Collins UK Travels: 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.