Playgroup

Tuesday was a big day for Cushla and I. We had a day full of social activities. We haven’t had a huge amount of those since we arrived here. We’ve found that the expat community here is small and consists mostly of working families and there aren’t the usual plethora of groups and activities around that exist in other expat communities. It’s also been a little harder for us as Don has arrived to set up the office here so there was no existing network for us to join in with. Different than arriving in a new country to work for an established company where they could provide you with all kinds of useful info and there would be contacts and a social circle of some description. Anyhoo...It’s taken me a while but slowly the grapevine has done what it’s meant to and I’m finding some peeps to play with.

In the morning I left Cushla with Sebrina and headed out for a coffee with a group of women known as the international friendship group. I know I know... Mostly they are a social circle but they also do community service and charity work around the area as well as organising a few events etc. It wasn’t too bad at all. Went to a nice coffee shop I hadn’t been to before and there were around 15 or so women of varying ages, nationalities and circumstances so it made for an interesting bunch. Everybody was very friendly (you’d feckin’ hope so with them all being part of a ‘friendship group’) and I’ve made plans to join them on their weekly lunch date this Friday.
In the afternoon Cushla and I went along to a playgroup. A friend I met by the pool when we had newly arrived was at some gathering recently and asked the group (on my behalf) if anybody knew of any playgroups who might accept a mad pregnant woman with a one year old. Somebody kindly offered details of their playgroup which was meeting at their house this week. So, along we went. Again, everybody was very nice. The four women are all American and their husbands work for the embassy here. They all had three children except one of them and she is toting a bump and expecting her third in mid January. There were also two or three nannies there who brought children along for parents who work but they wouldn’t sit and chat with us and disappeared into another room.

I worried Cushla would have lost all sense of social decency being cooped up with just me for two months but she didn’t disgrace me at all and was her usual smiley self, even when an 11 month old wrestled her to the floor and sat on her. At one stage one of the children went missing. After almost 10 minutes of searching the mother was, understandably, becoming a little frantic. The housekeeper eventually located him hiding in a cupboard in the laundry room and it was decided that to celebrat the find wine was required! Whoo hoo! My kind of playgroup! Even though I didn’t join in (i save my alcoholic indulgences for special occasions at the moment...like a Friday) I appreciated their thinking and so Cushla and I shall be joining them all again next Tuesday arvo.