Category: Adelaide (far) from Adelaide

One year down, one to go

I took the lads back to Berri (the mister’s home turf) via Adelaide for Christmas while the mister stayed here Abu Dhabi.

Landing in Australia, putting credit back on my Australian SIM card, I felt the relief that you feel on arriving somewhere that takes no real effort. The relief that comes from knowing the language, the laws, and what to do if you lose your purse. We could get sick, robbed, lost, but it would be okay and, anyway, we wouldn’t get sick or robbed or lost, because we were home.

Except I was a little bit lost.

Well of course I was.

I’d just taken my lads to Paris for what must surely be, even if I am only half way through it, one of my life’s highlights. I’d dropped in at Abu Dhabi just long enough to remember how incomprehensible it is; to have a farewell coffee with a wonderful friend who won’t be here when I get back; and for the mister to wash my knickers and shove them back into my suitcase not-quite-dry. Then I pulled my clot-preventing socks back up and collected my boarding pass.

Back in Adelaide, I found, as people always do when they return, that everything was all at once different and the same. The light and the smells and the sound hit me with their forgotten familiarity. The air was dry, no crane in sight. But our house is rented out; we wouldn’t be spending the Christmas-New Year break on Kangaroo Island; the people who bought my Grandfather’s house have knocked it down and built a new one in its place; and a few days after I arrived in Adelaide the sale of my Dad’s – our family – house was settled. Dusted and done.

I was home, but not.

Mostly though, I was lost, because this was the second Christmas after Dad’s death. The second Christmas of being parent-less.

I think that in the grieving cycle, seconds are a bit more complex than firsts. Maybe not for everyone, but for me. In the second year, it all becomes real. In the second year, the shock has worn off and the protective numbness is receding. In the second year, that loss has been layered by births, illnesses, marriages, break-ups, break-downs, deaths, graduations, birthdays, bushfires, redundancies. Life has gone on as it does, layering our experiences minute by minute, days at a time. And so, at the second Christmas, you look around and you realise that this is how it is. He’s gone.

Intellectually, I know that I am a middle-aged woman without parents. I know this. But emotionally, I’ve lost my bearings, and I’m still not quite sure where I fit in this post-parent age. Even physically, I have to adjust, because my body still feels the absence of my parents as an emptiness above and around me. Somehow or other I have to work out how I can grow into that space.

As much as I try to keep Christmas low-key, it as at Christmas time that absences loom large. I do have places to be and people to be there with. Other families, of which I am a part, love me, welcome and care for me. Really, it’s quite something and even just thinking about how beautiful people were to me, I cry. But the absences are still there.

I’ve got welcoming places, but I haven’t got parents. I have safe harbours, but my anchors are lost.

Still, however lost I did feel, however overwhelmed, I was always glad that I’d made the trip. I watched the lads play with their cousins and have sleepovers and trade pokemon cards and go for swims in the river. I sat in backyards and in cafes and on the beach with my aunties, uncles, my step-family, my in-laws, my cousins, my friends.

I drank too much and stayed up way past my bedtime every single night (one time, almost til dawn, and it wasn’t even New Year’s Eve – brilliant times). One of the things I especially liked was sitting with my cousins and my friends, the ones who are around the same age, people I’ve known a long time or through tricky times, all of us who have looked, or are looking, around and thinking, ‘my goodness, look where we are, how did this happen and what are we supposed to do now?’

We cried and laughed over the years we’ve just had and the decisions we’ve made and the things that have turned out right and the things that have turned out wrong and the things we’re glad we’ve done and the things we should-oughtta have done. I wallowed, then get over myself, then wallowed, then get over myself again.

And it’s interesting, that even as each conversation acted like a little anchor, each one adding to the other, giving me more and more steadying weight, I felt myself able to leave them again, able to return to this incomprehensible place and say to the mister, ‘We should go and buy a bougainvillea to plant in the courtyard this weekend.’

And now we are exhausted

On the weekend, we went to Sharjah.

We had this view from our hotel room:

From sharjah

The hotel was filled with visiting Russians. I have no idea why so many Russians come and visit Sharjah, but they do.

We walked along the Corniche at dusk;

From sharjah

we saw some bags of bread;

From sharjah

We obeyed the signs.

From sharjah

>>>>
The next day, we saw a decorated truck;

From sharjah

got lost in the Heritage Area;

From sharjah

did not go into this shop;

From sharjah

but looked into this one.

From sharjah

We walked past this sign;

From sharjah

through this souk;

From sharjah

and past these shops.

From sharjah

We desperately wanted to buy some more crystals.

From sharjah

On the way home, we drove through University City

From sharjah

past a sign:

From sharjah

and spent some time behind these camels.

From sharjah

One answer

In her last comment, Helen asked, ‘What kind of jobs are available in AD (apart from construction/engineering)? Is it easy for an expatriate who isn’t an engineer/builder/developer to get work? Is there a special dress code for women?’

I shall begin with the dress code. Simply put, expat women seem to wear pretty much what they like, though women from my background generally dress more conservatively than they might at home. I have a couple of sun dresses, for example, which are strappy numbers that I wear around the house, but wouldn’t wear outside. At the swimming pool, there are plenty of bikinis, though I myself continue to wear my sensible all-covering bathers, because I have been raised on ‘slip slop slap’ and also I burn easily and also have always found sunbathing excrutiangly boring (when I say always, I mean the two times I’ve done it). Local girls and women and Muslim expats often wear the full-length bathers, but others wear bathers similar to mine.

Coming home from the gym, I sometimes stop at a shop to pick up a newspaper or milk, and I keep a shirt in the car that I put on over the top of my gym gear, because I wear singlets to the gym and, for many different reasons, would feel uncomfortable dressed like that in the shop.

I often carry a scarf which I can wrap around myself which is also a useful defence against the ubiquitous air-condiitoning.

The malls all have signs asking that you dress appropriately, which means covered shoulders and skirts/dresses/pants that go below the knees and tops that are not low-cut. It wouldn’t be unusual to see uncovered shoulders at the malls, but it isn’t common.

Local women (Emiratis) wear an abaya (the black robe), and sheyla (head covering) which is considered to be the national dress. Many do veil their faces, but many don’t. Some women wear a ‘burkha’ which here is the leather mask covering the mouth, eyes and cheekbones (I think, don’t quote me on that). The burkha isn’t all that common, but you would always see at least one woman wearing one. Local men wear the dishdash (white robe) and headdress.

There’s lots of shops catering to Indian expats. One of the easiest ways to buy fabric is to buy a set for the sari suit, which is two larger pieces of fabric (one to make the top and one to make the pants) and a smaller piece for the scarf. I’ve bought more fabric than I really need, simply because it is so easy to buy it that way. Mind you, one of my friends from India told me that all of the fashions here are ‘out of date’. I have never been in date, so it doesn’t really matter.

Eid Mubarak

For the last month it has been the holy month of Ramadan. Now it is Eid al fitr. Eid started today. Ramadan and Eid, like Easter, start and end according to the cycle of the moon.

There is a moon sighting committee which met last night to determine that the Shawwal moon has been sighted and to declare the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid.

There are public holidays for Eid, but it has not been possible to set the exact days of the public holiday. If the committee did not sight the moon last night then Ramadan would have continued for another twenty four hours.

This article explains it better than I have done.

And you know what Australians are like when it comes to public holidays.

Not sure what to read next

I was trying to think, while I was reading Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable Creatures, what it was that kept taking me back to the years (wonderful years) that I spent in New Zealand.

The Piano connection was easy. Look at the cover. The sand is not black, but in so many other ways it evokes The Piano to me. (Coincidentally, the first movie that my father and I sat through together after my mother died).

But there was something else, and everytime I picked the book up, this feeling sat there with me, but I couldn’t pinpoint where this feeling came from. Until finally, just this morning as I finished the book, the connection clicked. Heavenly Creatures of course.

And now I have a hankering to see that film again. I know in a general sense what it is that keeps me thinking about this book and then that film and then this book again. The friendship between two women, two girls, a girl and a woman. But I must see the film again before I comment too much. Though goodness knows when that might be, not sure the Abu Dhabi Virgin Megastore stocks such things.

I lost myself in Remarkable Creatures in so many ways. It reminds me that I should have told you about my visit to Edinburgh’s Royal College of Physicans where the librarian showed us all sorts of treasures and we went to the library and I just breathed in those books, and there was a first edition of Darwin. I should write more of that day and I shall.

Anyway, my copy of Remarkable Creatures is filled with marginalia and passages with asterisks, but none so asterisked as this, Elizabeth Philpot’s solitary walk ‘along Great Russell Street past the British Museum’:

While I did so often enough in Lyme, I had never actually walked down a London street alone; I had always been with my sisters or brother or friends or a servant. In Lyme there was less concern over such conventions, but here a lady of my station was expected to be accompanied. I found myself being stared at by men and women alike, as the odd one out. Suddenly I felt exposed, the air around me cold and still and empty, as if I were walking with my eyes shut and might bump into something.

Because just two weeks ago, I walked that very stretch of road and I remember that as I walked my brain felt refreshed, my body liberated for the very reason, that I have, just recently, felt the way that she describes.

So I guess this must be autumn

‘You should have been here in August,’ people say. It was hotter then. More humid (one hundred percent humidity). I stand in the school corridor recovering from the walk, the sweat so thick it is a second skin.

When we first moved to Port Pirie my Mum would say, ‘There’s only two degrees of hot…there’s hot and bloody hot’. She was wrong. There is this.

Later, at the intersection, one of the mums I recognise but do not know calls from her 4-wheel drive window, ‘Hop in.’

‘It’s okay,’ I call back, ‘We’re nearly home. But thank you…thanks so much, that’s really kind.’

She furrows her brow as she winds the window up.

We are nearly home. If it is thirty degrees. Even if it is thirty five. But it is forty degrees. Humid. And two o’clock in the afternoon. I am carrying all of our bags. Those ten minutes are long.

‘It’s all right,’ I tell the boys, ‘we’ll have the car tomorrow, or maybe the day after that at the latest and then we’ll drive until the weather cools down again.’

Like everything here, the car is taped in red. The buyer and the seller must be present at the buyer’s bank, the seller’s bank, there is a valuation not more than 5 days old, a trip to a government department, forms, more forms, photocopies of forms. But it all goes smoothly and we take possession of the car. No, not ‘we’, the mister.

Our car is a humble one. It is not gold-plated. It is not a Lexus or a VW Golf. It will spend its nights parked next to a Hummer. Again, not gold-plated.

I have always preferred to walk or bus or tram. Here, that I am trapped without a car makes me feel twice as trapped. It is an odd kind of claustrophobia.

But my google reader brings hope. Look, it’s spring at Cristy’s and at Pav’s While you spring, we will cool down, and in a month or so, we will be out of the car again. And in the meantime, I can enjoy an Australian spring, without getting hayfever.

From 13th street

All good things really do come to an end

One day to go. The end of the holidays always has to arrive. I know that. But when it does arrive, don’t you always wish it hadn’t?

Finished my show Saturday; got on an Edinburgh-London train Sunday (we had half a mind to go to the Ashes on Monday, but didn’t book tickets just in case and we all know how that ended up, don’t we); and not tomorrow (that being Thursday) but the next day (that being Friday) we’re boarding a plane to Abu Dhabi at 6.30 am. Which means we have to be there at 4.30 which means we have to get up almost before we go to bed, so we’re going out to one of those hotels which charges cheap rates because they know you’ll only be there a few hours at most.

Tomorrow (that being Thursday) we’ll need to move our things from this extraordinarily expensive accommodation (I’m trying not to spend too much time converting the pounds to dollars, but oh my goodness, I don’t think we’ve ever spent more on a holiday than we have during these four days in London – how on Earth do people afford to live here) out to the airport hotel and then we’ll come back in and spend the day at the Natural History Museum, before back to the hotel for an early night and a few hours’ sleep before the sound of the many alarms that we will set just to be sure we don’t sleep in, though of course we won’t sleep in, because we won’t sleep at all, too worried will we be that we will sleep through our alarms.

What a time this has been.

I loved every single moment of Spain, even the moments I didn’t. My show was awesome, Edinburgh was gorgeous and I saw Carol Ann Duffy at the Storytelling Centre. Also, it has rained as much as I hoped it would, and if only I could teach my body to bank the cool.

The lads are looking forward to going back to school and have spent hours discussing their respective birthday parties and who will come and what they will do (two or perhaps three friends each for sleepovers). The mister will go back to work. And I will: try to push my second novel into shape; rewrite the back end of my script because I’ve over-used most of that in Adelaide already; and polish off a few essays that I’ve written on topics such as adult orphan-age, grief and art, grief and comedy, middle-aged creativity and other things, and then I will not send them anywhere because I just can’t stand the thought of them being rejected. I will also drink less and exercise more and that will not be such a bad thing.

Talk to you soon.

Is it Wednesday already?

Pleased to report that I am having a most excellent time. Over five performances, my (modest) audience expectations have been reached every night and exceeded three times.

More importantly, people are enjoying it. Over the last few nights, more than one person has said, ‘That was brilliant’, still with smiles on their faces. You can tell when people mean it.

In the meantime, we’ve been taking the boys to quite a few things. We went to Potted Pirates yesterday which seems to have been here last year as well. Excellent fun, and perfectly suited for our two boys who love a good dose of the sillies. The BFG has sold out, so I think today we’re off to The Greatest Bubble Show on Earth.

Would love to write more, but it’s a bit hard right now, not just tired, but lacking clarity of thought…there’ll be plenty of time when I’m back in Abu Dhabi.

Lots to say, but too tired to be articulate…

I have so much to tell you, but I’m tired…so very, very tired. My venue has Sundays off, for which I am extraordinarily grateful. Sitting on a couch (which is draped in a spread of dubious colour to hide the dubious colour of the lounge), flicking around the interwebs and listening to The Archers. (rock and roll? we has it)

I’m pleased. Extraordinarily pleased. For all sorts of reasons I will tell you about eventually, but am too tired to tell you about now. For now, suffice to say, still love my script and I’ve had lovely, gorgeous people in my audience.

On the matter of audience and getting one to come along…I made a good decision back there when I decided that if I was going to come to Edinburgh to have a look around, I may as well bring my own show. Honestly, if I’d come just to have a look like I originally planned, I would never have brought my own show.

I was completely unprepared for the…erm…exuberance of the Royal Mile. It’s just amazing down there. The thought and energy that people put in to selling their shows (okay, so getting around in your underwear isn’t that thoughtful, but there’s lots more than that). Looking at it, I feel all at once overwhelmed and inadequate and it would have scared me off if I had given myself an opportunity to think about it. Now, I look at it and think, ‘My goodness me, I’m part of this.’

All of this is not completely unrelated to the following brilliant sentence I read on Pen’s blog earlier today:
“So here is my advice to budding researchers – ask yourself a question you really want to know the answer to, not a question that fits what you think you can find out.”

And now, from my window, I can see a truck, the tray of which is overflowing with people banging on drums. At the insistence of eldest child we’re back to Our Dynamic Earth today, then Still Breathing which I think my boys will love.

PS Sorry I can’t show you any photos just now, but I don’t have enough byte in my giga. Shall see if I can find a coffee shop that sells good coffee and has wireless at the same time that I have both my computer and my camera in my bag.

You can be calm and panicky all at the same time

With a simple production like mine – one person, one microphone, one spotlight – there’s not a lot that can go wrong in the ‘ohmigod the mermaid costume hasn’t arrived’ or ‘ohmigod, look what they did to my cello’. Even so, things can go arse-up. Especially if, like me, you don’t know too much about being a producer. One such moment yesterday, though fairly quickly solved.

The good thing about operating at this level of experience is that you don’t know what can go wrong which means you can’t sit around obsessing over things that probably won’t happen. The bad thing about operating at this level of experience is that you don’t know what can go wrong, so you can’t make contingency plans.

I see from that tweet over there it’s only been six hours since I last tweeted. I did that before I went to bed. Up late stuffing envelopes and this morning I woke with a zing. Apples, I will want apples before I go on. Of course, I should have an entourage thinking of such things. But you know, kids these days.

Not sure why the thought of apples should drive me out of bed. It’s not like the shops are even open yet. But it’s nice sitting here with my cup of tea and my internet, listening to the central heating kick in (we don’t know how to turn it off, and we especially don’t know how to turn the central heating off without turning the hot water off – so we’re not messing with it), making a list and just quietly going through what needs to be done.

So that’s the panic bit. But the calm? The calm is that I love my script.

Tech rehearsal tonight, then first preview tomorrow.