Secondary school transfer

I'm not long back from visiting another secondary school for Honor. We've so far been to visit two faith schools both of which we were impressed with. The two girls that gave us a tour were fantastic - so chatty, informative and brimming over with personality. A good sign. I don't feel much like looking at any more but we have to list four choices on our application and I think transport to these two schools that we liked is going to be a problem...

Last weekend - pilgrimage to Bruges

Last Saturday, 1st October, Mum, Honor and I joined a group from our church and from the catholic churches of Canterbury and Herne Bay on a pilgrimage to the beautiful city of Bruges in Belgium. Honor and I had to get up very early, 5.30 am to be on time for the coach which took us on the ferry to Calais, France and on to Bruges. As I said, it was the 1st October and it was, well, very hot! Pushing 30 degrees in fact which made the coach journey a little unpleasant. I didn't think the air conditioning was up to much!
But once off the coach, we had a very relaxing time browsing the many chocolate shops and having a nice, leisurely lunch before gathering at a chapel for Mass.

I bought some nice handmade wooden toys to bring home for Hope and Henry, though everything was very expensive.

This weekend we are doing a lot of clearing out and moving the children's bedrooms around and Hope will soon be going into a room of her own. I'm looking forward to being able to decorate that! So far it has been hard work and the state of Henry's room has had Hubby rather displeased. I'm glad to say that the weather has got seasonally cooler, though a pleasant day has been forecast for tomorrow, so perhaps we'll do something nice then.

Roald Dahl themed book week

This week was 'Book Week' at the children's school and today they had to dress as Roald Dahl characters. I must admit that when the parentmail email arrives to say that it's time to come up with an outfit, I'm not usually overwhelmed with excitement. The headteacher appreciates that not everyone will be up to sitting up all night papier mache - ing (what is the verb for this?) a giraffe's head and so the option of wearing yellow (apparently Dahl's favourite colour) was given to us as an alternative... gawd bless you, maam! However, Honor was absolutely defo that she wanted to go as Veruca Salt - the spoiled brat, ahem, I mean princess, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She loves the original (Gene Wilder) film, more than the Johnny Depp version and does a superb impression of this character.
I thought it might be quite tough to find a similar red and black outfit to the one Veruca wears in the film, but my mother found the red cardigan on sale in ASDA for £1.50!!! and the skirt was from Matalan for £7. Not bad. And they are clothes that she can wear anytime.
Henry went as Mike Teavee, another golden ticket winner who wears a cowboy outfit. Simples!
My favourite part of the whole thing is arriving at school in the morning to see how everyone is looking. There were indeed some very impressive papier mache props and other amazing outfits and hats off to them for the effort. (HM, incidentally, got picked to have her picture taken for the local paper).

Great fun!

The Doctor Who Experience

Well. The kids have settled into a new term at school and Ma and Pa have to start looking around for a secondary school for Honor. The obvious choice was the local catholic school... until recently when the lovely Government decided to withdraw help with transport so we're now thinking it she'll lose out on this. Still, we'll wait and see.

Meanwhile, last weekend Henry had his seventh birthday so yesterday we took Henry and Honor on a surprise trip up to London to the Doctor Who Experience at the Olympia in Kensington. You should have seen their faces! You should have seen our faces!!! We were taken through the time vortex on an interactive journey in the tardis helping the Doctor escape from the Pandorica 2(!), fighting daleks, cybermen and weeping angels. It was a bit scary in places; I thought Honor was going to get upset when a 3D image of a weeping angel lunged at her, but we had a really fantastic and thrilling time. After the show, there was a museum of all the costumes and models of the monsters to look around and a chance to wander around the set of the tardis.

Later, we hailed a London cab and headed off to Kensington Gardens so that the kids could play in the Princess Diana Memorial Playground. It started to rain so Hubby and I sat under a bush with the squirrels while the kids ran about having a great time!

A brilliant day... and we were home in time to see... yes... Dr Who!

Stay on these roads.

I've attached this clip (see post below) of A-ha from the Oslo Memorial concert for the recent terrorist attack victims at the youth camp in Norway. The band split up recently but reunited for this special tribute.

It is beautiful.

Terrorists will never win.

a-ha live - Stay on These Roads - Oslo Spektrum - 21-08-2011

They think it's all over....

it is now!

Wow! That went quick, didn't it? The summer holidays flew by and I barely blogged about them.

Here is a little summary of what we got up to...

Hubby has been building a kitchen/barbecue area by the veg patch so that we can cook outdoors a la Nigel Slater style. The veg patch has got wildly out of control with me pretty much unable to reach the runner beans. But the pumpkins and courgettes are the biggest I've ever seen! We've had a much better tomato crop this year, too. Even the kids, who won't normally touch tomatoes (goodness knows why?!) have not been able to resist scrumping from the greenhouse!
Our Italian relatives made their usual summer visit, driving up through France and camping their way back again. The children enjoyed meeting up with cousin Eve again for fun and frolics. This was one of the very few occasions when the kids got to use the pool. Most of the summer holiday was lacking on the warm weather front.

I actually got around to doing a bit more sewing, making this table runner for our outdoor table from more fabric scraps from the local market stall. Please don't look at it too closely. It is a bit wobbly and all hand-sewn.


Henry had more hospital appointments because he has not regained the use of his hand. We made the most of his appointment at Deal hospital by going on to the country park there and hiring some bikes. Henry had to go in the cart with Hope. But, following some physio, he can now ride his own bike since that outing. He has more treatment to come.
We spent most of the holiday at home, but we did have a day out at Kew Gardens in London.



Kew is one of my favourite places and since my last visit, just over ten years ago, they have built some fabulous play areas for the kids. My little lot absolutely loved the indoor creepy crawly playground in which the children become bugs and get to experience what it is like to crawl in and out of plants and flowers. We couldn't get them out of there... not even for an ice-cream! The ice-creams, incidentally, were amazing. I wasn't go to buy them one (at £2.50 each!) but Hubby wanted to treat the kids (and himself!) so he did. I had a lick or two of Honor's coconut and lemon one and thought that maybe they were indeed worth the money! Mmmmmm!

During the last week of the hols, we gave up with maintaining the water in the pool for nothing and so we took it down and put up the teepee from last year instead. Honor and Henry transformed it into a hospital using a camp bed, a small table, a pile of paper and a roll of toilet paper (for bandages!) Henry looked quite the part sitting at his desk writing out prescriptions!

So they are back at school now, we had special prayers and breakfast on their first day, and the autumn tv schedule has started with the return of Celebrity Big Brother - shame we don't get Channel 5 so I can't follow the progress of JEdward, the X-Factor and my fav: Doctor Who! I love Dr Who and the first episode with the beginning of River Song was absolutely cracking. I decided, though, that the kids couldn't watch it tonight as the episode 'Night Terrors' was about a little boy with monsters in his toy cupboard. No, really? Far too spooky. Sorry, kids xxxx