(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover

"There'll be bluebirds over 

the white cliffs of Dover,

Tomorrow, just you wait and see.

There'll be love and laughter

And peace ever after

Tomorrow, when the world is free."

-Popular WWII song, Words by Nat Burton

to hear it, go here.

Saturday, we visited Dover Castle.  It has a long, impressive and somewhat battle-weary history.  There are ramparts dating back to the Iron Age as well as the hill mound or fort.  There is a church on the site dating from Anglo Saxon times around 1000AD, next to the church is the ruins of a Roman lighthouse dating from 1 AD.  William the Conqueror also built up a defense here after the Battle of Hastings in 1066.  The main keep was built by Henry II in the 12th century and it still stands.  Around the outer walls, you can see various forms of reinforcement built up throughout history including both world wars.  The castle hill is located in a very strategic location, facing the Channel and within view of the French coastline.  I won't go into the whole history of the castle here as it is very lengthy, but if you get a moment, you can go here to read about it.  It is worth your while- very interesting!!

And now, for the pictures!  Back in 1999, DJ and I visited this site and I was completely enamored with the 2000-year-old Roman lighthouse.

Here is a picture of me in front of the lighthouse in 1999:

22 September 2012 : 

Zoe with the English Channel in the background.  Just over her left shoulder, you can barely make out the silhouette of land- that is France.

Church records dating back to 1226!

Altar of Anglo Saxon church

The view looking the other direction:

The English countryside from the top of the castle keep:

The English Channel, Anglo Saxon Church and Roman lighthouse from the castle keep:

Look!  We found Henry II and his daughter, Matilda, wandering around the castle!

There are sheep in the trench

Just because they are cute

A small glimpse of the white cliffs from the secret wartime tunnels:

It was a great day out- free for us as we are English Heritage members.  The weather was beautiful and the kids had a great time too!  The weekend before, we went to the Queen's winter residence at Sandringham.  That was a lovely visit as well.  I will save that for a future post.

** I just realized I don't have a good picture of the keep!  It is really a fabulous keep, too!  So, I found one on the internet so you can see what it looks like:

photo credit here

Conversations with Noah and Zoe

If you have read any of these in the past, you know that I am constantly comparing Noah to an old man.  He really does have an old soul.  Bear in mind, he is only nine.

While listening to one of the few radio stations that comes in in the car the other day (a pop station), Noah says, "Can we just listen to BBC Radio?  I like talk radio."

What nine-year-old likes talk radio?

Mine.

This morning, he tried to crack a joke at the bus stop and while I found it funny, it totally got crickets from everyone else.

There is another little boy that comes to the bust stop that is a year older than Noah.  He is a very nice little boy that loves to chat our ears off until the bus comes.  This morning, we showed up and he was wearing a hoodie, some RayBan Wayfarer lookalikes and a pair or old school big headphones attached to his MP3 player.  He looked like a disc jockey or rapper from the 80's.  So, I said, "Hey there, Grandmaster T (his name begins with a T) !"

He was also holding an ice cube up to his lip, so I asked him what was wrong and if he had a fat lip.  He explained that he felt a fever blister coming on and just had the ice on his lip for the swelling.

There was a pause- long enough for us to move on to other subjects in our brains- and then Noah inserted, "What?  Did you show up to a party and forget your records and someone beat you up?"

Crickets.

I smiled and patted Noah on the arm.

He rolled his eyes and said, "Never mind!"

I then said, "Noah- what nine year old references records?  Have you even witnessed a record being played in your lifetime?"

"Well, no- but I have seen records in like old stores and stuff."

Now Zoe's turn:

A couple days ago, Zoe was playing in the floor and mumbling and talking quietly.  I heard what sounded like various forms of the "f" word coming from her mouth.  And she was even saying it in an exclamatory manner.  So, I finally said, "Zoe?  What are you saying!?"

"You know?  What the cat that catches Tweety Bird says, 'Fuccery Fuccotash!' "

"You mean, 'Sufferin' Succotash!' "

"Yes.  Fuccery Fuccotash!"

"How about you don't say that anymore, because you can't quite pronounce it right and it sounds like a very bad word?"

"Yeah, that is what my teacher said too."

Fabulous- she was suspended from school on the second day and now it appears to her teacher she is throwing the f-bomb around.

Parents of the year right here.

Parents. Of. The. Year.

Two years and eleven months until we move again and get to change school districts.

A Day in the Life...

When I saw Mama Kat's writing prompts last week, one in particular jumped out at me.  "Share your a day in your life represented only in pictures and the time the pictures were taken."   I was scheduled to get internet on Friday, just one day after her link-up and thought it would be a perfect way to start my blog posts about life in England.

Of course, as everything else has gone during this move, things didn't happen as planned.  We didn't actually get internet until yesterday (Tuesday)- far too late to link up with her blog.  But, I decided to go ahead and post it anyway, since I had already taken the pictures last week.  I would like to revisit this post again when we get our furniture and car, because I will be able to leave the house and it will more accurately represent life in England.  But, for now, you get the "life in England, in transition mode, with ugly loaner furniture and a mostly-empty house."  Enjoy.

This is what 6:45am looks like from my bedroom window:

6:55- breakfast 

7:00- lunches made

7:35am- the beginning of our morning walk to the bus stop

8:05am- back in my living room for a hot cup of tea before I start my day

laundry in the wash and then out on the line for a dry (it started raining and had to come back in to the dyer)

I usually arrive at the bus stop in the afternoon about ten minutes early, so I sit on the bench by the village sign and wait until time to walk around the corner to the bus stop to get the kids.

Rainy English afternoon walk home from the bus

Rainy English afternoon turns into rainy English evening

bathtime!

 bedtime!

 a little television after the kids go to bed (our big tv is with the rest of our furniture, on a boat somewhere in the North Atlantic- this is Noah's tv that we packed in Unaccompanied Baggage so we would have something to watch until our stuff gets here)

Like I said, I will have to revisit this idea when we get all our things.  My day will be slightly less boring when I have a car and can actually leave the house.  I am feeling a bit like a shut-in at the moment.

At least I have internet now- it took nineteen days to get a phone and internet hooked up in the house.  I have been going insane!  I am so happy to be connected with the world again.

An update from across the pond

Hey y'all! This is Jennifer from Momma Made It Look Easy. Jennifer sent me an email and asked if I would update everyone with how things are going for them in England.

They are settling into their "new" house, which is actually pretty old, but beautiful. Here is a photo I grabbed from her Facebook account. I'm sure she will have some fantastic photos to share soon.

She said it takes a while for her phone and internet too be connected so she will not be able to update the blog until that is finished. There is also no 3G so she can't update from her phone, and their American car has not yet arrived (DJ is using the car they acquired in England to drive to work) so she can't even drive to a free wifi spot. (If it were me I would be having some kind of daily panic attacks.)

She is hoping that she will be re-connected with the world (wide web) soon, and she promises loads of tales of life in England as soon as possible. I, for one, can not wait!

Mean Girls

Nothing will take you screaming back to your own childhood like having a little girl.  I know girls can be mean.  I experienced it.  I remember in first grade, I had two best friends, and invariably two of the three of us would pair up and the third would get left out.  I distinctly remember that it was a big deal when it was your turn to be cafeteria helper and the designated cafeteria helper got to pick one friend to help her.  I never got picked to be the other person.  And, yet, when it was my turn to be the designated helper, if I didn't pick this one friend, she wouldn't speak to me for days.  That was thirty-three years ago and I still remember it well.

The other most significant time I remember was in third grade- I had moved to a different town in second grade and by third grade was really making friends.  One day on the playground, I was sitting under a tree, drawing in the dirt, with a friend and two other girls came skipping by and started calling me a baby.  I had no idea why they were picking on me, but it upset me and I began to cry, which just resulted in them calling me a baby more.  Fast forward a few weeks and another friend of mine was having a slumber party and invited me to come.  I was looking forward to it until I found out that the two girls that were picking on me would be in attendance.  At first I wasn't going to go, but then my best friend- the one that had been sitting under the tree with me- was going and she assured me that we could hang out and ignore the other two if they got nasty.

The night of the party arrived and I showed up with sleeping bag in hand.  I found out upon arrival that my best friend had fallen ill and would not be there.  My mother had already left, so I went in and tried to have fun.  Everything was going fine- the other two girls were avoiding me altogether- until the parents went to bed.  At that point, the two mean girls got on the couch and invited everyone up with them, except for me.  When I tried to sit on the couch, they scooted over and told me there was no room.  So- I sat there in the middle of the living room floor, while they played a fun little game.  One person on the couch would come up with a fact about me and whisper it down the line until the last person said it out loud and everyone laughed hysterically.  It was things like, "Jennifer is a baby.", "Jennifer has fat thighs." ( I was NINE- do we have fat thighs at nine??), "Jennifer is so ugly."  You get the picture.  I tried so hard not to cry.  I didn't want them to call me a baby again, but I finally ran from the living room in tears while they laughed.  And I called my mom to come pick me up.  That, of course, made everything worse.  And to add insult to injury, while I didn't know what they told the parents the next morning when I wasn't there, I know it wasn't the truth, because I was informed by the girl that hosted the party that her parents were very angry that I went home and I was not welcome at their house anymore.

It never occurred to me when I had kids that I would have to face this again.  And that it would hurt so much worse when it was my kid going through these things.

I got lucky.  I had a son first.  Boys pick and tease, but quickly get over it.  I have had a few minor incidents with Noah, but nothing major.  The most memorable involved a GIRL.

Noah has an August birthday.  That means he is always one of the younger kids in his class.  I volunteered to help his class during Field Day when he was in Kindergarten and there was one particular little girl that had hit a massive growth spurt and was a whole head taller than Noah.  By the time they had Field Day, all the kids in Kindergarten had turned six.  All except for Noah and one other little girl in his class with an August birthday.  And this other mean girl kept isolating them.  I heard her on a few occasions say things like, "All the six-year-olds can come stand over here by me, but the BABY FIVE-YEAR-OLDS have to stay over there!"

I have never wanted to badly to punch a child in my life.

That is until two days ago.

Noah has started school here already but Zoe doesn't start until next week, so she and I have had a lot of mommy/daughter time.  Since we are still in temporary lodging, we are limited on our entertainment  options.  It was beautiful outside, so I took her out to the playground.  There were two other kids playing.

As soon as I sat on the bench, Zoe was beside me saying, "I tried to play on the slide, but that kid said, 'Here comes the bad guy!' and I am NOT the bad guy.  But she keeps saying it!"  I told her she didn't have to play with them if she didn't want to and to just go slide and ignore them.

I watched as she hesitantly headed over to the slide.  She climbed up and one kid screamed, "Bad guy!" and they scampered away.  Zoe looked a little crestfallen, but proceeded to slide down the slide and mind her own business.  And then, the other little girl who looked about Zoe's age (and whose mother was sitting RIGHT THERE watching all this) walked up to Zoe, cocked her head and (to the tune of nanny nanny boo boo) said, "Ha Ha Ha Ha Haaaa Haaa!"  Zoe ignored her and she ran off.  But every time she passed Zoe, if Zoe would glance her way, she would either stick her tongue out at Zoe or hum her little taunting tune.

The mother did nothing.

All of my previous childhood incidents like this came screaming back at me, and I hurt so badly for her.  I know she was just wondering what she did to warrant this response from this kid.

Finally, afraid that I was going to get arrested for punching a five-year-old in the mouth, I called Zoe and we left the playground.

With the promise that I would play a game with her in the room and we would come back later.

When the Mean Girls were gone.

(I don't know how I am going to make it through the teen years- she is just in Kindergarten!)

Ye Olde Numerology

Since arriving here,  I have learned that if you ask a local how far it is to any place in particular, the answer is invariably, "Twelve miles."  Seriously.  We have been told it is twelve miles from RAF Lakenheath to RAF Feltwell.  It is twelve miles from RAF Feltwell (where the elementary school my kids will attend is located) to the village where we will live.  It is also twelve miles from the village to Brandon- the closest bigger town with amenities.  I haven't actually measured any of these distances, it is just what I have been told.

I suspected that "twelve miles" was just a standard guesstimate.  That way, they aren't lying to you- they want you to know it is more than ten miles, but don't want to put you off by having you think it is as far away as fifteen miles.

Today, we were in the middle of Newmarket and after running our errand there, we decided to find a place to go visit.  I pulled out the GPS and searched under "attractions/historical" and found three pages of items listed in various directions as, you guessed it, twelve miles away.  So, even the GPS is in on the little joke.  Cheeky little electronic device.

 (It is hard to take a picture with your phone while riding down bumpy, windy English roads, so the picture is blurry, but this was just one page of three full pages all with the same distance)

We finally decided to go a bit farther and picked Framlingham Castle, which was actually forty-six miles away.  Even the wiliest of GPS devices could not pull off the twelve mile rule here, so it just gave up and told us the truth: that while only forty-six miles away, it was going to take us over an hour to get there.  And it did.

The twelve mile conversation forgotten, we thoroughly enjoyed Framilingham Castle- especially me and my history-loving, nerdy self.  I was walking around reading all the plaques regarding the history of the place when I wandered upon this little gem:

I tried googling to see if there was some significance to this- you know, some sort of Roman conspiracy or something, but found nothing.  Am I the only one to notice this?

And so, after only three weeks here, I feel that "twelve miles" is going to be our running gag while we are here.  It has become my mission to take a photo or log every time someone tells me or I see a sign indicating that something is "twelve miles away".

Until next time- if you need me, I will be hanging out in the pub in the next village over.

It is twelve miles away.

 

  **linking up with Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop- prompt #3 "What makes you smile?"  The answer would be, "finding the humor in all situations, especially considering this move has been very difficult on us"

Perception

Since this move is just totally sucking eggs, let me lighten the mood with a little story that happened on the other side of the pond before we left the US.

It was moving day and there were four movers at my house, all extremely friendly and chatty. As I flitted from room to room making sure they took the right things, didn't pack the wrong things and checking they didn't need water or anything, I would pause in each room for a few and strike up a conversation with each guy.

Guy-in-my-living-room was one of my favorite.  He was hilarious and kept picking on me because I guess he and his wife had wanted to rent our house, but when they called the realtor, they found it had already been rented.  Now that he was inside, he kept going on and on about how nice it was and how he would sure like to rent it.  We talked about the neighborhood, the township, his kids, my kids, etc. After awhile, I felt like I knew him.  But nothing let me know him like this one small moment that totally re-defined my perception of him.

He had just pulled my bookcase away from the wall and was wrapping the edges and corners so they didn't get chipped.  He flipped it over on it's side to wrap it in bubble wrap and promptly jumped back in a panic.

"Do you have a paper towel!!??", he practically shrieked.

I was standing half in the kitchen, half in the living room and did not have a proper view as to what he was looking at.

"Sure, just let me..."

"...because you've just got a nest of spiders here! Yes, A NEST OF SPIDERS!"

I could hear the panic rising in his voice, bordering on hysteria.

Now, let's pause for a moment and discuss this.

I live in the woods.  We have bugs.  We have spiders.  I do clean fairly regularly and was puzzled as to how an entire nest of spiders developed without my knowledge, but it was the corner of the living room where there is a crack in the foundation and also where the dog's bed had been.  Perhaps, I had just overlooked it.

Now, when you hear the term, "nest of spiders", what you do you envision?

Because I saw in my mind's eye a huge, elaborate web with a massive spider and her forty bazillion babies crawling all over the place a la Charlotte's Web.

I also knew that even though he asked for a paper towel, that based on his reaction and the fact he was half a breath from dancing on a chair screaming like those Tom and Jerry cartoons where the woman in an apron is standing on the kitchen chair screaming over a mouse, it was going to be ME and not him that was going to have to take care of the "spider nest".

I don't like spiders either.  They creep me out with all their legs.  But, as a military wife, I don't always have the luxury of having someone else kill it for me.  Heck, I usually don't even want to wait until my husband gets home in the evening lest I lose the sucker and then not know where he is in the house.  Leaving the spider for later almost always conjures an image in my head of the spider growing ten sizes bigger in just minutes (like the Grinch's heart when he finds Christmas), crawling across the ceiling above my bed and then falling into my open, sleeping mouth.  Is that just me?

Alright, I digress.

So.... I am mentally preparing for this scenario where I am going to have to kill a spider and her millions of bratty offspring with nothing but a paper towel while a six foot, two hundred and fifty pound black man dances, screaming on my tv cabinet.

I grab a paper towel, walk over to where this man is staring in complete and utter horror and peek around the corner of the bookshelf.

What I found was not a spider, not her offspring, but just that sticky cobwebby stuff stuck to the corner.  No spider, no babies, just some dust, a dead fly and an ant or two stuck in the sticky cobweb.

I calmly wiped it away with my hand and walked away.

Man-in-my-living-room said, "Wow!  You aren't scared of spiders!!?"

And I puffed up my chest, smiled and said, "No! Spiders don't scare me!!"

I think I won his respect.

And he totally lost his cool points with me.