About

Dear Reader,

I started this blog when I first arrived in Russia. On arriving in Moscow, I suddenly found not working very hard to adapt to and had nothing to do with my time, apart from looking after a small pooing baby so I wrote this blog as an exercise in writing and as a therapy for coping with life in Moscow. There are thousands of expat blogs and thousands of mummy blogs but few like this one.

I am in Russia for a set period of time. I am married and we live here as expats. We are not wealthy expats on a wonderful relocation package but we survive by the skin of our teeth. 

I have traveled throughout the world and worked in some unusual jobs. I once worked in a gherkin pickle factory in Israel, as a sheep farmer and shepherd in Australia and as a pest controller in America as well as seeing some great places such as Tahiti, Singapore, New Zealand, and Thailand. Prior to leaving the UK, I was a Human Resources & Payroll manager responsible statistics for over 3,000 staff, it bored me to tears. You could say I have tried most things. Done well in some things and failed in others. Life is a journey and far from mundane.

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered:"MAN. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."

I enjoy writing and have had some stuff published on the BBC and in magazines but I still aspire to being a professional writer. I have an interest in travel, sociology and politics. Before I arrived in Moscow, I did some internet searches on expat life in Moscow but the Internet did not produce very much useful information apart from a few strange internet forums that were mostly full of meaningless information. I thought it would be a help to others, if I could write about some key areas that I wanted to know about before I moved to Moscow together with a kind of diary of life as a stay at home dad living in Moscow. Usually wives follow their husbands abroad, rather than husbands following their wives abroad. We are called, 'stay at home dads', 'handbag carriers', 'bums', 'trailing spouses' and other names. Some of us have paid childcare help and some of us do it all ourselves. I mostly do it myself and survive with most of my sanity intact. I am proud of my achievement and encourage other men to try it, if the opportunity arises for a role reversal.

My move to Moscow, is my second country living away from the United Kingdom and also Russia was my first country as a new father. I soon realized, that not many men stay at home as full time parents and not many men follow their wives as stay at home dads and move to Russia. I wanted to share my experiences, both good and bad with you dear reader. I have never written a blog before and don't like to share my private life online with total strangers, but I see my blog as an account of life in Moscow, a travel diary and life as a stay at home dad mixed with life's observations.

I understand that my opinions and experience may not be universal and some people may have different opinions to me, as well as different experiences of life as expats. This is fine and expected, experience is individual. Everything written here is with a humorous twist. I say it how it is, without loyalty to any business or organization.

My hobbies are: Naked free style origami, sleeping upside down, gnome watching and eating vast quantities of food. Sometimes all of these things on any Sunday afternoon, usually after April.

Enough about me, I hope I do not offend anyone in my blog subject matter and if I do, I apologize. However if you are offended by anything here, you may need your head examined. I hope you enjoy reading it and find it a help in some small way. For more info see.

P.S Please make comments on posts if you want to. Unpleasant or nasty comments will not be published or read and you will burn in hell. You can read this blog on your mobile or in your head.

Yours

English dad in Moscow

XXX 

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Important note on content: All English in this blog, is my 'English', mostly British English with some American spelling as the Google spell checker is stuck on US spelling! If you are not a native speaker and reading this blog, the English is real and non text book so some words may be new to you. I type fast, often with a screaming kid pulling at my sleeve, so I am sorry for any typing errors, I am only human. You are welcome to disagree with anything that I have written about but your opinion makes no difference to me. For reasons of privacy, real names and individual photos are not included anywhere on this blog.

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