Brits in Bosnia - toddlers, dog and all

A while back I wrote a post about taking my boys ice-skating and how much they enjoyed it and how much I hated it. That post really struck a chord with that lovely Hong Kong blogger, Bloomin Marvelous, who wrote a post about how we don't really appreciate what our...

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This weeks prompt from Sticky Fingers' Gallery was a number, to be used in any way we wish. An age for example. A number. Whatever comes to mind.I chose the number 5, for these 5 members of my family settling down for a 5pm tea after a long English sea side...

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Yesterday was International Women's Day. It always takes me by surprise here, for us Brits don't really celebrate it. The Bosnians however, they go to town. It is huge here. You couldn't move yesterday for men carrying flowers and trinkets off to see their mother, wife, sister to say thank...

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I wasn’t going to write much about the resumption of Karadzic’s trial last week. It was all going to be fairly predictable and it was. The trial began on Monday which happened to also be a Bosnian National Holiday, their Independence Day, a fact not lost on the Serbs*. Karadzic...

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We had an unexpectedly late night last night. Blame Risk. The taking over the world board game. Apparently we are all evil dictators at heart, and you can never trust anyone, they will always betray you. But it was a late one. 2am late. The kind of late that I...

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We are currently without the use of our car. There's nothing wrong with it, we just aren't allowed to drive it at the moment because we haven't been able to register it for this year. We haven't been able to do that because our visa hasn't been extended yet. So...

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That ever so clever Tara over at Sticky Fingers has had a fantastic idea that really appeals to me. "Every week I will give you a prompt, an idea, a notion and you go out and take a photograph using that prompt. Or just use a photo you already have.The...

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When we getting ready to come out to Bosnia we looked into the possibility of getting a GPS system for the car. Or more accurately Dave looked into it, being a fully signed up technophobe I muttered something about being able to map read just fine thank you and what...

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Oh, I have a few things to take aim at today. My pencil is sharp and I am ready to go!*****************************Dear Bosnian Visa Authorities,We can't renew the registration of our car until we have our visas. Which means that whilst our visa renewal application is STILL sitting in the pile...

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.. and saw this signLook and learn Tuzla, look and learn....

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Tuzla isn't a big city. It is quite easy to get out of the urban sprawl and up into the hills for some lovely walks and amazing views. One of our favourite spots is up behind the Skver (which is confusingly a roundabout, the laws of which will be a topic for...

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This parenting is a funny old thing. I'm consistently in awe (or rather more accurately slightly scared) of those uber Mummys who have everything under control. You know them, they have whisked up a freshly baked cake, done the ironing and not shouted at their children once that day. The...

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Why is it that when learning a new language, the only words that are easily remembered are the swear words? Which means of course that you are left with a load of ways to be rude to people, admittedly helpful whilst driving in Bosnia but not ideal when you are...

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Sunshine and cake. Does life get much better? If only there was a bit more sunshine and cake going on around here. The sunshine factor is significantly lacking, our lives more dominated by snow, ice, grey, ice, snow, ice, slush, ice, slipping, ice (do I need to continue?). And there...

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Watching the Winter Olympics (or as Dave put it, 'the celebration of how many different ways you can slide about of some form of frozen water') has become the new favourite pastime in the Brit household. Mainly because watching the female speed skaters makes me feel a lot better about...

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... for I'm off a-wandering the blogosphere. That very lovely BabyRambles has just been over to interview me for her regular Friday Blogger on the Spot feature. We checked into a 4 star hotel (yes, there is one in Tuzla, oh disbelievers), grabbed a coffee, watched the Bosnians strutting their most...

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Being an English family in Tuzla we are fairly conspicuous. There aren't very many English families in Tuzla. In fact, I think it is just us. As such, there isn't a big expat circle to become a part of. Whilst this does occasionally make things more difficult, on the whole...

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Today I'm dodging flash photography and wondering whether my shades will do an adequate job in covering up my jet lagged eyes as I dodge the media scrum at Heathrow. Oh, ok, not quite. But I have been interviewed as for the Favourite Mummy Blogger spot for the My Child...

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Given that we live less than 20 metres from a mosque, I am embarrassed at how little I know about the Islamic religion and practices. But it has struck me that the Bosnian way of being a Muslim isn't anything like the impressions of Islam that you can get from the...

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Sometimes a situation leads to something becoming so much greater, more pleasurable than it actually is. To clarify with an example, when you have spent a few hours tramping up a cold wet mountain, the piece of melted chocolate that has solidified in an odd shape with all the weird...

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I'm getting progressively more hopeless at keeping up with my blogging etiquette. I've been tagged hither and tither and I can't remember who tagged me or what for. So, in a vain attempt to try and get back on top of it all, I'm sort of doing a meme that...

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Take some good coffee (Doncafe, the red packet being my preferred version, I am far too much of a wuss to go for the super strong green packet) and a Bosnian coffee maker thing that has a name but it escapes me right now.Put one tablespoon per person into the...

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I now have my answer for the question that all teenagers hurl at their parents at some point 'What did you ever do for me anyway?'All last week Adam's nursery has foregone normal morning nursery activities and headed down to the ice rink that opens every winter in Tuzla's central park,...

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I've been sharpening my pencil over the past couple of weeks and I've got plenty to say. So here are the postcards that I wish to write to all and sundry.**********************************************Dear Next Door Neighbour,We have repeatedly asked you not to feed our dog. She gets fed enough at home and...

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January 27th is the World Holocaust Memorial Day, a day on which we are asked to take the time to reflect on what can happen if racism, prejudice and exclusionary behaviour are left unchecked and unchallenged. Whilst the Holocaust is a specific event tied to Nazi persecution during World War...

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