By Jove...

...I think I've done it!
Gone to the Sherlock Holmes Museum, that is!
Just getting friendly with the Bobby guarding the outside of 221b Baker Street.
How 'bout that Deerstalker cap, eh? And bet you didn't realize I've taken up smoking
the pipe. Let me introduce you to Doctor Watson, friend and housemate to Mr. Holmes. Quite a chatty
fellow he was. He recieved us in the study he shares with Sherlock, who happened to be out
at the time. Perhaps on a case? Dr. Watson wasn't at liberty to say;)

Has anyone read The Musgrave Ritual? Here, I happened to walk in just as Holmes and a Mr. Reginald Musgrave discover the body of Brunton the Butler, slumped over a casket of treasure. Too bad, he seemed like such a nice chap.

Lastly, "had a go" at the attached Sherlock Holmes Museum shop (was there any doubt?) and relished the time, with no sounds of breaking glass, no "sorry Mom"s, no tugs on my arm and not one heavy sigh.

Life is very, very good.

Buddies and Birthdays

Our friend of 30-some years, Rita (Rortvedt) Hoke, came to visit us this past weekend! The weather was as fabulous as the company! Here we are on Tower Bridge, with the Tower of London in back of us (where the crown jewels are kept and Beefeaters in those silly top hats and big white collars regale you with gruesome stories;).
*Fact of the day: Tower Bridge is NOT London Bridge. London Bridge is a puny, little nothing bridge downstream a bit. Honest.

Here's a better view of the Tower of London from the bridge. The funny-looking torpedo building is the 'water company' - that according to my hubby. So funny to see an ancient castle
rubbing elbows with modern, glass-and-metal buildings!

Here's a shot of one half of the Tower Bridge. Mason is dying to walk across the walkways overhead! Yikes. It was already closed the evening we were there. Darn.
And our Keely turned 17 this week! Made funny-tasting chocolate chip cupcakes (actually cake, just cut into pieces!). Her first choice, Angel Food Cake, is nowhere to be found here. She's modeling the hat she recieved and has now worn 24-7. Her friends at school surprised her with a cake and gifts, took her to a show and dinner - people she has only known 3 weeks! She was overwhelmed, to say the least. She also loved hearing from her family and pals back home thru the mail, facebook, phone calls and email. (And this to her friend who mistakenly called at 3 a.m. -you know who you are -> THERE'S A SIX HOUR TIME DIFFERENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Learn it!

*ahhh* I'm feeling better now.

;)
Awwwww, ain't she cute?

Off to Bath and Stonehenge this weekend!

TTFN!

Oxford tidbits

My favorite place we've traveled to so far has been Oxford. We took a very comfortable
coach bus - two, actually. The first one, we discovered as we rode along, noticing the view getting more urban, went to London! (We were WONDERING why the fare was so cheap!)
Fortunately, we got it right on only our second attempt;)

Oxford is a town as well as a University and VERY pretty. Here is Christ Church, where the students still eat in loooong dining rooms.
All the buildings in Oxford have tons of decorative spires, statues, plaques and stained glass windows. Gorgy;)
Don't you love this arch? Leads from one building to another. Charming. And what delightful children walking below it.
Just inside the entrance to Christ Church is a large stairway that was used in the first (?) Harry Potter movie, where Prof. Mogonagle greeted the students below. Here are my own little - and not so little - professors;)
Here is the dining hall that was the inspiration for the Harry Potter dining hall as well. They began filming here but soon discovered it was too small (!) for their purposes. So they built a fake one which is still housed in an airplane hangar somewhere out in the country!
Not a bad place to eat your pb and j, huh?
I'm thinking of asking Jer to do something similar in our own dining room - hey, he's got a lot
of time off coming up, don't forget...

I tried to put on more photos but was stopped by the Man Behind the Blogger Curtain.

Stay tuned for "Alice in Wonderland goes to (comes from) Oxford"!

And for the Readers in the Audience...

A little magic...
And a little mystery...

The Platform 9 and 3/4 is from the Harry Potter books. It is in the train/rail station at Kings Cross. You must get off the tube at the tube stop for Kings Cross and walk in a maze of underground tunnels (but very clearly marked, easy to navigate) until you end up in the train depot. Then it's another long walk past platforms 1-8, around a corner and voila!

The Sherlock Holmes tiles decorate the entire Baker Street tube stop and tunnels. In the close-up of the pipe, you can kind of see that all the 'dots' are actually tiny Sherlock Holmes's! So very cool. Many tube stops have their own tiled artwork and the theme or colors are carried throughout the tunnels. Everything is extremely well marked and you can get just about anywhere from just about anywhere else. An awesome system.

Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, I plan on taking a morning one day next week to visit the Sherlock Holmes Museum (on Baker Street, of course!). Maybe I'll use it as a reward for finishing my revisions on my first five chapters of my novel (*waves to Editor who may or may not be reading this*)
Cheers!

Noting the differences...

There are some things about life in England that are very different.
Different names for familiar things...




...different customs linked with familiar activities...
(The small white sign says,
"Free Beer served with every haircut!")


...different places to shop for some familiar and some not-so-familiar things...

And yet, some things in life never change.

Even in England...

*sigh*

HOW TO POST A COMMENT!

Ok, all you lurkers.
Time to show yourselves!
It's easy to post a comment.
Here's how:
On the bottom of each day's writing, in small letters, it shows the # of comments made.
It might say
"2 comments"
or
"0 comments"
CLICK ON THAT.

Up will pop another screen, with an empty box to type in YOUR very own comment.
TYPE IN YOUR COMMENT.
Sign your name at the bottom, so we know who you are.

Then there are some crazy letters that you have to copy into a box.
COPY THEM IN THE BOX - I believe it is case senstive.

Then it says, "Choose an Identity"
CHOOSE 'Anonymous'. (It's easier that way- plus you've already signed your comment, riiight?)

Below that is an orange rectangle with the words, "Publish your comment"
CLICK ON THAT.

You should get a message that says "Your comment was posted successfully!"
YAY YOU! You are officially a Blogging Genius.

Then when you go to that blog page again, you can click on the 'comments' on the bottom
and yours should come up with any others posted there. It also gets automatically sent
to my email box.
The wonders of the internet, eh?

Celebrity Sightings!

Just thought I'd let you see all the famous people we've happen to run into since we've been
here. They were all gracious enough to pose for a picture.
Cool, huh?
:)

TIME TO CELEBRATE!!

Just found out that TESCO,

my local grocery store,

delivers.

Hey all......Its me! Jer. Trying to blog for the first time! Hope it works...am trying to post a video as well. I am attaching the message I sent to all my fellow workers at Leyden....I do not want to type it all again, so just skip the parts you dont want to read!


Well Guys and Gals,>>It is hard to tell you everything in one go, so I will tell you some...

>>School....UTTER CHAOS!!!! I kid you not! Let me start by saying that I teach 8 different preps, each various times during the day and various days of the week. I change classrooms each period of each day, never staying in the same classroom for more than one period at a time! To look at my schedule (called a timetable here) you would think a blind, drunk, and very stupid person put it together! It has been over two weeks and I still cannot get my head around it. Even the two classes I meet with four times a week are not in the same classroom with the same desk arrangements! (Oh yeah...they don.t have desks here, just tables and chairs! Cant wait for test time!)

The building itself is very old and is just a compilation of additions over the years! In many cases, you have to go up a flight of stairs and then down another just to get to a room on the same floor you started on! There are no passing periods per se, when a bell rings to end one lesson (period), the kids are just suppose to get right to their next class! This would be ok provided that a). You yourself didn't have to collect all your stuff and move also, and b).(more importantly,) that the kids ACTUALLY WANTED to get to their next class! And that is the good part of this school! I wont bore you with all of the details of the behavior here, let me just say these few things:

I long for the Kieth Wolharts and Randy Wedricks (of the famous pop tart story) Those of you who know these guys please fill in the others!
I have found out that our school is basically a dumping ground for the burrough of London where I live and work. All the kids who get rejected or kicked out of the other schools in the burrough come here! ( London is like New York in that it is divided up into burroughs.) I have many kids who actually celebrate 9/11 .

And the kicker.... I met a dude from North Carolina a couple of weeks before we started. Nice guy named Matt..he was in his 30's and we hit it off pretty well...went out for some pints, etc. He had been teaching in NC for about 8 or 9 years. So it was pretty cool! Well he did not make it to period 2 on the very first day! He quit during his 1st period class! That about says it all!

Well I dont want to sound too awful... On the bright side, all of our kids are having really wonderful experiences here. Keely loves her Sixth form classes...here 16-18 year olds are really treated as if they are in Jr. College! She has met lots of kids and likes them very much! Owen, poor guy, just started school this week! The wheels here turn very slowly...But Owen is unflappable and has a great time seeing alot of cool stuff here in England. Shayna is our little social butterfly and has been over to a couple of kids homes to play and even was invited to a BBQ! (which she went to and said it was Awesome!) Even Mason, the only one who did not want to come is having a grand time at school as well! He has two buddies whom he has had over to our flat and has been to their place loads! I am glad he is now happy! Bev is still amazed at how things work (or do not work here) she>spends her time when not writing, buying the kids uniforms for school....I have great pics of the kids in their uniforms!, and rolling our smaller rolling siutcases about two miles to the cheap grocery store, filling one or two of them after checkout, and rolling them home! Sounds like fun!! I keep asking her when she is going to don a big jar on her head and go down to the Thames for drinking water!!

Well sorry I went on soooo long, I will write more later! I do miss you guys alot!
We did this move so the kids would get a bigger perspective on life, and that end is being accomplished in spades! They are really having a great life experience and it is well worth it, I will tell you about the sites and places we have seen next time! Please write back as I really do miss you guys alot!!!

CHEERS!!! Jer
(p.s. waited forever for the video to post only to get an error message. Will try another time.)

Church at Harrow On the Hill

About a mile-plus from our flat is a large hill, housing the infamous Harrow School

(NOT Jer's school, this is a boarding school for the upper crust) and a beautiful Anglican church built in 11?? - I'm terrible with remembering numbers. Anyway, take my word for it, it's darn old . I may have mentioned it in an earlier blog. It is a lovely walk, the last bit up quite a steep incline on a wooded path.

The woods are scattered with ancient gravestones, as is the churchyard. (We've since found out it's very common to have graves right in and around the old churches. Many, like Cantebury cathedral, have the remains buried right in the church or under the floor!)

My favorite gravestone is the top photo - it is actually the side of a gravestone - each side had one of these headless angels on it - looks to have HAD heads at one time. If you look closely, you can see a book on his lap and the wings over his shoulders.

Cool, no?

I took a video of the church yard with the bells clanging. I'll see if I'm hip enough to figure it out downloading it for a future post;)

S and M are off today so we are heading to Pollack Toy Museum and ....who knows where else?

Knowing those two, I'm guessing ice cream will somehow be involved.

Cheers!

House Tour:)

Since most of you have been asking, here are a few sample pics from our humble abode...
(I haven't quite figured out how to get them in the order I want, so bear with me!)
First is the boys shared room. Note the pretty fireplace with mantle - there is one of these in every room (kitchen included) but not in the girls' loft room. The rooms are very large by British standards and all the kids' friends who visit say, "It's Massive!"

Next is my loverly 'cooker', the stovetop called a 'hob'. Thanks to PR neighbor Diane (a retired Home Ec teacher) I now know the farenheit equivalents to my 1-9 oven settings! (Note taped-on cheat sheet!)

To our left is my prized possession from home - my Starbucks coffee press. Next to it is the 'kettle' that heats your water in a flash by pushing the little tab under the handle. Notice the fat electrical plugs and the two side by side
ON-OFF switches in the middle, that make the plug either work, or, in my case, in my first few days, not;)
Below is Jer's and my bedroom and my writing desk. Our bed, which you can't see, is off to the left. Again, another boarded-up fireplace. Lucky we have those, as they are the only shelves we have to put anything on in the whole place! The window faces the back 'gardens' of our neighbors, including our chicken friends. "Green Acres" goes to London.:)


Here is our "Reception Room" or living room. It has two couches, the TV Jer lugged home on the bus (yee-haw!) and, um, another fireplace. All the ceilings are very high, giving it a roomy feel. Having very little furniture also makes it look bigger too. All in all, we feel fortunate to have found this place. The setting is very urban, we're on a busy street but the side streets are quieter.
And, of course, we always have the rooster.
This is the stairway down to our front door. Pretty, huh? Our 'loo' is the doorway you see on your left and our 'office is the one on the right. Note the towel hanging on the railing - b/c there are no towel racks in the bathroom. Most days this railing looks like a clothes line;)
The door to the reception room is directly behind me and we have a little 'box room' (about 7'x9?) on my right. It is big enough (barely) to put two desks. To my left is a long hall where the boys and our rooms lead off of and stairs to the girls' loft room. (It was too messy the day I was taking photos to include here!) The kitchen is at the very end of the hall. I'll include a pic of that later, I guess.

Well, that's about it! Hope your enjoyed your virtual tour!

Cheers!

He's in!!

...and looking rather smart, at that.

Enjoyed his first half-day and is pleased that his schedule varies from day to day.

English high schools (at least this one and Jer's) have different subjects on different days.

You may have 'maths' on Tuesday at 9, Thursday at 1:15 and Friday at half past 10. They may be taught by different teachers as well. Owen thinks this will keep him from being bored, doing the same thing every day.

Jer wishes he could have some consistency! He is in a different room for every period of every day. No desk to call 'home' and sometimes being the 'support' teacher in a class that he teaches on other days. Very confusing! I've been bugging him to blog about his experience but he's had little time to do it. He has much more to plan every day and no time in school to do it.

Let's just say, he's appreciating Leyden quite a bit right now!!

Keep the emails coming!

It's wonderful to hear from you.

MORE TOP TEN!

Thought I'd do a few more top ten lists to keep you all awake...

TOP TEN THINGS I MISS ABOUT HOME

(Besides all of you, 'cuz that's a given) ;)

10. My VAN...or even the Old Man Car - especially on trips to the grocery store.

All that food is HEAVY!

9. Gary Poppins Cheese Popcorn

8. My kitchen, with all the accessories. Here, I feel like I'm on an extended camping trip, trying to cook in an oven who's settings go from 1 to 9 (huh?), with strange ingredients and college-boy pots and pans. (I could go and buy a bunch of new pans, etc, but then what would I do with them when we leave? Seems like a waste.)

7. The Park Ridge Post Office. Believe it or not, it's lightening fast in comparison.

6. Chocolate chips for baking.

5. Half-and half - all I can find is whole cream and even DOUBLE Cream!

4. My comfy computer chair and desk.

3. Hearing Owen playing the piano.

2. Grass. (The 'yards' here are tiny squares, about 8x8 and many are bricked over to use as a parking spot for their very small cars!)

1. Wiley and the way he cries because he's so excited to see you. Every day.

And now, the flip side....

TOP TEN THINGS I LOVE ABOUT DAILY ENGLAND LIFE

(not counting all the cool, historical stuff, b/c that's a given)

10. Walking everywhere. Many, many people walk. Gas is over $8 a gallon and you are charged extra for taking a car into London.

9. My tiny washer and dryer in the kitchen - how convenient! Plus, the loads are so small, you can fold 'em in less than 5 min.

8. The phone not ringing off the hook.

7. The darling front gardens that are filled with pots of plants and brick/tile walks.

6. Waking up to a rooster call (tho I'm pretty sure that's not typically English).

5. The cotton/linen scarves all the ladies wear as a fashion accessory.

4. No screens on the windows (and therefore, no bugs! No mites!)

3. The tiny spoons they serve with coffee. Notice I didn't say the coffee, which, in most restaurants and homes is...(you may want to shield the children's eyes here)... INSTANT.

I kid you not. Tho you can find 'real' coffee shops (and our mall even has a STARBUCKS).

2. Seeing books I know from home with totally different covers (see picture above - Owen as Carol Merrell showing off the English Harry Potter books).

1. English expressions, esp the way our friend John, local cafe owner, calls all the men 'gov' (short for governor) and a few of the women 'sauce pots';)

You'll notice that some of the things I miss are also some of the things I like most about living here, (like missing my van yet enjoying walking everywhere). But isn't that the way most things are? Two sides to every coin.

Cheers!

An English Sampling...

From top:



Cantebury Cathedral, in, um, Cantebury


Jer in our "Crows Nest" suite in Victoria Guest House, Dover (lucky we're not tall people!)

Flowers over wall in Oxford,

Jer and kids outside darling Victoria Guest House, Dover.

Owen is still school-less.

Send worksheets.

And chocolate chips. (the chips are for me. I swear, they don't sell them here.)

Cheers!

And now a word from Shayna...

Hi everyone! It's Shayna. Well I've just had my first day at school and it took forever! Everyone knows what they're doing and I keep looking around to see what to do. This is a picture of Mason and I in our hideous uniforms. I found out that 1. no one wears the ties 2.no one wears the cardigan (sweater)and3. everone wears the red sweatshirts. I have the gray. But all in all I think I will like it here. Everyone asks me to "speak". It sounds like I'm a dog. But they are all really nice. I could feel people staring and talking about me but I didn't mind too much. If someone came to America that was English I would be staring too. There are also a lot more Blacks and Indians here. Everyone is so nice. Lots of kids showed me around. It's so weird to have people just coming up to me and saying "hi what's your name?" People actuallty do that. They just come up and start talking. Everyone is so nice here. My teachers name is Miss O'Conelly and she is very nice. I miss everyone and want to come home soon even though I am having a great time here.Bye!

Shayna =)

Over in Dover!

Took the train to Dover this weekend (Harry Potter fans: they had a Sweet Trolley!! No chocolate frogs, however. Fresh out, I'm afraid;)
Stayed at the CUTEST guest house where the old couple made us a brekkie (breakfast)
fit for a king! Then a long hike up the hill (a white hill, by the way) and tooled around the castle for several hours.
Interesting fact: The castle was built over 1000 years ago but was put to use in WWII - secret tunnels were dug underground - over 4miles worth! - to house a hospital and communication center for the British army/navy! Over 400 servicemen/women lived and worked in these underground rooms and even Churchill hung out there from time to time. VERY cool to see.

Hanging out at the castle:)