Getting To Know Me in 10 Questions: The Travel Edition

Stealing this from Live to List, who in turn robbed it from somewhere else. That's just the way t'internet works, innit? Honestly, I'm kind of struggling with a touch of depression at the moment. I haven't quite fallen into a hole and I am fighting it hard but it is a struggle. For some reason this time round I don't really feel like I'm finding the words to write it out either so I might do a few of these meme type posts to see if it gets the juices flowing, so to speak.

1. Your most treasured passport stamp?  I remember going to Prague on a school trip when it was still in Czechoslovakia and being so excited to get a stamp in my passport. But it turned out we had a group passport so I didn't get one. I think I was so disappointed I've never really been able to get excited about it since. Also, almost all my travel has been within Europe, so no stamps anyway.
2. Can you recite your passport number if asked? Not at all. Not even a little bit.
3. Preferred method of travel: plane, train or automobile? Trains all the way. I, along with all my siblings, used to get really bad motion sickness when we were kids. Train's the only thing I've never been sick on. I still can't read or do anything else in a car or bus so it's a really boring way or me to travel. And I love that even if I miss my train, I can just get on the next one in a couple of hours.
4. Top three travel items? Books (these days my Kindle), comfy shoes, a shawl/huge scarf, preferably my hemp one, which works equally well to keep sun out or warm me up.
5. Hostel or hotel? Hotel if possible
6. Are you a repeat visitor, or do your prefer to explore new places? Both, I suppose. There are so many new places I would like to see but really, I prefer to really get to know places and feel at home there. Actually, I think that's the reason there'll be less and less travel in my future - I find myself yearning more and more for just one place to stay put and feel like it could take a lifetime to really get to know a place that well.
7. Do you read up on your destination, or do you wing it? I wing it. Although I always make a token effort and get a guidebook or two from the library, I rarely do more than flick through. And yet my best holidays have often been the ones where I've travelled with people who've done loads of research.
8. Favourite travel website? Don't have one. I do use roomex to book hotels, usually, so I suppose they deserve a mention.
9. Where would you recommend a friend to visit, and why? Slovenia, to go walking and be able to fill your water from the gorgeous rivers. Boston - 'cos lunch in Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market!
10. You're leaving tomorrow and money is no object: where are you going?* Siberia. Or anywhere else on my list!

*[pedant hat on]The original meme, or at least as many as I clicked through to, had "money is no option". Assuming that the question isn't about where you'd go if you had absolutely no money, I've corrected it.[/pedant hat off]

I'm not penniless

I spent some time going through some of my old pension stuff. Luckily, I seem to have had this thought before and it was all in the same box. Actually, I think when I was moving here I contacted the various places to see whether or not I could get any of my pensions cashed out. Of the three pensions I had in place (I was lazy about transferring pensions schemes to new employers, which is why there were three), only one had been paid in to for less than two years. So I took the tax hit on getting that cashed out and that money was just a bit more than the movers I used to get here. I was glad of it at the time.

And that left two. I have to send a letter to one company to notify them in writing of my change of address and they will post me a full benefit statement. They don't seem to do online.

For the other I actually found a letter with log-on details for their website and amazingly, even though it's seven years since I got that letter and the company has since been taken over by another one. So I was able to see that the money I did pay in to that, along with the matched contributions from my employer at the time have increased by over 45%. After going down past -30% in early 2009. So although I'm pleased with the increase, I'll take the "funds may fall as well a rise" very much to heart. It's not a lot of money, less than eight thousand in that plan, but at least there's something there. Along with whatever is in the other pension and what I have in my private pension here, I'm on the way to fifteen thousand.

When I was still in debt I was very careful to not add any of this to my net worth calculation. I needed that to be focused on clearing debt and moving towards a positive figure. Now I need to start looking to the future. I'm not entirely sure I believe stock markets or society as we know it today will still be around by the time I get to retirement age but for now, I'm trying to stay optimistic. So I'll continue to invest a small-ish amount into pensions as long as I'm working so that at least I'm making use of the tax breaks. I may never make it to a Mustachian style early retirement but maybe one day I'll manage to buy a house. Once I get through this year, find a new job and move, I think that has to become my priority. For now, it's nice to know that if I do ever manage that, at least I've already taken care of having a bit extra on top of a state pension so that I can enjoy the occasional slice of cake to go with the delicious homemade cider I'll be sipping on my front porch at 65!

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Dervla Murphy

In today's Irish Times there's an article about Dervla Murphy. I have to admit, I don't think I've ever heard of her before, but reading through her comments and reflections on life I really wish I had. I'll have to get a hold of some of her books and give them a read, I think. She's a travel writer and, judging by the names of the books she has written, has cycled round most of the world. I'd really recommend having a read of the article, I think they leave them available to read for a few weeks and once it's archived you can pay to get access. Here are some of the gems from that article - I found myself nodding along all the way, yes, yes, exactly, yes.

"I believe that when we’re dead we’re dead, and that’s it. I often wonder if that makes me live my life a different way."

"Money is very important to me from the viewpoint that I would hate to be in debt. That’s the way my generation was brought up: if you wanted something you saved up. If I had to borrow to keep afloat I’d be really, really upset. I’ve no ambition to have more money than I need. I wouldn’t like to be without financial independence. I suppose there are some women who don’t mind being dependent on a partner or husband, but I couldn’t imagine doing that."

"I wouldn’t really call myself a feminist. ... ... Where I do get fiercely feminist is about abortion. I hate the idea, but, even more, I hate the idea of forcing women to carry and deliver a baby they don’t want. I think it’s outrageous that you have a whole load of men making those decisions ..."

"What do I think of politicians? A pile of f**king s**ts is what I think of them. All parties. Can you write that in The Irish Times or will they censor it?"

"I think the time is coming when Ireland should be self-sufficient in food. ... Imagine, Ireland is famous for potatoes, and there are potatoes from Israel in a shop here in Lismore. We should be growing all our own food. We’ve lost the run of ourselves."

"What I value most in others is honesty. What is life without it?"

"I have learned to be suspicious in general of the consumer society, to be deeply suspicious of it."

"I’m very solitary by nature. When I have company I enjoy it, but essentially I’m a solitary person."

What a fantastic life she must have led. I'm looking forward to reading some of her books and getting to know this interesting woman a bit better.

Mr. Money Mustache

A few months ago, just around the start of the year, I found Mr. Money Mustache thanks to Fiona mentioning something about being mustachian. I had no idea what she was on about and assumed it was some kind of Australian slang but googled it anyway. 'Cos, you know, Australian slang is funny.

Anyway, it's an amazing blog (and the website has expanded to now include discussion forum, which also look pretty good) and I've been slowly making my way through the archives. There is so much in every single post that I'm not getting far quickly but that's okay. Most of the time I even try to not get sucked into reading the comments, which almost always are just as interesting and go on for even longer than the posts themselves. I commented on a post at Absolutely Sweet Chaos about it and feel like I helped contribute in some small way to Jen totally embracing her badassity, too!

It is giving me lots of food for thought and there are lots of posts I want to comment on and then I find myself thinking that I should wait because he may have covered what I want to say in a later post (very often the case so far). There are also lots of points that I want to take away, think about and write about myself here. Today was a case in point. Yesterday I read this post about whether or not peak happiness really comes at $75,000 per year (I manage to read two or three posts during lunchtime most days, of course that involves staying at my desk during lunch, which isn't the best of habits but for now that keeps me away from the shops and machines full of chocolate so it's all good). Today, there was a reader case study, with a very interesting comment section that I also read through, followed by a post called Is it convenient? Would I enjoy it? Wrong question. And I had a couple of paragraphs of a blog post nearly finished in my head so this evening say down to try and get it on paper. Do you think I can remember even vaguely what the hell they were about though? Not a hope. Even having skimmed back through those posts, I can't remember what blinding flash of brilliance occurred this afternoon that had me brimming with interesting thoughts.

So instead you get a post full of links to other people and I've decided that I really need to start making notes when an idea for post occurs to me because otherwise, I'll never write even half of what I want to.

It's a start

All I've done is move the furniture into the space and already I feel like it's more than enough. I'm going to not move some stuff back in at all - need to just get it sorted, dumped or stored in the appropriate cupboards. Looking forward to actually being able to use these drawers again. And really need to make sure enough floor space is left clear that I can use a chair to sit at the desk!

Writing desk to the right, leaving enough room to open it without hitting the drawers. The table is blocking the radiator but what the hell, that was blocked anyway. This winter was mild enough that I didn't use it at all and by next winter I'll have decluttered way more, I'm sure. The four boxes under the table and the suitcase in the corner are what's left of my former lodger's stuff. I'm going to ask him if he has another friend who could take it. Just don't have the room and have more than enough of my own clutter!

Dust

It was a bank holiday yesterday and so I took today as a holiday in order to give myself a four-day weekend. Since it was my boss' last week before two weeks holidays and she spent the three days this week clearing everything from her desk that has been undealt with for months (meaning working till around nine every night), I am more than happy to have today off. Even if I do have mountains of work waiting on my desk for me on Monday.

Yesterday, I had a very lazy day, sleeping very late and only graduating to the couch at about one o'clock. If I hadn't had to go and meet someone at six, I wouldn't even have bothered getting dressed. I spent the afternoon setting up a LinkedIn profile for myself (handy for when I start my job search later in the year hopefully), surfing the web and exchanging emails with ecopunk, who doesn't believe I'm a hippy. Funny man.

I had been trying to convince myself that I'd spend some time this weekend sorting out the mess that is my bedroom and last night, when it was getting a bit chilly and I wanted to just go into the bedroom to grab a fleece and close the windows, I ended up spending half an hour dragging lots of that crap out to the sitting room. So no choice but to continue it today. And I'll have visitors tomorrow so I have to make some headway today. My main goal is to be able to move the writing desk into the bedroom. A lot of the stuff piled up will simply go back in but at least I'll have an idea again of what is there and it'll be a bit more tidily piled, allowing me to work on it in smaller amounts at a time over the next while.

It seems like after a certain amount of time has passed though, your eyes become accustomed to sliding over the dust and not realising just how horribly dusty and just plain old dirty things have gotten. I'm not bad at cleaning around things but that end of the room has gotten so bad that it wasn't even feasible to move things and clean around them. So I'm faced with sights like this (it was worse than it looks in this picture, believe me)

Still, that section has now been hoovered and well washed (hoovering alone just wasn't going to cut it!) and I'm just waiting for the floor to dry before I go back in and start rearranging furniture. I did manage to get a good look at one small basket that I have had for years and used for many different things over time. And in the bottom of it what looks suspiciously like that dusty stuff that is moth eggs. So out it has gone. Cost a pang but I cannot take the chance. Baskets are lovely but they just don't go well with moths!