Create funny mock-plane seats at home and watch your/others' videos for Armchair Travel

The idea of pretending your washing machine is a cruise ship window is so ridiculous it is funny. An inflatable pool with bar stool in your back garden (or back yard as the Americans say) is better than nothing. I shall start with serious guides, then end with the amusing mock destinations.

I am very content travelling the internet. I could spend months searching through information and enjoying discoveries, planning trips which might take place later this year, next year or never.

What can you do to recreate the pleasures of travel:
Practical Pictures
1 Watch videos (made by drones)
2 Project seasides or forests onto your living room or bedroom or kitchen or bathroom or outdoor walls
3 Print your favourite photo large and frame it
4 Use your favourite holiday or business trip picture as your laptop's welcome screen
5 Use your favourite holiday or business trip picture prjected behind you as your backdrop
 when videoconferencing using Manycam
6 Compile a serious guide to your city or your dream destination using route planning guides and photos from wiki. Start with your heroes and heroines such as Anne Frank, Helen Keller, Jesus, American Presidents, Elvis, Freddie Mercury and city destinations, mountains, beaches or treks.

Amusements
Create a jokey mock up of plane or cruise travel to amuse your friends, using
1 Hotel pool
Deckchairs in the garden by an inflatable pool.

2 Hotel Pool bar
Bar stools and cocktails by kitchen work surface. Stick poster of distant hotel on wall.

3 To recreate a cruise ship window or airplane window.
Washing machine circular front windows. Stick picture of outside scene on outside of window or inside.

4 To create a plane interior:
A bank of chairs alongside or behind each other with masks or saved airline socks or paper sick back and airline magazines. Wife (male or female) wearing tight skirt with small hat and scarf or baseball hat from tour company carries meal on a tray.

5 To create airport lounge
Airlne magazine covers stuck on magazines to recreate an airport lounge. Add wheeled bags and briefcases. For seatbelts, and remove clip straps from shoulder bags.

5 A mock plane toilet
Remove all your other clutter leaving only your saved free zip up flight bags and disposable toothrushes.
Printed signs above your batrhoom (rest room) or toilet door.
Signs can say;
Occupied.  .
Return to seat.
Stand outside looking glum holidng a magazine and looking at your watch.

6 Mock Destination Video
Take your favourite clips and create a guide to your home city.
If all else fails, just photograph your garden or the view from your window and do a mock travel guide to nature of city life.

7 Holograms
Hologram of yourself or wildlife.

Entertaining and Educational Websites
From Wiki

• Comparison of bicycle route planning websites
• Google Transit
• Rome2rio

• Rutebok for Norge
• Transport Direct Portal

• Traveline
• Walkit.com

VIRTUAL TRAVEL USING SCENERY

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200330-covid-19-virtual-travel-during-coronavirus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ManyCam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualtourist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritage_Key
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_learning_environment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-dimensional_virtual_tourism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography

AMUSING JOKES ABOUT RECREATING TRAVEL
https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2020/04/15/people-miss-flying-so-much-theyre-re-creating-airplane-experience-home/
https://www.insider.com/tiktok-recreating-flight-experience-inside-laundry-room-2020-4

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. (Not related to the actress.) See books and profiles on Lulu.com and  Amazon and videos on YouTube.

Buy to rent? The problems of an absentee landlord!

You go to live abroad. You might hope to pay your rent by renting your old home. Or use your savings or inheritance to let a property back home.

Buy to let? What are the costs?

Costs
Replacing old furniture and fittings - and a family of four will destroy a washing machine, bed and carpet in three years which would have lasted your grandparents or singe granny ten years.

Replacing curtains. Replacing carpet - John Lewis one thousand pounds for one small bedroom. Get a cheaper quote. Add five hundred for fitting the carpet!

 Repainting walls. The painters quote - but they charge extra to do skirting boards and doors.

Advertising for a tenant  Paying management fee if you don't live near the property. Add fee for every visit.

LEGAL CHECKS
 Charge for annual gas and electricity check.

MAINTENANCE
Payment of maintenance covering.

EXTRAS
Add payment to gardener.

Window cleaner.

Five hundred or more pounds for professional clean - add fifty pounds if they do the furnished flat table and chairs and not just walls floors, carpet cleaning and oven.

Extra maintenance charge for repair of building roof, lift update, security phone update, subsidence, windows, garage doors, painting and roofs.

Charge to remove dumped furniture. Charge to remove tenants furniture.

Repair of damage left by tenant's furniture removers. Forwarding tenants' mail from their doctor and bank. Showing prospective tenants around for first.

Flying home from overseas when tenancy ends and finding tenants refuse to move out because ...

Correspondence with tenants. Meet inventory people. Charge made every time inventory is updated.

Tenant wants washing machine or sofa removed - spend half a day getting competitive quotes from rent a van.

Find single person removal, unwrapped item is damaged in .

 Tenant keeps windows shut forming condensation so whole place needs repainting.

Tenant moves out three days early. Have to pay council tax. Endless phone calls and log ins.

Accountant needed for paying income tax. Payment for Xero online accounting shortly to be a government requirement. Once a year accountant bill changes to once a month accountant bill.

Listing expenses for every visit.

Time transferring gas and electric bills and reading meters.

Endless queries over rental agreement. Leaking radiators. Tenants family die.

Tenants bring in another family (visiting parents, extended family). Increased wear and tear on carpets. Are they doing something illegal - overcrowding.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/buytolet/article-6620839/How-Britains-239billion-buy-let-bubble-burst.html

How to Wash and Whiten Yellowed Pillows

After leaving your home empty or bringing stuff out of storage, you may find that pillowcases and the pillow's sewn on pillow case look yellow.


She is using a top loading washing machine which is more common in the USA and Asia. In the UK we tend to have front opening machines, and being short of space, we stack the dryer on top.

I am now much more careful about washing pillows and under pillow cases regularly and before I leave the country for a week or more. If you have two homes or put things into storage, you want them to come out clean and usable by yourself or visitors.

Especially if you have matching pillowcases, matching each other or matching the sheet. I had tried just soaking in diluted bleach and that didn't work. (Although pale bleach worked on removing mould from curtains. You might need two or three soaks and lots of scrubbing small stains or edges. Thick coloured bleach which goes down toilets is coloured so adults and children don't accidentally drink it thinking it is water, but has the disadvantage that the dye will colour carpet and clothes it drips on and even the grouting in shower rooms and bathrooms.)

This lady seems to use a mix of products.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.