Category: Family

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.

I’ve been too busy to write, not because of research (though I am better organized, ready to hit the countryside exploring churches) but because I’ve been traveling and playing tourist. I’ve joined so many organizations that my wallet overflows with cards that get me into this or that for free. I’ve already gotten my money’s worth or far more out of every one of them, even those I’ve only had a month.

We’ve had a number of guests, and I take hosting seriously. I happily accompany people to my favorite London museums and historic sites, pointing out what I think they’ll find most interesting and helping them beat the crowds. I’ve driven three different sets of guests outside London, and taken my family out twice. I also try to select interesting outings for my children, who vary widely in their degree of interest. The oldest can be persuaded and usually has fun. The youngest wants to go wherever, whenever, no matter how age appropriate it might or might not be. The middle one doesn’t want to go, no matter how tempting I try to make it sound, unless he has solid previous experience telling him it will be worth his while.

In February I had guests that are part of the same Society for Creative Anachronism kingdom that we’re from back in the US, but we lived far enough apart that I hardly knew them. We hit it off and had a fantastic time exploring together, sampling pubs wherever we went. They joined me on a drive through the countryside  of Kent where I saw two churches with brightly painted effigies. I helped them make brass rubbings, and we ducked into the gate of Battle Abbey (founded by William the Conqueror on the spot where he defeated King Harold and won the Battle of Hastings in 1066) even though we couldn’t tour it. We drove toward Dover hoping to see the cliffs, but the short daylight hours hampered our exploring. We did stop at the Battle of Britain Memorial (because it was easy to pull over there) and walk – CAREFULLY – out to the edge of the cliff where even in the dark we could see the shining white stone.

On our second trip to Kent we went to the northeast, collecting fossils during low tide at Herne Bay (at 8:00 in the morning, in the cold cold wind, after a two hour drive from London…brrr) before driving to Canterbury Cathedral, then Leeds Castle. At Canterbury I “collected” more effigies, although I had to ask permission to get into a chapel that was, for no reason I could ever fully understand, locked behind an iron grill. The person who accompanied me as I quickly took some photos said the most ridiculous thing about how they had to be careful after 9/11. I fail to understand how letting me see and photograph all the other tombs and chapels is fine, but opening this chapel (that any visitor can see into) causes you to scold and ask why I didn’t call in advance to arrange special permission to take photos, as if I even should have known that the gate would be locked? It was a treat to recognize some of the effigies from books that I’ve been reading about the subject, especially the one of the priest with the fleshed and clothed form on top of his tomb, and the terribly realistic cadaver only partially draped in a shroud on display below.

After gaining a little confidence driving British roads, I was ready to take my family out for an excursion during half term break. We stopped first at a church I wanted to visit, where the boys made brass rubbings while I photographed. I thoroughly delighted the church warden, who was astounded to think that someone came all the way from America to see effigies, and that I knew the effigies in his church were there and made a special effort to see them. He suggested a family-friendly place for lunch and we ended up strolling around the town just enjoying the sunny day. We walked past a shoe store and I seized the opportunity to outfit my growing ones in new shoes which they promptly covered in mud at the playground. We then ventured on toward Stratford-upon-Avon, arriving at dusk (since daylight disappears so early in the winter). We took a family-friendly ghost tour of the Falstaff Experience, ate in an ancient pub, walked to Shakespeare’s birthplace for a quick photograph, and ventured over the river Avon before calling it a day and returning to London.

Our next guests were also SCA friends, a family we know who have two young children. They wanted to visit Stonehenge, which was as underwhelming as I’d expected. Luckily the cheerful fellow selling me a membership suggested we visit Old Sarum, just 15 minutes away. Although it is just the ruined remains of a castle (where William the Conqueror had his barons swear fealty), it was fantastic. It is on a hill with great views all around and a moat that must have been some feat to dig. The children delighted in running and climbing everywhere while the adults enjoyed the puzzle of identifying what the stone foundations had been before they were stripped. At the base of the hill was an extra treat: experimental archaeologists recreating homes of the prehistoric people who built Stonehenge. During their lunch break we got a short tour of the different construction methods they are testing. They even cut the trees with hand made axes, and one of the interns is going to live in the houses once they’re finished to verify their habitability. I love it! After Old Sarum we checked out the nearby town of Salisbury, and especially Salisbury Cathedral. There aren’t any effigies there of early Tudor women, but there were plenty of effigies for me to photograph, plus a beautiful original copy of the Magna Carta and of course stunning architecture.

On our next outing they detoured with me to Ewelme to see the justifiably famous effigy of Alice de la Pole. I wasn’t expecting to learn anything relevant about costume from her — she’s late 15th century, but not late enough — but her ornate tomb is in pristine shape and also features a cadaver below her recumbent effigy. This cadaver stares up at a fresco of saints and my friend got a rather hilarious photo of my on my back, head tilted back of the edge of a step, trying to see the painting. The church had other treasures like grotesques, carved angels, and some early Tudor brasses, and was far enough out into the countryside that we enjoyed seeing some uniquely old world things along the roadside like thatched roofs and unexpected castles. We continued our trek northwest to Warwick Castle, which I absolutely must bring my boys back to see. Not because the interpretation of the site is good — it is fair at best — but because it is such fun to climb the castle walls and see the ancient buildings. The weather was fabulously awful — late in the day when we climbed the walls it snowed great wet clumps of snow in wind so strong that it blew sideways instead of falling down. And this was supposed to be the second day of spring! The greatest disappointment was that the wet weather prevented them from firing the trebuchet because it was too slick for even the mechanical tractor to grip and pull it down for a launch.

While at Warwick the Horrible Histories were setting up little mini camps about different time periods, getting ready for spring break. I paused to look at the Vikings and Henry VIII, but they had others. Before seeing this display I had an amused and tolerant view of Horrible Histories, which the kids discovered on CBBC just after we moved here. They’ve written some entertaining songs that my kids enjoyed (our favorite is Charles II, the King of Bling) and we bought Garrett the recorded books set for his birthday, which he and his brother have quite loved. I thought they were fine for introducing some time periods of English history I might not have brought to their attention before, and amusing them with some vaguely historical tidbits. But the camps really turned my stomach. Just how many cliches can you fit into one tiny little space, with just two or three costumed interpreters staffing it?

More touristing tales to follow soon!

Getting ready for the holidays has been different this year, no surprise. Even though we’ll have three solid weeks of grandparents visits spanning the kids’ two week semester break (the day we take Tom’s mother to the airport we’re collecting my parents) and although I’ve had to navigate my cluelessness about where to shop in London, I’m feeling prepared.

Partially, I’m less busy than usual. I spend most of my days when Weyland is at preschool working on my database of early Tudor monuments and effigies, but I also have time to take care of house cleaning,  cooking,  shopping and such. I’m not in charge of any Christmas pageants this year, so I don’t need to sew, rehearse, build scenery, coerce volunteers, find more singers, or encourage actors. We’re part of a singing group that is casual and fun with no holiday gigs. There are no “historic Christmases” happening that I should be volunteering in costume at this year. I’m rather surprised to see that we’re so far into December, because there is so little stress and madness around me, both in my home and on the streets of the city. Back home I’m used to feeling “booked” from late November on.

We didn’t have Thanksgiving. At all. We had a video chat with my family and then Tom’s brother, but there was no fancy dinner, no travel, no time off school. That is one thing that shocked me when I first looked at the school calendar: it is so orderly. You start in early September, go until a one week break in October, and go again until a two week break in December. No holidays, teacher workdays, or wiggly calendar. With the exception of the first week of the quarter when the teachers get Monday to set up, either you go to school that week or you don’t. They get quarterly bank holidays off, too, but that won’t occur during a week that isn’t already a break week until next May. One day next February they have off so that parents and teachers can have conferences. It is so simple, straightforward, and UNLIKE the school calendars I’m used to in North Carolina!

I don’t have many parties to attend. Moving brings with it a chance of being a tad lonely; thank goodness for the SCA. We have weekly SCA singing practices that nourish both my social and my musical sides. We have monthly “revels” (themed afternoon learning something, followed by a potluck feast in garb and dancing and maybe singing). At the Christmas revel last weekend I got to sing a good pile of music, mostly holiday and mostly pre-1625. Weyland seemed to love the dancing. Dragging a toddler around while learning new 15th-century dances is a bit awkward, but his giggles more than make up for it. That was the sort of Christmas party I wanted to attend. Tom’s company party, where I would know no one and would have to find a babysitter on a school night, I skipped. No idea how to find a sitter here, other than to sign up for some expensive service. I just don’t know many neighbors or any teens.

Taking care of the Christmas prep at home is almost entirely my job. I have almost all the Christmas presents ordered, bought, procured…um, except for the handwork that I’m obviously putting off doing just now. Some of it we’re getting “imported” via grandma. Our DVD player and Wii won’t play the movies and games we can buy in the UK, so I’ve  shipped orders to my mother-in-law. Most shopping I’ve done online. I’ve pulled off two successful in-store toddler distractions where I let him choose a toy and got him to forget about it by the time we walked out. The one today was really funny, in part because I didn’t think I’d be able to do it. He is a train nut. When he saw the Chuggington-themed playdough set, he announced that it was “MY Chuggington toy that I going take MY house.” When I walked out without buying it — cashier needed to do a price check and we needed to find the only nearby toilets across the street at McDonalds — I guess he gave up. Somehow it didn’t connect for him that we went straight back to that store, to that cash register. The transaction and bagging happened on the counter above his head, AND I quickly refocused him on choosing a chocolate at the discount store next door where I was picking out candies for future gingerbread decorating.

I’ve been slowly acquiring the necessities for holiday cooking and baking, and planning meals that will appeal to my extended family. Gingerbread potentiality is now under control. However, I do NOT understand why I cannot buy chocolate chips in huge and inexpensive bags like I can back home. Don’t Brits know how amazing home baked chocolate chip cookies are?

Decorating the house has been a real conundrum because of what got left stateside. Almost everything got put into storage when we moved except what fit into our attic and outside storage shed. When we realized that we were going to have a huge shipment sent by sea, I asked a neighbor to collect a small number of items from our house and take them to the storage facility to be shipped. Thanks to her efforts the boys have bikes, scooters, trikes, bows and arrows; I have a suit coat that I forgot and one shoe of Weyland’s that got left in the corner of a luggage item we decided at the last minute not to bring; and I asked for the one really important box of Christmas ornaments and stockings. The little china village, the Christmas books, the wrapping paper and bows, and the tree stand got left behind — and the last item has made me shake my head over my poor planning. I suppose I was thinking that we’d somehow acquire an artificial tree while here, but no go — the only ones that look passable also cost something like $100 and up. The real trees are also expensive, but I signed up months ago for a couple of those daily deals emails, and through one of those got a tree “80% off with free delivery”. We’ll see how good it looks when it shows up, but it is at least a start. I figured that I was paying so little for the tree, give up and buy and inexpensive stand for it.

And now my unsolved problem: the lights. I actually have strings and strings of tree lights, but they won’t work here. If I were to plug them in, even with a “tourist adapter” so that they’d go into the wall, the difference in voltage would, I think, fry them. Lights are EXPENSIVE, and if I bought proper British ones I’d only be able to use them one year. We only have two voltage converters in the house, and they’re in use. Hmmmm….

Doing much more decorating is out of the question, since nails to hold garlands would displease the landlady. We might get around to making paper chains and snowflakes and just taping them on the walls, but I think my always subdued decoration scheme will be even more scaled back this year. Which at least means less cleanup.

The reduced decor will blend well with our British surroundings. Here is the extent of the “Christmasy” at the closest mall-like collection of stores. This is so unlike the huge trees decked with gaudy kid-sized baubles and the little animatronic snow-covered scenes that I grew up seeing at Hanes Mall that I almost want to laugh in relief.

Although at my house there has been much rehearsing of the trombone part of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” (which mostly sounds like blorp, blorp, blorp, even when Garrett gets it right) I have heard hardly any Christmas music in stores. When I do, it isn’t the blaring Christmas music of the 60s and 70s, and so I’ve not really been bothered. No one’s grandma has gotten run over by a reindeer (shudder) within my earshot, and no little kids are bragging about how they’re going to blab about momma kissing Santa. Because divorce proceedings at the holidays are just SO in tune with the Christmas spirit.

You know, I was in a better mood before I started remembering what Christmas is like back in the U.S.

We’re getting settled in. I know I’ve been saying that, but we really still are “settling in.” Last Friday movers brought us some furniture and everything that had been in boxes in the storage unit in the U.S. Even after a marathon unpacking session yesterday (which I punctuated with passes through my research notes, making plans for future outings) there are boxes lingering in all the corners, along the walls, over the flat surfaces.

The books we have mostly tamed, in part because the bulk of the adult library is still in the attic in Durham. I’m just a little sad to not have all my books, but the most important ones (music and some of the history) are here. I can live without the fiction, classic literature and poetry, computer textbooks, parenting books, and nature guides. All of the children’s books showed up. All 1500 of them, by Tom’s estimate, ranging from a few board books to full-length young adult novels and everything inbetween. They don’t fit well on the built-in bookshelf we have; many are both too tall and too deep. I swear, I will winnow them down a bit this year, although my mom and I did trim our collection a great deal last summer.

As I unpack I am continually grateful that I purged so much before moving. Yes, I have cubic yards of fabric to unbox, refold, and put away (the tubs I stored them in back home won’t fit in the cabinets here) but at least I left many large trash bags of fabric in other people’s hands! Yes, the contents of my homeschool cabinet (math manipulatives, workbooks, puzzles, science equipment) are here and frustrating to store, but think of how many boxes of stuff I gave away! Yes, all the papers from the filing cabinet are here (but not the cabinet itself, as per our request) but this means that I have a chance to go through the contents and recycle as much as possible. As I unpack I am finding still more items that we can do without, and setting them aside to pass along when I can find time.

I’m great at giving things away to friends, family, or freecycle. But I’m also fantastic about finding free stuff. The streets in my neighborhood are a never ending buffet of temptations, because it is a fairly nice place and people have a habit of putting their usable castoffs on the sidewalk, free for passersby. I brought home a wooden riding toy for Weyland, a stroller with a little life left, a small bookshelf (and sore arms the next day!), a bendy cube toy, a brand-new oven mitt, styrofoam for a craft project, fleece blankets from IKEA, and a large rolling bag that is great for packing SCA gear in for events. I have been sorely tempted by some rugs that I would have loved to use on the floor of our pavilion, but decided against them.

My craft supplies also taunt me, even more than the fabric, reminding me that I have materials for many more projects than I have time in which to do them. I must make time this year to use more of it up, AND resist buying additional supplies. This will not be easy. Although if I do start scrapbooking again, I will probably permit myself to buy more albums. It would be nice to go through and scrapbook the keepsakes I’ve been saving since highschool, since they also moved across the ocean with us. Sigh.