Domestic Bliss

If you ever find yourself getting tiered of that daily grind of chores – washing the dishes, taking out the trash, doing the laundry, cooking meals ect. I have a great cure.

Just pack up your entire house, put most things into storage and put the things you cannot live without into suitcases. Fly around the world, stopping off to see friends, family and magnificent locations. Be sure to include a three week road trip in America – staying in motels with microwaves and kettles next to the toilet, on the outskirts of medium sized American towns. 

Golden Gate Bridge, San Fransisco, March 2014

Out the back in Winston, Oregon, March 2014

Highway 101, Oregon, March 2014

Then go home – except if you are like us you wont have a home to speak of. You will need to

spend a week or so flat hunting. This seems to involve a lot of time online, and a lot of time climbing stairs to look at flats that are in need of renovation, or are not available for a month, or have kitchens the size of toilet cubicles. Check out other neighborhoods, daydream about the life you might live on the other side of town, then revisit where you used to live and get reminded why you chose to live there in the first place.

If you are lucky enough to find something suitable, in your neighbourhood, in your budget and with a backyard make sure you bribe the real estate guy or girl immediately. Otherwise your likely to call up about it the next morning to find that it is 'under offer' – from someone with cash in their pockets, and then you have to start the whole process all over again. Being ignored by real estate agents gets tiered very quickly. 

Home Sweet Home, Edinburgh, April 2014

When you do get keys to a beautiful, unfurnished flat your worldly possessions are likely still to be in storage. You daydream about what your home will feel like when you don't have to sit on the floor.

Unpack your suitcases, get loaned a saucepan or two and cook a meal for yourself for the first time in months. Wash that stinking mound of laundry and fill your sink with hot soapy water with which to wash your two mugs, two plates and two disposable forks.

And you will understand the term domestic bliss. I promise.

49 Beds

Since leaving Edinburgh in November 2013 to begin our round-the-world honeymoon we have slept in 49 beds* and visited seven different countries: England, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada.

Along the way we have caught up with friends and family around the world

We have also...

Driven on the left and right sides of the road.

Grown two teeth (Rafa)

Learned to love swimming and the beach (Rafa)

Rover family, California, March 2014

Failed to learn to surf (Jon and Sandy)

Had a bath in an esky (Rafa)

Visited some Hobbit holes

Hobbiton, Middle Earth (New Zealand) March 2014

Got married (again) and blessed our darling Raphael at the seaside

The Conran Wedding, and Celebrant, the lovely Bobbi. Australia, December 2013

Gained two new suitcases and a menagerie of stuffed toys, much to the delight of airport staff and fellow travelers around the world.

We have eaten Vietnamese noodle soup, frogs legs, kangaroo, my mums lasagne, freshly 'caught' mussels, tacos, sushi, fish and chips – obviously, possibly the finest desert of my life (an Italian lemon thing in California – Amazing) biscuits and gravy, bbq pork (we ordered nachos – but the pork was great so we did not send it back), prawns on the barbie, my family's Christmas dinner (thanks Jeffrey), bbq salmon, our second wedding feast, two lovely wedding present dinners out, a bbq at Wilsons Prom, Chicken Parma's, microwaved dinners and more motel breakfasts than we care to remember.

A local lunch in Saigon, Vietnam, November 2013

The baby has tried to eat pizza crusts, watermelon rind, banana, avocado, stewed apples, rockmelon, strawberries out of his nanna's garden, mushy peas (London), sweet potato, potato chips, sand, his dad's crocs, beer coasters and most recently rice pudding.

As he has traveled our son has grown into a charming, friendly smiley lad, who loves eating (shoes), swimming, sand, wind and walks.

In answer to the oft asked question, 'What is it like traveling with a baby?' I have to say we have loved it. Rafa is great company. With him we slow down. Instead of trying to do everything we do one or two great things and take time out during the day to do nothing - and in doing nothing we learn about the waitresses grandson (born on the same day as Rafa), we picnic and smell the sulfur in Rota Rua, sit in the park and look at the Golden Gate Bridge and take in the new bit of the world we are visiting. The correct way to travel no?

Rover family about to depart Heathrow, November 2013

Round-the-world Rafa back in London, April 2014

*This number may be inaccurate as it is based on a rough count during a jet lagged game of count the beds played by my husband and I.