Hydra

Houston, we have a problem!

No, this is not it (although my hair is greying at an impressive rate, which is perhaps an indication of the stresses of travelling).

Perhaps someone could have mentioned to us before we left… we’re all bonkers in this family!
Our arrival in Greece marks the half way point of our trip and a rapid (or perhaps rabid) descent into total family disharmony.
I am writing this on our first day in Portugal, looking back at my photos that portray some kind of utopia.

Today I’d like to talk a bit about perception versus reality; the lives that some of us appear to be living through the images we choose to share with our friends, whilst behind the scenes things are pretty shaky.
I love taking photos while we are travelling. I don’t intend to misrepresent the time that we are having as it is indeed as beautiful as it looks, but we are truly struggling with being together 24/7.   Don’t panic, we are still together, although there has been a lot of talk of the need to return home to normal life.
Well, I’ll keep travelling, but the others can go home.

It’s official; our quirky family need the support of a community. We need our friends around to give perspective to our experience.
It is indeed true that in order to escape the interpersonal difficulties we were having with each other, we thought travel might be the making of us. For some of us, it might have marked the unravelling. Of course, as one of my wise friends once said, the only problem with travel is that you’ll be taking yourselves with you!

Back to the perception versus reality thing: I was once accosted by a drunk and emotional parent at a school quiz night, who sat down next to me and stared into my eyes (she may have held my hand, I don’t recall) and proceeded to gush about how it looked as though I had the perfect life. I was dressed as a princess of Monaco at the time so I may well have looked that way in my floaty yellow chiffon. She opened by expressing her admiration at how I had established a successful relationship with a man much shorter than myself and how I carried my height with such poise and confidence, how I had a beautiful home (I don’t remember her ever coming inside), beautiful children, a beautiful body (awkward; this is getting intense and I think she’s going to kiss me). Apparently, she had watched me walking my kids to school and wondered why it was that I seemed to breeze through life while she swore at her kids behind closed doors and hated her gangly flabby body (we were getting quite personal by this stage).                                                                                                                               I did my best to assure her that the one minute it took me to cross over the road to school with the kids, didn’t really give me time for any shouting and that I had usually already done my shouting before we walked out the front gate. I also tried to impress upon her that it was all smoke and mirrors, that the more positive I try to make it look, the more positive it is.
The point is, we all struggle in some way and regardless of what we do or don’t have, the struggle is genuine.

Here are a few random home truths about me and my own family:

• I struggle with depression which manifests as anger and panic attacks and at its worst, a hollow sense of impending darkness that leaves me unable to feel normal in the world.
• I have an insatiable need for change and whilst I pretend to consolidate and live in the moment, I am usually planning something as a distraction. What is worse, is that I have no idea what hole I am trying to fill but I know that it can’t be filled by children, puppies, renovation projects or world travel.
• In my insatiable need for change, I have pushed Roger, who was formerly quite a financially conservative person, into a position of extreme debt. Whilst this ‘dynamic, make it happen’ relationship that people see from the outside is extremely productive on a material level, it is very precarious and at some stage in the future, we predict that disaster is imminent.  (Except I don’t really believe it will happen which is perhaps the issue.)
• I secretly envy people with biddable, obedient children who trot off to Saturday morning sport and are involved in organised activities, even though I outwardly scorn it. I wish that I could sit on the sidelines of a soccer game in the rain at 8am or watch my own kids, who I know are infinitely creative, join a band or be in the school production without me having to be the initiator. Instead, they want to sit at home and read or play with their Lego endlessly while stopping sporadically and often for an almighty physical fight.
• Roger is an old punk with an attitude of “do whatever you like, as long as you’re having fun”. This attitude is slightly at odds with raising conventional children!

Years of me being the power-hungry, main authority figure and Rog being the easy-going, fluid parent who dips in and out of family life as his work and concentration allow, are causing issues as our children enter their teenage years. Being the main go-to person for three quite dominant personalities is exhausting and at times I want to run away. It has become apparent that the kids don’t think that Roger listens to them and has no idea what they are talking about when they bring up a past experience or conversation.                                                                                 When we go out, the three kids flock around me, hanging off the straps of my camera case, pulling on my arms, all talking simultaneously while Roger walks obliviously up ahead.
I am pleased that they feel heard when they talk to me but I am exhausted.

How many hours a day is it physically healthy to spend engaged with your children?
I’m thinking the balance we had whilst living our normal lives might have been more likely to produce some functioning individuals. What were some ‘little quirks’ in the kids have become quite dominating behaviours that are now making travelling very challenging.

• Stella now speaks almost entirely in an Italian accent. I don’t know why but at least we haven’t been anywhere long enough for her to have a holiday romance.
• Jasper has developed quite a noticeable stutter and a resurgence of OCD which sees him repeating the same thing over and over and bugging everyone relentlessly. His unrequited love affair with Louie has made him so desperate for attention that he’ll quite happily let Louie beat him up just to bask in his attention for a moment, even if it leads to disfigurement. We counted 30 nail gouges on his arm!
• Roger spends much of his time doing the same with me, although I don’t bite; but my need for physical space becomes quite overwhelming at times. The other day in Venice, I ran away, although I met a dead end and had to sit in an alleyway and cry.
• Louie bounces between a smothering affection targeted entirely at me, where he kisses me all over my face and sings me little songs, to flying into a rage, kicking doors and telling us all to piss off.   Note: We’re still on high-alert for a rabies diagnosis.
• The ‘world schooling’ concept sounds terribly romantic…until you receive a letter of ‘non engagement’ from the Correspondence School for not returning enough work. I had grand illusions about how we were going to catch the kids up on their learning as, for one reason or another, their school experience has been a bit sketchy and their love of learning and their trust in the education system slightly stifled by a number of factors beyond their control. Unfortunately, I am not doing very much better as teacher in charge of home-schooling. I have, however, taught Louie to write properly which I suppose is one thing.

Schooling and assessment is very much about ticking the boxes and at times when I am impressed with the boy’s ability to do things innately, we have to go back and show the process, mark the clues and show the workings. Talk about killing the enthusiasm for learning.

Anyway, here are some  more beautiful photos of us having an amazing time…

Our arrival in Greece is met with an enormous queue for the bus to Piraeus Port, hundreds of holiday makers and a huge increase in prices; of everything.

We meet Rachel at the port, as she has already been in Greece for a couple of weeks, doing a Roots of Astrology course and hanging out with Issa and his girlfriend Tegan. Together we travel by Ferry to Hydra, an Island quite close to the Peloponnese which is frequented by wealthy Athenians and tourists.

I have very high expectations of Greece and this is usually where things go wrong for me.

This is our holiday within the holiday, (I know, could we get any more self indulgent?) where we get to kick back and enjoy being somewhere without moving around too much. A place to catch up on school work, spend time swimming and eating fresh tomatoes.

Hydra is a beautiful but overpriced Island where flocks of day visitors pour in off boats every day. It seems to be the holiday place for Europeans and British tourists.

Our beautiful little stone apartment, which is three times more expensive than our daily budget, has a beautiful view of the sea but is a little small for the five of us and Rachel, and our close proximity, starts to cause some tension.

There is a little pebble beach about 100 metres to our left but it is very over-populated during the day and after our first visit, where we clamber over rocks to find our own little cove, which appears to also be the neighbouring beach’s toilet spot, we look for other places to swim.

The island has no vehicles of any kind. Donkeys and water taxis deliver groceries and luggage from place to place. The marble cobbled streets are very slippery but away from the day tourists, the back streets are very magical.

It is very hot but we spend our days down on the rocks in a little local spot, swimming, and Louie spends a minute at a time hyperventilating before free diving for Kina (sea urchins).
We have recently watched Luc Besson’s, “The Big Blue” and Louie is very inspired by Enzo and Jacques and we marvel as he dives metres down to the point that he is a little speck under the water and comes up holding a beautiful pink or green urchin shell. By the week’s end we have a big collection that we wrap carefully and now carry around in a tin, probably to be turned away at NZ Customs.

Another day, a little browner.

Goodbye Hydra