before you go away...

Here's a little story for you.

Imagine that its the Friday of a long-weekend and you're about to head off on a lovely extended weekend away. You load everything up in the car, hop in, and drive away. Off for a weekend of fun and frivolity with your spouse and kids.

Saturday morning, 5am: Your neighbours wake at 5am, woken by hearing a strange, piercing beeping. Every 45 seconds there's a beep. Count them... all... The neighbours think "We must buy a replacement battery today to put in the smoke alarm." However, when the neighbours get up later in the morning, they realise that its your smoke alarm's battery that is running low and needs replacing. The noise is coming from inside your house, yet they can still hear it loud and clear inside their house, with all the windows and doors shut. And its not a fibro house either - its double brick.

Throughout the day the smoke alarm battery continues to beep. The neighbours visualise sling shots and have very nasty, destructive thoughts. They try all sorts of things to block out the sound - using the cake mixer on high, putting the radio on, putting the dishwasher on, putting the washing machine on, and going OUT.

Saturday night, the neighbours move out to their back room and sleep on the fold out sofa bed - its quieter and they *nearly* can't hear the beeping.

Sunday morning, throughout the day etc, the beeping continues. Sunday night, the neighbours sleep on their lounge again.

The neighbours assume that you'll come home lateish in the day on Monday, at which time you'll replace the battery and peace will reign once again. The neighbours are wrong. You don't come home...

The thing about this story is that WE are the neighbours. And its now 8:30pm and our neighbours still haven't come home. I worked out last night that if they came home late today, we will have heard about 5000 beeps by the time they change the battery. Well, we've heard those 5000 beeps and they're still not home.

So, the moral of the story is: if you have a battery powered smoke alarm, please change your battery once a year. Pick a day and do it on that day every year. Maybe your birthday? Maybe on a specific public holiday? And if you don't change it once a year, PLEASE change it before you go away on holidays.

The thing is, this isn't even the first time its happened. Once before they went away and it did the same thing. We'll be sleeping on the lounge again tonight...

Murray, the Red Wiggle, and Choice

At the time of writing I just saw Murray, the Red Wiggle, out the front of our neighbour's house. In normal suburban Sydney. Well, I guess he has to live a normal life too... What does this have to do with travelling with kids? Nothing actually, but I was so surprised to see him there that I thought I'd tack it on the front of this post!

My topic for this post actually about the latest issue of Choice magazine - May 2009.

There's an article about international airlines, rating them for criteria like value for money, seat comfort, in flight service, ability to get a convenient flight etc. According to their survey, Singapore Airlines provided the highest overall levels of satisfaction for their survey respondents.

Then there's also an article on travel money, exploring the good and bad points of different ways to pay for things in foreign countries. They look at the pros and cons of credit cards, cash, travellers cheques, ATM and debit cards, prepaid travel money cards, and dynamic currency conversion. They even list one credit card that has NO foreign currency conversion fee!

So, if you enjoy Choice articles, grab a copy of the latest issue of the magazine.

Topping and tailing

One of the things that we have found helpful when travelling with our kids is to top and tail our kids in their bed: one with their head up one end, the other with their head up the other. It does require a little bit of rearrangement of the bedclothes, but it does mean that they sleep better.

Of course, we'd prefer for them to have their own separate single beds, because sleep comes much more easily that way, but sometimes there's only a double bed for them.

We find that separating their heads and legs means that they are less likely to bump into each other in the night. Because neither of them is particularly tall, it means that much less of them "overlap" in the same section of bed.

And of course if they sleep better, they're much less grumpy the next day. Great when you're wanting to enjoy travelling with kids, rather than just tolerating it!

Farmstay fun!

Late last week we went on our farmstay trip out to Bathurst, NSW. We stayed at Barcoo's Barn, just south of Bathurst, and it was great!

Our host was Ken and he was only too happy to have us there and show us around. His wife, Elaine, was away horseriding, so normally she would be there to be hospitable (and by all accounts in their guest book, she certainly is!) too.

We came in late in the afternoon, and didn't get the chance to look around. But there was a good spot right outside our room for John to set up the telescope and have a good look up into the sky. It was a lovely clear night, and was certainly darker than Sydney, as we could get a good view of the Milky Way. After he got rather freezing, John eventually came in.

The accommodation was warm, and the beds were good. (There was space for 11 people, plus two futons... Got a LARGE family?) There was heaps available self serve for breakfast - all we had to do was open the cupboards and find it!

After breakfast and packing up our stuff, we went out and met one of the other guests up in a paddock, who introduced us to the Clydesdale horses, Clancy and Barcoo. They're both about 15 years old, and each weigh a tonne. Wouldn't like to have one of them step on our toes.

Ken had gone off over the hill in the truck, and when he came back, he let us into the chook pen to feed the chooks. The Bookworm got right into it immediately, though Bendy was a bit scared of the chickens. Eventually she thawed out and was happily feeding them also.

After that, Ken took us around to the sheep paddock (where we had met Clancy and Barcoo earlier), and The Bookworm helped him feed the sheep, the Clydesdales, two very unfriendly alpacas, and another horse called Prince. She wasn't real sure about patting the horses, but she did it anyway. I used it as a teaching moment (!) and said that if she didn't brush her hair each day, it would end up feeling that rough too! :-)

Bendy was absolutely terrified of the sheep. She was screaming, and Ken was rolling his eyes... She insisted on being picked up and carried around, in the hope that that would keep her out of their reach. She really only relaxed when we closed the gate behind us.

Ken showed us all the bits of equipment lying around the paddock, each with their specific purpose for farm work. Some were for making bales of hay, others for wrapping them in plastic, others for moving them about the place etc.

Then Ken showed us the shearing shed. He weighed the girls on the big old scales where they weigh the bales of wool. It was a bit meaningless for them because it was only in imperial weight, which they don't understand (well, actually, neither do I!), but they enjoyed it all the same.

Then we had a bit more of a chat with Ken outside, before he went off for his morning tea, and we went off on our way home. If we'd had longer, I've no doubt he would have been happy to take The Bookworm off in the tractor with him on his rounds.

Ken was in no hurry to get rid of us, and you can see that he loves having people to show over the farm. If Elaine had been there, Ken said she would have been pleased to hook up the sled behind Barcoo so that the girls could have a ride.

So we highly recommend staying at Barcoo's Barn if you're looking for a farmstay, or even if you're just in the Bathurst area.

Pictures coming soon...

Worst travel experiences: Dining out in London

It's about time we owned up to some of the really bad travel experiences as well as waxing lyrical over the really good ones. Once you start travelling, it is amazing just how many of both extremes of experience come your way. The bad experiences stick in your memory, and are just as much a part of the retelling long after the holiday - often to be laughed off, even if it wasn't at all funny at the time.

One of the most prominent bad experiences in my mind relates to dining out at a certain Chinese restaurant along Brompton Road, Kensington (London) between the V&A and Harrods. I googled it prior to writing this post and was amazed to find it still operating (we visited in 2002). It got excellent reviews, and by any standards has an outstanding menu. 

We visited at lunchtime, and not for dinner, so the restaurant was quite empty apart from a table occupied by staff from the diplomatic missions nearby. 

Well, I believe that the food we ate that day was excellent. I can't remember, of course, because such a highlight of this dining experience was completely overshadowed by the service - and in particular the attitude - of the staff. I cannot begin to relate how appalling the service was. It appears that the source of this poor service was none other than the fact that brought with us one of those nasty, filthy objects known as "children".

We only had one child at this stage, and she is a well-seasoned diner in fine restaurants. The Bookworm has good table manners, is polite, eats practically anything put in front of her and I don't think she'd ever had a tantrum in a restaurant. She's not perfect by any stretch, but you could take her anywhere - even when she was a tiny baby. You still can.

Well, didn't we suffer because of her presence! The disdain was palpable. The staff couldn't get rid of us quickly enough. We were made to feel as if we were most unwelcome, and we'd better leave ASAP. I'm just sorry that I put up with the attitude and paid the bill. Next time - if there is a next time - I won't be doing either.