A new favourite

In a country that prides itself on its ice cream (think Cornwall, think Vanilla, think Clotted Cream) we have done the unthinkable and gone yankee.

Meet Ben and Jerry.  These two are welcome in our house any day.

Yes - Ben and Jerry hail from the US of A and judging from the price they obviously travel over here first class.  The only reason we currently have 4 of them inhabiting our freezer is they were on special at Waitrose, 2 for £6, and you know us  - can't resist a bargain (don't say it Conrad!).

Wellies on!

Living on Greenfields Close comes with a "dealing with ratty kids" bonus.  And the clue is in the name, there are green fields that (funnily enough) are close.

Take Wednesday evening for example.  Ferral city - non-stop jumping, biffing, whining and general mucking around.  Me - narrow eyes, simmering, slowly getting to the boil.  Steve suited up and planning his escape to work (stay tuned - that's another blog).

Aaargh - what to do, what to do.

Alright you kids - get your wellies on - we're going exploring. It had been raining (did I mention it rains a bit here?) hence the need for the wellies.

Walking in wellies adds a whole new dimension to wet weather. No longer do you need to mince around mud patches or tip toe delicately past puddles. With wellies it is "Bring 'em on!". The more mud patches and the deeper the puddles the better.

So off we went, wandering through the fields and the woods, the rain held off and the sun came out. We saw squirrels, pheasants, pigeons and a fox. Daniel and Jeremy did skids in the mud and Emily skipped and frolicked and I went off the boil J.

Sunnymede Fun Day

Last Saturday Emmy's school had a fun day and me being such a fete expert (go on - ask me anything about Slushies and Sno Cones) volunteered to help.

We were on the Bottle Tombola stall - 3 tickets for a pound - with any ending in a 0, 5 or 7 winning one of the bottles on offer.  And here's the interesting bit - the drinks ranged from (yawn) soft drinks, mineral water and juices to (hang on a minute!) bottles of wine, brandy and whiskey.  It's funny how parents stop indulging their children for a minute when they're presented with the choice of a bottle of diet coke versus a Chardonnay J.  Suddenly it's Mum or Dad who is desperately thirsty J.

Anyhow, before our formal duties began we had a quick look around.  The boys were on a play date with their new best friend Reggie so Emily got a bit spoilt and spent up big. Her favourite was the £1 "grab a teddy bear with a big pair of pincers" stall and she scored well.

Meet Billy (short for Billericay) ..... I think it's love J

M walking Billy home through the meadows

Art collection

The Price mini art collection has started!

And first up we have a beautiful print created by Rhian Symes of Brecon in South Wales entitled "Dragonfly and Common Frog".  Rhian started painting water colours 10 years ago after suffering a stroke.  Her story is here: www.artgallery.co.uk/corner/rhian_symes

Dragonfly and common frog.

And then we move on to the first of two Cornwall purchases, starting with these little cuties.

Cornwall puppies

And followed closely by some cheeky little beach babes.

These crack me up (no pun intended - well maybe just a little one - ha!)

Given that art work is not exactly the easiest thing to cart home, plus the fact that we've pretty much used up all the available hooks in the house (and we're not supposed to add anymore) I think that brings us to the end of the art work collection for the moment.  Unless of course something else cracks me up J

Mademoiselle Emilie

When we were in Paris I bought myself a hat. Perhaps I should have bought two of them?

Is anyone else thinking Timmy when they look at Mademoiselle Emilie?

Windows

I'm not quite sure why but I have a bit of an obsession with the window design over here.  Not only do our house windows look good, but they are double glazed and have not one, but two different ways of opening.  So here for your viewing pleasure is a snapshot of our bedroom window in all it's double-glazed glory.....

Key:
1. Handle down - window closed
2. Handle up - window open a smidge
3. Handle horizontal - window open fully

And anyone studying these pictures in detail will have noticed that something is missing.  Yep - fly screens, the reason being there aren't any flies.

Well actually that's not strictly true - there are flies that hang around the cows and their pats in Mill Meadow, but it seems that English flies are far more well behaved than Australian ones and stay where they should.  So - at the end of the day....

J the flies bug the cows and sit on their pats 

 and 

we get open windows and don't need corks in our hats J

(Emily's school has a poetry competition coming up - I think I've been inspired)

Emily's journey to school

Alrighty then.  Here is how Miss M gets to school.  We set off nice and early.  School starts at 8:55am and there's a long walk ahead, which starts off with a straightforward bit through the streets.

After that - we take a "short cut" through Mill Meadow.

In the in gate

Along the path

It is beautiful in here



A bit further along the path

Mind the cow pat

Good one Mum


Phew, getting tired

Past the cows

And out the out gate


Damn - late! Only 2 minutes, but the door to Emmy's classroom is shut, which means buzzing to get into the main building, going to the reception desk and filling in a form stating reasons for lateness, our entry for today - "too many cow pat pictures on the way in". Lucky for us though that wasn't necessary, Emmy's teacher spotted us standing forlornly outside the door, took pity and let us in, no mention of the pats needed!

A London Getaway

Today I spent the day in London with fellow Aussie and work colleague Kelly.  This was a treat on so many levels.

J  A day in London minus kids
J  A day in London minus husband
J  A day in London minus planning (whee hee thank you Kelly)

I caught the 9:37 train from Billericay and very diligently read 34 pages of my Stuarts and Tudors of England kids history book on the journey in.  Arrived at Liverpool St station and jumped on the underground to Queensway, where I met Kelly, but she was not alone.  There it was - right next to her - a bike!  A "Boris Bike" (named after London's Mayor Boris Johnson) to be precise. Bike docking stations are located throughout London giving you access to around 6,000 bikes at 400 locations and visitors and residents alike are encouraged to use the bikes as a new form of public transport.

We started off in Kensington Gardens and saw the soon to be home of Kate and Wills - Kensington Palace; the Albert Hall and Albert Memorial: the round pond, the Serpentine and the Princess Dianna memorial fountain.  Then it was across to Hyde Park corner, through the Wellington Arch and down Constitution Hill to Buckingham Palace.  Riding is a great way to see London, but we certainly didn't need bikes for our next destination - Harrods.

I went to Harrods when I was 19 and had memories of the fresh fish display, so that's where we headed.  The new parts of the store looked like David Jones, but the food halls were sort of how I remember them - I say sort of because age 19 was a long long time ago!  One thing both Kelly and I noticed was how completely over-staffed the store was, in fact if you'd taken the 60 staff out of the perfume section I think there would have been only 2 people left - me and Kelly!

After Harrods it was off to Covent Gardens for a bite to eat and then a quick visit to Trafalgar Square and Westminster Bridge and then back to Kelly's place in Kensington.  On the way we passed a street with £16m pound houses, one of which is owned by Dustin Hoffman.  Kelly passed him one day on the street!  I must be a groupie because I would have LOVED to have had a squiz at Dustin, or any other star but sigh - there were none about, not even Kylie.

Middle left, Dustin Hoffman's street.

And after a cup of tea and a welcome sit down it was back to Billericay.  Thank you Kelly, I had a ball J  

Squirrel stalking ☺

Saturday was squirrel stalking day.  Armed with monkey nuts we hit Lake Meadow park in the early afternoon.  I'd say we were pretty successful!

Greenfields

And due to popular demand (well just the one request actually) here are some pictures of the inside of our house.

Let me walk you though, left to right, starting from top left.

• This is our boot room, it is where we chuck all our shoes and coats.  In an attempt to keep the carpet clean and following on from Stew and Donna, we have a no shoe policy.  I think we'll try to continue it in Aus, but having a boot room makes it so much easier.

• The hallway - as you can see you have a choice, either up or down.  Let's stay downstairs J

• Keep going straight and you get to the kitchen.  The kiddies eat in here and we (very naughtily) eat in the lounge room in front of the telly.  Might have to look at changing that so we have quality family meal time (or maybe not!).

• The lounge room with Steve's new 51" plasma!

• Bedrooms x 4 - ours, Daniel's, Emily's and Jeremy's.  Having the boys in separate bedrooms is working well and Daniel is giving it the thumbs up.  I think Jeremy would still like to share so he can pester Daniel when he's trying to get to sleep.  Another practice we will continue back in Aus.

• Our bathroom.  Note the cyclamens on the window ledge. £1.30 each - bargain!

School

First day of school and it was definitely Steve and I who were the most excited.  Don't get me wrong, Daniel, Jeremy and Emily have been good since we left, no pining or whining about going home or anything like that, but they are definitely ready for school (well we think they are!).

So after 4 uniform shopping trips we are set.

Unfortunately Emily is not at the same local school as the boys, which will become a bit of a problem should I start working.  

Anyway here they are -the boys in their Quilters Junior School uniforms and Emily in her £2 Sunnymede Infant School dress.

As well as the day to day uniform, the kiddies also have a PE uniform, school swimming gear and school bags.  

They looked great as they set off for their first day, with everything nice and clean - hmmm - will have to enjoy the "clean" moment because I'm sure it won't last long.

Comments after day 1 of school.

Emily - I LOVE SCHOOL, I love it, I love it, I love it!!

Jeremy - It was ok, the teachers are really old, one even has white hair!

Daniel - Not good, they made us do work all day!

Imperial War Museum - Duxford

Now this is what a museum is all about!  I can't begin to say how good this place is.

It consists of 8 massive hangars, brilliant displays and hundreds of planes, many still capable of flight.  We started our visit in the Air Space hanger that covers the history, physics and today's commercial uses of flight.  The displays were hands on and brilliant and the historical presentation really emphasises how far this industry has come in such a short space of time.  From man's early efforts in hot air balloons to the Wright brother's historic flight in 1903 through to the commercial flight industry of today, space travel and of course the role of planes in the wars.

I kept thinking my Dad would be in heaven in this place, but really anyone would appreciate the wealth of information and history this museum has to offer.  The hangars dedicated to the Land Warfare and the Battle of Britain are moving and by the time we'd been through both Daniel was quite convinced of how wrong and pointless it was to go to war!

If you do come to England and want to go to a brilliant museum this is definitely the place!

We got to go inside the Concorde!

St Ives

Just 4 miles from our accommodation at Bluntisham was the delightful little village of St Ives.  We first visited late in the afternoon and liked it so much we returned for another visit the next day.

St Ives is an ancient riverside market town, built on the banks of the Great Ouse River over 1000 years ago.  It is famous for the beautiful Chapel Bridge and for being home to one time resident Oliver Cromwell.

Newmarket and the National Stud

After Wicken Fen we headed here - The National Stud.

The original aim of the stud was to supply the Government with high quality light weight cavalry horses for use in war campaigns around the world. Technological advances in artillery and warfare however meant the need for this programme was short lived, but the Government retained the site and horses and concentrated instead on the improvement of the Thoroughbred breed.

The National Stud is the place stallions want to be - they spend their time waltzing around paddocks, eating, eye-balling their neighbours and of course performing their "covering" services.  We took a tour of the stud and our guide went into a bit of detail about the covering process and whooshka - straight over the kiddies heads.  There were no questions - and I am glad Jeremy - who is very good at asking questions - didn't put his hand up to ask what all this "covering" was about. J

Some of the stallions in residence are called "shuttle stallions" which means they travel between the hemispheres to spread their love.  I was wondering why they didn't just transport the stallion's little wigglies instead of transporting the whole kit and caboodle, but apparently it is illegal world-wide to use artificial insemination to breed thoroughbred racehorses!

Palatial accommodation for the stallions!

Wicken Fen

Today we spent over 2 hours wandering around Wicken Fen.  And what is exactly is a fen?  Well I wasn't sure until a) we got there and b) I googled.

Here's a tiny intro into to the world of fens.......

Fens are like bogs, swamps and marshes in that they are areas of waterlogged land supporting a wide variety of plants and animals adapted to live in damp conditions. Bogs, swamps and marshes are fed by rainwater or water draining from the land (known as "run-off"), which makes them acidic. Fens on the other hand, though often formed like bogs on waterlogged peat, are usually fed by water from below ground, which tends to be alkaline (chalky). For this reason fens have a unique variety of plants and animals, all depending in some way on alkaline ground conditions.

And so we entered the fen and took the nature trail walk, and that's when the hunting and stalking began.  There was lots of hushing, sneaking, creeping and crawling to get pictures like these....

Note dragonfly (or was it a damsel fly) on bottom left, very flighty and very difficult to photograph.
Lots of sneaking for that shot!

But the fen wasn't all about insects, here's more of what we saw.

The boys are laughing at Steve pretending to be David Attenborough!

Once again our last minute decision to just have a quick squizzie at the "fen thingy" was a winner and our visit to Wicken was a resounding success.   

My kind of place

Here's our accommodation for our Cambridge stay.  It's actually about 20 miles north of Cambridge in a little town called Bluntisham.  This is my kind of place, nice house with superior hanging baskets (I am a hanging basket expert you know J) and a big block with, wait for it, veggie patch, fruit trees, loads of flowers, a big lawn and the best bit of all - chooks.  Perfect!

Cambridge

Cambridge is lovely.  Unfortunately the photos I took of Cambridge are not.  This is the first time I've been really disappointed with my pictures,  but still at least I've got some of us punting merrily along the Cam River.  We spent quite a while deciding whether Steve should be the chauffeur or we go on a tour.  After seeing a few dripping amateurs and a couple of poles stuck in the mud on the bottom, we decided to go on the tour.  And apart from the hundreds of other like-minded tourists and oodles of other punts in the water, it was very peaceful and relaxing and a great way to see the university colleges which Cambridge is so famous for.

I'd like to go back to Cambridge again, it's only 58 miles from where we live and takes just over an hour up the M11.  Perhaps we'll go in winter and get some snow shots J