Tag: holiday

I write this from the sofa in my lounge while the ice-cream maker works its magic on a non-dairy mixture my daughter and I have concocted. As I mentioned last week, my son and I aren’t walking the second half of The Pennine Way. I’m glad we’d already decided not to, actually, as he’s fully of cold and the rib injury I sustained coming off a mountain bike hasn’t fully healed.

Team Belshaw has spent this week in Devon at my in-laws. We had a great time hanging out with them, going bowling, having a beach barbeque, messing about in the garden with their dog, and playing lots of video games. We’ve also been watching the Women’s World Cup.

It was because England got through to the quarter-finals of the World Cup that we didn’t stop off on our way home. We’d managed to find two reasonably-priced rooms at a decent hotel for Friday night, but this would have put us in an awkward position to watch an 11:00 kick-off. Moving the stop over to Saturday almost doubled the price of the rooms, so I reluctantly agreed to do the entire journey in one day.

Schadenfreude is an emotion experienced about other people, so it literally brings me no pleasure to be proved right and inform you that travelling home from Devon to Northumberland on Friday was pretty horrendous. There’s no need to rehearse the details, but suffice to say it took 11 hours to get home, and due to accidents and road closures, there was one bit where we were literally driving in circles.

At least the experience allowed us to find an absolute gem of a place to stop off the motorway. We were looking for National Trust properties, but came across Elvaston Castle Country Park which is owned and operated by Derbyshire Council. It’s a wonderful place, and we had a rejuvenating time.

Now we’re back home, we’re gearing up for the house move. Our solicitors have done nothing, of course, and we haven’t yet received the flood report we’ve paid after an inspection a couple of weeks ago. Most things about moving house in England are broken. But then so is everything else in this country, to be honest.

I’ve now got a week off with nothing planned. Which is extremely unlike me. My son is delighted as, despite having a cold, I think he’s of the opinion that he’s going to be able to play on (my!) PS5 until his eyes bleed. I will be disabusing him of that notion. My daughter’s toe has healed enough for her to do some light exercise. My wife, Hannah, is back to work tomorrow but is thinking of doing three-day weeks until the end of August.

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Photo taken at Elvaston Castle Country Park.

While I may well have said last week that I’d post a compilation weeknote after walking The Pennine Way with my son, said walk is now off. This is for a number of reasons, but the most salient are: I’d rather do it when the weather is a bit cooler, and I’d like to actually relax when I take time off for once in my life.

Team Belshaw is currently in Devon staying in the friend of a friend’s house who happens to also be the stepmother of the wife of someone I used to know. It’s a small, confusing world. We’re here visiting Hannah‘s sister and family for the week before heading home next weekend.

Last week we were in The Netherlands staying at a Center Parcs there. Having never been to one before, I wasn’t sure if I’d hate it or love it. It ended up being the latter: it’s very much set up for families like ours. Of course, I came off one of the mountain bikes we hired while racing my son back to our accommodation. A few scratches and bruises, but I’m OK 🤠

I’ve been reading while away and have finished Cultish by Amanda Montell and Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin. I gave up on Revolutions in Reverse by Dave Graeber, and am currently reading Lord Emsworth and Others by P.G. Wodehouse, The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith, and re-reading Radical Technologies by Adam Greenfield.

I’m posting the occasional photo to my Pixelfed account while I’m away, but avoiding the usual places I interact via social networks. Sometimes the best thing to do is as little as possible and to tell as few people as you can about it.

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Photo taken while we were at Center Parcs.

I didn’t write a weeknote last week as it would have consisted merely of the deep insights that a) I did some DIY (re-sealed the shower unit, painted the gate, stained the decking, etc.) and, b) I was around for the kids during the second week of their Easter holiday. Hannah was back to work, although it was a short week due to the Bank Holiday and her not working Fridays.

The original plan had been to walk the first half of The Pennine Way last week. I’m glad I didn’t, as the weather wouldn’t have been great. Walking it this last week meant I didn’t get rained on at all! The trip wasn’t, however, without its challenges, as you can read in my reflections on the experience.

I returned to writing posts at Thought Shrapnel the week before last and got quite into the swing of things again. I’m aiming to post there most days, starting with my return to work tomorrow after three weeks off.

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Photo of seedlings I bought after reading this post by Warren Ellis. He’s more of a gardener than I am, so this morning I took the seedlings (looked after by our daughter while I was walking) and whacked them straight in our garden, survival-of-the-fittest style!