What’s a place you visited that felt like home?
For me, anywhere with my family is home in the sense that I can lock the world outside and know that whatever is out there will not affect us. We have travelled to three countries as a family, Japan, Hong Kong and Australia and all were fascinating, eye opening, difficult, stressful and unexpected in so many ways.
The first two were obviously far more foreign in terms of language and culture, but they were also far more foreign in terms of our relationship with the local people. For that reason I always felt as though our home existed somewhere outside the country as a little piece of the UK which I could escape back to when things outside the door got too stressful which they did frequently in Hong Kong in particular. Once we got to Australia things changed, for 6 months after Japan and 16 months after Hong Kong.
The lifestyle in Australia was simply perfect for a young family. We didn’t have a huge amount of money but we didn’t need it with beaches, parks and low cost or free attractions all within 30 minutes of our base. I had always liked Australia from afar and in 1989 had switched my allegiance to the Australian Cricket Team because I loved the way they played.
It’s worth pointing out here that I was able to see a day of test cricket for $30 in 1999 when it was about £40 in the UK and completely out of reach. Now, the Ashes costs $60 a day in Australia and £185 a day in England so I will always feel more welcomed by my favourite sport in Australia and will always support the Aussies!
If we could have stayed in Australia my life and the lives of the family would have been so different and, in my opinion, much better. We’ve made the most of the UK but my spiritual home will always be Australia 🇦🇺
What’s one thing you wish you had started doing earlier in life?
I have always had a problem in seeing the glass as even half full. Over the years I have slowly become better at it, but I am very likely to slip back into old habits even now.
For example, yesterday Janet and I had lunch in Brunswick Gardens and saw a magnificent old plane tree. We then went to the British Museum and I finally saw the Sutton Hoo helmet which I had always been fascinated by since childhood. I also saw some fantastic items made by my Huguenot ancestors. Finally we went to an exhibition of drawings by my favourite artist, Constable. We went to McDonald’s which I never really like but remarkably it was actually hot for the first time in ages! I called it The Miracle of Warren Street as that was the station opposite 🤣🤣 Finally we went to the Emirates for the first time this season to watch Arsenal Women’s Team. As ever the atmosphere of inclusivity was uplifting.
Sadly, Arsenal were rubbish in front of goal and ended up rescuing a point with just over a minute remaining. The train home thanks to typical short sightedness by Southeastern had 6 coaches instead of 12 and we ended up standing most of the way while I fumed!
So, what did Janet remember? The positive paragraph above. What did I remember? The much shorter negative paragraph! Over the years I have wasted so many good experiences by concentrating on the occasional negatives. Holidays, days out, my birthday and even Christmas Days have been consigned to the list of disappointing experiences. Thanks to Janet and also to meditation I am slowly getting better but at the age of 61 my basic nature will never change. It frustrates me so much that I do it especially as I know I am doing it, and I know what the effect is on me and the people around me.
Just as a reminder to me, here’s some photos of the good things from yesterday.
If you could pick any fictional animal to be your lifelong companion (like a Pokémon or fantasy pet), what would it be?
My first reaction was that this is one of the strangest prompts I have seen since I started doing the daily posts. However, I have been thinking back to my children’s younger years and their situation. We were renting until our youngest daughter was 16 and when we moved into my Mother in Law’s house when she went into a care home, a cat was a non negotiable part of the package. In the UK you were not allowed a pet in rented accommodation, which led to so many being abandoned by their owners if they were forced to move into the rented sector by the loss of a job or difficulties paying the mortgage. So, it led me to think about what my children did to fill that gap in their lives.
For all of them, the online world gave them something to care for. My oldest son, for example, had Pokemon on his Gameboy. My youngest daughter had a virtual pet called Cuddle which was a rabbit on the CBeebies website. One day without warning, the game was removed from the site and she was very sad for quite a few days. I don’t think I realised until then how much emotional care she had given to this pixellated creature and I felt her sadness at its loss. Their games almost always involved a creature of some sort and all of the children would take care of whatever kind of animal, real or fictional, they had.
Nowadays, the rental sector allows families to have pets, a welcome development but one that I am sure will be very difficult to enforce, but in the absence of a flesh and blood pets please don’t underestimate the importance of a pet on a computer screen that your children can channel their care and love towards, preparing for the day when that pet may be a real one.
If you had to switch lives with a fictional character for a week, who would you choose?
I mention A Christmas Carol once or twice a month, or so it seems! It’s a book that is a constant in my life. The identification I have with Bob Cratchit, the family focused, ill-treated clerk employed by Ebenezer Scrooge, was the subject of a blog post a few weeks back. So, it may not come as a surprise that I have chosen Bob to swap with. However, I have chosen a very specific time to swap, December 26th 1843 to January 1st 1844. (My understanding whenever I have read it is that A Christmas Carol is a contemporary novel set in 1843 when Dickens wrote it.) So, why that specific week?
I would be fascinated to wake up on the 26th (No Boxing Day off in the 19th century.) and realise that because of the unexpected delivery of a massive turkey and the celebration and discussion that followed that I had overslept. I would want to be rushing to Scrooge’s counting house to reduce my lateness and I would want to share Bob’s fear of losing the job that his family relies on. When he gets there and Scrooge tells him he will double his salary and help his family I want to share in his utter confusion. That takes us to the end of the book, but what happened afterwards? When he went back to his wife and family did they look at him like he was mad when he told them what happened? Assuming they did believe him eventually, what was the decision made by the family? Would they stay in the crowded house with the community they had built around them over so many years? Would they move to a different area where the surrounding environment was healthier and where the family could spread out? Would their old friends treat them differently or even be jealous? What prospects do the children now have and do they have the educational ability and the emotional ability to deal with those prospects? When they got to the end of 1843 and looked ahead to 1844 what did they see in front of them, less than a week after their lives were completely changed? So many questions and answers I could only get from having a ringside seat as the fall out, both good and bad, gathered pace.
How do you celebrate holidays? The only holiday I really go all out on is Christmas. I may have mentioned this once or twice! I absolutely love everything about it and I can’t get enough of films, music and books about the season. My Christmas planning will start around July most years as I start […]
Christmas Most of the Year Round!
This is from my new Simply Christmas blog so why not take a look? I need to build an audience so there will be more where this came from!
