The year MMIX

January 1:  I know its just another day; an arbitrary date that consuls of the Roman Empire took office.  If we hadn’t switched from the Julian calendar, this day wouldn’t even by January 1.  On the other hand, it may be as good a day as any to reflect on the previous twelve months that were 2009.

I greeted 2009 lost in a blue cloud (and not metaphorically); blinded and coughing violently.  It was an expensive, but humorous, start to the year.

The first days of 2009 were spent trading London-white for Agadir-brown (that came out sounding like we were dealing in illicit substances; I was just trying to find a fancy way of saying ‘sun-tanning’).  This was followed by a few days exploring the maze of Marrakech.  12 months and many cities later, Marrakech still rates as a highlight.

Upon returning to London, we had some decisions to make.  Both the lease on our London home and our UK working-visas were set to expire mid-March.  Our housemates were returning home.  It was deep into a bitter winter, and our immune systems were weakened enough that a bout of home-sickness had taken hold.  BUT, M-A was registered to run the London Marathon in April, AND there were still so many places we wanted to visit.

The plan: Work until our visas expired; purchase a motorhome; travel continental Europe for 6 weeks; stash the van wherever we are and jet back to London for the Marathon; resume our travels for another 6 weeks; return to London and sell the motorhome; head back to Oz, arriving just in time for Paul and Kristii’s wedding; restart our lives…again…

Plan in hand, Jan-March was spent working and sleeping, with the remainder split between drinking pints of beer and watching football (which fairly well surmises London in winter).  Speaking of football, watching Arsenal play at Emirates Stadium was another highlight (even if they did save their lamest performances of the season for the times I attended). 

Professionally, these final months working in London were rewarding.  I was working with a great crew at uSwitch, and I’m proud of what we achieved in a short time.  It was refreshing to work for a company where the technology wasn’t just an enabler for their core business, it was the core business.  It was without a doubt the most efficient and vibrant environment I had worked in.  This combined with a good social bond, made going to work each day challenging, rewarding, and fun.  You can’t ask for more.

Also, we weren’t entirely inactive…

February 22: Amy, Jeremy, M-A and I took the train down to Brighton for the weekend, where M-A and I ran the half-marathon; this was part of her preparation for the London Marathon.  It was a tough run; an undulating course with strong winds.  Brighton is a fun place, and we all enjoyed the weekend.

 

March 13: it came quickly.  We said our good-byes (although temporarily; we would reunite in Oz) to Tim, Kate, Andy, and 58 Fortune Green Rd.  A tip: Moving is definitely made easier when you can park your new home outside your previous one.

The next three months were amazing.  They were the headline of our 2009, and I truly believe they will be a highlight of our lives.  I still have work to do in logging these adventures.      

April 26: the middle of our travels; and as planned, we returned to London where M-A completed the London Marathon in 4 hours and 36 minutes.  She had prepared thoroughly:  In the freezing pre-dawn of London, she ran.  On Christmas day, while the rest of us indulged, she ran.  Across the continent, past bicycle-riding, baguette-carrying Frenchmen, past the over-exposed white flesh of holidaying Brits, past wolf-whistling Italian grandfathers, she ran.  It was a great accomplishment.

In the ‘plan’, we had allocated 10 days in London to sell the motorhome, before our flight to Oz.  This had been a compromise between wanting to spend as long as possible travelling, and leaving enough time to ensure we recouped as much of our outlay as possible.  As the three months passed, our nervousness increased.  We knew this would prove the difference between the trip being too-scared-to-even-calculate-what-it-cost-but-totally-worth-it expensive, and eating-home-brand-noodles-for-dinner-for-the-rest-of-our-lives expensive.  But, as with almost the entire trip, it went according to script.  Amy and Jez were generous enough to provide us with a roof while my eBay and Gumtree ads worked their magic.

June 8, and the final tube ride to Heathrow marked the end of a chapter.  London disappeared below, and Brisbane appeared on the horizon.

Just days after arriving back in Oz, we attend Kristii and Paul’s wedding.  It was a beautiful weekend, a great welcoming home for us, and the first of 8 (!) weddings we would attend before the year was done.

We based ourselves with my parents at Coochiemudlo Is. while we found somewhere to live, having decided to leave our house rented.  M-A returned to work immediately, leaving me with the task of finding a suitable residence.  I would have happily traded places.  After a frustrating week or so of attending inspections, I found what I believed then (and still do now) to be a more-than-adequate place to rest our heads.  

For there to be good times, there must be bad times (or else they would all  just be times, right?). 

August 18: I think a fractured skull probably qualifies as a bad time.  And if the problem wasn’t enough to qualify as a bona fide low-point, the solution surely was.  This event relegated most of life to an afterthought for six weeks. 

Having recovered from the surgery, it was time to repair another aspect of my life.  After finding somewhere to live, I had returned to my pre-UK employer, Avanade.  I knew it wasn’t working out the way I had hoped, but the injury had prevented me from dealing with it earlier.  In hindsight, there were multiple factors: I missed the freedom I had as an independent contractor in London, to choose roles that interested me; I missed the money I had as an independent contractor in London; the roles I had in the time since re-joining Avanade were terrible, that rare combination of boring and stressful; I felt I had learned many things in the past 18 months about the process of developing software, and had matured professionally to the point where I was ready to take more responsibility for the outcome of a project; I felt the roles that were coming through at Avanade were not giving me an opportunity to implement these lessons.

September 29: I accepted a 6-month contract with Suncorp, having interviewed the previous day.  The role was just what I was looking for: a green-field project, in the banking sector, using the ASP.NET MVC framework, and an Agile environment.  The project was to first re-write their internet banking site (it had been created over a decade earlier, in classic ASP, and had become difficult to maintain and add new features), and second to implement a suite of new features.  Leaving Avanade was awkward, but it was the right thing for me to do, and I was excited.  The only problem was, the role didn’t start for three weeks.  I had just finished on a role with Avanade, and knowing they wouldn’t start me on another once I had given notice, I offered the option of finishing virtually immediately.  More holidays…Just what I needed!

Work and weddings.  Steve and Kerren; Nigel and Danielle; Kiran and Leanne;  Paul and Amy; Kath and Greg; Michael and Kristen.  These, and the associated Bucks\Hens celebrations filled our weekends for the latter half of the year.  M-A and I are truly grateful for the invitations to attend these occasions.

December 13; Speaking of weddings, this was M-A’s birthday, and a chance for me to plan something without her becoming suspicious.  So I did.        

December 31; We started the year at the beach, and we finished the year at the beach.  Okay, the beaches were maybe 18,000km apart.  We’re spending the final week of the year with Paul and Kristy, Jordan and Kristen, at Point Lookout on Stradbroke Island.  Surfing, boating, swimming, tennis, barbeques, afternoon drinks; there is no better way to end the year.

It seems to be true that as you get older, the years pass ever more quickly.  But 9 countries, 4 residences (including the motorhome), 3 employments, 8 weddings, and a proposal served to slow the process.  2009 felt like a long year, and I attribute that to us treating it like it was an ‘adventure year’; something out of the ordinary.  So, having discovered the secret to slowing time’s passage, I’ve got a plan: treat every year like it’s an adventure.  It’s tiring, for sure.  But totally worth it.

Bring on 2010…   

A question

Perhaps the seemingly endless array of weddings we have attended in the past 6 months inspired me.  Perhaps the years of playful sledging, subtle hints and not so subtle threats, and once proud men tumbling like dominoes all around finally wore me down. Or, more likely, I simply felt the time was just right… 

On a fine summer’s Sunday, which also happened to be M-A’s birthday, I led her on a bike ride to a mystery location (although the fact that she started leading the way makes me believe she may have figured our destination).

The destination was the University of Queensland’s Great Court; metres from where we first met; where we spent much of our early time together, studying, working, and playing; and surely a beautiful spot in its own right.  We shared a picnic lunch on a shaded patch of grass, before I asked M-A if she would like her birthday present.  I handed her a poem I had composed in stolen minutes over the preceding week. 

I had attempted to have the poem pose the question.  Evidently, it was too subtle, for when she had finished reading it, M-A simply smiled at me expectantly.  I suspect she realised she may have missed something when I handed her the distinctively shaped box.

But still she made me ask the question.  She answered in the affirmative.

Wounded Part III: Paper underpants

‘I am Jack’s swollen head’.

The voices start to fade in. I open my eyes. It feels like one second ago that the room disappeared. In reality over four hours have passed.

I have a tube feeding saline solution into my left hand. I have a tube draining blood from behind my right ear. I am an over-complicated machine for turning water into blood.

My head is bandaged, and throbbing a little. I am wearing nothing but ill-fitting paper underpants, and some anti-DVT stockings.

And now, just to complete the utter demolition of both my comfort and dignity, the nurse informs me that if I can’t urinate in the next 45 minutes, she’s going to insert a catheter.

But I’m not going down that road without a fight. I drink so much water that I’m surely violating water restrictions, and strain so hard to piss that I’m at risk of popping some of the 56 staples holding my head together.

Fortunately I succeed.

Considering what has just been done, I’m in surprisingly little pain. I assume it is due to the morphine they injected before I woke up, but the hours pass and the pain stays away.

The combination of sharing the room with three other patients, the nurse injecting antibiotics every few hours, and the constant beeps, wheezes and clicks going on means I don’t sleep much that night. Eventually the sun rises, and soon after one of the surgeons comes to admire his work. He’s pleased with the result, and that I’m not in pain. He says I need to have some x-rays taken, and I can go home.

Thank-you sincerely to everyone for the well-wishes and thoughts. It really does help to know you all care.

And thank-you to the nurses and doctors, who did a great job. I am still very satisfied with our public health system.

‘All the King’s horses and all the King’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again’.

Humpty really should have seen a maxillofacial surgeon.

Brain-injury smurf is one of the lesser known smurfs

I don’t know if the reverse-sideways-Mohawk will catch on

Two weeks later: Sporting a few scars and a new hairstyle, but feeling pretty good

Wounded Part II: Not invincible

Actually, I suppose that’s a double negative. Maybe it should just be ‘vincible’. Anyway, I’m broken.

Once the dressing had been removed and the swelling had subsided, I had a strong suspicion that I may have fractured my skull. Perhaps it was the canyon in my forehead that gave me the clue? I went back to my GP who referred me for some scans.

I was expecting confirmation of a fracture. I was not expecting this:

You don’t need a decade of medical school to see there’s something wrong with that picture.

I’m booked in for surgery on Thursday (10/09/09). I had already accepted my fate before I met with the surgeon. I was actually quite keen just to get it over and done. That was until he told me how they were going to access the fracture: A coronal-flap with a mid-facial de-gloving.

If you’re imagining something like this:

then you get a point.

If you’re picturing this:

…you can have half a point.

I’m only joking because if I don’t I’ll cry. I don’t like having my blood pressure taken…and they’re going to peel my face off!

The worst part is waiting. No, that’s probably not true; I imagine the worst part will be when I wake up and my face is attached by staples. But the waiting is bad. I just want it to be over.

Before:

After:

Wounded

It was always going to happen. Given enough trials, all possible events will occur.

I've been playing football of various codes for almost twenty years and never had an injury serious enough to be hospitalized. Last Friday night (18/08/2009), my turn came.

There were ten-ish minutes remaining in the Custard FC v Centenary Stormers Commercial League Soccer fixture. The score was 2-2. I went for a header; so did one of the Stormers boys.

Imagine the sound of an axe hitting a particularly hard log. The blood came quickly, and there was plenty of it. The cut was above my right eye, so I couldn't see it. Despite the quantity of blood, I still held some hope that the first person to inspect it would say 'It's nothing. Just a scratch. Get up.'
The reality was closer to 'Urrgghh. Don't move Richo. Somebody call an ambulance!'

I really didn't want to be that guy; the one who gets hurt and just sits in the middle of the field, preventing everyone else from continuing the game. I was insisting that I was OK to move off to the side, but I was encountering some resistance on the issue. So, I became that guy, and the remainder of the game was abandoned.

You know how the story goes from here: ambulance, waiting room, nurse, doctor, operating room, home.

The paramedics took all precautions. They put me in a neck-brace, and onto a stretcher. They took my blood pressure, and put one of those little clips onto the tip of my finger (to measure pulse, maybe?). They then performed a series of neurological tests, stuck an IV into my arm, and pumped in some Maxalon to prevent me from vomitting; I don't blame them; I wouldn't want to clean the van either :)

'Public or private?' asks one of the ambos. I realise that I haven't re-activated my suspended health insurance since returning from the UK. Who knew that procastination wasn't always the best approach? M-A requests that I be taken to her home-ground; the Mater.

In the hospital, once the doctor was satisfied there was no spine, brain or bone damage, there was nothing left to do but some sewing. Ten jabs of local anaesetic and eight stitches later, and it was time to go home.

I have heard some unfavourable reports of Australian hospital emergency departments. I feel the need to counter with my own. My experience could hardly have been better: The ambulance arrived in less than ten minutes; I was seen quickly in the ED; And I was treated well by everyone. From the time it happened on the field, to the home I arrived home stitched up, was perhaps three hours. And totally free.

A week later, and the stitches are out. I have the scar as a perma-memory, but more interesting is that I have lost sensation in my forehead above the wound. It seems my supra-orbital nerve was damaged. So I've become a James Bond villain, with an evil looking scar above my eye and impervious to pain (at least in my right forehead - the remainder of me is just as pervious as ever). And while I'm making movie comparisons, walking around the office, I felt like Edward Norton in Fight Club. I wanted to wear a badge: "It didn't happen in a fight". It was an interesting social experiment though. Some people, despite being complete strangers, couldn't contain their curiosity and inquired what happened. Others nearly jumped out the window to avoid making eye contact.

The motorhome diaries: Track us

For anyone who wants to play along at home, I've created a google map of our route.

The place-marks are where we camped; usually accurate to within a few metres. The routes taken between points are obviously not accurate. It would have been way too much effort (even when you have no job, live in van, and your biggest decision is which beer to drink that afternoon, there's still only so many hours in day).

I'm going to try to keep it up-to-date. I'm also going to do some investigation into whether I can import our geo-tagged Picasa photos into it somehow (or maybe vice-versa). No promises though (now back to more important business: hmmm, Leffe or Peroni).

The motorhome diaries: The good, the bad and the ugly

The good

Just when we think France can’t treat us any better, we pull into Biarritz and begin the reconnaissance for potential campsites. Usually this requires some imagination and often some audacity too (anything that doesn’t have a sign with a picture of a campervan with a red line through it is fair game; and okay, sometimes there is a sign, but it never looks exactly like ours); which is why we assume our eyes have been deceived by a mirage when we first spot the oasis.

Metres from the beach, an easy walk from the heart of Biarritz, and signs indicating it is only for campervans; regular vehicles prohibited! And, there are power-outlets so we can plug-in. And a dumping station. All for free! Gotta love France!

Immediately after parking, we get ribbed by a good-natured pom, telling us we are far too young to be ‘on the tour’, and that we should be working. I reassure him that we have already paid enough tax in England to fund his pension for the next few years.

So Biarritz is home for the next three nights; riding our bikes along the cliff-tops, running along the foreshore, afternoon drinks watching the sun set.

We also finally encounter a fellow vanner who isn’t of retirement age; an English lad known as ‘Fish’, who’s been living on the road for nearly 12 months. We chat for a while; he seems a nice guy. He tells me that one of the other guys camped in the park is celebrating their birthday that night, with a fire and a few drinks down on the beach, and invites us along. Eager enough for some company other than our own, I tell him we’ll be there.

That night, before we’d joined them, I hear Fish arguing loudly with someone else. I look out the window and see him storm back to his van, only to reappear brandishing a hand-gun like he was Dirty Harry. After some more vigorous debate, and having a loaded firearm aimed at his face, Fish’s opponent must have conceded the argument, because he departed rapidly with squealing tyres as Fish launched flying-kicks at the side of his vehicle. Having left my Kevlar vest back in London, M-A and I decided to stay in that night.

Finally, and reluctantly, we leave Biarritz. We don’t travel far, but we do say au revoir to France for now, and hola to Spain.

San Sebastian was always going to struggle to provide us with a campsite on a par with Biarritz, but the one we find is still quite impressive. On the promenade that runs around the headland; it is pay-parking but free overnight. And it doesn’t explicitly say you can’t camp there, right? The only problem is that it is too water-front. The spray from the waves crashing against the rocks provides salt-water rain all night.

San Sebastian looks spectacular. It has urban beaches like nowhere I’ve ever seen. It seems you can walk out of an office building and step onto the sand. When first arriving, we join a crowd watching an unsuccessful rescue attempt of a sailboat, capsized and beached right on the Playa de la Concha.

We climb up Monte Urgull, and enjoy the views of San Sebastian and the Isla de Santa Clara from atop the castle walls.

The next morning I get my first surf of the trip, at the Playa de la Zurriola The water is colder than I expect, and I’m grateful for the thicker wetsuit I borrowed from Sean. My fitness is terrible; my arms quickly turn to custard. But the surf is clean, and there are only a few other surfers out (no one in Spain wakes up before 10:00). I’m eventually reluctantly forced to return to the beach to regain some feeling in my feet; now I understand the booties other surfers are wearing.

Coffees by the beach warm us up, and then we say good-bye to San Sebastian.

Good times...

The bad

We shouldn’t have even been there. The only reason we headed to Bilbao was to visit the Guggenheim museum. But as we enter the city’s outskirts, we realize: It’s Monday. Museums are closed Monday.

The mission should have been aborted then. It wasn’t.

Having vowed never again to enter urban areas in the van without a clear destination in mind, that’s exactly what we find ourselves doing. Attempting to find a parking-space, we turn down a lane. That the cars parked on both sides of the lane were all facing toward us didn’t tip us off. The car travelling down the lane towards us did. It was a one-way street, and our way was not the way. I press the clutch, grab the column-shift and push it away and down; into reverse.

Situation update: Maybe 20cm of spare width either side of the van; Only side-mirrors (the central rear-vision mirror simply looks into the living quarters); Approximately 30 metres back to the intersection; An angry-looking taxi-driver a metre in front, impatiently inching his front-bumper towards ours. I slowly reverse, my eyes repeatedly switching between the two side-mirrors, constantly adjusting the steering-wheel, trying to maintain that sliver of air between either side of the van and the parked cars. We make it back to intersection. Confident now that I’ve cleared the narrow lane, I turn the wheel sharply, swinging the rear of the van back onto the larger, two-way road we had turned off. Just as I’m about to halt the reverse and drive off forwards, that moment every driver dreads.

M-A shouts, simultaneously with the slight jolt I feel.

I quickly check both mirrors but can’t see any obstacles. M-A, who had exited the van, returns to report what I dreaded and expected; ‘You’ve hit a car.’

‘How bad?’ I'm scared to ask.

‘There’s some damage, but it’s OK.’ I fail to see how that can be a valid outcome.

Two vultures ladies who had witnessed the incident are already circling.

Situation update: We’ve just hit a vehicle; we are now sitting in the middle of an intersection; two ladies, one old and the other ancient, are in our faces and yammering Spanish; the taxi-driver still can’t get past, and is looking even less impressed.

I assume that these ladies, like almost everyone over a certain age, see it as their duty to uphold law and order; vigilantes with perms and too much lipstick. M-A remains to convince them that we aren’t fleeing the scene. I attempt to, not flee the scene, but slightly relocate; to a location preferably not in the middle of an intersection.

I quickly re-encounter our original problem: the streets are narrow and there are no parking-spaces. I have moved away from the intersection, finally allowing the traffic past. Having turned down another one-way street (after carefully checking the one way is my way), and travelled about the same distance down it that we had down the original lane, the cars parked either side had narrowed the road to a width that was clearly insufficient for the van to fit.

Situation update: I have left M-A alone at the scene of the accident; I am faced with either attempting an even more daunting reverse (and look how well the last one turned out) solo this time, or sitting and waiting for traffic to come behind me and block me in, creating a lovely jam, and making me the least popular person in Bilbao.

This is one of those moments where you hope to wake-up, startled, and realize it was all a nightmare. I click my heels three times, ‘There’s no place like home’.

I open my eyes. Fuck, still in Bilbao. The only option is reverse again. I hate that gear.

Again I play the game. Again I think I’ve won. Again as I swing back onto the two-lane road where M-A is still talking to the ladies, CLUNK. No way. This cannot be happening. This is the worst day ever. I jump out as M-A runs over. I’ve hit a small bollard. Fortunately, it was just the tow-bar. No damage done.

I double-park some cars, but at least manage to get the van into a position where it is not blocking traffic, and we can deal with the situation.

The ugly

I believe we are good people. We intend to do the right thing. The problem is we’re not sure what the right thing is. Do we call the police? It is only a fender-bender. We rifle through our paperwork, looking for our insurance documentation. The two ladies are writing a phone number down; I assume it is for the local police station. We can’t find a phone number for our insurance company. Another man approaches us and speaks to us, in Spanish of course. From what we can interpret, he says the car is illegally parked (it definitely was), got what it deserved, and that we should make like Speedy Gonzales.

The little guy sitting on my right shoulder, dressed in shining white robes, and wearing a golden halo says ‘You have a couple of options here: You can call the police; you can wait by the car until the owner returns; or you can leave your phone number and email address, along with your registration and insurance details’.

Another little dude, with red skin and horns, sitting on my left shoulder and carrying a pitchfork interjects ‘Are you fucking crazy? Do you really want to deal with the police? Do you really want to spend the next five hours waiting for this chump to return to his car, only to have him call the police, and have to wait another two hours? Sure, leave your phone number; he’ll call, you won’t be able to understand a damn word each other is saying, and he’ll call the police and give them your registration number. Then you’ll have to explain to them why you fled the scene of an accident. Listen to the man. “Arriba arriba, andalay andalay!”’

He also mentioned killing the two old ladies and storing the bodies in the van, but I cut him off there.

So M-A puts on a show for the witnesses, scribbling away on a piece of paper before folding it and securing it under the windscreen-wiper. Cue the chase music. We get back in the van and make the slowest getaway in history. I ask what she wrote on the paper. ‘Hello’.

We assume Bilbao’s entire active police force is pursuing us. Why doesn’t the sat-nav have an ‘Anywhere but here’ button?

We make it a few blocks away. It’s not the police that halt our escape, but our guilt. I pull over, and tell M-A that I can’t do it. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself. She agrees, but we’re still unsure what to do. ‘How much cash have we got?’ M-A asks.

We scrape together €150 and decide to leave it on the victim’s windshield. Obviously there are plenty of flaws in this plan, but at the time it seems our best option. We return to a spot a few hundred metres from the scene, and M-A goes and places the money in an envelope next to her original note. When she returns, she mentions that the original note had moved.

‘You didn’t take it?’ I ask incredulously, as if I’m a veteran of these situations. I run and grab the original note; luckily as it turns out. It seems the two ladies had been unimpressed with M-A’s original manuscript, and had replaced it with their own. Written in Spanish, I can’t read much of it, but I certainly recognize our registration number. ‘Rude English’ also seems to make an appearance.

We wait in the van a little longer, concerned that someone else may take the money. The driver returns to the vehicle just as we’re about to give up. He finds the envelope before he sees the damage. We can’t see his expression, but I imagine he may be slightly confused. He does a lap of the vehicle and notices the damage. One more lap, a bit of a look around, then he gets in a drives off.

We do the same. Propelled by paranoia and guilt, we make a bee-line for Portugal; in our minds pursued by a bigger police convoy than O.J. Simpson’s Bronco.

We agree to never speak of Bilbao again.