And really, you’d think for the fees they charged they’d at least stump up for a cello

‘Mum! Guess what? Tomorrow, I’m getting a recorder! And we get to bring it home.’

And I say, ‘That’s great.’

Because that’s what mums must say when their children are young and filled with the joy of it all even if said mums are, all the while, remembering their own mother, teaching music in a primary school, and pouring an extra brandy (and sometimes four), on recorder afternoons.

And on Fridays we shall dance

We lived in New Zealand for several years in the early and mid nineties, and I saw more music there than I ever have or ever will. Something about New Zealand music and the New Zealand sense of humour that I just loved. Also, views of volcanoes. I never got sick of seeing volcanoes. I have lots of happy music memories. This is one of my favourites. (embedding disabled)

PS Also, can you remind the mister I want this somewhere, sometime at my funeral…he’s sure to forget.

Update: lads to me, ‘okay, one more time, and then that’s enough, all right?’

Day twenty two, and I’m running out of titles, can’t you tell

New circuit class last night. I dunno, I don’t think it’s that hard. When the dude calls time, move one station to the right, next time he calls time, go into the middle, next time one station to the right, into the middle, one station to the right. And so on.

I can confidently say that in a class of maybe thirty, I was the only one who went station to station without skipping any, without choosing randomly.

I suspect, right now, somewhere in Abu Dhabi, there’s a woman thinking to herself, ‘Sheesh, does she need to be so grumpy…what does it matter if people go to the wrong station. So what if I did two rounds of lateral lifts and none of tricep dips…she needs to get a life…’

Well, no. I’m from Adelaide, when things do not proceed in an orderly fashion, my world, she falls apart. I like to live my life, station by station, waiting for the dude to call time.

Computer says no

One of the resolves* I have made in an effort to be slightly less of a misery guts and slightly less self-absorbed and slightly more fun to be around is to slightly less often blame Abu Dhabi for my problems.

I think (though this is pure self-absorbed speculation) that it has been far too easy to blame everything on Abu Dhabi (and, by extension, the mister, though we won’t go into that right now, suffice to say, if you think your relationship needs a test, I can recommend a stint in Abu Dhabi…ahem…and moving on and so forth and etceteragh).

Sure, this is not my ideal location. Certainly, I am not well-suited to the Abu Dhabi life. Definitely, there are zillions of other places I would rather be. But that’s not Abu Dhabi’s problem. I do have a choice. I could leave. For sure, that choice, the choice to leave, would have its own limits and implications, but it is a choice I could make. I have more choices than ninety percent of the world’s population.

So, having decided that I will stay, I need to accept certain things. And I need to stop blaming Abu Dhabi for everything. Like tonight when I couldn’t remember the administrator password for the computer? A password so cunning, so mixed between capitals here, lower case letters here and numbers there that between the three of us – two sharp-minded lads and me – we could not remember exactly what went where. As I sat, fantasising again about a life lived elsewhere, as I sat, ready to cry with homesickness once again, I had one of those moments when you realise something.

I realised, that not living here would not solve this particular problem.

And the night got better from that point on.

*You know, I’m really not sure, are resolutions the same as resolves? Because what I mean here is that I am resolved to act in a certain way which seems to me is not entirely the same thing as making a resolution. Do you see what I mean?

Twenty days

It was extremely polite of youse not to say, ‘erm, Tracy, thought you were being grateful and there you are whingeing again’. Some of youse might have spelt whingeing without the ‘e’.* I think I should have written, ‘I am grateful for the hour each morning I get to spend alone’. I cracked myself up when I realised what I’d done, following my gratitude post with another whinge like that about ruined days. So I might suck at gratitude, but I do know how to laugh at myself. I think being able to laugh at myself makes my other flaws more manageable.

*by which I mean not to cast nasturtiums on your seplling, only that I don’t know how to spell it and I could go and check, but because of reasons, right now, I’m not going to.