Silent Sunday

Hotel Regina, Ypres - A Review

With just under 24 hours in Ypres, we needed somewhere central to stay!  My preferred site for booking hotels is hotels.com I used it for all of the hotels we stayed in on our train trip to Hong Kong, and its always got us great rooms at fantastic prices.  I grabbed an old copy of the Belgium Lonely Planet from my shelf so I could check out their recommendations too, and use their map to see where places were.  Inside the planet I found 105 euros! It must have been left from a trip we did years ago - we didn't even stay in Belgium, just passed through, but it was enough for our hotel on this trip, so thank you past selves for being so casual with your cash!

A hotel that appeared on both hotels.com and the planet was Hotel Regina.  Its located on the central square, right opposite the In Flanders Field Museum and just down the road from the Menin Gate.  At

€95 for the night, we still had some cash left for a beer!  Thanks again past selves!

Like everywhere else in Ypres, the shadow of the war is part of the fabric of the building.  However, it was in WWII that the hotel was used to help the repatriation of allied airmen.

A down side to its central locations is that there is no specific parking for the hotel itself.  However, it wasn't a problem to find street parking nearby which was free on a Sunday but it did mean we had to put money on the meter first thing Monday morning.  If you are staying longer, I'm sure there would be free parking a short walk away and you can get a ticket for half and hour free which would be enough to unload the car.

 

The staff couldn't have been friendlier and more helpful.  When it turned out that a bed hadn't been provided for Little Owl, the reception staff themselves came up with one.  The room was plenty large enough to take the put up bed, along side the generous double bed.  Our room looked directly onto the square.  The 'original' features made it hard believe that this hotel, along with most of Ypres had been lovingly rebuilt after being destroyed in the First World War.

Breakfast was served in the bar area, which made for a relaxed experience in comfy chairs rather than a formal dining room.  There was cereals, cold meats and cheese, bread and a selection of pastries, and a rather attentive man keeping our coffee cups topped up!

If you are heading to Ypres, I highly recommend Hotel Regina.

Ypres - A town that never forgets

Ypres, a town that never forgets - a town that can't forget?  One hundred years since the start of the First World War, Ypres is the focus of the pilgrimage that many thousands of tourists make each year.

Ypres (or Ieper as it is officially known) is located in the west of Belgium, just one and a half hours by car from Calais which makes it very accessible.  As you near the city, you begin to spot cemeteries by the side of the road or in distant fields.  The Commonwealth ones are the most recognisable, with their matching white headstones.  We had visited Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest of all the cemeteries in Belgium, several years ago.  This time we visited the Essex Farm Cemetery where the famous poem In Flanders Field was written.  

If you are going to visit a Commonwealth Cemetery or Memorial, then I highly recommend this leaflet produced by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for a basic introduction.

Ypres itself is a small medieval city, largely rebuilt after the war.  Its town square is dominated by the Cloth Hall building which you could be forgiven for thinking is a cathedral.  The Cloth Hall is home to the In Flanders Field Museum which Papa Owl assures me was worth the €9 entrance fee (Little Owl was desperately in need of a nap, and I wasn't sure she was quite ready for a museum!).

A short walk from here is the Menin Gate, a most impressive structure which dwarfs the nearby buildings, over fifty thousand names are engraved on the gate, all of whom died during the war and who's bodies were either not found, or not identified.

Every night at 8 o'clock, the Last Post is played during a short ceremony. We arrived not long after 7 and the crowds had started to form.  Papa Owl headed into the gate itself, while I found somewhere to sit with Little Owl outside.  Here is Papa Owls words on the ceremony:

"The ceremony is a simple act of remembrance centred around the playing of the last post. Wreaths are laid and the exhortation is read. On some occasions, including ours, a  visiting band plays some hymns. I stood at the back and started taking to some Ypres locals who attend every day without fail. They told me about one of the buglers who only missed one day in 60 years. My impression was that the people of Ypres are still immensely grateful for the sacrifices made by the soldiers of Great Britain and the Empire 100 years ago."

As always with traveling, meal times get out of any resemblance of normal, which is even more noticeable with Little Owl in tow.  Breakfast had been on the ferry, lunch was ice cream at about 4 o'clock and dinner was yet to happen.  However, at 9 o'clock there were still plenty of restaurants open around the main square, many of them family friendly with other children dining.

The next morning gave me the chance to look around the shops.  There isn't a large shopping area, with several small retails parks located outside of the centre.  Nearly all of the shops are closed on Sundays, and many of the independent shops are closed on Monday mornings too!  

Ypres is a small beautiful city which is still completely in the shadow of the war that started over 100 years ago.  I cannot help but wonder what it must be like to grow up in such a place.  To have your life dominated by such a devastating event that happened so long ago.

Ypres, a town that never forgets - a town that can't forget?



If you are visiting Ypres, then check out my review of Hotel Regina

 

Too Close for Comfort

Travel broadens your mind and opens yourself to new experiences.  As a whole this is very positive, but it also exposes you to risks and more than that, makes real of the news stories you hear of distant lands.

This photo was taken in New York on 10th September 2001. Yup. You can just make out the towers.  Less than 24 hours later and the world was a very different place.  Several days later, as I sat teary eyed on Eurostar, returning to good old Blighty, I listen to a family discussing the incident that had happened in a far off land.

My travels in India make news of events there seem so much more real to me than, say Malaysia, a country and a region that I haven't been to.  However, nothing brings that home more than when something happens in places I have been, or places my loved ones had been.  The coordinated attacks in Mumbai, November 2008 were too close for comfort.  The Taj Mahal hotel was under siege for days.  This is the same hotel where I had sent my parents for a few days on their own to experience Mumbai before flying home just a few months earlier. A place where I thought they would be safe.

I vividly remember standing in the kitchen at one of my Rangers house's looking at the photos in the paper. I had taken my Rangers to India the year before and as well as landing in Mumbai, we spent a night there and did a bit of sight seeing including the Taj Mahal hotel.  I turned the page to see an image of bodies lying on the ground inside Victoria Terminus station.  I looked at my Ranger and said "that was the station we arrived at". It was a station I had used several times myself.

Its not just terrorist attacks though - do you remember the hot air balloon that crashed in Egypt last year? Probably not, unless like me you had taken that flight.

And its not just international travel that has these risks.  I remember one Christmas in the 80s, my mum agonising over whether we should go to London to see the lights with all the IRA threats. My GCSE geography trip to Canary Wharf had to be altered as the IRA had detonated a bomb there just weeks before. As it was, a bomb was found in Trafalgar Square on the day we went.

More recently, the 7/7 bombings happened a year after I stopped working in London. One of the victims had been the head of my department.  A real person that I knew.

The news these past weeks have been full of flight MH17 that was shot down over the Ukraine.  First reports were full of this being another Malaysian Airways flight disappearing, but soon that changed as it was realised that that was just an unfortunate coincidence.

The real issue is why was that airline flying over a warzone? Apparently because that's what they do. They feel safe 6 miles up.  Malaysia Airways weren't the only airline to be taking that flight path, there were others Lufthansa amongst them. Lufthansa who I flew to Pune with in January.

Little Owl and I flew over Ukraine.

In January.

It could have been our plane.

It wasn't, and for that I am very grateful.

But it does mean when I look at the images, and listen to the news, it makes it real to me. More real than I would like.

Travel broadens your mind and opens yourself to new experiences.  As a whole this is very positive, but it also exposes you to risks and more than that, makes real of the news stories you hear of distant lands.

Dutch Firsts

Holidays always bring lots of firsts, and our few days in Holland were no different.

Little Owl had her first squash!

She saw her first coffin.

Her first ... I don't know, something that was handed to her by the man at the sweet stall before we knew it!

Her first shower with a friend

Her first grazed knee

And there are many other things that she has enjoyed which she cant remember from her first visit when she was just 4 months old

The ferry.

Driving on the 'wrong' side

Delft.

Clogs.

Windmills.

Orange

 

A Journey to Holland

An unexpected trip to Holland at the end of last week, with the ferry booked only two days before we travelled, meant we just packed our bags into the car and set off.  We don't live that far from Dover so we left home with an excited Little Owl in the back of the car. She knew she was going on a 'bowt'.

We set the satnav to Calais ferry as we didn't seem to have Dover saved. We didn't really need it but it is nice to have as we don't do the journey often enough to know where we are going without reading the road signs.  The satnav got annoyed with us on route as she thought we should go through the tunnel...

On board the boat and its time for breakfast, or lunch. Either way, Little Owl tucks in as she hadn't had much breakfast. We then had a walk around the boat and were a bit disappointed to discover that the only concession for children in the family lounge was a large TV screen showing cartoons on mute. So instead we found a quiet coffee lounge where Little Owl could look out of the window.

Walking around the boat and a tummy full of food, Little Owl was beginning to look sleepy as we approached Calais. A quick trip to the loo and she was set for a nice long sleep in the car!

We set the satnav up with our destination - Papa Owl's Aunt's house, and we were off! Little Owl was asleep before we had left the ferry terminal! We are champion travelers!

And then we hit Belgium.

The satnav directed us off of the motorway, slightly confused we followed as we had a vague memory of doing this before. Besides, its always nice to see a bit of Belgium rather than hurtling through on the motorway. We did not expect to find ourselves in a town square though! Never mind, we got ourselves back to the motorway, ignoring the instructions of the satnav, hoping she would reset once there.

Over the next hour it became apparent that the attempted upgrade that Papa Owl had tried to do the night before had somehow managed to delete most of the maps for Europe, only leaving the main routes. This shouldn't have been too much of a problem if when we approached a junction, the satnav didn't suddenly place us in a field half a mile to the left, refusing to tell us what should be happening and just shouting at us to get back to the "highlighted route".

When was the last time you travelled without a satnav?  I'd forgotten how much hard work it is, or maybe we have just lost the nack!  This led us to taking many a wrong turn, leaving the junction early or when we got the right junction, heading off in the wrong direction! This was not helped by the satnav giving up on "left" and "right" but now telling us to head "north" or "west".

Little Owl didn't sleep for long, probably due to satnav and Papa Owl both shouting instructions!

"please drive to highlighted route"

"make a u-turn"

As we neared our final destination, the satnav uttered a last desperate "please" before going quiet on us!

I cannot tell you how many u-turns we made, not to mention nearly driving down a cycle path!

Tired and weary, we finally arrived, a mere hour and a half late to find no-one home.  Not to worry, we were expecting this and went to find a neighbour who had the key... only the neighbour wasn't in either!

We had a very tired Little Owl who was also hungry, so back in the car we went and drove to the nearest town. We had been here a few times before so we had a bit of an idea where we were going now.  We parked up and spotted several people heading into a Chinese restaurant - we followed and discovered it was an "all-you-can-eat"! Bonus! And they didn't charge for under 4s!

It may not have been what we planned but it was a rather fitting end to the day - perhaps we are champion travellers after all!

Silent Sunday

El Camino Bracelet Review

Sometimes you come across a product and think "I NEED this in my life".  I'm not sure how I stumbled across the blog that was reviewing them, it was a travel blog and as a whole I don't read them for fear of itchy feet and the green eyed monster appearing.

Maybe it was meant to be.

Let me explain.  El Camino bracelets are a modern take on a charm bracelet (something I've always wanted).  They do 3 types of beads (or steps as they call them), there are country steps and small steps (for cities and smaller areas) which are both made from surgical grade stainless steel and have the place engraved on them. You can also order customised steps with up to 32 characters on. And then there are regional steps, made from glass to represent different regions in the world.

The bracelets themselves come in seven different colours and are made of strong cord, meaning they are tough enough for the most adventurous traveller or your average toddler!

These bracelets appealed to me on SO many levels!  I'd get the charm bracelet I'd always wanted, I wouldn't have to feel sad that I didn't have something from each country I've visited to hang on it, it appealed to the traveller in me as well as the collector!

I just had to have one and started stalking El Camino on Facebook and Twitter! They are very nice people and always replied to me!  I entered every competition they had running but still no luck. I berated the fact I was born in December and had so long to wait for the present giving season!

And then I remembered... I still hadn't spent the vouchers I was given as a leaving gift from work last year!  What a perfect present!

My next challenge was to decide what to buy.  The bracelets come as single or doubles in 7 different colours.  You can buy a stater pack of a bracelet and two country steps at a discounted rate of £34.99 as well as 4 country steps for £26.99 (usual price of £8.99 each).

So I could either buy 10 country steps or 6 countries, a small step and a region.

I listed out all the countries I had been to in order from when I first started going abroad without my parents at 13.  I got well over 20 and realised later that I had missed some. I crossed out England, Scotland and Wales plus anywhere I had only spent a night or two or for some reason hadn't been all that significant and managed to whittle it down to 10.

So here they are:

1. Netherlands I have been to Holland many times. This is where I went on my first international trip with the Guides as well as on a town twinning trip and a school trip. Papa Owl's family are from Holland and so we have been several times together.

2 Australia. This was my first major trip - somehow I persuaded my mother to let me go and visit my brother for 6 weeks when I was just 16!

3 Mexico I spent a glorious summer working at the Guide centre Our Cabana.

4 India oh my beloved India. Can't believe its over 3 months since I came home.

5 Egypt. This is the only time I have gone on a 'tour'.  I was single at the time and had no one to go away with and so booked onto a trip with Explore. It was brilliant, very much an ethical travel mindset rather than tourists.

6 USA.  I have been to the states 3 times.  My first visit was to New York in September 2001.    Not the best time to be there and I hope to go back sometime.  I have also visited friends in Dallas, Texas and had a great time. And most recently, Papa Owl and I enjoyed our honeymoon in Hawaii.

7. Hong Kong.  My first visit was shortly after my best friend emigrated, but its also significant of a much bigger trip I took when Papa Owl and I travelled by train from Hastings all the way to Hong Kong.

8. Russia. Papa Owl and I spent a few days in Moscow before getting on the Trans-Siberian (well Trans-Mongolian to be precise).  St Basil's Cathedral in the Red Square is simply breathtaking.

9 Mongolia. We hopped of the train for a week here and Papa Owl could have stayed!  

10 South Africa. I took a group of Senior Section (big Girl Guides) to South Africa as part of the centenary celebrations in 2010. 

Imagine.  All of that on just one bracelet.

I couldn't wait for it to arrive and now its here, I love it!  It's really light and easy to forget its there which is what I look for in jewellery - I haven't got time to be selecting what jewellery I wish to wear each day - I want to be able to sleep, eat, bath and entertain Little Owl in whatever I am wearing, and I can certainly do that with this bracelet.

Little Owl likes to spin the beads when she's snuggled on my lap.  I can imagine when she is older, her asking me what each of them says and me telling her tales of my adventures.  I would love Little Owl to have her own bracelet, maybe a bright blue one, starting off with the Netherlands and India and adding to it as she grows.

And of course I want to add to mine, with small steps to give it some definition and regional steps to give it colour! I've even created a wish list on Pinterest so Papa Owl knows which ones I would like!

Maher - A Mother's House

Maher, which means Mother's House in Marathi (the local language in Pune) is one of the many Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) that Sangam World Centre works with.

I have visited Maher a few times before, but probably not in the last 10 years as its a little way out of Pune and takes about an hour to get there which is quite some journey in a rickshaw! Luckily this time Sangam had laid on a bus for us.

I was really pleased when we arrived to discover Sister Lucy, the founder of Maher was there. Sister Lucy is an amazing woman who has worked hard to support women and children who have become destitute.

When Sr Lucy was living in a convent, a young woman came to her, 7 months pregnant and asked for help, for shelter in the convent as she believed her husband was going to kill her so he could take another wife.  Sr Lucy did not have the authority to take the woman in and didn't know what to do to help. She asked the woman to come back the next day, giving Sister Lucy the opportunity to ask others for advice on what help she could offer.

That night, Sister Lucy heard screams and rushed out into the streets to find out what was happening. A crowd of people had done the same, and they found a young woman who had been set on fire. It was the same woman who had asked Sr Lucy for help earlier that day. Sr Lucy went with the young woman to hospital but she was too badly burnt, she couldn't be saved. They performed a C-section but the baby had suffered from the heat of the flames and had died.

While Sister Lucy was telling her story, I was trying to keep Little Owl quiet (mainly with biscuits). Little Owl spotted another little girl playing out of the door and I whispered to the member of staff sat next to me "how old is she?"

"She is 4. She was raped by a man"

FUCK

Sorry, but how do you respond to that? This poor little mite, who was dancing and playing and finally built up the courage to come in to see the white people and receive hugs from the staff, had apparently spent some time in hospital literally being put back together after this brutal attack.

Every woman and child at Maher has a story to tell.

Sister Lucy originally started Maher as a place for women to come to but she soon realised that with women came children, and so Maher developed to support women and their children. Then Sister Lucy realised that many women were capable of supporting themselves if their children were looked after and so Maher grew again to take in children independent of their mothers.

On this visit, we went to their main centre where most of the children stay, but also where they hold their workshops and shop. Understandably, when women arrive at Maher, they are not in the best of mental health, they are not asked questions but, like everyone at Maher, they are treated with love.  To help build their strength and keep them mentally active, they are given some craft work to do, being taught the skills if they don't already have them. Gradually overtime, they relax and are able to tell their story.

In a previous visit, I was able to visit a home set up by Maher in one of the local villages. Some of the women who come to Maher are widows, who have been kicked out of their husbands homes following his death, particularly if they have no children, and rejected by their own parents as they would be seen as unlucky. These young women, or girls as many of them could still be in their teens, are unable to remarry and find it difficult to have a place in society. Maher has set up a several homes in the area where these women live as house mothers, looking after small groups of children, and therefore regaining a place in society.

To listen to Sister Lucy speak, is wonderful. When she explains what she is doing, and more importantly why she is doing it, you can hear that she is guided by love.  The compassion she has for every woman and child in her care, and therefore the ability to help them in the way they need help most is overwhelming.  There are now separate homes for those with mental health issues and those who have learning difficulties. The children of these women are also looked after in that home so that they can spend time together after school.

Part of the reason that Sister Lucy was unable to take in that first woman that came to her for help at the convent, was because she wasn't catholic. Maher takes in everyone regardless of faith, it is a home for everyone, and a place for everyone to pray.

I have written this post to share some of my experiences of my trip to India with Little Owl, however, if you wish to find out more about Maher or how you can help, you can visit their website here.

Maher is a very special place

I am home

It's so hard to describe the love I have for this place.

And by this place I mean Sangam.

I have spent pretty much the first two days within the grounds here, letting Little Owl find her way and adjust to the climate.

 The pool is icy cool (it is winter after all) but that didn't stop Little Owl keep asking to go back in!

Little Owl has been welcomed with open arms by all of the staff here, literally, many of them I have know since I first came here in 2002.  It's been great catching up with old friends and introducing them to my daughter.

Another person we got a chance to see was Tarabi, who lives just across the road (the road which is now 4 lanes wide, each lane made up of bikes, rickshaws, buses and lorries travelling side by side and darting around each other).

This is just one lane.  Note how the 'traffic' is going in both directions.  Now times this by four.

 The whole neighbourhood has changed, its developed a lot over the last 5 years, the houses have got bigger (they literally just add another storey or two on top) and the temples, church and mosque all appear to, if not grown, had a little bit more decoration added to them.  

It feels wealthier all round, which is maybe not surprising when you see the hug new development on the horizon, a high-tech complex housing some of the world's call centres.

Little Owl and Tarabi

Tarabi has been welcoming guest from Sangam into her house for many decades.  She used to work at Sangam but is now well into her retirement (and her eighties!)

I could write lots more about the little things Little Owl has been up to, the people she has met, but what I'm struggling to do is describe what this place does to me, how it makes me feel.

It is home form home.  Not the cosy cuddly sort of home, but a place where I feel just a little bit more like me.  I am somehow more complete when I am here.  See, I told you I would struggle...

India is an assault on all of your senses, the sounds the smells.... and yet within the walls of Sangam, its all just a little calmer.  Sure you can hear the call to prayer (I just love that sound), and the siren at the ammunition factory announcing the change of shift (its a sound that gets you inside somehow), and even the roar of the planes from he nearby airport and the constant honking of horns from the road... but its all just a bit muted from inside, like life is buzzing round furiously out there but within the walls of Sangam its just going a bit softer, a bit calmer and with a bit more love.

Flying with a Toddler

Well that was a lot easier than expected!  At every turn there was someone to help, directing me to shorter lines where there was extra people to help! 

We flew from Terminal 1 at Heathrow, which is all very new and shiny.  The first thing we spotted was a free soft play area!  Little Owl loved it and it had the added bonus of burning off lots of energy and building up a huge appetite, which was lucky because the kids portion at Giraffe was HUGE!!!

We were the first to board the plane along with a couple of other kids, including the little boy who we had met at the soft play.  We were incredibly lucky in the plane being so empty which meant we had 3 seats to ourselves!  I opted to sit next to the window so Little Owl could have things to look at.

She pointed at a plane that had just taken off and said "up".  I asked her if we were going to go up - she gave me a look and said loudly "no".  

Oh well.

It was half an hour before we took off.  Little Owl got a bit restless sat on my lap and I began to get nervous about our next flight as I had been told there were only 5 spare seats on the whole plane!

As soon as the seat belt sign came off,  I plopped Little Owl in her own seat and shortly afterwards she was given a cake and I supped on a glass of wine... this was better!  And that was pretty much it until we landed and Little Owl had to get back on my lap again which she did willingly and snuggled in for cuddles.

First flight over and done with, we went straight to our gate when we landed at Heathrow.  Time for Little Owl to burn off some more energy!  She headed straight for the stairs leading to the business lounge!  The very polite man on duty told her she couldn't go upstairs but in return gave her a Ferrero Rocher.  Little Owl was made up with that and did 3 laps of the airport to celebrate!

People were starting to gather near the gate and there was a couple of staff behind desks so I cheekily asked how many spaces were available on the flight.  I'm so glad I did as they did a bit of juggling and got me a spare seat for Little Owl!

So here is the big one - an eight hour flight on my own with a toddler...

It was amazing!

Having her own seat also meant she had her own TV screen which worked straight away, I found her cartoons and she was set.  She wasn't even that worried by having the headphones.  She did a bit of colouring in as she was given a colouring book and pencils by the Lufthansa staff, but that got discarded as soon as the food arrived.

This is the only place where Lufthansa let themselves down.  They provide 'baby food' which I was told was 'mush' but nothing for toddlers.  I was told it was because she was travelling as an infant but seriously - how long are purees used for?  (not actually sure as we did baby led weaning).  The staff were very nice about it, but they weren't allowed to give Little Owl a meal until everyone else had been served.

This wasn't really a problem as she's a slow eater and tucked into bits of my meal and then we shared her (different) meal when it arrived.  But it could have been.  They told me I should have phoned to arrange this before the flight, but the thing is I had - I had the very same conversation with their customer services earlier in the week, trying to explain that very few infants over the age of one would eat puree...

After the food was cleared away, I got Little Owl into her pjs (cheated by keeping her vest and tights on and put her sleepsuit over the top).  We then walked down to the back of the plane with her empty bottle which was duly filled with milk and then toddled back to her seat.  She sat watching more cartoons drinking her milk until she said "mummy" handed me the bottle and promptly fell asleep which is how she stayed until the lights were switched back on and breakfast was served!

So that was that.  I didn't use any of the stuff I have brought to keep her entertained other than one small book when she was having her nappy changed and her headphone which she didn't really use.

I'm just so proud of Little Owl, she really was on her best behaviour yesterday, charming everyone, and just coping with all the crazy stuff I throw at her.  

Love her so much!