Catching Up

Several weekends ago we visited Sandringham, the Queen's country residence in Norfolk.  It is only about an hour from where we live and has been a home of four generations of monarchs since 1862.  If you saw the movie, The King's Speech, it was the house where George gave his Christmas Day speech behind the velvet curtain.  (We actually saw the curtain!!)  The Queen herself spends Christmas there every year and attends service at the nearby church. The public comes out every year to see her headed to or from church and the little girls hand her flowers.

It was funny, because the house is huge and yet we were being reminded by the tour guides constantly that it is meant to be a hunting lodge, a small country retreat.  I guess compared to a palace, it is small, but still....  I did find it very cozy for such a large house, though, and can imagine how wonderful it must be to spend Christmas there.  Photographs inside are not allowed, but I did get a few from the outside.

When you enter the grounds, you can either take the direct path to the house or the Woodland Walk.  Of course, we took the Woodland Walk. Along the beautifully manicured path dotted with many flowering plants, including my favorite- hydrangeas, there was a clearing giving us a glimpse of the house:

 We then came upon a large beautiful redwood tree with this plaque.  It reads, "Wellingtonia Gigantica planted by Princess Christian of Denmark 2nd November 1863".

 Here is the tree:

 Then we came into a clearing where we got a full view of the house:

It is interesting to note that there is no direct route to Sandringham. The approach is through a lot of winding, country roads through rural Norfolk.  DJ and I were arguing about how the Queen gets there.  I couldn't imagine her riding from London to here as it would take several hours.  DJ said he thought she would want to ride in and enjoy the view of her countryside.  I remarked that she's been queen of that countryside for sixty years, didn't he think maybe she had seen it enough by now?  So, upon entering the house, that is the first question I asked one of the guides.  She told us that usually the Queen takes the train into nearby King's Lynn and then car from there.

 Up close, right before we entered:

 Some of the cars on display out in the museum area:

 A picture of the backside of the house:

It was beautiful and full of history, portraits and artifacts from different reigns.  Since it is a hunting lodge, there is an extensive gun collection on display in the house as well. 

Of course there are the important things too. When you enter the house, you are stepping straight into the saloon.  There is no great entryway or hall as it was not meant to be a house for entertaining, but simply a hunting lodge or comfortable family retreat in the country.  While standing in the saloon, the guide was telling us that while the Queen is in residence, the fire in the fireplace is always burning and they like to sit around the fire, talk and watch television.  Of course Noah's hand immediately shot up.  

"Where's the television!?"

Priorities.

It was hidden in a television cabinet in the corner by the fireplace.  It pops up when they want to view it and goes back in when not in use.

I have found another article on the house that is very good and descriptive if you are interesting in reading it.  You can find it here.

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Two weekends ago, we went to Audley End House for apple weekend.  This was another impressive house.  Once again, we were not permitted to take photos inside the house, so I only have a couple of the outside, but the article I linked to above will give you a few details about it.  

At one point, we were standing in a very grand room filled with portraits of people that had owned the home and their ancestors.  Zoe, tugged on my shirt and I leaned down to hear what she had to say.

"Mommy?  Are all these people dead?"

I affirmed that they were and she stood there for a minute, quiet, and then:

"Wow! Who killed them all??"

Hahaha.  The mind of a child.

Feeding the ducks:

 In the stables, they had a dress-up area, Zoe loved it.

 Noah, not-so-much

 Come on, Noah, SMILE!

 Fine, I'll take it!

We walked around the orchard, the gardens and sampled some honey fudge that was amazing!  We even walked away with a bottle of blackberry wine.

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Next up: as my previous post, indicated, we finally got our furniture!  I have managed to put together the kids' rooms as well as ours and take pictures.  The living room is pretty much put together, except we need a book case or cabinet to house the Sky (satellite) box, Wii, DVD player and all the remotes, cables and plugs.  There was no place for our tv cabinet in the living room as there is a tv mount over the fireplace mantle.  Right now all the stuff is sitting on the mantle and driving me nuts.  

We also need to purchase a computer desk so we can sort the office out.  The kitchen is sorted, but I won't take a picture of it until the office is sorted and I can get all the stuff off my kitchen counter and into the office.  We also need to eventually get a double bed to set up in the guest room.  It is all a work in progress.  I imagine it will take some time.

My Stuff! My Stuff! How Bazaar!

Okay- first of all- our American car arrived!  YAY!  Matilda JuneBug is back in our possession.  I missed her!

Secondly, just a few days shy of two months in transit, OUR HOUSEHOLD GOODS HAVE ARRIVED!  We were able to finally get rid of this lovely loaner furniture:

Now, unpacking everything and putting it away, is another story.  We are making steady progress, but there are still a lot of boxes to be unpacked and things to be put away. The fact that this house does not contain one single closet is putting a kink in my system.  We had quite a bit of stuff in our hall closet and bedroom closet in NJ and now I have to find a place to put all of that stuff!

the moving truck in front of our living room window:

boxes in the kitchen:

 boxes in the living room:

The other challenge is that I cannot simply put a nail in the wall and hang my pictures.  The house is old- two hundred years old- and the outer walls are plaster over chalk and the inner walls are plaster.  Translation: they are hard and a hole must be drilled in them with a masonry bit.

I still can't find the table legs to the end table in the living room.  I have no idea where they are.  I am sure they are stuffed in some random box ( I found my sweaters yesterday in a box out in the garage marked, "craft supplies".  There were craft supplies in the box, WITH MY SWEATERS) and I just have to find them.

Friday night, they had a holiday bazaar on base with loads of vendors, carnival rides and food.  The kids got a taste of Texas with a frito pie and DJ and I got a taste of Louisiana with a bowl of chicken and sausage gumbo.  I was skeptical at first. DJ interviewed the guy selling the gumbo before we bought some.  After feeling satisfied with his answers- he is from a small town near Opelousas and he does put file in the gumbo- we purchased two bowls and promptly devoured them.

While walking around the bazaar, we found a vendor that had various watercolors and prints of those watercolors featuring local village scenes.  We quickly found a few of our village, featuring the pub, the church, etc when Noah noticed one featuring the cross.  The cross is located right in front of our house- Cross Hill, our house is called Crosshill house- and points down the road running beside our house to the location of the old air fields used for RAF Methwold during WWII. The airfields were eventually shut down and the land was returned to agriculture. If you walk down the road now, you will just find an enormous expanse of farmland where the air field used to be.  The only reminder of it's presence is the cross at Cross Hill.

So, Noah found the print that had the cross and we noticed that in the right corner of the print, was half our house.  Of course we had to buy it! The house we are living in is the orange-ish colored house in the right corner of the picture.

Here is an actual picture taken looking at the cross and up toward town centre and St. George's Church.

I still owe you a post about our visit to Sandringham and now add to that our visit to Audley End House.  Both houses do not allow photos on the inside, so I only have a few of the outside.  I also hope to have a post of our put-together house for you soon.  In order for that to happen, I must get off this computer and go unpack some more!

Cheers!

(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!