Meanwhile, back in São Paulo...

Buenos Aires

2012-02-04T16:59:00.000-08:00

Last week the family took a trip down to Argentina, leaving behind the miserable grey and rainy skies of São Paulo for the gloriously clear blue ones of Buenos Aires. Indeed, one of the very first things I noticed after stepping off the plane was that the Argentine sky was exactly the same colour as the blue of its flag. Amazing. And it would have been the perfect start to the holiday if our flight hadn't just landed an hour and a half late. And at the wrong airport.

But determined not to be put off by such minor inconveniences, I decided to spend the taxi ride in from the airport enjoying the sights and sounds of a city that is so very different from the Brazilian one we live in. I don't have a problem with São Paulo - in fact, in my own way, I'm even quite fond of the place - but even I have have to admit that it comes way down on the list of the world's most beautiful cities. Way, way down. Buenos Aires, on the other hand, has a reputation as something of a European-style city and is often compared to Paris and as we headed in from the airport I could certainly see why. Except that the Paris I know has never been that quiet barely an hour after rush hour.

Two eager adventurers ready for a day of walking around places.

We drove in to town on a wide dual carriageway we had almost entirely to ourselves (which was perhaps fortunate given the average Argentine driver's reluctance to maintain any sort of lane discipline) and all the way through the centre of town there was practically nothing on the roads except busses and taxis. But then Buenos Aires has a large and efficient metro system and a city that's nice enough - and safe enough - to make walking a serious alternative to driving.

Fabulous tree-full view from our balcony

We were staying in a lovely little apartment in Palermo, an upscale, bohemian residential area in the north of the city, right next to a collection of beautiful parks and gardens (and, incidentally, five minutes drive from the airport where we were supposed to land!) and as it was already fairly late by the time we arrived we thought we'd just pop down and get something to eat from one of the lovely-looking cafés all along our street before putting the kids to bed. Which was when we discovered that we were going to have to seriously re-evaluate what we considered 'late' to be.

At seven forty-five we sat down in the fabulous Voulez Bar on Avenida Cerviño and asked to order dinner. "Sure", the waitress said with a shrug, "but the kitchen won't be opening until eight, eight thirty or so." Eight thirty? What kind of time is that to eat dinner? My kids eat their dinner at six, having pestered me constantly since five saying that they're starving, literally starving to death and why can't they have a bun and some biscuits as a snack, just to tide them over until I've cooked them something proper? Bloomin' hobbits! Anyway, by nine o'clock Helen was eating a lovely big chunk of cow and I was finishing off some of the nicest salmon I'd had in a long time while James struggled to stay awake and David just gave up and fell asleep on his chair, too far gone even to care about chocolate dessert.

The kids soon sorted themselves out, however, and after the first night were well up to the challenge of late dinners. On our first afternoon I introduced them to the concept of a siesta in the hope that this would enable us all to stay up much later at night, but of course the only one of us who collapsed, drooling on the bed for two hours was me, James and David preferring to use the opportunity to get in a serious dose of extra computer time. Helen, meanwhile was off doing what the Argentines do, which is work all day, eat late anyway, and just spend their entire lives somewhat sleep-deprived.

And of course, we ate out every night. It would have been foolish not to, seeing as how the restaurants were lovely, the food was fabulous and the bill was about half what it would have been in São Paulo. The highlight of the week was definitely the salmon at the Voulez Bar (which I had three times) followed by their chocolate volcano, but even popping in somewhere for a toasted sandwich and a juice was a pleasure when you could sit somewhere pleasant and quiet and not worry about how much it was all going to cost.

It wasn't all food, food, food, however, and we did manage to squeeze in a little bit of sightseeing between all the plates of beef and fish. First stop was the zoo which was, quite literally, at the end of the block we were staying on. I never know whether I should enjoy a trip to the zoo or not. I do love to see the animals, but I can't help feel that maybe this is not the right place for them to be, stuck in a small enclosure, either on their own or with very little in the way of company and unable to run about the way I imagine they would like to given the choice. The children, however, seemed to have no such moral dilemma and were quite eager to wander around spotting their favourite animals.

One of the more unfortunate creatures - it was over 30 degrees!

David loved the penguins who were obligingly darting through the water right in front of us. James, somewhat bizarrely, claims his favourite animal was the tapir. Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be found on our first trip and fast asleep on our second. Actually, sleeping animals was something of a theme. Both trips were during baking hot afternoons and this is clearly when most sensible creatures are having a quiet doze, so that we ended up seeing a lot of little bits of animals hidden by bushes or rocks and a few who could easily have been dead. I swear the huge grey pile that was supposed to be two rhinos was in exactly the same position on both days.

And right across the road from the zoo is the Botanic Gardens. As the zoo had completely wiped out the boys, and as it was so conveniently close to the apartment, I decided to make it a separate trip and we set off on the following morning.

Disappointing. It's not that it wasn't a beautiful place for a gentle stroll, but sadly, that's all it was. I'm not able to tell whether it was worth it from a botanical point of view, but as a place for two children to run around and play it was a non-starter. Firstly, you had to keep to the paths and there was absolutely no running on the grass. Secondly, the glasshouses were closed. Thirdly, there was nowhere to get anything to eat or drink and fourthly, the toilets were horrible. I can imagine that if I worked somewhere nearby it would be a wonderful place to come and sit and eat my sandwiches at lunchtime. It's peaceful, not very busy and you don't have to pay to get in, but as I say, for two adventure-seeking and ice-cream-seeking kids it was a bit of a let-down.

Over the weekend we got Helen back and so we decided to go for a ride on the Subte (metro) into the centre of town. It cost us a grand total of £1.80 for all four of us to go as far as we wanted (which kind of puts London Underground to shame) and in Buenos Aires you even get to go shopping while you travel. At every stop someone would come onto the train with a big bag of merchandise and walk along the carriage depositing whatever it was they were trying to sell on everyone's knees so they could examine it for a couple of minutes and decide whether it was worth buying. If you weren't interested, you just left it there and it would be collected just before the next stop, to be replaced almost immediately by the next item on offer. In the space of one single journey I was offered a leather diary, a set of pens, some Nike socks, a children's catch toy and - most curiously - a guidebook on how to pass your driving test written exam. Possibly this gets kind of annoying if you travel the Subte twice a day, every day, but I found it interesting and was surprised to see quite a few people buying things - though not the driving test booklet.

Two eager adventurers ready for another day of walking around places.

The plan was to visit the Casa Rosada, the President's official residence, but when we got there the queue to get in stretched all the way along the side of the Plaza de Mayo so we decided to skip it and I settled for a photo of the outside of the building and its unfeasibly large flag. Instead we headed down to the newly redeveloped docks area and took a look around the Buque Museo Fragata A.R.A "Presidente Sarmiento". It's an old training frigate that has been turned into a floating museum and it was great. It wasn't too big, so the kids didn't get tired and bored, and it was full of fascinating objects like guns and torpedoes and some even bigger guns. Sadly, I wasn't allowed to send the boys up to the crow's nest, but I did make sure they got plenty of navigation and gunnery practice. Well worth the 40p a ticket it cost to get in!

We rounded off our sightseeing excursions with a trip to the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, and while many of the animals at the zoo looked like they might be dead, the ones in here certainly were and the whole museum is basically a collection of skeletons and stuffed animals. Good fun though, except again, there was nowhere to get anything to eat or drink. Or a gift shop. Still, when every other car on the road is a taxi, you're never very far from somewhere nice to get a bite to eat.

You wouldn't believe how long we had to wait before Dad would let us go for lunch.

And that's certainly what I'll remember most about Buenos Aires - the food. That, and the ability to eat it while sitting out on the pavement on a quiet, tree-lined street where I felt safe and relaxed, even at ten o'clock at night. And then paying next to nothing for the privilege. Of course, being a teetotal vegetarian I missed out on some of Buenos Aires' greatest delights, but then the rest of the family certainly did their bit to keep the cow population in check and I made up for it by eating way more than my fair share of ice cream - another thing Buenos Aires is famous for.

But I still feel there's so much more to see. Hopefully, we'll be going back there at least once more during our South American adventure and I can try and actually go inside the Casa Rosada - and also visit the world famous (or at least it is in our family) El palacio de la Papa Frita restaurant. And I'm sure there are plenty more museums I can drag the kids around as well. I just have to hope that Brits are still welcome in Argentina next time I want to visit. We managed to miss most of the protests and flag burning that were apparently taking place at the time, but I think maybe I should give it a year or so before I go back there waving my British pasport, just in case.

Protest central - you can just make out the words "Las Malvinas" behind the fountain.

Broke

2012-01-24T17:29:00.000-08:00

This tasty little morsel, or at least one of its former siblings, has just been valued at R$2,100 (£768.50) which is, as you might agree, somewhat expensive for a disappointingly small and all-too-brief lump of chocolate. Fortunately, its extreme cost was offset slightly by the fact that it came with a free root canal treatment and a porcelain crown in exactly the same shape as my real molar was in just before I bit down on it. To be fair to the triangle of chocolate, it had just come straight out of the fridge and it does contain little bits of nuts, but this is not the first piece of Toblerone I've ever eaten, not by a long way, and it did come as something of a shock - although a lot less of a shock than when I was given the bill for the dental work. Looking on the positive side though, it has given me my first experience of Brazilian dentistry which is, I have been told by many people both here and in the UK, world class.

I am no stranger to the dentist's chair. When I was thirteen years old I had two of my front teeth knocked out with a hockey stick (while playing hockey... honestly) and during the following year hardly a fortnight went by without me popping in for a quick hour of injections and drilling. Since then I've had two abscesses, three replacement crowns on the same tooth and two on its neighbour as well as the usual collection of fillings and scrapings and polishings.

So with all this experience I wasn't in the slightest bit bothered about going through another series of appointments, even when having to do so in a foreign language. So, just two days after phoning I went along for an initial appointment prepared with a vast array of portuguese phrases I might need:
"Eu tenho um dente quebrado."
"Desculpe, eu só falo um pouco de português."
"Desculpe, não entendo."
And actually, that was about it. But fortunately, opening my mouth wide and pointing did fairly well on its own.

As stated earlier, the whole thing was fairly expensive, but they certainly give you a lot for your money out here. I had two different dentists poke around inside my mouth. One worked on making the crown, the other was the root canal specialist. The operation itself took about two-and-a-half hours, during which time I was given three injections of anaesthetic, five x-rays and had my mouth stretched open with this strange plastic contraption which held in place a small square piece of latex so that the tooth being worked on could be isolated from the rest of my drooling mouth. It sounds bizarre but probably makes perfect sense once you see it in action - which, of course, I couldn't - but the best way to describe it is to say it felt as if someone had inflated a balloon inside my mouth.

As for the x-rays, five did seem a little excessive and I've always been a tad suspicious of the way the dentist will set you up with your own finger holding the plate in place while they nip out of the room before flicking the switch from a safe distance. This time, however, the dentist gave me a huge piece of body armour to cover my chest each time she zapped me with the x-rays, which was reassuring and slightly unsettling at the same time. And then, rather bizarrely given the hi-tech nature of everything else, I wasn't offered any eye protectors. Instead at various points when the big drill put in an appearance, it was suggested I might like to close my eyes.

Two-and-a-half hours with my mouth stretched wide was hard going, and the experience was made all the more painful by the fact that fairly early on the dentist kindly switched on the television for me and knowing I was English she flicked through until she found something in English. So for the first hour I was forced to endure Justin Bieber on the Ellen de Generes Show with no way to shut him up or even beg for the channel to be changed. And as if this wasn't torture enough, it was followed by an hour of Nigella Lawson showing me in graphic detail how to make a deliciously rich and creamy chocolate sauce to pour over vanilla and caramel ice cream and then how to bake perfect chocolate chip muffins. That's just cruel.

But my favourite moment came towards the end, when my dentist took a call on her mobile phone right in the middle of a tricky surgical procedure. She wrapped it up in a sterile bag (I suspect for the sake of the phone, not the patient) and merrily continued to stab spikes into my exposed dental nerves with one hand while she sorted out some domestic affairs with the other. My portuguese was not up to a full translation, but I clearly heard her ask, a que horas ela vai chegar a guarulhos? (What time will she be arriving at Guarulhos?) - Guarulhos being our local international airport. She chatted for a couple of minutes and then carried on with both hands back in my mouth as if nothing had happened. So different from back in the UK where you have to switch off your mobile phone as soon as you get within 50 metres of the dentist's surgery in case the invisible microwave signals interfere with the x-ray machine and transform it into a death ray. Or something like that. Out here in Brazil death rays are clearly no big deal.

And not to be outdone, the dentist even let me make a call on my own phone - to warn Helen that things were running a bit late and I would be another twenty minutes - although what I actually said was more like, "muh gubba be abubba bempy bimips" while I drooled copious amounts of saliva all over the phone because I didn't get to wrap mine up first.

Anyway, I did finally survive the whole experience and even got to go back for more. As I write this - on my birthday, no less - I'm in a race against the clock to see if I can get my final crown constructed and delivered back to the dentist before I go off on my holidays next week. It's supposed to take a week but that would put me in a different country (I'll tell you about it next time) and I would really, really rather be able to chew on both sides of my mouth again before I go. The final appointment of the day is being kept open for me on my last day and I have to call beforehand to see if my new tooth has been rushed through in time. The helicopter is standing by, the ambulance and outriders are poised to go and all I hope now is that the orderly rushing it into the building doesn't trip over his own feet and send it skidding along Avenida Faria Lima and under a bus in his haste.

And the answer was...

...neither. I went. I opened wide. Something was put in the gap that looks like a tooth, but I was also told to come back next week for the final fitting. So who knows? Now I'm really bored with chewing on the wrong side and you're probably bored with hearing all about my dental adventures. Going to the dentist is bad enough for yourself, but having to sit through someone else's adventures - that's even more painful.

2011 - The Year in Review

2011-12-23T09:03:00.000-08:00

Picture the scene...

I'm sitting at my desk gazing out at a clear blue sky - not one single cloud to be seen - while a gentle breeze caresses the palm tree right in front of me. It's only ten o'clock in the morning but already the thermometer is reading 30 degrees. Far off I can hear the constant drone of traffic, interspersed every five minutes with the roar of the aircraft passing almost directly overhead on their way into Congonhas Airport. But today these are nothing but a mild hum, almost soothing, when compared with the relentless growl of the jackhammer coming from our neighbour's house. Yesterday they discovered they had a leak in their sewage pipe causing a stream of vile grey liquid to wander down the street past our front door and shortly afterwards to discover that their recent building work had included the cementing over of their access panel. Sewage is never a pleasant smell, but in 30 degrees on a windless day, it's particularly unappealing and I find myself longing for nothing more than the usual acrid odour of pollution. I'm itchy. The mosquitos are out in force at this time of year and I also picked up a nasty case of sunburn while we were off at the beach last weekend which is now starting to peel.

Sometimes it's hard to remember that Christmas is only three days away!

Anyway, I need to hide from the children for a few hours so I thought I'd look back over the past year and rehash a load of second-rate material that didn't make it into the blog first time round. (Isn't that what end of year reviews are all about?)

"Run for it! Grandad says it's time to wash the dishes."

For a year that has been so long and difficult, we actually managed to spend quite a lot of it on holiday. Two trips back to England and Ireland, two long weekends at the beach and a week in Rio de Janeiro. That's probably more holidays than I had in the previous five years put together. And I'm hoping 2012 will be just as fruitful. I'd like to see a bit more of Brazil itself though. It's a country that's bigger than Europe and so far I've seen next to nothing of it apart from its famously ugliest city.

Safe as houses - allegedly

Helen fared somewhat better. As well as external trips to California, Mexico and Argentina, she's been able to enjoy some of the finest locations Brazil has to offer the intrepid journalist - cow farms in the middle of nowhere, giant factories and port terminals up in the poverty-stricken North-East, newly pacified favelas in Rio, areas of rainforest ruined by illegal logging...

São Paulo did give us some fun during the year though, with the rainy season bringing severe flooding around our local park for the first time in a decade.

But apart from that, things were pretty much 'business as usual' and the year was mostly about just getting on with life. The excitement of our first six months was replaced by a more steady, day-to-day acceptance that this was what our life was going to be like for the next few years and that we just had to get on with it.

So that's what we did. Helen was swallowed up with work and the huge amount of unnecessary bureaucracy and admin that comes with trying to live and work in Brazil. Honestly, if Kafka had had a pair of shorts and some Havaianas, he would have had a field day out here.

The boys have done us proud, however. After an initially difficult settling-in, James has finally found his niche as the undisputed oddball of his year and is now much happier at school. He has a small group of like-minded friends and although they would certainly make the worst group of footballers in the entire history of the school, they are perfectly happy spending their time being clever and coming top in nearly every subject. James was even voted 'cleverest boy in the year' by his peers and next term he's going to be co-teaching an ECA (extra-curricular activity) on basic computer programming.

"3.14159265358979363.....nuuuuuuh! Brain freeze!

And he finished the year by getting to sing the solo at the start of the school carol service. He was slightly nervous. I was terrified. You don't really get the full experience from my hopeless attempt to capture the moment, but he's standing there in front of a room packed with parents, teachers, school children. Even the British Consul was there.

As for David, he's spent the past year being Mr Cute and Mr Popular.

For him, school seems to be one endless round of fun and games and whenever I go to collect him he seems to be surrounded by adoring fans. The teachers love him, his classmates love him and a worryingly large number of girls from the senior school also love him.

I can only assume they never get to see the Mr Grumpy that puts in an appearance every night at bedtime and every morning at getting-up time, although I did enjoy reading the following from this term's PE report: "...he gets very upset when he loses...and he often lies on the floor and stops playing." I know the way.

He has decided he wants to be an artist when he grows up and so here is his postcard from Rio to introduce a collection of photos from the rest of our year.

Or maybe an artist of the floating world?

Corcovado!

So which one is David: the stripy one, the purple one or the one with the great big gob?

"Hang on, David. I just need to take a big leek."

Here the concerned dad remembers the ABC of first aid: air, breathing, camera!

Breakfast was always much nicer when Dad let us make it ourselves.

Juquehy - so nice we went twice.

Obligatory arty shot of something organic.

Obligatory comic shot of humorous tree growth.

M-I-C-K-E-Y D-A-V-I-D

"Dad says when I've scrubbed off all the rust he might even buy me a t-shirt."

Love, peace and açaí.


Out here we have to build our own Christmas

So there you have it - a nice lazy blog entry to finish off the year. My New Year's resolution may well involve a more vigorous approach to blogging, but then again, it may not.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Going up in the world

2011-11-22T07:23:00.000-08:00

This time out my blog is short;
There's very little to report.
But don't despair and calm your fears,
For soon I'll have some good ideas.
And while you wait, with time to think,
Might I suggest you try this link?

Yes I wrote it, pretty much,
With just an editor's 'gentle touch'
To clarify an explanation
And ready it for publication.

So now I really must insist
On thanking The Economist -
My audience for this endeavour
Is sure to be my largest ever -
And also, as an added treat
No photos were required. Complete!

Crazy paving: or the perils of paulistano perambulation

2011-10-29T12:24:00.000-07:00

Brazil is home to some of the most stunning pavements I've seen outside Barcelona...and Pompeii. The famous calçadas of Rio de Janeiro's beach fronts are a wonder to behold, not only because they are so long and visually stunning, but because they are also well built and incredibly well maintained. I've used this photo before, but here it is again, just to illustrate what I mean.

São Paulo, on the other hand, is home to some of the worst pavements I've ever seen. Generally, they're not so pretty. Generally they're not so well maintained. But their biggest fault (speaking as someone who has to walk along a fair few of them every day) is that they're not so uniform.

Out here it seems to be the case that the pavement belongs to, and is the responsibility of, the property it runs along the front and/or side of and not the responsibility of some overarching body like, for example, a local authority. In theory this seems like a great idea. People won't want their beautiful house or shop to look a mess by being stuck behind a grotty stretch of pavement - especially if they're also liable for any injuries caused by tripping on loose stones - and so they'll make sure it's kept in good order, so saving large amounts of taxpayers' money from being swallowed up on endless repairs every time someone else has come along and dug the whole thing up to replace a pipe or cable that wasn't buried properly in the first place.

This is why big, expensive buildings like Shopping Iguatemi, our local upmarket shrine to over-indulgence, has a big, expensive and meticulously maintained pavement running right around its six square miles of mercantile floorspace. (Yes, I know it's not really that big, but I couldn't find the exact size when I needed it. But it's big, okay. And it has a lot of pavement.)

But turn the corner and go up Alameda Gabriel Monteiro da Silva - which is the street next to ours and which is little more than a one mile long opportunity to overpay for unnecessary things you never really wanted anyway - and the pavements become, literally in some cases, an artistic extension of the boutique or gallery to which they belong. And never mind that your neighbour has a beautifully detailed mosaic to entice in his customers, if you want a dirty great slab of dark concrete outside your place, then you go ahead and lay it.

And as for the pedestrians? Stuff 'em! What the hell are they doing walking anyway? That's no way to do your shopping. They should be driving, preferably in a big car so they can fit in all the stuff they're going to buy that they don't really need. And that's why so many of the pavements aren't even flat, but are sloped, to allow cars to drive up and park on them. But not all. That would be far too convenient. Some of them still have a curb, or are slightly raised, because they have parking round the back so as not to spoil the view of the front of the shop.

So a gentle stroll down the road now involves frequent changes in texture, height and angle, sometimes as often as every five metres or so, and while I should probably just shut up, stop complaining and enjoy the rich variety and artistic merit of my underfoot surfaces, I find that doing so beside a road full of speeding vehicles, in the pouring rain and with two children, four bags of shopping and an umbrella is nothing like as easy as it sounds.

And that's assuming all those different pavements really are as well maintained as they're meant to be. Sadly, I have come across the odd one or two which could, perhaps, do with a little smoothing out at the edges.

But one thing that pavements certainly are out here is washed. And sadly I do mean washed, not cleaned, as the daily efforts of thousands of people and millions of gallons of water is completely pointless in a city of twenty million people and ten million polluting vehicles. This doesn't seem to stop them though. There they are, every morning, with their hoses and brushes and (on occasion) even scrubbing brushes and buckets of soapy water. Sometimes you can even see the difference afterwards - a slightly lighter patch of stone here and there - but usually not. They just make it wet and slippery.

And quite often I've see someone with a pressure hose, pumping water out at goodness knows how many psi, chasing individual leaves off their pavement and into the gutter where the flood of water they've been drowned in will carry them off somewhere until they can be someone else's problem. And as if that's not bad enough, five minutes after the pavement is dry once more, the wind will deposit another load of leaves all over the place and then a bit later on in the afternoon there'll be a torrential downpour which will soak everything anyway.

To be fair to the Brazilians for a moment, and as you know from my blog about gardening a few weeks ago, battling to keep nature in check is something of a full-time job out here. It only takes a few weeks of lazy maintenance before the Atlantic rainforest has overpowered your pretty little lawn or you have an entire food chain competing for first dibs on your rubbish. So it's no surprise people out here are so obsessed with cleanliness. They like their bodies to be clean. They like their houses to be clean. And clearly, they like their pavements to be clean as well. Speaking as a filthy foreigner, I say yeah, okay to the first, up to a point to the second and really, get a life to the third. Honestly, I don't need my pavements to be spotless and germ free.

But I would like them to be easier to walk on.

Come and join me for a stroll down my street

Washout. Eat out.

2011-10-18T05:47:00.000-07:00

As you've no doubt noticed, I've significantly reduced the number of blog entries I'm writing. From a high of almost one a week, I'm now providing you with barely one a month, it would seem. There are two reasons for this - well, three if you include inherent laziness - and the first of them is that after weeks of false starts, I finally got going on the famous novel I promised to write for James. I then came to another grinding halt when I tumbled down a plot hole the size of a small moon (it's a sci-fi novel) but at least I managed to churn out several thousand words before I did and now it just needs a fairly comprehensive rewrite of a couple of chapters or so and I'll be back on my feet and heading off to Mars.

Sadly, it would appear I'm not exactly a master of multi-tasking and when I'm writing the novel I can't think of anything to write in the blog and suddenly I find another week has gone by and once again I've told you nothing about life out in São Paulo. Well, while the novel is wallowing in low orbit I thought I'd take the opportunity to give the blog another go.

But the novel is only one of the reasons the blog has suffered. The other is that São Paulo is doing its best to be rather dull at the moment. Today, for example, I was woken up by the rain hammering down on the driveway just outside the window. It settled into a miserable drizzle but was still so heavy that we decided to abandon our usual trek out to Emporio Santa Maria for Saturday breakfast and just sat around the house instead. It's now three o'clock in the afternoon and it's still raining heavily. Once or twice it eased slightly, but once or twice it also turned into a downpour. There is no wind and the clouds are black - this is going to continue for a long time yet. Helen has abandoned the day and gone back to bed with an iPad, a pot of tea and a pile of Ruth Rendells. James and David are so bored they've even got bored with annoying each other and are now being reasonably pleasant to one another for a change.

Actually, as I listen, James is currently watching an old episode of Hornblower and attempting to explain the plot to Angela, who comes in once a week to clean the office. She speaks no English and James' portuguese, although a good deal better than mine, is being sorely tested with explanations of the intricacies of Napoleonic naval warfare. They're chatting away though so he's obviously making a pretty good job of it. David, meanwhile, is building a galaxy out of Lego.

This week has been half term and although not every day has been as much of a wash-out as today, the weather has certainly been no help. It's been too cold to go swimming, to wet to play in the park, most of the boys' friends have either been away on holiday or busy doing their own thing and apart from one afternoon play date for James, we've been on our own for the whole week. I think at this point we're all quite desperate for school to start again.

The rest of the weekend is a little more promising, however, and I think I'll stop here for the moment and come back tomorrow once we've done something a bit more interesting than stare out at the rain...

Now imagine this for 36 hours

...Well, it's now Sunday night and I've done a fair bit of staring out at the rain today as well, but mostly from inside someone else's apartment, right at the top of a very tall building with fabulous views of a fair bit of the city (whenever the rain was light enough to see further than the next street). And finally, now that the weekend has come to and end, so has the rain. Typical.

Anyway, half term has suddenly picked up. Today was nominally a play date for David, but we were all invited and we enjoyed a pleasant late morning/afternoon of chat with another ex-pat couple and were treated to both brunch and lunch - and invited back for a barbecue when the sun comes back. Now that's my kind of a play date!

And yesterday evening Helen and I abandoned the kids and went out to dinner (for only about the third time ever) to a somewhat more upmarket food joint than we're used to frequenting. For those of you who know São Paulo, it was a Figueira. For those who don't it was one of São Paulo's better known restaurants and is situated on the wonderfully named Rua Haddock Lobo - which has to be worth a visit just for the name alone. Anyway, Figueira Rubayiat, to give it its full name, is a large restaurant which has been built around a massive, 130-year old fig tree which dominates the entire space. Sadly I forgot to bring my camera so you'll have to make do with a stock photo I've filched from Google, but it gives you a good idea of what the place is like.

And the food, apparently, is superb. I say apparently, not because mine wasn't, but because I am absolutely no judge of these things. Good food is wasted on me. If they'd brought me a Marmite sandwich instead of my seafood paella I probably would have been just as happy. However, they did bring me a seafood paella, and boy, did they bring me a lot of it. They set up one of those mobile trolleys beside the table and I watched as the chef filled my plate with various things with shells and exoskeletons. Then he piled up a load of rice and stuff in the middle until it began to resemble an emerging volcano, then he dumped a load more crustaceans on top and handed the whole thing across to me with a merry bom apetite.

Fortunately, I do have a bom apetite, but I have to confess to being defeated by my dinner on this occasion - although in my defence I'll say that I was conscious of having to keep some space for dessert. Working your way through a long and detailed dessert menu is one of life's great pleasures - even when it's in portuguese and you're as fussy as I am. Once I've eliminated all the delicate sorbets and fresh fruit whatevers I'm usually still left with a good three or four choices which include the word chocolate at least once and weighing up all these possibilities is a big part of enjoying the end result.

But on this occasion I got no further than the very first item on the menu: Chocolate Nemesis. Apparently this is a well-established recipe from River Cafe but to the best of my knowledge I've never had it. Clearly it was a challenge. In the past I have been singularly unaffected by a collection of Chocaholic Delights, have survived countless Deaths by Chocolate and put away numerous Ultimate Chocolate-Lovers This-and-Thats and clearly the time had come for my chocolate hubris to meet its chocolate nemesis.

I survived. Even though they brought me two slices, with ice cream, and even after my cauldron of paella I managed to clear the plate and was just putting the last mouthful to bed as Helen said, "oh, that looks nice, can I try a bit?" Oops. So, hubris intact and belly distended, I waddled off home determined to spend a bit more time at the club and a bit less time in the kitchen for a while. But it's funny how things always look different after a good night's sleep.

Some things, perhaps, but not the rain. That still looks the same as ever.

Green

2011-10-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

Spring is in the air... and in the trees and all over the ground as well.

Someone once told me that here in Brazil, if you throw away an apple core then before you know it you'll find yourself with an apple tree and I can well believe it. Stuff just grows out here and especially, it would seem, in my garden. The problem is not getting it to start, it's getting it under control once it's taken root. I tell you, if John le Carré had set that novel in Brazil, the hero would have had his work cut out for him just living up to his title.

Okay, I actually thought that was quite clever, but for those of you now trying to work out exactly what Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy has to do with my overgrown greenery I'll point out that le Carré also wrote The Constant Gardener. Get it now?

Anyway, it's true. Gardens out here take a lot of work if you want to keep them under control and looking nice, and from what I see as I wander around this particular part of São Paulo, people like their gardens to look very, very nice - the area is, after all, called the Jardins (Gardens). But then most people who live around here also have the perfect solution, which is to get someone else to do your gardening for you. After all, if you have a maid or driver (or both) on hand, you may as well get them trimming the hedges and watering the pots whenever they’re at a loose end.

Sadly, I don't have a maid, or a driver - or even a penchant for gardening for that matter - and so my garden is nothing like the much-loved and carefully-manicured oases of my neighbours. In fact, there are certain parts of it that I know for a fact haven't been visited for well over a year now. And when you remember that we're talking about nothing more than a large collection of pots and an area of lawn the same size as our bedroom, that's somewhat lax on my part.

I do water it occasionally - whenever I remember before it's pitch black outside - but as far as I'm concerned, if it rained during the previous fortnight, then the garden will be fine. And if it didn't, it's bound to rain again within the next fortnight so there's nothing to worry about. And yet the thing is still thriving. Weeds are stretching up strong and bold throughout the lawn, the trees out front are so tall now they're starting to interfere with the infrared security cameras and there's a vine that's made it all the way up the pole to the power cables and is probably part of the local grid by now.

Last year I accidentally killed off all Helen's daisies by failing to realise they even existed until they no longer did. This year, they're back! We have a spindly little tree in a pot out back. Until recently it was nothing but twigs but suddenly I look at it and it's blossoming - literally - and is threatening to provide us with a seriously impressive crop of pomegranates. And the list goes on. Palms… zoom! Ferns… whiz! Herbs… well, okay, the herbs weren’t my finest hour, but they’re not actually dead yet, which is pretty impressive in itself, I think.

So, now believing that my fingers are naturally green and not just that way from all the leaking felt pens, I’ve decided to embark upon a little horticultural project on the grounds that no matter how badly it goes, the end result will probably still live to tell the tale. Basically, it involves grafting orchids onto the trunks of trees. Surprisingly, this is done quite a lot out here. Maybe it’s done quite a lot everywhere. Maybe that’s actually how orchids are supposed to grow. I have no idea. I thought they grew in little pots along with their own instruction booklet and a sachet of liquid food.

What you do is take the plant, wrap the roots in coconut fibre and then literally just tie the whole thing to a tree trunk and leave it. I suppose you probably have to water it from time to time as well, but everything else, the plant does for itself. Surely, even I can manage that?

There’s just one problem. We don’t have any trees in our garden big enough for the job. What you need is one of those good, solid things that’s been around for decades and can easily cope with a couple of parasites hanging off its trunk. The best we have is little bigger than the plants I’m going to stick on it and I suspect it will end up looking faintly ridiculous. Also, it’s tucked away in a corner where we’ll never really see the orchids anyway. Still, this is not going to stop me…

…well, I’d call that a limited success. Sadly I broke one of the stems trying to get it out of the pot so what ended up being tied to the tree was just a few leaves and a load of roots. The second one worked fine, except that I probably could have done with a spare pair of hands to help hold everything in place while I tied it. Still it’s there now, tied down to within an inch of its life with one of James’ old shoe laces. It may not look pretty, but it’s certainly not going anywhere in a hurry.

But now I come to think of it, I forgot to water them afterwards. That was yesterday, and as it’s 27 degrees today and set to get hotter over the weekend, perhaps I ought to give them a little drink before they shrivel up completely.

Anyway, this is what it should look like if you do it all properly.

And fortunately, for those whose gardening skills aren’t up to even this level of competency, Brazil offers an alternative. It’s called a árvore do jardineiro preguiçoso and as you can see, it produces a slightly odd-looking but very easy-to-maintain flower all on its own without any intervention whatsoever. Now that’s my kind of tree!

Hiatus

2011-09-29T12:54:00.000-07:00

The author of this blog is temporarily down for routine maintenance.

Normal service will resume as and when.

Weather or not

2011-09-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

One of the things I like about living out here in São Paulo is that the weather is so predictable. Which is not to say, sadly, that it's always hot and sunny - far from it. We have two-fleece days and hot water bottle nights out here just like we did back in Cambridge and without the comfort of central heating while we're at it. No, what I mean is that you always know what the weather is going to be doing. If it's gloriously sunny all morning but the forecast says you'll have a thunderstorm at 4.00pm, then sure enough the breeze will pick up at lunchtime and the dark clouds will put in an appearance at 3.30pm on the dot.

And this level of accuracy also holds true for the weekly forecasts as well. Last weekend we were out in shorts and tee-shirts. It was 32 degrees (a typical Spring day) and we were worrying about the boys getting too much sun. The five-day forecast said it was due to continue like that until Tuesday but that on Wednesday it would drop to 15 degrees with heavy rain - but only for the one day, after which it would be back to clear skies again, with temperatures staying low until the weekend when it would be back up in the thirties. Needless to say, this is exactly what happened. The thunderstorm began at four in the morning and it chucked it down non-stop until midday. It was dry by two, though still cold, but sure enough, come Thursday morning there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

I love this level of predictability. Back in England if you followed the five-day forecast you'd notice that it tended to change from day to day. On Tuesday it would promise a nice weekend, by Thursday it would hedge its bets and suggest possible cloud. By Friday it would have to admit that actually there was a good chance of rain on the Sunday and then come Sunday, when the rain failed to materialise, it would tell you there was a slight chance of clear skies after all.

I don't blame the forecasters - I use the BBC out here just like I did back in the UK - I blame the British Isles and their unfortunate location, wedged as they are between the stormy Atlantic and the freezing Arctic. And they're small as well. No matter what direction it's coming from, weather barely has time to get up and running before it's gone and the next lot is on its way. Over here we have lazy weather. Once it's here, it really can't be bothered to go anywhere else and is happy to sit around doing nothing until some much bigger bit of weather (generally a thunderstorm) comes alone and pushes it off the sofa.

And after such a stunning display of incisive technical expertise, I wonder that the Met Office still hasn't been in touch. But anyway, given that it is so nice and sunny - and looks set to stay this way for quite some time - I think I'll go out and enjoy it.

Power struggles

2011-08-22T08:41:00.000-07:00

This week I thought I'd say a little bit about electricity.

Back in England when you want to use something electrical, you take one of these...

...and plug it into one of these.

And that, pretty much, is that. What comes out of the wall is a nice, powerful 240volts and everything you want to plug in is also rated for 240volts - except when you need a transformer - but these days transformers are so small they're usually just built into the plug itself and so there's still nothing to worry about.

Over here in São Paulo things are not quite so simple. As a broad rule, Brazil uses a 110v supply, though in a few states it's actually 127v. This is not that big a deal as anything that runs on 110v will also run perfectly well on 127v. But sometimes they don't use 110v or 127v but prefer to go with 220v - as is the case in Fortaleza in the state of Ceará up in the Northeast.

In São Paulo, needless to say, we have all three. Some buildings, like the newer hotels and apartment blocks, seem to run on 220v. Many of the older houses are 127v. In our house we have both and unless there's something obvious I'm missing, there seems to be no way of telling which is which apart from trial and error.

The lights run on 110v, or 127v, as do most of the standard sockets around the walls. In the kitchen, it's also 127v, except for the cooker which is 220v. But then there's a socket which runs directly off the cooker supply so that's probably 220v as well - except that when I try to run something rated at 220v off it it runs as if it's actually 110v. And the water heater for the sink is also 220v which, given the wiring, must mean the water filter and the fridge/freezer are also 220v.

The fuse box is no help, unless the different colours mean more than simply that was what the electrician could get his hands on at the time. Also, the last time anyone did anything in there it was our landlord's handyman and not a qualified electrician so who knows what's going on in there?

Anyway, having gone round the house and done my best to decide that it's safe to plug things in I come across my next problem, which is... actually trying to plug them in. Some plugs are round pin, some plugs are flat pin. Some have two round pins, some have three. Some have two flat pins and a round pin. Apparently, there is now a regulation stating that all new electrical devices must have the new design three pin plug and all new sockets must be designed to accomodate it.

Which is all very well, except that we're not about to rewire the entire house and, surprise surprise, the new plug doesn't fit into any of our existing sockets.

So we turn to the ever-reliable adaptor. Now we can plug an adaptor into the old socket so we can run our new appliances. Except that there aren't enough sockets so we need extension blocks. And some of them don't take the new plugs either so we need more adaptors. And the adaptors take up lots of space so we can't use all the sockets in the multi-blocks so we need to plug a different extension into the multi-block and that has a completely different type of plug so we need a different type of adaptor and the sockets on this new block are different from the sockets on the first block so the new plugs still don't fit. But once we have the adaptor to adapt the adaptor to the extension and run this into an adaptor for the socket, we're there and we can finally run all our electrical goods.

Except the ones that only run on 240v. For these we have two options. Either pack them away in the cupboard for the next four years and buy a local version, or else use a step-up/down transformer. We've actually ended up doing both and both have been a qualified success.

Thankfully these days, most electronic equipment is capable of running on anything between 110v and 240v so as far as the computers and phone chargers go, it's just a case of finding the right adaptors and off you go. The only difference I've noticed from back in England is that certain external devices that charge off the computer via a USB cable no longer do. Or not always anyway. The iPods and iPads still charge off the desktop computer but not off the laptop. The camera now won't charge off anything except the mains.

Not all the electronic stuff is the same however. The DVD player and the Wii only run at 240v so they need transforming. This is fine as they don't really draw that much power and the rather expensive and somewhat ugly transformers you can pick up out here will do the job no problem. So far I've bought three and one of them is still going strong after eight months - the other two fell victim to a combination of overwork and user incompetence. And this would be a good point to remind anyone reading this for hints before moving out here... READ THE INSTRUCTIONS VERY CAREFULLY - even if they're written in portuguese. They only plug in one way round. And if you start to get the melting plastic smell, it's probably a good idea to unplug.

Also, things with motors just don't transform well. And this is doubly true out here where the supply comes in at 60Hz, unlike 50Hz back in the UK. A lot of stuff can work perfectly well with the different frequency, but not motors. We did know this before coming out so had the sense to leave behind all our white goods (actually, all our white goods are silver or stainless steel because we're flash) but I hadn't really thought about all the small stuff that would also struggle to work properly out here - kettle, toaster, sandwich maker, popcorn maker, hair clippers, hair dryer, etc. In fact, it was while trying to impress some of David's friends with my popcorn making magic that I burn out the second of the transformers.

And then there's the TV. We also knew before coming out that the TV wouldn't work out here as it was PAL and the system in Brazil is NTSC and anyway, our nice landlord left us with not one but five televisions and a sixth would have just been showing off. But, it's not just the TV of course. It's the DVD player as well. And the Wii. They also run on the PAL system - and they're much more fussy when it comes to running at a different frequency. We spent six months playing black and white and flickering games on the Wii and only watching DVDs on the computer before I bought my magic box of miracles. I've written about this before (back in January's "Home again, home again" post) so I won't go into details here, but it really is a fabulous piece of kit - and it even runs on 110v, 127v and 240v!

As mentioned earlier, the other solution to all these problems is simply to buy locally and we probably would have done a lot more of this if things hadn't been so stupidly expensive over here. But they are, so we didn't. As it is we've ended up having to buy a few things we really couldn't do without and I would be doing the Brazilian manufacturing industry a disservice if I said they were all rubbish, but it would have been nice if some of them could perhaps have lasted a little longer before falling apart.

But anyway, 110v is just rubbish. Our newest kettle takes so long to boil I quite often forget I've actually put it on, and as the automatic off switch packed up shortly after we bought it, it has, on occasion, merrily boiled itself dry before I remember. Our hair clippers struggles to cope with giving me even a modest trim every three months or so, despite the fact that (apparently) I'm nowhere near as 'full on top' as I once was, but it just gives up the ghost completely when we put it anywhere near the children's abundant thatch. And as for the fan heater...

Still, I really shouldn't complain. So what if it takes me a little bit of scrabbling around on my hands and knees and a bucket-full of different adaptors to get my stuff connected? At least we actually have electricity, which millions of Brazilians still don't, and we haven't even had any power cuts for, oh, weeks now!

What I did on my holidays (Part 2 - England)

2011-08-09T07:31:00.000-07:00

This is my parents' back garden. Their house is nestled deep in rural Northumberland and it's our base while we're in England. Newcastle is just a short train ride away and Hadrian's Wall is literally just up the road. In fact, the whole region is packed full of Roman ruins, medieval castles and other places of historic interest and I try to visit as many of them as possible whenever I'm up there. Helen, however, is strangely lacking in enthusiasm for piles of stones in the middle of nowhere and is more than happy to spend her time relaxing in the conservatory (pictured) with a book and a pot of tea while the would-be Romans are off exploring.

All the above photos were actually taken by David, who appears to be both a budding photographer and keen botanist. Having helped Grandma plant all her new plants and fill up the bird feeders, he went around and recorded his handiwork in great detail. Shown here are just some of the thirty or forty photos he took.

This is Langley Castle, a fabulous building originally built in the Fourteenth Century and still in excellent condition thanks to Nineteenth Century restoration. It's actually used as a hotel and restaurant and it's almost always our first trip out as they do a fantastic afternoon tea and the plate of biscuits that comes with your pot of coffee will be remembered for many years to come.

This is the tea room, complete with tapestries, suits of armour and enough atmosphere to repel a siege. The castle even has its own ghost, but sadly she declined our invitation to join us.

Her we are waiting for our biscuits and Granddad has taken the opportunity to find out if he really can see all the way through James' head.

As well as a ghost the castle even has its own collection of peacocks, some of whom have clearly learned to take afternoon tea as well.

This little patch of river, a couple of miles or so from the house, is known as The Meeting of the Waters, or simply the confluence, and it's where the North and South Tyne rivers meet before flowing on through Newcastle and out to sea. While we were in Northumberland, James rather impressively took to accompanying his granddad on his regular early morning walks and this was one of their favourite ports of call.

Here he is giving me the evil ninja death stare.

And here he is going through some ninja moves and most definitely not attempting a Morris dance.

And so to the Roman stuff. Here we are at Housesteads, one of the many forts built along Hadrian's Wall and although not our favourite site it's certainly one of the most impressive. You can clearly make out entire rooms, many still with doorways and good-sized walls and as the entire site is on a hill, you can stand at the top and get a great view of the entire fort and really understand the layout.

Here David is showing you the underfloor heating system.

And here James is getting ready to join the Roman army...

...and carry out some manoevers.

And here are the professionals showing how it's really done.

This is the wall itself, with a fabulously well-preserved milecastle in the foreground. We stopped off here to look for a particularly famous little spot known as the Sycamore Gap and ended up walking up and down hills for a lot longer than we'd expected.

But we found it in the end. It's a stunning enough site anyway, but became even more famous when it was used for one of the scenes in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman.

And here it is in all its glory.

This is another one of my favourites - medieval this time, not Roman. Aydon Castle dates from the Thirteenth Century and although technically it's a fortified manor house not a castle, it still has walls and battlements and is one of the finest examples of its kind still in existence.

Boy, I'm really starting to sound like a guide book now. However, it is a great place to visit, especially for the kids who spent a full half an hour or more, running up and down and round and round pretending they were medieval ninjas or whatever until they finally realised they were hungry for ice cream. We did try locking them away in what appeared to be a strong room, but the lack of bars on the window proved our undoing.

Here are the Lord and Lady of the manor...

...and here are the revolting peasants.

And this is where you go to hide when it all becomes too much.

So we did all this, and more, and shopping as well. Not bad for little over a week really. No wonder I now feel like I need a holiday to recover. Still, the boys are back at school now so I have my days to myself and plenty of time for all my little projects. After such a long break I was wondering how I would feel coming back to São Paulo and the truth is I was pleasantly surprised by how much it now feels like home. One week back and it's as if I never left.

What I did on my holidays (Part 1 - Ireland)

2011-08-03T06:17:00.000-07:00

When we were thinking of going back to Europe over Christmas, many people over here were quick to point out that Christmas and New Year in São Paulo were actually quite nice. The place is gloriously hot and sunny but as so many people have left town, it's really very peaceful and quiet. So we stayed and had two wonderful weeks lazing around, going swimming at the club every day and doing a fair bit of socialising at the same time. It was lovely.

When we were thinking of going back to Europe over the winter almost everyone we spoke to told us we should go for longer. Because there is really nothing to recommend São Paulo in the winter. At least in Europe the cold, miserable bit has Christmas to keep you busy and give the holiday some sense of purpose. Here there's nothing. And worse, it's nothing in a cold city, in a cold concrete house designed to keep you cold whenever possible. Louvered windows that are fixed open and no central heating may seem like brilliant ideas when it's 35 degrees, but not when it's down to single figures. Honestly, when I was thinking about living in Brazil I never thought my most treasured possession was going to be a hot-water bottle.

As it was, we didn't spend that much time here after all and we've just arrived back from three weeks 'up north', divided pretty much evenly between England and Ireland so that both sets of grandparents could be given their dose of rarely-seen grandchildren. For now I'll just stick to Ireland and the England bit can wait till next week.

Home in Ireland is a lovely little seaside town called Bray, about ten miles down the coast from Dublin. To compare it to Rio de Janeiro is perhaps stretching things slightly, but it does possess a nice long beach and is surrounded by mountains. And it even has its own version of Corcovado.

Corcovado! - if you look really carefully.

It's called Bray Head, and climbing up to the cross on top is one of the things we always have to do each time we're home. It takes about forty-five minutes at David's pace and we made it with remarkably little complaining, hardly any stopping to rest along the way and a fair bit of pretending we were the Fellowship of the Ring on our way to Mordor. OK, that last bit was really just me imagining that the other parties of walkers we encountered along the way were really bands of roving orcs while Helen followed behind, possibly wishing I looked a bit more like Aragorn and less like Gandalf.

The other thing we always have to do whenever we're in Bray over the summer is visit the funfair that sets up along the seafront. And when I say visit, what I actually mean is visit every day, sometimes twice, and stay for as long as it takes for two budding adrenalin junkies to work their way through all the money I have in both pockets. Still, I was happy enough to pay the money just so long as I didn't have to share the rides.

David's bus I could probably cope with, but not this...

And certainly not this!

The mad, barefoot woman who seems to be having so much fun here is Aunty Rachel, "The Woman Without Fear". For some bizarre reason she appears to like this kind of thing and as far as I'm concerned, she can look after the kids whenever she wants - especially if it's going to involve hanging upside down fifty feet up in the air.

But mostly what Bray is about is family time. James and David now have nine cousins - all on Helen's side - and they got to spend time with eight of them during this trip. The ninth, little Georgiou, only arrived midway through the week and will have to wait until next year before he's subjected to the doting attentions of the boys from Brazil.

As for Helen, she spent a lovely ten days dividing her time between her parents and a huge stack of old books from her childhood, pausing only to indulge in her favourite hobby of grabbing any passing babies and threatening to gobble up their delicious chubby cheeks. I should perhaps point out that she only did this within the confines of the house, where such actions are both acceptable and commonplace and not, for example, while out shopping.

Shopping was also on the agenda of course and the poor state of Ireland's economy was a huge boon to Helen's wardrobe - I never realised there were so many small boutiques in what is, in effect, three streets-worth of shops but I'm sure she visited them all and certainly left one or two of them a little short on stock. As for me, I contented myself with several trips to the cashpoint and far too many trips to the sweetie shop at the end of the road. Having gone without English chocolate for longer than is good for me, I felt the need to remind myself of exactly what Cadbury's Caramels tasted like. And Minstrels. And Crunchies. And... well, you get the idea.

Sadly, ten days didn't seem like nearly enough time for all the stuff we wanted to do and all the people we wanted to see, but we did at least manage to convince some of the adventurous aunties and uncles to come and pay us a visit over here - although for some reason they all said they'd prefer to meet us in Rio rather than come over to São Paulo. I wonder why?

Rio-location Vacation

2011-06-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

Finally, after almost an entire year living in Brazil, I've made it to Rio de Janeiro. Helen, having been there five or six times already for work reasons, has been telling me for months that it's beautiful and fabulous and so nice it makes São Paulo look like a huge, ugly, smelly megalopolis which has very little going for it apart from available office space. Which is, of course, exactly what it is. However, it's also my home and having lived here for a year I've become quite fond of the place, warts and all, and quite defensive, too. I found myself flying up to Rio fully prepared to find the place flashy and shallow and nothing but a huge tourist trap - something like a Greek holiday resort but on a much larger scale.

I was wrong. Rio is nothing like the gauche, party capital I'd imagined. More than anything the impression I got was of a city just getting on with business but handily situated in one of the most naturally beautiful locations on the planet. True, there are tourists - a lot of tourists - and a large part of Rio is set up to cater to them in a way that you don't see at all in São Paulo, but it's generally done quite subtly and as most of the Cariocas (Rio locals) seem to spend most of their time enjoying the same facilities as the tourists, it's very easy to forget you're actually an outsider.

We left São Paulo from Congonhas Airport, a tiny strip of runway carved out from among the thousands of skyscrapers squeezing in on all sides. Looking out of my window as we turned onto the runway there seemed to be about five metres of taxiway left before a drop down onto an eight-lane dual-carriageway several metres below. In Rio, at Santos Dumont Airport, there is also little more than a few metres at either end of the runway but in this case it is the sea that surrounds the runway, not roads, and nearly landing in the sea is so much more picturesque than nearly landing on a road.

Our hotel for the week was the Sheraton in Leblon - a very fancy hotel in a very fancy part of town - and this in itself was an adventure for us as our usual family holiday involves something a lot more basic and wallet-friendly. However, Helen had found us an unfeasibly good deal and having spent similar amounts on significantly less salubrious hotels in the past, she then spent much of the week saying things like; "This is great. I can't believe we got such a good deal. I'm definitely staying here again."

And it really was great, although calling it Leblon was perhaps stretching the point somewhat, seeing as how the hotel was actually up the hill and round the corner from Leblon. But it came with its own stretch of beach - not exactly private, but so hard to get to except through the hotel that it in effect was. We tried to spend every morning down on the beach, but except for the first day and the last two, the waves were so big and the undertow so strong that we were forced to abandon the sea in favour of the heated swimming pool instead. Oh, the hardship!

And quite by chance, we also found ourselves sharing the hotel with the Brazilian national football team while they spent a couple of days preparing for their trip down to Argentina for the Copa América. Now I'll freely admit that I'm not the most devoted of football fans, but even I thought it was kind of cool to get into a lift and discover that the other four occupants were Thiago Silva, Robinho, Daniel Alves and Jefferson. (I think this is right - I didn't stop to ask for autographs but I did spend a long time looking through team photos on Google later on.)

Anyway, when we weren't hob-nobbing it with the footballers we did actually go off and try to see something of the city outside the hotel grounds. On Sunday we spent a most pleasant day in the Jardim Botânico, wandering around among the greenery and almost never getting lost. Having come from Cambridge, which has its own world-class botanic gardens, I was interested to see how Rio would compare. I am very far from being even a competent botanist, so please feel free to ignore my opinions but my feeling was that while it was a vast and pleasant place to wander through, there was not that much in the way of plant diversity. We walked through a lot of dense vegetation and passed by some truly enormous trees, but after a while they all started to look the same.

Still, they did have a fabulous cactus garden, which David particularly enjoyed, some interesting monuments dotted around the place...and monkeys. Hungry monkeys.

There was also an interesting pool in the eating area.

Five seconds after this photo was taken Helen called out to the kids to be careful and not fall in. Even before the words were out of her mouth, David was in the water.

Still, all things considered, the boys were pretty good at not complaining about being dragged around a well-tended jungle for several hours in the middle of a hot afternoon (24 degrees in the middle of winter - now that's weather I can live with).

On Monday we paid a visit to the one place you absolutely have to go to when in Rio (apart from the cash machine) and that is the statue of Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) on Corcovado mountain. There is a small electric train that goes up the mountain at about 45 degrees and deposits you 233 steps below the statue twenty minutes later. Honestly, the trip is worth it for the train ride alone, never mind the fantastic views at the top.

But fantastic they really are.

I don't want to end up sounding like a tourist guide, but the whole experience was really wonderful. Below the statue are various places to sit and get something to eat and drink and at this time of year, and not at the weekend, they weren't even particularly busy.

The only downside to the trip is that David has now devised a new game, the only rule of which is that whenever he sees Corcovado, either in real life or in a photo, he has to bellow CORCOVADO!! at the top of his voice. And as it's something of a ubiquitous landmark, and somewhat photogenic, the game gets to be very tiring, very quickly and very often.

CORCOVADO!!

The other big 'must see' in Rio is Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain). Since Pão de Açúcar is also the name of the supermarket I visit almost every day here in São Paulo, it has always struck me as quite funny that I'd want to go all the way to Rio just to visit Pão de Açúcar. But then I am daily reminded that no one else in this family regards my sense of humour as in any way humorous.

CORCOVADO!!

Anyway, the trip to the mountain itself involves a double cable car ride, stopping off first on the lower Morro da Urca and then going up to the top of Pão de Açúcar itself. Again, as with Corcovado, the whole area has been designed and built extremely tastefully, with plenty of places to sit and rest, nice shops and stunning views. We stopped off on Urca for a brief and very pleasant picnic and then carried on up to he main event.

Obviously, the views are not quite so spectacular here as they are from Corcovado, although it does give a superb view of aircraft landing at Santos Dumont, banking gracefully in a 90 degree turn and lining up with the runway no more than about thirty seconds or so before touching down. Bizarrely, no one else found this as exciting as I did.

The one other tourist outing we had planned for the week was to go to Santa Teresa, a very beautiful neighbourhood stuck on the top of a hill and full of narrow winding streets and artists studios and the like - or so I'm led to believe. Sadly, we didn't actually make it. We'd planned to go on our last day and one of the main points of the trip is to travel up on the bondinho (tram) but we arrived at the lower station about ten minutes after it had closed due to a fatality and it wasn't going to open again for the rest of the day. We could have gone up by taxi, but as it was the ride on the bondinho we'd been most looking forward to, we dicided to postpone the trip until our next time in Rio.

Instead, we took the metro down to the beach and partook of that most typical of Rio activities - walking along the beach. There are well-built and well-maintained calçadas (mosaic pavements) running the whole length of the main beaches in Rio and they are constantly filled with people simply wandering up and down enjoying the view. On one side you have a wide, two-way cycle lane used by cyclists, roller-bladers, skateboarders and joggers and on the other a glorious sandy beach, filled with sunbathers, surfers and volleyballers.

Being Rio, there are a lot of bodies on display and while many of them are certainly physically impressive or aesthetically pleasing, insignificant swimwear and generous girth are by no means mutually exclusive. However, being Rio, no one seems to care and people of all shapes and sizes are perfectly happy to parade their semi-naked selves up and down the calçada all day long without a second thought.

Amazingly, we managed to get our two couch potatoes to walk the entire length of Ipanema and Leblon beaches (two and a quarter miles) with no more than two refreshment stops and a bit of piggy-backing. And I have to admit, having spent most of the morning in the swimming pool and part of the early afternoon wandering around downtown Rio before the beach walk, even I was quite happy to sit down for a short while back at the hotel - anyone who tells you I collapsed on my bed for an hour, refusing to move and using my bad back as an excuse is clearly remembering things wrong!

And that, pretty much, was that. Although it may not seem like a particularly full week, there was plenty of other stuff I haven't bothered to mention; James and David making new friends as well as meeting old friends from school down by the hotel pool, some fabulous sessions being knocked about by waves that were just the right side of dangerous, a lot of pizzas, three days of Festa Junina games, a lot of ice cream...

...and then back to São Paulo. Poor dirty, smelly, cold, beach-less São Paulo. How can it possibly compete with Rio de Janeiro? However, coming home did feel a bit like changing out of a clean, fresh tee-shirt and shorts and into an old and grubby tracksuit. It may not look as good, but it does feels reassuringly familiar. And anyway, it's only for a few days as we're off again next week - this time back to the UK and Ireland on our annual shopping trip.

So no more blogs for a while.

Happy holidays.

CORCOVADO!!

The Chess Tournament

2011-06-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

The Chess Tournament

When Giovanni, Grandmaster, national champion and part-time school chess teacher, asked Andrew, James’ father, if James would be interested in taking part in tournaments and competitions outside school, the obvious response was to feel flattered and excited and say yes, of course James would be delighted.
“Are you sure he’s good enough?” was what he actually said.
Giovanni shrugged.
“Of course. There are competitions for children of all levels. And I think it will be a good experience for him anyway.”
“Well, yes,” said Andrew, realising he was being somewhat unsupportive of his own son and trying to row back from his initial lack of faith. “I’m sure James would be happy enough with that.”
He turned to James.
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah,” replied James. “Of course.”
And that was that. James went back to studying chess for one afternoon a week, after school on Wednesdays, and playing the occasional game at home against his dad whenever the pair of them weren’t too busy conquering, civilizing or colonizing various hostile worlds on the computer.
And then, before you could say, “oh my God, the first tournament is next week and we haven’t done any practice for ages!” the first tournament arrived. By way of preparation James and his dad played two games a night for the two nights before the tournament – during which James was supplied with a constant stream of positive advice and tips on strategy.
“Don’t rush so much. Think about your moves before you make them, then you won’t make so many mistakes. Your endgame is terrible. You had that game won and you threw away all your advantage by not thinking properly. Do you want to take that move back? No? Okay, well it’s your loss.”
And then there was the more general advice.
“Now don’t worry if you lose all your matches. This is only your first tournament and it’s all about just seeing what they’re like. It would be nice to win at least one, but I don’t want you to give up on chess just because you can’t win a single match at your first tournament.”
After such a torrent of confidence-boosting encouragement, it was hardly surprising that James was somewhat nervous as he entered the hall and came face to face with well over a hundred eager, confident children, many of whom knew each other well from previous tournaments or club meetings and five of whom were almost certainly about to crush his nascent chess career.
He saw some people he knew – Enzo and Lucas from the club at school – and he wandered over to watch them playing a warm-up game. These were people he knew he could beat, had beaten many times, and with relief he realised he was probably not going to finish bottom after all. For want of anything better to do, he played a couple of warm-up games himself, winning the first easily. He was winning the second as well when it was interrupted by the tournament organisers suddenly deciding to play some very loud music through the PA system and this seemed to distract not only his opponent but also a great majority of the other children in the room, as well as their parents.
However, once the Brazilian national anthem was finished, the tournament began.
James’ first opponent was already sitting at the table when he arrived, getting some last-minute advice from his dad as well as a paternal ruffle of the hair and an enthusiastic thumbs up. Andrew had already seen the man chatting amicably to the tournament organisers and assumed that his son was probably one of the tournament-circuit regulars.
“I think this guy is going to be really good,” Andrew said to James by way of last-minute encouragement. “Don’t worry too much if he slaughters you. It’s only your first game.” And then as an afterthought; “But try and have fun.”
James greeted his opponent with a casual nod, set the timer for ten minutes each and then when the word was given to start playing, the two of them began a furious to-and-fro of move, click, move, click, move, click – except when one or other of them forgot to click the timer and there would be a brief and complicated click, click, click as they tried to work out whose turn it was and whose timer was running down.
Andrew wandered off, too nervous to watch, then wandered back, too curious to stay away, then wandered off again, too frustrated to watch. He could see that James had captured his opponent’s queen – that was good – then lost his own queen – stupid – then some other parent got in the way and he couldn’t see anything at all… and then it was all over. The two boys put up their hands to show they had finished and one of the adjudicators came over, checked the result and marked it down on his sheet.
“So?” Andrew asked as James wandered over.
James shrugged.
“Yeah.”
“You won?”
“Yeah.”
“Easily?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, well done. You’ve won your first tournament game. Now if you lose the other four it doesn’t matter because at least you’ll have won one game.”
It was difficult to tell which of them was more relieved. Andrew probably, as James clearly still needed more relief.
“Where’s the loo?”
There were free drinks as well, and after emptying from one end, he filled up again from the other and then wandered off to see how the other players he knew had fared.
“I won,” said Enzo proudly, “because my opponent wasn’t there.”
“Cool,” replied James. “I wish I could’ve done that. I had to win by getting a checkmate.”
And having been victorious, James would now be facing an opponent who had also won in the first round. When the tables were announced he took his place and waited to see who he had this time.
Andrew’s heart sank when the opponent arrived.
“Dammit,” he said. “It’s only the second game and already you’re up against someone wearing glasses. That’s never a good sign. Still, at least he’s not Asian. Always be wary of Asian kids and especially the Asian kids who wear glasses. They’re the real killers.”
Move, click. Move, click. Move, click.
This time the table was closer to the side of the hall where all the parents were forced to stand and Andrew was able to get a clear view of the board. The opening was fairly straightforward on both sides, with a certain amount of pawn juggling, and then the two of them settled down to a rapid series of piece-for-piece swaps. Some pawns went, then the knights and bishops, more pawns, then the queens. The board was practically empty. But James’ precious ten minutes was rapidly running out. He had the better position but Glasses was playing a good delaying game and James was too pressed for time to be able to stop and think. Move, click. Move, click.
James missed a possible checkmate. Andrew was staring furiously at the back of his head, willing him to see it, screaming silently. Move, click. Move, click. One minute left…forty-five seconds…thirty…twenty…
“Checkmate.”
Glasses looked disappointed. Whether he felt he should have won, or whether he’d simply been pinning his hopes on outlasting the clock Andrew couldn’t tell, but James was clearly delighted with the result.
“I need the loo again.”
Now James had time to wolf his way through a cheese and ham sandwich, a Twix and another soft drink – all provided free by the organisers. And Andrew was so pleased he gave James no more than a five-minute lecture on how he could have got the checkmate earlier and how he really needed to improve his endgame and they even had time for a quick practice game to pass the time.
When James was close to winning it, Andrew announced that he wasn’t really trying. And besides, they were just putting up the names for the next round. After two wins, James was put up on the number three table and it was clear his opponent was going to be a much tougher one this time. Not Asian, but much, much worse. He wore glasses. He wore a tee-shirt which said; I play Chess. He wore a cap with his name embroidered onto it and he wore an official chess jacket with his name printed on it. In the battle of intimidation, he’d already won hands down.
He took the game fairly comfortably as well, looking quite bored by the end. James battled on, at least forcing his opponent to demonstrate how to play a successful endgame and James was able to leave the table knowing he’d been totally outclassed but not in any way humiliated.
“Ah well,” said Andrew. “Two wins is more than I ever got in a chess tournament. And at least now your next opponent will probably not be as good. It would be nice to get one more win, then you can come away with a winning record.”
Interesting. Three hours earlier he’d been giving James advice on how to deal with crushing defeat and now here he was talking about coming away with a winning record.
For his fourth game, and a little later than expected, James was finally brought face-to-face with his first Asian opponent. But sadly for the young lad he seemed more concerned with the temperature than the game, being encased in a thick, puffy coat which hid everything except his face and the tips of his fingers. Plus he didn’t wear glasses.
And he didn’t last long. James finished him off well within time and without really breaking a sweat – something his opponent would dearly have loved to do, no doubt.
“Well, there it is,” said Andrew with a smile. “Your first tournament and you come away with a winning record. Even if you lose your last game you still have that.”
“Yeah,” James replied. “But 4-1 would be really great.”
And 4-1 it was to be. The final game turned out to be another relatively easy win for James but against a good, friendly opponent who was happy to chat across the table both before and after the match. Competitors’ medals had already been handed out at the start of the final match and there didn’t look as if there was going to be any sort of prize-giving, so there was nothing left to do but head home, James with a broad grin on his face and a medal round his neck and Andrew wondering whether there would now be parents warning their children to watch out if they found themselves up against any blond haired foreign kids in future tournaments – they were the really evil ones.
However, no successful tournament would be complete without some sort of reward ceremony and so before going home James was presented with a celebratory hot chocolate from the local café. And Andrew, feeling that all his nagging and negative advice must have gone some way towards achieving the end result, had one too.

The honeymoon is over

2011-05-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

Winter is fast approaching out here and I'm beginning to see how miserable winter can be when you're living in a country that's geared up towards being baking hot for eight months of the year. Technically, it's not even winter yet, but already the temperature is dropping daily, the sky is a miserable grey and when it rains it's just an unpleasant, English-style drizzle and nothing like the epic thunderstorms we had in January/February.

By UK standards it's not even that cold - 14 degrees today apparently although I dispute that - but I'm living in a house with no central heating, no fireplace and no double glazing. In fact, in the bathrooms and in our dining room have louvered windows that are permanently fixed open, which is great at keeping the place cool in 30 degrees but not so pleasant at this time of year.

And at least in the UK you have something to entertain you over winter. You have Halloween, you have Guy Fawkes Night, you have Christmas and New Year's Eve. You have snow. Here we have nothing. Nothing except an impending seven week school holiday in which it will almost certainly be too cold to do much that involves being outside for too long.

Fortunately, we're coming back to England and Ireland for three of those weeks so hopefully the children won't start pestering me for something interesting to do until the end of July, by which time we will hopefully have several suitcases full of books, toys and games to keep them quiet until we can get them back to school at the 8th of August.

It's also interesting - at least it is for me - to see how much less exciting Brazil has become now that I can't wander out in my shorts and tee-shirt and sit in the park or in a cafe. Last year, when we arrived, I was living in a new country, in a big strange city where everything was different and exciting, where each day was a new challenge. Now I'm sitting in a cold house in the middle of a sprawling great metropolis which is constantly busy and noisy, where it stinks of sewage whenever it rains and where everything I might possibly want to do or buy is several times more expensive than it would be back in England - and poorer quality to boot.

As you can probably tell, the honeymoon is over. I was told that between six and ten months would be the hardest time. For the first six months, you're too busy to stop and think. You're spending each day learning how to do stuff, you're meeting new people and doing new things for the first time. But six months in, and unless something has gone disastrously wrong, you're settled, you understand how everything works, you've made new friends, been round to their place and invited them round to yours. Things calm down, life goes on and you finally have time to stop and take stock.

Sadly, this stock-taking has come at the wrong time. If I could be feeling miserable about São Paulo but then go off and sit by the pool in glorious sunshine all afternoon, or go and sit in the park and eat açaí, well then I probably wouldn't be feeling miserable about São Paulo. But so much of what we most enjoy about life out here requires heat - or more heat than this, certainly. Or failing that, money. Money could buy us a trip down to the coast where it's pretty much always ten degrees hotter than here, or it could allow us to live in a house that had heating as well as air conditioning, or spend more time eating out, or shopping, or going to the cinema, or any of those other things people do to cheer themselves up. But then I come back to the point about everything being so ludicrously expensive out here. That's the really nice thing about the Sun... it's free!

Anyway, that's my complaining over and done with for now. I'm sure some Marmite buns, a pot of coffee and a second fleece will soon work their magic. Off now to give some thought to James' 10th birthday that's coming up next week...

PS: All the above was written last week. Since then I've had a wonderfully refreshing weekend and the sun has come back. I got to go to the park with friends and children, have a lovely sunday lunch provided by someone else and right now I'm sitting here with the sun streaming in through the window from a perfectly cloudless sky, wondering what I was possibly complaining about. I've even sorted out what we're doing for James' birthday and it's perfectly manageable. Just the cost of living to deal with now.

Easter Interlude

2011-04-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

A week of school holidays preceded by a week of David being ill and Helen being away has left me exhausted and somewhat lacking in blog motivation, so I thought it was a good opportunity to give you another photo collection...

It's so fertile out here, you leave a bit of water in a jug overnight and this is what you come down to in the morning.

Butterfly racing is so big over here they've started breeding them with their own numbers on. Sadly mine failed to get off the starting blocks.

Na boca, não na orelha, estrangeiro estúpido!

Young scientists having fun with the old bicarbonate of soda and vinegar trick. Rather worryingly though, James does look as though he's considering using it to wash down his sandwich.

"No really, guys. They won't let me into the Red Hot Chili Peppers without a few tattoos."

The intrepid journalist, out and about on the hunt for a story.

A typical dinner in our household - nothing but witty banter from start to finish. Although on the plus side, we never have to tell our boys not to talk with their mouths full.

And the cut and thrust of intellectual debate continues long into the evening.

Note to self: roast them first!

"Ah, this is the life. Now if only someone would bring me a drink and some snacks."

"Ah, this is the life. Now if only someone would bring me an iPad and some shade."

Easter just wouldn't be Easter without an egg hunt in the jungle...

...or an egg the size of your head.

"I think...I might...have had enough..."

As promised

2011-04-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

Home is where the chocolate is

2011-04-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

Last week St Paul's School had its annual International Day.

Most schools have something similar. It's an opportunity for the children to learn about some other countries, maybe make some models of famous landmarks or native animals or whatever. They spend a couple of weeks doing in-depth research on their chosen country, making posters, writing information sheets and Powerpoint presentations. And on the day itself, there are usually some national foods to try as well. This is exactly what they did at James' first school, back in Cambridge, but then it was hardly surprising they made such a big thing of it when you consider the fact that there were a good twenty or so nationalities represented at the school - it being one where a lot of the foreign visitors to Cambridge University would send their children.

But at St Paul's, International Day is nothing like that. What we get is basically a huge fete, organised by the PTA, with the aim of making a lot of money for charity. There was a large play area for the kids which contained various rides and bouncy castles, and a few other activity areas dotted about the place, but the main focus of the event was in the playground where there was a collection of stalls set out, each one representing a particular country. And the main function of the stalls was to sell things - food and drink primarily, but also various items associated with that country.

As a money-making venture the day was clearly a huge success. I don't actually know how much was raised, but judging by the startlingly high levels of consumption (culinary and financial) I witnessed, I'd say it would have to an awful lot. I think it's a shame the school doesn't make more of the day, getting the children involved and actually teaching them something about the countries whose produce their parents are so eagerly consuming, but that's a matter for another day, and a different soapbox, perhaps.

I actually volunteered to help out on the day. Our friend Richard - who saved us from spending our first New Year's Eve in Brazil sitting at home on our own - was running the UK stall and as we haven't yet managed to invite him and his family round to our house, I thought the least I could do was offer my services for International Day. What I ended up doing was spending most of the day at the back of the stall helping young children make paper crowns covered in colourful jewels and far too much glue. This was actually quite fun - or at least it was for the first few hours. But nine hours without a proper sit down, much of it spent in the baking sunshine, was enough to challenge even my enthusiasm. Still, I did get to wear a fabulously British apron for most of the day - and I got to make my own crown as well!

What I also got to do was eat a fair bit of English food - especially chocolate. There was a lot of it on sale and it seemed like as good a way as any for me to support the cause. English chocolate is nowhere near the best in the world - as the Swiss and Germans will readily tell you - but there's only so much Toblerone you can eat before it starts to get a bit boring (apparently) and sometimes it's nice to slum it a bit and eat something simply because it reminds you of home. So I did. Cadbury's Caramel Eggs, Mini Eggs, Flakes, Chocolate Fingers and proper Jaffa Cakes. I also ate my fair share of Twiglets, but so far their manufacturers have (perhaps wisely) failed to see the charm of coating them in chocolate, so they don't count.

It didn't make me homesick as such - a little sick, perhaps, but not homesick - but it did feel nice eating something so familiar. And it made me make a mental note to bring back a lot more of these kinds of things next time I go back to the UK. Last Christmas I was still a bit nervous about the whole business of getting stuff past Customs (technically you're not supposed to import food of any sort) but I've already started making my list for the next trip and I'll just have to rely on the fact that most Customs officials will tend to ignore stressed-looking parents with tired and grumpy children.

Anyway, that's all for this week and sorry for the lack of photos as well - I forgot to take my camera to International Day and the one photo I did manage to get is still on my iPod - which is with Helen who's up in the North-East on business all this week. I'll add it when I can because I think seeing me in an apron and paper crown is probably worth the wait. In the meantime, here's the top shelf of our fridge.

No walk in the park

2011-03-31T15:25:00.000-07:00

Havaianas
Portuguese for Hawaiians
Brazilian for flip-flops

Apparently they're taking the fashion world by storm and are currently the 'must-have' item of footwear for celebs around the world. Well, never one to miss out on a passing bandwagon, I went out last week and bought myself a pair. Admittedly, it was less to do with a desire to position myself on the cutting edge of style and more to do with the fact that one of my sandals decided to separate into two parts while I was half a mile from home and I needed a cheap and easily-obtainable replacement.

Anyway, out here, Havaianas are not so much fashionable as ubiquitous. You will find them supporting everything from the most expensively pedicured, nail-varnished and tattooed feet in the city to the filthy, cracked and calloused specimens of the catadores (rubbish collectors). And when I say 'supporting' I use the word in its most generous sense because there is, of course, no support there whatsoever. Just a little bit of friction between two uncomfortably stretched toes - friction which rapidly vanishes when it rains, I might add. And as it rains pretty much without warning out here, foot and flip-flop can quickly become separated.

My flip-flops and my body double - much cuter toes than me!

They're also no use when attempting that common paulistano pastime - trying to cross the road. When you have to navigate an eight-lane dual-carriageway just to get to the shops, it's nice to be able to put on a sudden burst of speed when the pedestrian phase abandons you mid-crossing. Believe me, when this happens, a flip-flop is not your friend - even one that can take the fashion world by storm.

Also, personal experience (somewhat brief but visually entertaining) has demonstrated that Havaianas are clearly not an accessory recommended for use with a skateboard. There is some debate within family circles as to whether the Havaianas actually made much of a difference at all, but I still maintain that my fakie switch 360 shuvit was way crazy insane. Anyway, moving swiftly on...

This is how you do it, Dad!

One area in which Havaianas do excel however is design. Not content with simply offering their customer a varied selection of colours, they have perfected the art of flip-flop... well, art. It is now possible to precariously balance your feet on top of literally hundreds of possible colours, designs, patterns, images, logos or photos. I've even been to a children's party where one of the activities was designing and colouring your own pair. Of course, given that the primary function of your new artwork is to be trodden on and covered up by your feet, it's perhaps not the best way to publicly display your individuality. They do look nice displayed on the wall however so maybe the point is to hang them up somewhere when you get in.

Sadly, I was unable to pander to my more flamboyant side when I went to buy mine as I was in something of a hurry and was forced to take my pick from the rather lacklustre selection they had on offer in Lojas Americanas (something like Woolworth's). I went for a nice blue/green combo with some arty wording on them. I'm not exactly sure what it says as it's in an unhelpfully squashed font but Helen assures me the second word is paradise. The first one though, is beyond us, except that it definitely ends in 'poo'.

So now I have a good solid pair of Poo Paradise flip-flops. I can't run in them, I can't skateboard in them, I can't keep them on when it rains and I can't display them to full advantage without taking them off first. But at least I can walk in them, which is more than can be said for my old sandals. Also, simply by slipping them onto my feet I can now pass for Brazilian - really, just like that!

Out of Town

2011-03-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

If you ask any well-off resident of São Paulo for five things worth doing in the city, one of the five will almost certainly be to get out of it. And every Friday evening thousands of them do just that, as soon as they can bunk off work. Of course, the very lucky ones pack up and head off on Thursday to avoid the traffic, and the very annoying ones just get in their helicopters and drown out all conversation in a ten-block radius whenever they feel like it.

And needless to say, the destination of choice is the beach. The nearest bit of coast is about an hour-and-a-half's drive out of the city and from there sandy beaches stretch away in either direction for about half a continent. There are party beaches, family beaches, private beaches, surfer beaches... you just pick your own brand of paradise and get there as soon as you can, determined to enjoy every moment until you have to get back in your car on Sunday afternoon and spend five hours in a queue to get back to the city you were so desperate to get away from two days before.

Ever since we arrived here last July people have been telling us we should get out to the coast at the weekends. You ask those same well-off paulistanos where to go and they will reel off a list of their favourite beaches quicker than you can write down the names - and certainly quicker than they could name the same number of places to visit within the city. They will know the best resorts, the best places to stay, the nicest restaurants, where to find the best surf, or the safest places for children to swim. Not surprising, perhaps, considering the amount of time they've spent researching.

Anyway, following the old adage "when in Rome, follow everyone else out of town at the weekend" we finally packed ourselves off on our very first beach holiday in Brazil - a mere eight months after getting here - and headed out to the lovely resort of Juquehy. Given that the kids were off school for Carnaval, we set off on the Thursday morning and so the journey was a perfectly manageable two hours fifty. And against all expectation, the sun came out about fifteen minutes before we arrived and stayed with us for the rest of that day and the whole of the following, making our trip just about as perfect as it could have been.

On arrival we met up with friends who had travelled up on the previous day and the eight of us spent a wonderfully lazy afternoon of sun, sand and surf, drinking chilled agua de coco straight from the coconut and eating frozen açaí while the children hurled themselves at waves several times their height. Actually, the wave diving was a lot of fun and I spent a fair amount of the day doing it as well. So much, in fact, that by mid-afternoon I was beginning to wish I'd spent more time under the umbrella. Red patches were beginning to appear in odd places I'd clearly missed with the suntan lotion and I decided to spend the remainder of the day in t-shirt and long shorts.

Late afternoon involved a wonderfully bumpy and wet trip on a motor boat out to one of the islands just off-shore for a change of scene. I spent about half-an-hour clambering over rocks and wandering up and down a practically deserted beach while Helen and the kids indulged in more swimming and David drew some interesting pictures in the sand. Then it was another splashy ride back to the mainland and back to the hotel to wash off all the sand and salt-encrusted suntan lotion and get ready for dinner.

Dinner was at the lovely Badauê restaurant which is built right over the beach and is open to the sea and the sunset. We missed seeing the sun actually disappear below the hills, but sitting eating fresh and beautifully cooked fish while the sea slowly disappears into the darkness was a fabulous experience and one I haven't enjoyed for many, many years. The decision to finish off the evening with crêpes across the street was also inspired, not just because there are few things as nice as a pancake bursting at the seams with oozing chocolate but because while we were all sitting there at the side of the road, another one of James' school friends wandered by and stopped to say hello.

Turns out his family own an apartment right next door to the crêperia (how handy is that?) and they come up to Juquehy pretty much every weekend. So on our second day, there were six children in our group, and the two new ones came with bikes, surfboards, a swimming pool and a very delicious and unexpected lunch. Sadly, having only partially learned my lesson from the day before, I again managed to get a bit too much sun - it's amazing just how unforgiving the sun can be of poorly applied suntan lotion - but with the waves coming in even bigger than on the first day, I wasn't going to miss the opportunity to get salt water up my nose as often as possible.

Day three was much more subdued. Everyone else in the party had packed up and headed back to São Paulo and although it was still nice and warm, the sun remained firmly behind thick cloud all day. Actually, this was a blessing as it didn't stop us from having as much fun as usual, but it did stop me getting any redder along the way. By lunchtime Helen and I were ready to head home and so the boys were dragged unenthusiastically from their body-boarding and sandcastle-making and bundled into the car for another three hour drive which got us home just in time for tea - followed by an hour of trying to clean sand out of absolutely everything we'd taken with us, whether it had gone anywhere near the beach or not.

So there you have it - our first beach holiday. I feel like a proper paulistano now. Although having said that I actually quite like being in the city on the weekend anyway - it's quiet and we have plenty of things to entertain us right here. Also, going midweek and coming back on the Saturday was convenient for avoiding the worst of the traffic but we can only do that when the kids are on holiday and I really don't like the idea of six to eight hours in a car for twenty-four hours at the beach which is what it would be on a normal weekend.

Still, we'll definitely do it again whenever the opportunity arises and having done it once we'll be much better prepared in future. Cooler swimwear for James, a bucket and spade for David, fewer clothes not designed for the beach, twice as much suntan lotion... and most important of all, our own coffee maker!

Party Time

2011-03-08T13:12:00.000-08:00

It's Carnaval! (That's how we spell it over here).

But sorry to disappoint all those of you hoping for a series of photos of carnival queens wearing nothing but body paint and a big smile - you'll just have to make do with David's plasticine figure. Because in this household, Carnaval is merrily passing us by almost unnoticed. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that the kids are off school for the week and the roads are deserted, I wouldn't even know there was anything special happening at all. São Paulo just isn't a party town. Those who love to have fun have all packed themselves off to Rio for the duration, because that's where there are endless street parties and processions and samba bands and what have you. And those who love to avoid the fun have all packed themselves off to the hills for some peace and quiet. And those who have to write for foreign newspapers are sitting at their desks as if it's just another working week - because that's what it is.

And anyway, for us this week is all about something even more important than Carnaval - David's fifth birthday. It's not something I'm ever likely to forget anyway, but he's had me counting down to it since something like mid-November so I'm almost as relieved as he is to finally see the actual day arrive. In fact, celebrations began last week. As so many people will be away this week we decided to have his party after school last Friday and after much discussion and planning and a lot of parental vetoes we settled on inviting all the boys from his class - making a perfectly manageable total of five. And I have to say it all went incredibly well.

For once I managed to over-cater by no more than 20% or so - so thankfully we don't have to live off stale cheese buns and Doritos for the next week. The cake was eaten in its entirety, David was given some lovely presents, and the afternoon's only casualty was me, burning a finger and thumb in attempting to remove a sparkler from the cake. Our previous attempts at hosting children's parties in the house have resulted in several cuts and bruises, a finger trapped in a door and even a trip to A&E for some cranial stitches so this one was a piece of cake (ha ha).

Moving on to the birthday itself and the day began pleasantly late with a treasure hunt courtesy of James, who had spent a great deal of time hiding presents and clues all around the lounge the night before. David loved it. Every clue was exciting and every present was "absolutely awesome".

Sadly, the rain then decided to come down and as I'd promised to take the boys out for lunch to somewhere half-an-hour's walk away, things were not quite as perfect as I could have hoped for. Still, when Helen decided she could afford to take a two hour lunch break and join us, we went anyway. And really, it was only drizzle. It certainly didn't stop us enjoying the walk or the food at the end of it.

So, that's David pretty much dealt with. Now I can move on to James, who is already planning what he wants for his birthday. However, today being Fat Tuesday, I think I owe it to myself to give up planning birthdays for Lent - that ought to give me a few weeks of peace and quiet. Although now that I think of it, I should probably start hunting around soon for somewhere I can buy huge big Easter eggs. I suspect there will be requests...

Lessons to be Learned

2011-02-25T04:10:00.000-08:00

Life out here is not always easy. Or well organised. Or cheap. However, I really don't want to spend the next four years writing a (more or less) weekly blog in which I do nothing but catalogue the trials and tribulations of the previous seven days, even though I generally find that a lot more fun than trying to find something positive to say. So although this week involved several days of sitting-in and waiting for people to turn up and then having to pay them vast amounts of money once they did, I'm not going to write about that. Except to say that we now have a wonderful new water filter installed, and no rat slowly and painfully dying behind our fridge.

Instead, I thought I'd write about something nice. It's quite minor really, in the grand scheme of things, but I think it's the little things like this that we'll look back on in years to come and remember as being part of what was so good about being out here. Basically, all I want to do is tell you about two of the ECAs (extra-curicular activities) that James is doing and how much he's enjoying them.

First off is chess, which he's only been going to since the start of this term but which he's settled into right away. James is an enthusiastic chess player and has been playing on and off for a few years now. Needless to say, he picked up the rules straight away, but after an initial burst of interest, he quickly got bored and preferred to use the board and pieces for making up his own games. However, in Ireland he has a grandfather and several uncles who are all accomplished players and who were always happy to play against him whenever we were visiting. And not just play, but also talk to him about chess; show him where he was going wrong, where he could have made a better move. And last Christmas he sat there fascinated as Gus talked him through one of his favourite old games move by move. (It was this one, by the way). At which point Johnny came in and began a discussion on how it could have been played differently. James loved every minute of it!

So I was delighted when he said he would like to take up chess as an ECA at school. Now, most schools have a chess club and it's usually run either by the one teacher who actually knows the rules, or by an enthusiastic parent who used to play and is happy to spare a bit of time once a week to let the kids have a bit of fun. This was, in fact, the case at both James' previous schools. At St Paul's, however, we have something a little bit better.

This is James' chess teacher.

Having my son taught chess by a Grandmaster who is also possibly the best player on the entire continent of South America is pretty impressive in my book! Of course, I don't know what he's like as a teacher, but from what I can gather from James, only half the session is actually playing, the other half is working on problem sheets and discussing tactics, so it certainly sounds as if he's seriously aiming to create Brazil's next generation of champions.

Yesterday, he asked me if I would be interested in receiving information about competitions and tournaments James might like to go to outside school. To my shame, my reply was not, "wow, yes, of course" but rather, "do you really think he's good enough?" Honestly, have some faith, Dad!

Finally I've joined that exalted group of chess players - which also includes my own father - whose pre-teen children can easily beat them while reading a book, or watching television, or chatting incessantly at the same time. And I now realise just how annoying that can be. Belated apologies, Dad.

The other ECA that James is really enjoying at the moment is his guitar lessons and it's all due to the efforts of his new teacher, Eder Francisco. Eder is not only a great guitarist, but also a very astute and patient teacher who was clearly delighted when James turned up. Here was someone who could already read music, was keen to learn, could play the sort of music that Eder was interested in teaching him and on top of all this was well-behaved during lessons (and not just because Helen often sits in). It works the other way as well. James loves his guitar lessons and is delighted with his new teacher. He does what Eder asks him and takes correction without complaint - unlike when I try and am met with a barrage of refusal and criticism.

And being the musical wasteland that I am, I'm not much good at noticing all the subtleties of James' playing, but Helen assures me he is a lot more confident in his playing these days and is really beginning to feel his way through his pieces rather than simply playing them. And it's not just playing technique James is picking up from Eder, but teaching methods as well. As I mentioned in a previous blog, James is now teaching me to play guitar and I'm quite sure that when he sits with his head in his hand and interrupts my playing with "again!" whenever I play a wrong note or hesitate too long it's Eder he's copying. Still, if it works for him, maybe it'll work for me as well.

Last week James got to play in one of the school's lunchtime concerts for the first time. Even though the concerts are fairly small-scale affairs, mainly for the benefit of the performers' parents, Eder took it very seriously, giving James some extra lessons in the week runing up to it in order to make sure that James would do them both proud. Sadly, it's not the best of recordings, but it does give you some idea of how well he played. Eder was so pleased he gave James a hug afterwards and it's a sure sign of how much James likes Eder that he actually let him - even though there were people watching!

These days we're getting to see a much happier and more confident James and while it's obviously not entirely due to his ECA teachers, they're certainly a big part of it. Let's hope it continues.

Water

2011-02-16T15:26:00.000-08:00

Water, water, everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink.

These lines, from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, have absolutely nothing to do with Brazil. They are, however, extremely appropriate for me to use as a starting point for this week's blog.

Firstly, we did have water, water everywhere today. After a couple of weeks of relatively light rainfall and just as I was beginning to think we'd seen the end of the rainy season, it returned with a vengeance this afternoon. And unsurprisingly, I was caught out in it.

I went to the school late today as David was ill at home and James had after-school chess. It had started to drizzle before I left the house so I wisely set off with two umbrellas but actually made it to the school with nothing worse than slightly damp shoes. Twenty minutes later, when we were ready to come home again, James and I were treated to the heaviest rain I've seen since arriving in Brazil - and believe me, that's saying something. There was no way we could even consider setting off for home, even with umbrellas. So we waited around at school enjoying the sight of water bubbling up over the edges of a drain cover that clearly couldn't cope. Then part of the canteen roof collapsed under the weight of water leaking in from somewhere. James had never had so much fun inside school!

When the rain turned from plain silly to just heavy, we decided we may as well trust to the umbrellas and try and make it home in time for tea. Twenty metres down the road and I realised the problem was not going to be the water from above so much as the water from below. I couldn't see the kerb. After a few more metres I couldn't even see the pavement I was walking on. By the time we got as far as our favourite local park, I couldn't even see most of the park. James was yelling with glee as he waded through knee-high water, begging me to keep going to where I could see cars slowly disappearing. I was happy to disappoint him.

When we arrived home James and I did the only sensible things we could think of - he went and had a shower and a change of clothes, I grabbed my camera and headed back out. By now the rain had pretty much stopped and despite a few misgivings about exactly what it was I was wading through, I headed out until the dirty water was a good deal higher than my knees just so I could capture the moment. I think the results were worth it.

And I was pleasantly relieved to see that our house was on high enough ground to avoid the danger. We did have a leak out back which ended up creeping in somewhere and pooling onto our dining room floor, but that was it. No gushing gutters, no sandbags at the front door...nothing. I would like to think we'd taken this into consideration when renting the place, but the truth is we could so easily have been in one of those lovely houses round the corner which now have a metre of recycled sewage wandering around their living rooms.

All of which makes the petty complaints in the second half of my blog seems somewhat fatuous. However, I'm going to make them regardless. I am fed up with all the time-wasting and waiting around I'm having to do because of organisational incompetence. It's not just me, it's Helen as well, but she vents her rage on her Facebook page so you can follow her own exploits there. I don't know whether the incompetence is a result of the onerous and generally pointless bureaucracy there is in every aspect of life in Brazil, or whether the bureaucracy is an attempt to counteract the rampant uselessness of organisations and their employees.

As an example, let's look at Brastemp. They are the giant of Brazilian kitchen appliance manufacture and supply and they are currently under agreement to supply us with a water purifier. Up till now we've been using the water filter built into our fridge/freezer, but in recent weeks the water has been coming out so slowly it's currently taking seven minutes to filter enough water for a full kettle. So, we decided to contact Brastemp and get a new filter. As our landlord had one previously, the process is extremely simple. The water supply is already there, the power is already there. All we need is the filter.

So. We called them on a Friday. They said they'd be round for an initial inspection on the following Tuesday. They then emailed to say it would be the Thursday instead. Any time between 8:00 and 18:00. Sure enough, a very nice technician arrived on the Thursday, spent ten minutes lying to me about how good my Portuguese was (bless him), fixed a small tube to the water point, took a photo of it (presumably to prove he'd done the work rather than because it looked so nice) and then clearly explained that the actual filter would arrive - in his own words - amanhã, ou sábado, ou segunda-feira (tomorrow, or Saturday, or Monday).

Well, I waited in all day Friday. Nothing. Saturday. Nothing. Monday. You guessed it - nothing. On Tuesday we called to be told that the technician had gone off without the right paperwork so it would now be Friday. They didn't bother to tell us this until we phoned and we're not free on Friday. So it will now be Monday. Any time Monday between 8:00 and 18:00. Possibly. I'm not sure what bothers me more, that it takes two-and-a-half weeks to get a water filter installed or that a company has so little faith in its own employees that it doesn't trust them to fit the pipe and the filter and sort out the paperwork all at the same time.

In the meantime the existing filter is still giving us drinking water one drop at a time and, at this rate, may well give up completely over the weekend, thereby bringing me nicely back to the second half of Coleridge's quotation and finishing off the blog rather well, I feel.

A Tale of Two Cities

2011-02-09T08:45:00.000-08:00

São Paulo

It was business as usual for me and the boys this week. The typical day goes something like this...

I struggle out of bed at six o'clock, wake myself up with a shower and head downstairs to make a variety of different breakfasts. At six thirty I go and wake up the boys if they haven't already dragged themselves downstairs (this does occasionally happen, but usually they only bother to get up at six on the weekend when they don't actually have to!) For the next half hour we generally have a reasonably pleasant time, eating and drinking and finishing off the homework we should have finished the previous day.

After that, the nagging starts as I try and get both boys to brush their teeth, then brush them again properly, then get dressed, then get dressed in the proper clothes, then put their shoes on, then put their school shoes on instead, then make sure they have everything they're supposed to in their school bags, then collect up all the stuff they've forgotten to put in their school bags and do it for them. And all this has to be accomplished in twenty minutes, after which we can finally set off for school.

The first leg of the journey is a race to the front door, followed without fail by some variation on the following conversation:
"First the worst, second the best."
"No. First the best, second the loser."
"Well I was first then."
"No, I was first. You didn't touch the door."
"Dad. James is being mean."
"No I'm not. He was first the worst."
"No, Dad was first the worst. I'm second the best, you're third the one with the hairy chest."
"Stop, both of you! I don't care who was first. Now, out you go or we'll be late. Other way!"

Strangely, after all this, the fifteen minute walk to school is nearly always a pleasure. It's our opportunity to have a nice chat and answer all those difficult questions children like to ask their dad...
"Can I go round to Francisco's house after school?"
"How many days is it until my birthday?"
"Are there any black holes in Brazil?"
"What do you think is better, a dragon with strength 2 and poison 2, or a zombie with strength 1 and berserk and regenerate?"
And when I occasionally get the chance to say something myself, I'll take the opportunity to explain why the English won the battle of Agincourt or some other similar vital piece of information.

After dropping them off, I'm free to head across the road to the local supermarket, Pão de Açucar (sugarloaf) and pick up the day's provisions. I generally stop off there most days as there's usually a few things I need and I like to get fresh bread for lunch. It's then eight minutes back to the house (notice that it's half the time without the kids in tow!)

And then the day is my own. Six-and-a-half hours of non-stop, child-free fun. Actually, it sounds a lot better than it really is. There's usually a fair bit of domestic admin to wade through and this often involves a trip out to the shopping centre to pay bills, get cash or pick up those things I can't get at the small Pão de Açucar. Otherwise it involves sitting in and waiting. Waiting for the meter reader, or the alarm fixer, or the documents courier, or the gardener, or the air-conditioning service engineer, or the domestic pest control team (so far just mice and termites). I think this is why people have maids - so that there's always someone free to answer the door.

But once these things are out of the way, it's down to some serious writing. Just as soon as I've checked my emails, had a browse through Facebook, maybe played a little game or two. But then it's down to writing. The blog comes first though. I'll give it some thought, do a few paragraphs and then when I start to run out of steam on that I'll finally move over to the new book I'm doing for James. Except that it's coming up to lunchtime. So I'll take a break for nice fresh buns (with the Marmite I haven't actually imported) and a nice pot of proper American-style filter coffee. Out here, they tend to like their coffee very small, very strong and very bitter - not my cup of tea at all! - so although it might be nice to sit in a friendly cafe and watch the São Paulo world go by in an artistic/creative sort of way, I never bother because I'd rather work my way through a litre of smooth caffeine made by someone who knows exactly how I like it.

Anyway, by twelve-thirty I'm done with lunch and I really do have two hours of uninterrupted writing time. This is probably why I've finally managed to begin my book. Actually, I've begun it five times but I feel confident I'll move beyond Chapter One fairly soon.

I'm back at the school for three o'clock to collect the boys and wait around for an indefinite length of time until I can get them back home. Some days, we're out of the gate by quarter-past three. Some days we're still there at four. And James now has after-school activities three times a week so it's not that unusual to only be getting home at five. Which is quite handy really as it means I don't have to worry about how to spend my late afternoons - I just seemlessly go from childminder to chef and start thinking about what to give them for tea.

Tea is always a pleasure in our house.
"What's for tea, Dad?"
"Fish."
"Yick!" says David.
"Urgh, not fish," says James. "I hate that. Why do we always have to have that?"
"We don't always have it. We haven't had it for ages."
"Grumble, grumble, grumble."
And now substitute for 'fish' almost anything else you can think of - it tends to work the same way.

What we all do for the rest of the evening varies depending on mood and availability. If Helen is free, she does guitar practice with James. If she's not, I'll give it a go, though this is not such a good idea as I know next to nothing about playing guitar or reading music and James reacts to my suggested criticisms accordingly. In an effort to avoid the regular nagging sessions that develop at these times, I'm getting James to teach me how to play. And I have to say, he seems to be a much better teacher than student! Sadly, me too.

Apart from that there's a variety of other things that usually get done. Homework. Washing up. Jigsaws. Reading. Showers. Even, occasionally, some tidying up. We try to get David up to bed at seven o'clock but it almost always ends up being nearer half past. We try to get James up to bed at eight o'clock but it almost always ends up being nearer nine. I try to get myself up to bed at nine-thirty but it almost always ends up being eleven, though I can't for the life of me work out where the time goes. And then suddenly I have to get up in seven hours and do it all again!

Rio de Janeiro

Given that picture of domestic bliss and harmony, you'd think Helen would never be able to bring herself to go away. However, last week she did just that, abandoning the sticky heat of São Paulo for the even stickier, even hotter Rio. She was only there for three days, but during this time she managed to spend two-and-a-half hours in a helicopter, visit an FPSO (Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading) platform, visit the world's deepest wave tank, meet the president of Petrobras and even go off and do a spot of sight-seeing as well.

But more importantly, she got to wear some fabulous orange overalls and a big white hard hat - though this was not while she was sight-seeing I should point out. Rio may be dangerous, but it's not that bad. And she got to get sticky oil all over her hand. Boy, it doesn't get much better than that!

She's been to Rio a few times now and each time she comes back she says, "we have to go there. It's so much nicer than São Paulo." Sadly, it's also so much hotter and the children are not the sun worshippers their dad is. Also, all our holiday has so far been used up back in Europe and the next time the children have any time off school is for Carnival - which, unless you're twenty-five and childless is so not the time to visit Rio. So it will be a while yet before I get to see it for myself. In the meantime I get to look at the lovely photos.

Home again, home again...

2011-01-28T15:00:00.000-08:00

To market, to market

To buy a fat pig,

Home again, home again,

Jiggedy jig.

Actually, we didn't buy a pig, but on our recent trip back to Europe, we bought pretty much everything else. Our shopping list was three pages long and we bought the lot, as well as plenty of things that never even made it onto the list in the first place. A lot of it was the obvious stuff - more summer clothes for Helen, more summer clothes for the children, more smart clothes for me - and more books than the average library.

The children seemed to do particularly well. As it was Christmas and as we visited both sets of grandparents, they basically had money and toys constantly thrown at them for two weeks (whenever they weren't throwing toys at each other) and as far as I'm concerned, that's all they're getting now until their birthdays. Sadly, the first of those will be with us in just a few short weeks' time so I ought to give some thought to the unenviable task of arranging a party of some sort.

Maybe later. In the meantime I'm busy enjoying playing with my own purchases - not the smart clothes, they're for emergencies only, but the electronics. The first item is a very uninspiring-looking black box which is so wonderful I want to tell the whole world about it - except for all those people who will never need such a thing in the first place, or have known about it for years already. It's called an AVT-1660 Standards Converter and what it does for me is convert the PAL signal coming out of my Wii to NTSC so my (landlord's) fabulous wall-mounted HD TV can now display all my games in glorious, unflickering colour.

And the really good thing is it works for the DVD player as well. Up till now the only way for us to watch all our UK DVDs was on a laptop displaying as a tiny square on the aforementioned TV. Not any more. Now it's as good as it ever was - though I should point out that I had to pick up the right cables for this job. For the Wii all I needed was the cable which comes with the converter.

And if all that was not enough, I also took the opportunity to add a couple of extra gadgets to my collection of Apple toys. I didn't actually need them, but those shops are just so damned inviting and Helen was off buying clothes so there was no one to hold me back. Now I'm able to download films onto my computer, use my iPod touch as a remote control and stream them to my Apple TV box and watch them on my (landlord's) fabulous wall-mounted HD TV. Or watch YouTube on the TV, which is kind of unnecessary but believe me, "Charlie bit my finger - again" has never looked so good.

The rest of our bags were filled with an odd assortment of bits and pieces that are just much easier or substantially cheaper to pick up in England than in Brazil. Calpol, Stabilo pens, Lego, school uniforms, flippers and snorkels. And as bringing any sort of food or drink into the country is strictly prohibited, we definitely did not bring in any PG Tips, Maltesers, Cadbury's Cream Eggs or Marmite!

So here we are, back home with all our new pressies and ready to get back on with our lives. Helen went back to work on Monday, the kids started school on Wednesday and I've begun the slow process of sorting everything out, tidying up, restocking the kitchen and (finally, after leaving them sitting in a corner for six months) putting up our pictures. Soon, very soon, I might even get back to doing some writing.

The Year in Pictures

2011-01-03T16:20:00.000-08:00

Happy 2011. Here are a few photos from the past year that, for one reason or another, never made it into the blog.

"Snow... last time I'll be seeing this for a while, eh?"

"What do you mean, I won't be able to bring it on the plane?"

Nene Valley Railway - full steam ahead!

IWM Duxford - David's first day of chicken pox but before anyone noticed.

Weekend in Paris just before leaving for Brazil.

Bye bye Cambridge.

"Uniform? No one told me anything about a uniform!"

"Arrr, me hearties!"

Yes, of course it's always this tidy.

Brazil - famous for its dangerous drivers.

First one to the finish gets extra computer time...

...or maybe just a medal instead.

"Are you sure this is my new classroom?"

Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

Off on his first field trip - three whole days away from the nagging parents.

"Wooooo! Happy Halloween."

"A one, a two, a one, two three four..."

"I'm in this one, right?"

Well, we survived 2010, now let's see about the next one.

The kindness of Strangers

2011-01-03T14:30:00.000-08:00

Brazilians are generous and accommodating people. Nothing seems to be too much trouble for them. They are happy to help you out whenever possible and their hospitality is both spontaneously offered and lavishly provided. And speaking as an often-confused and linguistically-challenged foreigner frequently splashing around out of his depth in a life he doesn't fully understand, this is a most reassuring and pleasing character trait.

But foreigners be warned. A Brazilian's generosity is a subtle thing that must not always be taken at face value. It may well be that an offer is being made more from the need to be seen to be generous, than from any real desire to do whatever it is that's being offered. For example, if someone you've only just met invites you for a coffee the following afternoon, they probably mean it. But if he invites you to spend the weekend with him and his family at their country house, it's fairly safe to assume he's merely demonstrating his generosity in the safe knowledge that you'll be impressed and touched but never actually take him up on the offer.

Sadly, not all foreigners possess the mental agility to successfully weave their way through the various subtle layers of Brazilian social etiquette and I have been told several entertaining stories of Brazilians hoist with their own petard after being too spontaneously generous with foreigners who have taken them at their word. And believe me, being on the receiving end is little better. I can, rather embarrassingly, think of two occasions where I've accepted invitations which, on hindsight, were clearly not intended to be accepted. I may be socially useless, but even I can tell when I've turned up somewhere I'm not really wanted.

All of which will hopefully explain why Helen and I were somewhat cautious in our acceptance of the various invitations we were presented with over the past few weeks. However, I'm pleased to report that all invitations were completely sincere, all events were lovely and friendly and thoroughly enjoyable and I'm fairly certain that no welcomes were outstayed.

We ended up being invited out to supper on Christmas Eve, lunch on Christmas Day and dinner on New Year's Eve. We were treated to a children's talent show - featuring our own, as well as our neighbour's children and their cousins singing, playing guitar and recorder, as well as performing a fabulous mime in costume, wigs and makeup to Lady Gaga's Poker Face. We were given some thoughtful and most-unexpected presents. We were able to watch the New Year fireworks from a ninth-storey balcony with a view over half the city. We met a lot of really nice people, ate a lot of really nice food and forced our children to wear a lot of really nice clothes and now we really, really have a lot of reciprocal hospitality to arrange.

Just as well we're running off back to Ireland and England in a few days!

The Queen of Clubs

2010-12-24T10:03:00.000-08:00

Planning for Christmas has not been easy this year. We're flying home in January to spend a week in each of Ireland and England, and both sets of relatives have kindly decided to postpone their own celebrations until we're there. So we get to have two entire weeks of over-indulging and over-spending and I only hope I'm up to the challenge! But as we're not leaving Brazil until Jan 6th, this leaves us with the tricky question of what to do with ourselves until then.

Our first plan was to do what nearly everyone else is doing and head to the beach. However, the problem with this is that nearly everyone else is doing this and so the beaches are heaving. It's basically standing room only, plus it's baking hot, plus it's upwards of three-times as expensive to do it now as at any other time of year. Just try and imagine the scene... now imagine it with two children.

Plan B was to go inland, up into the hills where it's cooler and the air is fresher. There are quite a lot of small towns there which offer peace and quiet and their own version of an Alpine getaway, with chalet-style hotels and quaint little shops selling things like Swiss chocolate and posh cheese and whatever else you can buy in Alpine villages. Sadly, the cost of the hotels is also Alpine, rising to Himalayan over the Christmas period, but even despite this they all still managed to sell out in November as far as I could tell.

So we were left with Plan C - spend the holidays in São Paulo and just keep reminding ourselves that our true Christmas was coming in January. At least, as we were informed by another non-traveller, São Paulo is a lot nicer with eight million fewer people in it. Everything is still open, you just don't have to queue, or wait, or make reservations for it.

However, to sweeten the deal even more, we finally sorted out joining a club. The club, or clube as it's spelt out here (pronounced cloobie) is a cross between a sporting complex and a social centre, set in generous grounds and nicely hidden away from the riff-raff by a huge great wall all the way around it. Some are modest affairs and offer the basics of a gym, football pitch, a swimming pool or two and a few tennis courts and then a couple of places to sit and eat. One or two of the bigger ones would give Disneyland a run for its money.

As it happens, we have two within ten minutes walk of the house and one of them, Clube Pinheiros, is possibly the biggest and most exclusive in town. It's also appears to be the most difficult to join. Well, actually, that's not entirely true. It's quite easy to join. All you need is big pockets and you're in. Basically, this is what you need to do. First off, you have to buy a titulo. This is like membership and you can buy it from anyone willing to sell you one. Fortunately, there always seem to be plenty of people offering theirs for sale and the price is negotiable between the two parties. Our inquiries would suggest that one will cost you about R$20,000 (£7,655). That is, of course, just for one of us. We would need four of them for the whole family. Of course, when we leave in four years' time, we could resell them and hopefully make back most, if not all, of our outlay. So it may actually cost us no more than four years' worth of interest on £30,000.

Next up is the joia (the word means jewel). This is, quite simply, a gift to the club. It's non-returnable and gives you nothing except the satisfaction of having contributed towards the welfare of the club and its owners. This is R$22,000 (£8,420). Per person. Still, after that, things come down in price quite substantially. The monthly fees are then only around R$700 (£268) and that's for the whole family. And on top of that there are individual fees for certain activities and classes, but at that point you probably wouldn't even notice another few hundred reais dripping out of your wallet.

So, unsurprisingly, Clube Pinheiros is not going to be receiving our applications for membership. Fortunately, however, there is a second clube just around the corner from Pinheiros and although it's on a more modest scale, it's still ideal for our needs. And it doesn't require us to clear out the bank account in order to join. It's called Hebraica and as the name might suggest, it's a Jewish club - although clearly they're happy to accept godless heathens onto their books as well as jews.

So far we've been members for four days and Helen has been there on every one of them, come rain or shine. I skipped the second day because I got a bit too much of the shine on the first and was glowing a little for a while, but the boys have been loving the chance to play in any one of the five swimming pools we now have access to. And when we've finished messing about in the water, we can go and play in one of several play areas there are, or kick a ball around, or go for a jog, or whatever we feel like, until we're ready to visit one of the two restaurants or numerous snack bars there are dotted around the place so we can pile back on all the calories we've just busily burned off. And if, after all that hedonism, the urge for more cerebral persuits comes upon us, we can avail ourselves of the library, complete with sound-proofed children's area, or even the on-site synagogue!

I think Christmas week will be a lot more pleasant thanks to Hebraica. In fact, I think the next four years will be greatly improved because of it and I feel I ought to say here and now that it was only thanks to Helen that we actually became members at all. My view was that the whole thing was too much grief to sort out and that the kids' paddling pool was all we really needed in the way of recreational aquatic facilities. Hopefully, she'll not feel the need to remind me of this every time we visit.

Funfairs and fazendas

2010-12-14T07:41:00.000-08:00

This week I got to do something I've been wanting to do ever since we arrived in Brazil - go to a children's party.

I'm no stranger to children's parties. I've enjoyed or endured plenty in my time, and have even been known to host the odd one myself on occasion. They're pretty straightforward affairs really. You get a bunch of kids, feed them some unhealthy snacks, make them run around until they feel sick and then give them a slice of cake and pack them off home to pester their parents until the sugar high wears off and then sleep through most of the following day.

Alternatively, you can hire one of those helpful little venues which go by the name of Chucky's, or Funky Fun House, or Happy Hal's House of Happiness, where an entire pack of children can be over-excited and over-fed on an industrial scale and where someone else gets to do the cleaning up afterwards. All you have to do is work the extra shifts to earn the extra cash to pay the extra-large credit card bill that will make it all seem like a really bad idea two weeks after it's all over.

In Brazil things are pretty much the same, except more so. Children's birthdays are a big deal out here and as a lot of the parents at St Paul's are, shall we say, quite well off, a lot of the parties are lavish affairs more akin to society balls than children's parties. Even for the younger ones, a typical party will be huge, with blanket invitations going out to everyone in the year, as well as friends from other years, or from outside school and a large part of the extended family as well.

They're not all like this though and while the one we went to this week was on a much larger scale than anything I was used to from England, it was, by St Paul's standards, probably a rather modest affair. And unlike most of the invitations we've had to date, this one was actually from someone we knew and whose daughter - the birthday girl - was a good friend of David's. It was at a place called Spasso Splash and this is where all the photos are from. Basically, it was an entire indoor activity centre, complete with roller coaster, chair ride, tirolesa (flying fox) and various other similar things. There was an area full of computers and games consoles to entertain the older kids and a special soft-play area for the very little ones (and David who made the ball pool his own personal domain).

And food. So much food. Whichever way I turned there was almost always someone offering me some tasty-looking snack to eat, or a soft drink to wash it down with, or a glass of Champagne to wash the soft drink down with. I started quite modestly, accepting the occasional mini pizza or pão de queijo but after a while I realised they had these little baskets you could stuff full of snacks so you didn't have to be constantly trying to take a snack with one hand while balancing your glass of Coke in the other. After that over-indulging became really easy. By the time it came to the cutting the cake I was full, and could barely manage to finish the three bits of cake I found myself presented with.

Sadly, this was about the time david finally plucked up the courage to go on the roller coaster ride and I was, of course, required to go with him as James was far too bust playing on the computer to do it for me. However, after five times in a row, even David agreed it was enough and I was able to escape before either my stomach or my back had time to take their revenge. I am such an old man. But at least I didn't fall fast asleep in the taxi on the way home like everyone else!

So, that was my first taste of a children's party Brazilian style and I have to say I enjoyed it quite a lot; clearly not as much as David who promptly announced he was going to have his party there as well, but enough to be happy enough to take my kids along to more of them in future. There is a small voice of conscience in there somewhere telling me it's a bit cheeky to let my children enjoy all this hospitality when I know perfectly well I shall not be reciprocating when the time comes, no matter what David says. But there's also a cynic in there and he has a louder voice and he's telling me that as long as complete strangers are happy to invite my children to their parties, who am I to stand in their way?

Anyway, that's not all we did this week. We also spent a very enjoyable Saturday out at the fazenda (farm) of some of our friends, Nick and Isabel. Actually, the fazenda belongs to Isabel's parents, but they had it for the weekend and offered us the chance to escape the city and breathe some fresh air for the day while sitting by the pool and eating some delicious food. What kind of complete fools would we have to be to pass up an offer like that?

I won't bore you with all the details of our day - it will just make you jealous - but needless to say it was fabulous and only the need to get back home to put the boys to bed forced us to leave. But one thing I do want to talk about is trees.

Nick took me on a little tour of the place and showed me all the different things they had growing there and being a complete city boy I was totally awed by what I saw. Things just grow here in Brazil, just like that. If you throw away some seeds and they happen to land in some soil, they start to grow. The problem here is not getting things to grow, but getting them to stop. I know this because we've just had the gardener in at home, cutting and trimming and rediscovering bits of the garden that have been hidden for months by plants that simply weren't there when we arrived in July.

Anyway, I decided to include some photos of some of the stuff I was shown on Saturday. Believe me, they were so much more impressive in real life.

Easily the most impressive one in my opinion were the lychee trees. In England, lychees grow in Sainsbury's, in little packs of ten or so, and cost an absolute fortune. Here there were four trees completely weighed down by clumps of lychees - maybe a hundred bunches or so on each tree - but sadly they were all about one week away from being ripe enough to pick. Also, rather hopelessly, I seem to have forgotten to take any photos of them. So here is the fabulously textured bark of a cork tree - shortly before David ripped it to pieces trying to make his own cork!

Other delights were several rows of coffee plants - just imagine growing your own coffee - mango trees, banana trees, avocado trees, the aforementioned cork trees and a couple of others that are a bit more exotic. The first is the jaca, although it is more commonly known as jackfruit outside Brazil. The fruit is huge and bobbly and although we did pick one, we actually forgot to eat it so I can't tell you what it tastes like. Sorry.

The other is called jabuticaba. It produces small dark berries that look a bit like cherries, but the strange thing is that instead of growing in bunches from the ends of branches like normal fruit, they grow on the actual trunk and branches of the tree and make it look like the tree has some terrible fungal infection. The berries are actually very nice though. You bite into them, suck out the soft white insides and then throw away the outer skin. I did take a photo of this one, but as it had been picked clean about a week before, it looks really uninspiring - look it up on google images if you really want to see one if full bloom. Instead, here's a photo of a couple of labourers employing traditional logging methods.

And as usual, at the end of the day, it was left up to the men to carry all the stuff home...

Further advent-ures

2010-12-04T11:40:00.000-08:00

Christmas is coming
The goose is getting fat
So please put up some ludicrously over-sized decorations
And other stuff like that.

Yes, it's that time of year again, but this time it's not like the last time. While I read daily reports from the UK, suffering its coldest November since whenever and its earliest snowfall since who-knows-when, I'm sitting here desperately glad that the repair men have finally come round and fixed the air-conditioning so that the kids can have more of a chance to sleep at night. Right now, beside an open window, the breeze is lovely and cooling, but once it dies down you start to understand what 36 degrees of centigrade really feels like.

And what it doesn't feel like is Christmas. I realise a large part of the world has Christmas in the middle of summer - that's fine. Way back when it may well have been a pagan ceremony to celebrate midwinter, but ever since baby Jesus came along it's been a December thing, not a winter thing, and it would just be way too complicated to try and divide the world into December Christmas-ers and June Christmas-ers depending on which side of the middle they were. And pointless as well. Honestly, out here we don't need a festival to celebrate surviving another winter - we just need an extra jumper for a couple of weeks.

So here we are with a sweltering Christmas on its way and poor old Santa still has to wear all his winter woolies. When the day actually arrives, it's possible he'll pop down to the beach in his baggies and havaianas and distribute his largesse between games of beach football, but for now the only one I've seen in the flesh is stuck in the shopping centre pretending he's still up in the Arctic, ho ho hoing his way to the air-conditioning unit as often as possible. He does, however, possess his own, reasonably impressive beard.

But what the Brazilians lack in atmosphere they more than make up for in enthusiasm. No sub-tropical heatwave is going to stop them partying like it's minus five, and like a lot of things out here, the better something is going to be, the bigger it needs to be. This is why we have giant Santas all over the place, or giant trees decorated to within an inch of their lives and wedged into shop entrances. I've seen fake presents, fake snow, fake grass, and I've even seen Santa on a bike!

But the two clear winners in the vulgar Christmas decoration competition have to be the following - both courtesy of Shopping Iguatemi, which is our local, very upmarket, retail outlet.

The first is outside by the entrance and is clearly designed to supplement the security guards who patrol there. It's terrifying. It was bad enough when they first put it up and there was only one dog, but after a few days they added the trumpet-playing trio and turned the whole thing into a grotesque - and somewhat confusing - tableau. Quite why Santa has a saxophone is beyond me - he never did when he used to squeeze himself down my chimney - but then he never brought along a dog with a plunge detonator either so maybe it's a Brazilian thing.

On first seeing it, David refused to go anywhere near it in case Santa trod on him and squashed him. "Is he going to come alive at night and attack me?" he asked. I should, of course, have replied, "Don't be silly, he's just a giant model." But what I actually said was, "Don't worry. Even if he comes alive there's no way he can get into your bedroom. He'd never be able to get over the electric fence." David accepted this and then suddenly looked shocked. "But there's a man who sleeps on this street. Santa will squash him and kill him!" As you see, the spirit of Christmas is alive and well in this household.

But giant killer Santa and his pack of canine terrorists pale in comparison with the main display inside the shopping centre. Here they've set up an entire railway platform, complete with train, flying sleigh, obligatory giant teddy bear and a huge collection of Christmas-themed figures. But although there are some two dozen figures, there are only three or four characters - the old bearded man, the jolly old lady, the happy children - so the whole thing ends up looking like some terrible failed cloning experiment from Madam Tussaud's.

Sadly, my few photos will not do it justice as it's impossible to capture the whole thing in all its overblown glory. But try and imagine it. One or two of the clones are motorised so they actually wave their hands or turn their heads as you watch and the entire experience is accompanied by a perpetual soundtrack of Bing Crosby and his ilk crooning away in the background.

And not to be outdone, the arrival of Chanukah has provided the local Jewish community with their own display in the form of an oversized menorah, surrounded by a host of giant dreidels (thank you wikipedia) which are, unfortunately given their basic function, stuck in place. And honestly, the whole thing is far too modest. How is my son going to be terrified by giant killer dreidels spinning him into oblivion during the night when this is all he has to work with? And not a single animatronic rabbi to be seen anywhere!

To be fair, Brazil does not own the monopoly on ostentatious Christmas displays. Far from it. Although the shops and shopping centres have gone to town on their displays, individual houses have so far remained fairly unadorned, with not an inflatable roof Santa in sight. It's possible it's still a bit early for anyone apart from the most rampantly commercial elements of society to have given much thought for Christmas, or maybe it's the fact that you can't really see much of a house from the street around here so ornamentation designed for passers-by is a bit pointless. Who knows? I'll see what happens over the next couple of weeks.

But one aspect of the build up to Christmas which does seem to be lacking out here is the Advent calendar. Last year, in Sainsbury's, you couldn't move for Advent calendars for the whole of November, but so far I haven't noticed any. Certainly there are none in the supermarket. They might be selling them in the specialist chocolate shops, but as I can't even afford to walk past them, let alone go in and look around, I think I'll conveniently choose to decide that they don't either. And besides, neither of the boys has remembered what they're missing yet and almost certainly won't until James reads this tomorrow and starts his campaign of complaints!

Update: campaign of complaints cunningly avoided by the timely arrival of two advent calendars. And not from me, I should point out, but from James' friend Christian who acquired them on a recent trip to the UK. So, that's the pre-breakfast chocolate cravings taken care of. Next on the jobs list is to decide where we're actually going to spend Christmas itself; here in town, up in the hills, or down on the beach? Ah, decisions, decisions...

Art from the heart

2010-11-24T13:31:00.000-08:00

This week I'm not writing about Brazil. Instead, I'm taking the opportunity to show off the artistic talents of my children, partly for the simple reason that I'm hugely impressed by them and partly because I wanted to take a break from writing about Brazil. It's been a singularly unremarkable week and after last week's ramblings you could probably do with a break from my contrived comparisons between here and there.

Let's start with David, who is kindly providing the illustrations for this week's post. Not long before we moved out here I stood for an hour-and-a-half in a queue outside Cambridge's Apple Store in order to buy an iPad the day it was released. I'd wanted one ever since I'd first heard about them and I just knew it was going to be fantastic. Music, films, books, games... Everything I could possibly want in one neat little package. What I didn't realise, however, was that its primary function was actually going to be as David's personal sketchpad.

We found a few different drawing packages - nothing more expensive than 59p - and it took him no time at all to learn how to open them, work his way through all the available options for size, colour, style, etc, undo and edit and even to save them for future reference. Eventually, he even came to understand that saving each picture once was all that was necessary and having twenty copies of each picture really did take up a lot of memory.

Of course, David could paint perfectly well before we bought the iPad and has been producing carefully painted and interesting pictures ever since he could hold a brush. He's clearly the most artistically talented member of the family, though sadly this is no great compliment as the competition is risible - although to be fair, Helen is something of a demon when it comes to walls and skirting boards. But being rather unsentimental parents, we've kept no more than about four or five works from David's 'acrylic on paper' period and none at all from his more experimental 'mixed media on vinyl floor tile' period.

And that's the real beauty of the iPad as an artist's tool; it's convenient, clean, dries instantly and comes with its own storage facility. But at the same time, it still allows David to use his fingers in a way that painting on a standard computer with a mouse doesn't, and somehow that seems a bit more like 'proper' painting to me.

In actual fact, he's stopped doing so many iPad paintings recently and has gone back to pen and paper. This is partly to copy James, who still spends a lot of time designing maps and assault courses and alternate galaxies, but now does it in super-fine detail with his new Stabilo pens, and party because he's now discovered that the iPad also has games on it. Games where you can drive trains, no less! Compared to that, painting - even painting trains - just doesn't cut it.

James, as usual, has been displaying his talents through his music. He has started guitar lessons once more and his new teacher is great. Not only is he hugely impressed with James' ability (and what sort of parent wouldn't be won over by that?) but he's also discovered the knack of constantly correcting James without James getting stroppy and answering back with snide comments as happens whenever Helen or I try it.

Here he is playing one of his new pieces. It's called Stony Creek Blues.

And when he's not playing guitar, he's singing. He was invited to join the junior choir and has been having great fun going to practice after school on Tuesdays. It helps that choir is taught by Mr Murphy, who happens to be James' humanities (and overall favourite) teacher and I'm sure a fair bit of his commitment is an attempt to impress Mr Murphy.

Last week they gave their first public performance and we were treated to three songs. The first was The Prep Song, a predictably saccharine little ditty extolling the virtues of the St Pauls seven to eleven year olds. Still it was nicely sung. The other two songs were the Canoe Song and Down in the Jungle - both much livelier and more fun, both for the singers and the audience.

Next up will be a carol concert I believe. James has been practicing Once in Royal David's City and apparently the best male singer gets to do the first verse as a solo. James is being considered for the task, but is very unconfident and isn't sure he actually has the guts to stand up and do it. Later on, when he gets back from school, I'll see if he'll let me film him giving it his best shot.

Well, he did, and here it is.

So there you have it. Proud parent corner finished. I'm sure those of you with children of your own are now probably saying something along the lines of, "meh, my little Johnny/Janey could do better than that when they were two years old," to which I respond with, "go get your own blog then."

This one is almost exclusively for the grandparents.

Compare and contrast

2010-11-18T14:37:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday afternoon was both sunny and dry and as the two don't generally come together very often at this time of year we decided to make the most of it and spend a little family time in our local postage stamp of greenery, Praça Gastão Vidigal. It turns out, by the way, that Gastão Vidigal is a name and not, as I had previously assumed from context, portuguese for 'the dog's toilet'. But canine faeces aside (or underfoot in David's case) the park was looking lovely after its recent makeover. The kiddies' play area now has a new fence to keep dogs out and the equipment inside has been given a much-needed overhaul. Some of the more barren patches have been replanted, paint and varnish has been liberally applied to many things and there is now a scattering of signposts blossoming out of the grass which say something along the lines of, 'It's your park - why not try looking after it for a change!'

All in all, a lovely place to spend a very pleasant half-an-hour. But any longer than that and the place starts to lose its charm. There really isn't much to do there if you're not four years old and still find it immensely pleasurable to climb up one way and slide down another. James tries, spending his time excavating complicated tomb complexes in the sandpit, but even that gets boring after he's deliberately collapsed the roof on his team of imaginary archaeologists for the second time. So we find ourselves going to the park less and less often these days, preferring to find entertainment around the house instead. Admittedly, now that we have our possessions there's a lot more to do indoors, but the lack of convenient, interesting and free outdoor spaces is one of the things I'm missing most from our life back in Cambridge.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not getting homesick. Of course, there are many things I miss from our life in England - it was less bureaucratic and a lot cheaper for a start and most people could generally understand what I was trying to say - but life out here is interesting and challenging and it has forced me to climb out of the rut I was happily plodding along in back in Cambridge and that can only be a good thing. I would, however, disagree with anyone who says a change is as good as a rest - this change has been physically and emotionally exhausting and I could really do with a nice long rest right about now - but it has certainly been as good as a motivational kick up the backside.

For one thing, I'm writing again. For now it's just the blog, but I've been making notes for my long-promised novel for James and will probably start work on it soon. I've been teaching myself to come and sit at the computer and start typing rather than play games and now I look forward to working in a way I haven't done for a long time. Having said that, I've now been struggling with this blog entry for three days, trying to decide what it is I actually want to say. It was going to be a broad sweeping comparison of the two countries and how we've changed our way of life to suit our new home. Then, when that seemed like way too much, it was going to become more of a list of things we miss, possibly with a discussion of why. Now it seems like a much better idea just to see what photos I have available and throw some text at them to see what sticks.

One thing I did want to write about though, and which has come as something of a pleasant surprise, is how little I've been missing my friends and family. I don't, of course, mean that I hate them all and I'm glad I'm finally on the far side of the world from them. What I mean is how easy it is these days to keep in regular contact with everyone. The last time we lived abroad, in Finland from 1996-98, contact with home was limited to an expensive phone call once every couple of weeks to my parents and the occasional letter (you know, in an envelope, with a stamp) to friends and relatives. Now I'm Skyping my parents every weekend and seeing much more of them than I ever did when we lived in Cambridge! I'm having ongoing email conversations with friends on a daily basis, I'm chatting on Facebook to people I haven't seen for years... honestly, I'm more socially active now than I ever was back in England.

But possibly the strangest connection I've managed to maintain has to be with the book club I was in back in Cambridge. Five-and-a-half thousand miles is a bit too far to go for our monthly meetings, but I've made a real effort to stay in touch with the others and I make sure I still read the same book as they do so I can send my views by email on the day of the meeting. Getting hold of the books is proving to be less of a challenge than I'd thought as well. So far, I've been able to download one from the iTunes bookstore and get hold of the other two from the kids' school library, but once they start choosing really obscure stuff I may have to skip a month. Buying books on Amazon is (ironically) not really an option as the import duties are so huge and the local bookstores that do stock books in English tend to stick to the popular classics and teenage fiction. I do still miss the conversation, but perhaps I could persuade them to send me the sessions as podcasts!

As for all the other stuff I miss about England? Well, there's not that much really - especially since one of our friends out here has just returned from the UK bringing me three large jars of Marmite and another delivered a Red-Cross parcel of Ibuprofen and curtain rings (the former is nigh on impossible to get in any sort of sensible quantity or delivery system, the latter only seemed to be available at £3.50 per ring!) In the words of Helen... "Oh for a John Lewis!"

But mostly, life out here is just different. Some things are worse than in England, some things are much better. It seems to me that the best way to be happy is just to accept Brazil for what it is and not try and make it like England with sun.

Less dog poo would be nice though.

Sunday Service

2010-11-10T13:51:00.000-08:00

Well, we now seem to have our Sunday mornings sorted out. Unlike Saturdays, which are all about sitting around eating lots and stocking up on a day's supply of caffeine in a single sitting, Sunday mornings are all about culture. There's a little museum about five minutes walk from the house called the Museu da Casa Brasileira (museum of the Brazilian house) and we now pop in there whenever the weather is nice and sunny.

To be honest, the museum itself is no great shakes. It's about four rooms big and houses a collection of old furniture. One of the rooms contains all the really old stuff, although really old only goes back about three hundred years, and once you've seen one old chest of drawers, you've pretty much seen them all. The other rooms are more up-to-date and contain a few objects which are, presumably, Brazilian design classics from the 1960s. There are a few oddly-shaped chairs, a couple of over-ornate lamps and some intriguingly pointless tables, usually with fewer than the normal number of legs.

But the reason for enjoying the museum is not the exhibits, but the building itself. It's a beautiful old mansion, set in its own grounds and is easily the oldest building I've seen out here so far. But more importantly for us, it possesses a really nice little garden, open and sunny in the middle but with a winding path around the edge which is shaded by an interesting collection of trees from around the world. It may be pretty pathetic when compared to the Botanic Garden in Cambridge (which was our previous recreational park of choice) but to have any sort of green space, devoid of cars and dogs, within five minutes walk of the house here in São Paulo is really quite amazing.

There is also a nice little cafe/restaurant attached to the back of the museum which opens onto the garden so you can while away many a pleasant hour enjoying a lovely refreshing juice and just staring out at green things for a change. That's assuming you've gone there without the children. Otherwise, you can spend your time wandering round the garden as the guardian of armfulls of curiously-shaped sticks and twigs while your coffee goes cold back at your table.

The other good thing about the museum, and the reason we go there on Sunday, is that they host concerts on Sunday mornings. They have a performance space, covered, but also open to the garden, which can seat about two hundred people and when the music sounds promising the place is packed. The first time we went we were treated to some jazz which was a little bit too loud and a little bit too free form for my taste, and as the weather wasn't great there were not so many people there.

Last Sunday we had a small ensemble playing baroque works in a traditional manner and the place was full. But it's all quite informal so you can come and go as you please and get up and wander off into the garden if you want, or sit and have an early lunch while you listen. Next week, we have a solo guitarist and we'll definitely be going to that. We may even stay on for a bit of lunch and some twig collecting afterwards.

And while we're on the subject, the boys have been enjoying their own forays into the world of culture today. James spent the morning on a school trip to the St Paul's Episcopal Anglican Cathedral, where he got to meet two Royal British Legionaries who saw active service during the Second World War. The point of the trip was to learn something about the war from first-hand sources, but also, as it helpfully points out on the trip information sheet I'm copying this from, to improve their listening, interviewing and information gathering skills.

So we packed James off with a camera and let him take his own photos and here are a couple of the better ones.

But meeting the veteran was clearly the best thing that's happened to James all week. Having casually asked him what it was like I was treated to a ten-minute recap of every single little detail James could remember. He was particularly impressed with Michel (he was French) as it appears he spent several years as a teenage spy - very Alex Rider-esque - and as far as James is concerned, it doesn't get any better than that.

And while James was off honing his interview techniques I was being entertained by David in his class performance of The Ugly Duckling. Sadly, due to the fact that flash was not permitted, my photography today was no better than James' and I haven't really done the performance justice.

The yellow t-shirt was our one pathetic attempt at a costume and it was refreshingly pleasing to see that the other parents had clearly gone to about the same level of effort as us. The head pieces, however, were fantastic.

The week in pictures

2010-11-01T09:39:00.000-07:00

Wednesday morning 10am.

Moment of truth.

On your marks, get set...

147 bundles of joy.

Not everyone made it out in one piece.

My best friend!

Love is...

Words. Lots of words. In English.

No more plastic plates for us!

Home, sweet home.

Safe as houses.

2010-10-20T05:26:00.000-07:00

Security is big business out here. A lot of people spend a lot of money on making sure they and their possessions are as safe as possible. Bullet-proof cars, alarms, cameras, motion sensors, electric fences, bars, railings, locks, walls... the list goes on. In a previous post I detailed the various security systems we have here in what is, in truth, a very modest house for this area but there are some truly enormous mansions around us, bristling with cameras and fences and some even boasting their own permanent on-site security guards. Sadly, we're not in that league so we have to make do with the street guards.

I first came across the concept of street guards back in England. We were trying to decide whether we should be looking for a house or an apartment to live in and the issue of security was high on our list of concerns. Apartment blocks out here are all gated, with a doorman on duty around the clock and so are obviously more secure than a house. Unfortunately, there just aren't many apartment blocks within walking distance of the school and as that was our top priority, we found the decision made for us. A house it was going to be. But not to worry, we were told, as all the streets in the area we would be living in were patrolled by guards from private security firms. All we had to do is pay a monthly fee and that would be our security taken care of.

Now, when I think of security guards I imagine something like this.

These are the guys who stand guard outside the local shopping centre. You can't actually see his gun because it's on the other side of him, but they all carry them and I'm sure they know how to use them. A couple of these guys patrolling the street at night is going to be a fairly good deterrent for any but the most dedicated of electric fence dodgers. Sadly, this is not what we get. What we get is the brave lads of the Vigilância Noturna Particular de São Paulo. These guys don't need guns, or body armour, or a fancy uniform... or training... or even the physique of a mildly competent athlete. It seems to be that you qualify for guard duty as long as you're male and of a reasonable age - and one or two of the guys near us are clearly way over-qualified on that score.

The street guard's base is his box. You see them dotted around all over the place, but especially at junctions, and this is where everything happens. There is space inside for one person to sit, with a shelf for storing the few items the guard will need - some magazines, a portable water filter and container, somewhere to write invoices. Sometimes, that's all you'll get, but on occasion the guards will have made a real effort, especially if their clients are generous. I've seen boxes with carpet, a nice swivel chair, somewhere to hang your jacket, and there's even one box I pass every day going to and from school that has its own power supply and a small television set up in the corner. Now and then I see one or other of the guards sitting watching TV, but more often, two of them have squeezed in together and are busy playing FIFA 2010 on a Playstation.

But no toilet facilities. I can only imagine that one of the nearby houses allows them access to their maid's quarters or something, because these guys work long, long hours. On our street we have José, Miguel and Cristiano although there are at least two others I see regularly who must be cover of some sort. They're already there when I walk the boys to school at seven o'clock in the morning, and they're still there when I put out the rubbish at nine at night. I can only assume they're there for most of the night as well as that's presumably the whole point of Vigilância Noturna.

And our boys are in pretty good shape too. I'm not sure how well they would do against a gang of dedicated burglars, but they can certainly nip up and down the road on their old bicycle quick enough when they have to. No sitting around playing computer footie on our street! And whenever they see us heading home, they will always wander down and stand around while we let ourselves in just for a bit of extra reassurance (or possibly to prove to us that they are actually doing something for their money).

But a good street guard is so much more than a walking anti-theft device. They're always around, so they can take delivery of items that are too big for the letterbox. They can pass on messages and, although we haven't tried this one yet, I'm sure they would run errands for us if we needed them to. When we first arrived at the house, it was José who had the keys and let us in and our landlord was clearly happy enough with this arrangement. And as I detailed in the previous post, they will even help park you car for you. Who could possibly ask for more?

Finally, and slightly off topic, I want to tell you about two more home security systems I've come across and which are widely used in our area. The first is kind of obvious really.

Yes, the good old guard dog. This guy is the scariest one I could find and he seems to delight in running backwards and forwards along the length of his property every time I pass by, barking madly from the moment he sees me until I'm away round the corner. Fortunately, there is a fence between us because as loud as he is, I'm quite sure his bark is still nowhere near as bad as his bite. But he's the exception. Most of the dogs whose noses I see poking out through gates and fences are nothing like as fearsome. They're bored, lazy or pathetically old or small. They can generally bark a good bark if they put their mind to it, which they like to do in unison at about two in the morning, but I'm not sure they're much of a deterrent.

And then there's this.

I've no idea what it's called, and I don't know if it's unique to Brazil or as common as anything back in England as well, but I've certainly never seen it before. Which is no surprise really as no one in their right mind would have anything to do with it. It's really just a tangle of thick ugly stems covered in vicious spiky thorns with the occasional handful of pathetic petals dotted about so you can tell it's actually a plant and not some variety of barbed wire. People use it as a hedge along the front of their property so that even if you were stupid enough to want to climb up the wall and risk the electric fence, you can't get anywhere near it without slicing yourself to pieces first.

Here you can see a fully-developed hedge. It sprawls menacingly over six foot of a seven foot-wide pavement and as no one seems to be doing anything to keep it in check, I'm quite sure it will be forcing us to walk on the road soon enough... which is, I have to admit, a pretty good way of keeping people off their walls.

Sometimes, I really miss front gardens.

Double Busy

2010-10-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

Half Term. And for me, the joy at not having to be up at six o'clock every morning stayed with me until, oh, Wednesday afternoon or so, by which time the constant nagging of two stir-crazy children had tipped the pleasure scales enough to make me wonder whether a week's holiday was just too long. I can't blame the children too much though, they've had fairly limited input from their parents for much of this week as it's been mild chaos here for the past few days.

We began last Saturday with the setting up of our home office. We have a garden room at the end of our long driveway and for various practical and financial reasons, Helen has decided to abandon her unnecessarily distant and over-cluttered office for the much more cosy and accessible home variety. Saturday was the day of the move, and as is usually the case out here, we began the day with a wait, abandoning our usual Saturday morning trip to Emporio Santa Maria so we could be here when the furniture van arrived mid-morning. It arrived mid-afternoon.

The first order of business was something I'd been dreading for a while and that was to move our car out of the way. It was the first time I'd sat in it since we got it, the first time I'd driven for four months and the first time I'd driven an automatic at all. Still, even I could cope with driving it out onto the road and parking it, although there was a lot of juddering and growling involved. Sadly, a couple of hours later once all the furniture was in, I had to put it back where it came from. Now, for most of you, this would probably have been no problem. After all, reversing round a 90 degree corner, up a ramp and into a narrow entrance between two huge walls is the kind of stuff you do all the time - and some of you, I know, can even do it with a 40 ft trailer attached.

Sadly, I can't. Not effortlessly anyway. After about five minutes, I'd made it up the ramp at least and had attracted an audience in the process. Behind me I had Helen, the boys and Angela, our cleaner. In front was Miguel, one of our street guards, and his weekend assistant. And if I'd been hopeless before, adding performance anxiety to the mix really made things much, much worse.

Crunch!

It had to happen sooner or later. Fortunately, it was only the huge and conveniently-placed plant pot and not the side of the house. There were squeals of delight from behind me, and knowing shakes of the head from in front. So, back down the ramp, straighten up, try again... and again... and again. Then the advice started. "You're too close. Go the other way. Turn the wheel the other way. You need to straighten up. MIND THE WALL!" Then Miguel wandered over, leant in through the window and started turning the steering wheel for me, motioning with a nod of the head that everything was fine now. "NO IT ISN'T!" from behind. So, back out, back in, back out, back in. And finally I was there, safe and sound without so much as a single chunk of plaster out of either wall and nothing more than a scratched bumper on the car.

Humility is such a wonderful thing. I thanked Miguel for his help and with a happy smile thought of the immense joy I'd brought to so many people on what would otherwise have been a typically dull Saturday afternoon.

So after all that excitement, what better way to come back down to earth than to spend the rest of the weekend moving furniture and unpacking boxes. To be honest, after the initial placing of desks and bookshelves there wasn't much for me to do so I went back to letting the kids make fun of my parking skills while Helen got to wade her way through several years' worth of old books and magazines which no longer had a home and which probably should have been put out to pasture a long time ago anyway.

By Sunday evening, it was actually looking quite cosy. The only thing missing was a phone line and an internet connection but these would, apparently, be easy enough to arrange and sure enough, one week later, we're already halfway there, having had five visits from three men from two different companies in the space of four days. All of which, of course, involved at least one of us having to stay in the house and prevented the kids from being taken to anywhere more interesting than the supermarket.

And then, on Thursday, I was ill again. This time it was what I'll just describe as digestive issues, but it kept me in bed for the whole day and enabled Helen to get in some interesting conversational portuguese practice with not one, but two, different pharmacists. Yes, I'm better now - thanks for the concern - but I can no longer wear my shorts without a belt. It's a somewhat extreme form of dieting, but some consolation I suppose.

But the week was saved by Tuesday which was Dia das Crianças, or Children's day. It's a bit like Mother's Day but much more of a big deal. It's a public holiday for a start and although schools and banks and offices are closed, toy shops and restaurants aren't. As there wasn't too much Helen could do on a public holiday, we decided to have a family day and although it began with a reasonably long walk, the kids didn't object as there were treats promised along the way.

We began by heading off to my favourite juice bar for some açaí and fresh grape juice. By chance, there was a little jungle-themed adventure area which had been set up for kids right beside it, so Helen and I got to sit in the sunshine and enjoy some civilised conversation while David ran wild with some soft toy animals and James, being far too grown up for such childish games, made a few paper aeroplanes.

For lunch we went to the cafe next to Helen's old office so she could let James have a try of the "fatty salty sandwich" (melted ham and cheese) she would be saying farewell to from now on. David, suspicious as always, joined me for some pão de queijo.

After that we were obliged to make good on our promise of toys. Buying toys out here is tough. Everything your children are likely to have heard of will have been imported, and everything imported has had to go through this strange process which trebles its price and no matter how hard I try, I just can't bring myself to spend £250 on a Lego set, even if it is based on The Prince of Persia. Still, it was Dia das Crianças and there's only so many times you can say "no, not that one, find a cheaper one" to a desperate child, so we gave in and forked out and came away with a handful of characters from Thomas the Tank Engine and and an impressive collection of Gormiti (a group of elemental warriors whose powers include the ability to suck money out of your wallet, to materialise underneath bare feet on staircases and a mind-control power which seems to compel children to sing their praises incessantly until their parents' brains turn to jelly).

But when all's said and done, we survived the week and even enjoyed bits of it along the way - especially those bits which didn't involve a toilet. And this weekend brings with it out three-monthaversary. Yes, it really has been three whole months since we said goodbye to Cambridge and began our new adventure out here. Most days it seems like much, much longer, but we can certainly give ourselves a collective pat on the back for all the things we've achieved so far. Helen has been nothing short of a human dynamo, the kids have been amazing in adapting to their new life and I have... well, I've kept us all fed and watered and made sure we all get up on time.

And I get to be the one to tell you all about it, which is perfect.

These are a few of my favourite things...

2010-10-07T08:13:00.000-07:00

...to eat and drink out here in Brazil.

If you ever visit a country that has endured long periods of poverty in its past (and let's face it, most countries have) be wary of sampling that ubiquitous dish which is accompanied by the phrase, local delicacy or worse still, national dish. It will almost certainly involve the least aesthetically pleasing organs from the local beast of burden served up on a bed of congealed carbohydrate of indeterminate origin. In Brazil it's called feijoada and is a stew of beef and pork products and beans, commonly served with rice. I have no intention of going anywhere near it.

But then I have no intention of going anywhere near a lot of things. Partly because our kitchenware and crockery are still in a container in the nearby port of Santos, and partly because I'm a fairly lazy chef at the best of times, our diet out here has been somewhat straightforward and monotonous for the past three months. We eat a lot of pizza, a lot of scrambled eggs and a lot of rice-and-prawn-mush. Which is sad really, seeing as how one of the major attractions of São Paulo is supposed to be the huge variety of international food on offer here. If you want it, local delicacies included, there's bound to be a restaurant serving it out there somewhere.

But we don't eat out. Well Helen does, very often, and in some of the nicest and poshest places around, but that's because she has to go and meet people in these sorts of places for work and I'm sure it's nowhere near as nice when you're having to interview people between mouthfulls. But as a family, we generally don't bother eating out because it's just too much grief. Firstly, I'm a teetotal vegetarian - not ideal in a land of wine and beef. Added to this is the fact that I have the most unadventurous palette imaginable. I've seen rare steaks with more life in them than my taste buds. As for the children, David is very much of the "What is it? Don't like it!" school of dining and will happily eat anything at all as long as it's bread. James, on the other hand, is like Helen. He really will eat anything, especially if you have to drain the blood from it first, or if you can still see the suckers on the tentacles. Sadly, he only enjoys going to places he can actually see from the house and for him, a walk of more than five minutes is really not worth the food at the end of it.

Even if we never eat out though, I have managed to add a few local items to my limited diet. First off is watermelon. It's certainly not unique to Brazil, but it's as cheap as anything and available all year round. I buy a quarter of a watermelon every couple of days and we have it for breakfast every morning. Yum.

Pão de queijo (pan dje kay-joo) or cheese bread is my standard lunch. 200g is a modest helping, so I tend to go for 300g and shovel it in. If you're lucky and get it at the right time, it's deliciously warm and light and fluffy. When it's cold it gets a bit chewier but it's still fabulous. You can get it pretty much anywhere and although I tend to buy it in the local supermarket for convenience, most cafés do it better. Surprisingly, the best I've tasted so far was at a tiny food counter at the local headquarters of the Federal Police while I was waiting for my paperwork to be processed. Possibly it wasn't actually as good as I remember, but by the time I got to eat it, I'd been there so long anything short of the paperwork itself would have tasted great. Anyway, here's a photo of the supermarket variety, artfully displayed on a plastic plate as our proper plates are sitting in a container... you get the idea.

And of course you need something to wash it down with. In Brazil, the soft drink of choice is Guarana, a mild-flavoured fizzy drink which contains enough caffeine to make coffee seem like a nice bedtime drink. Apparently, Brazilians drink more of it than they do Coke which perhaps explains why no one seems to put their children to bed until well after ten o'clock at night, even when they have to be up at six the following morning. I try not to drink too much of it these days as I think it gives me palpitations (see earlier blog for details) but it's way too nice to give up altogether.

But for me the clear winner among the local newcomers has to be this...

It's called açaí na tigela com banana batida (acai in a bowl with mashed banana) which is my preferred variation, although you can also have it with chopped banana instead, or strawberry, or mango. It's basically frozen berries blended into a pulp and mixed with your fruit of choice. It's like really rich, smooth, ice cream but is full of fruity goodness instead of dairy badness. We discovered it on our trip out here last November and the best place we've found to buy it is a little juice bar right next to the hotel we stayed in. It's a bit of a walk from the house, but well worth the effort and I sometimes go out of my way to go and have a bowl for my lunch. And best of all, it's a big hit with the boys as well. James loves it because it's like having a dessert for your main course and David loves it because even if it isn't bread, at least it's purple.

So, my diet now encompasses all the essential food groups...

...except Marmite!

Working hard, or hardly working?

2010-09-29T16:22:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I made a promise to James that I would write him a book. It seemed like a good idea and also rather easy, seeing as his favourite book at the time was something like That's not my Penguin. Then he moved onto The Gruffalo and my offer seemed more challenging, but still achievable. Now that he can happily wade his way through a Percy Jackson or Alex Rider with ease, the task has become rather daunting and I'm hoping he doesn't come across Dostoevsky any time soon.

So I really ought to get started on it soon. For years my excuse was that I was looking after David and I really didn't have the time to write. Once he goes off to school all day, I would say, then I can write. Well, he's now in school all day and for the first time in nine years, I have no excuse. Apparently, "I really can't be bothered" doesn't count as an excuse. As a matter of fact, the reason I started this blog was as a way of reminding myself how to write and I have to admit to rather enjoying it. Maybe writing a novel won't be anything like as daunting as I imagine. Maybe.

And while I've been faffing around trying to rekindle my mojo the rest of the family have been quietly getting on with their own endeavours without any need for the right mood, or the right space, or any of that other stuff you apparently need to be truly creative. Okay, perhaps not quietly, but getting on with it, certainly.

David is busily learning to read at the moment, with the help of the wonderfully named Jollyphonics. This seems to involve learning two new letters every day by giving each sound an accompanying action to remind you of it. S comes with a wiggling of the arm, like a snake, A involves brushing something off your arm, M involves rubbing your tummy, etc. I can't wait to see him act out his name - I'm expecting something like a little cheerleading dance.

"Gimme an i..."

David has also been improving his personal and social skills. He no longer thinks of himself as a train (although he still runs as if his arms are traction rods) and he has been busy making "best friends". We thought it was sweet when he announced that one particular boy in his class was his best friend. Then it was one of the girls. Then it was a girl from one of the other classes. Then a girl from the year above. Then James' best friend was his best friend... and then it started to get surreal. For a time one of his toy cars was his best friend, then a funny shaped stick. Here he is hugging last week's best friend.

James, needless to say, immediately installed himself as the maths genius of his year and already the only real competition he has comes from his teacher. But surprisingly, maths is no longer his favourite subject having been pushed into second place by humanities (in my day we called it history and geography) which seems to be a strange mixture of topics. This half-term they're studying water, next half-term will be The Second World War.

His football is no better though, despite now being in the world's most football-obsessed country. At break-time and lunchtime he has the option of chasing after the pigskin along with forty or fifty other boys, but instead he has chosen to align himself with the nerds and seems to spend all his spare time studying practical aerodynamics (making endless variations of paper planes) or discussing game theory ("what's your favourite game on Club Penguin?")

For Helen, life out here has been nothing but work, work, work ever since we arrived. Sometimes it's writing an article, sometimes it's dealing with office admin and endless bureaucracy, sometimes it's networking or interviewing people, then it's all three put together. And that's just Monday, the rest of the week is much busier! Still, she does get to look sharp while she's doing it, and she's taken far more seriously than her tracksuit-attired husband.

She's also been practicing magic while she's out here. Simply by repeating the magic phrase, "I write for the Economist", she's succeeded in opening locked doors, making important people appear in restaurants and even transporting herself into the presence of politicians. For example, here she is with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula to his buddies), clearly sharing some private joke about an integrated public transport infrastructure policy for São Paulo, or something similar.

As Lula is currently the most popular man in Brazil, I'm wondering how much more magic we can create by showing the photo to everyone we meet. Now if only I could photoshop in Pelé on the other side of her...

So there you have it - our working life in a nutshell. As you see, it's not all sun and fun out here - not all the time, anyway. Sometimes even in paradise there's a stuffy room and a desk and a laptop and a small child telling you your attempts at humour are really, really lame.

Breakfast at Santa Maria's

2010-09-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

Saturday has come round once more and it's rapidly becoming my favourite day of the week. For a start, it doesn't begin at six o'clock! On Monday to Friday, I have to get up at this unearthly hour, wrestle two unwilling children out of their beds, force some food into them and nag them into their school uniforms before propelling them through the neighbourhood as fast as their little legs can carry them and deposit them at the school just in time for James to start his morning tutorial at 7:45am.

On Saturdays however, I can try and ignore the cries of my children until eight o'clock or so. Why, by the way, do children spend five days a week begging for a lie-in and then refuse to have one just when you would like them to? Anyway, once we're all up and running, we abandon the house and head off eat a breakfast someone else has prepared for once.

Emporio Santa Maria is a lovely building about fifteen minutes' walk from the house (or ten if you're really desperate for that first cup of coffee). It's actually a fancy supermarket, swish wine shop, sushi restaurant and cafe all rolled into one and on weekend mornings they do a huge and very reasonably-priced buffet breakfast where you can, if the urge so takes you, eat enough to last you the rest of the weekend.

Today I was somewhat restrained, calling it a day after only two freshly-squeezed orange juices, a plate of melon, watermelon, kiwi and grapes, three pão de queijo (cheese buns), two chocolate croissants and three coffees. The rest of the family also worked their way through melon juice, omelette, sausage, bacon, chicken pie, chocolate tart, strawberries, three different types of cereal involving way too much sugar and chocolate, yoghurt and chocolate milk. And you get to do all this sitting on a huge comfy sofa and you can stay there for as long as you want. Now that I think about it, I'm really not sure why we only do this once a week.

Usually, once we're unable to eat any more, we head off to a park down the road to let the kids burn off some of their newly-acquired calories. It's full of climbing frames and swings for children and exercise machines for the grown-ups (and James). Today we skipped the park however as it wasn't particularly sunny and we sent the boys off to get their hair cut. They've needed one for a few weeks now, but we've been holding off in the hope of getting our hair trimmer back. Sadly, although our possessions have been in the same country as us for about three weeks now, the long and complicated process of getting them through customs has only just begun and it will be at least another three weeks before we can even hope to get our hands on them. By then the children would be looking like hippies so there was nothing for it but to cough up the £50 it costs out here to get them both a quick trim.

I was all in favour of getting them a haircut that would last them till Christmas, but I was over-ruled by the more conservative elements of the family (everyone else!)

After haircuts and shopping (I go shopping nearly every day here as the fresh bakery produce is worth the effort) it's back to the house for a few hours of entertaining ourselves with our favourite things...

Helen had a little nap (though to be fair she did share the bed with a pile of newspapers and a Portuguese dictionary), David spent a pleasant half-an-hour singing along to videos on the Thomas the Tank Engine website, James disappeared off somewhere to work his way through a pile of one-sided paper, either inventing complicated new games or churning out yet another batch of paper planes and I decided to sit here and tell you all about it.

After that we thought we'd risk the weather and pop out to our local park for a bit. These days it rains pretty much every day, usually during the late afternoon and for anything between twenty minutes and several hours and it was already looking grey and ominous before we set out. However, a successful and dry trip was achieved, some more calories were burnt off by the active half of the family and some good conversation was enjoyed by the more sedentary half.

And now the day is winding down. The children are (rather bizarrely) enjoying an old episode of Supernanny, Helen is back to work because journalism is no respecter of the weekend and I'm looking forward to spending a couple of hours cycling through 99 channels of Brazilian TV and playing some pointless games on the iPad.

Culture can wait till tomorrow.

Domestic Bliss

2010-09-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

Life goes on. We do stuff and pay the bills and from an organisational point of view, we're still heading in the right direction, albeit at a rather more sedentary pace than we would like. Rumour has it our possessions are in the same country as us now, having arrived at the port of Santos not quite two weeks ago. Still no word on when they'll be released by customs however but if we hear nothing for more than another week or so I think I'll send James down there to let them have a dose of his constant requests for his Wii. I'm sure after a while they'd do anything to make him stop. I certainly would. And I use the word "requests" in its most generous sense!

We now have a car. It's a Chevy, which sounds cool, but when you add Zafira to the end it takes away some of the magic I feel. Here it is being proudly molested by a pair of wannabe racing drivers with grubby hands.

Of course, I have no intention of ever driving it you understand, it's just that it comes with the job and it has to be parked somewhere. Actually, we do intend it to be driven, just not by us. We've found ourselves a weekend driver, or motorista, who will basically drive us anywhere we want to go for R$150 a day, whether it's in São Paulo doing the shopping or visiting friends, or even if we want to pop off to the beach for the day. He'll even take us there on Saturday and bring us back on Sunday if we want, though I'm not sure what he'll do in between.

So yes, after only two months our strong determination not to have any domestic staff has crumbled completely. We're even talking about getting a cleaner as well, though it would only be for one day a week and I think we can justify that on health and safety grounds seeing as how our house is an absolute pit right now. Sadly there's no one to blame for this except myself as the other three are out all day and I'm the only one free to keep on top of the chores - though that being the case I do wonder how the place can get so filthy so quickly so often. And if we do get a proper cleaner, maybe she can show me how it's done, though I suspect the answer is actually quite simple... try doing some!

Not today though. It's already 2.00pm and I'll be off to collect the boys from school soon, and this is not something I like to miss - it's just too much fun. From about 2.45 onwards, the big bullet-proof 4x4s start arriving and clogging-up the streets around the school. Once they get close enough the drivers (and that's as in motorista, not parent you understand) will try and find somewhere to park. The lucky ones will be able to get out and stretch their legs and chat to the other drivers and bodyguards who all stand in a big, muscular group of dark suits and sunglasses and earpieces along the side wall. The unlucky ones have to wait in the traffic jams.

I would have put in a photo of the bodyguards, but I'm not sure they would have been too happy about being photographed and most of them look like they know perfectly well how to deal with the paparazzi!

Meanwhile, the maids will all pop out of the cars and stand in a tight cluster beside the barriers, waiting to nip in, grab a child and nip out before their driver has been moved on and had to drive around the block (which could take up to an hour). The maids are easy to spot because they wear white. White jeans, white tee-shirts, white sweatshirts. Now and then, you get the odd one who clearly works for enlightened employers and is allowed to wear whatever she likes, but they're still easy to spot because they're not wearing designer dresses and high heels like the actual mums who bother to turn up in person.

The mums are there to be seen. After all, if you're spending this much on your child's education, you want to let people know you're doing it. There's a lot of air-kissing and waving of hands and talking loudly and checking their mobile phones while the maid, who's been brought along as well, goes off and actually collects the child and makes sure they get remembered. Then they can all pile back into the car with the driver and/or bodyguard and head home to eat whatever the maid has already prepared for dinner - unless the maid doesn't do the cooking because the cook does.

Of course I'm being unfair. There are plenty of parents who aren't anything like this. James and David have made many friends and every single parent we've met has been friendly, unpretentious, helpful, generous and bilingual. I spend a lot of time waiting around after school because my children refuse to go home and insist on playing with the other kids and we're constantly being offered food, drink, ice creams, magazines, toys and conversation for as long as we want to stay. Yesterday, I didn't leave until 5.00pm and even then there were tears and complaints. I like to think this is because their new friends are so nice, not because they hate going home to a dirty house still lacking any possessions.

Here comes the rain at last

2010-09-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was September 7th - Dia da Independência here in Brazil. It's now been 188 years since the guy on the horse in the famous painting said "you're not the boss of me!" to his dad and became Emperor. There was, of course, a lot more to it than that - rousing speeches, armed uprisings and that sort of thing - but it was all a long time ago and not what I want to write about. Anyway, needless to say it was a public holiday and there were, I believe, marches and processions planned including some stuff here in São Paulo. So of course it rained.

And boy, did it rain! It was gloomy and overcast when I woke up (thankfully later than my usual six o'clock thanks to the schools being shut) and then at around eight o'clock we started to get those big, slow, greasy raindrops that tell you to find somewhere with a roof pretty damned quick. And then it got heavier, and heavier, and it just forgot to stop. Except, by a happy coincidence, for about an hour over lunch while I was nipping to the shops to buy some food.

What a blessing it was. It's actually the first rain we've had since we arrived on July 17th. Literally, not a single drop has fallen in seven weeks and on top of the dryness we've been having an unseasonably hot winter with temperatures on occasion reaching over 30º. So it's great that the air is now much fresher and that terrible stench of pollution we usually wake up to is thankfully absent - at least for the moment. There's a very pleasant breeze and a fair bit of cloud today and I might even have to put on my fleece to go and collect the kids from school. Oh, hang on... the sun's just come out. Perhaps not.

The joys of private medicine

2010-08-30T06:56:00.000-07:00

My excuse for not having written anything for a while is that I was disappointingly let down by my body. I have been suffering from a collection of those annoying symptoms which impact considerably on your daily life but which never actually coalesce into anything sufficiently tangible to take to the doctor; palpitations, headaches, dizzy spells, difficulty focussing. However, after spending a week waiting for my first heart attack to arrive and realising that my usual medication of repeating the mantra, "it's fine" whenever asked was not working for once, I decided to go and seek a professional opinion.

Seeing a doctor in Brazil is slightly different from going to your local GP in the UK. Here you just go straight to the specialist, so you can be registered with any number of doctors all at the same time, depending on which of your ailments you're currently most concerned about. We'd already been told by pretty much every Briton we'd spoken to that the place to go for medical treatment was "The Einstein" so I thought I'd give it a go.

The Einstein, or to give it its proper name, Sociedade Beneficente Israelita Brasileira Albert Einstein, is actually a huge medical centre and hospital - not quite on the scale of Addenbrooke's, but pretty impressive nonetheless. They even have a section on their website for international patients, so I confidently phoned the number given and set off on the road to recovery. "What sort of doctor do you need?" was the first hurdle that floored me. "One that deals with symptoms that vanish as soon as I come anywhere near a hospital" didn't seem to be on their list, so I opted for "a general check-up" and let them sort it out.

I'm a child of the NHS. Usually when I go and see a doctor I spend my ten minutes apologising for wasting their time as my previously life-threatening symptoms miraculously cleared themselves up during the two weeks between making the appointment and actually getting it. The doctor then congratulates themselves on a job well done and tells me to come back if the symptoms do. But out here in Brazil I'm entitled to private medical treatment (thank you the Economist) and it's a whole new ball game. Did I want to come in that afternoon? Or tomorrow if it was more convenient. Whatever was best for me. Best for me? Wow!

So this is what happens when money is no object:
I arrived and explained that I didn't speak portuguese but that I was there to see Dr Dan (really, that's what I was told). I was then escorted all the way through the building from the wrong entrance where I'd arrived to Dr Dan's secretary, who made a note of my name and showed me to the very nice waiting room which I wasn't allowed to enjoy for more than a couple of minutes before I was escorted through to Dr Dan's other secretary, who escorted me into Dr Dan's office.

Dr Dan turned out to be the magnificently monikered Dr Dankwart Ulrich Hans Bocking Schreen. I can see why he sticks with Dan. Anyway, Dr Dan spent fifteen minutes listening to me complain about myself and taking a few notes. Then, he gave me a check-up, and then just to be on the safe side, an ECG. Then he sent me downstairs for some more stuff. At this point I was introduced to the lovely Michelle who was smartly dressed, very polite and, most importantly, bilingual. Michelle then accompanied me for the rest of my visit, guiding me through all the complexities of sorting out payment, then escorting me down to where I was given an ultrasound scan, then on to where I was given another ECG and finally hooked up to a portable ECG machine I was to wear for 24 hours. Finally, she booked me a taxi and made sure I got to the correct exit. All in English.

Needless to say, my symptoms all but vanished for the following 24 hours, only to resurface once the machine was no longer clamped to my chest. However, Dr Dan seemed to think it was most likely to be stress related and a bit of relaxing would probably help - I should be able to manage that - but sadly I've discovered it's much better if I don't drink coffee, so right now I'm swapping palpitations for caffeine-withdrawal headaches. Ah well, can't win 'em all I guess.

No photos this time as I didn't take my camera to the hospital and you certainly don't want to see pictures of my pale chest covered in suction-cup marks. Really.

Finally, the boys are back at school...

2010-08-10T05:20:00.000-07:00

...and what a relief it is for all of us - especially them. We've been here in São Paulo for just over three weeks now and although Helen and I have been so busy we haven't really had time to stop and catch our breath, for the boys it's been a long dull period of being stuck inside the house with very few toys, cartoons they can't understand and snappy parents. Except for those wonderful trips out when said snappy parents have dragged them off to the supermarket, or the uniform outfitters, or the bank, etc.

Actually, it hasn't been quite that bad. There is plenty of English language TV, there's an iPad crammed with games that rarely seems to get turned off, and a lovely little play area in the local park just a few minutes walk from the house - and I've even taken them there on more than one occasion!

It's a little babyish for James, but sometimes he manages to convert the stepping stones into an assault course, or the swing into a battering ram. And sometimes he likes to take the opportunity to play at being one of the grown ups and we'll sit and chat about one of the more important topics of the day... health, crime, or why Hitler should never have tried to invade Russia or the factors which led to the collapse of the Roman Empire. David, meanwhile, will have found someone to flirt with, language apparently being no barrier when you're pretending to be a train!

But park or no park, both boys have been desperate to finally get out the house and go to school. It was James' first day yesterday and I think Helen and I were more nervous than he was, bombarding him with a constant stream of advice and explanation. Honestly, we needn't have bothered. At the end of the day I was treated to a blow-by-blow account of the day and all its wonders; the new friends he'd made and the games he'd played and the lunch he'd eaten and the teachers he'd met and the maths quiz he'd won a chocolate treat for and the homework he'd got and the instructions he'd been given that he didn't quite understand, and "this is my friend Nour and can I go round to his house to play tonight?"

I think we can say he settled in ok.

And today I get to do it all again with David. He was less enthusiastic and more suspicious than James, and wasn't at all pleased with the lack of purple stuff around the classroom, but he was happy enough to turn his back on us when it was time for us to leave.

So now here I am, all alone in the house with nothing to do but wait in for the guy who's coming to finish off all the plumbing and electrical and plastering jobs he wasn't able to finish yesterday. I do a lot of waiting in these days. If you arrange for someone to come round they will generally come round on the day agreed, but at any time between 8.00am and 6.00pm. And we've had a lot of people coming round - to fix stuff, install stuff, collect stuff, etc - and what with the kids less than enthusiastic about walking anywhere further away than about ten minutes, I haven't yet been able to go off and do any of the exploring I was looking forward to. I know the area between the house and the school and the shopping centre and that's about it. So that's my task from next week on... go places and do stuff.

And I promise to tell you all about it when it happens.

Sunday in the park

2010-08-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday we took a break from all the admin and did what most paulistanos do (well, at least the ones who haven't driven or helicoptered off to the coast for the weekend) and headed down to our local park. Parque Ibirapuera is its name and it's massive. There are a handful of museums there, and plenty of places to eat, but mostly it's about going and sitting on the grass with a picnic and a football and letting the kids run off some excess energy in the huge adventure play area.

We popped into one of the museums - all museums being free on Sundays - and had a look at some curious examples of modern art, but the constant stream of requests for food, drink, toilet, gifts and something more interesting to do forced us to abandon any thoughts of visiting any more and go to the play area instead. Here we are admiring some art...

I'm not sure, but I think the deckchairs were for sitting on rather than appreciating aesthetically.

Sadly this big empty container was part of the exhibition, not our shipment arriving from England!

David loved the play area. He ran, climbed and slid to his heart's content while James tried his best to look cool and not at all interested in stuff he was just a bit too old to play on. Here he is not really enjoying himself because he's too old, and the wind flower is not his, he was just holding it for his little brother and he would never find something so lame fun to play with in any way!

And of course no matter how much fun David is having, he can always find time to sulk about something. In this case, I think it was the fact that James was playing with his wind flower and not giving it back!

Still, despite all the complaining, it was a good trip out and we will almost certainly go back most weekends until we sort out our helicopter and set off for the beach.

It's life, but not as we know it...

2010-07-29T11:51:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am, stuck indoors on a fine winter's day where the outside temperature is a chilly 22 degrees or so. The boys and I are housebound today while three guys are outside replacing our front door - well, it's more of a garage door really, with a little side door built-in for pedestrians, and this one should be a nice automatic one I can control from the comfort of my car... so now all I need is the car!

Anyway, I'm actually sitting up in the office watching them on the security monitor and they look like they're about to finish so I'll just pop down and try and talk to them about it in really hopeless portuguese and see if I can learn how it works...

Well, that was easy. We now have a huge white electrically-powered iron wall along the front of our property. I get two different views of it from the external cameras, as well as two views of the driveway and one of the back roof, all from the comfort of my armchair thanks to our high-tech security system. The cameras, by the way, are linked to motion sensors so they record every movement (be it car, bat, wind-blow leaves or, I presume, thief) and record them all on a dedicated hard drive for later perusal.

Added to all that are the following intruder counter-measures... the upstairs windows all have roll-down metal shutters; the back bedroom, because it has access onto the roof, also has a very tasteful metal cage built around it; all the downstairs doors are (of course) alarmed and there are motion sensors in all the rooms. There is a three-foot high electrified fence running right around the top of the entire property and, to cap it all, there is a bullet-proof metal door at the top of the stairs so we can be extra safe while we're asleep.

Oh, and if the alarm ever does go off, the security company will send some people round straight away and they're situated about 500 meters away (because the boss of the company lives just around the corner apparently).

I feel very safe. And important. Let's just hope we never have to need any of it.

And now, because security systems don't make for interesting pictures, here's some photos of the nice colourful plants we have in the garden. Helen can probably tell you what they are, and I'm not going to embarrass myself by having a go, but I do like a nice bit of colour in among all the wires and walls and metal doors!

This is my current favourite. Actually, it's not even planted yet. It was a present from our first (and so-far only) dinner guest - another Economist correspondent called John Parker - who was treated to a fairly uninspiring pasta dish, served on a child's plastic plate, wine in a tiny glass tumbler and chocolate roll on a knapkin. (The rest of our kitchenware should reach us in about six to eight weeks). And all the while during the sumptuous banquet, poor old John was bombarded with an endless stream of monologues about Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Bakugan and 'Plants vs Zombies', the last of which, in case you were unsure, is a computer game. And talking of plants...

This one is James' favourite.

And this one is David's favourite... because it's purple!

And finally, this one was here when we arrived.

Click on them and you can see them up close... go on, you can almost smell them...

Here at last

2010-07-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

After a year of thinking about it, planning it, dreading it, looking forward to it and organising it, we've finally done it.

We said goodbye to Cambridge on Saturday, leaving behind an empty shell of a house which really didn't feel like a home any more, struggled down to Heathrow with enough luggage to build our own house with, and finally left UK soil at about 10.30pm. The flight itself went as well as could be expected, with both boys falling asleep pretty much straight away. What a pair of stars! Because of my back, I've been told not to sleep on long plane flights, so I spent most of the night wandering up and down in a tiny stretch of cabin, getting in the way of the staff and envying all the scrunched up piles of humanity all around me. The only other "stayer-up" I saw was a girl of about twelve who spent the entire night playing on a Nintendo DS... good for her!

Anyway, we arrived early and then began the long slow process of getting out of the airport. Even at 5.00am on a Sunday morning, we had to queue for about an hour to get through immigration, then queue for another twenty minutes or so to get through customs. Once outside though, the traffic was incredibly light and we were at our new home within about 45 minutes - it can take up to three hours on an average day.

And then, suddenly, there we were... home. Home is a very nice house in the posh part of town. It belongs to a guy who works in banking and has just spent a huge amount of cash doing up the place - only to be sent over to England for a few years to work there. We're fortunate it's furnished as most of our possessions will be waiting in England for a while now, until we can sort out the monstrous pile of paperwork needed to bring it into Brazil... more about that another time. For now, we have just what we brought with us on the plane - admittedly quite a lot - but it's funny how you never realise how important things are until you don't have them any more...

A saucepan, a microwave dish, a cafetiere. In most countries it probably wouldn't matter because you could just pop out to the equivalent of Argos and pick up everything you need for a few pounds, but out here the whole concept of Argos has yet to be invented. I saw a cafetiere yesterday - half the size of our old one mind - and it was only £35. The only saucepan I've seen so far, £30. At that sort of price, I think I'll hold out until the ship arrives from England.

The other thing we're really missing is a fast broadband connection. We are connected at least, but in a race between a slug and our internet connection, it would probably come third! Still, I can't really complain. If I get bored waiting for pages to load I can just go and sit outside in the garden where the mid-winter temperature is 26 degrees.

A week is a long time in São Paulo

2010-01-06T13:41:00.000-08:00

Our first taste of São Paulo came last November when we all went out there for a week. Helen wanted to visit the office and get a feel for what working life is going to be like out there and we wanted to have a first look at the sort of houses and apartments we can afford to live in. We also had to visit the school we'll be sending the boys to.

Choosing a school from the other side of the world is not easy, especially when language is going to be such an issue, but fortunately we seem to have found one.

http://www.stpauls.br/

It's really rather nice - at least from what we've seen of it so far - and it comes recommended by a previous São Paulo correspondent who sent his two children there. We had decided to send the boys to an English-speaking school rather than throwing them in at the deep end in a local school and although we gave a good look at a couple of others, St Paul's was really the only choice.

We spent a morning with them so that they could evaluate the boys. James was taken off to do some basic literacy and numeracy tests and we found him later charming his teacher with his mathematical skills. David reappeared after half-an-hour with his future cohort, happy as pie and covered with purple dinosaur stamps all over his arms!

Sadly for us, there aren't actually that many native English speakers at the school, with about 90% of the pupils being Brazilian and the remaining 10% being a mix of various other nationalities. Still, this should help us develop two Portuguese speakers nice and quickly and save us the bother of having to do it ourselves.

As for the work side of things, we all took a trip to The Economist's office where we met the office manager, Miriam, and the current correspondent, John. Miriam is a paulistana (São Paulo born and bred) and will be vital for us, especially in our first few months when we don't have a clue how anything works or what anything means. John, sadly, will be long gone before we arrive.

The office is a 30-minute brisk walk from the school (2+ hours by car) and we've pretty much decided we need to live close to the school, seeing as how they start their day at 7.45. Unfortunately, this puts us slap bang in the middle of the most expensive square mile of real estate in South America (apparently). We saw at a lot of houses. Most were out of our price range, some were even more so. However, we did find two that were both affordable and extremely close to the school and we could possibly fit both of them into our current house. So, time to get rid of a few books then...

The story so far

2010-01-06T13:36:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't know, Helen works for The Economist. For the past four-and-a-half years she's been working on the Britain section as the Education correspondent, but last year she was asked if she would be interested in becoming the new Brazil correspondent, to begin sometime around July 2010. We talked it over, came to a fairly quick decision and said yes before the offer went off to someone else instead.

So here we are, at the start of what looks like being a year of change, excitement and perhaps also a little bit of fear and trepidation. There's an awful lot to do in the next six months and to be honest I'm really not looking forward to most of it. We have to sort out the house and get it ready for sale, then sell it, then ship out all our possessions - except the ones there's no point in shipping out, which will have to be found a home somewhere like the good old family loft...again. Then we have to find a big enough house in São Paulo which we can actually afford (no mean feat) get the children settled in their new school, find our way around, both geographically and socially... the list goes on. And all the while, Helen has to learn all she can about Brazilian politics, economics, society and history, while still doing her current job at the same time.

And on top of everything, we're trying to learn Portuguese as quickly as possible.

Still, where would we be if we didn't open the door when opportunity came knocking? And this way we don't have to suffer another of these freezing winters for a long while anyway.

So, what can I tell you about São Paulo? Well, six months ago it would have been absolutely nothing except which country it was in. I couldn't even pronounce it correctly - São is said through the nose, so it's almost like San, not Sow - and as far as I could tell from Google, it was the kidnapping capital of the world, extremely violent and possibly the second largest city in the southern hemisphere.

Now I know the place in a little more depth. We all took a trip out there for eight days in November and I can honestly say it was a fabulous experience from start to finish. Without exception the people were friendly and helpful. They politely listened to our enthusiastic attempts to butcher their language and then happily talked back assuming we would understand. The taxis were cheap and the drivers helpful. The traffic was extremely heavy, as we'd been warned, but no one was aggressive, just resigned to a long wait. It didn't feel threatening either, even after dark. I admit we kept to the better parts of town and didn't stay out beyond ten o'clock or so, but then there are parts of Cambridge I wouldn't want to be in after dark either.

You can read all about our trip in more detail in the next instalment. And there may even be some photos as well!