player) in a club and got his autograph. It's ok, Orest got one in absentia.

Friday, we were with the Hampstead Women's Club on the London Eye for a wine tasting. I was surprised how quickly we went around, because frankly it didn't look like we were moving at all in some places. Something to do with physics, I imagine. Thankfully it wasn't too hot in there, it was well-ventilated, and being able to go around twice was kinda cool too.

Saturday, we were double-booked with a Ukrainian zabava first with the children, followed by a grown-up party for us later. The dance unfortunately was a bust (not enough tickets sold), but the girls had fun in their own way...Adriana sliding on the floor and playing tag with the other kids and Larysa just messing about with the older girls. The second event was a 40th birthday for a friend I play tennis with. It was good fun, but by 1 am, Orest needed to get to bed, so we departed. Shame, that...I had heard that Grace's parties normally ran until 3 am.

BTW

Went to Tesco on a Sunday and was transported back to my Auchan in Warsaw days.

Does every Pole in Finchley only do their shopping on Sundays? Everytime I turned around, there was another one, yapping on their mobile, filling up their basket.

I suspect that most of them work 6 days a week, so the only time they have to shop is on Sundays. Either that, or Sundays are the days when they start putting the food in the clearance section.

I was late picking up the girls from school yesterday, and as I was rushing down the street, another Mum from Adriana's class approached me.

"I'm so sorry to hear about your loss...Adriana was telling the class about it today" she said.

"Excuse me?" racking my brains to figure who had just died.

"She said that your cat died" she explained.

I must have looked like a lunatic, but I started to laugh and said: "But we don't have a cat!"

At that point, I wasn't sure what had happened. Maybe everyone misunderstood what Adriana was saying, maybe someone else's cat died and she made it sound like it was her cat. Or maybe she's just practicing her Munchausen-by-proxy delivery, in order to gage the sympathy she can get out of people.

I had a chat with her and explained how she shouldn't be making up stories about dead cats, and I hope that's the end of that.

I'll know it's something more serious if next time I come walking down the street and another Mum says: "Adriana told us you were dead!"

Half-term hi-jinks

I hate half-term!

No I don't, it's just a major hassle. The house becomes messier, the laundry triples in amount and I have to spend a lot more time in meal-planning. ("What! You expect lunch too??")

Thankfully, I booked Stefa and Larysa on a week-long drama course, after the two of them have been haranguing me non-stop with: "I wanna be an actress!"and "I want to have my own agent!". This, after meeting a few children who have been in television shows and movies, like Eastenders and Harry Potter. They had a lot of fun, but at the same time realized how much work it is to be rehearsing all day long. The end of the week, they put on their performance of songs and bits from movie musicals. Stefanie was great as Tallulah in Bugsy Malone, (that's the part Jodie Foster played in the movie) and Larysa played prim and proper as Sandy in Grease.
What a great idea to have a real performance at the end of the course, it gives the kids a real sense of achievement.

Adriana chilled out with me for the week, taking Jessie out for her walks, seeing Curious George at the movies, doing the shopping... makin' messes around the house for the most part.

In any case, I'm glad they're back at school this week, I can get back to a routine.