Family Fun: Cycling in Melbourne

During the late spring, I started a tradition with the girls that I'm hoping to continue for our time in Melbourne.  We spend some time on a morning - usually Saturday, but it could be on a different day I have off, eating breakfast and cycling together.  Breakfast is always at the Crewe and Harpur pub, which is right next to the Swarkestone Bridge (known in our family as the Bridge of Doom, and about which I may someday write a blog post).

A colleague of mine from Rolls-Royce in Indianapolis told me that I shouldn't limit the culinary benefits of our move to the UK just to Marmite.  He said we should consider sausage, beans, and toast.  He was right.  Beans, scrambled eggs, and toast has become a staple evening meal of ours.  It's also the standard fare at the Crewe and Harpur.  On this particular morning, the chef generously included the hash brown, tomato, and mushroom.  Unfortunately Kristine wasn't there to enjoy the mushroom as much as it deserved.

Because Elise can ride her bike without assistance, she and I take a slightly longer route to get to the pub.  We drive to the cycle track entrance in King's Newton and cycle from there.  Here's the route (it's also about a third of my route when I'm cycling to and from work).

The cycle track here is hard packed dirt (this is important during the rainy winter and spring because the surface isn't as affected), nice and wide (this is important if, say, you encounter a couple riders on horseback that you need to get around), and walled on both sides by these lovely hedges.

This bridge is one of my favorite places to ride across.  It provides a lovely view of the surrounding countryside, both in the morning (as on this ride) and in the evening when I'm cycling home.

Once we turn off the cycle track onto the canal path, the going gets much narrower and less smooth.  It's pretty hard packed, so doesn't get that muddy during the rains.  There's just not many ways to avoid puddles.  I gave up trying after my first couple rides in February, and resigned myself to collecting the associated mud.  This was a clear day with no recent rain, so the path was nice and dry.

I really enjoy the serenity of this part of the ride.  Elise and I didn't pass anyone else on the Saturday we did this ride.  I'll pass the occasional cyclist, runner, or person fishing in the canal on other rides.  There are usually a handful of boats either docked or moving in the canal.

The routine with Charis and Clare is a little different.  We eat first, then drive to the canal lock where the dirt path Elise and I ride along connects with a paved cycle track into Chellaston.  Clare rides along the canal on the other side of the lock.  It works well for her little bike because it's flat and paved.  It's also wide.  This allows her head to point one direction while her handlebars point a different direction without much risk that she'll wind up in the canal.  The dragon on her bike was a stress buy on the house-hunting trip.  We were at Halfords looking for cycling gear for my commute, and generally feeling overwhelmed with the magnitude of the move.  We rationalized the purchase by saying it would a birthday gift (which it was).  The critter spends most of its time indoors as an honorary stuffed animal.  This was a rare venture outdoors.

Elise and Clare were with me one Saturday afternoon when we got to witness the lock in use.  They got to help move one of the barricades.  The grateful boat pilot told them that he knew someone who knew Father Christmas.  He promised to put in a good word on their behalf.

Charis and I take yet a different route from the lock.  We cross the canal and take the path toward Chellaston.  It's not as flat, but still paved, so gives Charis a little more practice.

We're working on the transition away from training wheels.  I found a gadget called a Balance Buddy in a local cycling shop.  I put it on Charis's rear axle, and I can walk behind her without bending over double to hold her seat or handlebars.  My balky back appreciates this greatly.

Here's one more route we did.  This was as a family (Kristine and I walking; the girls on wheels).  It's also from the King's Newton intersection with the cycle track, but goes the opposite direction.

I mentioned the head and handlebars not always pointing the same direction?

Elise was on the scooter for this one because her bike had suffered a punctured tire that subsequently blew out completely when I tried to pump it up enough to do this outing.

So there you have it - Saturday morning and afternoon excursions around the lovely village we call home.

Long Weekend: Cotswolds (Lechlade-on-Thames; Bourton-on-the-Water)

This was something of a spur-of-the-moment trip.  Our summer has been plenty busy with trips to the US in July and Germany in August.  Then I mentioned to Elise and Kristine that looking at our fall calendar, I might have a couple extra hours available to take off before school started.  Elise responded by saying "Daddy, can you please take Labor Day off?"  Naturally, to hear is to obey.  I checked cottages4you, which is becoming our lodging supplier of choice, and found openings in the cottages at Manor Farm Estate in Lechlade.  As an added bonus, my cousin Marti joined us for a couple of nights.

Here's the route for our weekend away.  We drove from Melbourne to Lechlade on Friday after work.  Despite unpleasant memories of long delays getting through small towns (ahem, Moretin; ahem, Stow) from our drive to Swindon at Easter, this trek was uneventful.  We left at about 6 pm and pulled into the farm by 7:45.

One of Kristine's friends shared a word of wisdom about buying groceries online from Tesco and having them deliver instead of packing food for a long road trip.  This meant we were able to get everything into the trusty Golf without using the cargo carrier.  My gimpy back was very grateful.  The cargo carrier is a great device, but the Golf frame forces us to secure it with straps through the interior of the car instead of hooks door frame.  My gimpy back gave me about 90 minutes of pain-free driving on the Wales trip.  So not having the straps was a blessing.  It's up in the air whether we use the carrier if we take a road trip that's longer than 3 days.

The Golf did well.  We got the mandolin, wellington boots, and normal luggage into the back without obstructing my view out the rear mirror.

Here are my cheerful and excited passengers, ready to hit the road.

Lechlade Manor was built by Henry VIII as a wedding gift for one of his wives.  The farmhouse is about 350 years old.

The stables, which have been converted into cottages, are about 150 years old.

There are four cottages in what used to be the stables.  Each is named for a different role on the farm: Smythy, Hen Loft, Dairy, and Parlour.  We stayed in the Smythy.

Here's the inside view of the cottage.  We had an open area for the kitchen / dining room / living room, two loft bedrooms, and one bedroom on the ground floor.  The girls and I got excited about the loft bedrooms when we were thinking about staying here.  At the time, I didn't pay attention to the part of the pictures that showed the curtains.  That's not much of a sound or light barrier from the living area.  Not a problem for Kristine and I.  More of a problem for Elise and Charis, who were in the other loft.  The adults had to speak in whispers after the girls went to bed.  And the mandolin that had space in the Golf couldn't get played after bedtime (which is typically the only chance I get).

As is typical, whether at home or on the road, part of our family downtime involved working on crafts.

Lots of it involved reading.  Marti owns a full set of the original (not edited for political correctness many decades later) Noddy books by Enid Blyton.  She graciously complied with the girls' position that she could only stay with us if she brought more Noddy books with her.

The cottage had a book about a little monster who goes berserk when the main character, a young girl, gets a baby brother.  The girls crowded onto my lap to see the pictures.  They're growing - I have a sense that this type of picture will show up less and less in our family.

Note the smiling daughter on the beanbag, and the cup of tea.  The latter is important because we had no means to brew coffee during our entire three day stay.

Manor Farm gets income from the holiday cottages, and also from a nursery school that is on their land.  The animals on the farm get lots of exposure to young children.  As a result, they are both tame and friendly.  These Shetland ponies came trotting out to the fence when we walked up.

Jack the donkey trotted out to the fence, braying loudly.  I told the girls they could pet the ponies (who I trust to be gentle), but not Jack (who I don't trust because he's a donkey).  I found out from the owner that although he's not a danger to guests, other farm animals don't fare as well if they're in his pen.

This dog was friendly, gentle, and loved to play fetch with the tennis ball.  The girls and I had great fun playing with him.

This horse was not very friendly.  The first time I walked up to his paddock, he went into his pen and stayed there.  I found him outside later in the day.  I think he decided that enjoying the pleasant weather was more important than avoiding the human visitor.

The other feature of the farm that we enjoyed was the playground equipment.  The popular bits were this basket swing

And the trampolines.

Charis and Clare braved the (very unheated) pool.  Both reached milestones with independent use of their flotation devices.  I would have been more excited for them if I wasn't so cold.

Much to our delight, we found out that the woods on the farm had a haystack to explore and more equipment to enjoy.  The farm uses this area for children's camps during the year, and for the forestry school for the Lechlade primary schools during the year.

The girls weren't the only ones enjoying the playground in the woods.  Here's Kristine on the obstacle course.

All three girls got to ride one of the Shetland ponies.  Teddy, the pony they rode, is supposed to be retired since he's 19.  Evidently they still let him give rides because he enjoys it so much.

We took a walk through Lechlade one afternoon.  My (not so trusty) GPS went berserk part way through and had to get re-started.  We parked at the endpoint on the route below, walked along the River Thames for about a mile to Inglesham, and then back through Lechlade.

I wasn't very thrilled to walk next to this herd of cows.  There was a string of incidents in Derbyshire a few months ago involving people getting quite seriously hurt when walking through fields containing cows.  These ones ignored us.

Marti summed up the experience of walking through the fields around Lechlade best: A long time ago, people lived here.  A little bit later, other people were buried over there.  The time frames involved were Anglo-Saxon, so circa 500 AD.  Today, the fields look awfully like grass and sheep.

This is my fisherman-in-the-canal photo from our time in England.  I see this quite a bit when I'm cycling to and from work along the canal path in Derby, but I don't have the guts to stop riding and take the picture.  The building in the background is the Lock House for this section of the Thames.

Part of the walk went through the Lechlade cemetery.  The little tombstone is for a girl who lived 3 months.  It was a poignant reminder for me of three little tombstones that we never got to lay.

We enjoyed the plethora of blackberries next to many of our paths on this walk.  We left a few on the bushes for anyone who came after us.  A very few.

Clare was a good sport for most of the walk, and managed to walk on her own for over a mile total.  That said, there were times she firmly told us she didn't want to walk.  Like when we were walking alongside the Thames and she would rather have ridden on the boats going by.

Our favorite part of the hike (partly because it was pretty much the only part that wasn't fields; partly because it was quite interesting) was the stop at St John the Baptist Church in Inglesham.  The church originally dates to the Anglo-Saxon era.  Most of the current structure was put up in the early 13th century.

This stone mural of the Madonna and child is Anglo-Saxon.

We spent some time trying to figure out this tomb.  Kristine suggested it was a knight because she could see a sword with the figure (I couldn't).  Turns out she was right.  The knight was buried here circa 1300 AD.

I got to stand in the lectern, which dates to the 15th century.

Clare played peek-a-boo in the pew box (Commonwealth Era).

Tour of the church completed, we refreshed ourselves with custard creams before continuing on the walk.

Our drive home Monday included a brief stop in Bourton on the Water.  We spent some time in the Dragonfly Maze.  The passageways felt slightly cramped, but we all enjoyed following the clues to find the dragonfly in the middle.

Our time in Bourton (only 2 hours) and the cost of other entertainment venues (more than I was willing to pay) precluded activities besides the maze.  Which wound up not being a big deal.  Despite all donning raincoats, the weather was mostly pleasant.  This allowed us to enjoy walking along the canal.

Our final stop was at this little vehicle outside the Car Museum while Kristine and Elise picked up treats for the drive home at the local bakery.