Mind Games

Being so far from museums, galleries, theatres and cinemas, we like to expand our minds at the weekends by playing intellectual games, activities that require us to give those little grey cells a bit of a workout. Which is exactly why we played beer pong on Saturday night. The name might suggest that this is some sort of drinking game invented by American college students with diminishing brain cells. And yes, OK, this is exactly what it is but in my defence it does require some adept hand-eye co-ordination, a skill that should never be undervalued. Sadly, we were all terrible at it and after fifteen minutes of taking it in turns to aim the ball at the cups on the other side of the table produced not a single result, it denigrated into a mad ball-launching free-for-all with little yellow balls flying everywhere. When we all agreed that throwing a ping-pong ball into multiple cups of alcohol that you are then forced to drink was extremely unhygienic, we progressed to the numbers game which was just like a maths competition. Well, you had to be able to recognise numbers and then perform the appropriate action that corresponded to that number anyway – extremely high-brow tasks such as starting a rap that each player then had to develop. Hey, that at least involves a certain way with words and sounds. We then played 21, which does require the ability to count to 21 and even remember your times tables. I had to know what a multiple of two was so that I could stand up and dance while I sang it. When that started to hurt the brain too much, we played that intellectual classic, Uno, a game that requires all your mental faculties to be on top form – you have to match colours and numbers. Actually, in the early hours of the morning after a few glasses of wine too many, that really isn’t such an easy task.


Oh God, get me to a city quickly.

Trustworthy Citizens

There is something I feel I must confess to you all. I will admit it, and I will do so without shame – I am 27 and a proud card-carrying member of the National Trust. You might be under the impression that National Trust properties are full of Ednas, Noras and Bettys - bus loads from the Sea Breeze Retirement Village, groups of ladies from the WI wearing their best twin-set and pearls, and the white-haired set visiting as part of their OAP Coach Tours of Britain holiday. But you would be wrong. OK, the grannies certainly do form a sizeable percentage of visitors to National Trust properties but there is a growing number of younger members who are equally interested in our heritage and are keen to preserve it for future generations. I have a very good friend who is also an owner of a little green card (OK, her husband does nickname her Betty and she does wear her pearls almost every day but she really is the same age as me) and there is nothing we like better than to spend an afternoon walking through a grand stately home and imagining what life must have been like for those who lived there.


The Husband is also a member, although that is more through force than by choice. I have found, however, that he can often be persuaded to visit a property with the promise of a cream tea in the tea rooms afterwards. And with just that promise, on the way back from Leeds to Solihull we took a slight detour off the motorway to visit an important historical home, Hardwick Hall. Those of you who have read Philippa Gregory’s The Other Queen will recognise the name, as it was built by Bess of Hardwick, sometime keeper of Mary Queen of Scots during her time under house arrest. It is one of the most significant Elizabethan country estates in England, having been little altered in four hundred years, and therefore provides a fascinating insight into Elizabethan life. That, to me, is far more interesting than the virtual world that so many people my age spend their spare time inhabiting – this is real life, lived by our ancestors hundreds of years ago when the world was different beyond recognition. Why someone would rather play a computer game or watch a film when real life is so interesting is beyond me.

I think, though, that The Husband might be one of those. As I was peering at every piece of furniture and reading every sign, he was getting more and more ratty. It was time to take him for his promised cream tea. Except that the tea room was packed full of people and there was nowhere to sit. So we quickly left and headed towards the nearby working mill, something with cogs and moving parts, something that made something tangible. This was more his thing. In theory, it was fascinating – a watermill constructed in 1849 still milling flour to this day. I could have looked around it in about five minutes but we were kindly given a guided tour by the stewards who explained the workings to us in minute detail. I smiled and nodded, not really understanding a word of what they were saying. Every time I went to say thank you and turn to leave, The Husband, his engineering brain fully engaged, would ask another question. I now know how he feels when I ask about furniture or paintings in the houses.

Still, we both came away having learnt many new things. I learnt that it is perfectly acceptable to prominently display your initials by carving them into the stonework of your house and The Husband learnt that, unless you are perfectly happy never to leave, it is not wise to ask an old man who loves to talk a single question.

Crossing The Great Divide

I don’t really do the North. Not because I don’t like it, it just seems like a very long way away – or that’s what I tell myself anyway. Being born a Southerner, it was never encouraged to venture north of Watford. The Parents knew nothing about the north of England, except what every Southerner knew to be fact – It’s Grim Up North. They have travelled the world and yet, until The Brother made the monumental decision to go to Durham University – Durham, as in near Newcastle, as in almost Scotland; you couldn’t get much further north – they had not been further north than Birmingham, my old university. At the time, it was quite a brave move for me to choose Birmingham University – as The Father said more than once, “I’ve driven around Birmingham a couple of times – you’d only drive around it to get somewhere else”. Birmingham was the furthest north anyone in my family had ever been. I was an intrepid explorer, braving the unknown. The unknown turned out be rather nice, as it happened – Birmingham wasn’t what it once was. Of course, I struggled to meet a Brummie in the university itself, most of the students were fellow Southerners.

That seems to be the case not only with the university in Leeds, but the city itself. All I kept hearing were southern accents. Not once did I hear anyone say, “I’m just goin’ up t’moor” or any other classic Yorkshire phrases. Then again, we had driven up to visit a couple of The Husband’s school friends, both from Solihull, who had settled with their partners in Leeds after attending the city’s university. Perhaps a lot of Leeds Uni students had stayed in the city after graduation – the centre was awash with young, overly-trendy sorts with all the newest clobber and hairstyles. There was not a ‘nowt’ to be heard anywhere. The old stereotypes of northerners being vulgar, uncouth and poor are just that – old. There is tremendous wealth ‘oop north’ now – the opening of Harvey Nichols in Leeds fourteen years ago is testament to that. In a massive reversal, many Southerners are packing up their bags and moving northwards for a better ( cheaper, more relaxed) quality of life.

We spent our time in Leeds shopping, eating and drinking in a grand fashion. We visited the designer shops in the Victorian Quarter (where I felt distinctly unfashionable), had a very civilised cup of tea on the terrace of a listed classical building overlooking parkland, drank cocktails in a canal-side bar, and dined exceedingly well. We couldn’t have done better in London. Now if they could only do something about the weather, which unfortunately does continue to be Grim Up North...

The Scariest Question In The World

The Husband had been in the country for a mere five hours and with me less than an hour when the Big Question reared its ugly head again. When? On its own, it is a seemingly innocuous question. It could be in reference to any number of normal, everyday events. When shall we eat dinner? When are we going to go to the supermarket? When do you want to see that film at the cinema? The Husband knew that it was not such a simple when? He knew exactly what it referred to as we have had this when? conversation more than a few times recently. And if that didn’t convince him that he knew what I was talking about, our destination left little doubt. We were on our way to Reading to meet up with two good friends who had recently had a baby.


Pre-baby, the father was one of those men who made it very difficult for one to imagine him as a dad, a responsible care-giver to a little person. Before their baby was born, he struggled to look after himself, let alone another human being. I hoped that seeing him with his baby would convince The Husband that if he can do it then anybody can. I also hoped that if I asked The Husband in his sleep-deprived, slightly delirious state, he would be more likely to answer the when? question with a joyful and exuberant ‘right now!’ We met them in a cafe chosen specifically for its child-friendliness and spoke to them about the realities of being parents. There is a lot to consider when you have baby. Who’d have thought that such a tiny person would need so much stuff?! You can’t just leave the house on a whim – you have to plan each outing with military precision. Firstly, you have to make sure you have all the right gear – nappy bags, extra clothing, toys, books, a first aid kit... the list is endless. Then you have to consider the logistics of the exercise. Can you walk there or will you have to take the car (if the latter form of transport is required there is a whole extra list of requirements – the father had to drive home to pick up a different car as the one he had brought wasn’t baby-suitable)? Are you going to a baby-friendly venue - can you navigate a pram around the space without too much difficulty, do they mind if you breast-feed, will they get snooty if your baby starts to wail? All that can be just for a trip down the road. The couple had recently been for a short holiday on the south coast and couldn’t see out of the back window of their car, so rammed full of all the extra baby necessities was it. They had to make do with a small holdall between them as there wasn’t room for their stuff.

I guess that’s what happens when you have a baby – you have let another person take over your lives in every way. You can’t be selfish anymore, the baby must always take priority. It was a sobering thought. So do I still think that it’s worth it? One look at their faces when they held their baby daughter, when they played with her and gazed at her and talked about her and there is no doubt in my mind. I would happily squeeze all my stuff into a small holdall to have that.

Crazy Bag Lady

I am a plastic bag hater. I do not need to list the reasons why – unless you have been living in an underground bunker since the nineties, you will have read, seen, heard the undeniable facts proving that our love of plastic is irrevocably harming the planet. When it is so easy to take your own, far sturdier, less painful to hold when heavy, more stylish, re-usable bags to the shops I really don’t understand why people walk out with a trolley-full of ugly, animal-killing plastic ones. In Thailand, you were looked at weirdly by everyone – shop-assistants and customers alike – for bringing your own bags (read my blog ‘Plastic Fantastic’, Jan 14th 2010, for more on that). In a country where many people struggle to make ends meet, rejecting something for which you don’t have to pay a single baht is unthinkable. Why would you not stock up on shiny, new and completely free plastic bags, and as many as the cashier is willing to dish out at that?


Australians are far more environmentally aware (and wealthy) than the Thais and their shops welcome reusable bags. Shop assistants here don’t look at you as if you have just admitted to a penchant for eating pet cats if you do forget to bring your own bags (like many in the UK do), but they often check if you need a bag rather than just assuming that you do and they are happy to take your bags to pack your shopping into. Like Thailand, the supermarket assistants in Australia pack your shopping for you, which does sometimes cause eyes to be raised when I hand over my odd assortment of fabric bags. Back in the UK it didn’t matter what weird and wonderful bags I produced at the till as you are expected to pack your own bags – I knew which items fitted best into which bags and I had a system. Here, when I pull out my bags received free in magazines, given to me at organic fairs and bought at other supermarkets, I can see the till person fight not to roll their eyes and sigh. At that moment they know that I have just made their job that little bit harder. My bags of different shapes, sizes and materials don’t all fit perfectly onto their bag-holders and I feel a twinge of guilt as I look round at other tills where customers have handed over their spacious supermarket-own reusable bags that are designed specifically to fit onto the hooks at the till and hold dozens of items. The cashier yesterday lined my bags all up on the counter and gave much thought to which items should go into which bags. I was there for quite a while and more than one person in the queue behind me gave up and joined another, where people were using the right bags.

It may have taken longer but at least I returned home bearing not a single plastic bag. And my bags are far more original than the supermarket own ones. They are bright, colourful, madly patterned and doing their bit to save the planet. I may look like a crazy bag lady but I don’t care.

Spaced Out

So it turns out that The Parents actually rent their parking space and have been since they bought their current apartment. The previous owner sold their home but not their precious parking space, a commodity more valuable than gold in Hong Kong. As strange as that probably sounds to many of you, this is actually not such an unusual arrangement in urban Hong Kong. This is a city that is smaller than many Australian farms but with more than three times the population of Western Australia - it is one of the most densely populated areas in the world and land is at a premium. That means that in the city a parking space does not simply come with the price of the apartment – either you buy one or you rent it from someone else. What with the exorbitant price of petrol, toll fares and of course the cost of buying an imported car in the first place, owning and running a car in Hong Kong does not come cheap - the reason that it is such a status symbol there.


After renting the space in their car park for a number of years, The Parents have made the big decision to buy one of their very own. At the weekend, they went to view one – yes, just like you wouldn’t buy a property without first viewing it, it would be unthinkable to buy a parking space on a whim without the proper research. And, just like property, it’s all in the location, location, location. On what floor of the multi-story car park is it? Is it near the lift? How far from the street exit is it? All points one must consider when parking space-hunting. After several viewings, The Parents have found The One – it fits the brief and they snapped it up at the bargain price of HK$550,000 (£45,400 or AU$78,600). A steal really. No, really, it is. They also looked at one on the same floor which is on sale for HK$880,000. The reason for the huge difference in price? There is absolutely no reason. The owner simply, and rather cannily, thinks that he can get that amount because the figure contains two eights, a number considered by the Chinese to be extremely auspicious because both the Mandarin and the Cantonese word for it sounds like ‘wealth’. Double eight means double fortune. I expect that he will get it, too.

I sometimes sit here in our roomy house in Karratha, with our big drive (most here are big enough to fit your boat or caravan), speaking to The Parents on the saviour that is Skype, and contemplate just how far removed we are from their world. Or our old world for that matter. We, too, often had problems parking on our Victorian terrace-lined street. We didn’t have to part with a small fortune to buy one but not one house had their own off-street parking space so there was often a fight for a good space, or sometimes just for a space on the street at all – there were occasions when we had to park a street over. The Husband took to curtain-twitching out of the window in our front room, waiting for the car parked in the space outside our house to move so that he could race out to our car and promptly park it there. I would then not be allowed to take the car out until at least the next day. Space is definitely something to cherish out here, even if there is slightly more space than is strictly necessary. Several UKs and Hong Kongs more space really.

An Alternative Love Story

With the last dying breaths of the hen do on Sunday morning came an injection of pizzazz, a boost of energy, a burst of joie de vivre... drum roll please for the arrival of The Husband! You may not think that a person who has just travelled for thirty hours straight, on three different flights and across England in a car would be in any way sprightly but I can assure you that The Husband was. He was grey of pallor, with shopping bags under his eyes but was beaming from ear to ear and full of energy. Too much energy. It was akin to someone being mildly intoxicated – you know, that happy buzz you get when you love everyone and are the life and soul of the party before you crash and burn, ending up slumped on the floor with your head in the toilet. I was slightly concerned that he shouldn’t be driving in his sleep-deprived, delirious state but as he was the only one insured on the car, there wasn’t much I could do but smile and make sure that he kept his eyes on the road and his hands on the steering wheel. Besides, there was no way I could have persuaded him to part with the keys of his beloved new toy. Having been told that the VW Golf he had ordered was not available, he managed to blag himself a sweet deal on a VW Scirocco, a compact sports car that, in technical terms, can go very fast very quickly. And he certainly made sure that he made full use of that ability. Even if we were only going a couple of hundred metres to the next set of lights, he would power through the gears, sending my head crashing against the head rest each time.

And thus the joy and excitement, hugs and kisses, upon seeing him again after three weeks apart descended into arguments within about five minutes of being in the car with each other. I tried hard not to, I really did. After all, he had just travelled half-way across the world on the journey from Hell but had immediately jumped in a car and driven all the way from Heathrow to Bath to pick me up. But honestly, if you were getting thrashed about in a car first thing in the morning (or, let’s face it, any time of the day) would you not have something to say to the driver? “But it’s fun,” he argued, looking at me with puppy dog eyes, “I never get to drive a car like this.” Oh well, I eventually thought, let him have his fun, he’ll get bored of it after a couple of days. Let me tell you something I have now learnt about men – they never tire of putting their foot down hard on the accelerator. Fact. They also never tire of showing off their pride and joy to other men (even if it is only a hire car and therefore not technically theirs). Every male friend and relative we stayed with got a personal guided tour of the car and, as a treat at the end, they even got to sit in the passenger seat. The passenger seat I hasten to emphasise, never the driver’s seat. If they were really lucky, they even got a drive in it – again, with The Husband driving and not under any circumstances them. I am not exaggerating when I say that The Husband was obsessed with this car. If he could have divorced me and married his Scirocco he probably would have done. As it was, he merely had a two-week passionate affair with it. He quite openly said to me that he would rather buy this car than have a baby.

Men are strange, unfathomable creatures.

The Husband's Bit On The Side