kimbofo

The Heathrow injection

Ten years ago, as I was plotting and planning my backpacking adventure to the UK, several people warned me about the "Heathrow injection". This is a euphemism for getting fat based on a lifestyle of British beer and stodgy foods. (Ben Groundwater, writing on The Age travel blog, calls it the "Heathrow spread" and writes about the subject as if he is the first to ever discover it. I'm pleased to see some people have put him right in the comments.)

Given I was a little on the chubby side at the time, I didn't think I had much to worry about: I couldn't possibly get any fatter.

And I didn't.

At least for the next year or so.

In fact, I lost more than a stone over the first three months of my stay, mainly because I was hauling around a heavy backpack, up and down the country, to London and Scotland and back again. And because I was watching my pennies, I wasn't buying as much food as I might have liked.

It was only when I settled down in London, got myself a proper job and acquired a "man friend", that the weight piled on again. But for almost 18 months I was a rather slim size 10.

A steady diet of nightly pints -- mainly Guinness but I do have a penchant for English ale too -- meant my weight rose gradually to my current (healthy) size 14. Over the past eight or so years, it's fluctuated slightly, tipping size 16 at times, dipping down to size 12 at others. But on the whole I'm probably the same size I was when I left Australia all those years ago. (I figure this is my "natural" weight,  because even when I do vast amounts of cycling my size stays the same although my muscles become very toned and I lose a little bit of flab from around my waist.)

Do I believe in the Heathrow injection? I'm not sure. I don't think the British diet is any less healthy than an Australian one. But the cold, wet weather does make it very conducive to sitting in pubs drinking fattening beer -- and even when it's sunny there's nothing finer than an English beer garden! But I could probably say the same about Oz, couldn't I?

New passport

It's a bit hard to believe, but I've just renewed my British passport. Where on earth did the past 10 years go? 

The renewal process was very straightforward -- and quick (less than 10 days) -- but not cheap. I paid £72 for the passport, plus an additional £7 for the Post Office's "check and send" service and then another £6.50 for the photographs.

The new passport arrived in the post today. It's a biometric one (also known as an ePassport), which means it features an electronic chip and antenna so that I can be identified using facial recognition technology. How 21st century is that? 

Now I've got to stump up the cash to get my Australian passport renewed... It can be costly having dual citizenship.

As if lost bags weren't enough, now snow adds to new airport terminal's woes

The fun just never stops at Heathrow's Terminal 5!

The longest pleasure pier in the world

All pictures taken: Southend Pier, Southend-on-Sea, Essex.
Date: Sunday February 10, 2008.
Camera: Panasonic DMC-TZ3.

We took a journey to the English coast today and caught the train, an hour's journey east of London, to Southend-on-Sea. The prime objective was to take a stroll along the world's longest pleasure pier, which juts 1.34 miles (2.2km) into the Thames Estuary, the place where the River Thames empties into the North Sea.

Looking up in Manhattan

Place: Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building, New York, New York.
Date: Sunday October 21, 2007.
Camera: Panasonic DMC-TZ3.

I'm back after a solo run to Manhattan, where I indulged in much shopping and sight-seeing, trudging the streets with my camera at the ready. Unfortunately, I'm still feeling the after-effects of the five-hour time difference, having gone straight to the office for a full days' work as soon as my flight touched down at Heathrow on Monday morning. Yes. The word tired doesn't even come close.

I'm hoping a relatively quiet weekend might help my bodyclock to fully readjust -- and then I might just find the energy to tell you more about the trip and post some of the many photographs I took.

Destination Isola d'Ischia

So, this is where I'll be headed at the end of the month.I basically stumbled upon it by accident, plugging the wrong "region" into Expedia's search engine. When Ischia came up, I had never even heard of it, much less knew where it was located.

A little bit of research (Wikipedia is great!) and I discovered that Ischia is a small island off Naples, Italy, which is famous for its thermal springs and viticulture. Just the thought of lying back in a bubbly spa with a bottle of wine in hand and I knew this was the destination for me!

Relief...

From an email sent to me this evening:

"Thank you for booking your trip with Expedia.co.uk"

Woo-hoo! I found somewhere I liked -- although I'd never heard of it until last night -- that ticked all the boxes and wasn't outrageously expensive.

Let's just hope the weather holds out. Knowing my luck it'll bloody rain the whole time I'm there. Grrr.

A dip in the Irish Sea

Place: Curracloe, Co. Wexford, Ireland.
Date: Saturday April 21, 2007.
Camera: Sony Cybershot DSC-W1.

Take five Irish brothers and one Canadian, dare them to go swimming in the Irish Sea one April afternoon and what do you get?

Hypothermia.

On the road, or four seasons in one afternoon

All pictures taken: County Meath, Republic of Ireland. Date: Sunday April 22, 2007. 
Camera: Sony Cybershot DSC-W1.

When I stepped into a hire car last Wednesday evening, after a short one-hour flight from London Heathrow to Dublin Airport, it was the first time I'd been inside a vehicle since this time last year. It feels funny to now measure the passing of time -- or the chapters of my life -- by the short, intermittent periods in which I have access to a motor car.

Because I live in London I am used to getting around by bicycle or public transport. These days the only time I get to travel by car is when I am on holiday and we have rented a vehicle for the duration. This was the case last week.

After a short two-night stay in County Wexford, about two hours' drive south of Dublin, we headed back to the city outskirts on Saturday to stay with T's brother. Yesterday afternoon we had some time to kill before our flight back home, so we decided to go on a little drive through neighbouring County Meath.

The weather was mild and muggy. As we stood on the Hill of Tara, an ancient site that was once the seat of the High King of Ireland, we watched the clouds scudding past, becoming darker and darker with each passing moment.

Why I don't like Aussie backpackers

At last, someone's come out and said the unspeakable.

Australian backpackers are a pain in the arse.

This might sound grand coming from someone who landed on these foreign shores wearing a backpack and talking as strine as they come. ("You have such a country accent," a fellow Aussie backpacker once told me. "Did you grow up on a farm?" I should have made something up and told her I was raised by cows...)

But even during those first halting steps almost nine years ago when I tottered around London, appalled at the lack of decent coffee and bad customer service but excited by all the landmarks I recognised (Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace and the Mall) and those amazing accents that made everyone sound posh and intelligent, I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I didn't want to be lumbered with the label of "yet-another-bloody-backpacker-from-Australia". I made a point of avoiding Australian pubs, conscious of the fact I'd come half way round the world for a reason: if I wanted to drink in an Aussie pub I could have saved myself the cost of an expensive airfare and 24-hours travelling time.