Feasting during Ramadan

We have been keen to experience the legendary Ramadan feast and took the opportunity last Thursday night to go to the Marriott Hotel with our friends Racha and Tarek.

Tarek is an American of Lebanese origin who has lived a large part of his life in Saudi Arabia. Racha is from south Lebanon. They met in Lebanon when Tarek visited his grandmother. Racha and her family were in the restaurant that Tarek went to for a family meal and their eyes met across the room. The rest, as they say, is history - it truly was love at first sight. Tarek is a big man. His size and slightly gruff manner belies a talkative and hospitable person. He is thoughtful, funny and intelligent. Racha is a lovely warm young woman who I see often. She practises her English on me and I practice my Arabic on her. The boys and I adore her. When we visit her house she feeds us with delicious Lebanese food until we are nearly bursting. Tarek is fasting for Ramadan but Racha is not this time because she is pregnant with their first baby.

We went out for a memorable meal a couple of months ago with them. We were introduced to Lebanese food and had a great feast. The men smoked shisha (flavoured tobacco through a traditional "hubble bubble" pipe) and the boys snuck under the table and had puffs until they were busted. We were told that Racha was pregnant and the meal turned into a major celebration. I learned the word "mabrook" - congratulations - that night, as well as many other Arabic words as the evening went on. When we said good-bye outside the restaurant I turned to them both and warmly said, "mashnoon" to everyone's mirth. Instead of saying congratulations again I had just told them both they were crazy.

Tarek did the research for our latest meal, our Ramadan feast, as any food not cooked by Racha or his family is in danger of being "inedible". The Marriott fitted the bill. We all turned up at dusk for a 5.30 meal.


The Marriott had turned their ballroom into a magnificent tent.




We sat at our table and waited. There was a sermon being broadcast through the restaurant, a reading from the Qur'an, which Tarek translated for us. It was about going to mosque, how to prepare for prayer and how men and women should each prepare. At the end of the sermon there was a silence. The sun was going down although we couldn't see it. We waited. Then the boom of the cannon sounded, which marks the beginning and end of the fasting period. "Allahu akhbaar! Allahu akhbaar! Allahu akhbaar!" The hairs stood up on my neck. People sipped water and ate some dates and figs. The fast was broken.


It is not possible to convey to size of the meal, nor the variety. The buffet was groaning. There were whole sheep, tables of salad, hot dishes of every kind, falafel and middle eastern food of every description. The desserts were made of pastry, fruit and nuts, drenched in honey.


At the end of the meal I was nearly in pain and I was groaning. It was wonderful.

"Well", said Tarek, "shall we do this again before the end of Ramadan?"

"Yes!" we all chorused.

"Or shall we do the big feast? This one is only the equivalent to breakfast. There's another big feast that starts at 9pm and finishes at 3am before sunrise."

I think we will get a babysitter and wait a couple of weeks to recover.

Apparently some people put weight on during Ramadan. Now I understand why.

The Stamp in the Kitchen

Some time ago, the very day I got Priscilla Queen of the Desert, I put a scratch on the bumper when I backed too close to a temporary sign outside the school which Had Not Been There Before. Any accident has to be reported to the police, as none of the panelbeaters (called "Painting and Denting"!) can do anything without a police report. You have to stop your car right where you are, even if you are in the middle of a roundabout, and call the police who will determine there and then who is at fault with a logic that takes into account your nationality and gender, is mostly in Arabic etc etc. Then you go off to the police station and get the reports done, and it is a prolonged process. Well, a little scratch compared to engaging with the police just didn't add up, so I left it and contented myself with glaring at the scratch whenever I saw it.

A couple of days ago I found out that any accident not involving another vehicle can be reported to the local traffic police station after the event, so found out the details and off I went to Al Rayyan Traffic Police Station get my police report.

When I got there I found the sorriest collection of battered cars imaginable parked outside the police station. I realised that I had arrived at a concentration of the worst drivers in Doha, and I was very interested to go inside and see them all close up. The police station has a couple of Painting and Denting shops close by and a little man from one of the shops helpfully pointed me to where I was supposed to go and then showed me which shop he worked for. I went into the wrong counter at first and they then pointed me to the portacabin next door, where two traffic police were sitting in front of their computers. "Assalaam alaikum," I said in my best Arabic, "car scratch". "You bring here", said the round one with the stubble. I went out and the painting and denting man at the gate showed me where the driveway was into the compound, and I parked in front of the portacabin. The other policeman, who had a magnificent long beard, came outside and looked at my little insignificant scratch and walked around my car. "Come", he said. I sat in front of the first guy as he typed out the report. He handed me two official sheets of paper in Arabic. "Go to kitchen", he said. "The kitchen", I said. "The kitchen", he said firmly. "Next building".

I've learned not to argue or question when something strange is said to me here. Off I went with my forms to the next building and sure enough, there was a grubby sign at the end of the entranceway with an arrow saying "Kitchen". Another errant driver was waiting outside the kitchen with a queuing number in his hand. Nobody was in the kitchen, but there were a couple of chairs. "No need", he said when I asked him where to go to get my number, "someone is here in five minutes. Sit down." In a couple of minutes a man turned up. "Twelve riyals", he said to me. I rummaged in my purse and he rummaged in his shirt pocket and produced two bright little stamps, licked them and stuck one to each form. "Go to counter. First building". I went back to the very first building and stood again in front of a battery of policemen behind their computers. "Assalaam alaikum", I said and proffered my forms. The policeman examined the report closely and entered some stuff on the computer. With a flourish he stamped my forms. "This for insurance", he said pointing to one of the lines of Arabic. "Thank-you. Khalas?", I said. "Yes, finished", he said.

I have no idea what happened.

With ma'al salaama I was off out the door and into my car, a shining scratch-free future vision in front of me.

Ramadan

Today is the start of Islam's holy month of Ramadan, where believers fast from sunrise to sunset for the month. During these hours they also abstain from drinking any liquid, smoking and sex. The fasting person is also expected to show self control through the day, to refrain from harsh words and to show tolerance and respect for others. As I understand it's an opportunity for several things,

• to understand how others less fortunate than yourself are experiencing life, through your own experience of going hungry and doing without, thus developing compassion.
• to develop better habits in your own life by exercising self control, therefore improving your character. This helps to resist temptation for things which are unnecessary or harmful in your life.
• to develop a closer relationship with God through the experience of purifying your body as well as your soul.

Here's a good link written for teachers with a general explanation of Ramadan, and here's another written by an Imam (Muslim cleric) for older students who might want to know about Ramadan, it's about mending habits and developing character. Here's a link to the BBC's webpage on Islam in general. It's all very interesting.

We've been warned about the changes in Doha during Ramadan. People will get up before sunrise to eat and drink before they fast for the day, and after sunset there are huge feasts where families get together and have fun far into the night. The cafes and restaurants are all closed during the day for the month, and the streets and shopping malls are mad in the evening. Businesses and schools support Muslim staff and students by allowing them them to work shortened hours and govenment departments are open from 8am - midday. People often sleep during the afternoon. Nobody is allowed to eat or drink in public. It is unwise to drive on the road towards sunset, as hungry and dehydrated people dash towards mosque and their homes to break their fasts.

We are planning to go to a few of the big Ramadan buffets during the month - all the big hotels put on special meals.

The Muslim kids at school really look forward to Ramadan. Some of them are trying their hands at fasting for all or part of Ramadan. Leo and Robbie are keen to fast for the odd day during the month - many non-Muslims support Ramadan by fasting themselves, even if they are not Muslim themselves. So in the words of one of the local bloggers,

May This Ramadan be as bright as ever. May this Ramadan bring joy, health and wealth to you.
May the festival of lights brighten up you and your near and dear ones lives.
May this Ramadan bring in u the most brightest and choicest happiness and love you have ever Wished for.
May this Ramadan bring you the utmost in peace and prosperity.
May lights triumph over darkness.
May peace transcend the earth.
May the spirit of light illuminate the world.
May the light that we celebrate at Ramadan show us the way and lead us together on the path of peace and social harmony
�Wish you a very happy Ramadan

Back to Doha

We arrived back late on Friday 7th, the boys and I. The trip was uneventful. Once we got onto the plane. Unfortunately at Heathrow Airport I had omitted to tell staff there was a toy gun and a carving knife in my check-in luggage. I heard my name and the boys paged urgently as we went to the gate and was asked to "come with me" by an airport official. When we did I was confronted by armed police who opened my suitcase and went through all the offending contents. In front of the other passengers filing past me as they were boarding. Oops. Thank goodness only my clean undies were in evidence. Moral of the story, tell them everything at the check-out desk even if they only ask you about what is in your hand luggage.

The boys have been remarkably happy to go back to school and have been back now for four days. Robbie is a prefect and has lots of additional duties which he is taking very seriously. He looks after his prefect badge carefully and pins it to his backpack at the end of the day. His teacher is called Mr Gribble and he seems to be up to the challenge. Leo has cruised into the school year effortlessly.

The Valley of Death is no longer our preferred route to school as it is being turned into a Real Highway, and we can't get into the back alley that leads to all the schools now. Instead we go along a proper road which leads off the Thursday-Friday Market Roundabout, by the Wholesale Market on the end of Salwa Rd. The trip is a bit longer and not nearly as exciting as before.

Ian is well and unfeasibly pleased to have us home again. He is working very long days. He managed to tear himself away from work last night to go to the Al Ghazal Club with us, where the boys were presented with certificates by Yacht Club officials and Captain Arshad during a formal ceremony. A meal followed. It was a good evening; a great mixture of all kinds of expatriates and their kids and Qatari locals with their kids, all dressed in snowy-white thoubes.

I have been job-hunting since we got back. I went for an interview with a recruitment agency yesterday, who were interested in my CV. They are recruiting for positions soon for a new social service being set up by Sheikha Mouza, one of the Emir's wives, who is the driving force behind education, scientific and social service development here. So that looks quite promising and is in my field. However all things take time here, so it is unclear how soon it will all happen, particularly as Ramadan starts tomorrow.

Here's a link to an interesting article about Qatar, if you are interested.

Blackpool

Yesterday it was time for the final fling. The Watt kids were going back to school today and we leave to go back to Qatar Very Early Friday morning 7th. We decided that Blackpool was just the place to go with the bonus of a train trip there and back.

Blackpool is a seedy old seaside town. It was full of hard looking northerners and pensioners who apparently take advantage of midweek specials to have a break in Blackpool, playing bingo and going tea dancing. There a lots of cheap hotels, souvenir shops and arcades along the seafront. They are redeveloping the esplanade and have big plans, dependent on government grants to redevelop the area into a "people's park" that also showcases the town history. We walked along the seafront to Pleasure Beach, the themepark we were visiting.






We spent all day frightening ourselves on the rides and eating junk food. We bought stuffed toys and photos of ourselves on the rides.










Here's a little video of Leo and Robbie on the cheesiest ride we found.


We bought Pleasure Beach rock. When I bought some I Love You lollies to take back to Ian, Leo told me to get a room.

We caught the 5.38 back to Manchester. We sat next to a milktruck driver and his can of Carling Black Label on the train trip. He had started work at three in the morning, delivering to Tescos but had broken down in Blackpool. He had been drinking for six hours and had decided to catch the train back. He was 41 but looked ten years older, teeth missing and weathered drinker's face. Decent man, loved his family. Too frightened to win the lottery in case he drank it all away but had bought the same numbers for the last 20 years. Interesting lesson for Leo and Robbie in the class divides in England as he talked with Clare's and our kids, each finding out about hopes in life, what was important, where each person was categorised.

Warwick Castle

Yesterday was Warwick Castle whose tagline is “Britain’s Greatest Medieval Experience”. I had visited it nearly twenty years ago when the special events and entertainment was very limited, consisting (from memory) of a couple of “knights” on horses. The owners are the Tussauds Group, who bought the castle in November 1978 from the 36th Earl of Warwick's son, David Greville. It has really changed since I was there last. The medieval experience was had was done in a professional, engaging and enjoyable way. There is a programme of entertainment, each section presented by experts, enthusiasts.

We saw falconry.

We watched jousting and medieval weaponry.

We saw a working trebuchet, the largest in the world (a medieval catapult that hurled 4 tons of rocks at a time at castle walls during sieges. It could also throw other less savoury things – dead animals, burning pitch and dead messengers – over the walls). The whole device was primed by four people walking in the wheels you see at the bottom of the trebuchet, hard work and, because the flickering effect of the light through the slats induced motion-sickness, in the old days this task was carried out by blind people.

We visited the great hall, the dungeon and walked the ramparts.

Robbie and Harry on the ramparts of Warwick Castle.

The highlight though was the bowman who was giving a demonstration of archery and telling us about the War of Roses. He picked Leo to demonstrate armour and bowmanship to the audience. Here are some pictures of Leo strutting his stuff.

We also found that Robbie is a natural archer.

The Murus at Stratford-upon-Avon

We left Cornwall on Saturday. We packed up in a jiffy, and drove slowly to Worcester to drop Jon, Tome and Georgie off at the railway station to go back to Manchester. Lots of holiday-makers, all leaving Cornwall. We then went to Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s hometown. We passed White Ladies Aston, Upton Snodsbury, North Piddle and Shottery. Shakespeare wasn’t on our minds, however. Catching up with the Murus was. They are friends from Ohope who have been living in the UK and are three quarters the way through their year here. They drove an hour and a half to have a meal with us.

We met them in a park by the Avon, a canal full of narrowboats running through the town. Grant, Sharon, Liam, Paraone and Ngahuia. A kiwi reunion.

The kids didn’t miss a beat and the grown-ups didn’t stop talking for the whole time we had together.

Lovely pic of Clare and Harry

We had a fish and chip meal together. Leo ordered a big traditional meal which was a big battered fish fillet, chips and horrors, mushy peas. Leo and Liam eyed the peas.

“That looks wrong”, said Leo.

“It looks contagious”, said Liam.

What can I say about the evening? I had tears in my eyes greeting them and had to have a little cry when we said good-bye, much to the amusement of my unsympathetic sons. Happiness, sadness, temporariness, homesickness.

Fowey

During WWI my German grandfather Karl (later anglicised to Charles) Holm, who was at the time working as a merchant seaman on an English ship, was interned in Cornwall. He met a local girl from Fowey when she looked after him in the hospital when he was needing some health care during the time he was interned. They eventually married and raised three boys Eric, Frank and Terry in Cornwall. They emigrated to New Zealand during the depression to Taramakau settlement on the West Coast of the South Island to stay with a relative there….but that’s another story. My mother was the kiwi of the family, born on the West Coast.
We went to Fowey – I don’t know why, I wanted to see where she had come from. It’s a fishing village on a beautiful estuary. We looked around a church but no signs of family names.




The place was heaving with tourists.







I was shopping for souvenirs for my cousins. I told the shopkeeper that my grandmother had come from there.
“What was her name?”
“Florence Dowrick. Her mother’s name was Passmore.”
“Which part of Fowey was she from?”
“She lived in the country, from what I’ve been told, near Fowey.”
“Well she wasn’t from Fowey then, was she.”
There’s no answer to that.
Later in the day we went to St Austell, another place where we have family connections and saw a wonderful shipwreck museum in a place called Charlestown.










The kids hired remote-controlled boats and had races outside the museum.













We drove back past tumuli and clay china pits, so big you could have flung Fowey into the middle of them.

Walking along the Cornish Cliffs

Yesterday we went for a walk along the Cornish cliffs. It was one of those days when you feel alive, windy and a bit cool, good for walking. We walked along walkways to a lighthouse and looked at a burial mound called a “tumulus” along the way. The names here are great: Treyarnon Point, Booby’s Bay, Trevose Head, Mother Ivey’s Bay, Trethillick, Porthmissen, Lellizzick.
There are slate walls along the clifftop walkways marking the farm boundaries, the rows of slates making patterns, all different, with plants growing through the stone. We walked away from the coast for a part of the way and picked blackberries. Leo, Harry and Robbie picked up sticks for wands and cast spells all day, “Accio”, “Wingardium leviosa”, “Avada Kevadra”.
We listened to Harry Potter in the big red van on the way back home and arrived feeling tired with a good sea spray and sun feeling. Spaghetti Bolognese for dinner and fruit sponge with double cream for pudding. We played cards after dinner with the kids, drank some wine, talked after they went to bed.

Tintagel

Of course it would be wrong to come to Cornwall without visiting Tintagel, the romantic castle ruins on a headland that juts out into the sea, further down the North coast of Cornwall from “our” little village St Teath. Legend tenuously connects it with King Arthur, his knights of the round table and Camelot (did King Arthur exist? where did he live? who created the legends surrounding him, and why were they created? etc etc)

Whatever the origins, Tintagel was built strategically almost impregnable; on high cliffs with only a narrow passageway that anyone has to cross to enter the castle. It would have been easily defended.

Built during the 12th century there are only ruins there now, but interesting ruins.

Of course, like any major historical site in the UK you shuffle through with three gazillion other interested people. Including us - here's Jon, Lucy, Evie, Leo and Robbie.

There’s not only a castle and courtyard, but the ruins of approximately 100 little dwellings and buildings, a walled garden ( which would not have been big enough to sustain the people living there and which is too exposed to harsh weather and salt spray to grow too much), a well, a little chapel with a stone altar and poignantly a grave next to the chapel unmarked except for a cross overlooking the cove below.

Tintagel the village is devoted to the tourist trade. Every shop carries through the theme (“King Arthur Arms”, “Merlin’s Gifts and Confectionary”). We found a wizard.

Polzeath

We have spent a couple of days on the beach. Warm, sunny days in the early 20s. With a breeze. When you can stay out all day. We drive about 8 miles to get there, listening to Harry Potter along the way, driving past the hay being cut and baled, through high country until the hills descend to the sea to Polzeath.

We have claimed a spot each day on some terraces build against a cliff. Clare doesn’t like sand. It’s a good spot – high so that you can see the beach and the sea and the headlands. On one headland you can see an old tin mine. On the next one around, a lighthouse.
There are some slightly different beach customs here.

The ice-cream van on the beach, for instance.

The garden fence custom

Lots and lots of games on the beach; beach cricket, kite flying, frisbee and of course sandcastles. On the first day John and the kids built Minas Tirith.

I hired wetsuits and surfing gear for the boys so that they could join the throngs of surfers in the sea. It’s safe swimming and surfing with a gently sloping beach. On the first day Robbie disappeared from view into the mass of surfers which was pretty freaky for me. When I spotted him again he was right out the back and had drifted near some rocks outside the surf flags. Horrors. He realised where he was and rode in on some swells. I saw a determined little person pushing his board over to the other side of the flags. He told me later that while out the back of the waves he had been chatting up a 21 year old girl and had a good talk to the lifeguards who were patrolling the area in their IRB.
The next day Leo and Robbie both went out together, Leo with a boogie board, Robbie with a surfboard, swapping halfway through. They really enjoyed pootling about in the sea together. The Polzeath locals here body surf using what looks like a polished plywood board about snowboard size, curved up at the top edge. Very portable. They walk down the beach carrying these things, redoubtable older women wearing battered wetsuits who look like they swim every day of the year.

St Teath

St Teath is the village in north Cornwall we will be staying in for a week. Like many other villages in Cornwall it is perched on the top of a hill surrounded by farming country. The houses are made of local stone, sometimes painted white or cream. The colour of villages can vary, depending on the colour of the local stone. We are staying with Clare, Jon, Tom, Georgie and Harry. Friends of Clare and Jon’s, Lucy and Duncan Staff are staying in a little cottage next door, together with their daughter Evie, who is 11.
The cottage is called Clock Tower Cottage, after the village clock tower directly outside. The clock chimes every hour and, like the call to prayer in Qatar, measures out the day and eventually is only noticed if we need to. There’s a cottage called Holm Cottage up the road. The cottage has flagstones on the floor. It is cosy and a bit dark. Georgie and I share a room upstairs. There’s a big dark dining room directly underneath. At night we play cards, Newmarket and racing demons.
The kids all get on well. Leo and Robbie have (re)discovered Lord of the Rings models. They had a brief phase in NZ and have rediscovered them through Jon who is a keen gamer. He has been sitting patiently with them, showing them exactly how to paint the models and explaining how the games work. The kids all disappear periodically off to one of two local parks to let off steam on the days we have at the cottage. We have bought a pile of DVDs with us and they watch one in the evening, or else (favourite) an episode of “House”.

Stonehenge

When we were first planning the trip and were talking about what we might go and see, Stonehenge was the first word from Leo’s lips. Just out of Salisbury, the iconic standing stones are a world heritage site and have been around in their earliest for for 5050 years, since 3050BC. The stone monument remains that can be seen today were constructed, arranged and rearranged over almost 1,000 years 4,500-3,500 years age. The stones come from the Marlborough Downs 30 km away, and also from Wales, 385 km away.

It is right beside a busy road, with a carpark across the road with a pedestrian subway leading to the stones, which are roped off with a walkway around the outer circular band and ditch that surrounds the stones. You walk around with an audio commentary with headphones, together with all the other tourists taking pictures. Despite this it is awe inspiring. I walked picturing the effort that must have gone into building it and trying to imagine the rites and uses the stones had in ancient times.

Here we all are, being Stonehenge.

Mairi’s reunion with Salisbury friends

I had also been in touch with some friends before we left for the UK, people who I hadn’t seen for sixteen years. When I finished my midwifery training in 1989 I moved from Chelmsford in Essex to Salisbury, mainly to be closer to a group of friends who I had met in Thailand and whom I had kept in touch and visited regularly since I had lived in England. Back then I initially lived with Lesley and Ian before moving into hospital accommodation at Odstock Hospital, where I was working as a staff midwife. I also spent a lot of time with Suzy and Rob. I arranged to have dinner at Lesley and Ian’s place the night we were in Salisbury.

When we all arrived in Salisbury we unloaded in a youth hostel, where we were planning to kip down for the night before going to see Stonehenge early the next day on the way to Cornwall. We had boys dormitories and girls dormitories. Robbie decided he wanted some mummy time and came along with me to visit my friends. We caught a taxi to Quidhampton, the little village just out of Salisbury where Lesley and Ian live with their 15 year old daughter, Emily. The last picture I had seen of Emily was of her christening.

We had a wonderful evening of course, catching up on a précis of each other’s lives in the time that we had available. Ian and Lesley look just the same and apparently I do as well. Emily is stunning.

Robbie helped feed the chooks and found three eggs. We picked raspberries and blackberries from the garden for dessert while Lesley cooked up the most glorious vegetarian meal using veges and herbs from their garden – I had been vegetarian when I knew them last. Lesley is still health visiting and Ian works in IT. They live a life which is deeply connected to their village community and friends in the area. Their house is a charming idiosyncratic very English blend of all of their lives and they look happy.

Rob came around for dessert. Suzy was, unfortunately for me, in Costa Rica visiting another friend Birdie. He and Suzy in the last 15 years have developed their deep love of old rural building from a small building business into a rural building skills training centre with a business arm that builds strawbale houses. They are passionate about sustainable development and have also started up a not-for-profit enterprise building low cost strawbale rural housing.

We had a thoroughly satisfying catch up and chewed the fat about all kinds of interesting things – sustainable development and the oil and gas industry, middle eastern expatriate lifestyle, how living in another culture influences how you think about your own way of life etc etc. When I looked at my watch I was past my curfew at the youth hostel and I had forgotten to get the door combination that would get me in after hours. Oops. I sent a hasty text to Clare the Bear and Robbie and I kipped down in the spare room.

The next morning Lesley dropped us off at the youth hostel with a big bag of Discovery apples and Comice pears from their garden. The van was packed already and they were just about to come to Quidhampton to find us. Jon had slept in his clothes waiting for Robbie to arrive back in the boys dormitory and Clare had rolled her eyes and gone to sleep when I was late back, knowing that I had a key to get in. In that wonderful way that really old and good friends have with mild inconsiderations they completely overlooked it all and declared that it was no bother at all.

The trip in the big red van to Cornwall

I have to paint a picture of the trip to Cornwall. Clare has booked a cottage for the last week in August in a little village near the north coast of Cornwall called St Teath. There are five Watts; Jon, Clare, Tom, Georgie and Harry (another Harry). There are three of us; Leo, Robbie and myself. The van is a big red Volkswagen people-mover. Clare and Jon sit in the parents’ seats at the front. Georgie, Tom and I sit in the big people’s seats in the middle. Noisy younger boys sit in the seats in the back where they can poke each other and be puppies together.

We listen engrossed to the last Harry Potter story on audiotape, wonderfully read by Stephen Fry, which booms through the car loud enough to reach the back seat. Every so often the traffic service that Clare and Jon subscribe to breaks through the story, updating us on where the traffic hotspots and traffic jams are. Whoever is navigating sits with the UK roadmap on their lap actively working out the quickest route given the traffic situation. The traffic is heavy but orderly and courteous. The roads are organised and well-marked in a non-intrusive way, It is green everywhere and the grass and trees come up to the edge of the roads. There is grass on the roundabouts. There are hedgerows and flowers and trees and fields and old buildings and old villages and old towns all along the way.

Every hour or two we stop at a “services”. You leave a slip road from the motorway and suddenly find yourself in a small traveller’s service town surrounded by an enormous carpark crawling with cars. There is petrol, of course. There are huge restrooms with vending machines (painkillers, sanitary stuff, condoms, toothbrushes) inside. There are supermarkets, takeaway outlets, bookstores, money machines, games parlours. Everyone queues. Outside there are picnic tables and garden and grass areas where people sit and have a break from their journey.
It’s OK in the car trip zone.

Robbie’s reunion with Harry Bartlett-Scott

Robbie contacted Harry before we came over to the UK. Harry and he had gone to Ohope Beach School together for a year before Harry and his family, Sharon, Kevin and Oliver, went back to the UK to live. We arranged for Robbie to stay for a couple of days at their home in Godalming, a beautiful little town in Surrey. On the way down to Harry Robbie said to me, “I thought I was never going to see him again.” He’s discovering one of the wonderful things about travelling; seeing old friends again and having the opportunity to see another aspect of that friend’s life to that which you knew.














Well, the two days turned into five after both the boys begged to have more time together. The boys rode bikes, played with Harry’s dog Buddy, went fishing, went on trips and generally had the time of their lives. They loved seeing each other again.
We met Sharon and the boys in a layby near Salisbury when we finally picked up Robbie. The boys had exchanged taongas – Robbie had given Harry the hei matau bone carving that he wears around his neck, Harry had given Robbie the pendant he wears around his and a bracelet. Robbie was sad when we left. We’ll look forward to keeping in touch with the Bartlett-Scotts and catching up again with them some day.