From the 1st, I stopped posting FB updates on the trip, so here's what else we got up to:


Tue Oct 1
Drove North, up the A9 at first, with a quick stop at Carn Liath (a roadside broch), then left at Helmsdale on the A897 - a single-track (with passing places) road that takes the scenic route up to Melvich/Bettyhill. It was a nice drive, although I'd say busier than last time we went up that way, and now with added logging trucks. Also didn't see any deer this time.
Went down to Sandside beach, then a bit of a walk to St Mary's Chapel (a ruin on the coast), and finally to Thurso, for a quick stop, refuel & look around. The day was getting on, so off we drove again, this time all down the A9, with a dinner stop in Dunkeld.

Wed Oct 2 - first leg of the drive South. Stopped at the Hermitage, which is still a lovely spot, and ended up in Crossford, where we were staying with more of my cousins, Alison & Doug.

Thu Oct 3 - just driving. Crossford to Chester, with a stop at Tebay services (of course). For some reason, Chester has two Travelodges within a short distance of each other, and of course we stopped at the wrong one first, but we were soon in the right place, and then finding ourselves some dinner.

Fri Oct 4 - wandering around Chester, starting with the "Sick to Death" exhibit, which was just across the road from our hotel. Then walked around the walls, with a lunch stop on the way. Probably collapsed back at the hotel for a while, then went looking for dinner.

Sat Oct 5 - left Chester and headed to Leeds (although apparently Leeds didn't want us, we had no end of trouble navigating the roundabouts on the way in to town). Eventually got to the Royal Armouries, and spent time there looking at shiny things and pointy things (and shiny pointy things!). Also bought a few things (no swords, alas). Left there (more trouble with roundabouts, this time it was like Leeds didn't want us to go!) to meet kriste and family for dinner, then onwards to their house for a couple of nights.

Sun Oct 6 - a day out! Starting with Sherwood Forest, including the Mighty Oak, and another dangerous gift shop. Next stop was Rufford Abbey - ironically the Abbey itself was closed for repairs, but the gardens were good and the playground kept the four kids (two of ours and two of kriste's occupied for a while). Back to Bingham & kriste's place for dinner.

Mon Oct 7 - left Bingham after a stroll around town, heading for Windsor, and Legoland. Found the hotel, had a quick dinner, and then went on a night tour around the place (with a bit of a quest thing, that was mostly done by Ms9, with us following behind).

Tue Oct 8 - A day at Legoland. We split up to start with - rwrylsin with Ms9, myself with Mr12. We went on a ride! And I declared no more rides for me, because that was enough to throw out my sense of balance and leave me feeling off-kilter for a good chunk of the day. Fortunately there were other things to see around the place, and the time passed pretty easily. There was, of course, some shopping, and somehow Mr12 & Ms9 got picked for a random product test, which left them with a whole bag of Lego. This left us with a challenge to try to fit everything in our suitcases - fortunately, rwrylsin, being wise to the ways of us travelling, had packed a foldable duffel bag, and with a certain about of squeezing and shoving, we actually managed to fit almost everything in (with a little left over in a bag that could be taken as carry-on). Whew!
We had planned to have dinner at the other hotel restaurant at Legoland, but it was closed, so we went for a little drive, and found a nice Italian place, which I think was technically in Eton rather than Windsor.

Wed Oct 9 - said our farewells to Legoland, and headed out. The original plan had been to park our luggage somewhere and spend a bit more time at Legoland, but Mr12 had asked if we could see Stonehenge. It turned out that it was possible, and was a pretty good outing for the day. After that, we drove to Heathrow, dropped off the hire car (around 1700 miles more on it!), took the shuttle to the airport, waited a bit until our check-in opened, found some dinner, and finally were on a plane.

(this is one of a series of back-dated posts about our family trip to the UK/France. The first part of each post is copied from my Facebook status posts from the trip, possibly then with additional notes added)

Sep 28
Wednesday: Louvre time! ... actually not sure where the rest of the day went. Also, getting the Louvre tickets wasn't as easy as you'd think for a place that gets so many visitors. Anyway, there was probably lunch at a café, lots of walking around, and we finished the day with a very nice dinner at a place not far from the hotel.
Thursday: transit day. Walked to Gare du Nord, train to CDG, flight to Edinburgh, picked up hire car & headed to our cottage. Also picked up a small fortune in groceries which should hopefully bring down our dining spend just a little (lunch+dinner for the four of us really starts to add up!).
Today: decided to do Edinburgh today, Glasgow tomorrow. Craigmillar Castle first (Sonya is jealous of the local school-kids who get to have excursions to castles), then in to the centre for lunch, a wander up the Royal Mile, through the Castle, and back via many souvenir shops.

Notes: Amusing note: we were staying at a little cottage attached to a farm in the Central Belt (somewhere vaguely near Shotts). There was a note in the guest book noting that they had Wifi, but the speed might not be as high as people might expect. I ran a speed test, and it turned out to be faster than our home internet 🤣

(this is one of a series of back-dated posts about our family trip to the UK/France. The first part of each post is copied from my Facebook status posts from the trip, possibly then with additional notes added)

Sep 22
Catching up with the past couple of days:
Friday - quick grocery shop, London Eye, Natural History Museum, Science Museum, dinner, and collapse back at hotel.
Yesterday - Globe Tour, back to Science Museum for the "Powered Up" gaming exhibit, over to the V&A for a while, detour in search of squirrels in Hyde Park, then a shopping run to Foyles, Forbidden Planet, and Hotel Chocolat. Dinner & then back to hotel to collapse.

Notes: The Globe Tour was also Mr12's idea, and was a nice change from all the museums. Bookstores in the UK are dangerous, even when we were trying to restrict ourselves to only things that might not make it to Australia, or at least not anytime soon. From this point on in the trip, our smaller (of 3) suitcases contained pretty much only books. The squirrels were Ms9's desire, and we did see some along the way. First dinner was at a small Chinese restaurant near the museums, second dinner was Zizzi.

(this is one of a series of back-dated posts about our family trip to the UK/France. The first part of each post is copied from my Facebook status posts from the trip, possibly then with additional notes added)

Sep 19
Landed in London. Smooth flight. Just waiting for Everyone Else to disembark, or at least start moving.
(Kids conked in taxi)


Notes: As above, the flights were smooth - Melbourne to Singapore, and Singapore to London. As we were arriving in Singapore quite late, and had 8 hours until the next leg, we booked some time in the in-terminal hotel, and managed to sleep a bit and freshen up. The flights were mostly smooth, a little mild turbulence here and there (carefully timed to delay meal service, of course), but nothing too bad. We arrived in London around 4pm-ish, took Heathrow Express to ... Paddington, I think, and then decided a taxi from there was the better option rather than attempting the Underground. As noted above, the kids both fell asleep in the back of the taxi on the way to the hotel. We went for the dinner option of most convenience (i.e. Maccas), and got off to sleep in reasonable time.

Haven't felt like posting for quite a while now, but figured it was worth it for a special-ish occasion - 20 years (plus one day) since I started on LJ.
Noteworthy things from the last 6 or 7 years which I didn't feel like writing about:
- 2018 we had Family Gastro (first and only time, wiped 4-5 weeks out of the year). I had a bonus bacterial chest infection, and later all but ripped my left thumbnail off ... the night before a fencing competition ... that our club was organising. I still went, helped organise, competed, & won. I came 2nd at the Commonwealth Veterans in Men's Epee ... and a couple of weeks later managed to come down with chicken pox (!).
- 2019 ... I have no idea what we did of note in 2019.
- 2020 ... well, stuff definitely happened in 2020. I remember seeing someone posting on Twitter in January or so, excitedly (or worriedly) about the R0 of this new virus that seemed to be coming out of China, and someone else telling them to calm down, it wouldn't be that bad. By March, my workplace had sent everyone home, whether the VPN was ready or not (it wasn't, but was upgraded remarkably quickly), and that's become the "new normal". I've been to the office only a handful of times since then, and even now as companies push people to go back, I'm in no rush (not helped by train works on my line, bus replacement services adding 30-45 minutes to the journey makes it much easier to skip). And Mum died (not COVID), so ... not a great year, all around.
- 2021 ... some first glimmers of regular life came along? But also more lockdowns and complications. Managed to sneak in some fencing and became National Veteran Men's Epee Champion.
- 2022 ... back to more-or-less normal for school. Still working from home. Went on an epic road trip through Mildura, Coober Pedy, Uluru, back through Coober Pedy, and home via Adelaide in April. Dad died in May (also not COVID). We have a new cat (a stray that my parents had been feeding - was named Kat, now Cleo (short for CleoKatra, thanks kids)). Defended my National Veteran title.
- 2023 ... is passing by in a blur. One of our kids just turned 11, the other turns 8 in a couple of weeks. Just finished my second season of cricket (Mr11 is also playing). Life is whooshing by, and we're heading to Adelaide in a week to (hopefully) finish preparing my parents house for sale.

Whee ... ok, it looks pretty intense in bullet points like that. Certainly been some ups and downs, but mostly we're muddling through ok.

In case anyone is looking for me on Dreamwidth, same username as on LJ (since, ummm ... 2009 !)

Fencing results from 2015 - no competitions outside Melbourne last year, for obvious reasons :)

State Open Epee 1: Quarter-finals (7th)
State Open Epee 2: Quarter-finals (8th)
State Open Epee 3: Quarter-finals (7th)
State Open Epee 4/Championships: Quarter-finals (8th)
State Veteran Epee 4/Championships: 2nd

National Open Epee #3: 33rd
National Veteran Epee #3: 1st

Consistent, I guess, but I was hoping to reach the medal zone in at least one of the Open comps (like the previous two years). On the other hand, I had been making it along to State Squad roughly once a month (with Mr3 in tow) in the past couple of years, and didn't manage that last year. Once Ms0 is old enough, I'll try to get back into the routine ...

... wait, it's 2016 now ? How did that happen ?!

Anyway, apparently I managed to read a few books in 2015, despite our little arrival :

Ink-Black Magic, by Tansy Rayner Roberts.
The Lives of Tao, by Wesley Chu.
Spheres of Influence, by Ryk E Spoor.
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
Flex, by Ferrett Steinmetz
Hammered, by Kevin Hearne
The Future Falls, by Tanya Huff
Pirate Cinema, by Cory Doctorow
The Witches of Echo Park, by Amber Benson
Thief's Magic, by Trudi Canavan
My Real Children, by Jo Walton.
The Three-Body Problem, by Liu Cixin.
Lagoon, by Nnedi Okorafor
Guardians of Paradise, by Jaine Fenn
Smoke and Mirrors, by Neil Gaiman
God's Demon, by Wayne Barlowe
A Red-Rose Chain, by Seanan McGuire
Blood of Tyrants, by Naomi Novik
The Book of Phoenix, by Nnedi Okorafor
Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie
The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende.
Mad Skills, by Walter Greatshell
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman.

At one point on Friday night, rwrylsin and I were totally convinced that Bub2's arrival was imminent (as in, bags-in-the-car, emergency-babysitter on red alert, prepare to announce 4/4 as Bub2's date of birth to the world, and to tell work that I wouldn't be in for a month).

... but it didn't happen. There have been contractions, back-aches, appetite and energy fading in and out, kicking and shifting of Bub2, but no arrival yet.

If nothing else happens before then, Bub2 will be induced next Monday anyway, although we're still thinking we're on for arrival sometime this week.
So it's back to waiting ...

... and coughing. I came down with some nasty virus early last week - so wiped out that I spent half of Tuesday in bed, didn't even stagger along to fencing training that evening. It's mostly involved coughing ... so much coughing. rwrylsin has had a similar cough for weeks now - our theory is that she can't fill her lungs up enough to really shift the "slime" that's built up (since there's Bub2 in the way), so it just persists and drives her to distraction.

I suspect it was a delayed reaction to the last 6 weeks or so, which have been flat-out busy, both at work and around the house. We've had bathroom renovation when half the tiles in a shower started falling off, room movements to get Bub1 out of the nursery and into his own room, which meant moving rwrylsin's office across a room, plus various painting, fixing, etc. On top of this, our club was involved in a couple of fencing demonstrations, there was a fencing tournament, a birthday party for Bub1, and so on - basically, I spent all of February and March thinking "no, I can't get sick now, I have to do X" every time I felt a tickle in my throat - and we finally reached the last commitment just over a week ago, and it all caught up with me.
I'm finally feeling mostly improved, but quickly running out of energy, and still coughing.

... and waiting. Whee. We should probably pick a name :-)

13 books read in 2014 ... not much reading time around these days, apparently.

Ecko Rising, by Danie Ware
Ecko Burning, by Danie Ware
The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, by Ambelin Kwaymullina
The Disappearance of Ember Crow, by Ambelin Kwaymullina
Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie
Half-Off Ragnarok, by Seanan McGuire
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, by Catherynne M Valente
Sister Mine, by Nalo Hopkinson
The Fractal Prince, by Hannu Rajaniemi
The Oath of the Vayaputras, by Amish Tripathi
Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie
The Human Division, by John Scalzi
The Winter Long, by Seanan McGuire