Laptop Nomads are go!

Dubai

Well, we are now on our way. Having had a lovely 3 day pre-trip holiday in Dubai

(where we succumbed to the “mall trawl”, lovely hotel and enjoyed the pool (and the pool bar!) Lois is still searching for the perfect pair of khakis… Needless to say, not much work done, but a good time was had by all.

Wi-Fi was prevalent but charged for mostly, rather than being free. A fellow Aussie gave us a card in a café so we managed to get online briefly with that.

Birmingham

Have spent the last three days in Birmingham with Lois’ grandparents (Sasha’s great grandparents). Sash got a private lesson in watercolours from her Great Gran and produced some lovely paintings. What terrific memories created, and something shared to show for the time they spent together too. Priceless.

We spent some time in the city centre of Birmingham (more canals than Venice did you know?! – we smiled…our claim to fame about Perth is that it is the most isolated city in the world and we love telling people so.) We got to see the “Floosie in the Jacuzzi” as she is known – pic below. Great architecture. Another highlight was the Harvestival by Ribena – which meant freebie food and drink (yay..and yum! ) Budget travellers, we are.

Meeting up with a fellow e-preneur

Ed made contact with Dave, a fellow domainer (owner/trader of domain names) and web site developer, amongst other things.

Dave and Jan made us welcome at their lovely home, currently being renovated and we met their 3 boys. Sasha was appreciative of some young company after being with adults all week, so a great time was had by all. The big boys caught up on the latest and greatest on the online scene and the girls got acquainted and got on like a house on fire. What a wonderful afternoon and some new friendships made.

Meeting up with a fellow player development manager – Jason who looks after 3 English rugby teams’ player development.

Off to Cambridge on the train today, having intermittent success with the 3 “dongle” (as Ed calls it) so online, offline, online…

Jason (an Aussie living in Cambridge with his family) was fantastic, he arrived to meet us at the Cambridge Youth Hostel, on his bike. It seems to be the most popular mode of transport in this University town. What a lovely place. We had coffee and talked “shop” a bit.

Jason took us along the river on a punt – fortunately for us, he has done this a dozen times and he is a great historian. So we got a great tour (and being a former front rower, he punted along expertly and didn’t land us in the drink!) Although, we did enjoy some refreshments at the Eagle pub afterwards.

Currently Reading:

“Observations of a Very Short Man”, Nigel Marsh (funny book, kinda personal development but author denies it… good to ponder, humorous, easy read.)

Lois is on the search for a new book. Feel free to let me know your best reads.