odessa 30 April 2008
No, I have not located the File, since some of you have asked…but the search goes on.
Given that Ukraine was once part of the Soviet Union/behind the Iron Curtain, I guess there’s a gag in me saying I am akin to Davina saying ‘Big Brother House, I’m coming to get you’.
So, here’s the thing – you know how there’s Stockholm Syndrome when a captive falls in love with the jailer – well, I am about to rename it Odessa Syndrome. The Boy is putting up a fierce resistance to going home…
He had his last lesson today at the school and got a certificate to say he has completed grades 1 and 2 in basic Russian and HE GOT AN A!!!! So pleased for him as he has worked really hard at it. I breezed in to collect him and in PERFECT Russian (he taught me it a while back to say to a Russian photographer who did my latest headshots – Sacha Gusov – v v good, based in London, can be checked out on web) said ‘My name is Pauline. My husband Richard is learning the Russian language’ for which I got a big smile from the receptionist and was gestured to a chair to wait. I was THRILLED with myself and wish he’d been there to witness said event.
Total success all around, barring the fact that I’ll have to drug him to get him onto the plane tomorrow and home.
Tonight we shall stroll along the tree-lined boulevards (they really are that) of Odessa to the opera house where we will see Katarina – a Ukranian opera…in UKRANIAN, so we won’t understand a WORD. But tis music and so we might get something off it. Then dinner with one of his teachers then off to see the second half of the Liverpool V Chelsea match at the sportsbar.
No, not got a lot of writing done today but had some great ideas and did jot those down before they vanished so it’s ‘simply’ a matter of writing em up now and ‘hey presto’ a novel!!
Life is good.
