Dear Dave
Wednesday, 9 April 2008
In Bruges
Dear Dave,
Shoot first, sightsee later...
For some reason, as I fought my way along a cobbled pavement through a coach-load of Italian teenagers going in the opposite direction, the tag-line to the film In Bruges kept springing to mind.
With hindsight, it was probably because I was actually in Bruges at the time. Still, it would have been sensible advice in any other over-priced, medieval European city.
With one hand I clasped a waffle and with the other I clung to Lewis as he told me in great, yet unintelligible, detail about level 3-6 of Mario vs Donkey Kong 2. "...and then you jump this way and go up past the thing and then the other thing comes down next to the platform on the other side of the purple bit..." We pressed forward through the other tourists.
The waffle had cost slightly more than half our normal daily family food budget. It was going soggy from the rain.
I gritted my teeth. We were on holiday. We were having a cultural experience. We were going to enjoy it.
"Are we lost?" asked Fraser from somewhere behind us.
"No," I replied. "We know where we are, we... just don't know where we're going."
"We're never going to get back to the holiday house!" said Lewis, sounding genuinely concerned.
"My socks are wet," squealed Marie.
"We'll get back soon," I said, "and we'll get dry and we'll eat our waffles."
"Do we have to go out tomorrow?" asked Fraser.
"Yes."
"Awwww," he moaned. "Why?"
"Because we're on holiday," I snapped. "We haven't travelled hundreds of miles to sit on a sofa with the curtains drawn and play computer games."
"Why not?" said Lewis.
"Er... because we could have done that at home."
"Why didn't we just stay home?" asked Fraser.
I shook my head in despair. I didn't entirely have a good answer for that. "At least we're not being forced to listen to Max Bygraves tapes by a crazy Spanish sea-captain," I muttered to no one in particular.
"What?" said Lewis, Fraser, Sarah, Marie and a handful of fifteen-year-old Italians in unison.
I took a deep breath. "Well," I began, "when I was small, we were on the top deck of a ferry and it started to chuck it down and..." I launched into an account of various family holidays I'd endured as a boy. It kept the children entertained as we plodded on. There was a strange symmetry to distracting my kids from getting soaked in a foreign land by recalling tales of getting soaked in a foreign land as a kid. Deep down, I knew I'd turned into my parents, though. Both of them. What were we doing?
It had all begun several days earlier on a cold, wet beach in Zeebrugge...
We'd taken the ferry overnight from Rosyth and stepped out boldly to explore. We could have caught a coach directly from the ferry port to Bruges but the boys get bus sick very easily so we thought we'd catch a train. This involved exploring Zeebrugge on foot.
We won't be doing that again.
We were travelling remarkably light for a family of five but Sarah and I still had an enormous rucksack each and the boys both had a small backpack. We'd left the buggy behind and so Marie was forced to walk. This made life interesting as we blundered our way along the hard shoulder of a dual carriageway, searching for civilisation while a gale whipped sand and rain into our eyes. The nearest railway station was closed. There were no shops, only a row of job centres and temp agencies. The boys started to complain that 'abroad' was very cold and they didn't like it.
We trudged a mile into town and found another station. The building was being renovated so we had to stand on the platform in the rain to eat our sandwiches. We did manage to get a train, however, and we didn't have to pay for the kids, so that cheered us up a little. We got to Bruges and ate waffles. This cheered us up some more. Then we hunted out the self-catering house we'd rented for the week. The rain bucketed down as we went.
When we eventually dripped our way inside, it was surprisingly nice. Rather too nice, in fact. It was packed with antique furniture that we had to immediately tell the children not to drip on. The owner very proudly told us that Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson had stayed there during the filming of In Bruges. Since I'd only heard of the movie thirty minutes beforehand thanks to a poster in the Tourist Information Centre, I maybe wasn't as impressed as I should have been. Still, I searched the house later for toenail clippings to eBay.
The place was very different from our own home, adding to the adventure of the holiday. The only real issue was the stairs:
No not those stairs. Admittedly they had gaps in the banisters big enough for an adult to fall through, forced me to duck, were slippy and wobbled worryingly but it's the next flight I'm really talking about:
Not the kind of obstacle you want between a three-year-old and the toilet, first thing in the morning.
Marie simply wasn't allowed to go up and down on her own.
The next day, once we'd dried off, we started doing the usual tourist things. We went on a boat trip on the canals and took a horse-drawn carriage ride round the old town, we went for walks, searched out swing-parks and hit the shops. We avoided buying lace souvenirs but we did stock up on chocolate. We only got soaked through a couple more times...
There were a few instances where it was an effort trying to herd the children but everything was so much easier than it would have been even a year ago. Once we'd got the kids down the stairs in the morning, they could amuse themselves while we slept on. We even went a whole week without a buggy or changing bag or a packet of wipes.
Actually, no, we managed without the buggy and a change of clothes for Marie but we only went a day without a packet of wipes before we realised our mistake. The kids had some candy floss at the circus, got it all over themselves and then tried licking it off. For the rest of the afternoon, everything they passed stuck to them - dirt, leaves, small dogs, other people's wallets, historic monuments, buses and each other. It was a disaster. We ended up rolling half the town into a big, sticky ball just trying to get home. The locals weren't pleased. We may be just about done with changing bags and buggies but I suspect that I'll still be carrying around a packet of wipes with me on the day I help Marie transport all her stuff to university. (I'll probably still be telling her not to lose her gloves and to say 'please' and 'thank you' as well, but that's another story.)
In the middle of the week, we took a train to Brussels to have a look round there. We found a decent swing-park, more rain and the hugely ostentatious town square. If there was much else to see, we didn't stumble across it. By that point, I'd run out of first-hand stories of holiday mishaps and was resorting to tales that my grandparents had told me to keep me distracted on cramped, three-day car journeys to Spain. I wandered around saying things like, "Look at that statue and did you know that your great-grandparents once got locked in a church with General Franco?"
We spotted the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier but both the boys thought it was rather a waste using up so much space to bury one person that nobody knew. Then we found a shop selling Pokemon merchandise and they were happy.
On our final day in Bruges, the boys and I sat in the main square while Sarah and Marie went shopping. An old local came over, looking for a chat. He asked where we were from and then told us that the only way Bruges has to make money is to rob tourists blind. He then pointed out that half the ancient-looking buildings around us were erected in the twentieth century. When I mentioned that we'd been to Brussels, he said, "The town square's wonderful but there's nothing else to see."
I suspect that he didn't work for the Belgian Tourist Board.
A different elderly man (I just seem to attract these guys) accosted us the following morning as we were preparing to get off the ferry. He'd been visiting friends in Holland and they'd suggested he cycle from the port. Because of the bad weather, he'd left his bike at home and had attempted to take public transport. He'd apparently ended up following us as we desperately searched for a means of escape from Zeebrugge. He, too, had been glad to make it out alive before nightfall... If he goes back, he's going to catch the bus directly to Bruges and find his way from there.
I nodded sagely. It was the only sensible course of action. I only wished I'd known that a week earlier.
Next time I go anywhere, I'm going to go stand in the queue to leave as soon as I get there and wait for an elderly gentleman to give me the inside scoop on the place. It will save so much time.
We survived. The kids got to see somewhere foreign where the buildings are strange, the money is different and slightly fewer people than normal speak English. They also got to bag a whole heap of Pokemon tack. Could have been worse. Lewis is keen to go back again, despite not wanting to go in the first place and kicking up a fuss every time we tried to leave the house when we were there. Marie's happy because she got to buy a pink, sparkly necklace. Fraser's just pleased that he's no longer the only kid in his class who hasn't been to another country. He was pretty miserable at the start of the holiday, though. He didn't want to go and then acted like it was the end of the world when Lewis accidentally stood on his hand in the soft-play on the ferry.
I took him back to the cabin to put a plaster on his finger and calm him down. He slumped dejectedly on his bunk.
"You don't really want to be here, do you?" I said. "Would you rather have stayed at home?"
He looked sheepish. He clearly wanted to agree but was worried he might get into trouble for telling the truth.
"Do you want to hear a secret?" I asked. "You have to promise not to tell it to anyone. Do you promise?"
He looked interested. "OK."
"Well," I said, "I'd rather have stayed at home too."
"Really?" he said, perking up like a housedad who's just spotted another man entering the room for parent and toddler.
"Yes, but Mummy really wants to go on this holiday and I love Mummy very much, so we're going and we're going to have a good time. Do you understand?"
He nodded.
"Do you love Mummy very much, too?" I asked.
"Yes," said Fraser.
"Then stop being so grumpy, please."
"All right," he said. "Can I play my DS now?"
"When we get back down to the others."
He made as if to complain that he wanted to stay in the cabin but then stopped. We shared a grin and headed downstairs. The holiday went much more smoothly after that. We even had a pretty good time...
Hope everyone's well and that you had an excellent Easter.
Yours in a woman's world,
Ed.
PS Lewis felt sick on the ferry journey home. I told him to hurry to the toilet. Dutifully, he went through, but he'd misunderstood. Rather than stick his head in it and throw up, he sat down to pee.
Then he threw up.
Fraser started feeling ill. I gave him a travel pill. He threw up in the sink. The output was the colour of the travel pill. Marie was delighted. She spent the rest of the day running up to strangers and yelling, "Fraser was sick! It was pink!"
Charming.
PPS When we finally reached home, I watched the trailer for In Bruges and fell about laughing. 9:30 AM - Permanent Link - 3 comments - Post comment - Links to this post
Friday, 29 February 2008
Road rant
Dear Dave,You're right - those Children's Traffic Club books are great, aren't they? My kids all loved them and became much more aware of road safety after working through them. Marie now complains whenever she ends up next to the road as we walk along the pavement holding hands.
Of course, they only help up to a certain point. Fraser's reached a stage where he's forgotten lots of the information but he thinks he knows everything. It's almost like I'm having to start again as he becomes responsible for himself and has to stop relying on me the whole time. Teaching him to cross roads is harder work than I imagined it would be:
We live in a maze of side streets, so, most of the time, we have to cross near a junction - we can't avoid it. Fortunately, there aren't that many cars about and they're usually not going that fast. Less fortunately, there are plenty of inconsiderate drivers who don't indicate. Sometimes this is laziness brought on by the lack of other vehicles; sometimes it's because they've got their hands full as they smoke while holding a mobile phone. It happens so often, I pretty much have to assume that any nearby car is about to make a sudden turn and head straight for us, whether they're signalling this intent or not. (To be fair, some drivers do start indicating when they notice me standing at the kerb with three small children but, since they've already begun turning by this point, it's not actually that helpful. If they're still smoking and holding a mobile phone, I'd really rather they concentrated on steering.)
The only thing more dangerous than the really inconsiderate drivers is the really considerate ones. These people seem to delight in taking politeness to a potentially lethal level. They see us waiting at the edge of the pavement looking from side to side, and take pity on the poor parent with small children. They stop their cars and wave us across.
I really wish they wouldn't.
This kind of behaviour is highly unpredictable and it often means that crossing the road takes longer as we wait to make sure they've really stopped and aren't just checking out a parking space or lining us up for a triple-point hit-and-run combo. It confuses me, so it's not handy when teaching young children the Green Cross Code. It's also hugely dangerous - just because they've waved, it doesn't mean it's safe to cross. There are the other directions to consider. I've been lulled into a false sense of security a couple of times myself and only remembered to look the other way at the last minute. When my kids are older, I firmly believe that the biggest risk to their health will be courteous drivers.
Some of them are just crazy.
Frequently, a car pulls out of a side street (turning right) and the driver notices us waiting for them to go past before we cross the main road. He or she stops and waves us across. The car is still partly in the side street, partly where it wants to be and mostly sitting at right-angles across the wrong lane. This doesn't seem smart.
Some drivers see us ready to cross in the distance and slow down to give us an opportunity to hurry over before they arrive. This is infuriating. A car traveling along a straight road at a constant speed is easy to predict - even a child can do it. It's very hard, however, spotting that a car going twenty-five miles an hour is gently slowing down if it's coming directly towards you. By the time I'm certain that the driver isn't just fiddling with the radio, there's never time to cross safely. They either have to go past or stop. What they usually do instead is increase pressure on the brake a little more - just enough to give us time to cross but ensuring they don't actually have to come to a halt. Needless to say, it's almost impossible for us to tell that this is what's going on. For a start, the brake lights are on the back of the car. More than that, it takes a few seconds of observation to mentally calculate the rate of deceleration of a slow moving object. Factor in the time it takes to look for cars coming in the other direction (who may have decided to join in the insanity) and there's still no chance of us making it across.
The driver wonders what we're playing at but is now committed to the whole thing. He or she slows down a fraction more. The cycle repeats. Everything proceeds at the rate it takes Xeno to shoot a tortoise. Several days later, the car stops and the driver waves us across, just as the cars coming the other way give up. We wait some more. Everyone involved dies of dehydration.
Quite often, the cars that do this tortuous rolling to a stop are the only ones in sight at the point when the whole rigmarole begins. If they simply kept going, we'd be across the road the moment they'd gone by.
Somehow, I have to teach my children to deal with this nonsense and yet still arrive at their destination on time and in one piece. I've started putting Fraser in charge of working out when it's safe for us all to cross and it's been quite nerve-wracking. I imagine this must be what teaching someone to drive is like. Half the time, I want to slam on his brakes, the other half, I keep wanting to shout, "Go! Come on! Now!" as he spends thirty seconds checking in each direction, moving his head around and hopping up and down in case a car is lurking behind a lamp post ready to pounce or a motorbike is about to leap out of a wheelie bin.
After much consideration, he points into the distance. "There's a van over there."
I shield my eyes and squint. "Yes, but it's on Mars." Meanwhile, in the other direction, cars have had a chance to arrive all the way from Glasgow in order to not indicate and then turn corners apparently using only the power of the drivers' nicotine addled minds. We're back to square one.
Ho well. The kids will figure it out eventually and the whole process will be worth it in the end. Let's face it, if they're ever going to move out, they're going to need to know how to get off our block.
Hmmm... I think I'll go start Marie on the next book...
Yours in a woman's world,
Ed.
PS At the moment, the kids aren't that fussed about learning to cross roads by themselves. They'd be quite happy for me to chaperone them everywhere for the rest of their lives and then have me hang around to perform menial tasks.
Yesterday, for instance, Lewis wanted to climb on the bike racks at school and he needed his hands free. "Can you hold onto my lunchbox?" he said, waving it at me.
Marie was already climbing and I was, very obviously, preoccupied with preventing her falling on her head. "Hang it off the buggy or something," I said in exasperation. "I'm not your slave."
Marie chuckled at the absurdity of this idea. "No," she giggled at me, "you're my slave." 10:30 AM - Permanent Link - 0 comments - Post comment - Links to this post
Friday, 11 January 2008
Letting the train take the strain
Dear Dave,You're thinking of going on holiday where?
With two small children!?!!
Well, rather you than me - that's a lot of traveling. Then again, other parents are frequently impressed over my family's expeditions to Norfolk. It's about three and a half hours to Peterborough, another hour and a half to Norwich and then a further twenty-five minutes to Baskerville Station which is conveniently located in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, in most directions, there's nothing but grass and cows for miles. It's a little disconcerting. In the other direction, there are some scattered dwellings but this is small comfort, since most of the inhabitants have names like Seth and Ahab and own shotguns. If we're lucky, we arrive at twilight, just as the mist is rolling in over the marshes and the baying of a hound echoes eerily in the distance.
Not good.
It's always a relief when my parents do actually turn up to collect us. Of course, this requires two cars these days but at least my folks have enough carseats of the appropriate kind now so that we don't have to take any with us. Anything which reduces the amount of stuff we have to carry around stations and over foot-bridges is a blessing. It also makes it easier to run from irate locals who've mistaken us for coypu.
We travel by train because it's cheaper than flying, doesn't take much longer door-to-door and allows the kids to move about. It's far less stress than driving. The only problem is dealing with the luggage - there's seldom enough space to stow things. That's partly to do with the design of the trains and partly to do with the amount of stuff we need to take. Last summer, when we went on holiday, we took two rucksacks, a suitcase, three carseats, a changing bag, three backpacks, a carrier bag and a large camera case. Getting that lot and three children on and off a train in a hurry is no picnic. It will improve in a few years, when the kids are bigger and I have my own team of little sherpas. For now, though, getting everything and everyone safely stowed is the major stress of any journey.
At least, it is once we're on our way. Before that, comes purchasing tickets.
Working out the best deal for a train journey is Deep Magic that I leave to Sarah. All the different companies have different offers and restrictions so it all depends where you're going and when, and whether you know the arcane incantations to obtain the unadvertised cheap day supersaver advance only-every-other-Wednesday-in-May bargain return. It's madness.
Since Sam and Daisy are under five, they don't need tickets, but you'll probably want to buy at least one of them a ticket anyway in order to save money. (Told you it was madness). That way, you can use a Family Railcard. With a railcard, you get a third off the tickets for you and Liz and sixty percent off the cost of the kids' tickets (which are half the adult price to start with). You have to pay a small amount for the railcard but it lasts a year and it'll pay for itself easily on a single long journey. Also, if you buy tickets for the kids, you'll be able to reserve them a seat. Admittedly, seat reservations frequently don't work but it's worth a shot trying to book space round a table. Watch they don't try and put you in the quiet coach, though. (Been there, done that. I switched all my gadgets to silent mode but I'm yet to find that button on my children...)
On our last trip, the boys mainly played Nintendo and the girl stared out the window. This was fantastic. In the past, though, we've used a number of methods to keep the kids busy:
- Reading stories. Works OK but involves effort and carrying books around.
- Simple toys. A purse with a zip and a small pile of loose change keeps Marie quiet for hours.
- Games. Snap, Pairs and Top Trumps are preferable. Anything involving dice always ends in hunting around for lost ones in sticky recesses under the seats. (You might want to pack a torch).
- Drawing. At last! A use for all those little sets of crayons they're forever giving us in restaurants.
- Running up and down the aisle screaming. It keeps them entertained but, after a while, they start wanting to join in...
- Food. A meal always makes a long journey go more pleasantly. Well, usually:
Remember - always keep a change of clothes handy for the kids. On at least one occasion, I needed a change of clothes for me, too. When Fraser was a toddler, he was grizzly during a train journey and so I took him into the vestibule at the end of the carriage and sat on one of those fold-down seats by the door while I held him in my arms and tried to rock him to sleep.
He threw up spectacularly into both our laps.
Sarah was out of line of sight, so I couldn't signal for help. There was no one else around to go and get her. Standing up would have meant the pool of milky foulness escaping everywhere. I had to limbo to the toilet with a one-year-old clasped to my chest and then mop up with paper towels. Sarah was somewhat surprised when, a few minutes later, I plonked a naked child on the table in front of her and then raced off to rummage in our suitcase for non-toxic trousers.
On another occasion, Marie was sitting in the buggy by the door with our cases and carseats piled up around her, ready for us to hastily disembark. Without warning, she spewed her entire lunch all over the floor and our luggage. We stood there, staring in horror. Then the train pulled into the station.
We hastily disembarked.
Then, of course, we had to mop the carseats as best we could and find a taxi...
Which handily brings me to the most important travel advice I can give: wherever you're going and whatever you're planning, always pack plenty of wipes and plastic bags. Oh, and don't look funny at anyone called Seth who's carrying a shotgun. Remember that and you'll be fine.
Yours in a woman's world,
Ed.
PS You might want to apply for the kids' passports now. They've relaxed the standards for photos a bit but it's still liable to take a few attempts to get something suitable. Leave yourself plenty of time.
Labels: travel
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