Family moments across the miles
7:40 this morning, just after I get out the shower, skype rings on my laptop. It’s my grandparents, playing with their brand new iPad. When I answer, my grandparent’s living room pops up and I can see my mother and grandfather peering, puzzled, straight into the camera. Me: “Hello?” Pa: “Now how do you…” Me: “Hello?” Mum: “Don’t press that one!” Me: “Hello? Can you hear me?” Pa: “Well, where’s the other little thing?” Me: “Hello? Did you call me?” Mum: “It’s somewhere down the bottom there.” Me: “You called me accidentally, didn’t you. And you...
Read MoreThe most important quality in a marriage (2)
This post is a continuation of the discussion we began on Friday about the most important quality in a marriage. Below is an excerpt from the memoir I am working on. It recounts a conversation Mike and I had via skype before we got engaged, when he was in PNG and I was in LA. …Even when we were talking, on our carefully scheduled skype dates, it wasn’t guaranteed to be smooth and happy sailing. Occasionally we’d be talking away easily one minute only to find ourselves mired in a messy miscommunication the next. Or we’d be laughing and a moment later one of us would have...
Read MoreReunions
In the three and a half years we’ve known each other, Mike and I have spent at least 3 weeks apart nine times now. When Mike was still living in PNG there was the three months apart right after we started dating and three and a half more after we got engaged. There were four month-long overseas consultancies Mike did during our first year of marriage. We spent about half of the first six months of last year apart before our move to Laos. And then there’s been this last ten weeks. Mike will arrive into the Gold Coast tomorrow morning at about 7:30am, so when I haven’t been wondering...
Read MoreA skype date at 37 weeks pregnant
“How are you?” Mike asked me last night via skype. “I’m grumpy,” I said. “Why are you grumpy?” Mike said. “I don’t know. Why are you in Laos?” I said. Mike stops to puzzle this over for a few seconds, then decides not to engage on that front. “Well, tell me about today,” he said. “I talked to Jenn and Robin by skype. I lay down for a while. I read. I went to the chiropractor. I made an apple and rhubarb crumble. We had pizza for dinner. We watched TV,” I said, outlining a day most people might consider nearly perfect in its restfulness. The problem, as I went on to...
Read MoreStories we tell our grandchildren
It’s been a busy week on this side of the world. I’m juggling two consulting projects from the kitchen table here in Laos, both for clients in London. One of the projects is reviewing training material for workshops running in Sudan and Chad next week. Sudan, incidentally, is where my father headed off to for two months yesterday on his own consulting project. The world seems very small sometimes. Well, except when you’re flying across the Pacific – then it seems enormous. Or when you stop and think about the fact that your immediate family is once again scattered over four...
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