British Expat Forum

Inspired by Sue's wonderful writing about her everyday life in Oz, I thought that it might be a good idea for you to try writing a non-fiction piece about your life.

Choose a day when something happened, or not. Just talk about how things work (or don't) where you are. Just give us an idea of what life is like where you are.

Of course, I have a vested interest in asking for this. We've already got Sue's diary online, and we're always interested in good new content for BE.

See what you can make of this task, and please say if you're happy for your contribution to be published on the main website.

Here's a link to Sue's diary for anyone who'd like to see it:
http://www.britishexpat.com/Australia_Features__Sydney_Sue.563.0.html

Looking forward to seeing your writing.

Kay

SSue's blog is going well. I've never kept a diary beyond the third of Jan - and even my office diaries were a disaster when I had them. But I'd still like to get into a discipline of doing a regular feature, even for my own website. Guess I'm too interrupt-driven.

I wish I'd said that.

SSue 8)

When I was in a proper job, a lot of my managers did say that....

A day in the life of a British Expat 'Downunder'

After twenty five years in upper management, sitting behind a desk in a glass walled internal office, taking part in endless meetings where 'suited' young people on that first step of the executive ladder would try and look more knowledgeable than they actually were and the never ending stream of overseas visitors that needed to be wined and dined in order for them to buy our product........I've finally retired!!

The first few months went by in a bit of a blur, still rising from my bed at the ungodly hour of pre-sunrise, getting the house in order and generally attending to many of those things that you just don't get round to when you have a busy working life.

Then life settled down to a rather pleasant pace and 'pottering' became the 'norm'

Take yesterday for instance.....It all started out rather well. The sun rose at about the same time as I did and all seemed well with the world.

Thursday being the day our local paper comes out, I decided to take a leisurely walk down to the newsagent to get a copy.
Ah! the joys of being retired, being in good health, being young enough to walk down to the newsagent without need for one of those wheely things that the elderly use..... having the whole day to myself.

By the time I returned home, coffee was being brewed (another of the joys of life...walking into a house with the smell of good coffee wafting through it!).

I poured myself a cup and sat down to peruse the local paper. An article about bees caught my eye. Funny that because we had only been discussing last week how nice it was to see so many bees collecting the pollen from the flowering ivy growing over our outside shadehouse/shed recently.

Hold on a moment though!. This article isnt about bees....it's about something called a European wasp and there is a huge blown up photo of one.........and it bears a cany resemblance to our flowering ivy, pollen collecting 'bees'!!!

It says in the article, "If you should sight any European wasps, please phone the Council's Environmental Office on this number, as they need to be erradicated immediately"

We have rather a lot of these bees/wasps on the ivy....maybe I should make a quick phone call just to check?.

The Council's Environmental Officer arrives within the half hour and we stand in the back garden contemplating our 'bees'.

"Yes!" he says "You have most certainly got a large swarm of European wasps on your flowering ivy".
"You are going to have to be fumigated".
"They have to be dealt with forthwith if not immediately".

By 11am the fumigation team have arrived and we are well and truly fumigated by lunchtime.

Ah the joys of nature!!

Well, after that bit of excitement maybe a foray into the world of gardening might be just the thing to calm the nerves.
I venture forth in shorts and t-shirt, with trowel and watering can to hand.

Firstly though I must just check the pear tree. This is the first year that we have managed to get a good crop of pears, minus the usual influx of coddling moth and with a very good bird net in place, we have high expectations of sampling some home grown pears any day now.

Hang about though! What's that blue and green object moving about in the upper part of the bird netting.
It's a parrot with the netting wound tightly around it's tiny throat. Looks like it's been there quite a while, but it's still alive and gives a weakened struggle as I get nearer to take a better look.

Now I like birds! But my enjoyment comes from seeing them at a polite distance. The thought of rescuing a bird with flappy wings and pointy pecking beak holds no joy for me whatsoever.

Should I just leave it and let nature take it's course?
No....of course I can't!

So it's back to the house for small scissors suitable for cutting netting away from tiny throats, a small thick towel to hold bird still and a thicker pair of gardening gloves....that beak looks mighty sharp to me!
I've also got the small steps so that I can get up close and personal to the bird.
(Oh and some better spectacles....I might not need a walking frame just yet....but the eyesights defintely on the way out!).

Having climbed to the top rung of the afore mentioned steps, I reluctantly try and hold the bird steady with the towel.
Alas! it's having none of it. So I am reduced to trying to snip away at the net around the tiny neck, while the angry little beak tries to snip away at me.

Success I have freed the neck and 'Priscilla' (we have decided that we are now at first name stage!) has decided that with her neck free she is able to try out her rather large wings once again......unfortunately what I hadn't noticed before was that her feet are also entrapped in the netting.

We now have one rather beautiful (and rather angry) parrot hanging upside down by it's feet in the pear tree, flapping wings and squawking for Australia!!.

Nothing for it, I have to try and free it's feet now. Whereas before I was rather nervous of attempting to rescue the bird....I am now totally petrified of being beaten to death by the wings.
(Those of you that are old enough to remember Alfred Hitchcock's thriller 'The Birds' will know where I am coming from here!).

I go back to the 'cut, snip and withdraw' method, which worked so well on the neck. I've managed not to see any of my blood appearing yet, which I consider is a very good omen....and finally Priscilla makes her bid for freedom.

As she flies strongly away over the tree tops I feel a sense of something good. A sense of satisfaction of a job well done.

You know I've come to the conclusion that life in the boardroom wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Absolutely brilliant, Mojan!

Funny yet poignant.

Thanks Kay, I'm glad you enjoyed the tale ......all the more enjoyable because it was a true story (no poetic licence used whatsoever!)....my days tend to be a tad on the quiet side since giving up work last August...so yesterday was a little different to say the least.

All that entertainment, and for free..........you can't beat nature IMHO. A delightful story, about a job well done.

SSue 8)

Brilliant, Mojan. It's Hitchcock, not Hancock (he was the Punch & Judy man), but I do remember The Birds (and Psycho...).

So it's not only stronger spectacles that I need Ruggie....it's also a memory transplant!! (although I will reiterate that I don't require a walking frame just yet)
Yes of course it was Alfred Hitchcock....I'll go back and sort it.

While you're in editing mode, Mojan (it's good practice to check an article and search for all its typos ) there are 4 "it'ses" that should be "itses"....

A bit of n'it' picking here I think Ruggie !

But you are quite right!....in my haste to get my story down and hit the 'submit' button before I lose it all, I sometimes get my 'it's' mixed up with my 'its'

(Only joking about the n'it' picking......always good to have these things picked up.......and I hadn't actually noticed those errors in my couple of re-reads/checks)
Much appreciated!.

Ruggie is right about proofreading and polishing work if you're planning to sell it. But I'd just like to add that I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from writing for BE. We're looking for interesting content, and are quite happy to edit out the odd superfluous apostrophe.

On the subject of proofreading, I read something recently which suggests you proofread backwards, sentence by sentence. That way you look at the words themselves rather than the context. I've never tried it but it sounds as if it might be a useful technique.

Mojan, on the subject of hitting the submit button before you lose things, I've got into the habit of right-clicking to "select all" and then right-clicking again to "copy" if I've made a long posting. You never know when you might lose your Internet connection and as a result lose all your work. It's awful when that happens. Better to save before posting, I think.

Brilliant, refreshing, and singular. Thank you, Mojan, for a damned good read.



Do it in Word, and copy and paste. I'm very fortunate to have Broadband now, and the interruptions are rare. But that''s just since last summer. Prior to that I tore out the few straggly remnants of my hair many times, frantically trying to complete something before the connection was dumped again. Only the briefest post do I write online now - I've learned the lesson.

Both Ruggie and Kay are right.

Kay is right in that in a place like this, the contribution is the main thing, and spelling and punctuation's can be tweaked.

[Edited by Site Admin - enjoyed your joke and just playing with you! ]

Ruggie is an old (and respected) pro, and he is absolutely right in respect of work intended for conventional publication.

When I write for magazines, I have a four-day rule (which I don't always follow, but I should!). Day one - write it. Day two - get on with the day job. Day three - re-read it, edit it, and proof-read it. Day four - proof-read it again, before sending, or printing off for snail-mailing.

Mike

That sounds as if it should work. I'll try it. Only potential flaw is that concentrating on doing it may be as much as my one-track brain can handle - until it becoems a drill.