A dare

Chris dared me to upload this photo. I don’t see anything especially embarrassing, apart from the fact that Rose’s head is smaller than one of my boobs.

Looking homeward

We’ve been on the road for six weeks now and my mind is definitely starting to think about home. We have a week left in London, and then we go on to San Francisco for ten days. These are the things I miss the most about home, in no particular order:

• My friends. When you’re travelling you have these fleeting, yet sometimes quite amazingly intense conversations with strangers. For example, I’ve sat next to the same woman at the movies two weeks running. It turns out she’s a psychiatrist, and her worst fear is having a child with schizophrenia. She knows that I have Graves Disease and like Joy Division. But nothing beats talking with people who’ve known you for more than 5 seconds.
• Having my own stuff around me (this includes clothes other than the two pairs of pants I brought, kitchen items and all those little things for Rose that make life go smoothly. Like her baby bath and exersaucer.)
• My mothers group. Boy do I miss the weekly get-togethers, the sense of community and shared experience, and most of all, the support.
• Our car. I’m so over public transportation. No matter how vast and impressive the London tube is, it’s still a nightmare for getting around if you have a baby. I long to drive somewhere and be able to leave it easily and quickly.
• Not having to leave the apartment every day so that it can be serviced. (Yeah, I know, poor us! But the fact is, they don’t clean, only change the towels and take out the trash, and you end up having to clean up for them!)

Yet I know that I’m really going to miss travelling, and I will especially miss London. I will particularly miss:

• Some of the world’s most amazing art galleries and museums being a quick trip away.
• Living a pretend posh life. Because Chris’s work has been paying for our accommodation and a per diem, we’ve been living an artificially wealthy life on the road. When we get home we’ll be back to the reality of being a single-income family living in a small rented flat.
• Believe it or not, the weather. We’ve had beautiful cool clear and crisp days here. We’ll be heading back into the “death zone” of Australian summers. Searing relentless heat, here we come.
• The opportunity that travelling gives you to stand back from your life and have a new perspective about what’s good and bad about it.
• Fantastic bookstores. Australia has terrible bookstores.