However much I pack, there seems to be the same amount left, however many boxes pile up and however much I throw away. Like one of those magic purses in fairy tales, only less useful, the house seems able to generate more rubbish from nowhere. It has always been like that in this house; you hoover the stairs and half an hour later, there are bits all over them. Maybe it's not the house; maybe it's us.
Or the cats, perhaps. Shrimpy just ran past me with a mouse in this mouth, uttering a low growl when I tried to chase him. A bit later he came back down without the mouse; who knows where it is now. He seems to know where to find an endless supply of mice; perhaps he is also bringing other stuff into the house.
At home in England, or not
Alexander said the other day that he would not miss England because (in sorrowful tones) "I have never really felt at home here, anyway." He is 12, so this is a bit odd, and possibly but I said I could understand that, as I have never really felt at home here either. When I am feeling pretentious, I put this down to not being English - which "technically" as the children say for almost everything, I am not. But it is more likely temperamental, or perhaps nobody feels particularly at home anywhere. Heard some artist on the radio the other day who had returned to his native Yorkshire as an old man and was on about how this was the only place he could really feel at home. I stood there with my tea towel wondering what he meant and trying to imagine feeling like that about anywhere.
The fact is that although I always cry at the "Edelweiss" bit of the Sound of Music, and anything like that (especially anything about the Nazis or Czecho, which makes me think of my father and mother's family being exiled), I don't feel remotely like that myself. I wonder if, if the Nazis took over Shoreham, I would start to feel very passionate about staying here? I am not sure. It is one thing missing the mountain snows and Edelweiss and quite another feeling a terrible longing for the M25 or Otford Homebase. Here, it is quite small, and crowded, and it is hard to feel an Wordsworthian surge when every time you step outside your door someone is trying to park their van in your space,. Indeed, it is as well Romantic poetry happened in the 19th c for it would not in my view have a chance of evolving in Sevenoaks 2007. People always say Brits are not very patriotic and maybe there isn't enough landscape left for that.
The fact is, as I have got older I don't feel attached to much, and perhaps that is just practice. After all, things let you down. I remember Jane telling me that after all her jewellery got nicked on Milan station, she never got that attached to stuff again and when Penny's house burned down with everything in it, she had no choice. You think you'll die without your photo albums, but you don't. Of course, the logical conclusion of this is being desensitised like a child soldier- no longer caring about anyone or anything because you can't know they won't desert you, which clearly is no good. But there is something to be said for a middle way: you don't want to lose the will to live because your Zoffany curtains went up in smoke, and some boyfriends were actually not that great when you look back on them.
Maybe I am deluding myself when I say I will not miss anything about life in Kent. It's not that it's that bad, it's just over, and is starting to seem a bit small and grey. It certainly doesn't stack up that well against the huge open spaces of the Sierra de los Filabres. So far my list of things I will miss is this long:
1) BBC radio
I'm not saying it isn't fun going to the Crown and having a drink and a banter, but you can do that anywhere. I'm not knocking it here, but you don't miss something just because you did it for a long time, particularly not if what you do afterwards is better. However, when I am 80 maybe I will come tottering back and fondly reminisce about where Tesco used to be. I was talking to Juana's father in May and he said he had been back to the mill where he grew up; it was a big expedition, although it is only in Albanchez which is a few villages away. The thing is, I didnt grow up anywhere really worth revisiting and while after a few beers with Ralph we can reminisce about Cinderella Rockefellers and the Bingo that used to be the Orchid Ballroom, the Red Deer Disco Pub and seeing the Boomtown Rats at the Greyhound, the fact is that Purley, which was once a bit like Sevenoaks, is now like Catford, or any nasty suburb, and Sevenoaks is not even like Sevenoaks any more. Still, I can see myself, very wrinkly and in black because I have been in Spain for so long, clutching my grandchildren and saying: "And here, here is where the shopping trolleys used to park up..."
Thursday 26 April 2007
Sunday 22 April 2007
Power struggles
More angst about not working
An exhausting day. My sisters, with children and the remaining husband, turned up for lunch and the rummage sale. As they made off with a lot of dolls houses, beds, chairs, ladybird costumes, etc, I felt a great sense of relief. Meanwhile I still have an adult fairy costume with wings, adult sexy Santa costume (from our Christmas party, mistakenly ordered in fit of festive madness from American Pin Up Girl website and designed really for someone 20 years younger. Still, I learned a lot about Xmas US-style – clearly lots of housewives surprise their husbands by wearing fur-trimmed Santa lingerie on Christmas day – or do they wear it at other times, too?), assorted judo kit and Brownie uniform parts, plus bag of portable umbrellas. I have spent many rainy days hunting for the latter over the past years, and now, when I finally will not need them, they all turn up like buses, or boyfriends.
Controlling men
I was already tired after last night with Jasmine and Steve – one of those evenings that was superficially enjoyable – bottle of wine, joking - but actually not. The main reason it wasn’t is that Jasmine not only really doesn’t approve of our going to Spain but also cannot accept the idea of me not working in my “high-powered” job. It seems to be upsetting her world view in some way – perhaps I was a proxy for her?
I suppose I might be upset if she suddenly took a job in an investment bank, because I find her restful the way she is, with her big garden, her glamorous clothes and done nails and her horses. I only thought of that now, but at the time I was somewhat fed up and in fact tearful in the car home. I rather turned on Sandy, pointing out that he had not stood up for me in any way when Jasmine did her routine about how hard it would be for me not working or as she puts it, “being a lady of leisure”. She had also added to this a line about how Sandy would now boss me about and tell me what car I could have. What is more, she had been on at me in the week about how men respected and were scared of working women and if I didnt work I was going to lose all my power and just be a housewife like her, whom nobody would take seriously.
I said I want a jeep. This is true, I do. I have always wanted something like a Mini Moke that you drive on the beach, ever since I thought they were cool about 20 years ago. However, I would settle for any kind of convertible jeep. Sandy has some practical and technical objections to this which are quite boring, so I don’t listen to them, but let them go in one ear and out the other. The fact is, I know he will choose the car, because he chooses technical things, and I reminded him on the way home that he had not chosen the car we had and that I had never been able to choose a car. I was playing up a bit because in fact I don’t particularly care about cars. However, the idea that I wouldn’t be able to choose if I wanted to was not a good one.
“Don’t pay any attention,” Sandy said. “Don’t take it out on me because Jasmine’s got an issue.”
“Fine,” I said. “But I’m not happy that because I’m not working, you’re going to hold it over me.”
“I’ve got absolutely no issue about you not working,” he said.
“Well, why didn’t you say so?”
“Because it isn’t an issue for me. Look, J, we’re a family – we’re in this together,” he said, which made me feel better.
“But I want to feel I’m making a contribution,” I said. Clearly my massive guilt is not subsiding, since I had to justify myself to Jasmine and Steve by pointing out I had money to last at least a year before I was technically “not working.”
“You are making a contribution,” he said.
“Well, I think I am. I mean, we couldn’t go if I hadn’t given up.. someone has to settle the children, sort everything out..” I am beginning to be bored of hearing myself say this. “Anyway, in a year or maybe 6 months, I’ll have a job.”
“Look, don’t be silly, “ he said. This isn’t an issue between us. This is all about the power issues they have between the two of them,” he said.
I wonder. Jasmine and Steve got married when they were about 20, and she has never worked, plus he has made all the decisions. Recently, she has begun to assert herself, she told me, and not let him decide everything. We are not talking about anything radical like getting a job, but more traditional methods or assertion, such as flirting with a local guy that has the hots for her; these strategies amount to baboons showing their bottoms, or something – they are sexual defiance.
When Steve suspected he had found out something, he bought her a Cartier bracelet. Jasmine was quite happy but said she liked the idea of a young, not very well off man, because it meant she could be the boss for once. I asked her if she’d actually like to be with someone like that and she said no, it was just to have a change.
I can relate to this: I had quite a few control-freak love affairs before Sandy but actually would probably bite anyone that actualyl tried even to help me across the road. In fact, Sandy is very laid-back and wouldn’t ever try and control anyone. i explained to Jas that in my view sometimes you like the idea of a change –and, in the way that you can be drawn to food to which you are allergic, it can be very compelling, until it brings you out in spots and you choke on your own vomit. Mind you, it really annoys me that Sandy never says “I’d like it if you gave up work” or indeed helps me across the road, but in fact walks several paces ahead of me talking on his phone and appears to forget I am there at all.
So Sandy is right, I should not listen to Jasmine, who after all has admitted she likes the attention she gets in hospital and may have her boobs made larger again because it gives her power over men.
We met our old friend Johnny in Obergurgl; he has just retired. He said when you give up work you have to let go of a lot of things. I am finding this true, but hard. In fact, I think I am clinging on by my fingernails to the rock that never yielded to me in the first place. I spent a long time trying to prove I could make it to the top, but feel I have realised I am in fact am hanging on half way there, and now have to let myself back down again. The fact that the top wouldn’t have suited me, that I am a better diver than rockclimber, or that rock climbing is pointless, are all arguments beside the point. I still feel I should have made it to the top. Is that feeling of something slipping through my fingers the feeling of losing my power?
An exhausting day. My sisters, with children and the remaining husband, turned up for lunch and the rummage sale. As they made off with a lot of dolls houses, beds, chairs, ladybird costumes, etc, I felt a great sense of relief. Meanwhile I still have an adult fairy costume with wings, adult sexy Santa costume (from our Christmas party, mistakenly ordered in fit of festive madness from American Pin Up Girl website and designed really for someone 20 years younger. Still, I learned a lot about Xmas US-style – clearly lots of housewives surprise their husbands by wearing fur-trimmed Santa lingerie on Christmas day – or do they wear it at other times, too?), assorted judo kit and Brownie uniform parts, plus bag of portable umbrellas. I have spent many rainy days hunting for the latter over the past years, and now, when I finally will not need them, they all turn up like buses, or boyfriends.
Controlling men
I was already tired after last night with Jasmine and Steve – one of those evenings that was superficially enjoyable – bottle of wine, joking - but actually not. The main reason it wasn’t is that Jasmine not only really doesn’t approve of our going to Spain but also cannot accept the idea of me not working in my “high-powered” job. It seems to be upsetting her world view in some way – perhaps I was a proxy for her?
I suppose I might be upset if she suddenly took a job in an investment bank, because I find her restful the way she is, with her big garden, her glamorous clothes and done nails and her horses. I only thought of that now, but at the time I was somewhat fed up and in fact tearful in the car home. I rather turned on Sandy, pointing out that he had not stood up for me in any way when Jasmine did her routine about how hard it would be for me not working or as she puts it, “being a lady of leisure”. She had also added to this a line about how Sandy would now boss me about and tell me what car I could have. What is more, she had been on at me in the week about how men respected and were scared of working women and if I didnt work I was going to lose all my power and just be a housewife like her, whom nobody would take seriously.
I said I want a jeep. This is true, I do. I have always wanted something like a Mini Moke that you drive on the beach, ever since I thought they were cool about 20 years ago. However, I would settle for any kind of convertible jeep. Sandy has some practical and technical objections to this which are quite boring, so I don’t listen to them, but let them go in one ear and out the other. The fact is, I know he will choose the car, because he chooses technical things, and I reminded him on the way home that he had not chosen the car we had and that I had never been able to choose a car. I was playing up a bit because in fact I don’t particularly care about cars. However, the idea that I wouldn’t be able to choose if I wanted to was not a good one.
“Don’t pay any attention,” Sandy said. “Don’t take it out on me because Jasmine’s got an issue.”
“Fine,” I said. “But I’m not happy that because I’m not working, you’re going to hold it over me.”
“I’ve got absolutely no issue about you not working,” he said.
“Well, why didn’t you say so?”
“Because it isn’t an issue for me. Look, J, we’re a family – we’re in this together,” he said, which made me feel better.
“But I want to feel I’m making a contribution,” I said. Clearly my massive guilt is not subsiding, since I had to justify myself to Jasmine and Steve by pointing out I had money to last at least a year before I was technically “not working.”
“You are making a contribution,” he said.
“Well, I think I am. I mean, we couldn’t go if I hadn’t given up.. someone has to settle the children, sort everything out..” I am beginning to be bored of hearing myself say this. “Anyway, in a year or maybe 6 months, I’ll have a job.”
“Look, don’t be silly, “ he said. This isn’t an issue between us. This is all about the power issues they have between the two of them,” he said.
I wonder. Jasmine and Steve got married when they were about 20, and she has never worked, plus he has made all the decisions. Recently, she has begun to assert herself, she told me, and not let him decide everything. We are not talking about anything radical like getting a job, but more traditional methods or assertion, such as flirting with a local guy that has the hots for her; these strategies amount to baboons showing their bottoms, or something – they are sexual defiance.
When Steve suspected he had found out something, he bought her a Cartier bracelet. Jasmine was quite happy but said she liked the idea of a young, not very well off man, because it meant she could be the boss for once. I asked her if she’d actually like to be with someone like that and she said no, it was just to have a change.
I can relate to this: I had quite a few control-freak love affairs before Sandy but actually would probably bite anyone that actualyl tried even to help me across the road. In fact, Sandy is very laid-back and wouldn’t ever try and control anyone. i explained to Jas that in my view sometimes you like the idea of a change –and, in the way that you can be drawn to food to which you are allergic, it can be very compelling, until it brings you out in spots and you choke on your own vomit. Mind you, it really annoys me that Sandy never says “I’d like it if you gave up work” or indeed helps me across the road, but in fact walks several paces ahead of me talking on his phone and appears to forget I am there at all.
So Sandy is right, I should not listen to Jasmine, who after all has admitted she likes the attention she gets in hospital and may have her boobs made larger again because it gives her power over men.
We met our old friend Johnny in Obergurgl; he has just retired. He said when you give up work you have to let go of a lot of things. I am finding this true, but hard. In fact, I think I am clinging on by my fingernails to the rock that never yielded to me in the first place. I spent a long time trying to prove I could make it to the top, but feel I have realised I am in fact am hanging on half way there, and now have to let myself back down again. The fact that the top wouldn’t have suited me, that I am a better diver than rockclimber, or that rock climbing is pointless, are all arguments beside the point. I still feel I should have made it to the top. Is that feeling of something slipping through my fingers the feeling of losing my power?
Saturday 21 April 2007
De-clutter your life, UK schools (1)
1) Feng Shui my life
There are only 17 weeks to go. This seems ages, but it is like Christmas; it creeps up on you at the last minute. I started off thinking I was quite well prepared - as during the last year, I have made what I now realise were sub conscious efforts to prepare for leaving, by tidying my cupboards and chucking some stuff out. I have also organised a rummage sale for my two sisters, though as Sandy points out the word "sale" is being used loosely as neither one of them will bring their purse; as the eldest, I am the Great Provider.
There is an art to all this de-cluttering, I have learned, and it is not easy. There are a lot of articles that give you advice to do things like take Polaroids of all your shoes and put them on shoe boxes. This is strange as a) nobody has Polaroid cameras any more, except me - I have one which I am not sure I can work any more, and which I may have to Feng Shui, ie, throw out, in the move and b) who has got time to go and take photos of all their shoes? It is just like selling things on eBay, a nice idea which people keep recommending, but too time-consuming. Everything now seems to involve taking photos of your stuff, which is not that simple: they will keep falling over or not stand out against the background.
It is all very well the Bible saying it is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to go to Heaven, but getting rid of your stuff is not easy either.
What is interesting is that it is quite addictive throwing things away; it makes you feel pure and virtuous, even if you are not sure Oxfam really want an incomplete Hornby train set or on-sale Jean-Paul Gauthier silk shirt with inbuilt corset. I can quite see how it could become obsessive, and how you could become one of those people in America - they are called Cheeseparers or something like that - who make a way of life out of re-using tea bags. It is a 21st century religion, like composting or recycling, even if they do not work, and all the worms escape all the time, and the stuff stinks to high heaven, like my Wriggly Wrigglers compost bin which I have now had to Feng Shui.
My father kept many tins with half an inch of old glue or paint, small pieces of string, and odd metal bits in boxes, in the garage, for about fifty years, on the basis that they might come in useful. They never did, in general, and if he had needed glue, he could have gone and got some, but I suppose perhaps whereas now we are quite happy to get in the car and go and buy new, he was not, and people weren’t then. He was, of course, also a refugee and had gone without, so it was understandable, but Sandy is just as bad, keeping dirty old T shirts from university or old parts of cameras, for no apparent reason. Now is the big chance to get rid of all the things I have not already surreptitiously binned. I am already up to about 24 boxes and that is only the stuff we don’t use.
2) School's out
One of the main reasons I give people for going to Spain is so that my children can learn proper Spanish. This doesn't seem possible in Kent, where it is still French or German. Why is this? French? I mean, is it because it is close? Or so that they can hold parties for the French ambassador, offering Ferrero Rochers about in a faultless accent? With all due respect to it, only a few people in places like the Congo where you are unlikely to have to go for work, speak it. As for Germans, they all speak good English.
My first disagreement with Alexander's school was on this subject. Could he do Spanish, maybe? No, only the top French students could opt for Spanish. Why? They said they didnt have enough Spanish teachers. Out of the world population of Spanish people? Maybe it is only when the old French and German ones die off they will start looking around for them.
Anyway, this is not the only problem. As I prepare to take the children out of school have made me realise I probably never should have put them in there in the first place.
Ever since Alexander started school, it has been a tale of woe. It is true he can behave a bit like Squirrel Nutkin at times: does not come when called (even after 6 times shouting at the top of my voice up the stairs), takes a long time to get dressed (one sock on while pausing to construct a Lego artefact), and acts the fool (making up stupid songs about chickens),I am assured by friends this is quite normal.
However, ever since he started at our local “nice” (ie expensive) school, we have had a stream of notes and letters. “Alex must try harder.” “Alex forgot his homework.” “Alex distracted another child.” “Alex daydreams and does not come when called.” And so on and on, including visits to the school where I have sat on an uncomfortable sofa while teachers have stared at me accusingly as if I had personally put him up to it using a remote control. The fact is if I had had a remote for Alexander I would have put it to good effect long ago, sending him on useful errands for me, making him tidy his room, etc, so this is all a bit beside the point.
At first, I accepted all this in good part. This is partly because I was at school myself once and am inclined to behave when called to the headmistress’ study , and partly because the dreadful fear of my child being expelled and having to wander the streets of Sevenoaks (on drugs) before ending up in some local sink used to pass before my eyes. The school seems, in retrospect, to have deliberately cultivated this feeling that your child was lucky to have a place and they might take it away if you didn’t behave.
More recently, I have looked askance at all this. Who is the customer here, I have asked myself. Me, surely! I am the one paying over a massive monthly direct debit, am I not? I should be the one threatening to take my business away, shouldn’t I? In what other business does the supplier threaten the customer, albeit in a veiled way, with refusing to supply the service?
Having said all this, almost everyone round here firmly believes that school in the UK is tip-top, as it was in the days of the Raj, and that if you are abroad you would send your children back home to a boarding school. Conversations have gone like this:
School Parent: "Oh, you're going to Spain!" (said as if it were Borneo, Ulan Batur, etc)
Me: Yes
SP: Oh... how exciting (said as if knell of death)... But what about schools?
Me: Well, they have them in Spain.
SP: Yes... is it an international school, then?
Me; No, it's Spanish. (Thinks: that is the point of going to Spain, fathead)
SP: Oh.. are they good?
Me: What do you mean by good?
SP: (Thinks: expensive, with right kind of children, leading to job at Goldman Sachs). Well, er.. you know.... do they get good results?
Me: (airily) Don't know.. they don't have exams, you know.
SP: (looking horrified). Oh! Well, you can always come back...
If I had a Euro for every time I've heard those words, I could offset a nice lump sum against all the fees I've paid out for the school to nag me and give my children detentions for asking too many questions, or forgetting their cookery trays.
I hope my children will be very happy in their local school in Spain. I hope school will be fun, and about learning interesting things, not about tests and passing exams and getting results. I hope they never go to a "good" UK university, or work at Goldman Sachs, but do something wild and interesting, whatever it may be. I hope it opens the door to a whole continent to them, and that they travel to Guatemala, and Chile and Argentina. If nothing else, they will have two cultures, and two languages, and so, I believe they will be two people. And two heads, of course, are better than one.
There are only 17 weeks to go. This seems ages, but it is like Christmas; it creeps up on you at the last minute. I started off thinking I was quite well prepared - as during the last year, I have made what I now realise were sub conscious efforts to prepare for leaving, by tidying my cupboards and chucking some stuff out. I have also organised a rummage sale for my two sisters, though as Sandy points out the word "sale" is being used loosely as neither one of them will bring their purse; as the eldest, I am the Great Provider.
There is an art to all this de-cluttering, I have learned, and it is not easy. There are a lot of articles that give you advice to do things like take Polaroids of all your shoes and put them on shoe boxes. This is strange as a) nobody has Polaroid cameras any more, except me - I have one which I am not sure I can work any more, and which I may have to Feng Shui, ie, throw out, in the move and b) who has got time to go and take photos of all their shoes? It is just like selling things on eBay, a nice idea which people keep recommending, but too time-consuming. Everything now seems to involve taking photos of your stuff, which is not that simple: they will keep falling over or not stand out against the background.
It is all very well the Bible saying it is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to go to Heaven, but getting rid of your stuff is not easy either.
What is interesting is that it is quite addictive throwing things away; it makes you feel pure and virtuous, even if you are not sure Oxfam really want an incomplete Hornby train set or on-sale Jean-Paul Gauthier silk shirt with inbuilt corset. I can quite see how it could become obsessive, and how you could become one of those people in America - they are called Cheeseparers or something like that - who make a way of life out of re-using tea bags. It is a 21st century religion, like composting or recycling, even if they do not work, and all the worms escape all the time, and the stuff stinks to high heaven, like my Wriggly Wrigglers compost bin which I have now had to Feng Shui.
My father kept many tins with half an inch of old glue or paint, small pieces of string, and odd metal bits in boxes, in the garage, for about fifty years, on the basis that they might come in useful. They never did, in general, and if he had needed glue, he could have gone and got some, but I suppose perhaps whereas now we are quite happy to get in the car and go and buy new, he was not, and people weren’t then. He was, of course, also a refugee and had gone without, so it was understandable, but Sandy is just as bad, keeping dirty old T shirts from university or old parts of cameras, for no apparent reason. Now is the big chance to get rid of all the things I have not already surreptitiously binned. I am already up to about 24 boxes and that is only the stuff we don’t use.
2) School's out
One of the main reasons I give people for going to Spain is so that my children can learn proper Spanish. This doesn't seem possible in Kent, where it is still French or German. Why is this? French? I mean, is it because it is close? Or so that they can hold parties for the French ambassador, offering Ferrero Rochers about in a faultless accent? With all due respect to it, only a few people in places like the Congo where you are unlikely to have to go for work, speak it. As for Germans, they all speak good English.
My first disagreement with Alexander's school was on this subject. Could he do Spanish, maybe? No, only the top French students could opt for Spanish. Why? They said they didnt have enough Spanish teachers. Out of the world population of Spanish people? Maybe it is only when the old French and German ones die off they will start looking around for them.
Anyway, this is not the only problem. As I prepare to take the children out of school have made me realise I probably never should have put them in there in the first place.
Ever since Alexander started school, it has been a tale of woe. It is true he can behave a bit like Squirrel Nutkin at times: does not come when called (even after 6 times shouting at the top of my voice up the stairs), takes a long time to get dressed (one sock on while pausing to construct a Lego artefact), and acts the fool (making up stupid songs about chickens),I am assured by friends this is quite normal.
However, ever since he started at our local “nice” (ie expensive) school, we have had a stream of notes and letters. “Alex must try harder.” “Alex forgot his homework.” “Alex distracted another child.” “Alex daydreams and does not come when called.” And so on and on, including visits to the school where I have sat on an uncomfortable sofa while teachers have stared at me accusingly as if I had personally put him up to it using a remote control. The fact is if I had had a remote for Alexander I would have put it to good effect long ago, sending him on useful errands for me, making him tidy his room, etc, so this is all a bit beside the point.
At first, I accepted all this in good part. This is partly because I was at school myself once and am inclined to behave when called to the headmistress’ study , and partly because the dreadful fear of my child being expelled and having to wander the streets of Sevenoaks (on drugs) before ending up in some local sink used to pass before my eyes. The school seems, in retrospect, to have deliberately cultivated this feeling that your child was lucky to have a place and they might take it away if you didn’t behave.
More recently, I have looked askance at all this. Who is the customer here, I have asked myself. Me, surely! I am the one paying over a massive monthly direct debit, am I not? I should be the one threatening to take my business away, shouldn’t I? In what other business does the supplier threaten the customer, albeit in a veiled way, with refusing to supply the service?
Having said all this, almost everyone round here firmly believes that school in the UK is tip-top, as it was in the days of the Raj, and that if you are abroad you would send your children back home to a boarding school. Conversations have gone like this:
School Parent: "Oh, you're going to Spain!" (said as if it were Borneo, Ulan Batur, etc)
Me: Yes
SP: Oh... how exciting (said as if knell of death)... But what about schools?
Me: Well, they have them in Spain.
SP: Yes... is it an international school, then?
Me; No, it's Spanish. (Thinks: that is the point of going to Spain, fathead)
SP: Oh.. are they good?
Me: What do you mean by good?
SP: (Thinks: expensive, with right kind of children, leading to job at Goldman Sachs). Well, er.. you know.... do they get good results?
Me: (airily) Don't know.. they don't have exams, you know.
SP: (looking horrified). Oh! Well, you can always come back...
If I had a Euro for every time I've heard those words, I could offset a nice lump sum against all the fees I've paid out for the school to nag me and give my children detentions for asking too many questions, or forgetting their cookery trays.
I hope my children will be very happy in their local school in Spain. I hope school will be fun, and about learning interesting things, not about tests and passing exams and getting results. I hope they never go to a "good" UK university, or work at Goldman Sachs, but do something wild and interesting, whatever it may be. I hope it opens the door to a whole continent to them, and that they travel to Guatemala, and Chile and Argentina. If nothing else, they will have two cultures, and two languages, and so, I believe they will be two people. And two heads, of course, are better than one.
Thursday 19 April 2007
To work or not to work?
Time is already ticking away towards D Day, the day we move to Spain. The first few days after we made the decision I was so excited I could hardly wait; all I could think about was wandering down to the beach in bare feet and shorts. But now my normal anxiety has reasserted itself and I keep thinking about the whole "I am not working" thing.
People ask me "what are you going to do in Spain?" and I am finding myself using feeble words like "Well, of course I'll work but initially there will be a lot to do, you know, admin.." If people keep asking me what kind of thing I think I might do, I am saying "oh, consulting, or maybe something local.." It is all a bit defensive.
Well, for the last x years of my life, I have been shouting at "research" in the Mail and Telegraph about how women should give up work and stay at home. I have all the arguments as to why I should work at my fingertips. But now, for the first time in my adult life, I am about to stop working and I have forgotten all the research in the Mail that proved why this was an excellent idea.
I am not saying I am exactly sad about this. People have kept asking me how I felt, as if I were sick, but the fact is that the last job I really enjoyed was Euromoney, in 1989. This was a great wheeze; travelling around South East Asia, staying in the Shangri La Kuala Lumpur, meeting a few bankers, picking up knock-off Gucci bags, and then bashing out a feature; things were downhill after that.
However, it is a bit unsettling and the worst thing about it is that I keep worrying about how it will affect my relationship with Sandy. The other day I heard an item on Radio 4 that said marriages often break up when the woman stops working, because she can only talk about nappies and the man gets no attention any more. Actually, I mean I keep worrying it will mean Sandy can boss me about. He already says things like: "I was thinking of buying you a van," and when I correct him and say "You mean, you were thinking WE could buy a van for me," he says it is the same thing, which it is not.
We have had some conversations like this:
Me: I’ve worked very hard of course. I did work right through having the two children. (I may make a point about being sick daily on the M40 when I had to drive to Windsor for work. The car was full of liquorice allsorts which I mistakenly thought would stop vomiting.)
Silence from Sandy who is on his laptop.
Me: I feel really bad about it. I’ve always worked, I was brought up to work.
Silence.
Me: On the other hand, I have just earned a year’s redundancy, so I don’t need to start working for a year.
S: Yes, that’s right. (To the computer) Shit!
Me: Are you pleased we’re going? We couldn’t go of course if I wasn’t able to settle the children in. I’m doing a lot already, getting the teacher organised.
S: Good. (Fiddles with laptop)
Me: It’s good they’ll learn Spanish, isn’t it?
S: Yes, very good.
Me: But are you pleased we’re going.
S: Yes, very pleased.
Me: You don’t sound very pleased.
S: Well, you know it won’t make that much difference to me – I’ll still be working.
Me: That makes me feel bad. I feel bad if you’re working and I’m not.
This conversation which is a version of others we have had at regular intervals through our marriage potentially goes on for hours and is repeated regularly. What I am getting at is I want him to say “I don’t want you to work” or “you don’t need to work.” I have been trying to get my husband to say these words for the last 15 years, but to no avail. I would like his permission not to work, and he stubbornly refuses to give it. The closest he will come is “You do what you like, it doesn’t matter to me.” I’m not sure what this means: does it mean "I am easy either way," or does it mean: "I am not going to risk expressing a view"?
When challenged when he is in a good mood, e.g. in the pub, Sandy says he genuinely doesn't mind if I work or not. At these points, I wonder if this might not be an argument I am having with him but with myself.
These are the arguments I have always used for working:
Argument 1: Independence.
It was good for me to work, because then Sandy and I are equal if there’s an argument, and he can’t use money against me. This has always seemed a good argument, but when I think about it, it implies I dont trust my husband (or anyone). Maybe it's time I tried.
PS: I am not good at taking money from people though; I like to have my own, and I don't like people buying me stuff. Ex boyfriend Timothy, now so rich he doesn't work, used to offer me money and clothes. (At the time, I felt he was trying to control me but it could just be a matter of taste; after all, he doesn't eat anywhere less smart than the Savoy whereas I really am much happier in somewhere with metal tables.) He bought me three Hermes scarves; I have been debating whether to take them to Spain because I could wear them like Grace Kelly on the beach –but knowing me I would look like a peasant woman - anyway, nobody on Vera beach is going to be checking out my look. The alternative is to "flog them on eBay" (people keep advising me to do this).
Argument 2: money.
Yes, jobs earn you money, but I have ploughed back a significant percentage of said salary into clothes, shoes, makeup, etc. I have been into Space NK a lot and got a lot of scary spray on foundations that made me look like a flight attendant, Botox fillers and dinky eyebrow stencilling kits I couldn't work. Sometimes I think I spent about 75% of my salary on maintaining my lifestyle, depending on what you count. Of course, if I had stayed at home and not worked, I might have spent even more on gym membership and Zoffany wallpapers.
Argument 3: health
Working is good for you – or is it? As my children say in their most sinister voices. “Or is it?”
If you don’t work, like people with private incomes and layabouts, your personality doesn’t develop because you can do what you like and nobody rubs the corners off you. There may be an element of truth in this - look at celebrities - but equally you don't want to rub off so many corners that you go out of shape. Look at Jasmine, my friend who did not do well or go to university but married young. Whereas I have spent the last x years stressing about office politics, she has worked at home with her horses, and the fact is she is sweet and laid back and I am a nervous wreck with anger management issues.
Argument 4: work is fun
Sandy favours the “you know you like it really" argument (you know you like housework/ you know you prefer driving an old car, etc.) “You’d be bored if you didn’t work – you would soon get fed up (implication: You’d have to take pills and we'd have to put you in a psychiatric unit.”) Possibly, but we don’t know till we’ve tried it, and as I have pointed out, it is not as if work has made me well-balanced and we have the evidence to prove that it has not.
(Jasmine supports Sandy's view, largely because she doesn’t want me to go to Spain, only her view is also affected by the fact that she has delusions about what working is really like. She thinks my job is a bit like Rebecca’s in Hotel Babylon, which I wish it were because I would certainly like to be Tamsin Outhwaite.)
As part of her anti-Spain campaign, Jasmine keeps saying things like “I can’t see you with your high-flying job doing nothing in the middle of nowhere.” I can see a mental picture of me, dressed in an Armani suit, standing in the middle of a turnip field and crying that I miss Christophers. I protest that she doesn’t know what I am like, but it is clear the business suit is interfering with her vision of the real me. When I see myself, I see myself in my old shorts and bare feet, but it is no use saying this to Jasmine, who wears high heels on the school run. She sees the tractor as a threat, whereas I see it as salvation.
In summary, I might be worrying about not working but it is nothing to do with having enjoyed my job, and also it is not bad enough worry to even make me consider a U turn. Instead, I am wondering why, if I never wanted to do all the jobs I have done since 1989, I ended up doing them. I hate to blame everything on low self-esteem, which is the answer to too many questions, like ADD or autism but I do think a) that I was a scaredy cat, and that I thought something frightful would happen if I didnt get a proper job and b) that I didn't deserve to do what I wanted.
According to the shrink from the Priory I saw once, I didn't feel entitled to do anything I wanted, or accept gifts such as Hermes scarves (although I have to say I think I don't like gifts because I am dead fussy and I know I will be disappointed if they don't come from L'Artisan Parfumeur or Liberty: as I keep saying to Sandy, House of Fraser Bluewater is just not the same thing, however convenient it is.)
The long and short of it is, I am sure I’m the one who locked the door and took away the key. That being so, I am now going to unlock it and see what happens. As for the fact that, as people keep saying to me "You can always come back," no, I don’t think so. THis is bollocks: going back is almost always a mistake; look at Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. There is a Rubicon, and I have definitely crossed it.
People ask me "what are you going to do in Spain?" and I am finding myself using feeble words like "Well, of course I'll work but initially there will be a lot to do, you know, admin.." If people keep asking me what kind of thing I think I might do, I am saying "oh, consulting, or maybe something local.." It is all a bit defensive.
Well, for the last x years of my life, I have been shouting at "research" in the Mail and Telegraph about how women should give up work and stay at home. I have all the arguments as to why I should work at my fingertips. But now, for the first time in my adult life, I am about to stop working and I have forgotten all the research in the Mail that proved why this was an excellent idea.
I am not saying I am exactly sad about this. People have kept asking me how I felt, as if I were sick, but the fact is that the last job I really enjoyed was Euromoney, in 1989. This was a great wheeze; travelling around South East Asia, staying in the Shangri La Kuala Lumpur, meeting a few bankers, picking up knock-off Gucci bags, and then bashing out a feature; things were downhill after that.
However, it is a bit unsettling and the worst thing about it is that I keep worrying about how it will affect my relationship with Sandy. The other day I heard an item on Radio 4 that said marriages often break up when the woman stops working, because she can only talk about nappies and the man gets no attention any more. Actually, I mean I keep worrying it will mean Sandy can boss me about. He already says things like: "I was thinking of buying you a van," and when I correct him and say "You mean, you were thinking WE could buy a van for me," he says it is the same thing, which it is not.
We have had some conversations like this:
Me: I’ve worked very hard of course. I did work right through having the two children. (I may make a point about being sick daily on the M40 when I had to drive to Windsor for work. The car was full of liquorice allsorts which I mistakenly thought would stop vomiting.)
Silence from Sandy who is on his laptop.
Me: I feel really bad about it. I’ve always worked, I was brought up to work.
Silence.
Me: On the other hand, I have just earned a year’s redundancy, so I don’t need to start working for a year.
S: Yes, that’s right. (To the computer) Shit!
Me: Are you pleased we’re going? We couldn’t go of course if I wasn’t able to settle the children in. I’m doing a lot already, getting the teacher organised.
S: Good. (Fiddles with laptop)
Me: It’s good they’ll learn Spanish, isn’t it?
S: Yes, very good.
Me: But are you pleased we’re going.
S: Yes, very pleased.
Me: You don’t sound very pleased.
S: Well, you know it won’t make that much difference to me – I’ll still be working.
Me: That makes me feel bad. I feel bad if you’re working and I’m not.
This conversation which is a version of others we have had at regular intervals through our marriage potentially goes on for hours and is repeated regularly. What I am getting at is I want him to say “I don’t want you to work” or “you don’t need to work.” I have been trying to get my husband to say these words for the last 15 years, but to no avail. I would like his permission not to work, and he stubbornly refuses to give it. The closest he will come is “You do what you like, it doesn’t matter to me.” I’m not sure what this means: does it mean "I am easy either way," or does it mean: "I am not going to risk expressing a view"?
When challenged when he is in a good mood, e.g. in the pub, Sandy says he genuinely doesn't mind if I work or not. At these points, I wonder if this might not be an argument I am having with him but with myself.
These are the arguments I have always used for working:
Argument 1: Independence.
It was good for me to work, because then Sandy and I are equal if there’s an argument, and he can’t use money against me. This has always seemed a good argument, but when I think about it, it implies I dont trust my husband (or anyone). Maybe it's time I tried.
PS: I am not good at taking money from people though; I like to have my own, and I don't like people buying me stuff. Ex boyfriend Timothy, now so rich he doesn't work, used to offer me money and clothes. (At the time, I felt he was trying to control me but it could just be a matter of taste; after all, he doesn't eat anywhere less smart than the Savoy whereas I really am much happier in somewhere with metal tables.) He bought me three Hermes scarves; I have been debating whether to take them to Spain because I could wear them like Grace Kelly on the beach –but knowing me I would look like a peasant woman - anyway, nobody on Vera beach is going to be checking out my look. The alternative is to "flog them on eBay" (people keep advising me to do this).
Argument 2: money.
Yes, jobs earn you money, but I have ploughed back a significant percentage of said salary into clothes, shoes, makeup, etc. I have been into Space NK a lot and got a lot of scary spray on foundations that made me look like a flight attendant, Botox fillers and dinky eyebrow stencilling kits I couldn't work. Sometimes I think I spent about 75% of my salary on maintaining my lifestyle, depending on what you count. Of course, if I had stayed at home and not worked, I might have spent even more on gym membership and Zoffany wallpapers.
Argument 3: health
Working is good for you – or is it? As my children say in their most sinister voices. “Or is it?”
If you don’t work, like people with private incomes and layabouts, your personality doesn’t develop because you can do what you like and nobody rubs the corners off you. There may be an element of truth in this - look at celebrities - but equally you don't want to rub off so many corners that you go out of shape. Look at Jasmine, my friend who did not do well or go to university but married young. Whereas I have spent the last x years stressing about office politics, she has worked at home with her horses, and the fact is she is sweet and laid back and I am a nervous wreck with anger management issues.
Argument 4: work is fun
Sandy favours the “you know you like it really" argument (you know you like housework/ you know you prefer driving an old car, etc.) “You’d be bored if you didn’t work – you would soon get fed up (implication: You’d have to take pills and we'd have to put you in a psychiatric unit.”) Possibly, but we don’t know till we’ve tried it, and as I have pointed out, it is not as if work has made me well-balanced and we have the evidence to prove that it has not.
(Jasmine supports Sandy's view, largely because she doesn’t want me to go to Spain, only her view is also affected by the fact that she has delusions about what working is really like. She thinks my job is a bit like Rebecca’s in Hotel Babylon, which I wish it were because I would certainly like to be Tamsin Outhwaite.)
As part of her anti-Spain campaign, Jasmine keeps saying things like “I can’t see you with your high-flying job doing nothing in the middle of nowhere.” I can see a mental picture of me, dressed in an Armani suit, standing in the middle of a turnip field and crying that I miss Christophers. I protest that she doesn’t know what I am like, but it is clear the business suit is interfering with her vision of the real me. When I see myself, I see myself in my old shorts and bare feet, but it is no use saying this to Jasmine, who wears high heels on the school run. She sees the tractor as a threat, whereas I see it as salvation.
In summary, I might be worrying about not working but it is nothing to do with having enjoyed my job, and also it is not bad enough worry to even make me consider a U turn. Instead, I am wondering why, if I never wanted to do all the jobs I have done since 1989, I ended up doing them. I hate to blame everything on low self-esteem, which is the answer to too many questions, like ADD or autism but I do think a) that I was a scaredy cat, and that I thought something frightful would happen if I didnt get a proper job and b) that I didn't deserve to do what I wanted.
According to the shrink from the Priory I saw once, I didn't feel entitled to do anything I wanted, or accept gifts such as Hermes scarves (although I have to say I think I don't like gifts because I am dead fussy and I know I will be disappointed if they don't come from L'Artisan Parfumeur or Liberty: as I keep saying to Sandy, House of Fraser Bluewater is just not the same thing, however convenient it is.)
The long and short of it is, I am sure I’m the one who locked the door and took away the key. That being so, I am now going to unlock it and see what happens. As for the fact that, as people keep saying to me "You can always come back," no, I don’t think so. THis is bollocks: going back is almost always a mistake; look at Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. There is a Rubicon, and I have definitely crossed it.
Tuesday 17 April 2007
Lifeswap
Yes! Yes! After years of not reading travel books because I was so blindingly jealous of the authors, averting my eyes from Spanish highway ads for "La Casa de tus sueños," and of folding away articles about changing your life - I am doing it. Yes, after years of thinking, No, I can finally think "Yes!" Not before time. It has taken me about twenty years of working in the City to do it - but I am finally moving to Spain.
I know it is not that exotic a decision; it is not as if I am going to run a dive school in the Caymans - that plan fell by the wayside just after our honeymoon. But I am finally going to live in Spain, to not be a tourist but a resident, proudly pushing my shopping trolley round the Mercadona instead of Sainsbury. For years, I have been trying to grow a lemon tree in the garden; it is wizened and unhappy from the rain, like me. Where I am going, we drive home through groves and groves of fat, happy lemons.
We bought a house in Almeria two years ago; it was a holiday house, bought to stop us "wasting" so much money on holidays (Sandy being Scottish; he really thinks everything you spend should be an investment). Two years later, we have found a way to live there: taking our children, Alexander (12) and Lara (10), to start a new life.
"Why are you going?" It's hard to say exactly why - there are lots of "what's wrong with the UK" reasons in the newspapers but actually I think we were just bored - and then, it's nice eating looking at an almond field outside every day. T
We are hardly being original, of course. Change is the new black: we are riding the whole Wife Swap, Extreme Makeover, Place in the Sun wave. Everybody wants to change their life, get rid of their baggage, start over.Leaving the UK is the in thing: apparently 75% of Brits are either doing it, or considering it. All the same, you'd think some people thought we were going to Ulan Batur.
"But why?" wailed Jasmine, my friend and neighbour. Her children are friends with mine and we have endless mutually convenient arrangements. I can see it's not good for her; being left behind is the short straw in partings.
"We don't like it here any more," I said, heartlessly.
"What's wrong with it?" she wails again.
"It's too small," I say.
"Well, buy a bigger house," she says. We would need about another million pounds to have the amount of space we can have in Spain but anyway, I don't want a UK house. I list all the simple things I don't like: grey skies, speed cameras, traffic jams, expensive nasty food.
"The food in that new place in Westerham is quite good for the price," she says. I can't explain. It's all just too small and grey, I says feebly. That is how the UK has started to feel to me: like one of Alexander's socks when it comes out of the wash. Once, it was nice and white; now it is not.
Over the next weeks, I have had two main reactions to the breaking news.
Me: We're moving to Spain.
Type 1: Wow! That's so cool! I'm so jealous!
Me: We're moving to Spain.
Type 2: Oh! Er..why?... how? Are there schools out there?
Me: Yes.
Type 2: (Pause). Oh. What about your house?
Me: Rented!
Type 2: (Pause). Well, if it doesn't work out, you can always come back.
Type 1 people, you are cool, rock on, you can come and stay. Type 2 People, no, we can't come back. That is like saying to the bride walking up the aisle, oh well, if it doesn't work out, you can always get divorced. there are about 8 million Brits in Spain so we are hardly original. This is long after Driving Over Lemons; Orgiva, the main town in that area, has long been invaded by the British.
No, it doesn't always work out, but there are a lot of stupid people about, many of whom are living in Spain. According to Gary and Sue, who have a removals business and live in the next village to us in Almeria, if "House in the Sun," or something like that shows in, say, Birmingham, lots of people from there call and book removals. About 3 months later, they call and ask to moved back. Why? " "Oh well, they don't like it. They didn't know this is what it would be like." What did they think it would be like - England?
Actually, I think this is true; the English are a bit weird about abroad. We were in the water park in Vera recently when a British woman asked me to speak to the locker attendant for her. "He doesn't speak very good English," she explained. No? Doesn't he? Unlike all those water park attendants in the UK who speak fluent Spanish. Of the 8 million Brits in Spain, I would guess about 75% don't speak Spanish. You have to wonder what people in Sevenoaks would think of a large immigrant population of non-English speaking Spaniards. Probably they'd say that at least they weren't black.
"So when did you decide all this, then?" Jasmine's husband, Steve asks. I think they think we will still change our minds; they are looking at us as if maybe we are not in our right ones at all. "Er.." I say. The truth is, I nor Sandy can remember how we made the decision to go, although when he is grumpy and suffering from removal stress, which has happened, he blames me. Perhaps we were drunk as when I agreed to let Lara have her ears pierced? Or was it a bit like getting pregnant "by accident"? Did our subconsciouses plot it long ago, as long ago as when we first twinkled at the idea of a holiday house? Whatever, one minute it wasn't there, and the next it was, like a quantum particle.
"It was when we went to Madrid last November," I say. This is sort of true. It was a stressful weekend; we argued ("discussed") all the time about moving to work there and by the end of it I didnt really care if we ended up getting a timeshare in Vladivostok. I went to see the 2 Madrid PR agencies I could find: one was a top agency, very grand and dark, like a Velasquez; they gave me a glass of water and politely explained how they really never hired anyone because they didnt like having to fire people. Did this mean they could see they'd have to fire me? At the end, I think the man felt a bit guilty and said if my husband was coming out to Spain, they could maybe give me a bit of work as pin money, or something like that. It was all a bit Opus Dei; they wouldnt let me see any of the office but I guessed there was a bit of flagellating going on. The other agency, run by a contact of a contact, was nice, but small, with not enough money to hire me in a proper job. Sandy, meanwhile, said the economics of going onto a Spanish salary didn't work. We went back to the UK very cross, and gave up the whole plan.
About four months later, we had decided to move to Almeria. My boss had left, my company restructured, and my job as Communications Director was over. I'd already spent over a year trying to find my next role - and it didnt seem to be going anywhere. "The trouble is, at your level, there are only going to be one or two decent roles a year," one headhunter told me. "And then, of course, you've got picky.." I glared at her. ".. Which, of course you are quite right to be!" she added, diplomatically. Well, not if I wanted to earn a living. If I'd wanted to do that, I'd have pulled myself together and made sure I got another proper job. To outsiders, even my friends, I probably looked pretty brisk together, like I was still going places. I had put "just below Board level" as the headhunters suggested, on my cv. This was a bit of poetic licence: I might have been just below it, but something pretty heavy was pressing down on my head.
Just before I went my friend Nick at the Work Foundation told me the percentage of women that leave their jobs at my level - he seemed to know most of them. Not that I'm blaming any glass ceiling exactly - more likely I had no head for heights. Either way, there are moments in life when you have to blow out or up, when the lid comes off the volcano or indeed when the superego loses its grip on the id - and my superego never did my id that much under control in the first place. Something which, all my life, has kept me doing well, moving up the career ladder, trying my best - suddenly gave way. It didn't happen all at once: I felt it weaken like a rope fraying, and once or twice, when a headhunter called, I tried to hang onto it. But it was too late: it had already gone. I told Sandy I thought maybe I'd spend the summer in the house in Spain, because I wasn't sure I could find the right job in time, and it would be cheaper. That was when we started to think: what if? What if I couldn't work and the kids went to local school? What if we rented the house? What if we don't have a nanny? In what seemed like five minutes, we had knocked down all the barriers and it fell into place. It's official. We are off in July.
"But what are you going to do?" is the second question everyone asks me. "You'll be bored! You'll have to find something!" I get a bit pissed off: I have only just got my head round leaving my job, I am knackered from working in the City non stop for 20 years and already everyone wants me to start doing something. Sandy will carry on working - his job goes anywhere and can be based anywhere - and as for me, I don't know.
Don't think I am not scared. I am: not of going to Spain, but of not working. I didn't even really stop work when I had my children; I took 3 months off and with Alexander I used that to do my rescue diving course. The whole idea of not working is terrifying, like being about to jump off a huge cliff, into the sea. I've spent all that time going up the ladder and now I'm jumping off it. But what makes it easier is knowing there wasn't really anything at the top. Perhaps that's why all the women Nick knows are off. They looked up through that glass ceiling, saw a table surrounded by old farts and thought: "Oh, so that's all that's up there? Oh well, in that case, I'm off."
"Oh well, it's all very mañana out there isn't it," someone says. Not really, folks, but the excuse will do for now. I might work, but not now, tomorrow. For now, I'm writing this. At least this way if I go native, fatter, more wrinkly and driving a tractor as some of my girlfriends seem to think, I will have a record of my migration. It will be like Extreme Makeover in reverse, and in slow motion.
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