Getting in the groove

As we were finishing our packing this morning, we were catching up on a couple of BBC programmes we’d missed in the last few days.  We’ll miss most of this series of Masterchef but nevertheless, caught up with it so far and as the programme credits came up, the TV skipped to the next programme we’d recorded – The Travel Show.

We’ve started to record this half hour show each week because it goes out at 5.30am on a Saturday morning or some such time.  It’s a bright and breezy magazine style programme, ideal for watching when there’s nothing else on, or when we’re at a bit of a loose end. 

This morning, it began with a feature about water levels in Venice and was presented by Ade Adepitan whose skills in getting around in what I imagine to be a pretty inaccessible city for a wheelchair user were remarkable.  I’m not sure there are that many people who could descend a flight of steps like that with so much control.

But shortly afterwards, I was in the shower when my hero called out “quick, there’s that bridge  on the TV”.  Rather than suggesting I step out and watch as I dripped, he stopped the video and put it back to the start so that we could both sit and watch the feature from the start when I was out of the bathroom – because it was about Myanmar/Burma – and guess where we will will be next week?

As well as a general overview of travelling in Burma, it featured travelling by boat on the Ayeyarwady.  Not just any boat, but the same boat as we’ll be travelling on next week.

We even got a quick glimpse of the outside of our room as well – those chaps with the rope hadn’t better make a noise when we’re snoozing!

So, we’re all fired up now and raring to go.  We just booked a favourite restaurant for dinner in Hong Kong tomorrow night and when we’ve sorted out a few last minute details with our housesitters, we’ll be off.

See you in Hong Kong!

Easy decision made

Occasionally, a post will appear on my Facebook timeline, announcing that I’ve made a loan to someone, somewhere via Kiva.  Kiva’s a Microfinance organisation and facilitates loans to all parts of the world.  It explains the process in four steps:

1. Choose a borrower
2. Make a loan
3. Get repaid
4. Repeat!

We’ve been repeating these four steps for quite a few years and our original $25 has been loaned, repaid and reloaned a number of times and along the way, we’ve added a little more from time to time.  As soon as $25 has been repaid to our account, I reloan it, going into the Kiva profiles to choose a project which we’d like to support.

You won’t be surprised to see that I tend to support women who knit,sew or are in higher education.  When I bought a new sewing machine, I was glad to help two ladies in Iraq do the same and when we go off on our travels, it always pleases me to identify someone who could do with some help in that part of the world.  Kiva send updates on what happens as a result of our loans and it’s good to see how they make a difference.

So when the Kiva statement came through the other day with around $35 in the “bank”, I looked through the list as usual.  I hoped to find someone in Burma to support but finding nothing appropriate, I switched my search to the Philippines and added my $25 to the $500 from others to enable Leonicisima to buy some raw materials.

As I completed the loan, my eyes fell on another Filipino lady who was hoping for a loan to buy new fishing nets and to restock her grocery store.  “Edna May dreams of improving her life in the future”.

On this Mothers Day weekend, how could I not support Edna May with her work, in memory of my Mum, the only other Edna May I’ve ever come across.

I’m sure she would have approved.

Art essentials

Time to assess the art kit this morning. 

On our return from our last road trip, it looked like this: a clear bag of pens, pencils and suchlike.

And a similar sized tin, which originally held a travel journal kit and the journal itself.  But over the years, I seem to have acquired a few additional bits and pieces and last summer, the tin was stuffed full of things as well.

Definitely needed to reduce the bulk here.

Dealing with the tin was easy.  I’ve been using these travel themed rubber stamps for years and it’s definitely time for a change there.  They’re staying at home.

I don’t need US-themed things in the next few weeks either, so there’s another saving.

A whole sheet of mostly used up stickers, with only one I’m likely to use?  No way am I carrying that!  It stays home and, if I feel the need to add the single sticker in my journal, then I can apply it when we get back home again.

So it continued.  By the time I reached the bottom of the tin, there was hardly anything I was likely to need on the trip and so I made the decision to leave the whole tin at home.

Oh..but, I might just take along this small plastic bag with a few little things inside.  I cut those binding stickers with my Silhouette so I could include things without punching holes in everything.  Those placemarkers are home made too and are really good to use on maps.  I put the bag on one side for consideration later and put the tin away.

Whoops!  Nearly left the little gin bottle behind – no, of course it’s not gin, but ModPodge, which is great for including some bits and pieces into my journal.  I’ll take that (and the roll of washi tape that’s stuck on the bottle cap!)

Now for the bag.  I tipped all the contents out and put things back one by one.  The post it notes taken from an hotel have been useful, so I’ll leave those in, with the 3” cutting mat, the sheet of alphabet stamps and the curve template.  I left out the other notepad, since the first hotel we set foot in with have one by the telephone…

Glue is a must have, along with the tiniest roll of sellotape and a hotel sewing kit.

I found some new rubber stamps in there which I bought last year and had forgotten about.  Makes a change from those old ones – they’re in.

Nest, a couple of hand wipes which are useful for cleaning up, a small tin of paperclips and brads, a couple of waterbrushes and a sponge brush for using with the modpodge.

I’ll put this little stapler in, pre-charged with staples with another strip just in case.

Now for the main stuff.  Derwent Inktense watercolour pencils.  Love them.

Waterproof pens in different widths and a couple of thicker markers.

A couple of small ink pads and matching markers and there we are.

There’s the satisfaction of seeing the things which will stay behind, though I did decide I needed some scissors after all.  I’d also snuck in a small eraser, a pencil sharpener and some glue dots as well.

And I so very nearly forgot my hole punch!  Last time I managed to find a replacement on a morning walk in one of my favourite cities, which was fun, but it’s easier to bring one along.

So there we are.  One art kit, neatly packaged and all gathered in.  Closes easily – no squeeze – too!

As my eyes fell on a few of my travel themed stamps, I was tempted…but resisted!  I didn’t even put this thin little border stamp in the bag.  How good was that?

I had already prepared my little concertina file ready for ephemera collection

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I’d already prepared my journal as well, in a 5 x 7 Seawhite book which fits neatly inside a large Ziploc bag, so there we are, ready to roll!

I love to record our travels in this way and making my journal as we go along is all part of the fun.  This time, I’m going to try to make the best use of found paper along the way rather than to rely on purchased ephemera, though whether I’ll resist the first stationery shop I see remains to be seen.  At least I recorded my good intentions here

Essentials

I’m not a great one for surprises.  The build up and preparation is all part of the fun, I think and having everything sorted and organised is key to my being relaxed enough to sit back and enjoy the whole affair.  One of my methods when travelling is to keep small essentials together in bags, some of which I don’t unpack but use at home to corral all of those little bits and pieces.

Those freeby bags which come with make up offers come in handy, as do the in-flight amenity bags which I can never bear to throw away (and I’ll bet never get recycled).  But I’m not talking cosmetics and make up here.

Of course not!  The essentials I’m thinking about this morning are all of the electronic bits and pieces which have become part of the current travellers’ kit.  With a bag of tricks such as this, we hope we have everything we need to stay connected, record the experience and entertain ourselves whilst in the air, on the road and most probably, whilst waiting.  Thing is, after a few months of simply throwing things into the bag, I suspected there were things in there which were surplus to requirements.

It was time for a cull.

The only things I could find to take out were two memory cards for the camera I no longer use – actually, the last but two cameras ago. 

Well, taking those out is going to make a huge difference in the weight of my bag, isn’t it?   At least the remaining USB memory sticks, spare plugs and cables don’t weigh a great deal.

I’m all in favour of small actions by manufacturers to streamline the design of their products, too – well done Samsung for this little spacesaving device.

At least my decision to take just one camera means I have only one battery charger to carry, together with a couple of spare batteries.

And since we bought one of these (actually, two of these, a European one and a US version) we no longer have to take a whole bag of plug adapters to charge all our stuff.  Highly recommend!

I don’t want to have all of that stuff in my carry on bag though, so I have a second, smaller bag for my phone and tablet things.  Earphones, charging cables and a couple of spare SD cards in a case fit nicely into the smallest of roll up bags and squeeze into my handbag neatly.

The little blue rollup bag replaces the small brown one, because, these days, I don’t use any “i-thing” regularly, so there’s another small space-saver.

Just as well, perhaps, because though we have considered leaving our baby laptop at home and relying totally on our tablets, I have not quite made the transition yet.  Managing photos, blogging and so on is just so much easier and trouble free so the lightweight laptop continues to be part of our kit and thankfully, I have a hero to carry it for me

That just leaves my new Kindle Voyage, slightly lighter and smaller than my old, original Kindle, to put in my handbag and since it uses the same micro USB connector as my phone and tablet, hoooray!  No additional charger and plug!

Does that make for a net weight saving on the essentials this time then?

Possibly.  Except we have just added a small 1Tb portable hard drive to our kit.  After all, I can’t run the risk of losing all my photos, can I? 

Maybe there are savings to be made in the art kit?

I’m sure there were better places

I’m not sure what was in the mind of the fishmonger at Waitrose, when they chose to apply the Mothers Day reminder right by a display of open mouthed trout.