The Family

The family continues to grow taller at an alarming rate, with Megan having left home, Brandon about to leave and Tyrone just having moved to Australia!! Oh dear, I shall wake up one day soon and realise I am older and need to retire as I can no longer keep up with life in general. It has certainly been an enriching experience with the family growing up in a city such as Rome with a diverse international sub-community. Now we enter another phase with the family increasingly dispersed. In many ways, the world has been our "play ground" and more readily accessible than ever, provided the money would stretch that far - need I say more!

Rome has generally treated us well, even although Leanne and I did not make it past 16 years of marriage. A great pity, but such is life in modern times. Certainly living in Rome and my work added to the stresses of living, but we had a good time together and are still friends. Have a look at Leanne's website to find out more about what she is doing.

The children appear to have adapted to the new way of life reasonably well. However, with Megan at university in South Africa and me still travelling a lot, it is a challenge for all of us at times - we are not sure at this stage where Brandon and Tyrone will end up. More about them on their pages .....

Schooling has been an "education" for all of us. The children because of the context and attitude in which lessons are provided (Roman history is learnt on site!), the competitiveness of the international community, and the huge diversity in culture and behaviour to which they have been exposed. School trips are usually international to places ranging from the "muddy little island" in the north, to the Canary Islands, Libya or Turkey. A 3 month summer vacation each year provides ample time for further adventures or visits home. I am also eternally grateful they have not learnt the same chemistry experiments I learnt - which included perfecting them at home.

The children's friends are seldom from the same cultural, or even religious background a times, and it is wonderful to see that this no longer makes any difference at all. They have become truly international and their future has few limits - they have friends and contacts from around the world and they do not have a "national" view of life. The down side of this (as there always is), is they have grown up with less national and cultural identity than normal and it could be unsettling in future years. However, this depends on the individual, and we shall have to wait and see - I just hope they find a place where they feel settled enough to have a stable career and family. Time will tell.

It has been an education to me to see them grow and having to nurture them in this environment. I am not complaining as one of the primary goals for leaving South Africa has essentially been achieved successfully.