Mission plan

We have a mission. We have the attack clones, now we have our mission. We've decided while we are here in Britain, to try and spend the holidays that take place in this country visiting the various British major island groups. So far we have been to the Isle of Wight and to the Inner Hebrides; specifically, the Isle of Mull. That takes care of two of them. What do we have left? Well, the Outer Hebrides obviously, the Shetland Islands, and the Orkney Islands in Scotland for a start. If we get through all of those, we can start to work on all the little "Firth" groups up there. The Isles of Scilly and the Islands of Furness in England. Anglesey in Wales and then the separate islands of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Oh, a visit to Northern Ireland too. I think I've covered the major ones, because there are thousands of little islands around the British Isles. But if I've left something out, please let me know. I am after all, an uncivilzed colonial who doesn't know any better and I will need to add any missed ones to the list.

Why the mission? Because I think it's a good way to get to know the country we are living in. We might be here for just another few years, we might end up spending the rest of our days here, but either way, I wouldn't like it if at the end, I couldn't say I had seen a variety of places around the country. Our families live far away, so that will always slow us down from exploring locally, but local exploration does need to be done.

So if you have any great tips or ideas of when to visit any of these places, where to stay or the address of your great-aunt Bessie who would love to have cake and tea with us while we are visiting near her, let me know. The mission has started.

A Package to the Future

We are redoing the floors in our house, replacing the carpet with new floor boards. G and his dad found a few pages of newspaper under the boards in the living room dated May 31, 1974. It's from the Maidenhead Advertiser, the local once a week paper. The pages are quite interesting. Let me quote you one of the ads of a house for sale: 

"COOKHAM DEAN: This charming semi-detached cottage is situated on high ground ina semi rual area, overlooking orchards. Complete renovation has been carried out, including a new kitchen and a new bathroom. Two bedrooms, bathroom, lounge, dining room, modern fully fitted kitchen, ample space for a car, large gardens. Central heating. £15,000." Just so you know, a house described like that would now go for around £320,000 pounds today! 

The ads for help wanted are good too. They advertise specifically by gender if they want, even listing a different salary, depending on whether you are male or female. An audio typist (female) with Black & Decker would have earned £26.34 per week. Part-time help at Marks and Spencer earned 52 pence an hour. They did have the benefit of a 3-course lunch for only 5p at least, amongst other things.

We thought it was kind of nifty to find these things, so we decided to make up a time capsule to put under the floor before we lay the new boards. I was pretty keen and eager with this and if we had had more time or thought of it earlier, I would have gotten all high-tech with the container and found lots of fun stuff to put into it. But the boards can't wait and we didn't think of it earlier, so what we have will have to do. Here's the letter I put into it, minus some personal details:

"April 28, 2009

 Dear Finder,

 I am writing to you from the past. How far in your past I can’t say, but past it definitely is. We are laying new floorboards in our house (address) and after finding bits of the past under the old boards, thought it would be a fun idea to leave some more history for others to find. I don’t know if it will be us to find it in 4 years, or some total others to find it 40 years. I just hope you enjoy the information and things we’ve provided for you to get a glimpse into our lives and the world of 2009.

 We are a 3, soon to be 4 person family. My name is A. I’m 37 years old and was born in Canada. My husband’s name is G. He’s 30 and was born in Australia. We met and married in Munich Germany when we were both living there and moved to the UK in October 2006. Our daughter is Lena and she is 2 years old. We have another child due at the end of July and I feel a bit sad that I can’t include any information about him (we were told it’s a boy after having my 20 week ultrasound scan). But the floors can’t wait until then to be finished.

A bit about what is happening in the world today. The main story of today is the start of a scare about swine flu. Over 100 people in Mexico City have died so far and cases have been confirmed in the U.S.A., Canada, the U.K., Israel and New Zealand, among others. So far, no one outside of Mexico has died of the flu, but the World Health Organisation has raised its pandemic threat level from 3 (where it has been for ages due to possible risk of bird flu for the past few years) to 4. The max is 6, which is global pandemic. I’m not worried yet, but I did pick up a few extra groceries and disinfecting hand gel today, just in case. When people in places other than Mexico start to die, then I will start to worry. The really potentially scary thing about this flu is that people from ages 20-50 have been the ones who have died, not the very young or old. That’s the age group who died in the 1918 pandemic, so it’s something I will be paying attention to for the next week or so.

Our hobbies right now include gardening, cricket, music and cooking. We love living in Cookham, as we find it is a peaceful village, quite different from the hustle and bustle of London. We often go for walks along the river, or up the hill to the pub, The Jolly Farmer, where we enjoy a pint or two and then head home.

I’ve included an inventory list on another piece of paper to help you identify some of the things in this time capsule. Please try and contact us when you find this, we would love to hear from you. Here are our contact details at the moment.

email addresses: a@gmail.com, g@gmail.com, l@gmail.com (no, Lena doesn’t write emails at the young age of 2, but depending on when this capsule is found, she might be a better contact for the future)

website: http://cloneattack.blogspot.com

I hope that’s enough to find us. Enjoy this little slice of history and good luck with your lives and future."

Included with the letter was the inventory list, a current picture of the 3 of us, the grocery order list from Tescos that was delivered today, the first few pages of The Daily Mail and a central bit about St. George’s Day, just past. (We aren’t regular readers of The Daily Mail, which is generally considered to be fairly right in politics and conservative in beliefs. More they had the best freebie giveaway out of the papers on the weekend. It has some information on the swine flu and some current sports news.) A brochure for Rebellion Beer Co. Our local microbrewery just across the river in Marlow Bottom. Some pages again from the current issue of The Maidenhead Advertiser, including the news from the Cookhams, house prices and some help wanted ads. And finally some coins. Some Aussie and Canadian ones since we are, and some British and Euro coins. We figure there's a good chance one of the last two won't exist anymore at some time in the future, so it could be worth something. 

It all got put into a box that arrived today in the mail from Munich (thanks for returning the books Inessa, you are far more efficient than I ever will be), then wrapped it in plastic and tucked it under the boards. Tomorrow it will be nailed in and within the next few days, sealed off until an unknown time in the future. Here's a picture of it just before it got put under the old boards. 

I'm actually pretty excited about this, and hope that it is eventually found and that we are all still around for the future finders to locate us. I'm in a good place in my life right now and to get a reminder of it at some point in the future is something to look forward to. 

Grand European Tour - with child

Once again, we have been on holidays. This may seem rather excessive to some, but I always say everyone makes their own choices in life. We live in a small house, only have one car and live well within our means. We choose to spend our money on travel. Others make other choices and that's their choice. Plus, if we didn't travel, we'd hardly ever see any of our family or friends. So this trip was a trip around Europe to see friends scattered around the continent. We were in France, Switzerland, Germany and The Netherlands. Only Italy was missing for the classic Grand Tour. We took our car and did around 3720 km or 2310 miles. We were gone 16 days in total. Sounds a bit insane to most people, but the trip went exceedingly well. No major meltdowns along the way, we saw and did lots. Some tips if you think you are crazy enough to try it yourself.

Our daughter was 19 months old for this trip and still takes a long nap every day. So we tried to plan most of the driving to happen over this nap so that she didn't get too bored. Children nowadays are so strapped down into their seats, it's hardly a wonder they get bored, despite all the distractions. When I was a kid, I could move around, change position, fight with my sister and stretch out for a nap which helped make long journeys easier. As we went through the trip, we saw that so much driving would never have worked without these naps. So if your kids are past napping, I'd reconsider so much driving. Maybe some things like DVD players or such would help keep them occupied, I couldn't say at this stage.

We tried to break up 2 days driving with at least 2 overnights in the same spot. That way there wasn't a constant packing and unpacking of stuff, plus some consistency in location. The longer you can stay in one spot, the better. And other than one major drive of 6.5 hours (which took 10 hours with breaks), the most driving we did on any one day was 3.5 hours.

Accept the fact that you are going to explore a new town via its playgrounds and parks.

Packing was tough, but we went as light as possible. G and I shared one suitcase and laundry had to be done along the way. Having a super-light and small travel tent for Lena was good for packing. Everything we packed, we used, but even so, the back of our little hatchback was full. In fact, G was the only one who could properly pack it. Anytime I tried to do it, it was piled too high to see out of the back window.

We took a cool bag that we kept stocked with both things Lena liked for snacks and things for lunch for all of us. This saved us both time and money by not stopping in a cafe or restaurant to eat or being forced to buy expensive food from the highway gas stations.

For goodness sake, don't forget whatever blankets, lovies, teddies or dollies makes your child feel secure. Lena is pretty easygoing, but with all the changes in location and new people, she was very attached to her blanket and her "nu-nu" (dummy/soother as she calls it) during the time. I was a bit worried at first with her having them so much, I thought she would become too dependant on them even after the trip. However the day we came back, she hardly needed them at all. Having them at her beck and call during the trip offered her a good deal comfort.

If you are interested in a rough picture of what we drove, check out this link of our driving route.

Once again, thanks to everyone we stayed with and good to see all of you.