Three times the price of beef

The vet tells me that Milly the dog is seriously under-weight after being away from us for six weeks. Sapphire is seeing a child psychiatrist to discuss her emerging anger about moving across the world and I’m on anti depressants, neglecting this blog terribly.

These are all good things.

Firstly, the pooch. She arrived on Wednesday morning after a twenty seven hour flight that was endured without sedation or food. The thocka-thocka-thocka of her tail against the hard plastic shell of her container was the first sign we had that our furry one was to join us again. “Voila,” the customs bloke said, wheeling her out on a trolley and abruptly departing.

Her container was impossible to open, having been doubly, triply, quadruply fastened with plastic ties commonly used on boxes of paper reams. Customs guy was already gone; another example of a service provider doing the least possible. We eventually flag down a forklift driver who offers us a Stanley knife; Milly’s nose pressing up against the bars eagerly.

The whiff of fear and wee emerges as the door flies open and we’re shocked to see such a bony animal emerge. It’s clearly our dog, but her ribs are painfully visible and the vertebrae on her back protrude like a line of gravel stones. She doesn’t even protest a few minutes later when the taxi driver insists that she be placed back in her container for the drive home.

Secondly, my daughter. Mood swings that include insults, sulking, accusations, heightened versions of old events and heart rending tears. Loneliness, puberty, boredom and fear with behaviour and unpredictability to match. We empathise and sympathise but the lashings are harder and harder to bear.

Our Welfare Officer, assigned by LC’s work, finally shines. This is what she’s good at: people problems, not finding us a good land agent or a bus timetable. She hears LC’s concerns and recommends a child psych who is American and available.

Dr S listens to me, he listens to LC and then he speaks with Sapphire alone. A white noise machine is turned on by his office door so that we only hear murmurings in the waiting room outside. An hour later she emerges. “He understands me,” she says quietly, “and says that things are going to be all right because I’m a smart kid.”

We can see how hard she's trying and I get a small shock when I see her walking around the corner with her father and realise how tall she's becoming. There are bumps still ahead in her road, but mostly progress.

Same with me as issue number three. Frustration and isolation was rapidly turning to despair and self-loathing; feelings that were familiar and unwanted. This time I wasn’t going to suffer needlessly or any longer than was necessary. This move to Switzerland is our life, not a brief holiday and I want to take my full part in it.

I know exactly what medication to ask for and the doctor recognises it. No bumbling French is needed in the pharmacy as I hand over the script. Like beef, the 28 pills cost three times what they would in Australia but I don’t wince.

Two days later my old self returns. Shopping is an outing and not a nightmare. Milly takes to apartment living like a native New Yorker. Sapphire draws this

.......... freehand and sings as she does so. My Achilles behaves itself as it is gingerly tested around our local park and I realise how much we’ve all achieved in a short time when I’m taking a friend-of-a-friend around Geneva and know where I’m going.

That’s all any of us want isn’t it?