Category Archives: Journal

an account of our journey, what happens and who we meet

Journal

Day 123: Qantas QUAGMIRE

I am on Qantas QF002 from Singapore to Sydney. Just watched “The First Man”. A somewhat unsung film about the journey that Neil Armstrong took to the moon. 

One of the things that most struck me was how finely tuned the operation was. How little margin for error existed. The fuel in the lunar module was used down to the last 2%. There was hardly enough oxygen in the tanks, while the risk of just spinning out of control was constant. Would such things be tolerated today? Would that spacecraft even take off today?

Every part of that mission seemed to be a hazard, an opportunity for death to befall the crew. John F Kennedy at the time said:

We choose to go to the moon… do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills…

John F Kennedy

I think about today’s era. It’s easy to look at achievements as just another tick in a long line of ticks. Even in the last few days, we see other conquests, like that of Mount Everest now being reduced to a commodity. The photograph was taken by Nirmal Purja of the line of mountaineers waiting to ascend to the mountain’s summit. Although the climb still remains as hard as ever it was, we are desensitised to the notion of difficulty because difficult is trendy rather than life-changing. 

We now have larger margins of error, rather than the metaphorical wing and a prayer that used to be the case. Perhaps there would not be so many climbers if it was a bit harder, or if the uncertainty was higher. What makes that moon trip the most remarkable is not that we did it, but that we did it in those circumstances with the technology of the time.

It seemed strangely relevant to watch that film on an aircraft – itself an implausible looking thing. From the idea of flying thousands of feet above the surface of the earth – to the sound of the wind rushing past outside – to the fact that I just at my dinner in the sky. It would all have seemed like magic in the decades and centuries of the past.

Obviously flying in the sky is just one part of the story. There are processes and systems on the ground, just like Houston launch control in the days when NASA’s space program was more active. I really used to like Qantas. I would drive past Heathrow in the days of past and look at that iconic aircraft tail logo, the red kangaroo, and instantly imagine where it would be going. Alas, my first international flight on such an iconic airline has not been so great.

Check-in. Let’s think about that journey.

  1. Scan your passport
  2. Select passenger
  3. Confirm number of bags
  4. Get the luggage tags
  5. Get the boarding pass, printed on a thin sheet of thermal paper that easily rips
  6. Decrypt sticker system and fix luggage tags to your bags
  7. Go to the luggage machine
  8. Scan your boarding pass
  9. Scan your passport again
  10. Put bag on scale.
  11. Get told to remove bag from scale and replace in a tray
  12. Get told that the handles are sticking out, remove it and start again from 10.
  13. Get told the luggage tag could not be read, reposition bag and try again.
  14. Get told bag is wrong shape, replace it sideways.
  15. Success! Next bag please.
  16. Get told next bag is not on scale properly. Replace and start again.
  17. Success! First bag disappears. Second bag moves up. 
  18. Place 3rd bag.
  19. Bag doesn’t fit. Replace and start again.
  20. Bag is not straight. Remove tray and try again. Bag read. Overweight. Take docket and pay excess.
  21. At this point, I know there’s stuff I could take out of the first bag, but I cannot do that because the bag has already disappeared.
  22. Get given both remaining bags back. Go to customer service and pay a fee. Tell them you want to remove stuff from first bag to avoid excess but be advised it is too late.
  23. Customer service agent waives excess because I was only 1kg over anyway. Completed.

Yep, that’s really the Qantas check-in process. It may be technological, and I’m sure that the managers and analysts who created such a process are very proud. I wonder if any have actually used it as a paying customer? With a family? I sense not, or if they have used it, they have some very rose-tinted spectacles and certainly did not think like customers. 

Then, once on the aeroplane, the challenge continued, at least for economy class. There aren’t enough toilets, and the staff did not seem pleased to be there

I look at this plane, emblazoned with “The Spirit of Australia” and wonder if that really is the Australia that we know and love. I dare say not. Qantas is not the airline I choose to fly.

Journal

Day 118: Prep to leave Vallendar

It is my penultimate day in Germany. I face the inevitability of time as it is now time to leave here and return home. Although my train does not depart from this land until tomorrow, I feel that today really is my last day. The actual last day is always a blur and probably doesn’t count so much because it is all about logistics and getting to places on time, not forgetting anything and just generally trying to stay safe and compliant.

The reality is that no matter how far something may seem in the future, with the inevitable and constant march of time, that future always becomes the present. I walk around the house of the family where I am staying and remember various things that I said I might have done at some point before I left. And although there have been many weeks in which to do them, the fact of whether they are done or not is what I must live with. In a way, the things I have not done are not that important anyway, and I have no regrets.

I look back on my time here and confidently declare that this is one of those occasions where I know that I have not wasted a single day. Every moment, every minute, every hour is almost something that I can remember and cherish. This is not to say that I’ve been continuously working. Far from it.

Indeed, my moments here have been about work, of course. But also they have encapsulated many other things from spiritual and mental well-being to travel and exploration, to prayer and contemplation through to sweating in the commercial kitchen and finally this last stage of packing and cleaning the apartment that has been our home for just over 3 months.

I have realised during my time here that a day is a long time indeed. To those who say that there aren’t enough hours in the day, you are wrong. There are many hours in the day, and it is actually our task to make sure that we spend those hours usefully, worthily and with purpose. To understand the nature of reference and intent is what truly brings meaning to those hours. After all, as a parent, there are many times when the hours do not seem that productive. Yet, they are productive to the people that we love and touch. To the child that needs a hug or a story at bedtime. To the floor that needs cleaning because the hustle and bustle of family life have left it in their state that requires it. To the grass in the garden that needs cutting, because it is alive and well and provides a carpet upon which the children can play, learn and grow. None of those things will pay the bills or create the economic growth about which the government speaks of so regularly and monotonously. But they are things that will punctuate what we do and how we do it. They represent the tick-tock of the things that matter.

view from 4th floor of the terrace

And so it is that I return to a lesson learnt about the length of a day and what we do with our days. Whether we enjoy them and live them with purpose, or look back on them as opportunities lost because we did not pursue something or other. Whatever truth you discover in yourself, be aware that it is the things around us that matter the most. The desire to create a better world has undoubtedly got to start on our own front doorstep. A better world cannot come at the expense of family relationships, connections with your dear and loved ones or decay and dirt around you. A better world requires those things to be wholesome from the beginning, a foundation on which to base your life upon.

Thus, I returned to the notion that time does not stand still, and we should use time as our tool, to shape and celebrate the world around us. To walk in its hallowed halls and remember the good that we do. Our time on this earth is limited, and we are all in the process of dying. Whether that day comes sooner or further away, it will happen to us all. And to that end, we should live that life of purpose, intent and reverence and celebrate who and what we are, not just to ourselves but also to those around us. For time does genuinely catch up with us all.

Journal

Day 99: Dachau Concentration CAMP

There’s a cold fog descended over the valley outside. I’ve witnessed strange things, like an eagle perched on a lamppost being attacked by a small bird. Only eventually for me to figure out that the little bird was probably defending its nest. How it would potentially give up its life to protect its young. Wow. We see that kind of thing in the movies, but here I was seeing it in nature right in front of me for real.

The world seems to be a little dark at the moment. I visited the Dachau concentration camp near Munich in Germany a few days ago. It was a remarkable place. Now a memorial site, the area is buzzing with activity. I got there by public transport which itself was packed to capacity. And once I did arrive, I was greeted by the spectacle of various church groups processing through, armed not as in the olden days with weapons but now with flags, statues and banners.

I joined a tour, and I think on more than one occasion the tour guide seemed ready to burst into tears. I think I was equally prepared to do the same as I heard the stories about the past atrocities that occurred in that place.

I know the words are not clear but I preferred it this way as the words were never intended in truth and would surely have confused the inmates

I suppose it is how we try to understand it that is the most disturbing aspect. For in many senses, there is nothing really to understand. I heard about the practice of pole hanging, which is where prisoners had their arms drawn behind them and then they had their wrists bound. They were hung from a pole with their feet off the ground. This could last for many hours. There was no apparent reason for doing this. In one case you might be tortured because your cup had a mark on it. On another day it could be because your shoes were dirty. But for someone else, it could be that the boots were to clean.

pole hanging was a form of torture. Many of the torture ideas developed as the camp operated

The guide didn’t want me to record her, which I respected. She later explained to me that many Holocaust deniers had come and recorded her and used that material to attempt to discredit everything she stood for and the fact that the place was even a concentration camp at all. The power of social media is quite disturbing. I have made a decision to stop using it as much as possible. I realise that merely having an account and being active is something that encourages and enriches the company’s that enable this nonsense. I don’t want to be part of that any more.

this corridor must have seemed endless. What was it like? Was it full of screams? WOuld you scream if it meant they hit you more?

Perhaps one of the more shocking aspects of the talk was the speed at which events transpired following the election of Hitler to be German Reich Chancellor. The Dachau concentration camp opened just 2 or 3 months after he assumed that the position. As I learned about events in the bookshop, I was confronted by the fact that I’m mostly ignorant about all things related to modern history. Perhaps I know what is offered to me, but I feel that I ought to find out facts from myself and understand things better.

the radiators were fake, all part of the propoganda machine for this to be a re-education camp

I started doing this research in the gift shop and in the half-hour that I spent perusing material, I learnt a startling amount. One of the first things was that Hitler used democratic and legal processes to assume power. The second was that he used a potent propaganda machine to spread his word and win back support. Another aspect of curiosity was how Hitler used the technique of trying to inoculate the German population from having any sentiment or empathy towards other nations. He wanted to teach them that misfortune for other countries was good for Germany because it meant they had a chance to get ahead. It reminded me, sadly, of a famous politician that I see operating in today’s era.

The books I want to buy were far too heavy, so I made a note of which they were and resolved to buy and read them in time to come. The first one was a narrative by Madeleine Albright, called “Fascism a Warning”.

about 6000 people died in this crematorium

I thought it was time to try something new, so this evening I managed to secure a copy on audible. I’ve listened to about 90 minutes so far while working away on other projects. It is truly fascinating, and I already feel significantly enlightened in those events of modern history. Madeleine is credible and authentic. One unexpected thing I discovered was that fascism really started gaining popularity in Italy, through Benito Mussolini. Hitler came later.

It made me wonder as to whether the events that transpire in the USA will awaken a monster from some other nation, rather than from the great USA itself. After all, that was how it seemed to happen around the time of World War II.

This is not really meant to be a blog about world history or politics, but I can’t help being involved both emotionally and mentally after having visited the site of a concentration camp. There were so many of these, as depicted on the map inside one of the prison cells. We ignore it at our peril, and therefore I decided I would mention it here.

Should we feel hope hopeless and discouraged as a result of those tragic events? Or can we do better? I like to think we can do better because by understanding the past we can truly learn and take steps to make sure that such a path does not repeat itself. Perhaps most twisted about all of this is a book called Sapiens that I’m also reading. Indeed, we hear about the Holocaust of the Jews were 6 million of them were put to death under the Nazi regime. Unfortunately, what we never hear about is that over 6 million souls lost their lives from Africa through the squandering, colonial greed of what is now Western Europe. It operated to plunder what was then the New World of gold, silver, spices and other natural resources.

Let’s try not to get too depressed about it and hope that all those things belong firmly in yesterday. We all need to work to make sure that our tomorrow does not repeat such history and to all of you that care, I ask you to get involved in your community and make yourselves known to politicians to ensure that such travesties do not occur again.

Journal

Day 17: Ice land Memory

It’s the final evening of our stay in Iceland. I wanted to write this before we left this country for good because it seems more meaningful to compose it here than to wait time far away and distracted by other things.

I want to describe our thoughts and emotions about Iceland before they evaporate, much like the snow is currently doing. I read the lonely planet guidebook to the country. The opening two pages are very evocative – as someone who writes I could even predict that it probably took them three days, five rewrites and three editors to bring that together. And in that way, we also want to capture our memories for posterity and for our family to reflect back on in years to come.

Nothing could have prepared us for the aircraft approach over Iceland. Snow fell in the UK in the days preceding our departure. I saw the amount of chaos it created. They even seemed to pause the debate on Brexit to deal with news about the snow.

Over here, I suppose that snow is an expected regular event. The have snowploughs doing their jobs and cars driving around seemingly unhindered. Everyone appears to have studied winter tyres on as well which must help. I haven’t seen any sort spreading trucks anywhere and despite that things just seem to run.

I wonder if this country will be the same in 20 years? It’s becoming more popular, and although it deals with the tourists well, one can imagine that there is an upper limit to the number of people it can accommodate. For example, we are staying in a beautiful, architecturally designed habitat in the middle of nowhere. Last night some people arrived quite late. They waited for the night and were off early this morning. They didn’t stop to appreciate the countryside around here, breathtaking as it is. My understanding is that lots of people circumnavigate the island and find accommodation en route. It’s possible to make the journey in about two weeks if you just stay somewhere different every night. But it is that kind of transience which may create challenges later with people passing through but never becoming part of what they see or letting it bond with their soul.

My Iceland has been a thought-provoking and inspiring one. I marvel at the snow-covered passes, the deep ravines, the frozen waterfalls and the fact that you can go round the corner of a mountain and all the snow has disappeared due to what must be some kind of microclimate. I marvel at the fact that all the coffee I’ve drunk here has been beautiful, and that beauty has been apparent even to me, and I’m not a coffee lover and rarely drink coffee. I marvel at the fact that things run, even though the snow is thick and the days (and nights) are cold. I marvel at the fact that the air seemed so clean and the place seems so pure, and the water tastes so great.

I marvel at the fact that I can go to the supermarket and it feels like a supermarket in any other country. The shelves are full of stuff which could not possibly have grown here but still exists on that shelf for us to buy. And even though so many things must be air-freighted into the country, things are not as expensive as you expect. And of course, how could I forget the northern lights. Those beautiful, mysterious occurrences that people say they understand but somehow seem to defy understanding when you actually stand on the ground and watch them. We were lucky to witness two shows. The first one is probably what most people will remember as their experience, the tour guide saying that it was sporadic to see it like that. But it is the second show on Friday, 8 February 2019 that blew everyone’s minds. We saw multiple colours, shimmering and twists and turns in the light that I’m reasonably confident are extremely rare. The curious thing is that our guides on the first night said that the lights get stronger as the night goes on. They said you just stay there and watch and things will only get better. But on that second night’s display, that proved it all wrong the spectacular light show was only visible for a few minutes before it petered out into nonexistence. If you’d been inside for a little bit too long or held out for it to get better as the evening drew on, then you would have been sorely disappointed. In that, I find a model for all of us. We sometimes take the advice that things will be ready in their own good time and that the expert knows best. But when you are talking about ephemeral and mysterious things then perhaps there is no such thing as an expert, and you just have to seize the moment when it comes away because life and time don’t wait for anyone.

So our journey has involved a few days in Reykjavík staying in an apartment followed by a few days out near Selfoss in the south of the country. It has had its challenges. For example, when visiting Gesir yesterday, I fell over and injured my wrist quite badly. Don’t think it’s sprained but you never know. I can move my hand at least, albeit with pain, so at least no tendon snapped. But that was caused by slipping on the ice. I wasn’t being complacent, but accidents can happen. Glad it happened near the end of the trip.

Currently, I’m sitting in the architecturally designed home that I mentioned earlier. Let me describe in more detail. Two owners called Inga and Isac have created three beautifully designed houses on the mountain escape. They have underfloor heating and lots of wooden windows and glass walls. There clean and warm and the kind of place that I could imagine sitting in all day and just gazing out at the scenery. If you know me, you would also know that there are very few things that could captivate me for so long. But this place and the vista from it are to such things. I don’t think I could live here permanently, but I doubt it is designed as a permanent dwelling. It is, however, a beautiful holiday home. 12 of us have been able to co-mingle in comfort.

Being the last evening, we took some photographs of all of us, by making use of Eugene’s tripod. It’s a lovely photograph to remember our time here, but it was the family moments that followed afterwards, but I think I will remember the most. These unscripted and choreographed moments that change lives and form lifelong memories. While I cannot say that Iceland has changed me forever, what I will say is that every experience you encounter changes you in some form or other. I look around here and like said before I’m not confident that it will be this way in 20 years. There’s a certain intransigence and disrespect for the earth, personalised by some of the politicians who are in power at this moment. The land seems more fragile than ever, and while I’m not getting on my ecological high horse, I can see that there are certain things humans do that will be very difficult to reverse or recover from. And the blatant disregard for those behaviours by those in charge makes me a little sad.

So I am grateful to see Iceland now. And perhaps one day I will return with the family. I’ve watched the scene from Walter Mitty a few times, and although that is a very different Iceland from the one that I see here, not least because that was shot in summer, I think this is a beautiful place to reconnect with nature and appreciate its rugged terrestrial beauty.

As we fly home to prepare for the next stages of our big adventure, I do not know what is to come. It looks like we will leave the UK the day before Parliament makes its allegedly final Brexit vote. The timing is surreal. But for now, I will enjoy my last night in Iceland breathing this air and feeling direly uncomfortable with my arm wrapped in a towel and strapped to a book to prevent me from bending my wrist. Heady days indeed.

Journal

Day 9: Welcome to Iceland

In The Airport

I must admit that I’m not a fan of budget airlines. Although Luton airport was fine, the line through security, As always, is rather undignified and more akin to what I imagine could be a factory chicken laying eggs. In this case, the eggs are the trays that you feed down the conveyor belt. It felt more like a battery farm than anything else.

The airport itself had things to do. Contrary to what we’d been told, there were shops, restaurants and cafés. We walked down to gate 15 to meet our plane, where the illusion of a pleasant airport finally ended. The departure gate, if you can call it that, resembled more of a large shed. There were no seats; you just had to stand in a long queue. Although we were there in good time, we were at the back of the line, so it was even more uncomfortable. The plane didn’t have enough room for everyone’s hand luggage, so they decided to take a some from us and put it in the plane hold, which was annoying – although we had been warned of this in advance.

In Flight

The flight itself was uneventful. We were on an Airbus A320-Neo, which felt was fantastic. Definitely quieter than any of the other small aircraft I’ve been on. Congratulations EasyJet on investing in such a fantastic aircraft.

Food on board

We were super hungry on the flight but had managed to stock up at Marks & Spencer with pastries, sandwiches and wraps en route to the airport. Ramani even got me a  Bakewell Tart. They used to be 70p when I came here last, but they are £1 now. I must admit that it is £1 pound of pure happiness, and if any of you ever come to the UK then I highly, highly recommend getting a Bakewell tart from Marks & Spencer’s food hall.

Final Approach

The 3-hour flight passed fairly quickly and it wasn’t long before the descent to Iceland began. The approach to Iceland is truly spectacular. You fly over what looks like a great big expanse of land except that it is covered in snow and looks amazing from the air. You can see that it isn’t a glacier because of rocky outcrops and so on, but that only serves to magnify its beauty. The plane circled a few times to line up with the runway, presumably because of air traffic control, although I didn’t really see much other action in the way of aircraft movement. I thought the landing would be more precarious than it was, given that there was no visibly clear land at all. I imagined an ice sheet of the runway with the plane touching down and skidding all over the place! But that did not happen. We braked to slow down rather than using reverse thrust from the engine, which must mean that the runway was in good form. The airport itself looked very pleasant.

https://youtu.be/DgEBdrJjW6g

In Iceland

A bit of a pain to queue and get through customs control, as only one human being was examining passports. Given that most of our group are children, we could not use the E gates (which looked like the fanciest gates I’ve seen at any airport in the world). We collected our luggage, bought a bottle of Baileys from the duty-free point and ventured into the main airport. Sadly, our hire car pickup place was not in the terminal building, and we had to rely on a shuttle bus to take us there. All this meant being outside.

This is where the romanticism ended. It was about 6pm; it was getting dark, and was bitterly cold. I don’t want to over exaggerate how cold it was, but there was a small breeze and it was colder than I have experienced in many years. The shuttle bus to the car rental station only came every 15 minutes, which was a real nuisance, as keeping three excited children and two older grandparents in line was not easy. Standing around after having been in a warm aircraft and terminal building for so long was hardly pleasant. Not least that we appear to be at the back of the line.

The shuttle bus eventually arrived but stopped nowhere near where we were queueing. So we had to drag our suitcases, children and grandmas all the way to it. As it was there nearly wasn’t room but everyone managed to squish up inside, and we got transported onwards.

We used Thrifty car hire. Didn’t think much of the service there. Although they had the exact car that we reserved, it was blatantly too small for the three suitcases and five pieces of hand luggage. Sadly, there was no other option when it came to rental vehicles, and so we had to find a way which we did eventually. Disappointingly, they knew nothing about baby car seats or how to fix them.

Driving in Iceland means travelling on the right-hand side of the road. It was dark, cold and so this was hardly a pleasant introduction to this nation’s roads. I had to admit that tiredness got the better of me and we swapped drivers after a little while. We wanted to look for a supermarket, but we were also torn with the idea of getting to the hotel and settling down.

In the end, the hotel one and we journeyed off onto the main roads towards Reykjavík. There was snow all around us, but the roads seemed generally clear, and we drove in the dark, but without incident to the hotel, which was exactly as it was described to us. The rooms were pleasant, very reminiscent of IKEA, which is where all the furniture appears to be from. We settled down for the night. The kids can’t wait for tomorrow. They snow everywhere, and promises of snowballs and snow angels are being made, and they will probably be determined to hold us to keep those promises.

So far, we feel lucky to be here. The journey has not been easy. On reflection, I don’t know if those afternoon flights are better than early morning or not. Perhaps there is no “better”. It is what it is. Either way, hello Iceland.

Journal

Day 8: going to the airport

We travel to Iceland today. When is the right time to go short haul? We used to think that it’s good to fly at night because then the kids could sleep. That’s for long haul, but what about short haul? If you fly at night, you get there then go to sleep. But then you’ve spent the whole day waiting to travel. Or do you go early in the daytime without eating up your day?

This particular flight leaves Luton at 2pm and arrives in Iceland arrives in Iceland at 5:30pm. The journey has been a little bit complicated because we don’t have a car seat in the hire car. So it means Ramani has gone in the car with four people, while I take two children on the train. We didn’t really want to split up, but it seemed the most logical choice in the end.

I didn’t get much sleep last night, and I’ve been pacing around since six in the morning doing some work and other bits and pieces. But really we are waiting for this journey, which has been somewhat tiresome. We have shallow expectations of Luton airport. My brother told me that there is nothing to do there and it’s really just a transit point, not much of an international airport. But we’ll find out soon enough.

So as it happens, we will probably get their way too early and discover whatever little there is to entertain in the airport building. It’s been a curious morning. I’ve managed to record a podcast and type up some more blog entries, do a lot of work, pack and keep the kids amused. I recommend this idea of taking them on the train. They’ve engaged with it really well. They’re looking at their world and asking questions and not even asking about technology. I hope the flight is half decent as well.

We’ll do our best to work with a budget airline and to get food before we leave and things to eat on the plane as well. The iPads are charged, and everything should be ready to go. It’s certainly proving a challenge to carry a business and being a completely different time zone as well. Most of the difficulties are dealing with un-eventuated situations that cannot be predicted. We have a lot riding on this trip and when we get there hopefully the hire car is ready, and everyone will be prepared to go. There’s hope for clear skies so that we can see the Northern lights, but even if none of that come to pass hopefully, we’ll just have fun and enjoy our time the first part of this holiday that truly will feel like a holiday.

3 year old on trains

Journal

Day 6 : Under and over estimating

Global Warming?

We’ve been in the UK for about six days now. It doesn’t feel like six days, but the calendar doesn’t lie. We’ve tried to take it easy and get used to our surroundings, which has been crucial, given that Australia has been through a record-breaking heatwave and conversely, the UK has been through a record-breaking cold snap. There is a polar vortex over this part of the northern hemisphere caused by some disruptions in ocean currents. In the US, Fox News currently cites that this is proof that global warming doesn’t exist. They suggest that if warming did exist, then it wouldn’t be this cold. I think most people seem to disagree with Fox News; many realise that this may indeed be a phenomenon accompanied by human-made climate change. Whatever the truth may be, it has been good preparation for our trip to Iceland.

I underestimated how the cold can feel. And although we haven’t been to Iceland yet, I can tell from the experience of this week that we really do need to be very well prepared. When the wind gets up, it is biting and chilling, and your fingers feel like they want to freeze off. Coupled with the disruption of snow. Of course, to us it was lovely, but to UK residents I suppose it was a bit of a pain. Yep, it’s certainly been an excellent introduction to a northern hemisphere winter.

Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff

We’ve tried to take it easy. We still overestimated our capacity and underestimated the difficulty of going out. For example, we were supposed to go out to Welwyn Garden City this evening to meet up with some friends. But it looked like some of those friends may not have been able to make it and even if they did, the children are exhausted. I think that the events of the week and caught up with them and they need to just have an evening to themselves, where they can relax with Saturday night television and a good home-cooked meal.

In fact, what’s on TV is very good. I wish we had TV programming like this in Australia on a Saturday night, rather than a movie that is trying to promote its sequel, punctuated by frequent advertisements. Ads are regulated in the UK, no more than 6 minutes per hour. In Australia, it feels like you get 6 mins of programming per hour, with the rest as ads. TGD is a variety show about dancing, with every routine needing to incorporate a designated n object into the routine. It’s fascinating. I love how the BBC especially can invent new formats and shows and be quite adventurous and what they do so that a decent but traditional talent show actually become something a little more creative.

Bedtime beckons. The little one is exhausted and won’t go to bed. I’ll try a story with her. We went to West End Books this afternoon. It’s nice to go into a bookshop that’s alive and buzzing; a chance to celebrate literature socially. Even I got something or 2. But that reading will have to wait until everything else is done. In the meantime, my story for the little one is “The Golden Goose.”

Journal

Day 1: The joy of flight

They say all planes are created equal, but I don’t think so. We flew here on an Emirates Boeing 777. I’ve always been curious about what that feels like compared to the A380. After having been stuck on this particular Boeing, I’ve decided that I prefer the A380. I prefer its cabin air quality.

It’s my first time flying on Emirates. They were the first airline that I noticed promoting their economy class as being something beyond ordinary. For example, there’s free wifi for everyone, although in the small print you see that’s limited to 20mb for the whole flight. I bought the 500mb package for US$16 and managed to do a bit of work. Annoyingly the signal dropped out once we left mainland Australia and things didn’t recover until we neared the middle-east. More than a little irritating to think you have something, and then when you get used to things, it all breaks down.

The TV system was great, although the controls seemed a bit unintuitive. But how do you report that the audio on seats 27A and 29A doesn’t work? Who knows… maybe those seats are destined to be broken for the forseeable future.

Landing in Dubai, we were out in the middle of the airfield and had to walk down steps for a 15 minute bus ride to the terminal building. It suprised me a bit. Although it was initially a novelty to be outside a heavy aircraft, the ride was uncomfortable and unwelcome for the time of day. It was midnight local time, 7am Sydney time. I thought Dubai was a world class airport but this part certainly wasn’t. At least it was night and I knew we could sleep when we got to our room.

Journal

Day 0: Leaving home

The arrow of time is unstoppable, surely. I don’t imagine any science or wierd and wonderful occurence that will stop time, ever. And so it is that no matter how far something may seem into the future, time will bring it to be.

And so it is for us, as we leave Australia. The last few weeks especially have been frantic. Weeks like no other. When in the World Education summit in Thailand, I didn’t hear very much about people leaving their lives and going travelling. I’m sure everyone has their own version of the story. For us, it has been like no other time. We have a business to keep running and thriving. We are returning home and need to make sure everything is in order for us to be away. And we have the unknown of travelling with little ones for a while, to keep them engaged, happy and safe.

The last few weeks have been surprising. We’re surprised by what we managed to achieve. Last minute tasks, things out of sequence, multi-tasking, emergencies, it was all there.