Bling!

Am in sunny (literally) Atlanta. Got upgraded to business class on the way over - YES - am seriously thinking may have to reconsider career choices, its so much more civilized to do long haul business class, you get there feeling almost human. A good thing when trying to negotiate complicated US security. Almost left the laptop behind when they x-rayed it as I LEFT the airport as well (not sure I understand that but thats what happened). Managed to avoid leaving it thankfully. So its the weekend of Thanksgiving sales. Thankfully Fri and Sat are the big days cos I think it might have been very busy. Today was calmer, not so many bargains, but these days I just think being in a country where the clothes are not made for people with average height of 5'2" is a great thing. And of course the US$ just keeps going down, great for the buying of clothes, bad for the $ I am being paid. Just better spend it all and be about even. Mind you spending it all could be hard. Atlanta is definitely SOUTH. I dont think I saw a single piece of clothing today which didnt have gold thread or sequins or glitzy material. We are in the land of the southern Belle people. (Not me, as you can imagine, almost as bad as total pink!). Did manage to buy a couple of things, but not nearly as satisfactory as previous US shopping excursions. I have only been to southern US once before and I forgot they are all absolutely enthralled with my accent. Even more so now that its got a pretty heavy Oxbridge overtone (sorry about that, its not intentional, but I saw a video of me the other day and I do sound like a right twat, hopefully it will wear off quickly when I get back to Oz, but I think I can probably do a very convincing job of correcting DD's enunciation now - family joke) Anyway, the most amazing thing about here is that there are still pretty limited clothes in my size range, there is a dichotomous distribution - the size 2 - 6 range (can you believe they have a size 2? there is even a 0 - these sizes look like something a starving 6 year old should wear, just ghastly) and then there is mega tent size. Now if you buy mega tent size it is almost invariably in black jersey and decorated with sparkly stuff. And if you buy stick size then it will be in satin or some other very impractical fabric. I did not see a single pair of trousers made in a sensible fabric, all either silk or polyester!! But if you wanted to buy a ball gown for your 7 year old (yes really), boy were you in the right place. Amazing. So very educational, if not all that wardrobe enhancing.
Off to work tomorrow.

On the boy!

J's dreams have all come true - the pirate ship from birthday loot has arrived. As you can see its very large, and true to form on modern packaging the box was enormous! Not the most flattering picture of the boy - clearly lining up for a big growth spurt again, as he does, turns into a little hamster then shoots up (as opposed to his parents who just turn into hamsters and forgot to shoot up afterwards). M bought herself a little rowboat from playmobil too - she thinks its fantastic, about ratio of real rowboat to real pirate galleon here so it looks really small and she looks very unmaterialistic compared with this!!! Well, perhaps he will be a hedge fund manager and keep us all in style (and his sister in salmon and blueberries!).

Birthday party at the zoo & Halloween

J decided to have a small birthday event with 2 friends (and 1 of their little brothers who happens to be a friend of little M's) at the local wildlife park. They all had a great day. Two highlights were the otters (J is doing a project for school on otters so he has copious photos of a very talkative otter) and tigers (his friend is doing one on tigers). It was a good fun day, and relatively relaxed for the parents as the kids just played on the equipment, did a tour of the zoo animals and ate sandwiches and cake. No real entertainment had to be laid on, so it was lovely for all. Little M has decided she would like a zoo party too - she wants particularly to see Pandas - problem is the closest ones are in Germany!!! Hmm, R looked it up and discovered we could go there for 5 pounds each way in February, but I then reminded him Berlin in February may not be very attractive! We are hoping elephants might be a good alternative!!

Halloween this week, quite big in our area. J went as Cap'n Jack Sparrow (of course) and M as a cat. They got HUGE amount of loot, and it cost their parents a HUGE amount in doling it out to trick and treaters (it seems like our street is the 'safe one' for little kids in Cambridge so there were literally hundreds of the 4-10 year old age group in the street).Not much going on this weekend, massive cleaning of house parents are exhausted.