His right foot

Since I began writing books the family’s travels have been moulded by my research. In 2013 we went to the US and Canada, our itinerary inspired by the lives of Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt. This year it’s a six-week tour of Europe where we’re following in the footsteps of Mary Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Recently, however, our activities have been dictated by Chris’s right foot. 

Chris has gout, you see. The extremely painful condition was brought on by dehydration from our flight to Rome and alcohol consumption during four days in Italy. Chris's big toe swelled to twice its normal size. Red, bloated and with the skin stretched taut, it reminded me of one of the salamis hanging from the rafters in our local salumeria. Although he could barely squash his foot into a shoe, he hobbled to a doctor who prescribed a strong anti-inflammatory, rest and temporary sobriety.

Chris has been feeling blue since his toe turned red...

Since then our Roman holiday has been somewhat nobbled, and not just because of the sobriety part. I feel incredibly sorry for Chris. The weather has been beautiful – cold and clear – and the city is buzzing with a cheerful and relaxed atmosphere that I only ever feel at Christmas time. I’d be devastated to have to stay off my feet and indoors when everything is happening only metres below our apartment. Apart from Christmas night and my birthday when Chris (wearing one enclosed shoe and one Birkenstock sandal) managed to struggle to the top of Castel Sant’Angelo, it’s been just me and the boys living la dolce vita which, despite my initial misgivings, has been fun.

Nice footwear!

Sam has been a star, pushing the stroller and taking care of Benny when I have to order in a café, purchase tickets at a museum or go to the toilet when we’re out and about. He’s also been extremely good company and when he’s not discussing soccer he shares some humorous and fresh insights into Italian culture and habits. A nine-year-old notices everything. 

Sam is amused, Ben is bemused...

Sam also considers it extremely entertaining when I am constantly spotted for an English speaker despite my courageous attempts at Italian. My lingual skills have become honed at the farmacia where I’ve had to enquire about all kinds of different anti-inflammatory pills, gels and ointments. Yet, the chemist always responds in English.

On Boxing Day we discovered a playground (a public amenity, like toilets, in which Rome is severely lacking) in Trastevere that we’ve since visited twice. 

Finally, a castle Ben appreciates

We’ve been taken by the gentle tide of people moving towards Piazza del Popolo on Christmas night and then, yesterday, towards the Colosseum. 

Coming home from the Colosseum

This morning we climbed the Aventine Hill and played soccer with oranges in the aptly named ‘Orange Garden’ then peeked through the keyhole in the doorway that leads to the Priory of the Knights of Malta – the legendary crusaders and religious order. Although it seems like something from a Dan Brown novel, the peephole offers a perfect vista of the skyline with St Peter’s Basilica at the centre. Whether this is due to artful design or just lucky coincidence, no one can say.

Sam lifts Benny up to the magical peephole

Chris’s right foot seems to be healing. We’re hoping he might see daylight tomorrow. Fingers and toes crossed.

Our favourite photo

Lots of guns but no Americans

If glamorous female soldiers with massive guns are your thing, Rome is where you need to be right now. And there are other good reasons to be here too, including a lack of crowds. Interestingly, there is also an absence of American accents.

We landed four days ago on a flight that proves Alitalia has truly captured the glory of the golden age of air travel - the 1970s. Prior to the flight the steward allowed three-year-old Ben into the cockpit and smiled as the toddler climbed into the pilot’s seat and spent several minutes twiddling every knob he could reach. 

Incredibly, the decrepit Airbus still made it to its intended destination from Heathrow. As soon as it touched down, as it was still taxiing to the apron, the passengers leapt up and began removing their gear from overhead lockers. The crew didn’t give a stuff, which is a theme we’re coming across quite regularly in Italy.

Puffy and friends in the Colosseum

As we came through Customs the officer stamped our passports without ever taking his eyes off his mobile phone. Our driver swerved along the motorways from the airport at speeds rarely seen outside a German autobahn, never once using his indicators. Then three police officers on large, heavy motorcycles blasted past us, one of them popping a wild, high-speed wheelie to impress his uniformed mates.

And all the while the world still turned.

Holding up the ancient walls of the Colosseum

This love of life and lack of obsession around rules is, Jenny and I think, the reason we return again and again to Rome. Then there’s the bread, wine and cheese. This is our fifth visit and the city is as spellbinding as ever.

But this time, as mentioned, Rome is not as crowded. Shop owners tell us it is because of the recent attacks in Paris. Many holiday-makers cancelled their trips after that awful event. Americans in particular decided it was far safer to spend Christmas in their own country, where there is a complete lack of gun crime…

The city of Rome’s response has been to place police and heavily armed soldiers in popular and high-threat areas.

The boys in the Forum

There are three different levels of lawmakers in Rome right now. The Roma Municipal Police seem to be the lowest on the ladder - they have toy guns, bad suits and no cars. Then there are the Carabinieri who carry large pistols, are dressed like fashion models, share the same chiselled facial features and who drive gorgeous Italian automobiles. Finally there are the soldiers who wear camouflage gear (so you can’t see them when they’re standing near a pot plant), drive heavily armoured Hummers with roof-mounted gun pods and who pack large machine guns. They’re the ones we love the most. 

Benny buggers up another auto-timer pic

During our last few trips to Rome we couldn’t help but notice how glamorous the city’s female street sweepers were, as if they all visited a hair and make-up artist before reporting to work. Now, it appears, they have been drafted in to the Army and have exchanged their brooms for high-powered weapons. Their intention is to clean up the streets in a different way.

At the Trevi Fountain after making a wish

We’re loving Italian life as much as ever. And after a surprise invite we’re even looking forward to a two-night sojourn at the Umbrian country house of Pietro, the very charming landlord of the Roman apartment that we regularly rent.

Rome is the same as ever, as brilliant as always. And it still doesn’t give a stuff.

Foggy frantic London

Despite the chronic haze of jet lag, it has been a whirlwind five days in London. We’ve walked the streets, ridden in black cabs and tube trains, become dizzy on carousels, visited football stadiums and famous monuments, salivated at fresh food markets, consumed litres of hot chocolate, met with dinosaurs, royalty and sea creatures, hung out in graveyards and even braved Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland.

But the highlight for the boys has been the familiar – a small park at the back of St Luke’s Church in Chelsea where Benny seeks out the playground and Sam, a casual game of soccer amongst local kids.

Here is a series of pics. Next stop, Rome!

We went to visit the Queen!

London Aquarium - there are some very strange creatures in the sea

Another day, another stadium, another superstore...

When we visited St Pancras Old Church and graveyard, Sam lit a candle and prayed for more soccer balls

On Regent Street, one of Chris's favourite places in London

Big Ben meets Big Ben

About to cross the Wibbly-Wobbly Bridge to St Paul's

Outside the Globe Theatre, by the Thames

Wandering Borough Markets. Yum.

Armed with nothing more than pretzels, we thought we could survive the carny hell of Winter Wonderland

Then we escaped in a black cab. Sam's face says it all...

Back in his element

Sloane Ranger...

Benny finally meets a real-life T-Rex

Mummy and Ben spinning around outside the Natural History Museum

Sam discovers a soccer match!

Another graveyard - research for Jenny's novel. This is in St George's Gardens.

Don’t look them in the eyes!

It took us a little while to re-acquaint ourselves with the character of London, the city we called home for almost five years. Jenny laughed at my foolishness this morning when I walked by a stranger on the early-morning streets of South Kensington, looked him square in the eyes and issued a hearty, ‘Good morning!’. The man winced and recoiled, as if I was threatening to brain him with a baseball bat, and scurried onwards.

London is populated by lovely, intelligent, polite people who consider any form of social interaction with a stranger to be a mortal threat to their wellbeing. They’re a strange lot, and this particular characteristic was one that Jenny then had to explain to Sam as we walked. He didn’t understand…

So we made it to London, and what a journey it was. The eight-hour flight to Singapore was remarkable mainly for the fact that the iPads kept the boys so utterly calm and enthralled. They both managed a bit of a sleep, too.

In the entertainment wing of our economy class Family Suite

And here are the sleeping quarters...

The evening and morning in Singapore was all about swimming in the brilliant, maze-like pool of Changi Airport’s Crowne Plaza hotel. We were waterlogged (and well fed – what a breakfast spread!) by the time we boarded the 14-hour flight to London, which stretched to 16 hours once an engine issue left us stranded on the tarmac before departure.

This flight was not much fun, particularly for Jenny. Rather than allowing us four seats in a row, this aircraft gave us three and one. Jenny offered to sit between the boys in the three seats and I chose not to argue. The flight was awful for me, so I can’t even imagine what it was like for Jenny. It turns out that Ben is not the pliable traveller Sam has proven to be. Our three-year-old doesn’t simply accept his economy-class fate as his nine-year-old brother does.

But finally we arrived. Our apartment, sourced on Airbnb, is lovely. It is located centrally between the glamour of Chelsea, the poshness of South Kensington, the Waitrose supermarket of Gloucester Road (Jenny’s favourite) and, of course, the home of Chelsea Football Club, Stamford Bridge.

Sam is the one in red ... Arsenal colours

That’s where we spent a lot of time and money this morning. Upon arriving at the home of the Blues, Sam said ‘I’ll never forget this day.’ It cost so much, he’d better bloody not!

Congratulations, Jose - it's a boy!

We've turned Sam back to blue, finally

After we all enjoyed a three-hour daytime sleep, we wandered out for a dark, wet afternoon stroll to our old haunts around Kings Road. On the way we visited a supermarket and stocked up for dinner. The person who served us was efficient and professional, and we left without having greeted them, looked them in the eye or thanked them for their service. It was a perfect London interaction.

A sunny afternoon in London

History of a 'Six Weeks Tour'

Chapter One: Two Birds

Since we met twenty-two years ago Chris and I have done a load of travelling together - initially as a couple then later as a family with Sam and Ben. Come Sunday, we’re off again! Six weeks in Europe! Cue celebratory fanfare.

But this trip is a little different. We’re killing two birds, if you like. First, the holiday will mark our twentieth wedding anniversary. China (plates and cups, not the country) is the traditional present for two decades of wedded bliss. But when I consider how our relationship has changed and grown over time and the depth of our feeling and understanding for each other, dinnerware just didn’t measure up. So we decided to gift ourselves travel instead.

And second, I’ll be carrying out research for my current manuscript, a novel based partly on the lives of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley (nee Godwin) and her partner, the Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Now, for those not familiar with the unorthodox lives of Mary Godwin and Shelley, here’s a little backstory. At sixteen, the brilliant daughter of the feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft (Mary Godwin) ran away from her home in London with her avant-garde and married lover (Percy Bysshe Shelley). He had a crazy plan to create a community of kindred spirits, ‘sharing minds and bodies’, on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. They travelled through France and into Switzerland, but never made it to their destination. Running out of money, Shelley was forced to sell his gold watch, book passage on a boat heading north along the Rhine River through Germany and into Holland. The pair returned to England, shamefaced and penniless.

Two years later, in 1816, the couple tried it again. This time they were more successful. Making it to Geneva, they hooked up with Lord Byron (another poet), and it was at his villa on a dark and stormy night that Mary conceived the idea for her most renowned novel, Frankenstein. Based on these two trips, Mary also published a travel diary, History of a Six Weeks’ Tour. During their eight years together, Mary and Shelley continued to travel extensively throughout Europe.

I have come to know this pair intimately over the past twelve months and have tracked their development from star-crossed lovers to accomplished writers, loving parents and devoted spouses. But when I now consider the events, past and present, I’m struck by similarities. Two writers, seeking new adventures and fodder for their work, take off to Europe to revel in their togetherness. Sound familiar? Of course, there are also differences. I’m certainly no literary prodigy and Chris doesn’t harbour dreams of forming a free-love commune on the banks of Lake Geneva … I hope. What’s more, Mary and Shelley never had to travel long-haul from Australia with two kids.

So our itinerary over the next six weeks follows in the steps of this writerly couple. London, Rome, Florence, Lake Geneva and Munich are all on the list, locations that influenced and inspired the authors. While I’m seeking my own inspiration before I begin the second draft of my novel, the boys will be detouring to locations of soccer significance. We’ll be chronicling our journey in a blog every couple of days, to keep family and friends filled in on our ‘Six Weeks Tour’.