Wild flowers in the hills

We went for a walk up in the hills this weekend. It was the first proper walk we have done since the back operation and the baby was born. And in fact, thinking about it, it is possibly the first hike I have done since about October last year which is kind of shocking. But then in November it was all about skiing, and January until now has been a medical write off.  So, anyway, it had been a long time and I can hardly express how happy I was to be back among the hills. This great sense of wellbeing was only enhanced by enjoying it in the company of my lovely family. The older kids were delighted to be going hiking - as soon as they had finished their breakfasts they sped upstairs to get on their kit, filled up their back packs with their jumpers and camelpack water carriers, cameras were given new batteries and before we knew it, they were lounging about waiting for us on the sofa - how often does that happen? We were moving quite slowly after trying valiantly to stay up until 3am to watch England play in the world cup. Net result of this effort was me asleep on the sofa with a sore neck and husband unconscious upstairs in the wrong bed having broken his six-week beer break with four beers that resulted in him feeling rancid for the duration of the hike. So we were both moving quite slowly to get out the door, and were in fact pretty happy with ourselves for leaving at 10.08 instead of the previously planned 8.30am.

One of the most amazing things about the mountains is not just their awe inspiring large-and-rocky-ness, but the tiny details that you notice when you are walking on them. These details are things that you never see if you are bumping over them in a 4WD truck. It is only when you are plodding along, looking at your feet because the going is tricky, that you see a lot of the floral treasures that abound here, such as the purple flower above.

I am not a botanist, and I have not yet found my wild flower book in Russian which I purchased at the last hiking pot luck lunch, so I cannot identify any of them yet. If truth be told, I will most likely not look them up until asked to do so!

Check out this one on the right! It looks like a "Space Cow Pat", then you think it might be a lichen, and in fact, it is quite fleshy, like a kind of non-prickly cactussy thing - weird. There are lots of them.

If I was a plant up there, I would probably adopt the 'space cow pat' look myself - stay low, get out of the wind, hunker down and just survive, but try to look a bit funky. It is blimming parky up there even now in late June. We left town and it was a comfortable 27 degrees outside. By the time we parked, the temperature had dropped, according to our in-car thermometer, to just 12 degrees. And with wind chill and more cloud, it can only have been about 8 or 9 degrees, much lower at night.

In one walk, we saw purple, red, yellow, white, black, pale blue (the only ones I knew the name of I think, possibly forget-me-nots but couldn't tell you their real name), orange, pink, violet and creamy-coloured flowers in absolute abundance. We heard an eagle or a kite calling in the wind, and we marvelled at the misty mountain sides and huge piles of dirty snow that had still not melted. We walked as far as the 3100 m marker, had a picnic and then turned back to the car. It was a brilliant day. The toddler walked all the way up with a little encouragement, the baby behaved herself and the other kids (we had a friend of the oldest in tow) all mooched along very happily, chatting and making up great chants to keep themselves going:

Left! Left! I have no clean pants left!
Right! Right! My pants are rather tight!

Here are some more non-botanist flower photos.

        

        

And here are some more photos from that walk: 

First one, driving down the road again. Behind the row of pine trees is Chimbulak ski resort

Up near the dam (to prevent mud slides and avalanches picking up speed and hitting the city, apparently) some satisfyingly soviet graffiti - but very new...

The classic advert for a mountain car rescue service is the next one. If your 4WD has a puncture and you don't know how to fix it, do not fear, for a convertible full of scantily-clad prostitutes will come and change the tyre for you. Not, as you may expect, a stubbly-faced, cigarette-smoking, grumpy bastard who will take hours to arrive and charge you hundreds of dollars for the privilege!

Total Denial

It is one thing to miss a period and thus enjoy a long-awaited holiday in France with uninterrupted nookie with husband, but quite another when you realise that this missed menstruation almost certainly means that you are pregnant again, with child number four.

Oh lord, four? How can I possibly manage four? Three is bad enough at times. My life usually feels like I am on a hamster wheel, never quite getting over the top of the hill which is within my sights but somehow never getting any closer to the summit no matter how fast I peddle.

And then, from time to time, a window of light opens up. Perhaps the two eldest are at school, the toddler is asleep, and I am able to quietly get on the internet, do those jobs that have been hanging around for 10 days undone, wrap those presents, post those letters, do that admin, weed the garden, make supper for the family in advance, so that when the girls get home from school we play badminton in the garden, or do a puzzle while a luscious pasta bake bubbles in the oven, filling the house with a delightful homely smell. Then life is sweet, I feel in control, that I am doing a reasonable job as a mother and home maker, and not just winging it.

I waver between thinking everything is going fine, and feeling like I am drowning in a sea of toys and baby wipes.

I spend half my time feeling that I am so lucky, my husband has a great job, works incredibly hard and is utterly dedicated to his brood. He is Scottish, sensible with money which he understands (I don't really get it), and has spent decades putting his career together with reasonable success. I shouldn't really worry too much about money. We have more than enough to live. We enjoy a high standard of living.

The other half of the time, I may wake in the middle of the night, utterly fretting about cash. How will we ever be able to retire? Will we ever pay for a decent roof over our heads? If we continue to live where we do now (Kazakhstan), we may have to look at boarding school for the kids when they are older. I know they won't all go at the same time, but that is 25 grand a year just for fees, never mind flights home for holidays. Oh god! And with this news, it will all be times FOUR?

So I decide that I am probably just late this month. No problem. I will come on a bit later. Just a blip.

Two weeks pass. No sign. I am stocked up with tampons ready for the onslaught, but they are only getting used by toddler as she helpfully "unpacks" my entire suitcase for me one day.

A month passes. I am officially a month late.

"You know, you are pregnant, don't you?" says my husband.

"Oh well, no, I expect I am just late a bit, you know," I mutter, pulling up tent pegs at the end of the trip.

"Aren't you going to do a test?" he asked.

"Yes, I'll get one in England. You can get those ones now that tell you the date of conception," I say.

We make our way back to England and my husband flies back to Kazakhstan and goes back to work. We make our camp  at my mother's house for a few weeks of British Summer beach (this year mainly in the rain), ice creams and feeding the ducks.

Taking it easy on the coffee and beer, my mother disapprovingly says, "I hope you're not pregnant again. I think you have more than enough on your plate, don't you?"

"Oh, no chance of that," I scoff, realising that she has already more or less sussed that I am up the duff (I am 37 years old, why do I still behave like a teenager in her presense?).

I decide it is far to risky to buy pregnancy vitamins and a pregnancy test, in case my mother sees the packet and confronts me, so I do neither.

Three weeks later I come home to Kazakhstan and finally make an appointment to go to the doctor. We do a pregnancy test, and he confirms that I am, in fact, pregnant. I text husband. I AM UP THE DUFF. He calls me laughing, "We both know you are, I can't believe you have waited all this time to do a test."

I am still not sure. Having had a couple of miscarriages, I am very suspicious of my little bleeding spell. It is far too early to feel anything at all, so I won't believe that I am actually really properly pregnant until I see the ultra sound and the gynacologist tells me that I am. At the clinic they have an appointment for a scan later that afternoon. There is no putting off the moment of truth.

The russian gyny has an interesting and very soviet approach to human relationships. Her language is uncompromising.

I fill her in on my history of pregnancies, births etc (this is my sixth pregnancy, for heaven's sake).

"So you will monitor this pregnancy in Almaty or in Abroad?" she asks. Many foreigners go to their home countries to have their babies from here as the facilities are sometimes a bit basic, and certainly the bed side manner may be very different to what you may expect.

"Well, probably here," I say, "I have already got three kids, it will be a bit complicated to leave them all here," I say, glumly, the memory of my miscarriage operation in an Almaty clinic last October still fairly fresh in my mind.

"So you will have born [sic] or will be medical abortion?" she asks. My husband snorts with laughter.
I look at her, to make sure I have understood what she meant, and reply,"Born."

Then we do the ultrasound and see a perfectly healthy, normal-looking, 14-week-old (14 weeks!!!!) foetus wriggling around. My husband is delighted. I am still very ambivalent. It is a weird feeling. I am waiting for the joy to kick in, but full of so much apprehension about becoming such a large family, another four years of small people being the entire focus, another four years at least of not really being able to take advantage of most job opportunities. Having to buy six airline tickets every time want to go anywhere. Six tickets - oh my god. We won't fit in a normal car, we will barely squeeze into a family-sized tent. Panic.

What is the matter with me?