It’s funny as one of the reasons I was looking forward to this trip was an escape from the routine.  But now I’ve found myself happy to just have a weekly and daily routine here in Marlow.  Maybe it’s a routine in a new place that makes it enjoyable.  Who knows.  I’m a restless soul I guess.  Always up for something new.

Onto our favorite things.  Ducks, Geese and Swans oh my…they are everywhere right on our doorstep on the Thames.  It’s been wonderful to wake up and look out the window onto the Thames and the beautiful bridge.  And ofcourse our regular trips to feed all the ducks, geese, swans, birds and just about anything else that is swarming on the docks.  Stella has gotten quite brave and goes pretty close and has even learned to throw the bread since we’ve been here.

Feeding the Duckies

Higginson Park.  We go there at least once a day, assuming it isn’t raining, and sometimes twice.  It’s right out the backdoor and it’s the best playground I’ve ever been on.  Very nice and all this great Swedish equipment.  Stella loves going to the park and we can’t walk by without her pointing and wanting to go.   They also have a merry-go-round on nice sunny days and weekends.  Stella loves it, mommy, not so much, I get a bit sick going in continuous circles…I know, I’m pathetic!

Merry-Go-Round in Higginson Park

Walks on the toe path have been really nice and especially this time around as the fall leaves are beautiful.

We have also found a local farm we can walk to that is open on Friday’s and Saturday’s so you can buy their local meat and eggs.  Stella has been able to explore all the farm animals she reads about and we even fed the pigs last weekend.  As a former vegetarian, I have to say I did find it a bit nauseating to see the creatures I was about to cook…but by the same token, as a cook and lover of all things natural, it was nice to see a working farm and know my meat and VERY fresh eggs didn’t travel far to my plate.

Feeding the piggies

My grandfather (my Mom’s Dad) had a great farm and I grew up eating wonderful produce, eggs and meats that were fresh and wholesome.  It’s nice to get some of the things you grew up with even when you are in another country.

And we can’t forget the library.  Weekly reading groups have really been nice and being able to get some new books out for Stella was great.  We even found a few English books that Stella really liked and picked up a few for her to have.  If you haven’t read the “Bing” series, I recommend it, but beware, your child will become addicted.

This is our last weekend here in England.  We are going to Cambridge on Saturday as I lived there for 5 months almost twelve years ago.  We are going to hit the pub I worked in, the Free Press, for lunch and then walk around the High Street and “Backs” of the colleges.  I’m really looking forward to going back there and hope that the owners of the pub are still there.

We are having dinner at our friend Vik’s house on Sunday.  He and his wife Monika are cooking us a nice Indian meal.  We met Vik when Justin and I were on our last adventure in S. E. Asia.

We are getting excited about heading back to N. America.  While we have had an enjoyable time in Europe we are looking forward to getting back to our American conveniences and being closer to friends and family and in a better time zone for work.

We have exciting plans for the next month and are really looking forward to the weeeks ahead.

This week has been spent visiting Justin’s family and hitting Manchester so Justin could see a Manchester United game (a missing item on his “resume of sports events” that can now be “ticked”).  While the week had its challenges with poor little Stella having a pretty bad cold, it was a nice trip.

Francesca and Stella

We started out at Eden and Janine’s house in Stratford Upon Avon.  Wellington, Justin’s Dad, had arrived there for a visit so we met him for dinner with Eden, Janine and Francesca (Justin’s cousin).  It was a nice visit and good to catch up.  We had not seen them since 2005 when we were over for a visit.

We then headed up to Manchester so Justin and his Dad could go the match.  We stayed in a really nice hotel, Yang Sing Oriental Hotel.  I highly recommend it if you are going to Manchester.  Free breakfast, mini-bar and very nice/ornate rooms.  There’s also a great Chinese restaurant attached where we had a nice dim sum.

Stella and I spent the evening shopping and then hanging out in our hotel room with room service and a movie.  It was very nice mommy/daughter time which was quite fun for me as she’s finally old enough to relate to  – well sort of – and “hang out” with.

I even picked up a pair of proper English riding boots!

Manchester is a great city, shopping, culture and a variety of ethnic cuisine.  And of course they have teh best footy team Man-United!

Helen and Stella

We then headed back to Liverpool to visit Justin’s Grandmother Alice and also see some close family friends (and Justin’s Mum’s long time childhood friend), Helen, Charles and their lovely three boys.

Charles and Samuel with Stella

It’s been nice to let Stella spend some time with family and experience the life and culture of her roots here in England.  We look forward to the next few months as well where we will be taking her to Pennsylvania, NYC and of course VA to visit and experience some of my roots and places where Justin and I both have many memories.

That is the one thing about travel.  Outside of experiencing new things (which we love to do), it’s also nice sometimes to go back to your roots and explore and remember who you are and where you came from.

Back to Marlow for 10 days and then off to St. Louis for work on November 5.

Some Baby Tips:

Make sure you travel equipped with a few relief medicines, balms, etc. for baby in case they get a cold and you find yourself unable to get to a market.  Stella unfortunately picked up a really bad cold last week at the little daycare/play time we took her to.  I had a few things that I knew helped relieve her cold with me and picked up a few other things here.  At her age there isn’t much you can do but Vicks balm and menthol vaporizers really help.  Unfortunately I was unable to find a cool mist vaporizer in England.  Apparently no one uses those here.

Another thing to think about if you are traveling in Europe.  Don’t run out of diapers on a Sunday (and in some places, any day for that matter).  We were rationing out our last diapers last Sunday as I didn’t realize I was out until 5 pm on Sunday and every shop was closed.  Thankfully we made it with the last 2 diapers until morning but we could have been in BIG trouble!

Justin is working hard to find a solution.

Rhodes Villla Damage

Here are some pictures of the damage from our old villa. We feel terrible for the owners as buying this villa was a family dream and now they are having to go through all of this in a foreign country.

I always say things happen for a reason and workout in the end…

Here’s the new villa, Villa Angelika: http://www.sapphirevillas.eu/171/villaangelika/details.cfm

So on to some baby travel tips.

I like to try to find free and easy things to do when we are on vacation. Justin and I feel that we have done a ton of traveling and now when we visit a new place the fun of the trip is trying to live more like a local. The first thing I always do before I even arrive is find out if there is a local market and the best places to eat. By now you should know my priorities…my belly leads the way!

The second thing I always want to find is outdoor activities. Nice walks or hikes in around our destination. To walk off all that food we eat.

And the third main thing is a place to get a good drink. Here in England it is fantastic as we can bring Stella along for a pint and she can run around in the pub. Some pubs are baby friendly more than others so we search those out.

Now that we have Stella I try to look for a few other things as well.

Libraries, farmer’s markets, playgrounds, festivals, etc. All free and usually some sort of child friendly activities going on.

Taking a Walk Along the Thames

In Marlow we have been very lucky to be close to a lot of nice and free things to do with Stella. We’ve gone on a walk at least once a day along the toe path on the Thames. She loves seeing all the swans, geese, ducks and dogs. Thank goodness we brought the Mountain Buggy or we wouldn’t be doing have the walks we have done so far. I believe as the trip goes on we are going to be even happier we brought it. I found a store here to get a back-up tire as my only complaint with this stroller is all the tire issues I’ve had. But as much as we use it I don’t think I should complain.

We are also right on Higginson Park which has the best playground I’ve ever seen. Tons of play gym equipment and a soft surface. Stella loves going there and every time we walk past she points and shrills as she wants to go to the park.

Enjoying Higginson Park

The Marlow library is only 2 blocks away so we’ve been there several times to get books.

TIP: when you are traveling see if there is a local library that you can go to and check out books so you don’t have to bring a ton with you. Not that I’m a fan of the TV but if you must (it is vacation after all) you can likely rent or check-out child friendly DVDS. The library here also has a great magazine collection that you can check-out for free.

Yesterday I took Stella to their story time. She enjoyed seeing all the children and pulling all the books out more than the actual story but it was a nice interactive experience for her. Especially in a different country with different stories and accents.

Enjoying Story Time at the Marlow Library

Finally, we hit the farmer’s market in Higginson Park as well this week. Stella enjoyed seeing all the different foods and sampling the yummy sausage pie! (She has been living on pork products since we arrived).

"Yum Yum," Sausage Rolls from the Farmer's Market

Tomorrow Nana arrives (Justin’s mother). We are looking forward to seeing her and I know she can’t wait to see Stella.

On a different note, it seems that a cloud of bad luck has been following us since we arrived in England (today it was my laptop that had issues that still aren’t resolved and everything little that could go wrong did).  Perhaps it has something to do with the cloudy/rainy weather and once we get to Greece things will start to look up.

On a positive note Stella is doing really well and sleeping like a champ and is such a joy.  We are very lucky parents.  With all that is going on she’s able to make us smile and laugh and forget the worries.

Stella was quite the little trooper and did surprisingly well.

Finally some time to decompress after a very long month of packing up, working, etc.

Marlow is a beautiful village right on the Thames.  Angela (Justin’s Mum) has a lovely flat with a very relaxing view of the river and the rowing club across the water. We are very lucky to have this place to come to.

We did a bit of shopping and unpacking and general settling in today.

Everyone is asleep except for me so I must head off to bed for some rest.