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What's this blog all about?

Hi, I'm Nicola - welcome to a blog begun in 2012 about family travel around the world, without leaving the UK.

I love travel adventures, but to save cash and keep my family's carbon footprint lower, I dreamt up a unique stay-at-home travel experience. So far I've visited 110 countries... without leaving the UK. Join me exploring the next 86! Or have a look at the "countries" you can discover within the UK by scrolling the labels (below right). Here's to happy travel from our doorsteps.

Around 2018 I tried a new way of writing my family's and my own UK travel adventures. Britain is a brilliant place for a staycation, mini-break and day trips. It's also a fantastic place to explore so I've begun to write up reports of places that are easy to reach by public transport. And when they are not that easy to reach I'll offer some tips on how to get there.

See www.nicolabaird.com for info about the seven books I've written, a link to my other blog on thrifty, creative childcare (homemadekids.wordpress.com) or to contact me.

Thursday 28 April 2011

Thoughts on time


When I lived in the South Pacific (and Oz) I loved the way I was half a day in front of my homeland - and friends in the UK. Years later I loved seeing Christmas Island in Micronesia meeting the Millennium so many hours before our new year's eve parties kicked off! This post is by Nicola Baird (pix, top of my friend Hannah with Lola and Nell on the meridian line at Greenwich, and below, irresistible to bestride a 0 degrees longitude line.. one foot in the west, one in the east.)

There are fantastic books about time. Pip Pip (a sideways look at time) by Jay Griffiths, is a favourite.

In hospital over the Easter weekend a nurse administering asthma medicine to my 10 year old at around 3am got me thinking about it again. Time goes so fast, sometimes. That night Nell was being made better but the two hour gaps between each dose of medicine seemed to go rather faster than the time it took Nell to breathe in the 10 puffs or reliever... And look, already quarter of the year has passed, the tax year is over and summer's upon us. Blink and time rushes along.

Je ne regret rien
Obviously no point wishing to turn back the clock, but it was fun to finally find t-i-m-e to visit the Greenwich Meridian line and muse about humans' attempts to make time less painful by measuring it into 24 hour bite-sized chunks. Go see what I mean (and use the side gate if you want to avoid a rather hefty ticket price).