When your boat comes in

Dance ti' thy daddy, sing ti' thy mammy,
Dance ti' thy daddy, ti' thy mammy sing;
Thou shall hev a fishy on a little dishy,
Thou shall hev a bloater when the boat comes in.
(trad. Northumbrian folksong)

Our boat's already in, we're just not sure what to expect. For all the old Geordie song pops into me head when I hear the phrase, in both verse and real life there's always a hint that it might not all be good news, as if your fishy might end up slapping you in the face rather than filling your belly. The way I remember it, most of the verses describe the kids of the house farting about with their mam, until the man of the house staggers in from the pub with their supper, stone cold and far from sober.

To be fair to respectable Northumbrian folk, this is quite possibly a bastardised version of a rather more quaint and tasteful seafaring ballad but then again, it's probably not ;) I mean it's not an unfamiliar scene. Not that my dad ever, y'know... well, not regularly. I remember the first & last time he rolled in late a bit worse for wear, clutching two bags of crisps and a Fry's Chocolate Creme. He certainly wasn't allowed to forget in a hurry ;)

The more conventional maritime meaning of your boat coming in evolved around the settling of a debt and the reaping of rewards, cos for centuries merchants have borrowed money to finance shipments from the other side of the world and paid off the loan once the lucrative cargo docked. Of course much depends on the quality of the merchandise and whether it's actually worth the initial investment, ie whether you end up lumbered with stuff no-one wants, worse off than you were before. It's in this sense that the phrase applies to us, as were equally unclear whether our boat coming in is a blessing or a curse, and the heartening fact that we've paid for it all upfront kind of fades when we recall what we've actually paid for.

And it wasn't cheap. (I have to get this down before the stuff clears quarantine and ends up in our garage: by then it'll be too late to think of it in abstract terms, cos we'll be up to our necks in it) If anyone reading this ever considers something as daft as moving their entire home and contents across the globe, please, don't. Just don't do it. Sell the lot.

Don't be fooled into thinking you have to buy Gizmo X cos they won't sell them where you're going: not only is that highly unlikely, when you get where you're going your needs will almost certainly shift enough to make X obsolete before it arrives.

Remember that the clothes you absolutely can't do without will fit into a standard suitcase. Anything and everything that ends up shoved into black bin liners clearly isn't going to be worth removing from them at the other end.

Books: sell them or give them away, you'll never read them any more than you'll miss them.

CDs, DVDs etc: rip them to your hard drive, then sell them.

Ornaments: looked great in your old place, so leave them there, or try eBay.

Electrical, soft furnishings, kitchenware: sell, sell, sell!

There's just no point shipping stuff when it costs $15 per cubic foot (once you've insured it) and your average washing machine is 12 cu ft. If it cost you $600 a year ago, by the time you ship it, battered and bruised, to your destination, it'll have cost you a another $180. Instead, just sell it, put the proceeds and savings – say $350 – towards a nice new one that'll actually work, or at least have a warranty that you could actually claim on, and save another $350 in repairs and prescription valium.

Yes, I'm looking forward to having my bikes, tools and er, well, bikes and tools, that's it. The rest could have been hijacked by Somalian pirates for all I care. In fact we should have paid the buggers to do just that. One forty-five grand insurance claim later, I think I could bear the loss. The two of us are almost indignant that it's all arrived at all, especially since all we're going to do is stack it in the garage and wonder what on earth possessed us to rent a furnished house.

It's due to be delivered on Tuesday, possibly even Christmas eve.

Bah.

On the bright side, the summer holidays started today, the weather's lovely and we have a new gas barbecue. Yes, that really is a barbecue in the pic (the house came with a ceramic hob [curse, spit] which is a complete and utter waste of perfectly good benchtop space. I won't let on how I came to buy a stainless steel six-burner with accessory ring, when all I wanted was an accessory ring... I have no doubt Nik'll relish telling the tale when she gets a minute) And the December iPhone pics are up. All that remains is to wish my reader (sic) a fabulous yule: hope you have a bloater, just like us.

The kids are alright

It's normal to be concerned about kids, I mean they're a worry aren't they? One of the hardest things about being a dad (or a mam) is accepting that your son (or daughter) is actually doing fine at school (or nursery), plays nicely with the other kids and is generally, as far as there can be a definitive standard, behaving "normally". Even leaving aside the fact that you the parent are being progressively relieved of any responsibility for your child's behaviour (it's all down to your child's birth weight, not your being a selfish, lazy, chain-smoking binge drinker, etc etc) there's a feeling of helplessness that stems directly from not being around for best part of your lad's (or lasses) (sorry, I'll stop that now) working day, or even more wishfully, wondering what on earth is going thorough their heads. Ok, now fold that mixture into this whole big disruption thing (cf previous blog posts) and we wouldn't be normal ourselves if we weren't extra concerned, a bit over-watchful and occasionally verging on neurotic about their well-being. Well, after a shaky start and in realising all of the above, I think we can finally rest in the knowledge that both E and O are properly grounded at last, even if we are none the wiser in the child development stakes.

We were just agreeing today that Elly seems happier than we've ever seen her; fabulously five, classically blonde and yet not completely dizzy, full of life and about as self-centered as she'll ever be. I hope. She seems to be charging ahead with schoolwork and friendships and has that brash, me-first, super-critical, cry-at-the-drop-of-a hat first-grader thing off to a fine art. If anything, she's very mature for her age and seems to be well in with the alpha females in her class. She likes swimming (every day in the school pool) scooters, gourmet food (ahem) Pixar movies, trampolines and arguing.

I may have already mentioned that Oscar is two. There isn't really anything more to say.

Oh, alright then.

He can be as infuriating as any kid his age, but he's mostly gorgeous. He spends two days a week at nursery, which has been his biggest challenge by far since we got here. It would have been much easier with even one more day but nurseries are so busy here, regulations (children per tutor) are strict and there's just not been the space for him. This week, at last, he seems to have settled in there and we can actually mention the place by name without him crying... in fact he gets quite chirpy about it. Please may he not learn to speak properly just yet; Oggis-speak is so meltingly cute and totally hilarious. He's moved on, at last, from vocabulary building to sentences, thanks to liberal use of the indefinite article – "a want a go a play a bings a park a pees daddy" (bings = swings) – which has opened up a whole world of communication for him. And occasionally for us.

Oscar likes everything that Elly likes plus soil and raisins.

There's a bunch of other kids that have been the source of some anguish and they're more or less the same as they were when we got here, according to Niki. Her school is still in turmoil, and although the eye of the storm seems to have passed, there's still a lot of negativity among the upper management in the wake of it and the going remains tough. As you'd expect, her class of 10-year-olds have meanwhile learned the hard way that there's Nik's way or the highway, and they're pretty much on-side now. They're clearly going to be a challenge but that's the stuff of teaching as far as she's concerned. You'd have to ask her yourself, but I get the impression that they've got under her skin a bit and she under theirs, which is all they need to start turning themselves around. They're just kids, after all, young enough that every day can be a fresh start if they really want it to be.

I'm hoping you're never too old for that to hold true :) finding work was always going to be slow but I'm forging ahead with plans A B and C as & when the kids permit. All will be revealed shortly. Meanwhile, the last of the November "iPhone moments" are up on picassa, hope you're enjoying them as much as I am.