Inspiration

Funny place this England! Every time you turn around, another thing hits you in the face that you want to record in brain's hard drive.

First and foremost, Brian is going home for his first 6 week visit. Hmmm...I realized quickly that he has become a fifties housewife with the exception of the deep voice and six o'clock shadow. It's funny how you can learn to take advantage of the services of your house husband quickly. No wonder all of those housewives burned their bras in the 60's! They had enough. I'll tell you that he has been our anchor here. Gets us up in the morning, makes us breakfast, sees us off. Then during the course of the day, does the shopping in the village, does the laundry, feeds Mousse, makes our dinner and handles all other affairs. Then, he still has his career to contend with. And from his improved PlayStation 2 Fifa World soccer standings, I assume he's been doing a bit of that. All in all, we will surely suffer here without him. If the way the girls cried at his departure this morning at 7:00 in downtown Bristol's bus station is any indication, I declare survival the skill of the week! Plus, he's cute to boot!

Ok, must apologize for the week long delay in blogspotting. Last weekend pretty much left me in brainfreeze, due to the overwhelming recovery of being in London with 2 girls for 48 hours! I must say though, before telling you of our adventures, that I have realized an important lesson. One in which I have been searching for...sorry for being so filosofical!


Here it is...London, noisy, monstrous, macrocosm of history, cultural treasure chest and Royal toursit shops--anything and everything. It offers an amazing experience for every perspective. WOW! But, compare this to the grade school boys next door who took us across into the grass the other night and taught us to play cricket with their all-in-one cricket kit. Now, that was priceless.


I wanted to give you a taste of our London experience, but my uber-organized house husband filed all of the pictures onto his laptop, which of course are in Edmonton! I'll include some next time.


Here's a run down of the weekend. Off to London on coach at 8:00, arrived and hooked up onto a 24 hour hop on hop off double decker tour. This definitely beats the old backpack tube to the nearest 'must see'. I actually understand the layout of London! And, let me tell you that it is not as complicated as it seems!


Our first hop off was Hyde park and prepacked lunch of squished sandwiches. Funny, we're sitting in these lovely beach like chairs, eating and talking about how we need to find a bank machine when who walks up? But the chair charger! Yes, in fact, the chairs cost 2 quid an hour. Dishonestly we say we'll be back to pay as soon as we find an ATM. So, back on the tour bus, with headphones included, through Picaddily Circus and then onto the Tower of London. We had a great time there learning about the history and the Ravens. Girls were quite impressed by Crown Jewels...opened up the opportunity to tell them to marry rich (hee hee). KIDDING!!! You guys are all so proper!


Then, ventured back to SoHo for some amazing pizza, a bottle of wine to calm mom and dad's anxiety, and then off to Hamley's. 5 floors of toys. Yes, boys and girls, this was an adventure of pure self control...for me. And, then Chinatown on Saturday night. The girls let me smell their clothes when we got home and I could identify the odor. Roast duck!!


The tube ride to the hotel was fun. There's poor Bonnie who didn't realize that you need to HOLD ON to something--she went flying down the car into someone's luggage. That kid sure knows how to pull herself together. For example, the other night we decided to all go on a night walk along Clifton Downs, a beautiful scenic view of the Avon Gorge, and she ran ahead to hide and pop out to scare us as it was dark. Little did she know, she hid in a pile of thorn ridden bramble arms, just waiting for a young juicy fleshy child to venture into, and with her knitted poncho and bare legs was hopelessly caught up. EWWW! The cry of a child entwined in bramble is not peaceful. Her legs are covered in scratches and gouges. Just like the time she fell face first onto the barnacles on Gabriola island.


But this is the point where I must interject with someone's 15 minutes of fame. On the tube ride, out to a rather obscure area of London, Brian chatted with an East Indian fellow. This man, probably in his early sixties, greying and missing a few teeth, was so kind. And real. He told us of his family and how some were living in Canada--maybe we know them? They are in Toronto? And how he lives here, runs a shop. Human postcards. That's what travelling is about.


Sunday morning, we're on the tour bus again. We actually made the cutoff to the Thames River tour, jumped off at the London Eye, spun around once to view the neverending landscape of brick and architecture. Then, wandered through the Big Ben and parliament buildings. E and B couldn't wait to see the Buckingham Palace. Only a few blocks walk through stunning old trees and giant squirrels (pictures to come) of St. James Park to end up at the Palace. You know, for all of the royal glitz and accolades, we maybe were just too tired, but even the girls were just plain unimpressed by this fortress. Ooohh.. that's gonna cause some fur ruffling.


A pub dinner and hopped on the coach to come home. Now, this is where the adventure starts. Halfway through the ride, someone approaches the bus driver and says, Excuse me. But where the hell are we? As we are sitting near the front, my ears perk up and as I assume most travel in England is efficient, I am eager to hear WAZ UP. So, the driver, in his broken English, yells, Can't you see I'm busy driving...bug off. Well, shit folks. We're in Birmingham. 2 hours north or so of Bristol. The bus suddenly gets wind of this. Mostly, University students coming back to Bristol, half sleeping/ half studying. A football game mentality prevails. Shit. So much for reading peacefully and getting home early.


Finally, with the leadership of a Survival episode canidate, a motherly lady in the front approaches the driver. Only to get the same '"£$%£^£%*£^£ Off' response. (Notice all of the Pound symbols?) Suddenly there's an army of cellphones being turned on and an eruption of people's voices saying that they'll be late. But, the motherly woman in the front calls the National Express bus line and explains what is going on. We are heading towards Birmingham, meant to be at Bristol, and the bus driver will not communicate what is going on. A global response to someone else's mistake ensues. What the?!! Who the HELL??!! What is this guy doing??!!


I'm actully quite amused at this point. I think to myself, Let it play out. Who cares if we are home at midnight. And, watching the crowd on the bus, panic, complain, and angry. I put myself in the driver's shoes. As it turns out, he has taken a different route--maybe a bit too different--due to an accident on the major highway. But, the motherly lady saves the day by passing out the Incident Number and gets us all free bus tickets for our next journey. That's why I was tired.





This week's been good at school for the girls. Emma's off to an induction camp on Tuesday to Devon. Lucky girl! They are going to a dairy farm and coming back Wednesday. Then, Bonnie and I have made it through another week.

I did my first parent/school assembly on Friday as Jenny (the Head of Dundry) left poorly (that means 'not feeling up to snuff' in Canada). It went well, as I introduced each class' performance but then passed the buck to the Kindergarten teacher to sing the Happy Birthday. I said that in Canada we sing it differently. I was sure of it! But, to my dismay, she sang it in the regular Canadian rendition. I looked towards Bonnie in the crowd and she gave me this puzzled look. Now, that wouldn't be such a problem, except that parents came up to me afterwards and asked what they sing in Canada for birthdays?


Now then, just to end things off, B, E, and I (minus the other B) spent the day at the Shirehampton library and village. We are going to read, watch movies, and make a less than 'up to snuff' Thanksgiving dinner.


Cheers!


beth



ps. I almost forgot--Jenna won the contest. A conker is a nut from a tree that you can throw at naughty people or you can play a game with.
Here's Emma and Bonnie's rendition of a Harry Potter Photo.

This week's contest...This is a hard one! In Trafalgar Square, there's this dude on a column. Nelson his name is. So, a few years back, his left arm was blown off by lightning. They decided to replace it, but the marble quarry that made the first arm has since closed. Where did they have to go to get the new marble for his new left arm? This one is worth a big prize.