Before I crack on with letting you know what I’ve been up to this week, something funny happened last week which I forgot to write about in my last blog post…
So. To set the scene. It was Tuesday 14th January. Early that morning Noly and I had arrived back in the UK (hurrah!) and were finding things very cold (boo). The day progressed nicely, catching up with mum, both having a little sleep mid-morning, little walk up the road etc. Dad was away that night so, naturally, mum and I had hatched the plan that we’d have a takeaway (Dad’s not a fan of takeaways so we tend to have them when he’s away). Takeaway of choice? Chinese. Obviously. We ordered our normals and were very happy and contented. With full tummies and feeling happy to be home, off we went to bed. I was pottering around in my room, getting ready for bed, when I heard this little thump followed by a surprised Noly saying “oh!”. This registered with me and I thought, “He’s probably fine” and continued what I was doing before conceeding that I probably should go and check on him.
Well, you’ll never guess what had happened. Somehow, he’d broken the bed! And not just the slats on the bed frame that are known to sometimes come out, but the actual thick frame of wood itself. (Personally, I blame it on the Chinese). It was quite a funny thing to have happened so we were both in fits of giggles as Noly reinacted what had happened. The fact that it was about 10/10.30 at night and we needed to be quiet as mum was probably asleep also inherently made it ten times funnier! Well anyways, in the end I went to go and get mum to tell her what had happened (she later said the noise had vaguely made it into her consciousness and she was wondering if someone was crying), and over she came to investigate. Noly still had the giggles, which mum then caught, but then later both of them were wracked with guilt as, for Noly he had, in effect, taken out my sister’s childhood bed and shown absolutely no remorse about it because he’d had a rather severe case of the giggles and then mum was also wracked with guilt as that bed had been on it’s last legs for a long time and it’s just unfortunate it was Noly who broke it….
Anyways, on with what I’ve been up to and maybe some of my ponderings as well whilst I’m here.
So I left off on Tuesday 21st with Noly returning home again.
On Wednesday 22nd, to cheer myself up, I did what all people commonly do to cheer themselves up and.. uh.. went to the dentists. The upshot is, all the fizzy drinks that I have in Argentina don’t seem to be doing horrrendous things to my teeth and we’re all good so hurrah!
Thursday 23rd- went to one of the cafes in my home town (whoever knew that my tiny lil village needed so many cafes?!) with ma pal Savs and we had a nice catch up 🙂
Friday 24th- went to the cinema to see Little Women with mum and my Auntie. I’m so used to going to the cinema at about 10pm at night and leaving in the early hours that it felt truly bizarre coming out of the cinema at about 4pm. Weird. Then my Auntie & I had a quick trip into Brackkerz before she dropped me back home and soon my sister arrived home and we all had dinner, hung out together and booked accomodation for whilst my fam are in Arg. Wahooo! My sister and I also got the Christmas tree back in the house (it had been deposited outside for the next year and was back in much earlier than anyone had anticipated) with a surprising lack of resistance from my dad and popped a couple of baubles and lights on it, ready for Christmas 2.0 the following day….
Saturday 25th – this was Christmas 2.0 with my fam. Aimz had let the cat out of the bag the day before that I, infact, had a stocking to open! (When I said this to Noly he was confused and was like… what? Amy now has a cat…?) So the day started with mum and my sis coming into my room and me opening my stocking. Then we all slowly got up and ready, then helped with the cooking, put the Christmas music on and soon it was time for Christmas dinner. A big difference between England and Argentina is often in traditions. In England I would say generally we go in for more traditions than in Argentina. Our Christmas day meal on this day was chicken (usually it’s turkey. Not sure why. We don’t eat turkey the rest of the year bc it’s so dry), roasted potatoes, brussel sprouts, mashed parsnips “sausage in blankets” (mini sausages wrapped in bacon), stuffing, bread sauce and cranberry sauce. On the real Christmas day there may be other additions like braised (is this even a word? A fancy way to cook vegetables basically) red cabbage etc. We took the obligatory family selfie and then pulled our crackers! Donned the cracker hats and set about sharing our cracker jokes (which are always awful).
After lunch we had pudding, put the Queen on the TV (can’t miss the Queens speech on Christmas. Even if I did watch it in Argentina) and then went for our usual Christmas day walk. Kinda weird to go on our Christmas day walk without the rest of the world celebrating Christmas! I wondered to myself if anyone, anywhere else in the world, happened to be celebrating Christmas again on this day like we were. Anyways, part of what I love about the actual Christmas day walk is the whole world smelling of turkey, sneaking looks into people’s windows and seeing a snippet of their Christmas day and more than that, feeling a spirit of togetherness. So kinda weird not having this! But it was super nice nonetheless. Then when we got home, the fam opened the presents I had bought them from Argentina (all received very well incase you’re wondering) and then a coupla games ensued, shortly followed by a singsong at the piano with my brother (not particularly a family tradition but tends to happen when you get Tim around with a piano and songbook) and then tea. After tea we watched a film and then all parties headed to bed after a thoroughly nice second Christmas day! Decided I’d quite like to have one every year really!
Sunday 26th – not much to report from Sunday really! Went to church with mum and dad and then just hung out the rest of the day. One thing tho -it’s really nice to be back in an English speaking church again, bcause I just inherently understand everything without having to think about it, the worship, the preach, the notices, it’s just so nice!
Monday 27th- today I finally got a helpful answer back from the Consulate about some visa bits and bobs I need to get done! Perseverence in these matters is key. I also got a whole load of little jobs done this morning and then this afternoon I did a bit of work for my dad. Productive day for me! I then decided to just chill out a bit and catch up on some TV. It’s funny, the moment I decide to rest and not do anything I feel inherently guilty or like what I’m doing is a bit decadent*. I had to have a little chat with myself and remind myself that, 1. It’s good to rest and 2. Part of me being home is for me to rest up! I’ve been reflecting a lot, now I’m home, about my time in Argentina, and it’s been hitting me actually, how far I’ve come over the last 7 months through my time abroad, but also how much of a challenge it is. It’s hard to even begin to explain the amount of things that are hard or take getting used to and all the sacrifices that I’m making to be abroad and with Noly that most people don’t really realise. Therefore! When my brain starts telling me, “but you have bits to do!” I need to firmly tell it that relaxing is also what I need to do!
*Quite funny, when I say about this to Noly he just doesn’t understand it and tells me that Argentina is quite the opposite, with people generally being too lazy to do anything…! (I’m just going off what Noly’s told me, don’t blame me if that’s not accurate (tho I rather suspect it could be…)) And that he noticed when he was in England that people were completely the other way and didn’t seem to be able to have days where they’d do absolutely nothing without experiencing a hefty side portion of guilt. Interesting huh. I can see that!
Anyways, returning back from my tangent, the other thing that’s happened today was going out for dinner with Glodine (friend and old LG leader from church) at Cotes. My my! All you English people reading my blog- did you know that Cotes do a deal where it’s £11.50 for 2 courses or £13.50 for 3?! Lovely. I was tempted to just get a main but that wouldda been more expensive than just going for 2 courses so, dutifully, I paid less and ate more. Definitely the right way to do these things. But yeah, we had a really nice evening catching up!
So there you have it, dear reader, you are now updated with all things Nadz. Until next time!
Nadia's Adventures 