A very large project is about to get under way in the office, and before I bury myself in the work I feel it’s time to take a holiday.

With the weather still being quite warm we’re off to Victoria, Australia.  The boys would like to see the Thomas the Tank Engine train @ Puffing Billy, i’d love to see some of the old Murray river townships and their paddlesteamers, and as for my better half she just wants a holiday anywhere.

With only one week to go before we head off, there’s much to organise and pack and then we’re off…

la⋅zy [ley-zee] –adjective

1. averse or disinclined to work, activity, or exertion; indolent.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m lazy and that’s a good thing.

I enjoy travelling.  I enjoy stepping out of my comfort zone and exploring the world. I enjoy pushing the limits of what I’m capable of.  Most of all I enjoy the freedom that travel brings. 

When I was young I was the type of kid to head out in the morning to explore the neighbourhood only to return by sunset.  We’d explore the local creeks, storm water drains, bushland, rivers and often just riding our bikes around their nearby suburbs.  In those days parents had a lot of faith in thier children and in society, that no harm would come to their children in this age of independent exploration – oh how times have changed.

As an adult I still enjoy exploring, though my neighbourhood is a little larger now and the deadlines are only self-imposed – it just requires a little more effort than as a child.  Where-as once all that was required was a bike, now we have to pack up a car load of stuff for even the shortest holidays.

Then along came fatherhood…  Before I had children travelling was so much easier, less stuff, less effort, greater freedom to just pack up and head off.  But then along came my twin boys.  Travel went from exploration to a finely coreographed freight movement with the wife and 2 children plus more unecessary stuff than a hoarders wet dream. 

It’s amazing that for the size of toddlers they require such a disproportionate amount of stuff.  Some is unavoidable; clothes, toys, books, nappies (8-12 per day), but for the rest much of it is for the “just in case” scenarios… Just in case they have an “accident” that babies and toddlers are prone to have, or just in case we can’t find any food that they’ll eat whilst in the throes of a fussy mood, or just in case they get tired whilst walking around a museum and need the pram to console them so us adults get to see something during the trip, just in case…

So now the boys have passed their 2nd birthday, so this is where I become lazy…  being lazy actually requires some effort, it forces me to; carry less, do more with less effort, and make the most of the journey.  It drives me to travel efficiently, because if not for efficiency, I’ll be exhausted after the first holiday only to require a second holiday to recover from the first.