Floats and cake

There is something typically British about the fair and local fete. It is one of those events that you must do if you are to truly say you have experienced living in the UK. Much like having a pint in a small English pub there are just some things that must be done.

So it was with little excitement and minimum expectation, we went to the local school fete last weekend. On arrival we were greeted by a woman with a bright flack jacket with PTA plastered across it. I soon realised that this was not Police Tactical Assault but one of the dedicated Parents and Teachers Association reps that were directing the days events with army precision.
On entering the school oval there was a sea of children and parents streaming between islands of tents and stalls. The cake stand was overflowing with home made brownies, sponge cakes, biscuits and an assortment of other inedible sweets. There was the jumble stall containing mountains of things parents have always wanted little Johny to get rid of but could never pry from their hand. With broken toys, colouring-in books that were already coloured in, jig-saws with missing pieces, and Barbies with a missing body parts we still managed to come home with a boxful of things.

Then their was the food raffle, toy raffle, alcohol raffle, cow raffle and strippergram raffle (I couldn’t find that one) all enticing your hard earned money for that remote chance to win something you didn’t need or want. Like any good fete, the kids were not forgotten. There were jumping castles, archery, throw the wet sponge, luck dips and even a ride on steam train.

The end of the evening saw us head of to the procession through the main street with floats of all kinds and shapes. There was everything from the ‘young farmers’ in their tractors, to ‘Ms Joans hairdressers’ on the back of a pick-up truck . And just to show that we are slowly becoming part of the community, Adelaide was part of ‘scallywags float’ (where she goes to after school care). And guess what – Adelaide even made the news with a full page photo in the local paper – yes grandma and Jemma – she will post you a copy.

It was an experience that we just don’t seem to have mastered in the City. It was almost reminiscent of the past when children could play outside unsupervised, where mums role was in the kitchen and the fathers stayed at the pub for the 5 oclock swill. Not that this is what we should return to thanks Mr Howard, but it was great to see so many parents wanting to be part of the community and get involved in their child’s education. Connections that I think many of us have lost.

Overall it was a great day and something that typifies life in the south of England. But there is still much to see and do if we can truly say we have experienced Britain. There is the curries in Birmingham; going to an over-prised musical in west end, eating a deep fried Mars Bar and much more. And only 6 more months to do it.

The Magic Roundabout

Now I know my little rant about English road signs may lead you to think that this is just because I am a confused Australian but I feel finally vindicated after reading an article in today’s paper from Jeremy Clarkson (you may know him from lesser roles in ‘Top Gear’ and ‘Who stole my car’). I feel I must repeat his quote below:

“Eventually I arrived at the biggest roundabout in the world looking for signs to the next town on my list. Basingstoke. There aren’t any. The council and the Highways Agency have decided instead to list a number of villages no one’s ever heard of. So, using the sun, I took a stab and miraculously ended up on the right road. Which, with no warning whatsoever, became the wrong road.

I wonder sometimes how much of the traffic on our roads today is made up of people in strange towns trying to make some kind of sense of the signs.

There’s one in west London that says the right turn ahead will take you to Clapham. Yes it will, but it will also take you to Earls Court, Fulham, Chelsea, Putney, Brixton, Brighton, France and the Kamchatka peninsula in eastern Russia. Why single out Clapham?

Then there are one-way systems. The day before my four-hour trip across the southeast I was in Lyndhurst, down there in the New Forest. You arrive at a set of lights and want to go straight on, but instead you’re forced to go left, into a one-way system of such mind-boggling complexity and such length that halfway round most people pull over and try to will themselves to die.

And have you been to Stroud? You arrive from the west and no matter what you do you end up in the railway station car park. And Basingstoke, where you are sucked off a dual carriageway, whether you like it or not, and wind up in a multi-storey car park. And you have to pay to get out again.”

I do wonder if this is a conspiracy and that the Highways Agency is actually run by those companies that sell in-car navigation systems. Here is an example from Swindon. I am guessing they call it the Magic roundabout because, like Harry Houdini, you are going to need some form of magic if you are ever going to escape.

Who is that masked man?

I thought I would post this photo just to prove that I do exist and here in the UK and not just posting a whole lot of postcard photos from the web. Although, looking at the photo I could be anywhere. The beer is not typically english so may be I am really just hanging out in Parramatta?

My version of the story is that Kathy doesnt like taking photos so you never see a photo of me in it. Her version is that she never has a chance getting close to the camera because I spend the entire trip seeing things through a 1cm x 1cm viewfinder.

Anyway - speaking of beer, The UK is awash with an amazing number and choice of beers. There are bitters, stouts, milds, porters, winter warmers and even a few morning mouth washes. There seems to be more choice in beer than the number of English Inns and there is almost 11 Inns for every English person! It is no wonder, with taverns being unearthed in some of the Roman cities and the good old Norman Conquerors who scattered the English countryside with Abbeys and Monastries, each with its own brewery - I reccon those monks had a great time.

As a result you end up with some great beer names including: Old Legover, Gone Fishing, Old Slug, Couch Potato Lager, Bitter & Twisted, Dirty Tackle, What The Fox's Hat, Hopping Hare, Hobgoblin, Fursty Ferret, Hens Tooth, BeeWyched, Wychcraft and my favourite Tangle Foot. The best set of beers I have had so far are: Piddle in the Hole, Piddle in the Wind, Piddle in the Dark and Piddle in the Snow - and yes after drinking all that you do need to do a piddle!

Frank Zappa once said: ‘You can't be a real Country unless you have a BEER and an airline -- it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.’ In that case I am not sure how the UK didn’t manage to take over the world.

Looks like there is only another 2373 beers to taste before I come home.

"I ale, it is such a nourisher of mankinde"
John Taylor 1580-1653

Shacks and Bricks

This week saw the devil transfer from the kids to me so I ended up stuck in bed Thursday and Friday. Having dragged the kids away last weekend I felt I had no excuse, so we packed our bags again this weekend, this time off to Windsor.

First stop (from what I remember through the haze of the fever) was Windsor Castle. The castle dates back to William the Conqueror in 1066. What a great name that is. It just would not be the same if he was known as ‘William the nice guy’. It is interesting that the Queen uses the castle as her weekend retreat. Now I am not saying that the castle is not a nice little weekender and I wouldn’t say no to the old shack but if I had a choice there would be lots of other places I would go to get away from it all.

The next day, with the fever dropping to a nice tropical 40 deg, we went of to Legoland. I think the name explains what it is but for the avoidance of doubt, it is a huge theme park with things made from little yellow, red and blue bricks. It was amazing what could be built – everything from the intricacies of London Eye through to a full soccer game - crowd and all. Also a huge number of rides which the kids had a great time on. Now I know you all know what these little things look like and how much they hurt when you accidentally stand on one but did you know:

• A 2 X 4 LEGO brick measures 16mm by 32mm by 9.6mm high.


• The distance from stud centre to stud centre is 8mm.


• There are 52 Lego bricks for each person on Earth.


• If all Lego sets sold in the last 10 years were placed end to end they could reach from London to Perth in Australia (but I didn’t ask them which way they would go).


• A Lego brick is measured to the 2/1000th of a millimetre


• Six 2 X 4 LEGO bricks of the same colour can be combined in 102,981,500 different ways – go on give it a go!

So another good weekend and hopefully the devil enjoyed the trip as well. Lets just hope he is not invited next time as we are off to France on the 22nd June.

The Exorcist of Nottingham

The week has been interesting with a virus managing to transform our three little children into demons willing to disembowel each other and make life hell for their parents. But despite this, we decided to head away for the weekend – what could go wrong?

So with bags packed and the little demons comfortably tied down, we left for a 4 hour drive to Nottingham and Sherwood Forest. 10 minutes into the journey we knew that the signs were not good with bloodcurdling screams emanating from the backseat. We pushed on, but an hour later, with no warning, Adelaide decides it is time for the re-creation of the Exorcist vomit scene. Not wanting to be outdone, Bethany joins in as body fluids disperse around the vehicle. The demons win this round so we make our way to an overnight stop at Northampton.

The next morning, with multiple drugs trying to keep the demons at bay, we gaffa tape the kids to the roof and head off to Shirwood Forest.

Now I am not sure if I have mention how bad I find the road signs in the UK. They have the unique ability to tell you every single small town name except the one you want to go to. The A52 can become the A51, turn into the A6011 then revert to the A52 all within 100 metres. We even came across a sign pointing both south and north to Bridgeford at the same time!

Despite wanting to bypass Nottingham, somehow we managed to enter the black hole of no return. So with roads signs as useful as a boat in the desert, we get totally lost unable to escape the City. I was just waiting for a modern day Robin Hood to hold up the car and steal from us (although I don’t think they would have given it to the poor). As the demons were starting to gain mystical power by joining their screams together Kathy resorts to scribing a last message in the side of the car in case we never escape and only our remains are found in the car.

Luckily, somehow we manage to extract ourselves from the clutches of Nottingham and made it to Sherwood forest and home of Robin Hood. But with the demon children’s powers now having Kathy under their complete control, the kids went to the playground while Dad managed to escape and have a look around.

But don’t worry Kathy. There are several historian that argue that Robin never existed, and if he if he did, he more than likely lived in Barnsdale in the county of Yorkshire. I just hope it doesn’t change as there will be a mountain of wasted Nottingham plastic bow and arrows, fridge magnets and tacky green hats heading to the tip.

Anyway – with night approaching and a fear that the demon children would gain more power under a full moon we made our way to Cambridge to meet up with Lucy, Steve and kids. Luckily the morning saw a major exorcism undertaken and the kids reverted to their normal disobedient self. What we saw of Cambridge was lovely and in the end we all had a good time at Lucy’s.

I think we will go to Oxford next weekend. What could go wrong????

Gardens on Steroids

Many know I have an interest in gardening so there was one thing I had to do while in the UK and that was visit the world famous Chelsea Flower Show. Bigger than any rock concert, tickets are sold out months before the day so luckily I went on line and purchased my ticket to the steroids of gardening.

Leaving the family at home I headed to London for the weekend. Walking to the show was no different to going to a rock concert apart from the audience shuffling in the walking frames and everyone remaining a polite distance from each other. As you walked there was the constant whispers from 70 year old scalpers “wana bya chelseee tickets?”, “how much forya ticket?”.

Entering the show the first thing that strikes you is the orderliness. Surprisingly, it was very easy to get around and they obviously limit the number of people. I guess this is to prevent the mad push of obsessive green-fingered pensioners falling over each other and breaking their hips.

First port of call was the outside gardens. An amazing series of displays, each meticulously tendered, flowers in full bloom, weedless, all traces of any rouge snail vaporised. They say some have spent up to $1 million to make the gardens – that is $200,000 PER DAY so don’t even think you can reproduce this at home. There was the “Cancer Garden” with a 30 metre long oak sculpture resembling a string of DNA, the “Relationships Garden” based on a farm workers cottage garden, “Sand and Ice” exploring the extremes of climate change, and other strange named ones including “Garden of Transience”, “Scent of a Roman”, “A Pleasance for the Rose and Lily Queen”, Lust for Life” and “Tufa Tea”.

But the best had to be the “Australian Garden”. Not because of its unique use of native plants, but because of the designer who spent most of his time chatting up good looking girls in the crowd, telling jokes and demonstrating the true larrikin in us all.

With all my senses in overload it was time to completely overdose and enter the Great Pavillion. Here your eyes are overloaded with every imaginable colour as flowers compete for each other in trying to be the most dazzling. Realising it was time to get out of there before the mind thinks it is on acid, or I consider changing to a Blue-rinse hairdo, I headed off to catch up with Doug (an old college) from Parramatta for dinner and a good lie down.

A Small World

Sometimes I think how far we are from Australia but then, every now and again, some strange thing happens to really show how small the world really is.

This story begins with a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, the home of Shakespeare.

Having not booked a place to stay we arrived into Stratford and began to seek out accommodation. Now as you know there are 5 people in this family – well 4 if you just happen to be an owner of a hotel which we would like to stay in. You see, it is impossible to get anywhere that is large enough or willing enough to take 5. The whole world conspires against families with 5. Family tickets are always 2 adults and 2 children, cars are designed for 2+2 and hotel rooms only cater for 2+2. I sometimes consider that we as a family are in the absolute minority as we are still married, never divorced, kids not in jail or on some form of drug, and yes we have 3 children. . I am here to tell you that the perfect family of 2+2 is a myth.

Anyway – sorry for the diversion – back to the story.

We finally pulled in to a nice looking hotel and Kathy went and asked if they had a room for 4. The nice lady at the front counter said that they could bring in a fold down bed to make up 4 beds in the room. Great – we will take it. Now the next trick was to decide how to smuggle 1 of our invisible children past the front desk which was kindly located in full view of the front door. No problem – that is why we have twins. So with military precision Kathy takes Adelaide and one of the twins up while Bethany and myself hide in the car. Exactly 5 minutes and 10 seconds after Kathy has gone we enter the hotel in the hope that they didn’t remember how many kids were with Kathy, or at the worst that one has come back down again.

Just in case plan A is not convincing, Bethany crouches down just below the desk so she cant be seen and tip toes stealth like past the desk. Ensuring that there is no chance of any eye contact we move rapidly holding our breath – will the cameras get us (this is the most watched country in the world)? Will the accommodation comados appear out of nowhere? The heart races….we can see the lift…almost there… we made it.

So with kids smuggled into the room, it was time for some room service. But the question is – how do we get room service without them seeing the extra stow away. So with children in a circle the next plan is prepared. When there is a knock at the door, Isabelle is to hide under the bed. After many practices and lots of giggles from a talking bed the plan gets into place.

Room service is ordered….there is a knock at the door…..there are herds of elephants crashing in the room…. The door opens….
“here is your order – where would you like it?” ....
...."O that is alright I will take it thanks”...
…. The bed lets out a loud whimper…..the door is SLAMMED SHUT just in time for the porter to extract his hand before being decapitated. SUCCESS.

So the next morning time to pack the car we are feeling comfortable in our ability to extract ourselves in the same manner. What could go wrong?

Well this is where the small world comes into it. As I walk back in from packing the car I past the front desk and hear an ‘Australian’ accent. I stop and reminisce how I miss that sound but on listening closer my head thinks – I know that voice. Looking over to the desk (something I had avoided the whole time), who do I see but a stately gentleman and his wife who I work with in PARRAMATTA! Either Illana has sent someone over to spy on me or this is an amazing fluke. We both gawk in disbelief at the coincidence of meeting each other. After picking our jaws up of the floor we enter into long discussions over how long are you here for, where have you been, what have you seen, are you missing Parramatta (NOT)….. By this stage the front desk are engrossed in this amazing conversation but all of a sudden the next question catches me by surprise.
...“ So how are the three kids? – are the twins enjoying their stay? – where are they?”

CAPOW - With that, the horn is blown RETREAT, RETREAT, pull the plug, withdraw all troops - I extract myself in blur leaving the couple standing by themselves staring into an empty corridor. "Sorry Bruce! Cant talk now" as I disapear never to be seen again.

So the lessons are:
1. no matter where you are in the world don’t ever let your guard down.
2. don’t even think of cheating on your partner in a hotel room even on the other side of the world

3. Don’t have three children

FA - what does that mean?

I woke up yesterday morning and listened to the forecast on the news - “It is going to be cloudy, followed by some patches of sunshine clearing to more sun, followed by a little more cloud, the chance of a light shower, a light breeze clearing to long sunny spells”……. And that was only up until lunchtime!

So not wanting to waste another lovely day we headed to the Swannery at Abbotsbury. It is the home to the only colony of nesting mute swans open to the public in the world (well that is what they tell you). May is hatching time so the kids had a great time looking at all the little baby swans (cygnets for those that care). There has been a swannery at Abbotsbury since at least the 14th century. The swannery may have been established by the monks of Abbotsbury Abbey, but it seems more likely that they simply took advantage of a natural swan habitat provided by the shelter of Chesil Bank.

Always one to find out some trivial facts that I will never remember again, you will be interested to know that still today Lloyds of London use quills from Abbotsbury swan feathers to register insurance losses in their "Doom" book.

Speaking of swans - well done swanies – I hear they won against Port Adelaide. And speaking of football, the afternoon we did what all good English do and went to the local pub to watch the FA Cup final between Chelsea and Manchester United. It was the 126th FA Cup Final and the first to be played at the new Wembley Stadium.

It seems the media are reporting it as a dud game with very little excitement. If you asked the fans in the pub I think you will find they had more fun heckling each other than watching the game. But then again who would not be bored watching 90 minutes of something where even the goalies decided to sit down and read the newspaper during the game. The girls on the other hand had a great time in the pub. Not only is it mandatory to go to the pub to watch the FA cup final it also seems it is an essential requirement to take your dog and bring it into the bar. Isabelle and Bethany spent the time playing with all manner of dogs.

And speaking of the weather - they got it right - it was cloudy in the morning, followed by some patches of sunshine clearing to more sun, followed by a little more cloud, with a light shower, then a light breeze clearing to long sunny spells. God lov the weather forcasters here.

Beer and Pie

With Sam and Jem spending the weekend with us, another good reason to head out and see this most beautiful countryside.

The weekend started like many others.
“What do you want to do today Kathy?”
“I don’t know, what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know, what do you think?”
“Not sure, what ever you want”.

So out came the map and after a few random twirls of the finger it landed on Beaminster. The real benefit of living here is that every weekend is an adventure and every weekend you have the chance to wonder off and explore little villages, hidden churches and narrow country lanes.

Lying in the folding hills of West Dorset, Beaminster is a cute little market town with some lovely picturesque 17th century cottages. The village butcher was selling local lamb, rare pork breeds and fresh game and the greengrocer had a great range of fresh organic fruit and veg. Wanting to add to the local economy we forced ourselves to consume large quantities of Dorset Apple Cake, clotted cream, scones, and numerous other sweets to keep our sugar levels high for the rest of the week. Somehow, in the hour we were there, Sam also managed to replace her wardrobe from one of the clothes shops. I noticed the shop owner put up a sign the minute she left saying “gone on holidays” so I gather they got their income for the rest of the year.

From there we headed to Montacute House, one of the finest Elizabethan country houses in the United Kingdom. The three floored mansion was built in 1598. I read that during wet weather, the Phelips children would lead their ponies up the three flights of stairs to ride in the long gallery that spans the entire top floor of the house. Today, it is used by the National Portrait Gallery where there is a large collection of paintings of kings, queens and nobleman of the past.

What better way to finish off the day than a visit to the ‘Smugglers Inn’ for a classic meal of pork sausages and mash, and Steak Pie in Tanglefoot beer gravy, washed down with more Tanglefoot.

Sunday and we woke to the patter of unfamiliar rain. With the April rains finally decided to arrive late, it was agreed that there would be no adventure today.

O Well, there is always next weekend……

A Celtic Journey

A bank holiday in this part of the world so what better thing to do than nick across to another country for the weekend. Well, not quite a 'separate Country' but the family jumped in the car and headed to Cymru or Wales.

The fist thing you notice when you drive along is the strange warning signs. I soon realised that ARAF is not the sound a dog makes but STOP. ARAFWCH NAWR is not a German concentration camp but REDUCE SPEED NOW and watch out pedestrians as I have no chance of pronouncing CERDDWYR YMLAEN. You get used to calling everything by two names. All the street signs, brochures, labels etc are written in English and Welsh - a clear indication of the divide created when the Saxons cut the land off from the rest of Celtic Britain.

It is interesting (or at least I found it interesting) that the two words have opposite menings - Wales is derived from an old Saxon word meaning foreigners or outsiders. Where as the name Cymru is derived from a word meaning friends or companions.

Anyway – we set of over the open moorland and countryside from Cardiff, through winding roads that stretched their way along the coast until we reached the mountains of the Snowdonia range. The next thing you notice on entering Snowdonia National Park (or is that Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri) that they are not national parks like in Australia. Here you have villages, farms and their associated animals, roads buildings etc. But despite this, there are still some majestic mountains that tower over lovely hidden valleys.

We stayed in a place called Blaenau Ffestiniog which is an old slate mining town surrounded by the National Park. Its defining feature as you enter the town is the huge man made mountain made from slate waste, which provided an unusual and dramatic blot on the landscape. A writer from the Boston Globe wrote "Blaenau Ffestiniog is one of the ugliest spots you'll find in north Wales. The air itself seems permeated with a dark gray cast.... The slate history of the town is everywhere. Stone houses are roofed in slate, stone steps leading through town are slate, and shops feature slate products in their windows. But most striking is the dead landscape that surrounds the town. The hills are lifeless piles of gray rubble. ........ enormous mounds of waste rock now cover the land. A gorgeous place it is not,......". I am not as harsh and thought it was a dramatic contrast to the surrounding landscape that was unique it its own kind of ugly way.

But the real scenery is the national park and a great way to see it was from the Ffestiniog Railway which runs narrow gauge stream trains through the park. The kids had a great time and so did mum and dad.

Unfortunately we had to make our way back home so we did not have time to go north a bit more to visit the little town with the big name 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch'. I think it would be much simpler to just call it by its English translation of "The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave".

I guess there is always next weekend.