kidfree's VirtualTourist Home Page

I often wonder how you all choose your names, I mean apart from the obvious ones where folk just put their first name and a number after it.
I really love my kids and cannot imagine life without them, but....................just occasionally I think back to when I was single and I didnt have to think too hard about when to go on my next trip. I mean you go to work for a while, save some money and go buy a ticket to wherever takes your fancy. Generally for me that meant somewhere in Asia.
That first long haul flight to Hong Kong in 1984, getting on a real plane for the first time, listening to the pilot saying we would land at 16:19 and be three minutes late unfortunately, wow, the technology to be so confident that we would fly so far and land three minutes within schedule, and then the agonising anticipation of being confined in a 747 and reading the guide and inflight magazine for the tenth time with about one hours snooze in fifteen hours.
Only people who have landed at the old Kai Tak airport from the approach that comes in from the mainland will know the mixture of horror, excitement and sheer wide eyed wonder ( and am I the only one who involuntarily lifted their feet up to avoid them getting them caught in peoples washing ) after that gutwrenching 90 degree turn a few seconds before touchdown and then the relief of a safe arrival.
Stepping out on to the streets for that first time, I can still remember the smell and twenty years later I can smell it again. The itchy feet and the old urge to travel never really go away and now that the kids are a bit older and a wife who understands that travel does indeed broaden the mind along with the waistline on occasion I can once again be kidfree for a week or two each year and with a little patience I hope to share those trips with you.

Looking at my homepage makes me realise how much things change in such a short time. People and places evolve quickly and it seems like you have to cling on tight or else you may get left behind. I have made so many friends on this site over the last couple of years that it only seems fair to let them know a little more of myself.
Although I love my annual trip by myself I always look forward to meeting up with my family for a few days R`n`R before we head off home again. A highlight last year was seeing my two girls finally overcoming their fear of water and learning to swim in Phuket, this after the youngest fell in a hotel pool in Singapore while our backs were turned and almost drowned, I still wake up in a cold sweat thinking about it and cursing myself for being so careless. Now I`m the one trying to keep up when we go for a swim, dad`s getting old! Thanks kids.

These last two years, 2006 and 2007 have been pretty productive travelwise. Early in 2006 we made a happy return to Singapore to catch up with old friends whom we hadn`t seen in a few years. Singapore is always a great trip and the sort of place that people nervous about visiting Asia for the first time would be well advised to visit, clean, safe, good sightseeing and shopping and the food, the food, well, do Singaporeans like their food or what? After a while even us novices start to get picky about where we go for the best chicken rice or chilli crab, and lets face it these are matters of national importance after all.
Singapore is also the place that I met my wife in the 1990`s so it is always a nostalgia trip as well but I don`t hold it against the place ( just kidding sweetheart, honestly ! )
Angkor Wat was also a part of this trip ( kidfree ) and that was a long held ambition achieved and every bit as good as I imagined it would be even though in the future it may become a victim of its own success and popularity as previously difficult to reach destinations become part of the tour, certainly somewhere to go now.
A second trip to Vietnam was also a bonus this year, I really must start a new travel page as it has become another favourite destination, and Hanoi too lived up to expectations. Fellow VT`er Hientonkin was a big help in offering advice on this trip, particularly on where to go for the best coffee. Vietnamese coffee is excellent and some varieties can keep you going for hours, I had one of an evening that was so good that I had a second before retiring to bed and I managed to read 200 pages of my book before I fell asleep!!

I`ve spent the best part of the last three years, on and off, researching my family tree. We all think we know all we need to about our families but it was during a conversation with an aunt a few years ago that I realised it just wasnt true. We were talking about my grandfather and great aunts and she mentioned that my grandad had five brothers who never lived past their first birthday of whom I had no knowledge of, not even from my own dad, that made me determined to find out as much as I could of my ancestors.
Those last three years have been quite a revelation and I am now in regular contact with people I am related to as far away as Australia and New Zealand. The internet has been a big help of course in a similar way to VT , a great way to meet people and share information, lets keep it going.
This picture is one that I unearthed during family research and is a photo of my grandfather as a young boy with his family taken in 1908 and is a favourite.

I just assumed that my travelling days would slow right down or even come to a halt once I became a parent. It took just six months of fatherhood before we took the plunge after catching itchy feet syndrome one cold winter eight years ago. As nervous parents we packed our hand luggage with no thought for ourselves and crammed in enough to feed a six month old for twelve months, never mind a twelve hour flight. And what did she do? Slept the whole way, thats all, and she and her sister have never looked back. Now they like to choose the airline themselves because '' That one with the white tail has the best films and the toys are nicer too '' in a proper grown up madam youngest teenager in town type of way. I`m sure parents of daughters know what I mean.
'' Kids, where shall we go next if you don`t mind?''

It`s always nice to return home. There really is a comfort in familiarity and of course my family live here. It`s quite strange that I never really felt that bond until I left home and set up home on my own. It`s then that you start to really appreciate your loved ones, it`s probably living together for so long that makes you take things and people for granted. It`s always good to know that there are some people who will always be there for you no matter what.
Plans still need to be made though and as much as I enjoy life here I dislike the cold weather and short days we have to put up with in winter. With this in mind we managed to buy a plot of land on which we hope to build a house on when we do eventually retire and hopefully we can ''winter'' abroad and enjoy our British climate at it`s best in between.
Just for fun I will give a handful of 5 star ratings to anyone who can guess where it is in the picture that we hope to build our winter home in the sun.

Daughter, '' Guess what dad? I`m making''
Me, half listening, '' I don`t know sweetheart, what are you making? ''
Daughter, '' Nothing''
Me, confused, '' What do you mean nothing, I thought you said you were making something?''
Daughter, '' No I didn`t''
Me, getting cross now, '' You said guess what dad I`m making''
Daughter, ''Thats right''
Me, ''So what are you making then?''
Daughter, '' Nothing, I said guess what dad, I`m aching''
Lesson, always give your kids the attention they deserve, they are often smarter than you, especially if you let them be !

Youngest daughter, ''Daddy, were you born in the olden days?'
Me,'' Yes, I suppose so''
Youngest daughter, ''When you were a little boy, did you have to go up chimney`s to clean them?''
Hmmm, I must have a word with this child`s school teacher and find out how her history perspective is coming along. For those unfamiliar with olden days Britain, in the late 1800`s young boys were employed for their nimbleness to clean out soot blackened chimneys.
Either she thinks that young boys were still chimney sweeps in the 1960`s or I really do look 120 years old!

Man goes to the Doctor worried;
''Doctor, I think I`m suffering from a hereditary disease''
''Really, and do you have any idea what this disease might be?''
''Yes, diarrhoea''
''I doubt that diarrhoea is hereditary, no need to worry''
''But it`s in my jeans!''
Jeans? genes? It made me laugh and if I can go to bed with a smile on my face then all is well in the world, mine at least.