Winterfest

We had the school winterfest at the weekend...kind of an indoor fete but the emphasis is on craft activities for the children to do. J and his friends had made comics to sell (copies available on request) so we had to turn up at the beginning for that. M's dance club danced in the middle and I was rostered on face painting at the end so we spent about 4 hours at the winterfest. Not too bad, they were selling mulled wine (great for cold day).


M has also appeared on the cover of the council magazine! See if you can spot her...
http://www.cambridge.gov.uk/public/pdfs/cambridgematters/Cambridge_Matters_Winter_2007.pdf.

Big M is in Wellington still, off canoeing last night I think. She is home on Saturday after 3 weeks away so we are all quite excited!

Winter closing in...

We had our first frost on Wedensday night, the dew was frozen on the car windscreens outside our flat by 7pm and everything white in the morning. Big coats and gloves all round. M is in Ireland at the moment, just and overnight trip so no drama. Grandma is very fortunate to have got out before the cold really started to set in. M is off again at the end of the week to US and NZ so she at least will be warm!

Big News!

M has accepted the chair of Economics and Finance at Tas Uni so we will be going back to Tas. A chance to frighten the children with their Tasmanian extended family! We wont be leaving until October 2008, and M will continue here association with Cambridge for the next 4 years or so. We are planning to have 2 summers in a row, but since we are going from England to Tasmania that might require a bit of luck!

10th Birthday Celebrations

J's 10th birthday has been celebrated in style at the Shepreth Wildlife park. We took a few of his friends on the train from Cambridge...it is only 2 stops away and the wildlife park is right next to the station (20min ride for everyone this end though to get to the station). They all had a fantastic time, you cant go wrong with a zoo for small boys!
We took Grandma to Sutton Hoo to see the saxon ship burial mounds and museum...they found a major royal burial there in the early 20th century. Lots of fungi which fascinates little M (a lot of pictures of fungi taken).

I took Grandma out to Castle Rising with the kids...beautiful keep and huge ditch and bank (Isabella, the she wolf of france, lived there a number of years). The village there has a delightful tea room, very rustic. J has been hassling us to take grandma to castle rising the whole time as it is his favourite castle.

Grandma has gone back home now, J was very upset and couldnt sleep.

Grandma's Visit - Ely

Grandma is here, to much rejoicing from the children. She has been wandering around Cambridge getting her bearings and now it is time to make her look at stuff! We took her punting on the Cam and over to Ely to see the Cathedral. Ely is a lovely spot, plenty of space for the kids to riot in!
Little M is doing a project on the Victorians this term at school so there was more than usual interest in the Crimean war cannon.

We stopped at Devil's Dike on the way home so Grandma could see something Saxon. This is long ditch and mound (runs for about 10miles) dug to keep out the locals by saxons. There are quite a lot of them about east anglia.
We had a beautiful day for punting, lovely hazy autumn day, not too many people out on the river and the leaves on the wall of St Johns are stunning red. Even had a pair of swans to accompany us!

Quiet year so far...

We have been staying fairly close to home since moving in to the new place. We get wonderful sunsets from the loungroom window (smog over the M11 helps with the colour!).

M has been to the US and Aus, just back this week. She brought her mum with her, so the kids are over the moon with Mummy and Grandma to play with. Mummy and Grandma are still going to sleep about the same time as the kids, and up early to talk to J so it all works rather well!

One of our old friends from Tasmania, Scott, has been to stay for a few days and sampled the delights of a Cambridge autumn...we took him to the local museums and down to see the air museum at Duxford. Most importantly of course I took him punting and down to Grantchester for a scone. Heading into birthday season now...my birthday next week and J's just after. J wants to go to the zoo with just 6 or 7 close friends which could be a bit wearing. Probably have to go to London since his best friend at the moment gets really car sick really quickly and we can go to London on the train.

Back to School!

At last! Kids back to school today...I think they might be looking forward to it a bit by now, although they havent got over the excitement of being in the new house and having all their stuff back again (so they arent quite as sick of the holiday as they might have been if they had spent the whole 6 weeks shut up in the flat).

We are gradually acquiring furniture...M is off to Ikea today with Mette to order dining tables etc. Everything seems to have a 4 week delivery which is very annoying. Hoping the beds and bookcases will arrive this week so we can stop sleeping on the floor!

Homeless!

We have been very quiet for the last six weeks due to homelessness. The flat we were moving into wasnt ready in time and the builders kept saying finish next week...we left our old place on 22 June and finally moved in here on 15 August. Apart from some weirdness (no toilet roll holder, no cupboard doors in our room) it is nice. Much smaller than the old place but nice to have a modern environment. We miss the garden and the neighbours but the old ladies who live on our stairwell are lovely. We are gradually collectin furniture...everthing takes weeks to deliver in england so even though we bought beds as soon as knew we were able to move in they wont be here for a couple more weeks yet.
While we were homeless we went to Wales, which is about a 5 hour drive if the traffic conditions are good. Culturally it is quite like going from Sydney to Hobart...every one is friendlier and more relaxed and it rains a lot. The day we left Canbridge there were floods all along the border and the only certain access was past Bristol in the south or right up north, but as we had nowhere to live we went anyway!


It rained a lot the first few days...we camped at Dan y Ofog (I think) in the Brecon Beacons which is a cave complex, dont know what the caves are like really because every time we tried to go into one the water level rose and they closed it on us. Fortunately (an for no paticular reason we could see) the cave reserve was infested with lifesize fibreglass dinosaurs which the kids thought was fantastic (note: you cant shelter from the rain under a diplodocus it runs down the sides and drips on you underneath, actually it cascades on torrents).


We very quickly gave up on the hills and decided to head for the beach at the Gower Peninsula, a place called Port Eynon. Lovely beach and quite a pleasant camp ground right next to it. Lots of people but in large field so it didnt feel all that crowded (and we are getting used to it a bit). Kids loved the beach and the weather wasnt too bad. We all had a go at Archery which was a great success with the kids, might have to join the local archery club..


From here we went to Newgale Beach near St Davids which at low tide is several hundred yards wide. At high tide the water comes right up to the shingle bank and there is no sand. Went body boarding and did a surfing class with the kids...they can both stand up. St Davids cathedral is fantastic and St Davids is smaller than I thought it would be. I did the coast path from St Davids back to Newgale which is about 10 miles. Every little headland has an iron age hill fort and the coast is all crumbling cliffs and rocks.



We managed to find a little B'n'B for a week at the end so Mardi could get some work done in a beautiful little town called Solfach which was near St Davids...a picture postcard place. The BnB was right on the waterfront, did some walks, went crab fishing off the quay, play ground right next door and they had a regatta while we were there. The kids entered swimming, diving and silly jumping events and had a blast.

Slack Bloggers!

We have been very quiet on the blogging front for a while due to hectic metropolitan lifestyle! We have been moving house so a bit focussed on that. Had a visit from Melissa and Michael (friends from RBA in Sydney) and their daughter Emily. Visit was a bit eclipsed by our friend Maggi having a massive migraine and being hospitalised - we got a phone call from her son Ben at 8:30am asking if we could come and help his mum so M ended up at the hospital with Maggi for most of that day and Ben stayed with us for a couple of nights. Maggi is only just now (3 weeks later) starting to really recover - hope I never have a migraine like that! M didnt get to do all the things she had planned with Melissa, but at least they got to see Cambridge.

We have had Renee to stay, and M and Renee went to Dublin for a conference, then we moved all our stuff to the garage of the new flat (it isnt ready yet for us to move in to) and cleaned up the old place, moved in with Maggi and Ben for few days before we get a unit at Clare Hall. M has shot off to Provence for this week. Quite wet here now, floods everywhere except Cambridge, but the way the rain was coming down this morning it may just be a matter of time!

Grandad's Trip to Mt Field

Grandad has been hassling all week to go to Mt Field...kept getting out the map and pointing to where he wanted to go, so in spite of some rain this morning (which brought a prolonged bout of what sounded like swearing from Grandad) we set out up the Derwent Valley (he very definitely said hooray when we said we would go anyway). He sits in the front passenger seat and keeps an eye on speed (dont go too fast or slow), what gear you are in and what lane you are in...it is very annoying. Stopped at his friend Ian's place for morning tea and to pick a couple of cases of Ian and Sue's wine (they have a few acres of vines) and then off to Mt Field. Grandad managed to walk most of the 1.3km track to the falls and back but we weren't allowed to hang about afterwards and had to come straight home.

Sue flies home in the morning - looks like I will have to get up VERY EARLY to take her to the airport. I am off home on Tuesday. With luck I will catch up with Ben for one last climb at the gym tomorrow

Dads trip to Tas

My dad has finally come home from hospital after 4 months so I have headed home to help him settle in and help mum for 3 weeks. Dad is doing well, still cant communicate very well but we are seeing small improvements. He can walk all the way along Blackmans Bay beach front (800m - he made us measure it in the car) with a couple of rests and a hot chocolate along the way! The biggest problem is stopping him wandering about...I took him to the tip with me to dipose of a trailer load of rubbish that Kim and Rob had left for me to get rid of - I was driving slowly and carefully and he indicated that I should go faster and do 100 on the highway at which point the trailer came off the towball and we had to pull up (no emergency lane). I got out to fix the trailer and by the time I got round the back of the landcruiser dad was out of the car and heading round to supervise. When we got to the tip he was out of the car as soon as we stopped. Mum tried to leave him in the car while she nipped in to the butchers and she found him trying to get in the door of the butchers as she left. He is a bit of a trial at times!
This is the back end of a seal that hangs around the fish punts in Constitution Dock picking up scraps, something for J and little M who saw him when they were here in January. Both kids a bit miffed that I didnt bring them with me!
Caught up with Ben and Heather - Heather is crewing this Sydney 38 called Asylum and invited me out for an afternoon race this week - if I can get away I am invited out for Saturday morning as well. It was great to be out on the water again after a very long time! Big M is coming over to Tas in september so I will ask Heather if she can go out with them while she is here. I am very stiff and sore, forgot how physical sailing is!

Easter

Another easter...is this the third in England? We went up to Norfolk with Ben and Maggi and stayed in a 3 bed unit at Horningtoft about 10 miles from the coast. Horningtoft is a beatiful village...3 houses, church, not even a pub. Took the kids for walks around the fields in the evening to see badger holes, weasel/stoat tracks, partridges. Drove up friday, we got away by 9:30 and a pretty clear run of about 2 hours to the coast with a stop at Castle Acre Priory. Maggi and Ben left an hour later and spent twice as long getting there in traffic.
We went to Wells-next-the-Sea which has a nice beach, but as on our previous visit (when little M had her arm in plaster) the weather (fine and sunny inland) was grey and freezing cold. A stiff onshore wind and water as cold as snow melt. Kids had a great time as always, but soon went blue so we headed off to the little house at Horningtoft. Great yard for them to play in so they wore themselves out.
Day 2 we went to see Godwick mediaeval village site...just some bumps and humps in a paddock but one of the 5 best abandoned mediaeval villages in Norfolk according to the sign. Appeared in the Domesday book and largely depopulated in the 1300s by plague so a fairly good ground plan remaining of how it would have looked. After that off the Castle Acre again to the Castle (ditches and earth banks for a picture - it is quite impressive from the air) and the Priory again. The priory was suppressed by Henry VIII as usual, so only a ruin but a very beautiful one. One of the better examples of a mediaeval monastic toilet block...about a 100 holer by the size of it.
Day 3 we went to Blakeney to see the Common Harbour Seals...about a 3.5 mile walk along a 'beach' to where the seals haul out on the sand. J's feet gave out and he hobbled back to the car with M, Maggi Ben and little M made it all the way to the seals which were worth the walk. A hundred or more seals on the sand spit. Little M was still going strong by the time we got back to the car after 7 miles of beach walking!
Tired grown ups and tired children...stopped at Castle Rising on the way home on Monday and then the girls all took to their beds when got back to Cambridge after their hard weekend!
This week has been a quiet week at home for them...we built trebuchet's on Wednesday (promised J cause M's class did this at school), Thursday they played all day with friends in the area...rioting up and down between the different houses in a big group of 8 kids and the same today. We will miss this aspect of Newnham Croft when we move from here. Looks like we have found somewhere to live on Gough Way about 1km from here. The kids will get more exercise getting to and from school! Only a couple of weeks before head home to see how dad is getting on...

More weekends

On weekend of 3 March we went to Oxford to visit friends. Kids all went iceskating which they thought was a complete blast - and fortuitously there is 'iceskating' on at the school this Friday. They come and coat the school hall floor with some substance which simulates ice. Both looking forward to that a lot!! Consequently little M has appropriated J's in line skates, as they are far more impressively like iceskating. Poor J has to line up for a new pair when his parents can afford it (they were getting too small). Big M really wants to try it, but rest of family is ganging up on her saying she will regret falling over a LOT. oh well. J has been sick with tonsilitis again, so quiet day at home today, bit of in line skating for little M and some playing with friends. J has another friend, also J, who came round and they did 'experiments' with all the excess bottles of bits and pieces I am gradually clearing out of the cupboards in anticipation of our move at end of June (where to, who knows we have to wait until closer to the date to get available properties). We are looking forward to hopefully having somewhere the plumbing and electrics might work (could be a faint hope) but not to moving!

Paxton Pits

After our recent emergency globetrotting it is time to start doing local things again...that means cheap. So we headed off to Paxton Pits nature reserve on Sunday for a short walk in the mud and a spot of bird watching. This is, as the name suggests, an old gravel quarry which has been rehabilitated as lakes. The quarry is still active and you walk past some of the workings.


Masses of waterbirds - we saw black cormorants and herons nesting, lots of swans, coots, moorhens, tufted ducks, wigeon, pochard and even (this is apparently quite exciting) some smew. This sounds like something awful out of one of little M's My Little Pony videos but is in fact a rather handsome black and white duck.



They occasionally get otters in the lakes but J was disappointed this time around. The day was rather cold and the ground was muddy in places but a pleasant walk all the same. Little M insisted on joining the Friends of Paxton Pits

Raptor Foundation

A weekend of cleaning for the old folk, although little M was busy, birthday party and 'International Thinking Day' - a girl guides thing on Saturday. Went over to Ben and Maggie's on Saturday evening for dinner. R had a horrendous hangover on Sunday morning for which he got absolutely no sympathy from M, so we went out the the Raptor Foundation at St Ives. This is mostly a bird rescue centre but they have a number of birds just for display...an awful lot of eagle owls which look they could eat a small child! Volounteers were helping the kids make bird boxes (so of course we now have 2 bird boxes!) They have a very interactive flying display and we all got to hold an owl. Back to school on Monday...

Vienna

Little Ms birthday wish was to see Pandas (J went to see otters at Shepreth) so we have been to the Tiergarten in Vienna (the closest Pandas to Cambridge other than Berlin). She invite one friend from school - which worked cos we mentioned it to them as a pie in the sky idea and they thought it a great idea so their whole family came too. It was great to get to know them better. A good time was had by all, although little M was a bit difficult at times.
The Pandas did the right thing and ate bamboo, walked around a bit, wee'd and generally looked like pandas. They were pretty cool actually. Vienna zoo's other big attraction is that other famous not moving plant eating animal... the koala! Irreverant Australians were roundly ssshuusshed by the awe inspired Austrians gazing devotedly at snoozing koalas - they were worried we would wake them up - as if!! Tiergarten was pretty good. Deserted in the morning, lovely wander around, then suddenly PACKED in the afternoon. Turned out to be some childrens day or something (we understood very little), think they all went to church in the morning then off to zoo for the afternoon. It was quite a nice day, about 8 degrees - quite a contrast to the usual deep snow expected at this time of year. We were very lucky with the weather the whole trip.
On the 2nd day we went to town to see the cathedral and on to the museums via a walk through the streets and park. Really lots of beautiful buildings. Little M chose to go to a Medicin sans frontiers display on refugee camps at the special childrens activity centre in the Vienna museum quarter (I know, but what can you do!). The other kids werent having any of that so little and big M went off to learn about refugees. She was very interested and involved, I cant say I know quite what to make of that but other than refusing to engage in eye contact with her guide (being the only English speakers there we had one to one guide) she took it all in and was quite informed. They were very impressed that she actually knew how a pit toilet worked (sheltered european kids in general). And we learnt you could use sand or stones instead of toilet paper, but neither of us impresssed with those options! Kids were exhausted after all that so back to our flats. We had a great place to stay, 2 flats one over the other (best for thundering elephants to play in top flat) with good location near U-bahn and plenty of space. One tip is dont arrive in Vienna on a Sunday as NOTHING is open, you can only buy food to eat at the airport!! Problem if you are self-catering! Thankfully our guide book had told us this so we had some supplies.

Third day R took J to armory for a break from excess little girls. They had a great time away all day. The others went to see the famous clock where figures march across the face at noon - pretty impressive, the figures are HUGE and it takes 15 minutes to complete this show. Then we went to a park to find that most important of all features - a playground, on to a coffee shop catering for kids, tho in general a little younger than ours. And so to the end of the day again. The most important adult accomplishments were that we a) drank our full VERY LARGE bottle of gin and b) we only bought 1 small soft toy for the kids as part of the birthday outing as our Austrian souveniers + a few postcards. The $5 backpackers have nothing on us for cheap tourism! We came and went via Dusseldorf which was a bit of a drag but saved us leaving at 5am in the morning which we all appreciated. And that was Vienna.

Snow!

We have finally had our snow for the winter...90% of schools in Cambridgeshire closed for the day (thankfully not ours).

Where have we been??

We have been away for a while...R's dad had a stroke so we have been back to Tasmania for the last 3 weeks. R's sister rang at 2am on Sunday 7 Jan and after a short period of prevarication we managed to book flights and be on a plane out of Heathrow by midday. This now holds the record for our shortest preparation for an international flight! The trickiest bit turned to be getting to Heathrow - we drove down and left the car in the long term car park (Purple Parking - they were really good and we paid for them to wash the car while we were away). It was touch and go for a while though as there was very little petrol in the car and the nearest open service station was down near Stansted. Huge check in and security queues of course!

The only 4 seats we could get together were right down the back by the toilets, which we were a bit worried about, but it turned out to be really good as there are only the 4 centre seats with a little bit of standing room either side so the kids could get up and stretch their legs. Went via Hong Kong and M was upgraded to Business Class for the leg from Hong Kong to Melbourne. Looking at her wreck of a husband she ceded to him and the kids and she felt very very virtuous while Daddy slept off some of his anxiety in luxury. Now he sees the point - pity we cant afford it and academics have to travel economy as a matter of policy - almost enough to make you get a real job.


So kids had a sort of good time in Tasmania, they got to see their grandparents. Made many trips to the hospital and gladly informed all who asked that Grandad was getting better thankyou. Went to the beach in between times. J's Grandpa made him a sword (yes thats right, see the picture for full impact, made of huge piece of steel). Saving grace is its so heavy that it tires him out quickly. Its oiled and wrapped and stored at Grandpas!! Didnt really fancy bringing it back through security (cant imagine why). Little M had a birthday party with her cousins which was lovely. Big M went to Canberra for a few days at the end, which was hot. We all got suntanned a bit (look very European now) but not sunburnt as we managed last year thankfully. So now we are back, exhausted and poor, on with life. R is intending to go back to Tas to see his Dad in May if circumstances permit.

Happy New Year!

We made it through another whole year! And we even went out for New Year's eve this year. The local pub closed for a private party which had a kids room and bands and we all went along for some drinks and chat with local friends. It was nice to go out for NY as we havent done so for a while. Little M crashed at about 10, but J made it through to 1 am watching 007 with his dad!
Not much going on here as winter shut down sets in. We went to the pantomime on Sat which was a blast, very silly. The main cast have stayed the same over the past 3 years and they do a good line in slapstick comedy - buckets of water etc etc, the political satire is a little lame but my dad would love the puns = ie they are truly awful. Theatre season is great here - the Mikado is on soon from the local G&S society so we will probably try and see that one. Other than that highlights have been J being able to walk to Granchester again without completely collapsing from foot pain, another expensive visit to the dentist by big M. Apparently my teeth (which are just like everyone elses teeth) need extra care as perhaps the reason my siblings have few fillings and I have lots is due not to childhood eating and brushing habits (which were the same) but due to differences in mouth flora. Basically I got really sick of being told by dentists that its all my fault and clearly I didnt brush my teeth - when I am a stickler and R is hopeless and NEVER has a filling. So being the annoying academic that I am we managed to agree that averages are part of a distribution and that not everyone would end up with the same outcome from exactly the same care regime cos there are actually differences in people's saliva etc (so R now loves to tell people to watch out for my acid spit). Now I am much happier because we have worked out a few things that are good for me to do so that there will be no more decay work, only restoration work of the already mountainous set of fillings. (For those of you with unhealthy interest in dental care this means brushing with water as soon as I get up, brushing as soon as possible after meals, a special 'clinging' mouthwash for overnight). Oh another piece of invaluable advice for all chocoholics..... if you MUST eat 10 squares of chocolate eat them all at once, not one piece an hour as then the bacteria only get one go! Best excuse I have heard! And in case you are wondering the bill is $A210 for the check up and then $A1250 for the 3 fillings - feeling better about your healthcare costs now??