Clara's 2012 Scottish Odyssey

Clara returned recently after spending another fantastic holiday with her grandparents in Scotland. She was also lucky to spend a few days sightseeing in Holland. This year the travel plans were slightly different - Clara flew from Japan to Europe and back again all by herself.

Chilling out on Embo beach

As Clara has been spending her summers in Scotland for a number of years, she generally repeated the same activities, visited the same places, and met the same people she has seen in previous years. Repetition and familiarity for her will help embed Scotland in her life as a happy home and give her a strong sense of Scottishness. What is also certain is that Clara in her old age will look back on her summers in Scotland with fondness and satisfaction. Who knows - she may even decide to choose Scotland as her permanent home when she is an adult.

Joep, Clara, and Laura at Landmark

Clara's grandparents always ensure she has quality time in Scotland, whether that be travelling to Skye to see relations or spending a few days staying in Embo walking or playing badminton on the beach. Clara also just likes to sit on the sofa in my parent's living room surfing the net and playing games. It seems the most popular place to visit each year is the Landmark Forest Adventure Park.

A bit smokey!

The location where my parents live is safe and great for kids to play long into the night. Clara was happy to be able to pop into her friends' homes to play and enjoyed the space of my parents garden. The garden fire also seemed to add a bit of ambience, although I hope the neighbours didn't mind the apparently toxic black smoke.

Garden chat

As usual, big thanks to my parents for looking after Clara. Clara is so lucky to be looked after so well and to be offered so many amazing experiences and memories. I'm really glad that she has two countries that she can call home and so many people that take such great care of her.

London 2012 Olympic party

Happy days indeed!

An Expat's Life

One of the drawbacks of expat living is that important events in the home country such as weddings, funerals, birthdays etc are missed. Although life in the adopted country can be stimulating and fulfilling, it is true that the longer you live abroad, the weaker the bonds are with your roots.

The Olympic Games and other sporting events tend to give the expat at least some measure of contact and interest in the home country. This is why during the football season, I enjoy visiting my local bar to watch live English Premiership games. This is also why I chose to listen to the London Olympic Games via BBC Radio internet broadcasts.

You can imagine my extreme dissatisfaction, bordering on anger, when I discovered that all Olympic events broadcast on the BBC internet channels have been blocked for "rights reasons". The Olympic ideals of sport without burdens of politics, religion, and racism are admirable indeed. However, how about having an Olympics without the burden of greed and overzealous commercialism? People back home in the UK may feel the glow of Britain having won 22 gold medals (with still a few days to go), but what I feel strongest is the glow of indignation. So much for the expats in foreign lands being able to share a small part of the Olympic spirit.

With the rant over, I can now also bask somewhat in the amazing success the British team has had at the Olympics. Even if the tally of 22 golds and numerous other medals does not increase, it will still have been an amazing haul for the team (apparently the best in over 100 years). I would have loved to have seen the track and fields events, especially Jessica Ennis winning the heptathlon.

I am a little disappointed and confused to see that Japan has only won 4 gold medals so far, despite having over twice the population of Britain and school age kids seemingly having much greater participation and access to sports. Even more surprising, is that most Japanese people and the media seem unconcerned about the relative paucity of medals.

Perhaps over the next couple of days I'll be able to watch some of the final events in my local bar. Failing that, I'll have to content myself to watch text updates on the BBC Sport website. Well done to the British team and to London for holding a great Olympic Games!