Oooh Baby Do You Know What That's Worth?
My boys don't get to see my brother very often. He lives in a remote part of WA and he comes over for Christmas every now and then. I can.t complain too much, as we have never been to visit him, apart from this trip to Perth, which was just me and only because his daughter was spending her first birthday in hospital.
The result of this lack of contact, and the discovery that the man is crazy, is that my boys have a strange fascination with hearing stories about all the stupid stuff my brother and I did when we were much younger.
For some reason, one of their favourites (second only to the story of his wedding where half the guests ended up accidentally locked in a zoo) is the story of our backpacking trip around England and Scotland when I was 16.
The short version of this is that we were spending a couple of months in London, as my Dad was working there and we therefore had free accomodation within walking distance from Buckingham Palace and those opportunities don't come up much. We managed to find a deal where we could buy a bus ticket that allowed us to go anywhere in the UK for 5 days, all for around 40 pounds (which, back then, was $100).
We included the town of Carlisle in our itinerary solely because my brother, then 18 years old, was madly in love with Belinda "Heaven is a Place on Earth" Carlisle and he wanted to buy a postcard with her last name on it and send it to her with a message on the back pointing out that he flew halfway around the world just to buy her this postcard.
He never actually bought the postcard, or sent it, but Carlisle is a beautiful place and we met lots of nice Australians at the youth hostel so it worked out just fine.
The part of the story that amuses my children is that my eternally disorganised brother managed to then miss the bus we were planning to catch from Carlisle to Newcastle. My sister and I caught that bus, spent the day hanging around Newcastle and York, and then headed back to London. We stopped by the flat and asked my parents if they had heard from my brother, and my parents were not impressed.
The part of the story that I am a little proud of is that, well before GPS or mobile phones, and armed with the knowledge that my brother was somewhere in the UK, it took me less than 2 hours to find him.
The part of the story that astonishes me is that my parents let a 16 year old go walking around London at 11pm looking for someone who could have been anywhere.
The part of the story that actually inspired me to sit down and write this post is only vaguely related to any of that. While we were in Carlisle, we spent a few hours at the half ruined castle in the middle of town. Like most castles, it has arrow slits in the walls of the towers.
I've always thought that arrow slits were one of those simple but very intelligent ideas. If you look from the top, the arrow slit and area behind it are basically triangular, meaning that the person standing inside the tower could shoot an arrow in almost any direction, and, at least before cannons were invented, it was basically impossible to shoot back.
My point here is that, whatever else is wrong with living in Australia in 2011, many of us enjoy a standard of living that, a few centuries back, would have been available only to those who could afford to live in a castle, and we have cool stuff like the internet, and something more effective than brandy to numb the pain of having a tooth pulled out.
On top of those benefits, when designing a house, the architect does not need to consider the most effective way to kill people who may one day want to take it.
Even though I grew up wishing I could live in a castle, I have decided that I am much happy in a home without arrow slits.
The result of this lack of contact, and the discovery that the man is crazy, is that my boys have a strange fascination with hearing stories about all the stupid stuff my brother and I did when we were much younger.
For some reason, one of their favourites (second only to the story of his wedding where half the guests ended up accidentally locked in a zoo) is the story of our backpacking trip around England and Scotland when I was 16.
The short version of this is that we were spending a couple of months in London, as my Dad was working there and we therefore had free accomodation within walking distance from Buckingham Palace and those opportunities don't come up much. We managed to find a deal where we could buy a bus ticket that allowed us to go anywhere in the UK for 5 days, all for around 40 pounds (which, back then, was $100).
We included the town of Carlisle in our itinerary solely because my brother, then 18 years old, was madly in love with Belinda "Heaven is a Place on Earth" Carlisle and he wanted to buy a postcard with her last name on it and send it to her with a message on the back pointing out that he flew halfway around the world just to buy her this postcard.
He never actually bought the postcard, or sent it, but Carlisle is a beautiful place and we met lots of nice Australians at the youth hostel so it worked out just fine.
The part of the story that amuses my children is that my eternally disorganised brother managed to then miss the bus we were planning to catch from Carlisle to Newcastle. My sister and I caught that bus, spent the day hanging around Newcastle and York, and then headed back to London. We stopped by the flat and asked my parents if they had heard from my brother, and my parents were not impressed.
The part of the story that I am a little proud of is that, well before GPS or mobile phones, and armed with the knowledge that my brother was somewhere in the UK, it took me less than 2 hours to find him.
The part of the story that astonishes me is that my parents let a 16 year old go walking around London at 11pm looking for someone who could have been anywhere.
The part of the story that actually inspired me to sit down and write this post is only vaguely related to any of that. While we were in Carlisle, we spent a few hours at the half ruined castle in the middle of town. Like most castles, it has arrow slits in the walls of the towers.
I've always thought that arrow slits were one of those simple but very intelligent ideas. If you look from the top, the arrow slit and area behind it are basically triangular, meaning that the person standing inside the tower could shoot an arrow in almost any direction, and, at least before cannons were invented, it was basically impossible to shoot back.
My point here is that, whatever else is wrong with living in Australia in 2011, many of us enjoy a standard of living that, a few centuries back, would have been available only to those who could afford to live in a castle, and we have cool stuff like the internet, and something more effective than brandy to numb the pain of having a tooth pulled out.
On top of those benefits, when designing a house, the architect does not need to consider the most effective way to kill people who may one day want to take it.
Even though I grew up wishing I could live in a castle, I have decided that I am much happy in a home without arrow slits.
posted by I'm not Craig at 6:57 AM
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