We Are Home

Just to let you know that we are now back in Cobar St. All the boxes have been unpacked. The children are back at school. I am back working at Macquarie Park. Sarah has finished her teaching course.

This will be my last blog entry for a while. I hope you enjoyed reading about our adventure.

Cheers
Michael

Big houses and little homes

This is the last of the summer recaps.
On two of the weekends before the cruise we went to the town of Wimborne Minster - home of the chain library. On the first weekend we went to visit Kingston Lacy, which is a large country house just outside of the town.
The house has some nice gardens and a walking trail around the grounds. Ben found some local cattle.

With the dollar dropping against the pound we have had to tighten our belts. This was the first time that we have taken our own picnic lunch on an outing and despite the usual complaints no one went hungry. Deck chairs were also provided - you have to love the National Trust.

Notice the lunch box!

 After lunch Sarah took the boys to have  look inside the house which has a good collection of famous artwork. I drew the short straw and kept Ella company outside. One of the interesting things was the size of the laundry - about the same size as a two bedroom cottage. They took washing seriously in the old days.
 
On the second weekend we went to check out the model village in Wintereborne. The kids were given a list of things to find in the village, which turned out to be rather hard because of the size of the model village. The good thing was that it kept everyone occupied for quite a while.

Anyone for sausages?

Inspiring young engineers

A few weekends ago we took the kids to Bristol for the day to see two great engineering achievements:

1. The SS Great Britain
2. The Clifton Suspension Bridge.

Hopefully they will be inspired to take up the noble profession.

 

 

Coming home

Winter is around the corner, the days are getting shorter and the weather colder. You can see the geese flying south for the winter in the skies above Weymouth.

Our England adventure will be ending in a few weeks. We will be flying out of London on the 23rd October and arriving in Sydney on the 25th and back in Cobar St on the 28th. I am expecting to be in Bunnings on the following Saturday to pick up pool supplies when I will then feel truly home.

The County Show.

Last weekend we went to the Dorset County Show, which was in Dorchester about 20 minutes away. When Sarah first told the kids about going, their first question was: "Are there show bags? Not a good start.
When we arrived it was sunny and warm so we all applied our factor 50 sun screen. The locals who walked passed us must have thought we very strange. 

There was quite a lot to see and after a while we needed to stop and refuel. Tea for Sarah and ice creams for the children.

We did consider the donuts, but they were being hand made and there was a large queue, so we opted just for the photos.

 

 

Ben and I went for a walk while the others snacked and Ben saw the tent I wanted to visit but it was a bit early.

The kids had a great time with the animals. They all loved the birds and Ella got to take part in the Ferret racing.

Go Ferret, Go Ferret Go!

Before lunch we relented and let them have one ride - a giant inflatable slide. Ella was a bit tentative at the start but went down with one of the supervisors and then thought it was easy.

Sarah wasn't game to try the cider.

We wondered around for a bit more and then came home as it was threatening rain. In the evening my work colleague Mick and his son Ben came over for a BBQ and brought marshmallows to toast.

We were lucky we went on the Saturday because it rained most of Sunday.

Finally

After almost 3 months, school started again. I think Sarah breathed a big sigh of relief in the morning. The stress had returned in the afternoon when three tired children started complaining about their homework.

 

 

The Shipping News - Homeward bound

On Day 5, we stopped at our last Norwegian destination of Stavenger. Once again Sarah had done the shore excursion research and we headed off to the Norwegian Oil Museum. Stravenger has boomed on the back of the North Sea oil fields.

Don't press the red button.

Suckers for a large cuddly toy

Old Stavenger viewed from the ship

In the afternoon the kids tackled the rock climbing wall on the funnel of the ship.

The next day was spent at sea - with the children mainly in the kids club. The parents had a bit of a rest. We arrived home early on the Sunday morning. The first questions asked on the way home from Southampton - what are we having for dinner tonight? and what are we doing tomorrow? The holiday was over. 

The Shipping News - A perfect day in Flam with Sue and Anders.

On day 4 we arrived in the very small town of Flam, which is at the end of one of the fjords.

Sarah had arranged to spend the day with her cousin Sue and her husband Anders who live on a farm overlooking the harbour. They had kindly volunteered to show us the around for the day.

Their house is the white one just to the left of the centre of the photo. You can rent the red house on the hill.

Sue met us at the dock and we walked up to the farm. Ella had been anxious about having lunch off the ship but Sue came through with delicious waffles that won her over. (What doesn't taste good with sugar sprinkled over it?). The kids wandered around the garden for a bit while Anders met with a vet who had come over to check out a few cows. They also found a big box of Lego and were only convinced to leave the house with a promise of a boat tour of the fjord.

 

We stopped at a waterfall and then had lovely lunch of home made waffles, with home made raspberry jam and other toppings. Ella had one and a half waffles.

After lunch we stopped off at a little village where Anders's mother had grown up and the kids all had an ice cream with some delicious Norwegian chocolate that Anders had bought in protest for Sue not getting him an ice cream as well. The kids all got a turn at the wheel with Simon declaring this as the  highlight of the whole cruise.

The family with Sue.

Captain Simon

Captain Ella

 Once Anders took back the wheel from Ella we made it safely back to the dock and went back to the house. The kids went off raspberry picking - even Ella who doesn't eat them but kindly picked a punnet for me.

For all of us it was by far the best day of the trip, picture postcard weather and the most fantastic hosts. If any family member reading this blog gets a chance to go to Norway I recommend catching up with Sue and Anders. It is not every day that you can get off a cruise ship in a small town and have your own personal escorts for the day.

The Shipping News - Part 1.

We are just back from a great cruise to Norway. Unfortunately it was only a week and we are now back in the reality of cooking, cleaning and keeping three children entertained as there is still one week of holidays to go. We sailed from Southampton. There was a days sailing before we reached our first destination, Alesund, after lunch on day 2.  It was overcast and sprinkling, which is the Noway I was familiar with.

Sarah had studied the shore excursions guide and suggested that the best activity was a walk to a lookout above the town. As you can imagine that idea went down well.

You want us to walk where?

After some convincing and numerous rest stops we made it to the top. Requests for ice cream were denied - due to lack of Kroner and the fact that there was ice cream on the ship that we had already paid for,

On day 3 we entered the fjords and after lunch we arrived in Skjolden which was very beautiful.

The shore excursion had been identified and after the usual grumbling we walked to the very Norwegian activity of a llama farm (run by an English farmer who had been there about 10 years). The kids were very happy patting and feeding the animals. They also grew raspberries on the farm and I picked up a punnet for about $5. They tasted a lot nicer than the ones we are buying in England.

my mother said don't take food from strangers

Sarah and Simon then went on a walk to the local lookout and along the way picked some wild - free raspberries.

delicious and free!

Very Big Boys Toys.

At the end of June, I was signed up to take the boys and one of Ben's friends, Alex, to the biggest weekend in the tank lover's calendar - TankFest. I am sure you can guess the venue - Simon and Ben's favourite museum in England - The Tank Museum. The only drawback was I would be missing the 2nd Lions test match (the only one we won).

We arrived nice and early just after 10AM. One thing the English seem to enjoy is dressing up. There were heaps of re-enactments. Nothing like spending a warm day sitting in trench dressed up as a WWII soldier. When we walked in we thought some of the displays were static with dummies inside until the people on them started moving.

There were a couple of toy tanks and the boys had a go driving them.

Once they went into the museum I lost them and had to spend about 45 minutes looking for them. I finally tracked them down at the World for Tanks exhibit - which is a computer game the boys play. Why look at real tanks when you can spend time on a computer?
After lunch we watched the the live tank demo, which was quite impressive including a working Tiger tank from WWII.

Not a Tiger tank but a modern Leopard tank.