Brexit - no, thank you

I should probably write something about Brexit but I haven't a clue where to start and it depends on my mood whether you get 1) an angry post full of four letter expletives at how the Westminster parliament is treating EU families who have settled here decades ago and built their lives around a given that they are prepared to take away, 2) a resigned mood where I wonder what the point of anything is and hide under my duvet sobbing, 3) a freedom-fighter one where I dig out all my old Yes Scotland stuff and this time fight to the death for my very survival, or even 4) an adventurous 'let's sell the house, pack up all the kids and disappear to mainland Europe while we still can' fuck-the-world one. I have been fluctuating daily between all these alternatives since I awoke to find the duped, the desperate and the racists had snatched my children's futures from them.

My kids are the result of a family tradition of international intermarrying. Both my husbands had parents of mixed European origin - Thomas is half Danish, half German, his predecessor was half French, half German and yet someone has decided for my kids that they won't be able to carry that tradition on. Wandering round Europe freely and falling in love is no longer allowed! And my heart breaks when I think of how small their world is becoming. I am angry as their international universities risk becoming parochial because of the whims of some ill-informed bigots in another country. I scream at the computer (I've stopped watching TV - it's not good for my mental health) when I hear people wanting to stop others from coming to work here, without ever realizing they are also stopping their own kids from being able to go there and work. I am one of those European kids (ok I was one of them in the 80s and 90s) - I have lived in France, and Germany and Italy. I have studied internationally, I have married internationally and it has enriched my life considerably.

Two years ago I fought passionately for Scotland to become independent for exactly this reason. I could see how narrow and insular the popular press was turning England and I shared that dream described so eloquently last week in the EU parliament by Alyn Smith: I wanted a Scotland that was internationalist, co-operative, ecological, fair, & European. I could see this referendum would be called at Farage's whim and I could see Out was a very real possibility. I wanted my children to grow up in a society where we care about the weakest in society, where we celebrate each other's differences and love what makes each other special. I could see that the separatist movement in Scotland was aiming for an inclusive state, within Europe based on our perception of the Scandinavian model. I'm married to a Scandy man so I could see the merits of a society where women can actually afford to work, childcare works and isn't a few hours in the middle of a working day, and kids are paid to go to university because an educated population benefits all. England's introduction of tuition fees and privatising of their NHS filled me with horror - it was going in all the wrong directions for me. I shared that left of centre ideal for Scotland the the SNP, the Greens and the Socialists amongst others were offering us and I still do. Imagining 62% of us could vote to stay in the EU and seeing us pulled out underlines what we've been saying all along. Last election we voted for a left-wing government, the Tories got just one MP from Scotland, but still we have a Tory government. Now we have voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU, so if they drag us out then there is no point in ever voting here because 5 million people can never be heard over 60. We might as well stay home forever more on polling day. There is no point in politics in this union and therefore, there is no point for me in this union. So I guess I have my answer... I have no option but to go for solution three and if that fails number four will need to be put into action, somehow. Otherwise I won't have fought hard enough for the future my kids deserve.

Eight-year-old political analysis

So there I was lying in the bath minding my own business this morning when Anna burst in. Obviously Daddy being interviewed on Danish TV about Scottish politics this morning had got her to thinking!

Anna: See how David Cameron voted us out of Europe?
Me: No, Anna, Cameron voted Remain, that's why he's resigned. It was the rest of England that voted out.
Anna: Yeah, but Scotland voted to stay?
Me: Yes.
Anna: So if England leaves and Scotland stays that can only really happen if the two countries break up and Scotland gets independence.
Me: It looks like it.
Anna: So then Cameron will have been the cause of Scottish independence for having the referendum on Europe?
Me: Yes.
Anna: Ooooooops, lol!

Farage, Boris and now this bunch?

Marine le Pen shared on social media: « Victoire de la liberté ! Comme je le demande depuis des années, il faut maintenant le même référendum en France et dans les pays de l'UE. »

Geert Wilders tweeted: Hurrah for the British! Now it is our turn. Time for a Dutch referendum! #ByeByeEU

Matteo Salvini tweeted: Evviva il coraggio dei liberi cittadini!
Cuore, testa e orgoglio battono bugie, minacce e ricatti. GRAZIE UK, ora tocca a noi. #Brexit

Norbert Hofer looked on excitedly: #Brexit UK VOTES TO LEAVE! Wir werden erst in den nächsten Tagen die volle Tragweite dieser Entscheidung erkennen.
Beatrix von Storch: All I want to say: THANK! YOU!! #NigelFarage For #Brexit and #Independenceday

Donald Trump tweeted: Getting ready to open the magnificent Turnberry in Scotland. What a great day, especially when added to the brave & brilliant vote.


Is this really who you want to get into bed with, England?

I am so out of here. Bring it on, Nicola.

Married to an immigrant

I've never thought of myself as being married to an immigrant. I don't think I have ever even thought about the word immigrant in his context but given the gutter press has been trying to tie that label around his neck for the best part of the last couple of years, I thought I would give my reaction to it. 

Thomas is a Dane. But even that is more complex than it seems on the surface as Thomas's dad is a German, or was a German who is now a naturalised Dane (who happens to live in Italy!), and his mum is an Italian-dwelling Dane. He was born in Denmark as a German citizen and became a Dane later in his childhood though he has been a native Dane all his life, until fourteen years ago when he decided to become a Scottish Dane or a Danish Scot. I don't think of him as an immigrant to the UK. Nor do I think of him as a Danish ex-pat. I think of him as a fellow European. He is simply a mix of European nationalities, just as my kids and our kids are.

In truth, I have in fact been married to an immigrant for the best part of the last 25 years, because my ex-husband was also a foreign EU citizen. So some of my kids are 25% French/25%German and 50% Scottish, their siblings are 25% Danish/25%German and 50% Scottish. Every day we sit down to eat as a family and a mix of languages goes round the dining table. When family visits more languages are added and that is the reality of our life. We shuffle backwards and forwards and round and round between European destinations that are simply an extension of family and an extension of home. Our family speaks in a mix of languages, uses a mix of currencies and lives in a variety of countries but we are one – a family. I still have nieces in France, I have in-laws in Italy, I have nieces and nephews in Denmark...etc etc

My earliest memories are of a fascination with the different and the exotic. I would listen to languages I didn't know or understand, I would look at the people arriving from far-off continents in wonder and imagine their life stories, desperate to befriend them. I started school at a time before there were many immigrants in the suburbs of Glasgow. When the first Pakistani child joined my class around the age of eight, I was drawn to him. I wanted to know all about his life, where he was from, what he ate – he represented a world waiting to be discovered and I was avid to learn.

We never went abroad when I was a child so I was thirteen before I left these shores. I can still remember thirteen year old me mounting the steps of the hovercraft on Ramsgate beach in the summer of 1981. I felt like an astronaut on a trip to the moon. As everyone else discussed their mundane holiday plans around me and shouted at their squabbling kids, I sat with tears in my eyes as I achieved the first step in my life's ambition. I was going to go to mainland Europe. We stopped at a very basic café in France and ordered plain lettuce with vinaigrette (by accident!) and as my parents and brother moaned about it, I sat analysing the presentation, the taste, the newness, the wonder of lettuce in vinaigrette! I'm not sure any of them ever fully understood my obsession with Europe and the world, maybe I was just always the oddball of the family, but I was a happy oddball.

As a student I moved to Italy, then France, then Germany. I was never going to be confined to Scotland. I always assumed even at a young age that I would probably retire to France.

Nor was I ever going to marry a Scottish boy and stay here. I was always going to fill my house with the exotic, the new, the colourful. Not to disappoint, I even did it twice! Even I didn't see that coming! I once overheard Marcel's mates discussing me. They were mid-teens and he was explaining my first husband had been French and my second Danish – 'Did your mum just, like, shag her way round Europe, then?' they laughed - you've got to love the bluntness of teenagers. No, I didn't but I had a love affair with Europe and I am still having it today.

And for that reason, tomorrow fills me with a depth of dread and despair that I cannot even put into words. All the hatred and lies printed on a daily basis about these immigrants, in an attempt to stoke hatred, to split 'them' and 'us' fills me with anger and at the same time crushes me to the point I can't open a newspaper any more. I know the EU needs to evolve and could do with a bit of tweaking from the inside but leave it? I never imagined in my wildest dreams, until about three or four years ago that that possibility would be raised in my lifetime, or in my kids'. To me there is no them or us, there is just all of us.

To me voting to leave would be denying my kids' right to exist – every one of them exists because people like Thomas and people like André were free to come here and work. Because I was free to go there and work.

Tomorrow they cannot vote to legitimize the lives they already lead. Tomorrow it doesn't matter that Thomas and I have spent seven years bringing money into the country through the international company we set up. It doesn't matter that his children are UK citizens, he can't vote for their future. And what information does he have about his or our life thereafter? None. Unless you are related to an EU citizen, it may have escaped your notice but there is no information about what happens after a brexit vote. There is nothing official, just silence. There are a lot of 'oh of course they can't throw you out', 'oh of course you'll still be allowed your healthcare, schooling, bank account, child benefit...' but there is no information at all and I suspect that is because good old Boris's actual plan is let's wait and see. Let's wait and see if the other EU countries start repatriating the UK immigrants, let's wait and see if they start making the UK immigrants take out hefty insurance policies for healthcare, let's see if they bar them from benefits, let's see if France decides to play tough to keep their internal politics and the possibility of Marine le Pen at bay by making an example of the UK and then let's decide. Do you fancy living in that limbo? Do you like the idea of settling down somewhere and starting a family and then having someone change the rules of the game 14 years down the line? Can you imagine that?

So I don't need to say what I'm voting tomorrow but I can say that the rug has been pulled from under my feet, the wind taken from my sails and I will never fully recover from this blow, whatever the outcome I waken up to on Friday. I will never feel fully safe again.

Eight years and two months later

Retaking (more or less) a photo after a passage of time can be very sweet. Here are Anna and Thomas, first in April 08, then in June 16...

Steak and ducklings!

(Overheard after school today...)

Charlotte: What did you have for lunch today, Amaia? 

Amaia: Duckling

Charlotte: Duckling???

Amaia: Yeah, we got pieces of steak with ducklings on top!

Charlotte: Dumplings maybe? 

Amaia: Could be!

I thought for a moment the school lunch hall had gone all cordon bleu on us!

Scary stuff

I'll just leave this with you! Gulp!

(Have a look at the gallery on this page too)

Political indoctrination, maybe?

Sometimes, usually in fact, life with five kids is fairly harmonious... very occasionally though, little tiffs can occur... tonight was one of those nights. Léon and Anna got into a fight about who could throw a basketball further (as you do!) They were out on the street so I didn't hear it all but I heard Léon winding, and I heard Anna shrieking as if she was being tortured (which of course meant only her pride was being hurt, as that is much worse to Anna than anything else!) As they both stormed back into the garden Anna was shouting at Léon about cheating and other things, Léon was grinning calmly (something which winds Anna up much more than any anger or aggression would!) Anna shrieked and shrieked and cried and grumped as Léon waited patiently to get a word in and when she'd finally run out of steam, Léon floored me with the following calmly-spoken comment: Anna enough! Would you please talk to me like I'm your brother... you're standing there screaming at me like I'm... I dunno... David Cameron or something!

I, of course, reacted in the only way you can to such a classic line - I ran for a pen and post-it note!

Broooooom

About two years ago I bought a sprig of broom in a pot - it was literally one stalk and cost about £1-49. I planted it in front of my front door and did nothing special or encouraging. It likes it there, it really likes it! In fact for some reason it has developed a life of its own. It looks a bit like a 170cm tall blond afro half way up my path. You can't help but love it, it's so vigorous. And it smells great too!

Ten years

Apparently it is ten years ago today that I joined blogger. I have
more kids now, a different job, a different home and a different husband! I've lost people close to me and gained new friends. I've definitely acquired a few grey hairs and numerous wrinkles, but what wisdom?

I must read through my posts and see how those ten years have changed my life. 

Chancer

I'm beginning to suspect my daughter has inherited her parents' love of school PE!

The conversation in the car went like this:
Amaia: See on Monday, mummy? Can you write a letter for me to take to school saying I don't need to do PE?
Me: Why is that? Have you hurt something?
Amaia: Well... I do have a rather itchy midgie bite on my ankle at the moment!
Aye, right!

Over breakfast in the garden

Anna: You know those wishing wells, mum, where you throw in money and make a wish?
Me: Yes - like the one we saw at Edinburgh zoo last month?
Anna: Yes! I always wish for our family's circumstances to improve - you know so we could go on a nice holiday or buy a new seven-seater so we could all go on day trips..., but it never seems to work.
Amaia (completely matter-of-fact): Naaah, they definitely don't work.. cos I always wish for you to be a bit less moany! 

*spits breakfast across the table* - sibling love - it gets you every time!

"To have it all"

As I was getting dressed this morning I could hear my wee-est three discussing whether or not they 'had it all'. Having just returned from the kitchen, I had missed their definition of 'having it all' so I listened in from the next room to see what they meant.

Anna: Well, it's definitely not me or Amaia. We don't have it all.
Amaia: What about Charlotte. Oh no she's missing one.
Léon: Marcel then?
Anna: Hardly!
Amaia: It's Léon! Léon has it all. Oh no, he doesn't because of us two.

And so it went on... In then end I had to ask. It turns out that they believe the ultimate prize in life would have been to have both an older and a younger sibling of each gender! So Marcel is ruled out as they are all younger, Charlotte has no big sister, Léon is missing a little brother, as is Anna and Amaia is in the same boat as Marcel. So none of them 'has it all', after all.

It's a sweet measure of life's perfection, though!

May the fourth be with you!

So it's so-called Star Wars day, and even more than any other year Léon is fit to burst with excitement. He's refusing to do all homework and is wandering around humming the tune. Since the latest offering the girls are also getting in on the act, chatting excitedly about all things Star Wars... and although it is nice to hear such enthusiasm from these young and innocent souls, I find myself being short-tempered and snapping at them. But it's not Star Wars' fault. I want to snap at them to leave me in peace today, to think of my beautiful friend Sheina, who I still miss and whose birthday we'd have been celebrating had she not died four years ago at just 45. But the kids were just tiny then and they don't remember a lot about that time, so I'll stick on my smile, and watch Star Wars though my thoughts will be elsewhere.

I was worried there, for a moment

Conversation overheard between my wee girls: Anna: What's your dream job, Amaia? Amaia: emmm nun! (I panic that my atheistic tendencies aren't rubbing off and plan a full assault... when I hear the clarification.) Anna: You can't choose none, you have to choose something! Amaia: Ok then, I'll be a waitress! PHEW! wink emoticon

Bilingualism

One day last weekend Anna came out with this and it got me to thinking: I wonder what it must be like to have only Scottish relatives... everyone in your house would speak the same language all the time... weeeeeird! 

 All of my children have heard a minimum of two languages every day of their lives, the first few years it was English and French, latterly English and Danish: and with a succession of visitors adding German, Italian, Norwegian, Georgian, and Polish amongst others to the dinner table (and that's without even mentioning Scots). TV, of course has added Swedish, Icelandic and Spanish to that as well. I'm not sure I remember the last time I watched anything in English on the TV. 

 I guess the main point is that they fully understand two languages each and also understand many bits of others. You can't sit at the table for years without picking it up. So they have a feel for what multilingual normality is. They are completely unfazed if they don't fully understand everything being said around them because they know there are so many different languages in play at any time. 

 It reminded me of an eye-opener years ago. I was sitting in my garden with a French friend and her kids. We were speaking French, our kids were speaking a mixture. A neighbour's child (a ten year old) who had been doing French at school asked to play so I invited her in. My friend shouted some instructions over to her kids and the neighbour looked really puzzled. "Why is she speaking like that?" she asked. I explained that she was French so although her kids were bilingual as they lived in Scotland, she spoke to them in French, even if they usually replied in English (a bog-standard bilingual child's way of communicating with their foreign parent). The child replied "But she's speaking it really fast!" I relayed that French is spoken much faster in reality than what they learn at school but still she couldn't understand how the kids all understood it without a second thought. Eventually she explained to me that although she had learned some French at school: Il fait beau, je vais bien, la pomme est rouge, etc, she hadn't understood that it was in fact a full language that people used to communicate! She had been brought up in such a monolingual atmosphere that she thought English was the only language people used to communicate and that the little phrases she'd learnt in French were of no more everyday use than memorised poems or mathematical formulae. She had never heard people actually communicating in another language. I think I was as gobsmacked by her lack of linguistic experience as she was by our nonchalant mixed communication. 

 I find people are often taken aback by the real way bilingual households communicate - that is to say, the foreign parent speaking their language and the kids who've grown up somewhere else replying in that language. Of course, when in the other country the kids can switch to that language but generally when you live bilingually, everyone speaks their strongest language at the table. I remember being bemused by this the first time I visited my first husband's parents (he was French with a German mother). She spoke only in German, he replied just as fast in French. Had I not been studying both, I'd have been completely lost. At first I figured they were weird and unique but as every one of my kids has since followed the same pattern, unprompted over the years, and Thomas too speaks to his German father mostly in Danish, I realized it is simply human nature. 

 I do fondly remember a night last year when I spent the evening with Thomas and Peter (his father). We were discussing Greek politics and the ideas of Yanis Varoufakis, quite vociferously, for a few hours and it was only when I was lying in bed later that night I found myself smiling at the realization that I had spoken only in English, Thomas only in Danish and Peter only in German that night and yet all of us had fully understood the conversation. I wish I'd recorded it to show just how much fun these kinds of households are!

Cats

I grew up with cats. First, there was the grumpy, chunky one with the odd name 'Snoopy' (we were kids!). Then there was the skinnier, more placid lapcat 'Muffin'  (named by a friend of the family who stepped into our squabble over what to call him, with the simple statement 'He's kinda muffin-coloured, isn't he?') So from 1981-1996 I was around cats a lot of the time. Although the cat stayed with my parents when I left home as a teenager, I was his holiday babysitter. I haven't had one of my own since, originally for the simple reason that with family abroad, I was away too many times a year to bother with the holiday cover, but latterly more because I've lived on a bus route since 2007. I figure with a double-decker passing every ten minutes, 19 hours a day, it'd have to be a very street-wise cat not to end up dead meat and I don't fancy having to scrape the kids' dearly-beloved off the road once a year. Hence the succession of (safely-caged) hamsters...

However, I always sort of figured I'd spend my old age, once the kids had flown the nest as some kind of crazy cat woman - perhaps a bit like Mrs McTats in one of the kids' favourite books.

As early as fifteen years ago, I started to notice Persian cats were starting to make me a wee bit wheezy, but normal moggies were fine... then a few weeks ago Charlotte and I visited a friend with a cat. Lots had told me she'd been having sneezing fits every time she was around her friend Hannah's cat, and sure enough, as soon as Siobhan's cat wandered in Charlotte's nose started to run. I was fine though and even let the cat sit on my knee for a few minutes. On the way home, however, I started to feel as if my airways were literally clogged with fur and I started to wheeze. By the time I got home I was in a much worse state than Lots and it took antihistamines and three blasts of an asthma inhaler to make me comfortable enough to get to bed and fully 24 hours to get back to normal. So I've monitored it since and it seems I have indeed developed an allergy to ordinary cats of the type I used to live with. My doctor has now advised me to try having coffee with my friend who owns a golden retriever as she suspects that fur is my trigger. 

Am I really going to have to end up a crazy old woman with a house full of these?

Children really make you laugh

Overheard on a car trip:
Léon: ...then I'll pretend to be a serial killer...
Anna: what? 
Léon: it's someone who steals your breakfast before killing people!

Big man, little girl

It's funny. When you have nearly 13 years between your kids, you wonder what, if any, relationship they'll have growing up. But one thing that has always been obvious between my oldest and youngest is the sheer pleasure they derive from each other. Marcel has a greater need to return to the nest more often than most teenagers who've left home, because he feels he too has some sort of parental responsibility for his youngest siblings. And Amaia is absolutely thrilled every time he walks through the door. She loves her Monday school news to be something about her ever-so-exotic brother who lives in Edinburgh. She drops him nonchalantly into conversation when classmates are often still sharing a room with their less-interesting siblings.

I'm not sure who looks more pleased here. Marcel because of Amaia's obvious pride in hanging off his arm, or Amaia for having such a big and exciting brother she can boast about to the other p1s.

Sweet misunderstandings

One of the p1 teachers at Amaia's school left over the Easter break to take up a new job at the primary school on Millport. Amaia is quite upset about it but was trying to see the positives for the teacher herself last night. I had to smile when she explained 'Poor Mrs Cameron used to have to drive very far to work in our school but now she's going to Millport, she'll have so much more time with her own kids because she says she's going to be going to work every day on a fairy*!'

What a sweet image that conjures up!

* This misunderstanding may in part have arisen from the teacher's Australian accent!