Explore with Fran

Hello again folks. How are we all doing? Managing to get through all those toilet rolls you panic bought? Yes, you know who you are. You are the reason people had to wipe their bum with old copies of the Daily Mail. And who has cupboards full of flour rather than bread bins full of fresh sourdough? 

So, we made it to May. I’ve been reading that people have felt time is going slow. I can’t believe we have been in Perth for over 6 weeks already. It really is a mystery where the days go. Although the long days are giving me a chance to read the books that have long sat on my “to read” pile. One such book that I had been meaning to read for years was Nelson Mandela’s “Long Walk to Freedom”. 

I finally finished this amazing book and was immediately struck by how easy we have things. Even in the age of the coronavirus. Yes, we miss family. We may even miss friends. Well, some of them. But essentially we are being asked to stay in our comfortable homes. With all our home comforts surrounding us. Want a fish finger sandwich? Go and make one. Fancy watching just one more episode of “After Life”? Oh, go on then. A beer? Well, it is 5 o’clock somewhere. 

Mandela was incarcerated for 27 years. 18 of which he spent in harsh conditions, on Robben Island. Whilst locked up, he lost his mother, and not long after, his son to a car accident. He wasn’t able to go to either funeral. Regardless of how you view the politics of Africa, or Mandela’s role prior to his arrest, what he and his comrades were put through was nothing short of shocking. I have written about visiting Robben Island, last year. I’ve seen the cell he was in. I’ve visited the quarry where he was made to crack rocks all day long. 

And this puts a lot of things into perspective. For me at least. As long as my family, friends and those closest to me remain healthy and well, then how hard can things be? Our situation will improve. We will be reunited with our loved ones. And one day, in the not too distant future, the pubs will reopen. Just this weekend, the Premier of Western Australia has announced that cafes and restaurants can reopen. Starting with a limit of 20 diners inside at a time. And regional travel restrictions have been lifted, meaning we are able to visit more of this beautiful state, should we want to. I can hear Margaret River calling. 

But before we think too much about holidays, we need to get work. And here I have some positive news. In a job market that is flatter than one of my sister’s Yorkshire Puddings, one of us has found themselves a job. Guess who now has the role of house husband? This domestic god better learn how the washing machine works. And I am told dinner will be expected on the table at the end of each work day. 

Outside of domestic duties, I am filling my time with learning stuff. At the moment I am learning more about wine. And not just drinking it. I am part way through the WSET Level 1 Award in Wine course. The first step to a diploma in wine, should I wish to continue studying. The level 1 course is just 4 weeks long, but I am enjoying the experience. Learning more about the actual production of wine, the differences in the wines regions around the globe, and how to properly taste wine. The practical aspect is great fun.

Whilst Vik hasn’t yet got a start date for work, we are taking the opportunity to explore the local area. We had a great day out last week to a little historic town called Guildford. A short train ride from the Perth CBD, Guildford is a heritage town, referred to as the gateway to the Swan Valley wine region. It is home to the second oldest pub in Australia, the Rose and Crown, and other quaint buildings from a bygone era, such as the Mechanics Institute, and the old town gaol. Being so close to both the city, and the vineyards, we have even started looking for houses that would suit us.

Longer term, I don’t really expect that Australia will open up the international borders until at least 2021. This keeps our longer term plan of travelling the world on the back burner. Which therefore keeps my dream of publishing my very first travel article bubbling away in the background. With travel collapsing, with it went the travel writing market. Hopefully it will bounce back once we are all able to visit places both local, and overseas again.

In the meantime, I’m off to see if I can buy some flour. If the boss wants sourdough with her dinner after work, I am going to have to get my pinny on, and learn how to make it.

Adios amigos!

I have always envied those people who seem to instinctively know what they “want to be when they grow up”. The ones who from a very early age know the direction they want to head. They have identified that they will follow a professional path. Perhaps be a vet. Or a doctor. Lawyers and teachers always seemed to be a popular choice. Bizarrely, some also thought that looking deep in the recesses of peoples mouths, extracting rotting teeth was something they could see themselves doing 5 days a week, for the rest of their working lives. 

And then there were the more creative types. Aspiring painters, chefs, and dancers. Kids who would relish the visits to museums. Spend hours looking at paintings and getting inspired. Maybe you were in class with a poet. Someone who just knew they would spend their life writing, regardless of how much (or how little) future income this would guarantee them. They would be a tortured artist. Living for their art. Their creations. And not fall prey prey to the whims of the materialistic, capitalistic society they were growing up in.

This left a third group. The group that I have always been in. Sitting here, the wrong side of my 40s, still trying to work out what I want to be when (if) I grow up. When I left school, and started work, it was still in the days of “get a good job in an office and you will be set for life.” Toil every day, for 40 years, and you will be rewarded at retirement with a gold clock and a pension.

Starting Out

So, this is what I did. Starting at the local building society. And for many years, this worked for me. I enjoyed life. I had an income that allowed me to buy my first car, a light brown T reg Ford Escort MKII (which will mean absolutely nothing to younger readers.) I loved that car. And we had many adventures together until I started feeling the first pull of the material world we live in, and I decided I needed a better car. Whether it was better or not is debatable as I traded the characterful Ford Escort for a banana yellow Mini Metro. For this, I lay most of the blame at my late father’s door. Receiving a phone call at the local snooker club.

“Son, I have found a beauty of a car for you. Let’s go to Dews garage in Brighouse and I will show you.”

He was so excited with his find that I was too polite to say that driving a banana around town would be bad for my street cred. And to be fair, I did grow to love that car too.

The Genesis

Anyway, I digress. Having a sensible job allowed me these freedoms. And I did move around different departments over the years so it was always interesting. Until it wasn’t. Or at least, until I discovered that there was a world outside Yorkshire. I know. Imagine! And on one life changing lunch break, myself and a colleague, who has become a lifelong friend, asked each other, “should we go travelling?”

This was my entry into long term travel, and I have been addicted ever since. That first year spent backpacking around Australia ensured that I would have permanent wanderlust, and always yearn to be having new adventures. 

Work has allowed me to continue travelling, and I have seen some beautiful parts of the world. But, I have always felt that I have had to make a Faustian pact to continue my travels. Selling my soul to the corporate monster to fund my adventures. Being cooped up in an office all day. Attending meetings that could well have been an email. Dealing with office politics. All so that I could receive my next pay packet, and plan my next trip.

The Accidental Project Manager

Over the years I have fallen into new careers. Often quite by accident, rather than design. Thanks to a friend taking a chance on me at 30, I got a break in IT, as a trainee. A little old to be a trainee, people thought. But this was a stepping stone to what eventually became a very successful career as an IT Project Manager.

Much later in life, working as a contract Project Manager with a client who brought in an outside consultancy was my introduction to something strange called “agile”, and subsequently a new career as a coach and consultant. Working with organisations and teams in improving how they work together and the cultures they work in.

And yet, as much as I enjoy my current career, working with people, I still yearn to do something I am truly passionate about, that would also allow me the means to travel.

The Future

After 30 years of work, my priorities have shifted. The work itself is less important to me. The lifestyle I want to lead is the priority. A lifestyle that affords more time for my creative outlets, and for enjoying what I feel is truly important in life, which is time with loved ones. Time alone for reflection. Time outdoors to savour this beautiful world we live in.

I don’t know what the autumn of my career will look like. I imagine putting together a portfolio of interests. Each with a small income stream. Whichever path I take I will probably still be searching for the elusive answer to “what do I want to be when I grow up”.

Is it really a week since my last post? They say time flies when you are having fun. Are we all having fun? Even when the world is as crazy as it currently is, we need to keep our collective spirits up, and keep looking out for, and after each other.

How are we all holding up? What is it that is getting you through all this social distancing, and self isolation? Whether it is making a scarecrow to brighten up your community, practising your Tik Tok skills, or just going on 3 hour walks, tell me your top tips. How are you keeping a positive outlook in a time when we can’t go to the pub to let off steam over a few cold ones.

Since we last spoke, 7 more days have passed, which means we are 7 more days closer to normality. Whatever version of normality we end up with after the last few months. I ask what you think the future looks like, and of course, none of us know.

Will companies realise that working from home is a good thing and that they can drastically reduce their real estate costs? Will managers learn to trust employees that they can’t keep their eyes on all day? Will employees demand that they have more work from home days as part of their working week? And one thing that I am currently writing an article about is, will we be glad to have our commute back?

For us, we have started the job hunt this week, and we could be in for a bumpy ride. Perth is very different from Sydney, where we previously lived, in that it is not a financial centre. A place where the big banks have a large presence. So, already the market opportunities have reduced. And now, fold in the COVID19 situation, and the job market looks even worse.

With more time on my hands I find that my mind jumps around a lot. About “that” career that I have always wanted, rather than the one that I fell into. The thing is, I still have not landed on what “that” career is. Being in Australia, and so close to world class vineyards, I have long wanted to improve my knowledge of wine, and the wine industry. Now might be the perfect opportunity to do just that. Slowing life down even further, moving to a wine region such as Margaret River, and getting a job at a winery. I could be on to something!

What you will know if you have been following the blog, is that right now our outgoings should be a lot less than we are currently paying for our new apartment. By this point, our plan was to have been in South East Asia for a couple of weeks, with our greatest expense being a beach bungalow on the coast of Malaysia.

The biggest factor that would determine how fast our travel funds depleted would be whether to have one beer, or two. Now, living in Australia still, our current cost of living can not be sustained on our travel budget. And, perhaps more importantly, we don’t want to spend all our travel funds, as we see this as a hiatus, not something permanent. We still plan to do some long term travel, just as long as the world returns to normal.

Reading the news from around the world, I think that we will be well into 2021 before we get any semblance of normality. In Australia, the message being pushed is that we should all consider domestic travel, and that will be quite some time off yet. In terms of the international borders reopening, well, I’m not holding my breath.

For now, we will continue to explore Perth, and its wonderful wildlife. Currently, we are still on foot, and I am chipping away at convincing Victoria that buying an e-bike each, out of our travel funds, would be a good investment. It is proving a lot harder than convincing her that we needed 6 bottles of sparkling chenin blanc from Voyager Estate in Margaret River. Yes, she didn’t take much convincing at all for the wine that we are hoping will get delivered today.

We may not have jobs, but we are supporting the local wine industry, which is just as important. Isn’t it? I could be knocking on their door for a job one day.

Week 3, already, how did that happen?

3 weeks, and 3 Airbnbs. Not sure if this is some kind of record, but we sure are getting to see a lot of inner city Perth. The last Airbnb was only for two days, to tide us over until we completed all the formalities on our new home.

On Wednesday we got the keys to our new rental apartment.  And when I say “we got the keys”, this is literally what we got. I thought we had rented an apartment. Not a whole jail. The letting agent couldn’t even tell us what they are for. And we still don’t know!

We had viewed several apartments, and we were lucky enough to get accepted for our first choice. As all our possessions are currently in storage, in Sydney, we needed a fully furnished place. This slightly limited our options but we did see some good places, one of which had fabulous views of the Swan River right from the balcony.

However, the one we really wanted is in the quiet, leafy suburb of East Perth. Very close to the historic WACA (West Australia Cricket Ground), and the impressive Optus stadium. At the viewing, which we had to do separately from each other, we immediately knew it was the place we wanted. So, we were very happy this week signing a 6 month lease on this spacious, ground floor, 2 bedroom apartment.

In keeping with how things have been going, we again have a bottle shop around the corner. Better news still, there is also a highly regarded Italian restaurant even closer, doing wood fired pizzas and take home Italian dinners. We need to keep up our daily step total of over 25000 just to burn off all the lasagne and cacio e pepe that I will be eating.

Yesterday we moved in and are slowly getting settled. Moving away from takeaway dinners, we are now able to do a “big shop” at Woolies, and get back to a level of normality that we haven’t had since we left Sydney 3 weeks ago. Obviously, being the time of year that it is, a couple of chocolate bunnies, and an egg (or two) may have found its way into our trolley.

We have also been walking around, investigating the neighbourhood and imagine my surprise (and joy) when we found not only a whisky distillery, but also a brewery, just minutes from our front door. And to top it off, the whisky distillery also has a cafe serving good coffee. I think all my bases are covered. I may even decide to put the all important purchase of an espresso machine on the back burner, and use those funds for a bicycle. The bike paths in and around Perth really are second to none. Flat and segregated from traffic, they make getting around this beautiful city a breeze.

In less positive news, the job market is not looking the best. I suppose this is what you would expect in the current crazy times. But it is even worse than I expected, with job vacancies down 65% on this time last year. After this Easter weekend we need to start hitting the job market, so wish us luck. Our first option would be doing the kind of work we are used to, but failing that we will need to work through any available options. I don’t think now is the time to be choosy when it comes to having to pay the rent.

In the interim, to cheer ourselves up, we took ourselves for a small gelato. Guaranteed to put a smile on anyone’s face, the team at Gelaré on Beaufort St in Mount Lawley.

Until the next time, keep safe, keep talking to each other, and keep making grand plans for when this is all over. I know we are!