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.