“Mama, please tell me a story!” This is a familiar phrase that I hear my children say to me every evening as I put them to bed. Sometimes, my brain bubbles over with creativity and I am able to invent stories about little elves living in trees or about a cow whose biggest wish is to be friends with the birds. At times I resort to beloved stories from my own childhood such as one of the fables of Aesop The Hare and The Tortoise to which I probably end up giving my own spin due to a patchy memory.
However, at times my head feels completely empty and I excuse myself claiming that I am just too tired tonight. In the last week however, my husband and I have found a new way of telling bedtime stories which far exceed the adventures that I have been able put together in months. Read more…
However well prepared and experienced I think I am, every time I move to a new country I am always surprised by how difficult it is. The last time I moved country was nine years ago. I had put my home in the UK up for rent. The moving company had picked up most of my belongings. The last two nights before departure I slept on a blow up mattress on the living room floor while cleaning every inch of my house. Then I filled up my right hand driven car to the brim with bedding, cleaning utensils, clothing and my grand-mother’s 40 year old climbing plant carefully adorning my belongings and drove off to the European mainland.
My destination was The Netherlands. A brand new life was awaiting me together with my Dutch boyfriend in his tiny apartment. Having moved country many times before, I was full of confidence that I had the recipe to success. Hey, I was a veteran expat.
Oh boy, was I wrong. Read more…
A few weeks ago, I had the amazing opportunity of spending the afternoon following a master class taught by two celebrity chefs from Dutch television: Julius Japsers who is renowned for his passion for food and has numerous cookbooks to his name, and Robert Kranenborg who has put his excellent culinary skills to work in an array of Michelin star restaurants in France, Belgium and Holland.
There were only eight participants in the master class and on the menu of the day was Lobster Thermidor. We started with a living lobster and ended with a beautiful dish coming out of the oven served with pilau rice and wilted spinach.
I am certain that most people who read this would think some of the following thoughts: Wow! That sounds really fantastic. How on earth did you end up having such a great opportunity presented to you? That must have cost a small fortune? Were you excited to have such a unique experience? That must have made you feel really special! Did you have fun? Did you learn a lot?
Interestingly, the truth is that Read more…
It is personal confession time: One of the dreams that I had as a teenager was to become a writer. At the age of fourteen, I was writing the beginning chapter of short novels, translating my favourite books into other languages and imagining amazing stories I could write about. Whenever I spent time writing I felt light as a feather and incredibly happy.
Then life, studies, work, relationships, children, mortgages took over and I never took my dream any further. How often do we do this? How often do we neglect to develop a passion that truly could make us fly and feel like we are skipping over daily obstacles with the grace of a ballet dancer?
About one year ago, Read more…
I am currently reading Sunshine Soup written by the internationally acclaimed writer Jo Parfitt. Jo has been an expat for more than twenty years and has written and published 28 books of her own as well as helping others write and publish their own books.
Sunshine Soup is Jo’s first novel and it is inspired by her own experiences of life as an expat. From the first page, you can’t help but being transported away as you read the story of Maya, a British brand new expat moving to Dubai. She meets Barb, an American woman who introduces her to a network of local expat women each with her own personal story. As friendships unfold, Maya learns to feel at ease and adapts her excellent cooking skills to the local flavour.
Having relocated many times myself I still find every new move surprisingly difficult. It is a delight to follow Maya in her ups and downs as well as read about the comfort that a newcomer gains from the help and friendships of other women who have already settled in. Sunshine Soup describes moments of powerful emotions, is dotted with humour and catches the rich cultural differences between all the nationalities of the characters that are living locally.
An added benefit to the book is that you also get enormously hungry. The main character cooks up a storm throughout the novel, and if you are into cooking, you can try out the delectable recipes for yourself as they are listed at the back of the book.
I highly recommend this book. This novel is full of colour, spice, flavour, heat and sunshine.
We were recently in Denmark for a couple of weeks to regenerate and to visit with my family. I am born of Danish parents and grew up in Denmark until the age of seven. Most of my family is still living there and when we come by on our annual visit, there are a number of traditional activities we love to do. We go to our favourite harbour to buy fresh fish, take a trip to Copenhagen for the day, eat typical Danish chicken soup with dumplings and visit my ninety-two year old grand-mother who has been living in the same house since she was in her twenties. I enjoy sharing my Danish roots with my children and love to discover my identity and background through their young eyes. We take a moment to be solemn and connect with special emotions when we go to visit a couple of cemeteries where grand-parents and great grand-parents are laid to rest. This is of course a time where children are asking a lot of questions and want to grasp what they are seeing and what it means to them.
During the visit at the cemetery in North Copenhagen where my paternal grandparents and my father are laid to rest, my five year old son Aiden suddenly had a lot of pressing questions. Children have an amazing way of bringing deep thoughts into words that are straight forward and down to earth. Grown-ups tend to be uncomfortable around the subject of death when in fact it is a natural part of our being human.
I have to say, that during the talk we had, I learnt just as much from him as he did from me. The conversation went something like this: Read more…
A couple of weeks ago I was shopping on Amazon and needed to fill up my digital shopping trolley to £25 in order to get free shipping. That’s when I suddenly remembered a book that has been mentioned to me in passing by numerous people in the last ten years: Who moved my cheese? by Spencer Johnson. I have always been intrigued by the title and by the raving positive comments.
Last week the book arrived and I was surprised that such a small book could have such a big impact. It was a half hour read and yet more than 24 million copies have been sold.
Here is a summary of this simple but powerful story: two mice named Sniff and Scurry and two “little people” named Hem and Haw live in a maze with long corridors and hidden stations containing cheese. Sniff and Scurry jog around the maze to look for cheese and stop to eat when they find some. They adapt to change as the cheese is depleted in one station and run on to find new cheese. The two “little people” however have a more human style of behaviour when they find the cheese. They hang up their jogging shoes and settle down close to the cheese station. When they find that the cheese station has become Read more…
I have recently decided to dust off the cross trainer that stands less than five steps away from my desk to use it for what it was intended for. My cross trainer and I have a long history together. I still have the receipt from when I bought it more than three years ago. It came with a one year warranty which quickly ran out before I got a chance to test if the machine actually worked.
After some soul-searching I came to the realization that the solution to my need for more exercise was actually standing right next to me. So, one day, not too long ago, I decided to give it a try. This is when I realized that it squeaks. I mean… IT SQUEAKS! It groans like an old engine about to give up the ghost, like someone has attached hundreds of clothes pegs on the wheels of a bicycle and ridden a top speed down the street. I have tried to put music on to cover the noise but I can barely hear it over the agonizing sounds that it makes.
At first, I thought about contacting the seller to see if my long run out warranty would get me a free full service to fix the problem. But then Read more…
It’s that time of the year again. Our beloved and faithful au pair Tami who has lived with us for one year is getting ready to leave next week and our new au pair Alex is arriving tomorrow. It is a time of upheaval, in-depth cleaning and preparation, packing and unpacking. For our little family it is a time of reflexion on the wonderful year that has past and excitement and trepidation about welcoming a new person into our home who will impact us and change us just like we will impact her and give her an experience for life.
Since our twins were born we have had an average of one au pair per year. Tomorrow we will welcome au pair number six into our home. Most of the experiences have been fantastic for all involved, we have learnt a lot from each other, been influenced by each other’s cultures and habits, discovered new dishes and eating habits and enjoyed the cultural melting pot that our home is. Read more…
Imagine: You walk into a room with five people who are in the middle of a conversation. These are acquaintances of yours that you only know a little. They are actively participating in a conversation, speaking fast and comfortably sharing their points with each other. They laugh at each other’s comments and you are not able to laugh along with them as you do not know what the subject of conversation is about. How comfortable are you in that moment?
Here is another scenario: You are working with a new manager. He is very different to any manager you have ever had before and comes from a different culture to what you are used to. As you sit together to discuss your priorities for the coming three months, he uses jargon that you don’t know and refers to a particular management theory that is completely new to you. What is your reaction in that moment?
For many of us, our first reaction would be to feel stupid and be afraid of others picking up on that fact. The last thing that you want is to come across as ignorant or less able than the people you are dealing with. It is uncomfortable to feel out of your depth and most of us have instinctive reactions. So how do you react? Read more…
