Farewell, Melbourne

In an ideal world, I would have written an extensive blog post about our final days in Melbourne.  In the actual world, I collected a few photos and thoughts about the main parts of our last couple of weeks.  Here it is.

Final Year 5 performance of Roald Dahl's Snow White and the Seven Jockeys

Farewell tea for Kristine

Farewell lunch-time drinks for Shawn

We bid a somewhat gloomy farewell to my little red Ka.  When I bought it in 2016, I figured I would drive it until it fell apart, or else I would sell it for a couple hundred quid when we left.  The car held together for 12 months, but not well enough to pass the MOT and be worth selling.  A friendly fellow from the local auto graveyard came and towed it away.

Farewell, little red Ka

Morning spider web - they didn't do this on the Golf, for some reason

I took each of the girls out for a final bike ride.  This Cloud Trail cycle path outside Melbourne holds fond memories for me - of Charis and Clare both learning to ride without stabilisers, of cathartic hours enjoying the beautiful countryside on my commutes to and from work, and of many Saturday morning outings with the girls.  The final outings were bittersweet.

Final English breakfast at the Crewe and Harper pub

South Derbyshire morning traffic - another reason I was melancholy when I stopped cycling

Wrapping up the secondment wouldn't be complete for me if it didn't involve something musical.  I was fortunate that it involved two.  The first was a visit to Anthony Barrett in Lichfield.  He cleaned my recorders for me shortly after we arrived, and graciously let me watch him clean them again so that I had some idea how to do it myself.  More fun than the tutorial was getting to see his collection of recorders in various states of repair and playability.  

I thought my bass recorder was big until I got to play this one!

The second was a lonely Fylde octave mandolin that showed up on the gumtree classifieds.  Even though we were less than a week away from the house getting packed up, I felt sorry for the instrument and decided to give it a home.  I gambled that a Thursday departure was plenty of time for the mandolin to get from Glasgow to Melbourne.  I was wrong.  It showed up Tuesday afternoon after the container had already left.  A good-natured fellow secondee family agreed to store the hardshell case for me until their container comes to the US in 2017.  I picked up a cheap gig bag, and the mandolin came with us on the airplane.

My last UK musical acquisition was this Fylde Touchstone octave mandolin.  I played it at Calke Abbey on our final evening in Melbourne.

Elise's final class project was typical of the open-ended assignments we encountered in the Melbourne schools.  "Pick something you're interested in.  Make an informative display about it.  Use your creativity."  She decided to do her project on the Swarkestone Bridge and Causeway.  It will be forever lodged in our memory as the narrow bridge of Doom, thanks to the terror of navigating it immediately after arriving in 2014.  It was fun to learn other history about it.  The bridge is the farthest point south that Bonnie Prince Charlie reached on his ill-fated attempt to claim the crown.  It's the source of a number of ghost stories.  It runs through a nature preserve and is a protected historic monument, so will not be expanded to handle its traffic burden any time soon.

The bridge has a bus,
The bridge has a bus,
Eek! Eek! It's scary-o,
The bridge has a bus.

I risked an accident to photograph the effects of an accident on Swarkestone Bridge

Secondees regularly exchange horror stories about their experience with movers.  We were fortunate with our crew.  They were courteous, worked hard, and mostly handled everything with care.  They were also good-natured about various quirky items we were shipping - a small number of musical instruments, empty beer bottles for colleagues who brew their own, a set of Horrible Histories books, a set of Horrible Science books, a set of Enid Blyton books, another set of Enid Blyton books, another ...

The house in transition

A (very) few of the books we picked up

For the record, Marmite wasn't the only item I stockpiled for our return to the U. S.

The dulcimer was one of my main mental-health-saving devices.  I was glad it was one of the final items to get packed.

The container waiting for the contents of the house

And that's pretty much it

We made several trips to Calke Abbey during our final week. It was so much fun having this National Trust property just a 5 minute drive from our house during our time in Melbourne.  Once we were out of the house and into temporary housing, it was also really nice to have lots of open space where the girls could run around.

Favorite tree #1

In which Charis pretends to be scared about falling

Can you spot the daughters (also favorite tree #2)?

Elise hero shot

Charis hero shot

Clare hero shot

Elise "unhappy at being photographed" shot

Farewell cartwheel

We bargained with our re-entry coordinator to stay at The Coach House in Melbourne instead of trekking the girls from the north side of Derby across the Swarkestone Causeway every day to get them to school.  It took some creativity to fit all 5 of us plus aircraft luggage into two rooms, but overall it worked out very well.  Bev, the owner, took excellent care of us during our stay.

I mentioned the creativity to fit us in?

Elise got a lesson in the important art of how to securely pack knitting equipment

My secondment was in the Transmissions team.  My teammates gave me a mounted shaft as a farewell gift.  It didn't arrive until after the container left, so I got to carry it across the Atlantic in my backpack.

The girls greatly enjoyed this game (we had to tear them away on the final morning)

Final cooked breakfast before our departure

Farewell, South Derbyshire Karate Academy

Farewell, SDKA.  We will miss you.

"Shawn, we have an opportunity for you to go on secondment to Derby.  Are you interested?"
"That depends.  Do they have a good martial arts school?"
the discussion above did not happen

"Shawn, now that your secondment is complete, what are the things you miss most?"
"The karate club where the girls and I trained is pretty high up on the list."
the discussion above has happened several times

When we decided to take the secondment, I didn't realize it would include the chance to engage with two experiences I'd found meaningful many years ago, but had assumed would not be part of my life anymore - brass music, and martial arts.  Kristine and I decided, after a year of studying Tae Kwon Do together, that sparring with and yelling at each other was good for our marriage.  Our 2 and a half years studying at South Derbyshire Karate Academy involved sparring with and yelling at each other that was similarly good for the father-daughter relationship.  There is value in training with peers.  There is also value in training with your children - in a fixed time during the week when you engage in learning together in ways that challenge you physically and mentally.

Our progression through the lower belts during our first year was pretty straightforward: show up for the weekly session, learn the material, take the belt test.  The intermediate material during our second year was more challenging.  This meant we progressed as martial artists: the yells grew more emphatic, the kicks raised higher, the punches became straighter, Charis got more intimidating (well, okay, maybe not quite).

There are fun photos of our time with SDKA in the rest of the blog post.  Here are three life lessons that I've pondered because of our time there.

Your body is your friend, not your enemy.  
When I wrote Letters to My Unborn Children, I articulated a little of my personal discomfort with my body.  Kristine and I began discussing this more after the girls were born.  Our thoughts were guided by a very helpful book, Why Beauty Matters.  It is an excellent, gracious encouragement for women to see their bodies as inherently valuable and worth caring for, instead of enemies to be avoided (by retreating to the life of the mind) or held to false standards.  As our discussions turned to how we can help the girls see their bodies as friend instead of foe, I began to name the deeper antagonism I hold toward my own body - first from my height, and later from its role in the deaths of three of my children.  I also began to wonder what an equivalent healing voice would be - perhaps entitled something like The Importance of Being Handsome.
Two years of studying at SDKA did not remove my antagonism.  It did help me take some steps toward healing.  "Shawn, you're hunched very tight.  You will be much more difficult to spar with if you extend your arms and take advantage of your height." I don't know how long the Sensei's were telling me this before it registered.  I suspect it was a while.  "Shawn, you are standing too close to the bag to get full power from your kicks.  Your legs are long enough that you can stand quite a bit farther away.  Take a big step back and kick again."  Slowly I put the pieces together - not just that my body was not my foe, but that SDKA could be a safe environment in which to perform concrete activities that reinforced (in both my muscle memory and my brain) the message of body as friend.  I caught glimpses of this a few times - during bag work when my body became loose and relaxed instead of tense; during sparring work when my chronic inability to think on my feet gave way to a handful of improvised moves.  I'm grateful for those glimpses.  I'm also grateful for the role that SDKA played in helping me at least begin to make a paradigm shift.

A painful parental choice - to test, or not to test
"Daddy, you've worked hard since we all got our blue belts.  You've earned the right to test for your purple belt.  You should take the test."
"Daddy, family is more important than karate.  You should not take the test for your purple belt.  Then we can be blue belts together when we leave the U.K."

The two statements reflect the personalities of the daughters who said them.  They also reflect how SDKA was a microcosm for learning broader lessons.  When I told this story to one of the Sensei's while warming up to test for my purple belt (yes, I decided to do it), he kindly affirmed my parental anguish, and then reflected about the broader lessons as well.  In short, everyone will hit a point where what they are doing doesn't come easily anymore.  Sometimes it's academics, sometimes it's something else.  Their goal at SDKA was to help children and adults hit that point, and then learn the life skills to keep tackling the challenge.  The idea is that learning the lesson in a supportive environment for something like a belt test gives you the skills to apply the lesson when the environment may be less supportive.

The girls and I pondered some of these larger questions during our second year at SDKA.  We discussed shared priorities when we gave up evenings to focus on a couple belt tests.  We discussed shared priorities again when we missed belt tests because we had been traveling.  We learned how to tackle complicated problems - like learning the more intricate katas - by breaking them into smaller pieces.  The last couple of belt tests involved practicing at home.  It was something we did together, despite having distinct responsibilities as engineer, year 5 student, and year 3 student.  The girls learned quicker than I did at times, and slower than I did at other times.  It strikes me that they will not often get to laugh with me at my fallibility, but here was a place they could.

Will these life lessons get internalized?  Who knows.  But the chance to encounter them was valuable.

Despite the stoic response from the observing Sensei's, this was an impressive jump.  Note the air between my foot and the mat.

I will miss the camaraderie of the Sensei's who graciously taught us every Friday evening and Sunday afternoon

Cardinal rule of sparring - when the opponent is younger, faster, and more nimble than you, RUN AWAY!!!

Before

After - but I earned my belt!

FEKO Competition - when life isn't fair
Elise and Charis got to enter a competition held in Sheffield by the Federation of English Karate Organisations (FEKO) in June, a couple weeks before we left the U.K.  They spent many Sunday afternoons training with the competition squad to perfect their kata (I used this time to train with the sparring squad, but they made much more progress than me).

At the competition, each of them was placed with groups of children of similar age and belt level.  The rule was that everyone would perform their kata twice, and then finalists would be selected.  Elise was in a small group.  She made it through to the finals and got a medal.  Charis was in a large group.  The judges decided there wasn't enough time for everyone to perform twice, so they made selections after the first round.  We learned later that many children in her group were competing at the karate world championships in Dublin the following week.  They were using the FEKO competition as a warm-up.

Charis was understandably heartbroken.  It didn't bother her much that she competed against folks who would be at the world championships.  It did bother her a great deal that the rules changed part-way into the competition, and that she never got a chance to perform her second kata.

I discussed with one of the Sensei's, who is also a colleague at Rolls-Royce, how Charis's experience embodies so much of what we encounter in life.  Rules change that you cannot control.  You do your best with what you have, and sometimes the competition is just stacked against you.  You can choose to be bitter when this happens, or you can choose to keep conducting yourself with dignity.  Again, SDKA was a microcosm for a broader life lesson.  For the record, I did not discuss any of this with Charis.  I simply told her it was okay to be sad.  In their typical resilient fashion, the girls came to peace with the disappointment by the time we were driving home.  They decided that Charis got a trophy at the SDKA Christmas party (when Elise didn't), and Elise got a medal at the FEKO competition (when Charis didn't), so life was fair.  In the long run, I think I was more scarred by the experience than they were (I felt better about my turmoil when I compared notes with a couple other parents and found out I wasn't alone).

The day finished on a more positive note.  The under-12 age girls sparring competition was short a couple of teams.  The SDKA coaches assembled two teams, one of which included Elise and Charis.  They held their own, and helped their team earn 3rd place.

Warming up before the competition

Charis's Kata group

Charis waiting to do her Kata

Here's Charis doing her kata

Elise's Kata group

Here's Elise doing her Kata

Elise in sparring action

Charis in sparring action

Final medal presentation for team sparring.  SDKA took 1st and 3rd place.

Family Walk: Melbourne Pool and Hall

We did this walk in Melbourne for the first time because it was close to home and in our Derbyshire Walks with Children book.  It's since become a standard one we do with guests.  Partly because of that, it's not been on the "I should write a blog post" list.  On looking at the photos from different times we did the walk, it's a fun way to reflect on how much the girls have grown during our stay. 

Our first walk in March 2014 (we drove to the Library because walking from home was too much to handle)

What the walk became - all the way from home with girls able to handle it

Satellite view of the walk

George Street - we walked (and ran) this stretch many, many times

Dunnicliffe Lane - these front gardens of these houses were always fun to walk past

Or, in the girls' case, to run past

Main Street in Melbourne

This road gets you from Main Street to the parish church and then out of town.  It's also one of the many Melbourne gauntlets that I feared to drive.

2014 - Clare is in a backpack when we walk past the parish church and head out of town

This wall around part of Lord Melbourne's estate is one of the older structures in the town

2015 - Clare has walked from home past the parish church on her own

2014 - that little girl holding Kristine's hand is Charis

Unwritten: Because the sheep will get away

Clare was tired (so rode on my shoulders) and hungry (so mistook my head for a snack)

We were excited to see sheep when we did the walk in 2014. They were not excited to see us.  We stopped being excited to see them on subsequent walks.

Melbourne Hall

2014 - Charis entertained me on this walk by singing the third of the "United Breaks Guitars" songs

Looking away from Melbourne towards Breedon

2014 - Elise walks ahead of the rest of us on her own

2015 - Elise has company when walking ahead of the rest of us

We joked many times about not falling over the dam, but we still let the girls climb the wall

Looking across the pool (it's NOT a pond, Shawn) toward the parish church

Pause to look for ducks and swans

In which the ducks hope to get bread from the girls before the swans arrive

Only to be evicted by the hungry swan

Melbourne Hall again

In case you're wondering which came first

The Great (for balancing) Wall of Melbourne

Front view of the parish church, which dates to the Norman days and is not quite large enough to be a cathedral

Note who is not being carried

These buildings get a photo because of the thatch roofs

George Street again

One final hill before home

We think the hound was friendly, but we never tried hard to find out

And that's the walk