Five go away together

I hate the thought of people reading what I am about to write in their homes and thinking it sounds silly. People who dream of travelling in Europe, who long for beautiful views and gorgeous climates and new experiences. But my reality is my story and I feel the need to write the words that go with how I’m feeling now. If you choose to read along I hope you understand that I’m not ungrateful, just a bit tired and emotional.

We’ve been on the road for two months now and somewhere along the way I’ve forgotten the meaning behind this trip.

We’re sitting here, all five of us, at a long wooden dining table in an old stone house in Tuscany. Bren is sewing up Big Ted’s newest holes, the girls are writing articles advertising Florence to the world and I’m wondering what I need to do to get that creative buzz that will lift me out of this flat place I’ve fallen into.

I’m also trying not to tap too loudly so I won’t disturb the girls, and I’m trying to block out the music and chatting from next door. I’m trying to forget for a moment that my mum just texted me and told me she had a difficult day with her dad. I’m trying to ignore the fly that is buzzing around my head, and I’m trying to stop myself from putting a stop to this whole session and suggesting a visit to the pool instead.

So what are we doing here anyway?

Are we showing the girls the big wide world? Are we spending time exploring as a family while the girls still can and want to? Are we collecting inspiration for our own home? Are we getting as far away from our home as possible so we can see it with fresh eyes? Are we just simply tasting, smelling and walking our way around bits of Europe? Are we setting our girls up to be so far behind in school that they lose confidence? Or are we taking our girls out of the system and allowing them to be part of the School of the World? Are we spending money that would otherwise be used to fix up our house? Are we filling the girls up with different cultures and memories? Are we making the most of an opportunity? Are we making choices and taking risks? Are we just simply just escaping another dreary, dark Daylesford winter?

Travelling with three children is intense and wonderful and exhausting.

Watching our children’s little faces as they turn the corner of a street and are confronted with the most incredible church is priceless. Listening to their little voices pointing things out to each other, and thinking about the way that they seem to gobble up the history and culture is extraordinary.

But then having to deal with the meltdown at the other end is exhausting. Having to make decisions that will please everyone is not always possible. And making a plan that will keep those three children of three very different age groups engaged and involved is a challenge.

Which brings us to our week in Tuscany. Our first week out of a city in what feels like weeks.

Our plan for this week is to slow down, to discover the countryside, to catch up on some reading and writing, to make a plan for our last few weeks on the road, to stay a bit still and to work out how we are all feeling, what we all need and how we can arrange that.

But it seems that a terrible night of no sleep, on a mattress that has already been replaced, combined with our first morning off in I don’t know how long, has filled me with more questions that solutions.

At least the girls have some great pieces of Florence writing in their journals and Big Ted is all stitched up.

Ugh! Enough! Pool time.

xxxxxx

PS. Yesterday I saw a snake.

PPS. I’m pre-menstrual as you may have guessed.
PPS. Blogger and flickr are giving me such a hard time with the spacing on this post and the hosting of my photos that I've decided just to give in and let them win this time. Ugh!

The view from Florence

Ciao from Florence in Italy!

So I guess I'm really not such a great travel blogger after all.

I have the stories to tell and oh so many photos to illustrate them; but I guess life on the road, life with patchy internet, life in new cities, life in very close proximity to four other people, life where I never know whose bag has my computer charger and card reader in it, life where exploring feels more important than documenting, life where our days are busy and full and slip by so quickly, makes it difficult and not necessarily the priority.

I really do want to tell you about our days in Edale - possibly the most beautiful place on earth, about Spoonfest, about our return trip to London and then our amazing week in Paris. And I want to talk to you about the challenges and the joys of travelling Europe with our three girls, about my personal feelings on this epic journey and about the incidental details like what I'm knitting, reading and watching.

So I guess there's no place better to start than today, and no better view to share than the views from our apartment in Florence.

Every single time I look out the big windows in the lounge-room and see the views in the top three photos, I gasp. Every single time. What more could you ask for than the Ponte Vecchio and the Duomo?! I cannot cannot believe we are here. I cannot believe I get to eat my muesli each morning looking out over all that, and I can't believe this place was available last week when we booked it. It's not air-conditioned and it's pretty noisy from the street, but that's a small price to pay for such a view I think.

Please keep in mind that the windows only open a few inches so I have to squeeze my hand through and risk the six floor drop of my camera or phone each time I want to take a pic. Which I do often.

The other four photos are out the back windows from our bedroom. Incredibly beautiful too I think.

Of course there are unimaginably beautiful churches and markets and meals and artworks here in Florence, hopefully I'll get to those soon.

Until then, happy travels my friends.

I hope the view out of your window makes you smile.

Love Kate

xoxo

La La London - Street Art

We're not the type of people who prepare for a trip by visiting travel agents, reading guide books and googling travel sites. Although I do like the thought of a nice neat itinerary, I'm not sure our family could ever stick to one. Our way of traveling is to make it up as we go along. Sometimes we don't know where we are going next until the day before. Occasionally we are limited by our last minute decisions but mostly things just have a way of working out.

Without too many plans we are open to other people's suggestions, we aren't stuck in tight schedules and we have the freedom to follow our hearts wherever they take us.

Not knowing London at all, I put the call out on Facebook a few months before we left home asking for suggestions of where to eat, what to do and where to stay. I was completely overwhelmed by the response and instead of trying to break my pattern and book well ahead, I left it and went off to focus on more pressing things like packing and planting garlic instead.

Fast forward a month and we found ourselves in Israel with a week until London and nowhere to stay.

So one hot afternoon while the girls were making a horror movie on the iPad, we got on the Airbnb site and booked an apartment for five, as close to London as we could find and crossed our fingers.

Later on that night, or maybe the next, we were flicking through the TV stations and came across a program about the street art, vintage shop and cool market tours in Shoreditch. A quick check of our Airbnb dashboard confirmed that we had hit the jackpot!! The gorgeous warehouse apartment we had booked was in Shoreditch and within walking distance of all these awesome places. So cool!!

We didn't end up taking one of those tours but we did discover a lot of it by ourselves and we loved it!! At the end of our lane way there was a long white building site barrier put up as we were leaving home on the Saturday morning, by the time we got back that night it was covered in the most incredible paintings (it was too dark for a photo - sorry). Everywhere we looked we were greeted with something incredible. Our elbows were sore from poking each other to look over here and over there.

Amazing!!

I'd best be off now, it's time to plan for our next destination. Paris maybe? Seriously!!

And just out of interest, are you a travel planner or do you make it up as you go along like we do?


Lotsa love to you guys, I hope you are making marvellous memories.

Love Kate xoxo