http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mneme613/I have had an unsually complicated life for a long time, and I didn't ask for most of it. I spent almost eighteen years as an expatriate from my home in England and it has been something of a challenge. In writing my story I may be able to unscramble it, assess it and, I hope, turn my experiences to some good. If this helps others in some small way that will be something I guess. It is very much a woman's perception of the effects of undertaking such a venture, at the personal level but also of the impact on family life, which still reverberates and in fact magnifies when the children become adults and make their own choices. In practical terms, I have posted my journals more or less as I wrote them, but from time to time I use italics to indicate where I have added some commentary to the original entry. Names have been replaced by initials or pseudonyms in the interests of privacy. hourly12000-01-01T12:00+00:00http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mneme613/716602The parents were really, really nice about it. Having flown back from England on the same flight, Bella (not her real name) had been visiting a lot of friends and relatives and baby Tom could have picked it up anywhere... so kind of her to think so! They'd invited us all to stay for a week or two...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mneme613/716361That last entry didn't go quite how I'd planned.. interruptions... It wasn't only my illness that had caused difficulties. Our daughter, just eight, had come out in chicken-pox spots the weekend before we were scheduled to fly. I rang the airline and asked their advice. I was told that provided...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mneme613/716151I think now is as good a time as any to start to put this book into some kind of shape. I have a lot of hand-written journals to go back over, and far too little free time to transcribe them into softcopy. So it might be a good idea to just write, from memory, and see how far I can get. It was a...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mneme613/648788It took a lot of thinking... but I've sent off my "resignation" from the doctorate. It was time. I have something more important to do right now, and if I want to I can continue elsewhere next year. Or towards the end of this year, if I'm getting bored. Somehow I don't think that will be a...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mneme613/646449At last; there is a way to extract myself gracefully from my academic ties in Australia. Last September I got talking to a couple at church, on a temporary visit from their current mission in Malaysia. I offered to help with editing and proofreading for their various project publications. Having...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mneme613/645597Am I paralysed, or just inert? If I study my Jung, I am in a state of inertia and regression; to a place of detachment, of not thinking... Right now, the terse and unfriendly emails I am getting from my ex-husband when I necessarily query what he is doing with the monthly maintenance payments are...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mneme613/642782Here's a thought.. a text I feel I want to send... ' Morning... here's a different hook for you to hang your hat on.. Long ago, when I asked to move home (all of us), you told me Australia was a better place to bring up kids. It's obvious you were never serious about getting us home. I needn't...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mneme613/642688Sunday, January 10th 2010. I am sitting on bench on a busy Sydney street corner, in the semi-shade, in the hot Sunday mid-morning... again my thoughts stray to you... how, after your intervention into my life, I am sitting, waiting, sipping water and eating an oat bar to stave off the nausea that...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mneme613/639079I've said goodbye to CG, having caught up with him for the last time over the weekend. When I first saw him again after some six weeks I found myself, again, surprised that I had forgotten how attractive he is, how tall and tanned he is -- he seemed to have lost weight -- and how much he smiles....http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mneme613/638729It's all being thrown at me at once... son wants to leave the country, CG still wants to catch up, even though I've said I am going home and that it's not good for me to be here, and I can't say no to people, so I am going to find my study time squeezed because I feel it's only fair to give him...