Wherever I lay my hat

Tom Jones once sang about his hat and having a lay, but it may have been just gossip.

My hat has been laid for the moment in this foreign land that feels like a No-man's land, I am neither foe nor friend here. I am an ex-pat who does not know how many Allied bombs lay unexploded in this city. I do know three have been discovered since I sat at the office desk and the office was told to go home. Some countries may throw sickies, here somebody digs in his back garden. So it is with trepidation I sit amongst the regulars of the downtown pub and ask why the man with a sinister-looking eye in the corner is giving me eyeball. Is he wondering why his granny's 'brotchen' shop was suddenly a tad smaller in 1944. It is stange in a matter of sixty or so years later things change, we are allies. I only stay for one, but not out of fear of reprisals, but from economy.

Today I am not counting Danger UXB's, I am counting my pounds shilling and pence and if the UK mortgage is surviving the machinations of the exchange rate.

I am trying to balance supply and demand - the supply of the Sterling dollar exchanged to Euros determines a family lifestyle, against a demand by means-tested children, thinking a Playstation is an essential to life because the rest of the class can wipe out an alien army at level four or something like that. Means tested in the sense that my children think I am mean for not agreeing the latest Nintendo DS GTR Turbo limited edition should be added to their magnificent collection because Jean-Claude Heinz has got one and they are testing my patience.

Action man is no longer cutting the mustard.

My hat laying skills have not exactly gone to plan. Redundancies, job offers, re-locations to the highest-ish bidder and, a hey presto, I am here counting the pennies in Euro-cents in the hope I can later not only count the costs in Euros, but internet-password the payment.


Medicines may be "sans Frontiers", but Medical Insurance fully recognises borders with a multipier factor index designed to make ex-pat poverty a companion to health. Family health costs money that will have the Pryce family cherishing days when the bread came with dripping, "what, no dripping Pa".

I have paid handsome sums to people to find me a house and met them for fifteem minutes, I have paid large rental deposits and fought forlornly for their return, I have paid notaries to be notaries because they were apparently important in a legal system it would take several years to barely grasp its ass, I have paid people weekly to teach me a second language when they spoke my first nearly daily, I have paid people to connect me to the 'www ' that were re-employed to disconnect the same, I have paid in bordeom and frustration for ID cards in bureaucratic waiting queues rather worst cost than the actual cost, I have been scammed for not reading the small print when I could not read any of the print, I have paid for extra-large satellite dishes long abandoned on a roof, I have paid to move undamaged possessions of which ownership is 9 tenths of the law and realised that left 1 tenth to fall off the lorry, and I have learnt to be friends with long ago foes.

I have......complained, and hoped it was being human. I am still whinging and winging it and hoping I will survive this adventure of sorts.

I am still wondering the wisdom of a career choice of hat laying or brick laying, but like what the locals call beer is coloured water under the urinal bridge. Time to look forward, perhaps time to move on.