UK Adventure

Homeward Journey - Singapore

tregenza_family — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:09:00 GMT

The London to Singapore leg of the journey was with British Airways and two of the TV screens in our row weren't functioning. Not long after take-off neither were the overhead reading lights - 13hrs on a plane with two children, no TV and unable to get enough light to read! We have vowed NEVER to allow ourselves to be booked on BA flight again.

It was fun to return to the Stamford Swiss Hotel again. The boys find it easy to get excited about things they are familiar with. We went out to the Satay Markets for dinner and then we all had a night swim in the pool before heading off to bed. Each morning we woke around 3:30am which was very handy before a 9:30am flight out.

Highlight of the trip was dinner with cousins. So lovely to catch up and meet their son for the first time. Our boys loved him and want to meet up again, soon. After dinner, we went off to the Singapore Night Zoo. The lighting was eerie and the whole experience feels like a safari at night- the warmth of the air, the lush, jungle vegetation and the softly illuminated enclosures. There was a little tram that took us around for part of the journey which made it easy for the children.

Our early wake-up allowed us plenty of time to enjoy the amazing hotel breakfast one more time - Singapore is great for all the Indian, Malaysian and Chinese cuisine as well as more familiar Western fare. The boys became more and more adventurous about what they wanted to try. And they loved being served so courteously by the hotel staff.

The Qantas leg of the journey was very comfortable - much better standard of aircraft and very helpful crew. Jemma and Carl kindly met us at the airport with the car and we drove home. We've spent the last 2 days settling back in.

The boys feel like they have been let loose in a toy store, reunited with all their things that they had forgotten about. They are spending heaps of time out in the yard - haven't had an outdoor space to themselves for some time - and pulling out all their craft materials to create things. Such liberties that were once taken for granted.

We notice their very close friendship after being each other's closest buddy for 3 months and their improved resilience and greater optimism.

Gallery: Singapore Night Zoo and Cousins

tregenza_family — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:11:00 GMT

Gallery: Cotswold Wildlife Park

tregenza_family — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:47:00 GMT

Gallery: Last Days in Oxfordshire

tregenza_family — Wed, 9 Jul 2008 05:17:00 GMT

Leaving UK

tregenza_family — Wed, 9 Jul 2008 04:37:00 GMT

Hi all. I'm writing this from the departures lounge at Heathrow Airport. It took 2 hours from driving the hire car back to the Europcar office next to one of the runways to finally being able to slump in a chair with a refreshment.

We had to do some clever luggage rearrangement at check in to allow us to bring our extra bag. We had been working on the premise that it was 20kg per person, regardless of number of bags. The new system (how new?) is that you can carry as much as you like in weight, but only 1 bag per person. So, under the guidance of the check-in lady, we joined our backpacks to create a single piece - it was a bit of luck that when packing up the flat this morning, I popped a partially used roll of gaffer tape into my handbag! So voila, two bags became one....and then we handed the remains of the gaffer tape role around to all the other passengers checking in, experiencing the same problems.

We are all ready to return to our own little home, but still feeling a bit odd about leaving. Oxford was lovely, but not super child-friendly. Bron's friend and colleague Trish Symons was in town. It was such fun to have someone to chat with. Trish organised an evening at a performance of the Twelfth Night by the Oxford Shakespeare Company in the garden of Wadham College which was just brilliant - a highlight of the stay in Oxford.

We board the plane to Singapore in about an hour. We will visit the night zoo with Richard, Ping and Austin while we are there. We are very much looking forward to that....it will be our last night away.

See you all soon.

Gallery: Woodstock and Oxford

tregenza_family — Thu, 3 Jul 2008 22:12:00 GMT

Gallery: Arriving in Oxford

tregenza_family — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:54:00 GMT

Gallery: The Gower Peninsula

tregenza_family — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:34:00 GMT

Leaving Cardiff

tregenza_family — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:49:00 GMT

We left Cardiff for the last time today which felt quite strange. Each time we have ventured off to explore, we've returned to Cardiff. While we are looking forward to all that Oxfordshire holds, today's trip begins the last part of our journey before we fly out of the UK. Welsh culture is alluring and leaving Wales pulls at the heart strings.

The boys have farewelled their lovely swimming teacher, Annemarie, Mandy from Techniquest and Sian, the children's librarian from Cardiff Library. The boys keep reminding us that because they are younger than us, they are more likely to have an opportunity to return some day.

Arriving in Oxfordshire has been very pleasant. We drove into Oxford to pick up the apartment key at peak hour, so we took the real estate agent's advice and had dinner at a gorgeous Italian restaurant a few doors up allowing the traffic to subside- early supper deal mid week -The restaurant staff responded very warmly to the children and the food was yummy!

After a fantastic dinner, we drove the 9 miles out to the village where we are staying to find a most comfortable apartment. The fireplace is lit with candles and we have a portrait of Winston Churchill over the mantle (he is buried in this village). There is a wonderful, small pedal organ in the lounge which Tom took great delight in the moment we arrived and played through some of his piano repertoire.

Tomorrow Ian will begin his research here in Oxford, while the boys and I settle into the apartment and explore the village and the grounds of the palace nearby.

St. Fagan's

tregenza_family — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:22:00 GMT

We couldn't leave Cardiff without visiting St. Fagan's - an open-air museum showcasing Welsh life through the centuries. It is composed of buildings that have been transplanted, brick by brick, from all over Wales. It is set on 80 acres of countryside only a few miles from the centre of Cardiff. All the guides were very friendly and knowledgeable about Welsh life and there were a number of excellent hands-on activities for the children - including making their own clay pots.

Gallery: St Fagan's Museum Cardiff

tregenza_family — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:16:00 GMT

Tintagel - Birthplace of King Arthur

tregenza_family — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:39:00 GMT

Driving back to Cardiff it was difficult to resist the lure of Tintagel on the coast of North Cornwall. According to legend it was here that King Arthur was born. Though the main castle was built in the 13th century by Earl Richard of Cornwall, he was inspired by the King Arthur stories that were becoming popular at the time. As the guidebooks will tell you, history and legend mingle here in interesting ways, and 20th century archeologists have uncovered layers of settlement at the site going back to Roman times. After a weekend of mostly sunny weather in south Cornwall we felt it appropriate that our visit to this rather remote and mysterious place was overcast and blustery.

Gallery: Tintagel

tregenza_family — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:58:00 GMT

Gallery: Visit to St Michael's Mount

tregenza_family — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 02:22:00 GMT

Cycling to Padstow

tregenza_family — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 04:31:00 GMT

After a quiet day yesterday in Marazion we decided today to drive up to North Cornwall to cycle the path that runs along the river from Wadebridge to Padstow. The track runs along a converted railway line so it's nice and flat, but it's about 5 miles each way and difficult enough to warrant a guilt free icecream at Padstow. Rick Stein is the local celebrity at Padstow and he owns several eateries there. The prices at his seafood restaurant were a bit beyond us, so we settled for a fig flan from his cafe which we took home for dessert.

We drove home via some of the narrower roads that wind around the Northern coast near Newquay, reputed to have good surf. Gorgeous little coves, but not particularly large waves. On the way home we realised we had run out of coffee this morning - that is real crisis - and so we drove round Penzance trying to find a shop open after 4pm on Sunday afternoon....we found what we needed, but we also found a shop called "Tregenza's". We think we might return to Penzance tomorrow for further research.

Gallery: Cycling to Padstow

tregenza_family — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:45:00 GMT

Arriving in Cornwall

tregenza_family — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 06:51:00 GMT

'At the far end of England, a land of rocks and mooreland stretches itself out into a blue-green sea'. So begins the story 'The Mousehole Cat' by Antonia Barber, which we have been listening to on CD since we first arrived in the UK. It's about a cat called Mowser and his master Old Tom who save the village of Mousehole (Mowsell - in the local idiom) from a raging Storm cat (a giant storm). We've listened to it so often now that Tom (ours that is) gave us a full recitation today as we drove along. We were always planning to visit Cornwall as it is the ancestral home of Ian's forebears on the Tregenza side (yes, the name's Cornish, not Italian as is sometimes assumed). We are staying in the town of Marazion just a few miles from Penzance (haven't spotted any pirates) and opposite the glorious St. Michael's Mount - originally a Benedictine monastry on an island just off the beach. It is now the home of Lord St. Leven, but the grounds and building are open to the public. Ian's ancestors originated from Marazion in the late nineteenth century to work the mines as most Cornish migrants did. Wandering around this idyllic village, which is one of the oldest towns in England, you wonder why people left. But it's one thing to visit as a tourist on a balmy sunny day, quite another to spend most of your life down a nearby mine.

We spent the morning in Marazion, enjoying a Cornish tea with clotted cream (a local specialty) before driving over to Mousehole on the other side of Penzance. We were hoping to track down one of the fish recipes that it is mentioned in the story of the Mousehole cat - we particularly like the sound of the Star-gazey pie. But we discovered that it's only made on the 23rd December (apparently in memory of Old Tom - the relation between history and folk memory/myth is not entirely clear here) so we settled on a pastie and a vegetable flan. We did, however, come across a few cats which we like to think might have some connection with Mowser in the story (again, you can see how myths are generated).

Gallery: Cornwall - Mousehole

tregenza_family — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 05:27:00 GMT

Gallery: Cornwall - Marazion

tregenza_family — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 04:26:00 GMT

Hay-on-Wye. Second-hand book capital of the world

tregenza_family — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 05:01:00 GMT

We took the pilgrimage to Hay-on-Wye last weekend - booklovers heaven. It's a small, picturesque town just north of the black mountains about 1 1/2 hours drive north of Cardiff through quaint Welsh villages mostly with unpronounceable names. They call it the second hand book capital of the world as there are over 30 bookshops in a population of about 1900. They've even turned the castle in the centre of town into a bookshop. Every year they have a major literary festival. We discovered much to our relief that it took place the weekend before we visited. We were relieved as it would have been a nightmare with the kids, not to mention parking. But as it turned out it was relatively quiet - perhaps they were in a state of post-festival recovery.

Cosmeston Medieval Village

tregenza_family — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:25:00 GMT

On Sunday we spent the afternoon at Cosmeston Lakes and Parklands about 15 minutes drive away just on the other side of Penarth. The Parkland contains a reconstructed medieval village that we'd seen on one of Terry Jones' (of Monty Python fame) programs on medieval life. We took a tour of the village led by someone dressed as a Reeve. The word Sheriff comes from Reeve. He was the middle man between Lord and peasants or (in Wales) bondsmen. Sheriff was the Shire-Reeve. He was very informative and we learnt quite a lot about medieval life in about 1/2 an hour, including the types of animal excrement used in building materials (rich in nitrogen which makes it sticky). Conjured up images of Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Oh, isn't this lovely muck!

Gallery: Cosmeston Medieval Village

tregenza_family — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:16:00 GMT

Not Nottingham

tregenza_family — Mon, 9 Jun 2008 21:44:00 GMT

With a little bit of research, we've been able to make travel days into highlights for the boys by taking routes that pass child-friendly attractions and scheduling our journeys around them. Even a quick stop for petrol part way to Scotland provided an exuberant playground experience when we discovered the "Wakky Warehouse" that formed part of the complex.

So with confidence high, we attempted to tie a visit to the Stories of Robin Hood museum and Nottingham Castle into our trip from Hull to Cardiff. Being a pair of Luddites, attached to our romantic memories of charting our way using paper maps, we have not, yet taken the very sensible advice to acquire Sat Nav (GPS). We turned off the motorway into Nottingham and followed our nose to the centre. After a quick stop at Tesco to grab picnic lunch supplies, we soon located the signs to the museum and castle. We arrived in the centre of town and went round in circles trying to find somewhere to park. After several attempts, as we passed a neighbourhood set of swings, we pointed them out to the children and asked if they might like to stop there, instead. Their enthusiasm was high, so we pulled over and had a picnic. Partly because we were sick of navigating city traffic and partly because it would be a much more frugal thing to do....and actually, the children were perfectly happy with something much less "wizz bang".

Nottingham has a reputation for having the highest crime rate in the UK, and, from what I observed, I think we might just have stopped in one of the more colourful suburbs. Yet within minutes of arriving at the park, the children had been included in the games of the other children playing there. A quick trip around the corner to pick up a couple of coffees revealed a community market....nothing worth buying, but some great chill-out music with an African flavour and a tasty smelling something being cooked up on smokey coals. Excellent coffees, sold cheaply and served by warm friendly people topped things off and created a feeling of well-being we find far more often in highly diverse suburbs and towns.

Each cultural and socio-economic group operates with a conscious or subconscious set of criteria with which they judge, interpret and read each other. At the base of those criteria, are core values of empathy, courtesy and respect. Layered on top, are superficialities such as grooming, speech, wealth etc. It seems that when different cultural groups mix, the superficial values don't seem to operate so strongly. What's left of the criteria used to judge those with whom we mix? The big, important stuff - courtesy, humanity, their "personal story".

Of course this is not new to any of us... but travelling about, from high crime rate, low socio-economic neighbourhoods, to picture perfect, genteel villages, to university towns, this observation describes our experiences and sense of social connection very well. Diversity within communities has brought with it a greater sense of social connection and acceptance.

And another goldren rule for travelling with children....all mid-journey stops must be in rural locations or small towns.

Diggerland

tregenza_family — Sun, 8 Jun 2008 06:08:00 GMT

Travelling with young children is certainly a different experience to our previous trips to Europe. Our recent visit to Durham on the way to Hull is a good case in point. Durham is well known for its impressive cathedral and we were eager to take a look. The drive from Glasgow to Hull meant the boys were in the car for hours and we were aware that it would be unfair on them to then expect them to maintain silent calm as they walked about a "big old building". We purchased a book from Amazon before we left Aus called 1001 Day Trips in the UK with Children which listed a child-friendly facility called Diggerland on the outskirts of Durham. The plan was to give the children a good break before heading off to the cathedral. We arrived at Diggerland at about 3:30pm and were stunned by a huge collection of full sized excavators for children to operate - a little boy's idea of heaven! We raged about digging up dirt, knocking things down, spinning, driving, bumping for an hour or so and then bundled the children back in the car to head off to the cathedral.

We drove into Durham. We could see the cathedral up on the hill and followed the signs, only to end up in a cathedral parking area from which we needed to take a bus. We tried again, driving around, following our noses, trying to get closer to the grand spire we could see....all roads closed and we ended up going in circles. Durham cathedral takes several hours to visit, not least because the parking and bus rides to get to the building itself are a very time consuming activity. By 5:30pm we were aware we still had some distance to travel into a city we didn't know to accommodation we had a tentative phone booking for (no deosit paid) and felt we must push on.

So we left Durham a little frustrated that we had come so close to visiting a truly significant structure, but had missed it. Oh, well. We hadn't been left entirely without a source of cultural enrichment - after all, we had been to Diggerland!

Gallery: Hull

tregenza_family — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 23:44:00 GMT