Cakes, Puppies and Kittens!

So it's been 7 months today since I last wrote or released anything on here. This revival isn't timed purposely, it's just serendipity that makes it a nice round number.

Quite a lot has happened since then. I will very quickly summarise:

• I travelled around New Zealand
• I returned to the UK
• I travelled around the UK and Ireland
• I decided I want to get a job again
• I have got a job offer
• I have been doing A LOT of waiting.

And that last point is what ultimately brings me back here. I have nothing but time on my hands. I received a job offer about 2 months ago now but am still going through the various reference and security checks required and I still have no indication of when I might actually be starting... But enough of that for now.

I'm sure no one was hugely disappointed when I stopped posting, and I'm sure no one will be particularly excited that I'm back on here again but hey, just like photos of holidays are more for the person on vacation than to those they show them to, I'm sure some parallels can be drawn to blogging. Anyway, I stopped writing after the post about my Grannie. I released two more posts, but they had already been written before hand and all I had to do was press Publish. I just didn't really feel like writing after that and decided to just enjoy my time in New Zealand. That's somewhere I've wanted to to go for a very long time and even almost ended up moving there for work a couple months ago so I'm sure I will write the back logs of at least some of my travels still.

But for the moment, a slight detour on my normal travel writing and onto the subject of this post. I will have to admit, I have mislead you all slightly. Whilst I really want a puppy, this post is not about puppies or dogs. And whilst I really do not want a kitten, this post is not about that either. However, this post is about cakes! So into the moist, delicious heart of the matter.

If anyone recalls from the post about my Grannie (recap here if anyone really wants), I showed an image of Grannie at my cousin's wedding and mentioned that the rest of our chances have dropped significantly since losing Grannie's influence. Well, somehow, my eldest brother Ben has managed to convince, trick, blackmail or otherwise coerce someone into agreeing to marry him!

That's right:

Somehow, this...

Has managed to go to this.

I believe this is a classic case of what one might classify as punching above one's weight. But take heart; if Ben can manage this - so can you! Stay tuned for his best selling novel telling you all the secrets to a successful relationship!

All of this is in good jest, and far more importantly and more excitedly is my role in this: I have been asked to make their wedding cake! See, we got to cake eventually.

I'm sure many of you know that I love to bake and I'm sure many of you also know that I have made a couple of wedding cakes before. I ended up making two for one wedding for a very good friend of mine a couple years ago.

Now I wasn't blogging at the time so didn't document the process at all but it was a rather interesting time. I had moved to Australia about a month before their wedding and so flew back shortly after settling in. I was staying at their house and had ordered a whole bunch of baking supplies to get there in time for me arriving as all of my possessions were still in transit on a boat from the UK to Australia. So it was using an unfamiliar mixer, all new equipment and someone else's oven and all at the same time as having to make last minute preparations, shopping for clothes for myself for the wedding and also seeing some friends in my short time in the UK. It was a fun few days leading up to the wedding and the wedding was an excellent day and the whole process went fairly smoothly apart from one slight mistake of icing the wrong cake with the wrong icing. But I won't go on for the moment as this is already getting quite lengthy. See below the final products!

As I'm sure you can tell from the picture there was a cake for the bride and one for the groom as they both had different preferences for flavours. And yes those are Daleks bedecked in a veil and top hat. The bride's cake is lemon cake with my famous lemon curd filling and frosted in vanilla butter cream. The groom's cake is chocolate fudge with a strawberry coulis filling (I think) and a white chocolate Swiss butter cream frosting, complimented by white and dark chocolate tuxedo'd strawberries. I was given free reign on creative control after the initial flavour suggestions and I can honestly say that I am very proud of the results, but that creative control was rather stressful for someone else's wedding. So with that experience, I told Ben's fiancée Amy (obviously the one in charge of these kinds of decisions) that I wouldn't be taking quite such a leading role in these decisions this time which she was more than happy with. So with a bit of discussion so far, final decisions have yet to be made but it looks like I'll be heading down a more traditional style cake this time. But, to make sure that my life won't be too easy, the cake will have to be completely gluten free for allergy reasons. This should be an interesting challenge as I have not done much in the way of any gluten free cooking before as I love my gluten, but at least I have my own mixer and equipment this time. But that does mean that I should have plenty of test cakes to eat (and maybe even share) over the next few months.

I'm sure that's enough writing to chew on for the moment! So until the next time.

A Tribute to the Humble Without Reason

You know how hard it is to begin writing an essay? Or a job application? Or even sometimes just an email? Well, how the hell does one begin writing something when you feel that there is no way that you can do justice to the subject that you are about to try and honor through the medium of text? I wish I could write poetry or music or sonnets or even just be a better writer - I feel I have no business in even trying to compose a compendium on a persons life when I look around at all the examples of the far better, far more beautiful works that I read all the time. But, I can't write music, or poetry, and I can only write as well as I can at the moment - so you'll have to suffer through, and I only hope that I can do justice to someone who deserves nothing but.

Two weeks ago my Grannie died. Two days ago, she would have been 91. Yesterday was her funeral. 

Stealing a bit of thunder at her grandchild's graduation

I thought she was going to make her birthday, I selfishly hoped that she was going to last another couple months, I foolishly did not spend as much time as I should have speaking to or seeing her these past 13 years - but I feel that one will always think that when someone is no longer there. And here I am, over 16,500 km away, enjoying myself on the east coast of Australia. Racked with guilt for having the audacity to enjoy myself at such a time, not being there when she died, for not being there for the funeral, for not being there to support my Mum who just lost her mother and best friend; all compounded by being torn apart by feeling some sense of relief for not being there - no matter what people say to you, you feel like a terrible person for even having an inkling of those kind of feelings. 

I'm not good at emotions (and yes I've written it like that on purpose). I feel awkward, ashamed and emasculated at the prospect of displaying how I feel openly (god-forbid). I much prefer to maintain a stoic, controlled façade with which I can calmly deal with what's going on around me. Now this is great a lot of the time and means I can think clearly in times of high stress or emergencies, however, it's not an ideal way to go through life in terms of dealing with grief, etc. And I this is why I've chosen to try and write something instead. I've stayed quiet this week on the blogging front as a sign of respect for the passing, and now I will try to honor my Grannie, Wendy's, memory. 

Here goes everything...

Grannie at her 90th birthday

I've obviously known my Grannie for the past 26 years, since I was born. I have many memories of her coming to visit us in America always bringing with her British sweets, Dandy and Beano comics and ham sandwiches (quite illegally of course but also for some reason one of the most vivid things I remember about helping her unpack her suitcase). I also remember visiting her in Britain on several occasions growing up, my main memories of these times again being the sweets, collectible football stickers and the river across the road from her Bungalow in North Wales.

Outside her bungalow of  30 years, early this year with all of her children and grandchildren -  I think I have more hair there than everyone else combined...

I moved to the UK a week after I had turned 13 with my mum and three brothers. In what epitomises the very essence of Wendy, she welcomed us with open arms to her two bedroom bungalow where we lived for the first few months before Mum could find a place for herself. Just over a year later, my dad died. We had moved out by that point but we spend the next few days back at my Gran's house. My reaction when I got the news back at the house, was to promptly walk out of the lounge, away from everyone, into my Grannie's room and promptly lie face down on the bed and not talk to anyone for about a day (see - emotionally retarded from a young age). Instead of coming to bother me or move me, I was left there and Grannie happily took the fold out sofa to leave me with myself. From this point on, Grannie stepped up even more than she already had to help raise me and my brothers and support Mum. From babysitting, helping with school, preparing in the mornings, feeding or punishing (Grannie had very hard hands for a good spanking - not that I'd know of course, I was an angel and never got punished and only know this from hearsay from my brothers...).

Since that time, Grannie has been such a significant, consistent and important presence in my life, that it has yet to really click that she is no longer there. Nothing has technically changed for me yet, having been on the other side of the world for the past two years. And I can't even imagine what it's going to feel like not being able to walk the two minutes down the road to her house when I return home in a short 6 weeks time, it just doesn't even make sense in my head, as it's never happened each time I returned home to visit. It's all I can do to not try and delay the inevitable return. I'm just very happy that I decided to book a surprise trip back over Christmas so that I was able to see one last time, say some semblance of goodbye and have her see me in a considerably better spirit than I had sounded for the past couple years, else I don't know if I would have ever seen her again, not being originally due back again until May this year, though knowing her, she probably would have stoically and stubbornly hung in there until I had made it back.

My brothers and me with Grannie. I'm the upside down one (not much has changed), and I'm fairly sure that Ben has Nick in a death grapple rather than a hug (also not much changed).

Wendy was a talented and worldly woman with a plethora of talents and amazing personal qualities. She enjoyed gardening, reading, tapestry, woodwork and going to the theatre all the way through her life until she unfortunately became significantly partially sighted a few years ago. However, she never complained about this once, 'she just got on with things', as my Mum puts it, and continued to be her wonderful self. Mum aptly, summarises the wonderful person that Wendy was through the qualities that she passed on to her through example: empathy, strength, forgiveness, honesty, generosity, laughter, a sense of the ridiculous, how to listen, the importance of friendship, loyalty and an abundant capacity to live: this list could go on and on. She has even 'adopted' several children's (including my Godmother) and grandchildren's friends who may not have had a mother or grandmother of their own, fully incorporating them into her love and family including sending regular letters, Christmas cards, birthday cards and even wedding presents. As both Mum and Tina Turner phrased it - she was simply the best (the original song may or may not have been about Wendy).

Just prior to this photo, Grannie decided to have everyone yell 'Sex!' instead of the more traditional 'Cheese!'. It works very well to generate a fake or genuine smile, so feel free to adopt it for any future photos - especially in front of your grandparents, remember it was Grannie's idea!

Granny was one of the first real 'Wendys' in existence, being named as such as her mother knew James Barry, the author of 'Peter Pan' and even receiving a signed copy of the book as a christening present. She was born and grew up in Liverpool before moving to London at the age of 18 to study nursing at Guy's Hospital, working throughout the Blitz of WWII and distinctly remember trying to beat out fires in her backyard with a bin lid at the behest of her father after a particular incendiary incident. Her career perfectly suited Wendy's compassionate, empathetic and kind nature and transitioned perfectly to the role of mother and grandmother, even earning her another fairy tale nick name of 'The Pied Piper' as she took all the children from her road to school every day even after her own two children had moved on.

Wendy's life has been lived to the fullest with many adventures both known to me and unknown. These include those listed above as well as washing dishes at the Strand Palace Hotel after her date didn't have enough money to pay for their meal, getting a little tipsy and very stately on the Orient Express for her 70th birthday and even including deciding to jokingly declare that she was a lesbian if there was ever a lull in the conversation - it's definitely one way to pick the conversation back up. I can only wish now that I was able to learn more of her rich, adventure filled life in the time that I had with her.

Grannie and me before my days of being a hairy buffoon.

As only the most humble and unassuming among us can be the most deserving of a tome of recognition written about them, Wendy will be sorely missed by her friends, neighbours, community and of course her family. The world is that little less bright without her, but she is at least now at peace and without pain, having left this world "like a little flower slowly fading away" as Mum described her shortly before she died.

So please raise your glasses, hug your loved ones, love those around you unconditionally, be the best person that you can be; in the memory and honor of Wendy Stewart; mother, grandmother, friend, nurse, wife, jester, and rock to many - you will be sorely missed by many people for many years to come.

At my cousin's wedding last year, seeing the eldest of her 6 grandchildren married off from the less fighty side of the family - My brother's and my chances have dropped significantly since losing her influence.

The New and Improved Family

And we're off!

This first week (and a bit) has gone rather quickly. We spent the first three days driving straight up the coast (with a day in Carnarvon - more on that later) to Exmouth, in order to meet a very good friend of mine and his girlfriend for a few days of sun, sand and shenanigans around the Ningaloo reef. 

The first day was rather short - setting off in the evening, picking up Zoe and then stopping by Kim's best friends place for a very civilised cheese and crackers and slightly less civilised game of cricket with a 5 year old and crawling around the floor with a 10 month old. After a slightly longer stop than planned, we high tailed it a whole 30 minutes to a camp site at Moore River. I did the obligatory group photo day 1 and had a little play with my camera which resulted in a picture I'm quite happy with:

Obligatory first day group shot - a "before" if you will permit me

Happy snappy night time shot

The next three days were rather uneventful with all the driving, so I will swiftly move on to the new introductions. First up, I will introduce you to Claire:

Yes, Claire is a car...

I've had this car for a little over a year now, but it was only on the drive up the coast last week that I finally named my trusty Rav 4. I decided to name my car Claire after a very good friend of mine for a multitude of reasons. I bought this car at about the same time the human Claire came into my life, they're both very strong and fully capable no matter what anyone else may say and despite their misleading demeanor and of course they're both gold (though my Rav 4 is slightly more on the beige/champagne side). So I've decided that Claire will help me get around Australia for the next couple months as human Claire has helped me this past year.

Next up, is George. Or George Aslan II to be precise:

A refined name for a slightly less than refined trailer

This little(ish) bugger is the reason we got stuck in Carnarvon for a day after only two hours of driving. We very quickly realised that we weren't going to have quite enough space in the car as Zoe was already cuddling a lot of the gear in the back and we were going to have a fourth permanent person on this trip when Sam joins us in a couple weeks, let alone two extra temporary family members for the next week or so when we meet up with Will and Sam (different Sam). So we hit the internet to find out the best option for extra storage space, between a roof rack and a trailer. We managed to pick up George here for a mere $100 (down from an advertised $800!), but then had the very fun job of getting him road worthy as he was currently unregistered - and so it begins... First up, poor old George has been sitting in a back garden unloved and unused for a few years - so he needs a new plug, so we head to the local garage who promise to call us back within an hour when it's done - 2.5 hours later, I give them a call - oh yes, it's been done for ages... Alrighty, so next up we go to the post office to try and organise a change of registration - they send us to the bigger Department of Transport office down the road. Drive on down there: yep, here's a form to fill out with all yours and the sellers details on, and by the way, you need to have it inspected, but not at the normal garage, at the registered Toyota dealership just out of town. Back to the previous owner's house for a bit of a sit down form filling session and then off to the Toyota dealer. 

"Yep, we can inspect it, have you got a weight certificate?"

"A what now?" - Apparently, trailers are registered and taxed by weight in WA, but this garage and the other one don't have a vehicle scales, the RAC a bit more out of town does... So down the road we go. Something else was on the scales and unmoveable at that time, so a couple hours and $35 later (yes, $35 to put a trailer on a scale and print out a piece of paper) - back we go to the Toyota dealer. Inspection takes about 10 minutes, for which my assistance was required and involved a couple tape measurements. 

"Great, come back tomorrow to pick up the documentation."

"What!?" Apparently the documents need to be faxed to Perth, checked and returned, and apparently, at 1530, the people required to make this happen have already left the office... But at least it should be done by 0900. So 1100 rolls around - no phone call. I call them up, and once again, apparently they've had the documents back for a couple hours... great. Another $40 down the drain for another bit of paper and 10 minutes of someone's time to take some measurements. Back to the DoT. Finally after about 24 hours, I finally drive away with a legally registered and slightly cleaner trailer. I'm pretty sure it would have been cheaper and easier to not do the right thing and just pay the fine for an unregistered trailer...

So we load up George and off we head for Exmouth, and 6.5 hours later we arrived in time to set up the tents, chilled out in the pool for a bit and had dinner with a cider that didn't feel quite as well deserved after the debacle with Goerge and then to bed to get up very early to head to the airport to pick up Will and Sam.

Which segues perfectly onto the introduction to the two new temporary family members:

The intrepid explorers

Will is a very good friend of mine back in the UK and Sam is his girlfriend. We spent a few days in the National Park on Ningaloo reef enjoying the amazing snorkelling and relaxing before they had to head back to Perth for Sam to get back to work. More on those few days in another post!

Which brings us to the final new member of the gang: John. He's a bit sensitive and is currently head deep in a tub of guacamole so I can't currently upload you a photo of him. But I will paint a picture - John is a lit bit twisted (literally), and a little bit hairy as he tends to catch a lot of fluff on his head, he's also a spoon (literally), and Zoe found him in the middle of a dirt track on one of her jogs. She felt inspired by her older brother to name it John.

There was one other very temporary family member:

I have no idea what it is, and it didn't survive long enough to name, but it looks like a giant flea. If anyone has any insight - do let me know!

And so that sums up the new editions to the travelling family. I'll close with a cheesy silhouette photo!

The Motley Crew

It's less than 2 weeks until the adventure begins! Today was the first day back in work after a few weeks off where I had to, rather suddenly, pack all my belongings, organise my life to be shipped back to the UK and then to move out of my flat, all this the week before I was to head back to the UK to surprise my family for Christmas day. My oldest brother knew I was turning up, and originally he was to pick me up on the Saturday, but circumstances changed and had to head back a few days earlier and so I was then going to turn up on my mum's doorstep on the evening of Christmas day. Between my older brother and I, we predicted precisely what the other three were going to say:

Mum screamed "Oh my god!" - but that was an easy one;

Oliver said: "What are you doing here?" - don't worry, not quite as unloving as it seems - there was intonation involved!;

and Nick said: "Look it's a hobo." - sarcastically commenting on my magnificent, man-tastique new beard (yes there was plenty of facial hair jealousy involved), but again, not quite as unloving as it seems.

So this was me Facebook-ed a few moments after arrival:

But after that initial excitement I spent a very nice couple weeks at home and occasional trip out to see other friends and family.

But, now onto my initial reason for this post - sorry got distracted reminiscing about my holidays already, the introduction to myself and my lovely travelling partners! *Pause for dramatic effect and time for gasping/applause* Here we go! Please excuse the descriptions - just trying to provide some context (and relative to myself as it is my blog).

Tom (portraying myself): I am a 26 year old technology, adventure and food enthusiast. My hobbies include climbing, cycling, hiking, SCUBA diving and baking to name a few, but when I'm not running around I love to sit and read fantasy, sci-fi and popular science books (not all inclusive). I'm always on the run and always looking to experience something new, but I am a caring, loyal geek at heart.

Kim (as the beautiful girlfriend): Kim is a 22 year old qualified physiotherapist (they say you're only as old as the girl you're dating) who born and raised in Perth WA, but grew up travelling all over the world. In her spare time, Kim loves to spend time playing basketball, boxing, generally running around and teaching aerial silks and trapeze - this coincidentally is where we met. Kim quit her job late in 2013 to start travelling the world as well, and I am lucky enough to have her agree to join me on my adventures! Check out her blog here: This is me: Nothing more, nothing less!

Sam (fulfilling the role of Kim's twin sister): Sam is the older of her and Kim by a few minutes. However, it is widely agreed that this was because Kim booted her out of the womb after stealing many of her nutrients in-utero (Sam is the slightly smaller of the twins). Sam is also a qualified physiotherapist and also teaches aerials silks and trapeze, and whilst these two are very close and similar in a scary number of ways - Sam is very much her own 'special' person (just kidding Sam!). 

and Zoe (the far more travelled friend and resident expert (hopefully anyway)): Zoe is a 25 year old qualified mathematician, who decided that she would (rather wisely some might say), go teach English in China for a year after graduating. Having finished that last July, she has since spent the past 5 months or so working her way across SE Asia down towards Australia to join us across the continent. I have known Zoe for many years as our mum's were very good friends when they were young. Outside of travelling all over the world and being generally pretty awesome, Zoe also loves dance hip-hop and break dance - ending up in some fairly contorted positions.

Clockwise, from top left - Tom, Kim, Sam, Zoe

So I guess that kind of connects all of us four, we all have hobbies that would make the general onlooker wince in pain.

and together we make the...

>INSERT NAME HERE<

Well that needs to be decided, seeing as we aren't all in the same country yet - but feel free to give suggestions and input!

Over the next 3 months or so, we will travel around Australia and New Zealand. The rough plan is to drive up the west coast of Australia to Exmouth and back over February, drive along the southern coast and up the east coast over March and then explore the north and south island of New Zealand over April - hopefully getting some motorcycles involved in there somewhere (particularly NZ).

Come May, Australia boots me out of the country and Kim, Sam and I will be heading back to the UK to start tackling that part of the globe (here motorcycles will definitely be involved!)

So stay tuned for more updates! I can't wait for it to begin!