The biggest day of the year

Ever since she could talk, the biggest day of the year has been Ella's birthday. This was one of Ella's main concerns about coming to live in England - What was she going to do for her birthday in England without her friends?

Luckily she has made some new friends at school. Sarah researched a number of party options and reached agreement with Ella on an indoor go-kart party. Outdoor party options in December are not that viable here.

Yesterday was the big day and there were higher than normal levels of excitement and impatience. When we reached the venue Sarah received a phone call from the guy supplying the go karts that he was running a few minutes late because he had van trouble. We setup the food and the guests started arriving. Then Sarah got another call saying that due to van trouble the guy could not make it. One of the parents who had a van kindly volunteered to go and get the gear but unfortunately this was not practical as the go-kart hire is based in Poole about 40 minutes away.

What were we going to do? We only had a couple of party games, we didn't even have pass the parcel. (This would be a good point to stop the blog article and leave you all in suspense....)

Luckily I am not that cruel. Also luckily for us, the venue where we were having the party, a community sports hall also hosted parties and had a jumping castle and some fitness balls and other stuff. The guy from the hall set all of this up for us. Disaster averted, the kids happily ran around the hall and jumped on the castle for the next hour. They all had a great time.

 

Without our regular baker, Sarah purchased a chocolate cake and candle from the local Asda. It was good but not as good as Granny's.

P.S. Ella got a lot of great presents from her friends. Quite a few of them involved beads. Watch out Deb, she will be bringing all of these with her when she comes to visit you in January. You and her can just have a beading love in.

What we did last weekend.

No castles were visited last weekend.

On Saturday, it was a beautiful sunny day. Some members of the family just wanted to laze around watching TV, playing on the computer or their iPod. I finally convinced Ben to walk into town with me. We were on haircut attempt 2, after head lice treatment. We both had haircuts, with a total cost of £7. Sarah bought Simon and Ella into town and Ella also had a haircut. A quick visit to the library followed. Simon complained this morning that Sarah doesn't get books fast enough and never has anything to read.

On Sunday we drove Portsmouth to visit the Historical dockyard. We toured the HMS Victory and HMS Warrior and had some time in an interactive exhibit.

It was cold but fun.

The highlight for Michael and Sarah was the tour of Horatio Nelson's ship - The Victory. It has been fully restored down to the finest detail. The details of life for the sailors, 60% of whom were press-ganged into the crew, were very gruesome. They got very little food, lots of rum and alcohol and were often beaten. Life is very different today for the English sailor.

Short days of Winter

We are coping here. The children (well most of them) are sleeping in a bit more.

Here is a photo of the sunrise from the other morning.

This was taken at 8AM, just before we all walked to school. The sheds are from the allotments behind the house.

Ready for a break.

The children finished the Autumn term today. They had a half day. The school disco was on last night and they are all a bit tired. Ben was reluctant to go last night as he doesn't like to be away from his parents. Of course he didn't want to leave early when Sarah arrived to pick them up. Ella and Ben both won prizes for their dancing skills.

I came home early today, I like to come home in daylight one day of the week. Not that easy when sunset is about 4PM. The children were all chilling out.

I think Ben is gearing up for a week on the computer and Ella wants to spend a week in front of the TV.

The school reports also came out today and they all got good reports. All the teachers said that the children were fitting in well at the new school. The other common comment was to revise for the exams in January. Sarah is working out what to put in the email to the head master, telling her that the children will be away skiing in France during the week of the exams.

Christmas Songs

The English are big on Christmas spirit. Every big chain store has a Christmas catalogue which comes out in November much to the children's delight and you can hear Christmas songs everywhere. In fact, Christmas songs are one of the biggest sellers of the year most notably Michael Buble.

Now I am in the correct hemisphere for Christmas I feel like I am beginning to understand some of the lyrics to the Christmas songs. The line that resonates today is: "Oh the weather outside is frightful." It is windy, rainy and cold today. All we need is the snow to complete the picture.....

More mysteries solved

Questions that I have wanted answered since travelling around:

• What does Chester mean? As in Dorchester, Winchester, etc...
• What does Winterbourne mean? There are loads of them around here such as Winterbourne Abbas, Winterbourne Monkton, Winterbourne St Martin.......

So the answers are:

• Chester comes from the old English word 'ceaster' meaning a city or walled town. It was used to describe a walled town that had originally been a Roman station such as Dorchester. See http://www.blurtit.com/q714014.html.
• A winterbourne is a stream or river that is dry through the summer months. Winterbournes generally form in areas where there is chalk downland bordering clay valleys or vales. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winterbourne_(stream)

A very big weekend (including a castle visit)

We are just back home from a very big weekend. In summary: a castle (of course), a museum and two family pub meals (heaven).

On Friday afternoon, I abandoned the family and went to Cardiff with a work colleague named Reg. We went to watch Australia play Wales on Saturday afternoon. Reg, although from South Australia, is a rugby fan. He grew up in NSW.

We arrived in Cardiff, checked into the hotel and walked into the city for a pub dinner.

On Saturday morning we went to have a look at......Cardiff Castle.

After that we wandered around looking at the Christmas markets -- not that we were really interested in them. We had a Cornish pasty for lunch and then headed to the Millennium Stadium. Most of the game was pretty average. The last minute was incredibly exciting when Australia came from behind to score and win the game. It was the only time that the few hundred Australian supporters were louder than the 60,000 Welsh. Even with the stadium's roof closed it was very cold in the ground and after the match we walked back to the hotel to warm up. Back at the hotel, Reg left me to drive to London to catch a flight back to Australia. He has been away from his family for seven weeks.

Meanwhile, back in Weymouth the kids had been for haircuts, well one of them actually managed to get a haircut. The two youngest were turned away due to an outbreak of head lice. After lunch they went to see the lighting of the Weymouth Christmas tree.

On Sunday I caught a train to Bristol and Sarah and the kids (who were now treated for head lice) drove up to meet me. In Bristol we all went to At-Bristol, which is a kids-oriented science museum. They all really enjoyed it, Sarah loved the planetarium. Ben and Simon loved the animation exhibition with a set from Wallace and Grommit. Ella enjoyed an exhibit where you had to exercise and feed a human body simulation with the resulting other bodily functions.

There was a giant hamster wheel, which turned a water pump. I tried to get the kids tired out on it with no luck.

We also had a lovely pub lunch and on the way home had a pub dinner. A great day was had by all.

First frost

Yes. Today we had the first frost and it's only getting colder from here......

Weekend in Cornwall Part 2

Did I mention in part 1 how Ella slept in the car from Port Isaac to Plymouth . Well as a result, day 2 started very early in the girls room at 5:30. Ella's reason for this was that she was well rested from the previous day and was ready to get going. Sarah wasn't convinced.

After a good breakfast we went for a walk around Plymouth harbour. As usual some family members were unhappy about walking. Ben also informed me that he needed to visit the aquarium in Plymouth. When I said to him he had already been to the one in Sydney and also in Hong Kong. He replied with his usual foolproof logic that he needed to go to an aquarium in Europe now.

We saw the steps where the pilgrims had left for America. Unfortunately the Mayflower replica is currently in America as well.

Our next stop was the Eden project, which is an Eco project. In a reclaimed quarry a few domes have been constructed to create a rainforest environment and a Mediterranean one as well.

Each dome is triple glazed and gets very warm. In the rainforest dome there was a cool room for people not coping with the heat. Before entering the domes we were all rugged up for the cold and were wearing thermals. The photo of Ben and Ella is from the top of the dome where it is about 30 degrees. We were all quite sweaty.

There were some giant insects outside that amused the kids as well.

After the dome we drove home to get ready for the next busy week at school.

Weekend in Cornwall part 1

A few weeks ago we had our first overnight trip, which was to Cornwall. Once again we went with my work colleague Phil and his family. On Saturday morning we drove to Tintagel via a stop at Exeter ( Some tips: the highway services at Exeter are nowhere near the highway). Along the way we experienced the joys of getting stuck behind first a tractor and then a caravan.

Tintagel is an old castle from the time of King Arthur. It is situated high on a cliff and it was quite wet and windy. We really felt in England. There was a bit of walking involved which resulted in the usual whinging just to make you feel even more in England.

After a quick home-made lunch in a local car park we headed down some very narrow roads to Port Isaac where Doc Martin is filmed. Sarah kept on saying that she thought the road was a one way road because it was so thin. She saw that she was wrong when we saw cars coming the other way. We were lucky that they stopped for us to pass. Our friends were not so lucky and had to do quite a bit of reversing.

It started to rain a bit in Port Isaac so after a quick walk around the town we went into a little cafe for ice cream. Someone (guess who) had a cup of tea instead.

The Doc's house is to the right of the two white houses in the middle row

After the snack we headed to our hotel for the night in Plymouth, which was meant to be about an hours drive away. After the tractor and the caravan, we were stuck behind another evil of the English roads - the horse truck being driven by a learner driver. We made it into Plymouth just before 6pm and had a nice meal in the hotel. Ella had a sleep on the way so it was quite a peaceful drive. We split up in the hotel into a boys and girls room.



Stay tuned for part 2 : "Don't wear your thermals in a rain forest"

Legoland -- one of the key attractions of England

Yes, if you are a young boy Legoland is one of the best places ever!

The kids got to drive little cars around a track and get a  Legoland driver's licence.

There was a huge exhibit of Star Wars Lego with footage from the movie and soundtracks.

There is a little person inside this exhibit!

And there were several cities from around the world all modelled in Lego.

A great day was had by all but the colder northern temperatures of sub 5 degrees were a bit of a shock for us antipodeans!

This is where we live.

As I write this I am looking over to Portland Harbour. It is wet, grey and a fierce wind is blowing. Luckily it was sunny when I took the photos of the house. There have been numerous requests for further details of the house so here are a few photos.

Yes, the house has a name

 

  

This is the front of the house looking North

The house is one of three almost identical houses and is the middle one. Here is the back of the house which faces South so gets all of the sun.

See we already have a trampoline

Now for a bit of the inside - just like an episode of "Escape to the Country". We have three bedrooms on the bottom floor along with the garage. The kid's bedrooms were too messy to be shown on the blog at this time and I didn't get a chance to take photos of the master bedroom (hopefully they will appear in a future entry).

The photos below are from the upstairs living area. The door in the first photo leads to the guest bedroom, which has an en suite (email Sarah for rates and availability)

TV World, we have had sky hooked up

 

Parent's world with a views of Portland

The final photo is the view from the balcony, looking out across Portland Harbour.

View of Portland Harbour

Stay tuned for future posts with pictures of some of the other rooms.

One of our local castles

Just down the road from us, on the Rodwell trail is our local castle: Sandsfoot Castle. One Sunday morning Ben, Ella and I walked down to have a look. We are quite lucky because the castle was closed for a long time and was just reopened this year. I was lucky because the cafe was not open but I still had to outlay for an ice cream at a local shop on the way back.

It wasn't the largest castle to start off with when it was built and quite a lot of it has fallen into the sea due to erosion and some of the stone was taken for other buildings.

Not to worry though, we have been managing to visit a castle every few weeks, so we should be able find a bigger one.

English Schoolgirl

 

I know that certain people have been waiting for these photos.