An Australian Connection - PART II

Back with popular demand (well from Peter M. anyway), continuing my look at history and the links between Australia and Weymouth seems there is not only a convict connection but one during the war as well. There was an Anzac Memorial ceremony held last week as part of Anzac Day so I though I would find out more.

After the great battle at Gallipoli in 1915 many of the injured Australian soldiers were sent to England to recuperate before the long trip home, or return to battle. As a result a temporary base was set up in Weymouth.

It was not long before us Ozis started to get a name for our selves. The press used the word “exuberant” and noted that “they certainly liked their beer”. On New Years Eve in 1918 there was a report of 50 Australians running amok down the main street.

The Australian troops were know to be “open handed and generous-hearted as well as being fitter than the English soldiers”. As a result the local girls fell in love with them resulting in numerous marriages. Unfortunately there was also a spot of multiple wives happening resulting in the Church of England making an announcement in 1919 the Weymouth Recorder that “henceforth, before marriages of member of the Australian Imperial Forces will be celebrated in this country the soldier will be required to produce to the clergyman officiating a certificate showing his marriage condition”.

By the end of the war it was estimated that 84,000 Australian and NZ troops had passed through Weymouth. It seems that they liked us with a quote from the Southern Times in 1919 – “We shall always think of them with affection and admiration for their heroism and fine manly qualities”. Sounds like a quote for when I leave!!

Help!

You know you have been in England to long when:-

-All three of your children start talking with an English accent

-Worse still, despite all efforts not to, you begin to mimick the southern English accent when you answer them

-Adelaide starts playing soccer

-You begin to believe that Fosters is a good beer (at least it tastes Australian)

-You start to talk about the weather more than any other topic

Aahh = only eigth more months to go...........

At least the weather has been better here than in Sydney for the last three days (see what I mean!!!!)

Hello to all back home.

Kathryn

Life goes on

Many of you have probably had enough of my ramblings on history, castles and my visit to churches so I thought I would spend a little bit of time updating you on family life.

Adelaide has settled in well at school and has made lots of new friends. Already her social life is better than mine, as she has been invited to 3 birthday parties, has a new friend a few doors up, goes swimming every week and is doing both tap and jazz ballet. If you have not noticed yet she is doing her own blog which lots of people think is more interesting than mine.

Isabelle and Bethany turn 4 in three weeks. It is amazing how quick they are growing up. Yes – Bethany has started to acquire a slight accent. I am not sure if it is from day care which she attends three days a week or the bad English TV she watches. With the warmer weather (an amazing 20 deg which is a heat-wave for this time of year) it has been great watching them run around in the back yard in their fairy dresses (yes mom they still wear their dresses) and feed the horse over our back fence.

Kathy has decided that she has had enough of the easy life and decided to get a job (the truth is at £100 a beer someone has to bring in more money!). She is working for her old company Sigma doing contract work three days a week. A great experience and is providing an opportunity to get out and be an adult.

And what about me – well work is still going really well and after three months they have decided not to deport me back to Oz. As many of you know the role is varied (from museums to performance management) but I have found that the core skills of good staff management allows any challenge to be tackled. Unusual for this place, but I requested a 360 deg review from my staff to get a sense of how we are travelling and got some great feedback so I must be doing something right…….? Hard to believe that ¼ of the year is over already.

Life at home has its usual ‘ground hog’ feel as we go through the daily routine of getting kids ready in morning, school, home from school, dinner, bath, kids to bed, kids back to bed again…..GO BACK TO BED KIDS! But each weekend we are shaken out of the routine as we plan our next great adventure. Currently planning a week in France, a trip to Wales, and our big three weeks to Scotland so enough to keep the hog away.

So life goes on with the Careys as we step 1 more day closer to coming home with lots of new experiences, new friends and memories that will last for ever.

Worshipping the great mother land

NOTE: if you are reading this as an e-mail you really need to go to the blog

Now I know people worship lots of different things and I also know that some people think Australia is a great place but I never thought I would come across this on my travels.
Within the Notre Dame, the Catholic church I mentioned before, the immense church was lit by streams of light filtering through the numerous stained glass windows, and hundreds of candles flickered as a sign of life and memory of others. There was the opportunity to light a candle in front of many different shrines, from magnificent paintings of Mary to large crosses ornately decorated. But as we turned the corner and came across this most awe inspiring and memorable shrine I knew that this was the one for us.

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Nous avons aimé Paris

Now after a quick glance of the ‘Travellers guide to Paris’ revealing 62 museums, Kathy and I decided that 60 will have to wait for next time. Number 1 on the list as you would expect – Musée de Lourve. Housed in the most impressive renaissance building it is amazing to be wondering amongst all those pictures I remember in year 10 art class. From the ‘lace maker’ to ‘venus de milo’ through to ‘mona something’ by Leonardo Dicaprio (I never knew he was a painter) it was all very exciting.

We also ventured through the Musée de l’Orangerie – not a museum in the honour of fruit – but more paintings and you guessed it – many were ‘big’. I never knew that Claude Monet’s water-Lilly series of paintings was bigger than the actual ponds he painted. Many other great works from Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse and a lovely picture by Renoir of a little girl just like the twins.

A quick peak in the Notre Dame, a great gothic church, and then to the Panthéon. I am not sure if I have mentioned it yet, but you don’t know what ‘big’ is until you have seen the size of this church. Completed in 1790 it is no wonder it took 36 years to build.

Our little taste of Paris was fantastic – only 60 more museums to visit…….

Tout est GRAND

So with a tear in the eye we sadly wave goodbye to our three lovely children and leave them in the capable hands of Jemma for the long trip home on the train to Weymouth. For us YAHOOOO. Child free and off to Pari!

1 train, another train, 1 bus, 1 plane, 1 train, ANOTHER train (remind me to catch the eurostar next time) and we arrive at our hotel at 1am and fell in to bed. Next morning Kathy takes over as tour guide as we throw ourselves into this amazing city.

The first thing that strikes you about Paris can be summed up in one word…. BIG. There are big statues, big buildings, big fountains, big roads, big churches and big baguettes. Kathy has come home with a sore neck as a result of spending much of her time looking up.

Any way – Day 1 was spent in the ‘Invalides’ part of Paris – you may know this better as where Eiffel tower is located. Now for a structure that was meant to be temporary this is BIG. The other thing that was ‘big’ was the queue for the lifts to the top. Not wanting to spend our entire three days lining up we decided to brave the 719 steps to the second level. No not the top but with the pollution and light winds, the idea of standing in a grey soup with poor visibility at the top was easy to miss. Worth every one of the 2.5 million rivets holding the tower together. We did venture back that night and it was even more impressive under lights.

So with the tour flag raised Kathy led us off to the next expedition of ‘big’. Now if you just happened to be Napoleon and you had lots of adoring fans it is no wonder they decided to place his crypt in the Church of Saint-Louis (1675-1706). The most impressive part of the church is the gold-plated dome (six kilograms of gold leaf were involved) which rises above Paris. Not to be outdone in the big stakes is the large red sarcophagus which covers the six coffins enclosing the body of Napoleon I. If only he left the tops of his 6 coffins open he would have looked up towards the top of the dome which is covered in some of the most amazing paintings by Charles de la Fosse.

From there a walk down past the grand palais to the ‘Avenue des Champs-Elysées. Did I mention how big the street was? The Champs-Elysées is bordered by cinemas, theaters, cafés, luxury shops and yes the odd hawkers selling everything from gaudy glow-in-the-dark Eiffel towers to betty-boo doll. What better place to sit and have dinner and do as the Parisians do and sit and watch the world go by. It is also a place to quickly empty your wallet as the bill for dinner arrived!!This impressive promenade stretches from the Place the la Concorde to the Place Charles de Gaulle, the site of the Arc de Triomphe. That bloke I mentioned before – Napoleon – now he must have had a real size issue based on the big arch he built for soldiers to walk under. While this was impressive what was more amazing was the traffic roaring and careening about seamlessly in all directions as 12 roads converged into the ‘biggest’ roundabout ever. This must be every Paris learner drivers nightmare.

A Cuppa with the Queen

Off air for the last week as the family set of for a few days in London and beyond. Our adventure started last monday (9th April) with the whole family, including Jean, boarding the train to London. A slight delay as an announcement ringed across the loud speaker..."This train has been delayed due to technical difficulties".... Well unfortunately the ‘technical difficulties’ was actually Bethany who managed to lock her self in the trains toilet! After lots of men running around and 1 screaming child back in moms arms we finally made it to London and our apartment for the next three days in Little Venice.

No time for the lazy however as London called. We spent the next three days zooming around the underground (puts Sydney’s train system to shame) seeing the sights, smells and sounds that make London one of the best Cities in the world. We were going to drop in for a cuppa and see Liz but for some strange reason there were 25000 people all out the front of her house watching her guards so we sat with them instead. Next stop was St Stephens Tower (you may have heard of the bell inside called Big Ben), Westminster Abby then a quick trip nowhere on the London Eye.

Day 2 and we did like all good tourists do and visited the Tower of London. Despite its toursity focus it was still fascinating and the kids had a great time with the re-enactments. Here is the history bit (you knew you were going to get this didn’t you) - The original stark square fortress was built by William the Conqueror in 1078. However, the Tower has numerous other buildings and walls that have evolved over time. Its history is varied being a fortress, a royal palace, a prison, a place of execution and torture, an armoury, a treasury, a zoo, a mint, a public records office, an observatory, and since 1303, the home of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom (those diamonds are HUGE!).

Day 3 and a nice morning walk around Kensington Palace and the gardens before getting ready for part II of our week away (more on that later). Overall impressions of London were great. You could easily immerse yourself in the City for 12 months and not see it all. The only thing limiting you would be the size of your wallet as it was EXPENSIVE!

The Easter bunny

Saturday and the Griswolds packed the car again, this time off to Lulworth Castle. The castle was built in the early 17th Century by Thomas Howard 3rd Lord Bindon (now that is a mouthful at a dinner party). Amazingly it was a hunting lodge built in order to entertain hunting parties (If this were their hunting lodge I would hate to see the main house!). Sadly the castle was gutted by a disastrous fire in 1929 and therefore only the exterior has been restored.

Not that the kids really had any interest in this. They were more interested in the easer egg hunt that was being held. Somewhere in the huge gardens and open fields there were 2 small gold disks hidden. Anyone extremely lucky enough to find one got a huge Easter egg. Luckily enough they also had lots more yellow discs hidden to claim a small egg. I don’t think I need to tell you that they kids did not come home with the big prize. Despite this it was a great day.

Big Rocks

Easter weekend and enough to make even the Easter bunny tired.

Friday the family packed the car – well 2 cars actually as Kathy’s mum is here – and we headed to Stonehenge. Now I know I have been getting excited about the history over here but it still amazes me every day when I see something that is over 3000 years old. Now rather than bore you with the history here are some facts: Some of the stones came all the way from Wales 386km away, it is estimated to have taken 30 million hours of labour to build and took 500 men to lift the 40 ton stone to the top by ropes. Now that is pretty bloody amazing if you ask me, especially when we complain about how hard our work is today.

Something does annoy me about this site though. It is a shame that something so impressive is wedged between two major motorways. What were the previous roads engineers thinking when they decided to stick the roads there! A recent book I was reading comments that “it has all the sad, compromised dignity of a lion in a cage at a regional zoo”. Despite this it is inspiring to think that previous generations were so determined to go to these lengths to build a structure linking earth and sky.

Where is the Fat Controller?

Another weekend down and we say goodbye to March 2007. I know people said that a year would go fast but it is hard to believe that a quarter of the year is over already. With Kathy and the kids here we are starting to plan our trips a bit more. London and Paris in the next few weeks, France in June, Scotland and Ireland in August and lots more trips to the north will see the rest of the year fly by.

This weekend was a quick trip to Swanage and a chance for the kids (that’s me) to enjoy a ride on a steam train. Now I must admit I am not a major train buff but the smell of burning coal, the puffs of steam billowing into the sky and the unique whistle sounding across the countryside was rather fun.

So what does a train buff look like?. I don’t think it is related to the English train driver that was sacked after stripping off while at the controls of a 125mph express on a Sheffield to London route. The driver was thought to have used his mobile to take a naked picture of himself and sent the photo to a colleague, who alerted bosses.

I must say I was looking for the characters that were in Trainspotting, the movie about a group of heroin addicts in Edinburgh and their passage through life, but mostly the characters there on the weekend seemed to have the following defining characteristics: 1 themos, 1 large camera strung around ones neck, hair swept casually over ones bald patch, a small note pad with listings of every type of loco on the planet from the 5059 steam Locomotive to the classic 31 Diesel, and a constant desire to lick ones pencil.

Anyway – managed to keep the kids away from most of them and they enjoyed waving to everyone out the window - well mostly cows in the fields actually – but everyone had a good time.

Only ¾ of the year to go.