I think the thing I missed most about being home (and not traveling) these last 2.5 years is overhearing conversations. I mean, yes, I travel to see specific things or to experience other cultures. But the thing I missed about travel were observing other people or catching snatches of conversations. You can’t re-create that from home.

Or hearing Hebrew from a stranger. Obviously easier if you’re living in Israel, but we had a few wonderful moments on the trip when I’d catch a word — on the Grand Plaza in Brussels or a train car in Cambridge — and I’d perk up, twisting my head like antennae shifting to point in the correct direction. I missed that.

Now that we’ve figured out masked travel, it feels do-able again. Something I couldn’t imagine even post-vaccine last summer.

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Thank you to everyone who celebrated the Roundup anniversary by posting links last week. You can see all of the posts here. Not too late to add your own.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Things With Secret History” (Finding a Different Path)
• “With Childlessness, the Related Losses Multiply” (Childless by Marriage)
• “The Ends of Eras” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Jess!

Okay, now my choices this week.

Finding a Different Path has a post drawing a parallel from COVID-test weirdness to pregnancy tests that let you know you were just a little pregnant. Her results were kind of positive. Then kind of negative. Did she have COVID? Who knows. (Though she behaved as if she did to protect others.) The point I nodded at: “Why must all the medical things fall under, ‘huh, that’s a mystery,’ for me?”

Infertile Phoenix has a post about getting rid of teaching stuff, which is just as hard as getting rid of the baby stuff because it’s all tied together. She thought she would be able to use her knowledge on her own child. She writes: “I cried because I didn’t get to raise my children. I cried because I’m so good at teaching, but it literally doesn’t cover my bills. I cried because it’s the end of the semester, it’s hot, I’m sad, and I’m just plain worn out.” But three cheers for taking back the space and getting rid of things that are weighing you down.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled has a great summary of a series of posts by Anne Helen Petersen on being without children and building relationships with kids amongst other related topics. I especially like how she captured and unpacked AHP’s final piece, “How to Show Up For Your Friends Without Kids — and How to Show Up For Kids and Their Parents aka How to Be in a Community.”

The roundup to the Roundup: What I missed from travel. Thank you for celebrating the Roundup. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between July 22 – 29) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.

While I always carry 100+ books on me via the reading app on my phone, choosing a paper book or two for a trip is a very. serious. matter.

Like agonize-over-the-decision-for-days kind of serious matter.

I have a history of making poor book decisions, as recently as France when I was stuck reading a romance book that was good for the first 10 pages and terrible for the remaining 300+. It put me in a bad mood every time I had to read it.

This time, I decided not to take chances. I spent the first few days finishing a book I started at home. So I knew I liked it. Then I brought an Anthony Horowitz book I had saved for this very occasion. I knew I would like it because I like all of his books. But I also ended up buying and starting books that I got on the trip, including the first Ian Moore, Murder and Croissants. Safe reading choices that made me happy.

How do you choose what you read on a trip? Do you leave it to chance or plan it out carefully?

So… the rest of the trip. We did several really cool things. Due to COVID, we decided not to move around a lot. Instead, we stayed for two weeks at the same hotel in London and used it as a base for day trips to Oxford, Cambridge, Canterbury, etc. Some of the cool experiences were planned. Some just happened to work out because our family tradition aligns with the Queen’s jubilee year celebrations. So we always happen to be there when special exhibits and such are happening.

Tower of London

We went twice. Once in the morning when I deeply connected with one of the ravens. It was one of the times that I took off my mask outside because we weren’t around people, and I had a lot to tell the raven while we stared into each other’s eyes.

And then once at night for the Ceremony of the Keys. It’s a ritual that has been going on for over 700 years without a break, and we got special tickets to get to watch the ceremony with a small group because we’re members of Historic Royal Palaces. You cannot have your camera out during the ceremony — it has never been recorded — but our Yeoman Warder let us stay for another 45 minutes after the ceremony and told us stories and let us photograph the Tower at night.

Stonehenge

We also got special tickets to go to Stonehenge after it closed for the day with 50 other people. We were given an hour in the inner circle. We were told we could do anything (as long as we kept our clothes on) EXCEPT touch, hug, or lick the stones. Apparently licking the stones is an issue. I actually kind of get it. Lying underneath the stones made me sob.

The coolest part about being next to the stones vs. on the walkway is that you could see things like how Sir Christopher Wren chiseled his name INTO THE STONE in the 1600s.

Windsor

The Queen was at Windsor the day we were there thanks to Boris Johnson’s announcement, but we didn’t see her. What we did get to see was her Coronation gown, which was temporarily on display (the third time in 69 years!) at the palace. It was INCREDIBLE. We were also outside Buckingham the day they were going OBEs and MBEs, and we got to see the people come out. Those two things were just random timing.

Canterbury

It didn’t look like our original plan to walk the pilgrimage path to Canterbury, but we did make it to the Cathedral. And I cried there, too.

Church Services at Westminster Abbey

I dragged the twins to midday communion at Westminster Abbey. We didn’t take communion, obviously, but I wanted them to attend a service. And I don’t think you can get any better than Westminster Abbey.

The Southbury Child

One of our favourite actors is Alex Jennings, and we got to see him in The Southbury Child at the Bridge Theater. I like to think that he noticed us while taking his bow and appreciated that we were working to keep him safe with our tight-fitting KN95 masks.

Other cool things: ChickieNob had a research slot at the British Museum to work with royal medals from the 1500s. And because I had to go as her chaperone because she’s under 18, I got to put on nitrile gloves and hold them, too. THAT was freakin’ awesome. Thankful that I got a chance to watch ChickieNob in action doing research for her capstone project.

We also loved seeing the Corpus Clock and Chronophage in Cambridge when we were out there for the Centre for Computing History. We also had a good time recreating all of our old photos from 10 years ago around London and Oxford. It’s fun to see them side-by-side. Hampton Court Palace was fantastic, as were the sunken gardens at Kensington. Plus we got food from our favourite restaurant, Da Mario, a bunch of times. Along with great takeaway meals, we also once had to get Pizza Express and eat it on the ground in an alleyway after kicking aside broken glass and cigarette butts.

But it’s the memories, right?

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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There’s this website where you can send an email to your future self, to be delivered on a certain date. You write it now and then choose whether to deliver it in a year or three years or on a certain date, and then you forget about the email and it arrives in the future.

Though you can do the same thing with scheduled send in most email programs. You could write yourself an email, schedule it to go out at some point in the future, and then be surprised (somewhat) when it arrives.

I don’t even know what I would tell my future self. My past self, I would tell her plenty. But my future self should be telling me things.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

If we were going to be in England, I decided to get myself a pair of steel-toed DM Chelsea boots. It’s not that I couldn’t get these shoes in the US, but I wanted to get them over there. A memento from the trip.

So we went to Camden Town and went to the Dr. Martens store. I did a loop, looking to see if any other style appealed as much as the Chelsea boots, and then went to the salesperson and told her what I wanted.

“Steel-toed Chelsea boots,” she said. “We stopped selling those years ago.”

“I’m certain that you still make them,” I told her. “All my DMs have steel toes, and I just saw them online last night.”

She kept repeating that they hadn’t made steel-toed shoes in years (but my last pair of boots was only… oh… 11 years ago), that anything I saw online was probably used (it wasn’t), or — she finally conceded — overstock sold outside the UK (maybe). “We don’t make steel-toed shoes anymore. Your shoes are… vintage.”

Vintage. Old. Ancient. Bygone.

Another salesperson stepped in and told me that I may like non-steel-toed boots if I gave them a chance. He understood that they had a different shape, but I could make myself happy with a good polishing from time to time. They were comfortable — as comfortable as my lace-ups but ten times faster to pull on.

And all of my other shoes now marked me as old, and I didn’t even know it.

I don’t know why the salesperson words got under my skin; made me feel old and grey and out-of-touch. But they did. It took me a long time to make a decision to get the boots. I’m glad that I did. And I’ll be gentle with all of my existing DMs knowing that I can’t get them anymore. But it feels like the end of an era. And I’ll have to get accustomed to walking in lighter shoes.