Month: May 2013

Easter Monday found us visiting briefly with our across-the-pedway neighbors from Durham. They brought us a stack of hand-made Valentines from Eno Commons, which were lots of fun to read. Weyland would pick one up and run around making sure that EVERY adult had acknowledged and admired the card.  The older boys were quite sorry when their playmates (girls of very similar ages to my boys) had to leave.

Tom returned from California bearing a new DVD, which was met with more enthusiasm than you might imagine. We have a restricted media diet here. Before we moved, we streamed Netflix through our Wii, but didn’t have live television. Here, we found that Netflix was limited — because it was being accessed through a UK IP address, but on a US region Wii player, our list of possible shows and movies was drastically limited (we had more selection when we viewed Netflix through the computer). We cancelled THAT, but we also don’t have any live television. We don’t pay for cable, and don’t pick up any stations without it. It is quite possible that the hardware of our television isn’t capable of picking up the UK broadcast signal — we didn’t try very hard. I filled out the “we don’t have a TV, we shouldn’t have to pay the BBC tax” waiver, and got an unannounced visit from the TV checker. But unless he can do some magic to make shows appear instead of static, well, we have a screen for our other media devices and not a television. We own a DVD/VCR combo machine, but very few discs and tapes. A healthy supply of Barney and Elmo, yes — back when Garrett was three I was hitting the yardsales and picking up such things — but since then I’ve avoided owning movies. In Durham I regularly checked out movies from the library, but here they are, of course, meant for a different region. Yes, we could switch the region on our DVD player — but then we couldn’t play the movies we own! So new movie, happy kids.

The next day an even more eagerly anticipated person than Daddy arrived: Garrett’s best friend, accompanied by his mom. They wanted to do all sort of things that I wouldn’t naturally do, so our adventures were rather different. We started at Madame Tussauds wax museum. We arrived just after opening, but it was a crush of people. Made it through, enjoyed the parts we stopped for, snapped some amusing photos, and who knows — maybe I’ll even take the boys back. Maybe.

Then we grabbed lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. I knew it wasn’t really a British restaurant: the sign for the toilets said “restrooms”, on the table was French’s yellow mustard, and the waitress asked whether our guest wanted milk with her tea. It was cold outside, but since we were nearby I suggested we cross two more London highlights off our list. We walked past Buckingham Palace, but by the time we got to Trafalgar Square all we wanted was warmth. We caught the first bus headed our way and rode it down Abbey Road (got to show off the world’s most famous zebra crossing!) toward home.

Thursday was cold. Cold and wet and sometimes snowing and often windy. Miserable weather, especially since Garrett’s best friend only wears shorts and short sleeves, all the time, and only packed a light sweatsuit at his mother’s insistence. At the Tower of London he huddled inside while my boys and I joined Colonel Blood’s gang attempting to steal the crown jewels (same set of actors that we enjoy at Hampton Court, reenacting an actual heist from 1671). What could have been fairly serious and frightening was made hilarious by Colonel Blood’s inept son (photo left) who “recruited” us to join the gang, and in the end got caught with unloaded pistols.

Yes, it really was snowing that hard. Springtime indeed! Harumph!

The next day Tallis stayed with friends while I drove Garrett, best friend, and his mom on a whirlwind tour of the English countryside. Stonehenge first thing in the morning: freezing cold. Freaking freezing cold and windy and yuck. Old Sarum, same thing. Only we were up higher and the wind was blowing even harder. Almost blew us off the walls, and no I am NOT kidding.

Then an unexpected stop in Wilton, because I drove past a church that made me go “Hey! Wait, I haven’t seen anything like THAT!” and since were making great time (since we had no desire to stay outside anywhere) we stopped. The church is called the Italianate Church with good reason — besides being Italian in style (built in the 1840s), they have imported lots of interesting old things like columns from a Roman temple and medieval glass from the continent. They also moved many of the windows and brasses and memorials from the old church that was being replaced, so it felt worth the visit.

We continued to Old Wardour castle, which was our favorite stop that day. It had warmed slightly, and the site is mostly the roofless shell of the keep (destroyed during the Civil War). No furniture, no velvet ropes, nothing we couldn’t touch — just run up and down the stairs, in and out of the huge old rooms, laughing and being boys. Perfect. Then on to Farleigh Hungerford Castle — a nice enough ruin, but we just didn’t have much energy left to enjoy it. Well, I did, but the boys…they were tired of old buildings. Unfortunately we headed from there to Bath, too late to enter any churches or businesses (except the fudge shop passing out samples…we did go into the fudge shop, and leave with goodies) but in time for pizza dinner. Yum. How unfortunate, after such a long and exciting day, that I had to stay awake to drive home!

Back in London we rested a day, then spent a day on the Thames: checked out Big Ben, the Houses of Parliment, the London Eye, Trafalgar Square, and a sightseeing boat down to Greenwich. I know that all the boys wish that our friends could have stayed longer!

 

Further tales of my explorations, picking up a week before Easter. (I wrote this back in April, then never finished polishing and posting it. So I’ll just leave this where it is and make another post continuing the story!)

My SCA guests left the same time that my husband did. During his week at Google headquarters in California I had three boys and a limited social support network (the only regular adult-time activity I have, hosting the local SCA singing group, was cancelled for the week).  Rather than take it easy, I filled our days to the fullest.

First Weyland and I toured St Paul’s Cathedral. That building seems very special to him, and I don’t know whether it is because we lived by it for a month, or because it is such a recognizable feature of the skyline. The self-guided tour is on an iPod touch, which was perfect for Weyland — launch the children’s tour, and he was competent to navigate the menu himself. He often listened to sections more than once, especially the one featuring the boys choir. For such a young child, he was incredibly focused and well behaved. I had to coax him to climb the steps to the Whispering Gallery (an inside view of the dome, looking down on the transept) and carried him at times, but once in the gallery he was fearless. It is a LONG way down to the floor from there, and although I’m not afraid of heights, my stomach did lurch as I contemplated the view. Especially when Weyland leaned so confidently on the iron railing, displaying a complete lack of concern for the drop. We couldn’t climb higher up the dome to the external viewing platforms because they were closed for maintenance.

Normally the crypt would be a place I would linger, but since the oldest effigies are both Elizabethan and damaged by the 1666 fire, I didn’t fret too much over the injunction against photography or Weyland’s desire to hurry through. We tarried in the Oculus film experience, though. Cuddled on my lap he happily watched a virtual tour up the dome, a bit about the daily life of St Paul’s, and images of cathedral history, repeating some parts of the film before he wished to leave. You can walk into the film at any point in the loop, but I noticed that almost all the adults walked out again without absorbing all that was there for them to enjoy. I was glad that day to be with my curious, tolerant preschooler rather than a hurried adult.

When the boys got out of school early on the last day of the term, I left Weyland in preschool and tried touristing with the older two. We rode the London Eye, the enormous ferris wheel on the Thames, because I wanted to try it without Weyland. (He had initially expressed fear of riding the huge machine but has since ridden it with confidence; the experience is very slow and not scary at all.) I wanted to then take them to the London Dungeon for some good scary fun, but the line was terrible. Apparently the fire alarm had gone off twice that afternoon. My boys initially resisted going into the aquarium next door but enjoyed it once inside. Too bad the fire alarm went off again (it is all part of the same huge building) before we’d even made it through the first exhibit! We consoled ourselves by riding the London Eye a second time. I LOVE having annual memberships that let you just walk on in — no way would I have bought us tickets for two rides!

Over Easter Weekend I had no question what we’d be doing: Hampton Court Palace had the professional acting group staging the arrival of Charles II with his wife Catherine of Braganza for their honeymoon. Friday we spent the entire day watching the tensions between his new wife and his hugely pregnant mistress Barbara Villiers unfold amid the general hubbub of the court in the year 1685. The scene was complex, with events going on all over the palace, without a solid schedule. There were scientists discussing the latest theories, egotistical actors practicing a truly awful play, a trio of instrumental musicians, singers, gentlemen ready to fight a duel to the death over a lady, high ranking nobles, family members of the king such as his mother and brother, and of course a number of cheerful little Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Because we did not always know where and when to go for the next “scene” there were moments of boredom, but the boys came prepared with a sketchbook. Some of the actors noticed their drawings and drew the attention of the actor playing Sir Peter Lely, the court painter. This attention further fueled their desire to draw, and they began portraits of some of the ladies of the court. When these ladies had to move to another part of the palace for a scheduled scene, we followed along, getting to “sneak” through some back ways and past some guards as we went.

That day was so much fun, we returned Sunday for a second day at the palace, and this time convinced one of our new friends (with kids) to come along. Not only did the boys continue drawing whenever possible, but Garrett and I performed a song for the queen. One of the most fun people to draw had to have been one of the actors. He was so vain about it, and almost completely stopped his part in the rehearsal scene just to strike dashing poses for the boys. Weyland even got into the spirit. He filled a page with colorful lines and then shyly crept up to the queen, queen mum, and their attendant for them to oooh and aaaahh over him and his artwork.