A little visitor

Posted on October 10, 2014 by thepogblog

I had a visitor in the shape of Little Pea (and Sister 1) while I worked from home today, which seemed like a really good time for a lunch break…

And just because I think my little nephew is the best thing since sliced bread, I thought I’d pop some pictures of him on here:

Wearing Auntie Pog's glasses

Wearing Auntie Pog’s glasses

Doing some bouncing

Doing some bouncing

And doing a spot of work (which was interrupted frequently for sips of my black coffee!)

And doing a spot of work (which was interrupted frequently for sips of my black coffee!)

When you don’t have children, some people take it upon themselves to inform you you’ll never understand how a mum loves their child.  Maybe that’s true.  But what is also true is I can’t imagine it’s possible to love this little one any more than I do (and I know Sister 2 feels exactly the same!) :o)

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Necklaces and noodles

Posted on October 7, 2014 by thepogblog

You know that phrase ‘dress for the job you want, not the job you have’?  Well, I’m rubbish at it.  Today I have been dressed in tracksuit bottoms, slippers and a snugly warm top, accessorised with a few soup stains.  In my defence, I have been working from home so nobody was aware of it through my 5 teleconferences or when I sent emails.  In the office, I’ve been trying to make more of an effort, but it’s a bit hit and miss.

This weekend I thought I’d try something new and crocheted a necklace.  (I don’t think this is as hideous as it sounds. ) This is it:

necklace

I rarely wear accessories so it was quite a novelty to put it on with a relatively smart outfit yesterday morning.  I did the usual work, grab food from canteen, eat food at desk while working, work a bit more, chat to people, wander around the office a bit…that sort of thing.

At 3pm I rubbed my eyes in an attempt to wake up a bit and discovered….part of a dried up noodle attached to the left side of my nose.  I’d eaten lunch at 12.  I’d also seen and spoken to quite a few people.

I’m not sure where that fits in ‘‘dress for the job you want, not the job you have’.  Maybe subconsciously I want to work in the food industry.  Maybe I just shouldn’t try the accessories route again.  Maybe I should work from home everyday, just to save some embarrassment. :o)

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Daftness. Just because.

Posted on October 3, 2014 by thepogblog

I nearly forgot how fun it can be to do something daft, just because you can.

A few weeks ago I worked on something for the company intranet.  It wasn’t terribly creative, but it was seen as pretty different from the usual thing we do.  I had drawn out some pictures (my very best stick men) to explain why the company had developed a particular product and I’d worked with the Creative team to make it look professional (and not really like what I’d drawn at all, which was a good thing).

I got to know the project manager I worked with quite well as we had a lot of updates and changes before it was finally signed off and published last week.  As we congratulated each other on finally getting it done, the project manager said that the next thing we worked on had to be even more creative.

‘A puppet show?’  I suggested

‘You provide the puppets and we’ll see what we can do.’  She said.  Well, she might not have said quite that, but that is what I heard.

Well, I’d finished crocheting my blanket and I have heaps of oddments of wool laying around, so last weekend I thought…’why not?’

I found my finger puppet crochet book and I made these:

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And this week, I left them on her desk with a note asking ‘When do we start?’

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OK, we’d never do it really.  But it made her laugh, and to me, that made it a few hours of my weekend well spent.  I think daftness is good – when it’s intentional, anyway. :o)

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Wool, furballs and faces

Posted on September 26, 2014 by thepogblog

2 weeks, thirty six balls of wool and one annoyed Norman cat has resulted in a huuuuge, very thick blanket that means I won’t have to turn the central heating on quite yet….hooray!

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Even better, it could work as a good disguise – I’ve managed to acquire an infected face and currently look like the elephant woman.  The doctor said the tablets he prescribed me (which I am pretty sure, judging by their size, are meant for horses) will mean I look normal-ish by Monday.  But for this weekend, I’m worried I may scare people, so if you’re around Bumpkinsville, and see something like this:

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It’s me.

For now though, I’m off to snuggle under my lovely warm blanket with a cup of tea and Norman cat to work out what to crochet next.  Under normal circumstances, I might not admit to this on a Friday night (I’d do it, just not admit to it…), but I think I’m allowed to tonight – I have a poorly face.  Well, that’s my excuse :o)

t3

Posted in animals, Bumpkinsville, cats, crochet, Pog Life | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Pog tips on: First Aid

Posted on September 23, 2014 by thepogblog

Before I left for Tacloban I was immunised against pretty much everything, plus a couple more just for good measure.  I had almost 20 injections.

I packed a first aid kit that made it look like I’d looted a pharmacist.  I had everything I needed.  Everything except two little things….

On day two, I managed to slip while jumping over some corrugated roofing, and in the process I sliced open my right foot.  It was quite deep and it wouldn’t stop bleeding.  We were at one of the beneficiaries houses and he very kindly mopped me up and gave me a plaster.  By the time we got home, the plaster was soaked through so I went to my first aid kit to find another.

Before I left, one of my friends had given me a bag of emergency things.  One of these things was a box of Peppa Pig plasters.  I’d already packed ‘real’ plasters, but threw these ones into my bag, and a good job too – I couldn’t find the ‘real’ ones.  So as if it wasn’t bad enough that I was a foot or so taller than most people and combined with my whiteness I stuck out like a sore thumb, I then spent the next ten days walking around with Peppa Pig (or friend) peeping out from my flip flop….

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Day three was, I think, the day I thought I’d not washed myself properly (hats off to the Filipinos – even in heat, pouring cold water over yourself every morning is a challenge).  I thought, as I put on my bra that there was a bit of dirt on my chest.  It wasn’t until I pulled off the ‘dirt’ that I realised the wires in my bra had been rubbing against my skin with all the sweating going on, and I’d just pulled off two very deep scabs.  And I now had two raw holes, just where the ends of the wires should go.  It was far too painful to ignore, so I folded a wipe behind the middle bit of my bra to act as a cushion and collect the ickiness (Peppa Pig was not sufficiently cushioned for this job).

Day four or so, I assume due to the sweat again, my ears took a violent dislike to my ear rings.  My ear lopes swelled up, I took out the earnings and discovered they were all bleeding and, like my chest, leaking ickiness.

These things were annoying, but not a big deal.  I assumed they’d all heal in the heat.  They didn’t.  A few days later I was wishing I’d thought to bring some antiseptic of some sort, but I hadn’t.  So I asked Chona, Jackie’s sister if they had anything I could use.  Chona was very kind and looked through all her drawers and gave me the only cream she could find – a tube of unopened sulphur cream.  Now, I’d not heard of it before, but I slathered it on…feet, chest, ears…  I repeated the process a few times that day, and then I thought to read the box (which was printed in English).  It turns out that suphur cream is used for the treatment of (amongst other things), um, ringworm.

So I can confirm I didn’t come back with ringworm.  I also came back with a mental note that will never be erased to take more subtle plasters and antiseptic with me any time I go away in the future…

And for the record, the ears healed up fine.  Everything else needed antibiotic cream when I got home and will be remembered by the small scars they have left behind, but hey ‘every scar tells a story’ and all that! :)

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Pog tips on: Toilets

Posted on September 10, 2014 by thepogblog

I lost my dignity on this blog a long while back, so I will now continue with that to tell you about my experience with toilets while I was away.

I became slightly obsessed with the whole toilet issue when I read an (incorrect) post on Google that suggested every Filipino had a sense of balance I certainly don’t possess – it said that they stood on a Western style toilet.  After a few panics and wondering if I should practice this, I asked Jackie what stance I should take over there when, um…relieving myself and thank goodness, the information was wrong (and made Jackie laugh a lot).  But it was true that toilet paper wasn’t common place and it turned out that things are a little different.

I decided to take my own toilet paper, which led to a rather surreal family Sunday dinner where my Dad unrolled an entire roll to count the sheets, and then the family made best guesses about how many sheets I’d need per day.  This was then multiplied by number of days, added to allow for poorly tummy issues, then a little added for contingency and a total of three rolls was decided on. As it turned out, most places (being Jackie’s family’s houses) had a supply, but I took a little roll out with me in my bag each day, just in case.

So on the off chance anyone else has stumbled on this post in the same way I did with that incorrect one, all the toilets I used were Western style – some didn’t have seats but none required any sort of circus skills.  The only difference is that a lot don’t flush – by either accident or design – , but there is a handy bucket / dustbin in the bathroom with a dipper (a little like a small plastic saucepan) which you use to manually flush.  I’d advise not being over enthusiastic with the toilet roll though as it turns out that’s a bugger to flush away in this manner.

I realised pretty early on that I didn’t need to worry about toilets while I was out as the second I left the house in the morning every molecule of moisture on my body leaked out of me in the form of sweat.  Even sipping from my bottle of water just seemed to replace the rivers that ran down my face, so that was all good.

There was one time though where things got a little awkward. I went away to a beautiful island for a night with some of Jackie’s friends.  Getting there was a bit of a mission – we had to drive for about 2.5 hours, then get a boat, then a Habal-Habal ride (a motorbike with an extended seat so it can take the driver plus two – or a lot more – passengers.  THAT was an experience!) across one island before getting a boat to our final destination.  I made a school girl error in that I drank as much as I usually would and then remembered that I was in an air conditioned minibus for the drive and so I wasn’t sweating…

When we got to the first island I was told we were stopping at the mayor’s office and I was relieved to see the ‘comfort room’ sign.  There were quite a few of us, so I sidled off to discover that the sign was slightly sarcastic.  It wasn’t even a little bit comfortable.  It was a bare room with a wet floor (best not to think about it) and a toilet basin in the middle.  I couldn’t put my bag down so I balanced it as best I could, put my fan between my teeth and did a bit of balancing myself.  I then had to do an interesting bit of contortion to find the toilet roll in my bag and break a bit off with the few fingers I had spare.   There was a bucket for flushing but the dipper on this occasion was more teacup than saucepan sized so it took a while.  Then I realised there was no tap so I washed my hands over the toilet with the dipper…then wondered how clean that actually was, so, fan still in teeth I attempted to find my antibacterial hand wash.  All this was done while trying not to breathe through my nose as the place didn’t smell too fresh.  It’s quite difficult to breathe through your mouth when there is a fan jammed in it though, and you’re doing a bit of a circus act…

Anyway, I finally got myself sorted and wandered back to subtly join the others.  But there was no subtle about it.  For some reason the mayor wanted to meet me, so I was ushered in to sit opposite him at his desk. (By this stage I imagine everyone was wondering just what I’d been doing for the last 10 minutes or so, but I didn’t think they or the mayor would want the details).

Mr Mayor asked me if I liked his island.  I didn’t think the correct response was to tell him I’d spent longer in his badly named comfort room than coming round the corner from the boat to his office, so I told him it was beautiful.  It was, as it turns out. All of it, except the toilet experience :o)

And here are some photos that do not include toilets.  I promise:

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Mr Mayor and a slightly awkward me (©Gerry Ruiz)

h1

Habal-habal riding! (© Ludette Ruiz)

Mr Mayor's island - Maripipi

Mr Mayor’s island – Maripipi

Dawn at out final destination - Sambawan

Dawn at out final destination – Sambawan

 

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Pog Tips on: language

Posted on September 5, 2014 by thepogblog

I have no idea how I managed to come to the conclusion, but right up until the day I left for Tacloban, I thought that the vast majority of people I met wouldn’t speak a word of English.  I asked Jackie to teach me some words in the local language – Waray-waray – but it was not a success.  I’m pretty bad terrible at languages anyway, but stick letters like ‘nga’ together or insist that ‘r’s’ need to be rolled and my tongue refuses to do anything at all.

I practised every day on the train into work though, (muttering under your breath with a look of utter concentration is a really good way to make sure nobody sits next to you) and every night before I went to sleep, but nothing would stick and I just ended up making up new words.

I tied myself in ever tighter knots until some of my colleagues suggested I buy a ‘Point it’ book to take with me.  At least that way I could communicate the essentials, and I had a long list of phrases from Jackie that I could also point at.

c1

But as it turns out, English is taught in schools in the Philippines and just about everyone knows some, usually a lot.  Some people clearly didn’t feel confident talking to me, but having demonstrated my complete lack of Waray on the first night to the family (I did try, but it just resulted in a lot of laughing), and showing them my pointy book, they all realised that any English on their part was going to be really appreciated by me. The book was quite rubbish anyway.  I think all the pictures were taken around 1970 and although they covered just about everything, there was only one word we ended up having to mime while I was there: headstone.  Although to be fair, I guess that’s not an everyday word if you’re an average traveller.

c2

The one person who talked to me entirely in English from the moment he met me, and who I don’t think stopped talking to draw breath at any point over the 12 days, was Biboy.  He is 7 and was so fluent he helped with translating and tried to teach me the Waray for various animals.  He also informed me on my first day that I was ‘super sweaty’.  Yes, thanks for that Biboy!

Biboy, Kiking and Tantan :)

Biboy, Kiking and Tantan :)

There were still moments of confusion; for the first three days I thought I was staying with the most accident prone family in the world….they all kept saying ‘oh-oh’.  It took me about three days to work out that this meant ‘yes’.  I must have completely confused the little ones as when we were playing and they dropped something or had to miss a turn on animal dominoes I’d automatically say ‘oh-oh’ meaning ‘oops’ but actually saying ‘yes’ to them.  It was all a bit muddled!

So what did I learn in Waray?  Well, I can say thank you – Salamat – , but even when you are as terrible as I am at foreign languages, that’s the one word you should know.

The other two relate to food –marasa means (I think, I hope!) ‘that was lovely’ and busog means ‘full’.  For some reason, probably the tongue tying issue, I never learned full sentences, so I finished my meals in a true ‘I’m English and I’m rubbish, but I’ll have a bit of a go’ way.  I’d say:

‘That was marasa, but now I am busog’ and rub my tummy.

Well, I am English, I am rubbish, but I did have a go.  Kind of :o)

Posted in Tacloban, travelling | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Pog Tips on: Food – part 2

Posted on September 3, 2014 by thepogblog

I really like trying fruit I’ve never seen, and there was LOADS I’d not seen before in the Philippines.  There were also quite a few other things…

(Note:  The last picture is a bit icky – and it’s the only thing I refused to try – , so don’t scroll right to the bottom if you’re eating or a sensitive sort of soul).

 

From top right, a pineapple, banana (both taste SO much sweeter than in the UK), the hairy thing is a rambutan, above that is a santol – a really citrusy, almost grapefruit type of fruit and on the left there’s a bag of pork crackling:

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I can’t remember what this one is called:

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But it looks like this inside:

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And tastes a bit like lychee.

 

This is green mango, which you dip in salt (you dip pineapple in salt too.  Weird).  This was a bit bitter for me…

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This is durian.  Apparently it’s really stinky but I had a cold and couldn’t smell it.  I can only imagine that the photo is so unclear as I knew what was coming despite this.  It’s absolutely disgusting.  So disgusting that I ran across the room and spat it out in the bin (not the best table etiquette while a guest in someone’s house, I admit.)  It’s like eating rotten flesh:

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My favourite new  fruit  was lanzones.  It’s lovely and sweet and refreshing.  You just have to remember not to bite into the pip which is bitter and bleugh:

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Lemonsito are smaller than a lime but are very, very lemony.  Mama Pat made me the most delicious lemonade from them to try to get rid of my cold.  I could drink that stuff forever.  You also squeeze them over fish and savoury things (the ones you’ve not dipped in vinegar, soy sauce or fermented shrimp sauce, which actually doesn’t leave a lot… ):

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And speaking of fermented shrimp sauce, that’s the pink stuff on the left, at the fermented fish stall stand in the market.  I may have had a cold but the smell made me wretch.  I did manage to swallow the tiny bit I’d dipped something into though, and very proud of myself I was too :o) :

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This is a pudding called binagol.  I was told it was a ‘root crop’ (we never established which one) cooked in coconut milk and sugar.  This was good…It was very, very heavy and a bit chewy though – I could only eat about a third:

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These are bananas cooked in sugar (top) and wrapped in a sort of pastry with sugar (bottom)  These are also lovely:

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Below is a pudding that Mama Pat made and she let me have this taster while it was cooling.  It’s amazing – sticky rice cooked with molasses sugar and (I think) coconut milk. Like a sticky, sweeter version of rice pudding. Yum:

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I was lucky enough to go to a beautiful island one for a night with some of Jackie’s friends.  The following day a boat man went out to get us lunch.  We were given a pan of cooked shells which you had to tap in a particular way (or smash with a hammer) to release the…oh I don’t know what to call it….the snail?  I just nibbled the end of one to tick it off the list as ‘tried’! :

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I tried a few other things too.  Raw fish was definitely not a favourite.  There was also the lunch I had with just Mama Pat where I put a big spoonful of something on my plate and then thought to ask what it was.  It turned out it was cow intestine.  I’m still stunned that I managed to eat all of it without reacting. :o)

And the last one- the only thing I refused to try.  Remember, don’t scroll down unless you’re ok with icky things:

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This is a balut.  I was told it was a chicken embryo/ boiled egg but a google search has suggested it’s a duck embryo / egg.  Either way, I wasn’t about to try one.  Which actually is a bit silly when you consider I eat chicken.  It seemed worse somehow though.  So instead, I took a photo:

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Pog tips on: Food – part 1

Posted on August 28, 2014 by thepogblog

When I went to Tacloban I decided that I would try to say yes to every new experience offered, including the food.  That’s quite a big thing for me.  I stuck to my decision quite well – there was only one thing I refused to eat, but more of that on another post.  I  think this was the right decision as it turned out Mama Pat and her family were a bit worried about what I would and wouldn’t eat, and one of my biggest compliments was when Mamma Pat said ‘I like my visitor; she eats everything I put in front of her!’

Some things though, were a long way from what we’d have back home and this particular thing I felt deserved a post of its own.  It’s the Halo Halo.

halo halo

At the bottom of the bowl is ice (think slush puppie style).  And you can see the ice cream, sprinkled with cornflakes.  And at the top of the picture you can probably see the cubes of jelly, custard and a sugary sweet thing.  There’s a bit of dried banana in there too.

But at the bottom, do you see that?  Yup, that’s…sweetcorn.  And nestled next to that and under the ice cream are some kidney beans and chickpeas.

With absolutely no offence to my new Filipino friends: Seriously?  Did someone have issues one day over whether they wanted to go sweet or savoury, so put the lot in one bowl?  Because ‘Halo Halo’ actually means ‘Mix Mix’ – you’re supposed to combine the lot!  I opted  not to do that so I could be aware each time I was about to eat a mouthful of vegetables with my ice cream…

I ate half of mine – with Mama Pat’s feeding there wasn’t much room for the entire ‘meal in a bowl’.  It was one of many experiences that I could never have anticipated…  So be careful if you’re ever offered an ice cream in the Philippines – you might want to check if it’s sweet, savoury or both. :o)

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Pog tips on: Travelling

Posted on August 26, 2014 by thepogblog

As I am being sensible on the Helping Hands for Tacloban blog, I’m back to my usual more me approach to things here.  A friend suggested this split in blogs as ‘nobody will give you donations if they see how daft you are.’  At the time I didn’t really see it.  Now….well she was right.  It’s pretty impressive I even got to Tacloban. Rather than just tell you stories as they happened, or as I remember them, I would write a few posts which together would cover the key aspects of travelling abroad; specifically to the Philippines.  Pog style.

For some of this post it’s worth bearing in mind that I seem to get likened to Bridget Jones a lot. Mostly, I think, due to my almost permanent state of singledom. But didn’t she get arrested for drug smuggling at one point…? Anyway, I’ll start at the beginning and give you a few travelling pointers.

1) First, if you buy a new bag for your travels, remove the lock and key straight away. They are so flimsy I’d advise throwing them away and using a bit of string to tie your zips together with, making it more fiddly to undo and giving the impression the bag contains nothing of value. Do up your bag at least 30 minutes before you leave the house.

What I would not advise is removing all the labels emptying your bins, throwing the rubbish sack into your neighbours wheelie bin and leaving your bag open until the second you leave the house.  That’s when you discover that the padlock is locked onto one zip, the key (which is about 3mm long) is mixed in with last night’s dinner in the bin next door, and the bag won’t close with the lock in the way.  And actually, the padlock isn’t that flimsy and can’t be broken off with any sort of kitchen implement and can’t be picked with a paperclip.

That’s how I ended up on my hands and knees in my neighbour’s driveway, searching through all sorts of gloop when I was supposed to be starting a sedate and calming drive with my sister to Heathrow.  I have to say though, the feeling of finding the key was quite a lovely one.  The state of my hands however…

2) Try not to panic and avoid nice people.  I thought I’d got over crying at every opportunity (the travel agents when I picked up my boarding pass, leaving my sister, checking in my luggage, paying for my additional luggage) and by security I’d managed to downgrade to just being very shaky.  Then the lovely security guard asked if I was ok and my eyes started leaking again.  It’s not terribly dignified, especially when the lovely security guard shouts to a colleague ‘Can you cover me?  I’ve got a terrified one here’ and then walks you to the screens and explains how to check when the boarding gate appears.  (I knew all that, but I listened like an eager child just in case anything had changed in the last month or so).

3) My most important piece of advice though (and this is the Bridget Jones bit), is to try not to be too English.  After about 11 hours of being nestled between two people I’d never met (is it just me who finds it really odd to sleep so close to complete strangers?) I started chatting to the man on my left.  He was a Filipino and was going as far as Manila via Hong Kong.  He (let’s call him Manila Man) did the trip quite often as he works in the North Sea, so I thought I asked if there were any smoking rooms in Hong Kong airport, making some comment about really wanting a cigarette.  And that is when Manila Man said he had something that might help, reached into his bag and pulled out a container of these:

It's the thing on the left. The thing on the right is a pound coin, to give you an idea of size...

The things on the left. The thing on the right is a pound coin, to give you an idea of size…

He told me to put one between my gum and cheek and the craving would go away.  And so I did, without really thinking it through.  I’ve never seen these things before, but they were good… and gave a different sort of feeling to your usual nicotine replacement therapies.  Kind of happy.  Really quite happy.  Manila Man assured me every one used them on the boats he worked on.  In fact, his friend had given him the whole pot but he didn’t smoke, so would I like them?  Now, I knew at this point I should say no, but I am English and worry about causing offence so I thanked him very much, put them in my bag and a few minutes later, just to check, asked if they were entirely legal.  Manila Man confirmed that of course they were.  So, um, that was ok then.

It did cross my mind that maybe he just wanted to get them through security and would take them off me at Manila, but my Englishness was going full steam ahead (and he would see if I left them on the plane) so I left them in my bag and completely forgot about them…

…Until 2 weeks later on my way home, just as I was about to have my bag searched at Tacloban airport.  Luckily the search was more of a bag opening exercise and revealed nothing other than my baby wipe obsession and the fact that Mama Pat had given me three Pandasol (delicious sweet rolls) for the journey, just in case I faded without her constant feeding.  There was nothing I could do about it there, but at Manila I feel I could have taught Bridget Jones a thing or two.  As soon as I got off the plane I went to the nearest toilet and threw the pot in the bin.  After removing just a few of the little sachets.  Well, I knew I’d write about it and I needed a photo….  And I guess if they were dodgy, I might have got away with ‘personal use’…

:o)

Posted in Pog Life, travelling | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments