England Egypt and Back to Georgia

Tuesday 31^st January 2012

England

It was strange being back in Blighty!  It was as if we had been plucked out of one environment and plonked into another and couldn’t kind of work out what was going on.  When we came to Georgia in the summer it was more like an extended holiday moving into living here – the process was much slower.  But in England “Boom”.  It was so luxurious!  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.  Wall-to-wall carpeting, hot showers whenever you wanted them, central heating, food – so much food!  What was most odd was being able to understand what everyone was saying.  In Georgia, I realised, in a crowd I would go on standby or hibernate.  I didn’t expect to be able in most cases to understand what was being said let alone join in the conversation so I would mentally move to neutral.  In England I was bombarded with stimuli from all over the place!  In the supermarket I honed in on the conversations that were going on simply because I was in the habit of listening out for English speakers in Georgia!  It was exhausting!

On the way back from the airport we stopped at a carvery and had a roast beef dinner but couldn’t manage a pudding.  That night we had a bloody lovely sausage sandwich with mustard.  The next day - eggs and bacon with mushrooms and tomatoes.  The pleasures continued and we were gradually ticking off the list all those plans for food made when we lay in our oh-so-cold Georgian bed at night watching our hot breath rise.  The food obsession didn’t last too long, same thing with the chocolate.  It was great but it wasn’t the be all and end all.  We didn’t have a chilli-con-carne but we did get the Indian and the Chinese takeaways!

We had some great times with the family.  We stayed at my sisters before we went to Egypt and my eldest son’s after.  Martin and I both have 3 children each and we did our best to get to see everyone as much as possible during our time there.  My old Dad is 86 and I know misses us very much and so we tried to get to see him nearly every day.  It was very much a family time.  Martin’s 2 grandchildren share the same birthday with just one year apart (aged 1 and 2) on New Year’s Eve and so we went to a family party at Tia and Ian’s that day.  My sister was great putting us up, gave us her bed, cooked nice breakfasts and looked after us so well, hosting lots of events so we all could get together.  We also did mad rush visits to catch up with as many friends as we could.

There was also lots of excitement that we could have done without.  Martin scraped my sister’s car down one side the first time he drove it!  There had been a longstanding leak under the floor in Martin’s house which resulted in the floor having to be rebuilt!  There was an electrical problem in my cottage which would have caused a fire if the big puddle of water that caused the problem in the first place had not put it out!  My Dad fell over twice and we had to call an ambulance to get him up again.  He also had to go to hospital for tests.  My son sadly split with his girlfriend in the new year.   I had to have an x-ray and 2 blood tests.  It was all go!  Of course the best part of Christmas was finding out that the “Pregnant Barbie”  that I bought as a gift actually gives birth!  Where’s Ken?  That’s what I want to know!

Egypt

We stayed for one week in a 5 star hotel all-inclusive in Husquanah.   We did not leave the resort.  We lay on sunbeds on the beach, drinking a range of exotic cocktails (they usually tasted the same hahah) and read lots of books and for a change watched English films on telly in our hotel room.  Food wasn’t bad and the drinks were watered down but hey it was hot and we going back to below zero temperatures the following week.  Funnily enough it was a very popular Russian resort with very few English people – maybe 5 families in all while we were there.  So food was geared towards Russian tastes which was well – home from home!  The fascinating thing was that it was daylight and clear when we flew in and we flew right over the desert.  I had never done this before or seen a desert this close up and it looks just like when the tide goes out on the beach, leaving rivulets (sand dunes) as it retreats. Special.

Georgia

We had to pay £315 excess luggage allowance on our return flights as firstly the allowance was very small and secondly we HAD TOO MUCH STUFF!  We didn’t use our full luggage allowance going out and we left some things in England but this wasn’t enough to balance our kitchen equipment, English food supplies, new clothes that were more suitable for the Georgian winter (we had gone down a size or 2 last semester and our clothes were woefully inadequate), stationary including an A3 laminator and a supply of pouches and bags of lovely English story books for reading to the children.  Well that was that.

How great to be back in Georgia!  Life is simple here even if it is also a bit grim and lacking in luxury.  TLG were great in helping us find an apartment.  They had lined up 3 to view with varying rents, 200, 250 and 300 and drove us round and helped us choose.  We viewed on Thursday and moved in on the Sunday which is now just over a week ago.  We met with our co-teachers and started at our new schools last Thursday.  We are loving it!