HAPPY EASTER
Today I woke not feeling too grand. Partly because of a late night, partly due to the three pints of beer and partly due the sourness in my neck and back. Oh, did I mention the 5 and 2 year old running around having a fun Easter morning whilst their poor ‘old’ Uncle Matt suffered in bed.

Well, after a wee while I pulled my reluctant self out of bed and waded through the thick wall of grilled bacon aroma and joined the others for breakfast. After a delicate breakfast of cereal we moved onto the Easter morning activity – rolling eggs down a hill. Rewind 24 hours and you would find us sat around the dining room table decorating hard- boiled eggs. As this tradition was new to me I was curious to why. After enquiry I discovered that it was an Easter tradition but no one knew why. Why enquire further, the thought of rolling eggs seemed like a fun thing to do, so no need to bog that down with a historical explanation. So everyone in the family painted an egg, mine was red, with a face and a white piece of cotton wool as hair and attached using an elastic band which doubles as a wonderful 1970’s sports head sweat band – quite delightful if I may say so.

So on Easter morning we headed to this one part of the village that dates back to over 2,200 years (if you are reading this and are from Northern America this is referred to as real ‘History’), it was a large hill used as a watch- tower. Anyways, as we made our way to the top we removed the eggs from the box and all got ready to release the poor little bastards to their soon to be smashed state of death (such a fun Easter spiritual activity). The winner of the game is the one that rolls the furthest. So we rolled we did and boy did they roll.

The egg that belonged to my brother’s two year old didn’t have the best roll, as when it was removed from the box she thought it was a chocolate egg and bit the head off the egg! Ha, the look of “this is not chocolate but a two day old manky egg” on her face was quite priceless. Five of the eggs didn’t have the best roll and were smashed to little pieces. My brother’s and mine were still in one good piece. So rather than sending them on an all inclusive Caribbean cruise for lucky hard boiled eggs, we marched them up to the top of the hill to just roll them back down again (isn’t that a song    After a few more rolls my egg gave in to the torture and the yolk smashed through the head and called it a day. My brother was crowned ‘king egg man’, a title that he was very pleased to wear.

LATER THAT DAY
Just before my extended family came for Easter afternoon and dinner (and to see their lovely Nephew … I.E. ME!!) I had the common decency to have a shower. I used the one upstairs for the first time, it was new and the water pressure was fantastic. The shower downstairs (which I have always used in the past) has the water pressure of a soft hand shake. Anyways, it got me thinking to when we are traveling on our global adventure even the soft handshake shower would probably occur as a pure luxury at times compared to some of the places and facilities of where we may be visiting. Some days (and hopefully not weeks) a shower will be a luxury, oh my, the sound of traveling can be so glamorous (he- he!).

For lunch I had a classic English lunch. A scotch egg and pork pie. One being a hard- boiled egg (fresh and without the face and hair piece) wrapped in sausage meat and bread crumbs and then deep fired. The other  being lean pork meat wrapped in gelatine and then pastry. I know it’s not particularly healthy or a balanced meal but my goodness it was grand.

On a side note, you can tell I have been hanging out with Yorkshire folk (my family) as I would not normally write the phrase ‘it was grand’. Actually, it should have read ‘bi eck lad, it was grand’.

FAMILY TIME, GOOD FOOD, BEER AND GREAT CONVERSATIONS
Spending time with family was fantastic. It has been 3 years since I last saw them. I am sure they were thinking I had aged as I did them, but it led me to an interesting internal conversation. We are only young once, lets take the most of our health and enjoy life and do those crazy dreams we have – like go on a global trip with our daughter. We could come up with so many reasons not to (safety, money concerns, will we all get along etc) but if we didn’t do this I know in 30 years time I would regret it. Also, My Aunty Karen and her hubby and kid just bought a RV (a mini one in comparison to the massive ones in the US). But it was exciting. A good friend right now is traveling down the East coast of Australia in a RV, and again having RV conversations today opened up the thought of how this could be a viable transportation option for part of our global journey. So many options, so many options.

Karen also told me a story of how she got them lost in a RV in Canada, North of Jasper in the Rockies. She had taken a back dirt road thinking it would be a short cut rather than taken the long way round. As they took the numerous hairpin corners in this rental RV she quickly reconsidered her brilliant plan, but it was too late. She told of this one moment where her and her husband lets say were not on the best of terms, the hairpin corners continued and the threat of falling off the edge of a cliff was quite real. It was very steep and the microwave thought it would add to the stress by sliding out of the section in the kitchen. So as her husband is driving the road of hell, she jammed herself in the kitchen between the wall and the microwave desperately trying to keep it in place.

This reminded me of the episode in Long Way Round where they were in Mongolia and the terrain was crazy difficult. They said that while it was pure hell on a day to day basis, it was these times that they would look back on and tell stories about, these crazy moments in time that they had conquered. Karen’s story and the memory of the TV program got me excited again about the prospect of traveling around the world with Claire and our wee one. I am curious and excited to look back and have those crazy stories to tell about those bizarre situations we got ourselves into and how we conquered them, only to have moved onto the next.

SEE IMAGES ON FLICKR:
part 1, part 2, part 3 & part 4

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