Jetlag

Mute Swan on the Thames

One of the problems with emigrating from England to Australia is the distance you suddenly are from family and friends. Platitudes about the world getting smaller don't really cut it when you're sitting on a 13 hour flight after an 8 hour "short leg"! There are a lot of theories about jetlag but it is probably safest to say that it affects each person differently. My wife, Caroline, for instance, suffers minor jetlag problems, while it hits me quite badly.

We left Melbourne late on Wednesday flying Malaysian Airlines.The first flight was comfortable and the service was excellent. A 3 hour stop in Kuala Lumpur was followed by the gruelling 13 hour flight landing in London on Thursday afternoon. It's a short drive to my family which is our first destination, Basingstoke, in north Hampshire.

Village clock in Burley, New Forest

In Australia, when people ask me where I come from in England, I say that I am from about 70km west of London. Trying to describe where Hampshire is can be difficult, and as soon as you move away from London in a description, you have lost the main reference point that people have about England. So where is Basingstoke, really? Basingstoke is a crossroads, a market town between the historic centres of Reading to the north, Winchester to the west, Southampton to the south, and of course, London to the east. While it has historic prominence from Basing House, which sits to the east of the town, Basingstoke is essentially a new town, growing in the 1950's and 60's from London overspill. And as a new town, Basingstoke is a hotch-potch of housing estates built around a relatively small central shopping area. In itself, the town is not very exciting, but its location is excellent. Basingstoke is an hour from London, an hour from the coast, a short hop to the Thames, and surrounded by places of historic interest.

The bridge at Pangbourne over the Thames

Our plan was to have a couple of fairly easy days when we first arrived, so as to get used to the new time zone. We were treated to drive to the Thames on our first day by my brother and his partner. The Thames is a beautiful river through the counties of Berkshire and Oxfordshire and we were driven to the village of Pangbourne just west of Reading, about 30 minutes drive from Basingstoke. A pub lunch by the river as narrow boats and swans glide past is about as idyllic as it gets. This was followed by a riverside walk. It was a mild autumn day, and we were enchanted by scenes which inspired Wind in the Willows illustrator E. H. Shepherd, and the author, Kenneth Grahame retired to Pangbourne.

Thatched roof in Burley, New Forest

The following day I was still suffering from jetlag. So another short trip was welcome. The weather has been very pleasant, with plenty of sunshine and temperatures in the high teens Celsius. So we went off to the New Forest to search for ponies. Again my brother drove and the 4 of us headed to the picturesque village of Burley. The magical natural countryside has an ancient history with evidence of prehistoric barrows while the area was the land of the Jutes in Anglo-Saxon times. Royal interest goes back as far as William the Conqueror, who proclaimed the area a royal forest. For us, though, it was a matter of having a scone and seeing some beautiful wildlife, and both of these were found!

New Forest pony in front of an Oak

Pony on the New Forest heathland

Sylvan magic

It's been great to see family, and see how my former home has changed over the 30 years since I lived here. And its been a beautiful start to our trip to England with a couple of stunning days out.

England

Caroline getting pretty close to deer at Windosr

After our roadtrip round France, Caroline and I visited family in England. For both of us, this was a time of happiness at seeing loved ones we hadn't met for 3 years. Mixed with this was the grief of having relatives die since our last visit to England.

Wildboarclough, in the foothills of the Pennines

Sunset at Cat and Fiddle Pass

Reflections of Castleton in the Peak District

We first headed north to Cheshire where Caroline was born and spent close to a week with her family. Cheshire is a beautiful county (except for the Merseyside parts of Leigh and St Helens) which borders Wales, touches the foothills of the Peak District, and has the walled city of Chester as its capital. Caroline's Mum lives near the railway dominated town of Crewe, which in itself is not the prettiest place in the world, but the countryside around is great, and we spent some time in the historic town of Sandbach, which has recognisable history tracing back to Saxon times.

Saxon grave markers at St Mary's, itself a 12th Centruy Church

The Old Black Bear, a 17th Century pub in Sandbach

We chose to go for a drive into the Derbyshire Peaks, a beautiful part of England. This was the sort of thing Caroline and I did when we lived in this part of the world. The beauty of the Peaks, and the belonging that resonates from the stone wall town and villages makes the Peak District a special place.

From Cheshire we drove to Hampshire where my family are based. My extended family is bigger than Caroline's and we struggled to see everybody, and even those we saw our time was spread pretty thin. For me though, the poignant issue was the absence of my Dad. It was indeed a strange experience to walk into my childhood home and him not to be there. He was never short of laughs, smiles and hugs, and wished to see those around him happy. I think his greatest wish to was to be outlived by his wife and children, and even though he reached the age of 90, I can happily say his wish came true.

Autumn colours shining through at Windsor Great Park

Windsor Castle at the end of the Long Walk

As well as visiting family, Caroline and I also managed a day out in Windsor. Besides visiting the town, we walked through the Great Park with deer roaming around. Lunch in a 17th Century pub topped off our fill of things historic which started about a month before in Amsterdam, and wended its way through France and England.

Outside Windsor Castle Queen Victoria stood as the longest serving English monarch until days before this photo was taken, when Elizabeth II broke that record

Grief

Grief is a very personal thing, it manifests itself in different ways in all of us. For some people grief is outwardly emotional while others become quiet and introverted, it can cause depression, anxiety and other illnesses while it can also inspire poetry and art. There seem to be no rules to dealing with grief though it would be important for friends and relatives to be aware of the behaviour of their loved ones. This can be difficult in itself, as they will probably also be dealing with their own grief!

Yesterday my father died. He had been fighting illness for a long time, and recently had deteriorated so the news wasn't entirely unexpected. It was still a shock when it came, though. Actually, it was bizarre as I was teaching a bunch of 5 year old's the very basics of chess when I found out about my father's death. The kids were having fun and exploring the new things they were learning while I was getting a metaphorical thump in the guts. But their joy was infectious and the rest of my classes that day kept my mind from dwelling on my father's death overly much.

In fact, for the past month or so, I have done my best to keep myself busy, unbelievably busy. I've thrown myself into work, spent spare moments reading, running, studying chess or spending time with Caroline. I've hardly had a spare moment this last month and it has helped me get through the days without thinking about my father's condition, until I'm too tired to stay awake any longer. I'll probably continue with my hectic work and study schedule for at least the next week, though those who I'm close to are aware that I might not be fully focussed all the time (some might say I'm never fully focussed!).

The fact that I'm living 10,000 miles away is also bizarre. It has made me feel numb rather than anything more outwardly emotional, and it all feels somewhat surreal. I am going back to England later in the year with Caroline, but it will sadly not be to see my Dad. It is 2 years since I last saw him, and he was happy and well then and that is the memory I will take with me in the future. It is then that I'll see the rest of my family in the UK, a strong and supportive group of people who I'm sure will see to it that everyone else in the family is coping with their grief in a positive way.

For myself, I'm now raising a glass of Whiskey in memory to a man who proved, and is still proving, to be my inspiration in the way I conduct my life. Cheers Dad!

Still Around

The last month or so have been a bit difficult for me, and this blog has suffered. I need to start it again, and there's a lot to write about.

First, I'm travelling to England later in the year, partly as a holiday and partly to see family. My Dad has not been well recently and it's time to go back and see him and the rest of my family. I'll be travelling with Caroline, and we'll be spending some time in France as well as England, and popping into some other countries as well. There'll be some plans about this trip, and some Francophile posts coming up in the build up to this trip.

I've also signed up for the Puffing Billy run that I took part in a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, a couple of days after signing up, I cracked a toe and couldn't run for the best part of 2 weeks. Thankfully, today I managed to run 6 km, albeit pretty slowly. Still, it's a start and I'm hoping that I'll be able to make the 13 km distance of the Puffing Billy run without too much hassle. Last time, I didn't quite make it all the way up the second hill, and ended walking for about 2 minutes. My aim this time around is to run non stop, whatever the time I run. I will use this as a stepping stone, as I try to run the half marathon distance. I'll be filling pages of this blog with runs, kilometres, aches etc.

However, this blog is mostly about coffee and chess, with chess winning out.I'm currently working like mad for Chess Kids, and playing at 2 chess clubs in Melbourne, Glen Eira Chess Club, and the Melbourne Chess Club. I'm currently publicity officer at the MCC, and Secretary/President/Treasurer/Arbiter/general dogsbody of Glen Eira Chess Club, so I'd better start writing some material for these clubs here. I've had a few interesting positions in these events so far, and done pretty well. I'm on 4/5 at the MCC Championship, and 3.5/4 in the Glen Eira Summer Swiss. I've been lucky that much of the preparation I did for the Australian Masters in December, and the subsequent work after, has allowed me to get into some ok positions.

Here's a position that could have happened in one of my games from Glen Eira. I'll admit I was trying to calculate a winning line for white but couldn't quite see to the end. Would I have played the winning line? Hopefully, though this position was never reached and the question was never asked of me. But I'll ask it of you:

White to play and Win 

(answer on Tuesday)

A Day of Rest

Currently my only day off is a Sunday, and I'm even doing an early morning lesson on a Sunday, so my weekend starts about 10 am Sunday morning and lasts till I go to bed. No matter, this state of affairs will right itself at some stage, and I can't really complain about the work. However, it means that Sundays will be chess free days until I have another day off (ok, I know that's a bit ambitious, so I'll aim for a half day).

So what do I do on a chess free day, beside twiddling my thumbs, or sweating and hyperventilating because there is something missing from my life? I couldn't really get on with too much today as the weather was abysmal, so there was no day trip into the country. However, sitting around the house isn't an option, so Caroline and I went out for lunch and then found ourselves at the South Melbourne Market. I'm going to reminisce for a bit here, so if that irritates you, then skip to the next paragraph. I first went to the South Melbourne Market about 8 years ago, and thought it was shabby and uninteresting. There was a lack of selection, and the quality of the produce I felt was pretty poor. I can't really remember what time of year I went, as that may have contributed to the bad impression I got. However, I was lucky enough to try the South Melbourne Market again a few years later, and in that time there had been a transformation, with many new stalls with interesting produce, and even the food stuffs seemed to be more varied and of a better quality than I'd thought when I first went there. Now I enjoy wandering around the market, with my favourite stalls probably being the hemp clothing stall, and the specialist potato stall.

I have thought about this quite a bit today, I mean the fact that we get comfortable with our way of life and then don't like to push the boundaries, or leave our comfort zone. But life, to me, is all about trying new things and complacency is something to be avoided. I'm not saying routine is bad, but life would be very dull if one didn't try new things, or retrying things to see how they've changed. I suppose as an expat I've experienced a huge change to my life, but one thing I have not experienced is being a parent. Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets on that score, but my brother's, wife's daughter had a baby yesterday back in the UK and I wish Sam, and her family much happiness.

Because of this, I've spent a fair bit of time checking and rechecking my Facebook account today, to keep up to date with events back in the UK. It really is amazing how technology has allowed me to keep in touch with my family, seeing their pictures and reading their daily trials and triumphs from across the globe. The internet has certainly made the World a smaller place in terms of communication. I must admit, that I do have a regret this year, and it's not being able to get back to the UK to see my niece's wedding which will be happening in August. But by the power of webcam, I've been invited to the wedding, and I will most definitely be attending. (I just have to convince Vanya to rearrange her wedding for 4 am GMT which is a better time for us in Australia!)

Did you ever have a book that you intended to read but never quite got round to it? Or an author perhaps? For me it was Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I once even had a book out of the library, 100 Years of Solitude, but for one reason or another, didn't even open the book before returning it. It is a shame that it took his recent death to remind me that here was an author who I'd wanted to read for many years, but never had. Today I bought 'Love in the Time of Cholera' which I will start soon after I finish this blog post. (Here's a nice tribute about him on the Huffington Post) I also bought Dan Brown's 'Inferno' which takes me back to when I first came to Australia, a bit over 9 years ago. I took a Cathay Pacific flight from Heathrow to Melbourne via Hong Kong, and on that flight I read 'The Da Vinci Code', or at least most of it!


So I guess I'm saying in this post that 'new' is good, but so is 'familiar'. Finding the right balance for each of us, is the key to happiness. I'll be writing more non chess posts on Sundays, and hopefully giving my opinion about some coffee which I haven't written about for a while. That reminds me, it's a while since I've been to some really good cafe's that I must try again, and then there are plenty out there that I haven't tried, though my regular haunts are pretty good.

First post of 2013

Ok, so I've been a bit slack of late with updating blogs. On the run up to Christmas I was incredibly busy and then I was in England for 2 weeks and have just returned. Today I started back at work, so it's time to start on the blog again. And when I say "the blog" my first resolution for 2013 is to reduce my blogging to just one blog. For the past year I have been trying to maintain a chess only blog, a personal blog and a local chess blog. This has proved too much, and from now on there will be just one blog....this one! So I'll apologise in advance to all my non chess playing readers, but there will be lots of chess content. I also apologise to my chess readers as there will often be random posts about my travels, my hobbies outside chess and anything else that takes my fancy (coffee being something that almost always takes my fancy!).

So to start the ball rolling, I can categorically state the best and worst of the coffee's I had in the UK on my 2 week holiday to see friends and family. Actually, it was much more than this as it was my parents 60th wedding anniversary.

I have an unusual background, with my Dad a catholic boy coming from Poland (I'm indebted to British Chess Magazine editor James Pratt for pointing out that my chess ability is derived from my eastern European father. When I told James that my Dad can't play chess, he waved his hand and told me it is 'in the blood'!) and my Mum, a Jewish  Londoner. They met after World War 2 when my father was demobbed to England, and somehow they met, fell in love and the rest is history as they say.

Anyway, as I was saying, the best coffee I had in England was on a trip to Winchester. Winchester was the Saxon and medieval capital of England and is steeped in history. The cathedral dates back to before the Norman invasion, the remains of the castle house King Arthur's legendary Round Table, and a statue of King Alfred the Great welcomes visitors to the main town centre, his remains having at one time lain within the cathedral.

King Alfred the Great

By chance my wife, Caroline, and I were at a stage of the day where we'd had enough sightseeing and Christmas shopping and needed some refreshment and were passing a cafe that looked inviting. We walked into Union Jacks having never heard of the place before, but went out after the best coffee I've had in England. There was a rich crema which held consistency and a gentle flavour with virtually no bitterness. The place was obviously popular as it was packed. The staff were really friendly and helpful, and the food and drinks were great. It was only after some time sitting in Union Jack's that we realised that it is the creation of 2 award winning chefs, Chris Bianco and Jamie Oliver!

Ok, enough of the good and on to the bad. Now I won't talk bout instant coffee, or filter stuff like you can get in pubs. I also won't talk about Starbucks who seem to have an outlet in every motorway service station in the UK. That's not because Starbuck's coffee is any good, but because I didn't even try it on principal! So there might be worse than I had, but you'll have to go to Starbucks to find out.

The sort of coffee I'm talking about is the barista made, thick, strong stuff with names such as cappuccino, latte, espresso etc. In Melbourne, I usually go for a long black which is hot water topped with an espresso double shot (as averse to an Americano which is the espresso topped with hot water). However, in England I opted for a simple double espresso. I wouldn't have thought this could have been too bad but Costa Coffee in Knutsford Services proved me wrong, and I found their offering somewhere between nauseous and undrinkable.

I'm not going to leave my first post of the year on a sour note, so an honourable mention must go to the County Hall Bakery in London. This French cafe sits just across Westminster Bridge from the Houses of Parliament and is situated at the back of County Hall (the front of County Hall is on Southbank right next to the London Eye). The coffee in the bakery was great, as were the pastries which was just the thing that we needed before heading off for a day of sightseeing and shopping!

London Eye, with County Hall to the right.