Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Pedometers

This morning in Fort William, Jeanette and the kids each got a pedometer to try and see how far they were walking in a day...................both Jmaes and Chris after wearing them for only half the day today had done over 4 km's(2.5 miles for those non-metric folks), and Jeanette 3.5km's. I reckonwe are doing an average of about 7 to 8 km's per day minimum............

Scotland - Tues 29th and Wed 30th. Done together for practical purposes.

Had a lie in on Tuesday morning as the kids were completely buggered from their day Edinburgh, and then went shopping at one the the famous Outlet Malls in Livingston(between Glasgow and Edinburgh), where Chris managed to but himself a PSP and some games. Got home early and had a roast lamb dinner.
On Wednesday we set off early for Inverness, where we are staying tonight. It took the whole day to get here (only about 370km/230miles). Stppoed a coupel of times along Loch Lomond to enjoy scenery, and then ended up in Fort William at around midday. Did some more shopping and had a wander around the town and then headed off to a picnic spot about 10 miles out for lunch with a view of Glen Nevis(some people call it Ben Nevis). Next stop was Urquhart Castle a ruined castle last inhabited by the Grant Clan about 300 years ago for a bit of exploring. After that we drove off to Inverness where we has a walk around the city - unfortunately no shopping as we arrived at about 17h30 when the city centre was closing down. We then checked in at our hotel, and were pleasantly surprised to find a beautiful pub (Snow Goose) across the road from our hotel. Had an excellent dinner there and setting of for a distillery tour tomorrow morning.

Scotland - Edinburgh

We set off early on Monday morning for Edinburgh, bearing in mind that it is a 2 hour drive from where we are staying - to get almost anywhere takes around 2 hours, as the roads here, whilst being in good condition are narrow and carry a lot of traffic. The speed limit on most is 60MPH, but you are lucky to do 45. Arriving in Edinburgh, we went to the Dungeon, which different from the one at warwick and entertaining. After that we did Edinburgh Castle, where we hasd lunch in one of their restaurants(btw, the restaurant served an exxxxellent fish pie - slightly different from what would be expected. Made with lightly smoked Salmon, haddock and mashed potato instead of pastry.) After that we did the walk down the Royal Mile and were then off to Princes street and the gardens for some shopping and extra fantastic views of the Castle. If we had the time we could have spent 2 days in Edinburgh.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Scotland
















[click on the picture to enlarge]

So we left our lovely houseboat and hit the road towards Scotland with an overnight stop in York. We spent the day in and around York and headed for our hotel, only to get there and be told their boiler had broken and they were relocating us to hotel 20 miles back in the direction we had already come in Leeds. As it turns out this wasn't a bad thing as there was more shopping to be done there as well.

Yesterday we drove up to Scotland to our timeshare near the town of Dailley which is lovely. We stopped at Gretna Green which is the border town between Scotland and England and is known at the town where people used to elope to to get married off by the local blacksmith as the law states that you only have to be over 16 to get married (and still is).

Today we headed off exploring the south western coast of Scotland and stopped in at Kilmarnock, Ayr, Dunure(for tea) tried out the Electric Brae, where you are supposed to coast uphill due to an optical illusion, but it didn't work - I think we were going the wrong way. Unfortunately when we got to Culzean Castle it was closed, but the view of it was great. Tyhen we went through Turnberry, saw the Ailsa Craig(volcanic plug) and then on to Girvan which is only about 5 miles from our resort. The south Western Scottish coast has a typical collection of seasde resort towns like a lot of other regions in the country.
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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

More of England

Yesterday we visited Cadbury World, yes that's right, the world of Chocolate, needless to say Chris and James were like children in heaven, we toured around there and got loads of samples and then got to make our own chocolate concoctions at the end (yum yum) Rob then bought the boys the BIGGEST bar of chocolate we have ever seen - a 1kg bar. Not sure if it will come home with us or not.....

After that drove down through the Cotswolds which is absolutely beautiful. We started in Chipping Campden where we stopped for tea and scones with clotted cream. . . These villages are all beautiful and so quaint, built from the local stone.

We then carried on to Stow-on-the-Wold where James had his chocolate chip ice-cream and then on to Bourton-on-the-Water where we wondered around the village and saw the miniature village. The weather has been so stunning that James took himself for a walk through the river, whilst the rest of the town sat on the banks of the river absorbing the sun.

Our final stop was in Oxford where we wondered around the city.

Today we headed out to Sandringham, the Queen's holiday residents via Peterborough where we shopped (yet again) and saw one of the larger cathedrals in England. We spent some time in the gardens of Sandringham, dreaming how we would live if we owned that kind of space and feeding the fish and ducks, taking loads of photo's

We then drove on to Norwich where we again wondered around the village, saw the castle, shopped and went to the Norwich Cathedral built by the Normans in 1098. In the Cathedral the boys lit candles in memory of Jonathan, Grandad and Uncle Jimmy, which was a lovely moment. The candles were all placed in a globe, which James then took a picture of.

This morning before we left, Rob went to speak to the management of the resort about our 'yobbo' neighbours who once again came home in the early hours of this morning, this time with girls, shouting and laughing at the top of their voices. On Saturday night, or Sunday morning at about 3h30, they were smashed out of their minds and jumping into the water of the Marina, and then the screaming -"it's f@#king cold - I think I am going to die....etc, etc, etc. The management said they had already had other complaints about them and assured us that they would be gone by this evening, even if they had to get the police in to do it and true to their word, when we got back this evening, they were gone. It is fantastic that the resort reacted in this way and that they are really concerned about the welfare of their customers.

Finally home again, to make dinner and eat at only 10.15pm while its still not quite dark outside.

So far we have travelled approximately 1300km around England, all of it driven by Rob, not bad for 1 week. I did do a small driving stint to one of the local grocery stores, but am very happy to be chauffered driver around - Rob is an excellent tour guide. We have been given a fantastic car by the rental company - VW Passat station wagon, which is more than able to cope with all of our luggage and transport us in comfort, whilst being extremely economical on diesel - it goes about 1100km on a tankful - I don't know why we don't see more of these types of cars in SA, as they are much more practical than the small 4 door saloon cars that we see on our roads.......

England 2010

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London 2010

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Sunday, June 20, 2010

Having A Ball


We have been so extremely busy over the last couple of days and boy have we walked and walked, I have discovered muscles I never knew existed.

Right so lets prioritize;
ShoppingOh my goodness what divine things they have here, be it food or clothes shopping, the biggest thing is to remember that when it says 1pound that its not actually R1. but on a whole we are so badly ripped of in SA its scary,

Places We've Visited
We spent 2 days tubing, training, bussing and DLR'ing to get around London and visit the sites along with the other millions of tourists, it is unreal how many people there are and the locals say they avoid the tourist areas as they know its bad.
So we have seen
The Tower of London - wonderful experience, we hired the audio guides that took us around the castle and gave us all the low down.

Big Ben, Tower Bridge, St Pauls, London Eye, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace(changing of the guard), Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street(Hamley's), Oxford Street etc etc.

Teddy
Now in a lot of our photo's you will see a teddy, this is Jill's teddy that travelled with us to England and gets photo's taken wherever we go, we have snapped off so many but will show them all when we get back.

After our stay in London we travelled to Bedford to our houseboat which is great. On route to the houseboat we went via one of the largest shopping malls in England (Bluewater) but its not THAT impressive(in fact high street village shopping is better - that's what England is about - you can see these types of malls anywhere), we then went on to Cambridge and walked around the town, Chris loves the idea of this and stated he wants to come here to go to Varsity.

On our first night on the boat (night of the England playing Soccer) at 4.30am our neighbours returned from a drinking party and went for a swim in the Marina. This in itself is fine, but they were EXTREMELY noisy and decided to go swimming. The temperature must have been about 7degrees when he decided to do this, so you can image the noise he made when he hit the water.

We have taken a day trip so far to another shopping outlet in Biceister. We then went on to Warick Castle in Warwickshire and spent a GOOD couple of hours there wondering around the dungeons, and castle. On our way home we stopped in at Stratford Upon Avon to see Shakespears birth place and this is where Chris bought his 1st pressie for Jill.

Well that is a very brief summary of what we have done to date, today we are taking it easy and have friends coming for lunch, got to go do some washing etc etc.

Having a wonderful time and hope all is well back home.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Exhaused flyers
















Wow what an exhausting 24 hours to get to England. Firstly we landed up flying from Cape Town to Johannesburg (yes no one realised this until we were on the plane), then on to Doha where we were laid up for 6 hours waiting for our connecting flight.

All of us were absolutely shattered and the boys fell asleep on the chairs in the airport - most uncomfortable.

The most disgusting thing about this stop over though was the toilets, being an Arab country the toilets are so revolting, as everyone washes themselves with the shower hoses, so there is water everywhere on the floor and I am sure I don't need to go into more detail, needless to say, I was pretty much bursting by the time I got on the plane.

One good thing though was the boys bought themselves a camera each with the pocket money in the duty free and boy oh boy have they been snapping away - its great, with 3 camera's now, we are guaranteed to get some good shots.

When we finally arrived at Heathrow and picked up our rental car, we were please to discover we had been upgraded to a bigger car (thank goodness as our luggage only just fits.)

As we are driving along, Rob was playing with all the switches and buttons and suddenly my arse starts tingling and I realise my seat is starting to cook - Rob of course by this stage is in stitches laughing as he has switched on the seat warmers.

Finally we made it through to Blackheath (next to Greenwich) to Martin and Ann Marie's place well after 10pm, it is really strange that with it getting dark so late here, really messes with your time clock.

Martin and Ann Marie have a stunning home with 3 bedrooms so we all had our own rooms, they are 10mins from the station so it was all so convenient for getting into London.

We have manged to get a pre-paid sim card and for 5pounds we get 1 months free unlimited Internet access, what a bonus, this allows us to update our blogs each night.

So the last 2 days we spent going into London and doing the Tourist thing along with all 1 million other tourists, but more about that in my next blog.

This morning we left Blackheath and made our way through Cambridge to Bedford where we are staying for a week on a house boat in the Priory Marina. This will be our base to go exploring some more.


Thursday, June 17, 2010

Finally Arrived

After a very long 24 hours of travelling, we arrived safe and sound. The worst part of the trip was the 6 hour layover in Doha airport and the toilets, but more on all that later.

We spent yesterday walking around London and got home last night around 10pm, were COMPLETELY shattered, taken loads of photo's and will post a more detailed blog tonight.

This morning we are off to Buckingham Palace.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

SKUNK PATROL


Our skunks back from the hairdresser with the holiday haircuts and highlights. . .
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Best Dressed

Thanks once again to Aunty Ingrid, James won best dressed for his grade at their school soccer supporters competition. Here he is collecting his prize, wearing his hand made 'hard hat'.
Well done James and Ingrid!!
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Friday, June 11, 2010

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMES


Today is James's 12th Birthday, can't believe our baby is growing up so fast.
At the last minute I organised a get together with a few friends, and thanks to Gran had a beautiful chocolate cake with candles for him as well.

The only thing was the candles were those terrible ones that just don't blow out so he spent a while trying to get them out.

Thanks to everyone that came and made his day special.

Now that is all out the way, work is over, I can now focus on packing and the ever closer date to us leaving, just 3 more sleeps YAAAAYYYYYY!!!!

Bafana Bafana


Chris and Kevin spent the afternoon preparing these signs

HOOT 4 BAFANA A A A A A A A , then stood outside with their vuvuzela and and blew it at all the cars going past.

Well done Bafana, 1st goal of the World Cup. I have never in my life watched a soccer match, but sat cheering for Bafana Bafana. Go boys.

The budding supporters, Chris and Kevin



Wednesday, June 9, 2010

BREAK UP DAY

Yay its holidays, the boys are now officially on holiday, means I can sleep later in the mornings now.

This afternoon we have a bunch of kids decend on the house, and that means feeding the hoards, here they all are making pancakes.

1 x 2l of ice-cream - finished
24 x pancakes - finished

Gill got the job of making them though, so it was painless for me.

Sweet Valley Primary School - Soccer Day Fever 2010

Check this video out of James's school assembly where the entire school got into the Soccer World Cup fever.

They all dressed up and danced.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Party Time Black & White Dance

Last night we attended the school 'Black and White Dance' where we had to bring our own drinks and glasses. So I neatly packed the glasses into my back and managed to transport them there safely, only to take them out my bag and put them on the table a touch too hard and smashed the stem to pieces. But that didn't stop Lynnae our friend from using it as she merely used her wine bottle as the holder - INGENIOUS!! No wonder the men love her so much.
We all had a great time, even though the music wasn't exactly to my taste but it was great fun watching everyone dancing and what the poor single ladies have to put up with from drunken men.
Thanks Alice for motivating us all and organising the tickets - otherwise we would probably all not have gotten our act together.

SHOPPING SHOPPING AND MORE SHOPPING

What a fun day, Rob and I woke up this morning and realised there were a couple of things we needed to buy before we leave and so we went shopping. Well what a productive day, for me anyway THANKS GUYS!!
James and Chris also bought some stuff, but James's biggest things was his hat that you can see him wearing here. He is soooooo chuffed with it.
this morning Rob hauled out all the suitcases, and serviced and cleaned them, ready for packing next weekend.
Poor Rob, yesterday afternoon he came home an hour and half later as good old SAA had lost his baggage, problem was it was a new suitcase he had bought for our trip. Fortunately they located it in Jhb and delivered it to us this morning about 08h30 thank goodness.
We are all getting more and more excited about leaving, 7 sleeps to go.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Stress in the House

Chris finished his exams 2 weeks ago already and of course, now gets to play playstation or watch TV, while James has only just started his exams and has to study. As I am sure you can imagine, that goes down like a lead balloon and to get James to do anything is a trying process.

Saying that he did very well in his maths and was one mark short of 80%.

Today he writes NS (Natural Science aka Biology) and Xhosa.

But yesterday before I could help him with studying after swimming I had to try and find an 'O' ring for my salt chlorinator that was leaking. Initially the leak was insignificant, but by yesterday lunch time, the water was pouring out at a rapid rate. I sent poor old James on his bicycle to the local hardware stores and pump shops in the area to try and buy one, but unfortunately they did not stock it. He did however find the shop that stocked ice creams and chocolates though. . .

After climbing out the pool I located a shop that had the part I was looking for - an entire R30, the problem was they closed at 5pm and it was now 4.40pm and Chris had to be fetched from school at 5pm, in the COMPLETE opposite direction. Fortunately the shop agreed to stay open and wait for me and we finally got there at 5.40pm after fighting the traffic, whipped through the Mac Donald's drive through [dinner that was prepped will have to carry over to tonight] and raced home in time to attend the meeting I was hosting.

Thank goodness we were able to do some studying before I started swimming, otherwise we would have done nothing.

The wierd thing was I was so wound up from running around getting this part that after the meeting I then prepared 2 sets of minutes that were outstanding and did some other work, resulting in me going to bed rather late, needless to say this morning I could happily go home and climb back into bed.

Oh well just another day in the life of our crazy times. Roll on holidays 11 days to go . . .

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

days before we leave - what can go wrong they ask??

Well let me tell you, things are never smooth sailing.

This weekend, I noticed the pool pump was off, why because the pump had blown its bearings and was no longer working. Thank goodness Rob was home, poor thing, he spent his Sunday running around buying a new pump and fitting it. Whilst we were at it though, decided to replace the pool filter sand as well, not a great job, but at least it's done.

When everything was put back together one of the pipes had a little leak, which we didn't think was toooooo serious and could last till next weekend, but it appears to be getting worse and I had to top the pool up yesterday and again this morning hmmmmm . . . .

Poor little Mickey is quite sick with flu at the moment, and all you here at night is her snoffeling and sneezing, probably going to have to take her to the vet before we leave as well.

Well got to get my lists together now of things to do before we leave and lists of instructions for those staying behind and lists for people at work of where to find what and how things work, or maybe I should just leave and let people actually miss me?

Fun and games - can't wait.