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.

Weekend in Oxfordshire

Hi we are back.

Sorry for the blogging break. I have been busy with work and Sarah has been very busy looking after the children on their very long school holiday. Only two more weeks to go. I think Sarah will survive - only just. We have quite a few posts to publish with lots of photos. Just need to get the time.
The weekend after we returned from Australia we drove up to Oxfordshire for Sunday lunch with Sarah's cousin Catherine and her husband Bernard. It was too far for a day trip so we went up on Saturday and stayed the night in Milton Keynes. We left early on Saturday morning and on the way had a stop at Little Chef.

Some of our English friends back in Australia had said we should try and experience one of these fine establishments while we were in England. I think the main attraction is a large and cheap full English breakfast, which didn't really appeal to any of us. Once Sarah spotted some mould on a take away croissant it was decided the only real choice was a chocolate bar each and of course a cup of tea for Sarah. We can now tick this off from our list of things to do in England.
The plan was to head to Bletchley Park but we were making good progress so we stopped off at the factory outlet stores at Bicester. This was a fancy factory outlet centre with expensive brands so we came away empty handed. Even the boys thought £40 was a lot to spend on a pair of kids shorts.

In the afternoon, we made it to Bletchley Park. It was a fascinating place, where you stand in the rooms where history was being made that affects us all today. Once again there were audio guides. The children had no problems using them since the guides were just iPods in ruggedised cases. It was a rather warm day - probably over 25 degrees and Ben and Ella waned a bit so we went back to the hotel at about 3:30. Sarah took Simon back to the National Computer Museum, for some mother-son nerd bonding. Simon got to use Sarah's very first computers from school -- the BBC Micro.
On Sunday we had a lovely lunch with Catherine and Bernard. Their house is an old mill and has a stream running through the garden.The kids loved running around the big garden and only managed to lose one frisbee.