United Kingdom

We have some more queue drama getting out of Paris. Having been instructed to board with my guitar early in order to make sure that it can go in the cabin, when I return from the toilet there is already a queue.

I’m not very good at queue jumping, especially amongst people who are so particular about maintaining their place in the queue, but after being beckoned by the gate steward, I take a deep breath and work my way through the crowd, with my raggle taggle family following behind. I assume it’s best to assume the role of an international folk star. But still, we can hear people muttering about why we are allowed in the front. I’d hate to be stuck in Paris in an apocalypse. I think we’d be eaten alive.

Getting through customs at Heathrow, takes more than two hours and when we do finally arrive at the passport counter, Roger makes his classic customs joke; “you must meet a lot of people”.  Collective groan from the family.

My mother, who was born in England and left to teach in Aotearoa in 1962, had a brother and sister and it is the sons of her sister Joy, who we are spending time with while we’re here.

My cousin Christopher is waiting to give us a lift back to his apartment on the Thames in Wandsworth and has brought his small sports car. He looks incredulously at our three trolleys and laughs in the way that jovial English people do when they really want to say ” for fucks sake,  that’s ridiculous”.

We know we have a lot of stuff. It is a wonder that we were allowed on the plane. In fact, the woman on the check in counter in Paris was trying to give us tips on how to minimise the appearance of our luggage as we boarded.

Its hard to hide a couple of Moroccan lamps and a guitar in the cabin but we did our best.

We bury the boys under luggage in the back seat and I have things piled all over me in the front. Roger and Stella head off on the tube with a their packs and Chris drives us home.

It’s wonderful to be with family and what is really cool is that Rachel has a mid term break and has come over to catch up with her son Issa who is now living in London.

As it is with long distance relationships, I have seen cousin Chris on only three occasions in the past. Once when we spent a few months in England when I was fifteen, again when I came solo travelling and then once when he came to New Zealand.

We spend a lovely evening over at the house that Rachel  has rented for three days as a base to  catch up with Issa and his girlfriend Tegan who are living in one of those horrid London shared flats where every room including the lounge, are rented out on separate leases and the only communal space is a bathroom and small kitchen. No community, no choice in who you live with; and exorbitantly expensive.

We’ve never really hung out with cousins before and it’s a cool feeling!

The next morning we share breakfast together at Chris’ flat and then being a Sunday, the whole family head off to the bus stop to catch a double decker into town.

 

Compulsory on the list of London activities is a trip to Trafalgar Square to play on the lions. Jasper’s favourite is the enormous thumbs up installation; thumbs up “ding” has become his little obsessive thing in times of stress and he does it hundreds of times a day. I of course, have to go “ding” 👍🏼back, whether it’s a ding situation or not!

Chris is a veritable tour guide and we walk towards Buckingham Palace.

It is freezing cold and my chest is rattling and wheezing and I’m lagging a bit, but we’re only here once.

Number one on the kids London itinerary is Harry Potter World in South London. Louie has decided that a visit here will be an early birthday present.

What I haven’t fully appreciated, is that every child who’s parents are willing to fork out £70 per ticket, is also going and have booked their tickets months in advance.

It’s kind of a relief that the tickets are booked out because we’re getting seriously low on money, but Louie’s sad face spurs me into action and we find something free that might come halfway to fulfilling the Harry Potter fix; a trip to platform nine and three quarters at Kings Cross.

Of course, other than the expensive photo opportunity which you have to queue for, for over half an hour, there is a pretty cool Harry Potter shop.

Louie finds the ultimate pen lovers dream, a wand pen!

I take my own photos although admittedly they are not ideal as the photoshopped ones where you get to push a trolley through the wall, but we’re on a budget.

By this time we’re seriously late to head over to Hackney to visit Mike and Zara and their kids Rocket Jack and Ruby.

Roger and I first met in a queue to a Pitch Black gig in Nelson. Mike is one half of Pitch Black. Roger, has life long free entry when Pitch Black play, as he and Lara were always first up on the dance floor as crowd agitators if you will. They were also together in the Verona on K Road when I walked in off the street and Roger jumped up and danced on the tables. That display secured him my phone number and the rest is history.

Our children have not met before and we are looking forward to seeing them.

Mike has promised a real kiwi BBQ and we have brought Cousin Chris along for the experience.

The fire is blazing in the back yard and it feels like we’re back at home. There are even feral children from next door, hanging upside down in a tree. (note: our neighbours’ children don’t do this but this kind of behaviour is very reminiscent of our neighbourhood gatherings). The connection between the kids is instant and we all have such a lovely evening.

Mike and Lara pull out an album of photos from the 1998 Gathering (a New Year’s Dance party) where Roger and I were both headed when we met. This is the man I fell in love with!

Monday is made all the better when Issa, who had previously secured a day off work but forgotten that he had the day off, returns from his 25km cycle ride to and from work, to spend the day with us and Rachel.

We have lots of things to do today and the Tower of London, is probably all we can squeeze in around our other commitments. The kids are pretty impressed with the Crown Jewels and the torture chamber and as usual, the gift shop. Roger is wheeling around two carpets, two leather poufs and a collection of other sundry items, which he has bundled up to send home with Mike and Lara when they return to NZ for a Christmas visit. We were discussing our ridiculous amount of baggage and they offered to take a bag. Emphasis on ‘a bag’ : not all of the things Roger is now wheeling around on our tour of London.  We anticipate that he will not be allowed to enter the Tower of London with his strange package and so, he sits in a café while we go in.

Sending some things home with Mike and Lara have given us an excuse to visit them again today. From time to time, Louie gets quite emotional about memories from home. On arriving in London the other day, he had a heartfelt cry about Halloween and missing trick or treating. I have to confess that it is not my favourite activity, but we generally go somewhere each year to hang out with friends and a merry band of kids will go marauding around the streets together.

Apparently, there is a bit of a Halloween scene in Hackney, so Roger and the boys are returning there for some late afternoon trick or treating, while I visit the London Bridge Hospital with Stella, Rachel and Issa.

I have a breast lump and after some deliberation about whether to wait for our return to NZ, Rachel has organised for me to see a specialist.

We have some extra time before my appointment, so we walk to the Tate Modern. The first thing we do is lay down on the floor. We assume this is an installation as everyone else is laying on the floor too. It’s hard to tell, but there is a sound recording and it’s nice to have a rest.

Stella has become a very accomplished artist over the last year. Her ability to source inspiration for the various creative things that she does, is amazing. Whilst she loved the Louvre, she really wanted to see a modern gallery. I have never been here either and it is wonderful to just wander around with her.

I am nervous about my appointment and suffering from my chest infection and by the time we arrive at the hospital, after having first gone to the wrong hospital branch and having to run then catch a bus to the right place, I am in a bit of a state.

Let’s just say that when you visit a private hospital in London, the emphasis seems to be primarily on how you will pay for your treatment. At the reception, I spend quite some time trying to produce the policy number for my travel insurance, even though we have been supplied with a claim number.

I am seen first by a specialist who is obviously a contractor to the hospital whose main aim is working out how he will be paid for his time. Having just spent quite some time at reception, emailing the details of my insurance policy through the the hospital, it seems ridiculous to be going over the same information again. In my nervousness about the examination ahead, I presume that he knows I will be paying at the end of the treatment and I don’t mention it. He is so officious that I am pleased to be referred on. He does an examination and I am sent straight away for a mammogram and then an ultrasound. Before I’ve barely got my gear off, I have spent about eight hundred pounds.

I’ve never had a mammogram before and that was traumatic enough. The ultrasound clearly shows a lump and the ultrasound specialist prepares to do a biopsy. This is all happening so fast that I have forgotten about paying the bill at the end.

Suddenly, as I’m laying on the bed with my breast out, trying not to be sick as the ultrasound specialist prepares the biopsy needle, the officious specialist comes bursting into the room. There is some whispering with the assistant and then he stands over the bed and says, “you have not been honest with me. I have just spoken with your insurance company and they informed me that you knew all along that you were required to pay the account at the end of today’s treatment.

How’s that for bedside manner!

Trying not to lose it completely, I explain in my croaky chesty voice that I had not meant to deceive anybody, that I had merely forgotten to mention, amongst the stress of the day, that I would be paying. So how much will it be if I have the biopsy I ask. Two thousand pounds! At this point, I realise why it is important to bring someone else into an appointment with you, if only to do a currency calculation.

I am trying to work out in my head, what my visa limit is, whether I can wait for a biopsy until I get home, whether I should just run away right then and whether the lump that I have just seen very clearly on the screen, will mark the end of what was a great time. I ask for a moment to get myself together. I am in tears and the ultrasound specialist is clearly embarrassed by the whole scene. In the end, he talks about the risks associated with what appears to be a benign growth, from it’s appearance, and whether it is necessary to have a biopsy right now.

Oh how I wish I was back in New Zealand under the public health system where I have never in my life, had to weigh money against health. As I wait in the waiting room for the CD of my ultrasound to give to the specialist back in Auckland, feeling like some kind of medical fraudster and not even a nurse asking if I’d like a cup of tea or a hanky, Stella, who has been very worried, pops her head through the main doors, sees me crying and assumes the worst.

After filling out as many negative feedback forms as we can and Nephew Issa explaining in no uncertain terms to the reception staff, that the treatment I received was unacceptable and they will be hearing from us again, we catch the tube back to Cousin Chris’ where we are having dinner with Roger’s Australian niece, Aleisha and her boyfriend Rhys.

On the way home, although my appointment wasn’t totally conclusive, I feel a weight lift from my shoulders. It was a timely reminder of how lucky we are to be healthy and doing what we’re doing.

Chris has cooked a delicious meal and is entertaining Aleisha and Rhys when we finally arrive home at 8pm, Roger is still another half an hour away on the bus, with the two boys who have eaten far too many lollies. It is really nice to see some of the other half of the family in London too and Rhys is great company.

In order to spend some time with our other cousin Martin and his family, who live in Exeter, we have rented a house in Budleigh Salterton on the Devon Coast, about 20 minutes’ drive from Exeter. At one stage, our Grandparents owned a guesthouse here so it is nice to have found somewhere here, to stay.

The house is very opulent for an airbnb and there are more scented candles, hand creams and inspirational poetry on canvas, than you can throw a stick at.

Chris (who has come down from London too, for our small family reunion) and Martin and Finn (Martin’s 16-year-old) come over for dinner and the kids have a wonderful evening getting to know their second cousin over a series of board games.

We decide that tomorrow, we will visit Teignmouth where my Aunt Joy lived. Stella and our mum stayed here on their trip in 2011 and it sounds as if a large amount of the money that we made available for their stay, was frittered away on the Pier. Stella’s has made the Teignmouth Pier amusements sound like Disney Land and the kids are very keen to spend some time there.

First, we go down to the Beach at Budleigh Salterton and try and work out which was the guesthouse our Grandparents owned.

I forgot how beautiful it is in Devon.

We arrive in Teignmouth, and meet Martin, his wife Lizzie, Finn and Chris outside the Pier.

In reality, the whole extended family are going gambling as the pier amusements are just a series of pokey machines and two pence slot machines. Initially, the promise of a win appears likely, although of course, for every ten two pence coins we put in, we probably get two back or a length of tickets are spat out the bottom of the machine. When we try to redeem these, the booth operator is strangely absent. We’ll have to return another time for our 20 pence toy that just cost us ten pounds in two pences.

However, it was fun and we finish off with a large lunch of fish and chips which is heaven for us as we have not had anything like it for nine months.

Time is running out, however, as it gets dark at 4. 30pm. We head to Dartmoor to walk up Hay Tor, which is bitterly cold but has amazing views over the surrounding area.

We return to Martin and Lizzie’s for a meal where we meet Dominic who is 18, for the first time. Martha, who Stella adored on her last trip, is away at University.

We spend the evening going through old photo albums of our parents and Grandparents and looking through a whole series of photos that Stella took during her trip with her Nana that tell the story of her trip better than she ever could have articulated. Her little worried face posing in photos on the days that the two of them were alone, to the photos when they stayed with family where she obviously feels safe and free from the responsibility of her doddery grandmother.

 

We say our goodbyes to the English family that night and then to Rachel the next morning, as we head off for a two-day trip to Cornwall and she goes back to London to spend the weekend with Issa before flying home to Vienna.

It was my plan that of we came as far South as Exeter, that we would visit Bigbury on Sea where our Grandparents lived when I first met them at fifteen.

They really were quite eccentric and the fact that they were both suffering from Alzheimer’s by the time I met them, made then doubly so. They lived in a two storied Art Deco house on the edge of a cliff overlooking the English Channel and their house was jam packed with crazy priceless antiques. Rooms had themes, including an Asian room where no one ever sat, and a room of wall to wall Toby Jugs.

I remember the intrigue of meeting my Grandparents for the first time and sleeping in a bed so damp and smelling of mothballs that I thought I would never sleep.

We lived on a diet of twice grilled butter toast and Marmite and bread and butter pudding and days passed happily with my Grandfather coming in and out of the kitchen repeatedly offering us tea.

Across the sand at low tide, we could walk to Burgh Island which during the Summer was covered in a haze of pink flowers.

 

I am very eager to visit Bigbury again and although it seems that the house may have been redeveloped or pulled down, we arrive, after a drive through the tiny hedge lined lanes that wind their way out to the coast, to find it exactly the same.

Despite some reservations, we knock on the door and are greeted by the new owner Peter, who obviously has quite a few ‘call ins’ from people who are connected to the house in some way.

It is strange to be inside as I can smell the memories of my Grandparents with their musty antiques and six monthly washing habits.

From the sun room, where we spent most of our days, we look out through the old 1920’s steel framed windows, to the beach below and I hope that my own kids can sense some of my Grandparents memory in this crazy damp house.

We walk across the sand to Burgh Island where we have a glass of Ale at the Pilchard Inn followed by a walk in the cold wind.

We are headed for Boscastle, in Cornwall, a place where we came often when I was fifteen.

Boscastle, which is nestled in a coastal river valley, suffered a devastating flood in 2004 which came through many of the houses and shops more than two meters high.

We are staying in the converted Mill which is part of the Wellington Hotel.

There is a narrow harbour entrance with cliffs on either side and a rock face that looks very much like Queen Victoria.

The summer has well and truly left the Cornish Coast. We attempt a coastal walk but the driving rain and wind is too much for my lungs.

Tintagel Castle, the legendary birth place of King Arthur, is just around the corner and we brave the cold to visit, although the headland with most of the castle on it, is accessible only by foot and the footbridge is closed today. To be honest, it’s too cold for sightseeing and I’m happy to go home to the heater and watch ‘Braveheart’ (we already watched ‘King Arthur’ the other day).

 

We get on the road quite early (for us) the next morning as we have a five-hour drive to Lewes to stay with our friends Dan and Fran for Bonfire Night (it being November the 5^th).

Lewes is famous for it’s Bonfire Night (or Guy Fawkes) celebrations and the roads into town start closing at around 4pm.

Dan, who was once a boyfriend of mine, has a strong Aotearoa connection and we have seen him and Fran twice over the last seven years. When they last stayed with is in NZ, they were about to embark on the process of adopting a child through the UK Foster system. Now they have two children who are brother and sister aged three and one and their lives are of course, totally transformed. The kids are cute as and our three are happy to potter around the house being bossed around.

Fran, who also has a hacking cough, stays at home with the kids and we walk into town, past the giant bonfire in the local park that will be lit at about 9pm.

There are many ‘Bonfire Societies’ in Lewes who apparently meet during the year for various rallies and fundraisers but come together primarily for the 5^th of November to march down the main street carrying flaming torches, fire pits on wheels and giant effigies that they have made (a bit like the Ogoh Ogoh in Bali). They are always political in nature but after four Donald Trumps in a row, I wondered if perhaps Brexit is all too embarrassing and no one wanted to immortalise Nigel Farage in papier-mâché.

Bonfire night is obviously a drunken affair and people get more and more rowdy and pushy as we wait for the main parade down the high street. Double happys and mighty thunders are still allowed in the UK and we are virtually deaf by the time we head home. There are five different bonfires and firework displays in town and when we return home past the enormous raging bonfire, we watch the most amazing fireworks display from our window.

After a lovely morning at the park with kids and then a delicious roast meal, we head off towards London.

Our last night is spent in a budget airport motel. Staines, most famous as the home of Ali G, has hundreds of Indian restaurants.

Having not wanted to eat Indian since we left India in May, we feel like we might finally be ready to try some. Cousin Chris, who is picking his girlfriend up from the airport, comes out to join us for a while which is a nice end to our stay. We invite him back for motel style tea with creamer which is about the best we can do.