MY FIRST IMPRESSION OF LONDON is of a city with warm-shinned folk. Everyone appeared to be wearing leg-warmers! (Well, not the businessman but you never know what lies beneath a good suit …) I love leg-warmers. Ever since the movie FAME inspired me to split-leap across the loungeroom and name the cat Leroy I have loved leg-warmers. Now I had found a whole city of kin, a Mecca for all those that love 80’s dance movies. Hoorah.

THE THING I LOVE ABOUT LONDON is the statues. Well, to be precise, the pigeons pooing on the statues. I love the irony of it. These Great Men of History given the granity honor of commemoration, only to suffer the final fate of being happily pooed on by dirty birds, Forever Amen. I don’t know why (perhaps my anti-establishment humour comes from being Australian) but looking up at those birds makes me feel warm, happy and naughty.
Between the pigeons and the leg-warmers, I like London.

WE STUMBLE out of Kings Cross station with the weight of our luggage and the stupour of an early morning start. Spotting a double decker bus with “Euston Road” as it’s destination I wink and whisper to Timshel “This ere is Monopoly Board country”. (Australians play with the English version of Monopoly). We have a few hours to spare before we have to make our way out to the suburbs for the night. We will have to get the tube out to the suburbs but decide to walk in the general direction of our friend Sarah’s house.

We are in London!
The setting of so many books read, the place of many heroes born. We start singing all of the songs we know that mention London. I bully Timshel into taking a photo of me leaping out of a red phonebox. We spot the river Thames on our map and decide to visit. As if to further impress me of the importance of this great city, I discover little gold plaques on almost every corner announcing that Dickens was born in this house, The Earl of Sandwhich made his first sandwhich here, or Prince Charles once held a conversation with a violet in the back bedroom of this bedsit.

AS WE WALK THROUGH GREY STREETS, I start to notice the signs of the city: stinky bins, grumpy commuters, torn billboards and parked cars. Just as I am thinking “It is just another city”, Timshel pipes up with “Parts of this place could be Melbourne, you know”. Not wanting to sound like an American tourist (“Why Melbourne’s just like Seattle back home, only smaller”), I agree very quietly. We discuss how the feeling of anti-climax coupled with excitement seems to be part of our travelling experience.

As we walk further, my feeling of “This looks like any city, anywhere” diminishes. The most beautiful buildings seem to appear suddenly like a gorgeous sunset over the crest of a hill. Like Edinburgh, London is greedy when it comes to gorgeous buildings. Fine examples of classic architecture house the most boring of institutions; a building that would be a state library at home is the “Centre for Dentist Education”. Some buildings are so ornate I want to giggle or turn to a stranger next to me and say “Is that building for real?”

AFTER A GOOD AMOUNT OF POINTING AND SQUEALING, (ok, I squeal, Timshel grunts) we find the nearest sign for the tube and descend into it’s airless belly. Getting from the centre of London to our friends place in the suburbs on the tube proves frustrating, largely due to the amount of stairs we have to negotiate. We are a bit lost and each change of platform necessitates several new sets of stairs which see us perform a little public dance of bumped shins, swearwords and grunting. I get grumpier and mumblier as our journey progresses, and when a woman carrying a toddler and a stroller corners me in the darkness with the appeal “Do you know where a lift would be?” I feel like grabbing her in desperation.

“You’re asking me where the lifts are? You’re English, you tell me where the bloody lifts are! How can you possibly function as a society when your major public transport system is totally inaccessible by half the population? No wonder your birth rate is down, who would have kids in this country if it meant staying home for the first five years of their life! And what about the elderly, people in wheelchairs, the stair-phobic or those with really big feet or ear infections ?”

Luckily I do not submit the poor woman to my tirade. I just say “No, I haven’t seen any lifts”.
I watch her find the nearest stairs, and start to climb with the toddler on one hip and the stroller strung over her shoulder with a wide strap. I turn to Timshel and say
“I should help her, she’s alone” but dither about too much and then she is gone.

Leave north of England on train bound for London

Frollick around London for a day

Stay the night at Tony and Sarah’s place in suburbs of London

Leave very early for airport

Catch a plane to spain

Meet Chris and Claire at airport, and travel to their home on the northern coast of Spain.

Tuesday’s IN-BOX

“Well…as Chris said we are here in spain for just a couple more weeks heading back to England around the 20th March before heading back to Australia. A real bum poo as we are in an idealic spot….BUT….we would LOVE to see you and if you wanted to jump on the next plane over here for a brief splash of spanish sun and a taste of greater europe you’d be more than welcome …”

That was the paragraph that changed everything. (dum dum daaaaa)

This too-tempting invitation from good friends Chris and Claire sent us scrambling for the phone and the laptop. One phonecall to Timshel’s work to ascertain the urgency of his current project, another phonecall to Chris and Claire to say “Really?” followed by internet research on fares, tickets, timetables, arrival times, airports and maps maps maps. A constant rally of “Should we? Shouldn’t we go?” was played as we dialled, clicked, flicked and scanned.

If we wanted to go we would have to leave Friday morning. We could catch a train to London, stay the night in London and then leave first thing the next day to catch a bus to Standsted airport. The flight to Spain takes two hours. Chris and Claire could pick us up from the airport and drive us to their home in Comillas, a small fishing village. We would stay a week and then leave three days before Chris and Claire were due to leave the country.
“Should we? Shouldn’t we?”

We agreed to cost our little excursion.
It seems that the kind of fun spontaneity that sees you ‘popping off to a Spanish villa” costs muchos Euros. No bargain travel deals for us. As well as expensive train, plane and bus fares, the logistics of getting to a relatively remote part of Spain would necessitate an overnight stay in London.
“Should we go? Shouldn’t we?”

We decided to contact some friends in London to see if we could stay the night with them. (The thought of catching up with some familiar faces was very exciting too!) Our friends were excited about the possibility of us coming to stay but also warned “It is a bit of a party-house”. Our mates from Melbourne, Sarah and Tony Venz, live with 10 other Australians. Looking at the bare facts (let alone the reputation of party hungry young Australians in London) we agreed that it would not be ideal accommodation for a couple with a young child. Then we researched overnight accommodation in London. The most basic (read stinky loud hostel) rate was £80 for the three of us. Converted to Australian dollars, this is around $180. $180 for a room that smells like a lad named Barry who has hates baths and loves curry.
“Should we? Shouldn’t we?”
It seemed that neither of our accommodation options were ideal. It would be lovely to see Tony and Sarah but what if we were kept awake all night by a bloke named Bazza? After some discussion (purely theoretical at this stage) we agree that staying with our friends may be the better option. Our reasoning is that yes, there is a risk of Bazza, Shazza and Gazza being loud but at least we don’t have to pay the privilege of their good company. I have had some awful hostel experiences in the past and don’t want to have to PAY for Bazza, Shazza and Gazza in a Barry-smelling room.

Wednesday

I argue that this is an amazing opportunity to see a non-touristy part of northern Spain, with good friends as our hosts. “It will be fun to share in a part of the life that Chris and Claire have been living!”
Timshel is looking at our bank balance, then at a piece of paper with the estimate of the trip costs, and muttering under his breath.

9 am, Thursday

¡Olé!
I am packing and humming a little happy song. Timshel is scowling and shaking his head every now and then. I bite my lip and leave the room but on my return find him bent over a map of Spain with an excited little grin. We are apathetic and excited and … going! We are taking the laptop so Timshel can sit on a sun-drenched balcony, drinking Sangria and (languidly) continue working his programming job. Reuben and I will pick olives and go into town for tapas.

9 pm, Thursday

We are packing light (yeah ha ha ha) as most of the space in our pack is taken up with a car seat for Reuben. We are keen to take up Chris and Claire’s offer of an airport pick-up but will need a car seat for the 40 minute journey. I would rather carry a booster seat to Spain then resort to taking the bus, which has no seatbelts anyway, or risk travelling without a car seat. I have been emailing Spanish car hire companies to see if any of them would let us a hire a car seat without hiring a car. No luck.

Friday departure

After our latest attempt at international travel, we are keen to avoid the panic of running late. So we race out of the house with our toast in a paper bag and coats under our arms in an effort to catch a bus that will deliver us to the station with an hour to spare. As I sit watching drizzle fall on the platform of Durham station eating cold toast in a pre-coffee haze, I contemplate the irony of this.
Timshel is lent over the laptop preparing a platform-hack: the first class carriage of the train to London has free internet access and we have been informed by (un)reliable sources that if you stand just outside of the first class carriage when it pulls into the station you can log in. Hey presto, free internet for all the plebs! Our (un)reliable source is a mate who studies Canon law with Paul. Paul assures us this is not a sinful act as his Canon lawyer friend has put a good deal of work into making it justifiable. So, here I sit with a husband engaging in illegal activity, a sleeping baby and hanging pot plants that sway when the trains rush through. We are London-bound and beyond that, SPAIN! Eeeeeee.

In England, one does not walk or hike, one rambles. So Timshel and I will celebrate our safe arrival in England with a ramble around our local area. Would you like to join us?
(apologies to all our friends with dial up connection; it may be a slow ramble as the images take a while to download)

	Our first step? Ensure baby is warm and has adequate (i.e. copious) food supply.
	Where are we? I hear you ask. We are in the north of England, near the ancient city of Durham.
	Where are we going on this bright afternoon? We will ramble down to our closest village, the village of Esh
	where we will check the messages board at the post office,
	admire the back of the Anglican church,
	and peer at the sign in the front of the church.
	Esh is a very small village. There is not much more to look at so we begin the walk home. Just as I am thinking about the nice cups of hot chocolate I will make for us, Timshel suddenly veers off the footpath and starts bounding to the nearest drystone wall. There is a gap in the wall, an ancient stile, and a little sign above that says “Public footpath”. “It’s a bridle path! I’ve read about these. They’re a series of little tracks that anyone can use, despite the fact they pass through private farms and properties. They’re great!” As we lift the baby over the stile and onto the rough track that winds through a field, I enquire “Does this mean we may get stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere?” “Maybe” says Timshel.
	After a bit of trudging, we stop at the next stile for a break. Timshel tries to warm Reuben’s hands by giving them a brisk rub which Reuben thinks is hilarious. He laughs and holds out his hands for more. Another game invented.
	Oh my goodness! The sun has come out! (a rare event)
	When we resume our rambling, the track is uneven and it is difficult to push the pushchair (buggy, stroller etc).
	So we abandon it.
	In favour of a good ol’ fashioned shoulder-ride.
	After much pointing and squinting at distant hills, we figure out how to get home. We see our house and think “WARMTH!” Then we hit a brick wall. Well, a drystone wall. A drystone wall that Timshel won’t let me climb “It’s a work of art shelley, you can’t just clamber over it”. So more rambling. For the sake of art.
	This is a photo of me carrying our VERY HEAVY baby boy. I am walking AWAY from our house which sits JUST behind a drystone wall.
	Reuben, being a sensitive child, senses his parent’s exhaustion and helpfully suggests that he push the pushchair. He successfully covers 4 metres in 40 minutes. In the wrong direction.
	So with night (and dark clouds) approaching Timshel suggests that he take over. Reuben is less than satisfied with this arrangement.
	We hit rough terrain: this unique road surface is the result of cattle hooves and sub-zero temperatures. The ground has frozen into perfect hoof-holes. “Go Timshel Go!” we chant.
	Up and Over again!
	Weeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh!! we hit the smooth ground and pick up speed.
	As we reach the last gate of the bridle path Timshel suggests I put the camera down and help him manover the gate. I feel that this would compromise my art however, so I decline the offer gracefully and do my best to capture his (unbridled) aggression on film.
	HOME! I tell the butler to warm my slippers, instruct the cook to warm the kippers, and fire the squire because I’m cranky. I quite like being an English lady.
	Now that we’re safe and warm. Have you noticed that it has started snowing outside?

Slept in!
I woke up, looked at the clock and groaned. Timshel and I had slept in on the day we were due to leave Scotland!
The residents of Edinburgh were thus treated to early morning sight of two frowning power-walking parents, one with buttons in the wrong button holes, the other with bed-hair, pushing:

1. a baby in a buggy (‘stroller’ for the non-British among you) looking like a battered sav in his roll of blankets.
2. a whimpering bike trailer, barely visible under the weight of two 20kg backpacks, two panniers, a small backpack and some gloves and scarves that we didn’t have time to put on.

One minute to spare
The start of our 30 minute journey to the train station saw us travelling Indian file, heads down, walking fast, muttering quietly
Left the shampoo in the bathroom, dang. Forgot to check under the bed for Reuben’s red sock go, poo.
Timshel, pushing the bike trailer, had to constantly stop to let oncoming people through as the trailer took up the entire (very narrow) footpath. Then the footpath widened as we entered the avenue into town, the clouds cleared, and we were able to walk alongside each other and exchange excited Aren’t we crazy grins.

There is a pattern to the way we travel as a couple; Aren’t we crazy grins grins usually come just after Things are crazy bickerings, and just before I can’t believe we pulled that one off faces.

With four minutes to spare, we arrived at the station. With three minutes to spare, we discovered that the ticket machine wouldn’t recognise our reserved tickets. With one minute to spare we made it onto the right platform with tickets in hand. Interested commuters looked on whilst one parent, with vegemite on her cheek, put the brakes on the stroller and started pulling backpacks out of the bike trailer whilst the other parent, with one shoelace undone, started creating a small mountain of luggage in the middle of the platform. Stepping around the mountain a smiling station attendant approached us and chirped
Awful lot of luggage you have there.

Awful lot of luggage
We did have a lot of gear. We were moving to England. If we were bike-touring or back-packing, I would never contemplate trying to travel with this much stuff but we were trying to LIVE overseas for a year, and given that we were living off our Australian dollars the temptation to keep what we had rather than buy stuff with pounds was rather strong.
You know it’s general policy to only take on the train what you can carry announced the attendant. We grimaced, and while struggling to fold up the bike trailer, explained that we had, in fact, talked to railway staff days ago as we were concerned about exceeding baggage limit. We had been told there would be no problems.
Oh you must have talked to GNER staff, this is a Virgin train, he replied.
But we booked our tickets through GNER we protested.
Well, the trains can only take so much weight. It’s like aircraft travel. If we exceed certain weights, it affects our safety.
As I wrestled to unclip a pannier clip that had got caught on Reuben’s shoe, I felt a flicker of fear and found myself thinking
If he doesn’t let us get on this train, I’ll chuck a nancy…

The attendent watched with interest as Timshel removed the wheels of the trailer, and folded them into the body of trailer. I glanced worriedly down the tracks. He lowered his voice
I don’t mean to be a pain or anything, it’s just that we have to put a limit on things somehow.
He then turned and walked off. He talk four steps, and then double-backed.
Listen, if you get on carriage G, there is a baggage space at the back. Put your stuff in there, and then find your seats later.
He smiled and then was gone as the train pulled up.

Get on board NOW!
We located the right carriage, with luggage space as promised. Timshel wrestled the trailer on board whilst carrying the heaviest pack, I lifted the stroller into the train and returned for the rest of our luggage. I was still on the platform when the whistle blew and an attendent started waving a paddle-shaped instrument that seemed to suggest Get on board NOW!. I grabbed the last of our luggage and jumped onto the nearest carriage. I hoped Timshel knew that I was on board. I found Timshel and Reuben underneath a pile of luggage several carriages later. We organised our luggage, found seats and as the suburbs of Edinburgh whizzed past, exchanged I can’t believe we pulled that one off faces.

Ghost-tours are much advertised in Edinburgh, all those spooky old haunts with the wind whistling through ancient corridors… I had resisted the temptation.

However, just the other day, I was lost in Edinburgh. So I stopped, parked the stroller outside a shop that was being renovated and pulled out my map. I was attempting to find by bearings by turning the map in different directions when I heard a tap on the glass window of the shop. Turning my head to look into the shop I saw a big bloke with a painting drop-sheet over his head.
“Whoooooo whoooooooo” he said, waving his arms within the confines of the sheet. Behind him, a bloke in overalls was doubled-over in giggles. I paused for a moment at the sureality of the scene before bursting into laughter.
I kept walking down the street and chuckling to myself for a good two blocks. Then I realised I was still lost and stopped.

They’ve got a good sense of humour, those Scots.

Thanks for your email, Janet.

No need to apologise for your message being a short one. I have been writing short, unpunctuated, slighty illiterate, staccato emails since Timshel returned to ‘work’ ten days ago. Naps are the only chance to write. Ten days of lovingly reading my golden-haired cherub a golden-book, singing sweet lullabies until his eyelids grow heavy, and then sprinting like buggery to get to the laptop.

I have been thinking a bit about parenting lately and have come to the conclusion that parents rock. I think they are wonderful. (Naturally, I include myself in this sweeping generalisation.)
It’s just that parenting is such bloody hard work! That had been my experience, but living with our Edinburgh family (mum, dad, 3 kids) made me realise that no, I wasn’t doing it wrong: it really is long hours and hard yakka. Daniel, Robert and Francis are 10, 8, and 4 respectively and although they are really well-behaved (and gorgeous) kids, the work of parenting still keeps their parents (David and Marie Lousie) busy until about 9.00-9.30 at night. I would put Reuben to bed at 8, collapse in a relieved heap to watch Scottish television dramas and notice that they were still at it!

It’s not just the hours either, it’s the constant caring for other people bit that I admire. David (the Dad) came back from staffing a school camp REALLY EXCITED because he had had a cooked breakfast appear magically on his table every morning. He was like “I didn’t even have to cook it, it would just ‘appear!’” I so understood his reaction: after a year of grappling with the fact that I have to get breakfast for myself and OTHER people EVERY morning, I can understand that it’s not just the scrambled eggs he appreciated, it’s the fact that HE didn’t have to scramble them.
Just as I began asking myself “What makes normal people give up their freedom to tolerate a ‘work-fun” ratio of 1:25?” I realised it’s a dodgy question to ask because parenting is great fun. It’s just a more in-house kind of fun, than say, sea-kayaking.

I’m 14 months into the role of parenting, loving it, but still casting wistful looks at the kayak in the corner. “Vanuatu’s only 500km off the coast of NSW…” So I’m impressed that most parents seem to put in the hours quietly and constantly without (or despite) a lust for grass skirts and blue seas. I think they deserve a cup of tea and a good lie down. And a trip to Vanuatu.

Sorry I can’t be there to make you a cup of tea.
Love Shelley.

p.s. attached is photo of your baby girl casually eating grass.

Disclaimer: Those sensitive to the over-supply of information concerning others physical ailments and bowel movements may wish to avoid reading the following entry.

We have had a run of bad health. Very ill.

The baby was the first to show symptoms.
“AAAhhh stinky nappy. Reuben has diarrhoea. Oh, what a smell! Quick Timshel, open the window!”
“Argghhh it’s freezing out there. Please Timshel, close the window.”
“Ohhhh, it’s really stinky. You’ll have to open it again.”
and so on. and so forth.

Two days later, I went to bed with a headache and woke up with a mad dash to the bathroom which left me giddy and groping for the toilet in a state of black spotty blindness. Vomiting, diarrhoea, sore muscles, throbbing headache. Timshel not feeling too brilliant either.
Feel awful in body and soul because the Igoe-Cochrane family have been such generous hosts (and great friends) and to repay them by disintegrating into the houseguests from hell hardly seems fair.

If we are not moaning on the couch, we are moaning at each other
“You change his nappy, I’m too nauseas. Well, I’m all woozy, can’t you do it?”.
We also hog the bathroom for hours on end, making strange noises and putrid smells that slide under the door and seek to fill every corner of the flat. I fear that weeks after we leave the Igoe-Cochranes will receive guests who enter the flat, scrunch up their noses and exclaim
“What is that smell?”
To which the Marie Louise and David will explain
“We had Australians all through the house. We’ve fumigated twice but the smell is still in the carpets.”

Woke up this morning and decided that TODAY was the day to go op-shopping for warm clothes. Yesterday’s exploration of Edinburgh with Reuben saw us freezing in the rain, hail and icy winds. Trudging over puddled cobblestones with the hail bouncing off my soggy beanie, I silently vowed to NEVER AGAIN go out in inclement weather unless better prepared. So ACTION STATIONS, a’ op-shopping we will go. I’m thinking balaclavas, ski-overalls, and those coats that look like sleeping bags with arms.

Of course, going anywhere with a baby/toddler takes a while.
So first I must wade through the preparatory tasks;

• breakfast (includes lesson for baby in how to eat with a spoon)
• clean up (includes hosing down of all surfaces that suffered the results of spoon-mismanagement)
• wash up (punctuated with swift movements to and fro various rooms to plot baby’s trail of destruction)
• change nappy (despite protestations)
• dress baby (despite rigorous wriggling)
• pack nappy bag
• pack food bag
• pack shelley bag (purse, cash, glasses, keys blah blah)
• dress baby in additional cardigan, coat, scarf and hat (despite back-arching reluctance from Reuben)
• take stroller and bags down 2 flights of stairs
• return to take baby down 2 flights of stairs
• unfold stroller and insert baby in stroller (threading various limbs through relevant straps)
• put on my own coat, scarf, beanie and gloves

Now ready, I open the front door.

It’s raining.
Hard.

The Celts have a strong and powerful spirituality. As I trudge upstairs I ponder that perhaps this is because the weather is so bad, there is nothing to do but go inside and pray for better weather.

 

 

Our Edinburgh adventures started with a trip to the good people of Mac. I would like to say that the good people of Mac are an ancient clan of piping, black-puddin eatin kilt-makers with red beards and a tendency to shout a lot. But no. It was an excursion to see a pimply faced teen who pressed a few keys and revived our dead Macintosh laptop. Bless ’im.

Next visit turned out to be a taxidermist’s wonderland: the exotic (but very quiet) menagerie of stuffed beasts at Edinburgh Museum. Oh and here’s something I learnt (which the rest of the world may already know) by peering into a box of dirt that had been artfully arranged to suggest a series of little tunnels; moles are TINY. About the size of a mouse, unless the taxidermist ran out of stuffing. I imagined them to be as big as a baby’s arm!

The Igoe-Cochranes middle child, Robert, came with us for our next adventure; a long hike through the back streets of Edinburgh to a swan-bobbing pond at the base of Arthur’ seat. Arthur’s seat is the site of an extinct volcano and rises 250 metres above sea-level. Our original plan was to climb to the top, but after dragging the stroller up 50 metres of a rocky and slodgy hillside, we folded up the stroller, chucked it into a thicket of gorse bush, and staggered to the wind-swept ruins of St.Anthony’ chapel for a rest. With our backs to the bluestone and big relieved grins, we pulled out our packed lunches and made fumbly attempts to unwrap the contents with pink numbed hands. Before us was a wide and generous view of Edinburgh and it’s surrounding seaside suburbs, including Leith where we are staying.