A Holiday in Kent

Elizabeth & I went to visit my cousin Emma for a few days last week. Emma is married to Paul James, and they have two lovely children, Millie & Henry. I am certain they have the British-est names ever. They live in this delightful little village called Lower Halstow, in Kent. (For those of you who wonder: the travel to her place was wonderfully easy: bus to Cambridge Rail station, non-stop train to Kings Cross, cross the road to St Pancras International train station, and onto a high speed train there. It was 4 hours and fine. Elizabeth tried to crawl/walk on the train, which was kind of funny, in a baby-looks-drunk kind of way.)

When I say this village is 'delightful', I mean it - it is totally delightful. In the mornings, all the Mums walk their children to school, and wait until the bell rings, and then wave as the kids go inside - and I mean, all  the Mums. It's so nice feeling. And the nursery (aka pre-school) is just around the corner (for real, not in the British sense), and both schools are on School Lane. :) Hee hee hee, that is just too quaint. Emma says hello to every single dog-walker, and knows all their names - everyone says good morning to each other, and "how was blah-dee-blah last week?" "Oh, it was lovely! Everyone had a great time!", or "Did you manage to get your fence fixed?", or "It's going to be a beautiful day, isn't it?" It's kind of like living in a musical - so positive-feeling.

Emma lives on Lapwing Drive - hello, Harry Potter could live in this neighbourhood!!! But the best, best, best part about Lower Halstow is that Emma's neighbour has ducks that live in their front garden. No jokes. Emma says there are about 30 ducks that live in this front garden, and they lay their eggs there. Then when they hatch, the Mummy Ducks take their little Baby Ducklings on a walk to the pond nearby, and they have a little swim, and then all walk back together in a line. I am going to have to go back when the babies are born - right now they are just laying their eggs.

There is a nest of egg just by the bird feeder. One Mummy Duck never left her little nest. :)

Who doesn't want to live on Lapwing Drive???? I am officially jealous of the James family.

A Nice Day in Cambridge

 I'm a bit behind in my bloggedy blog because Matthew was away for a week, and I was (let's be honest) really not enjoying the single parenting gig. This was one of our 'best' conversations while he was gone:
Me: "I hate this. I am exhausted. No one comes home in the evening when you're gone."
Matthew: "I know, it must be so tiring."
Me: "Seriously, this is not what I signed up for. You can't go away for this long again."
Matthew: "Okay."
Me: "No, I'm being serious. And don't die. Because then you would never come home."
Matthew: "I'm not going to die."
Me: "Yeah, well just don't, because if you do, I am going to remarry right away - probably the next week. And it won't be a marriage for love, it will be a marriage for co-parenting."

That is pretty much how rational I was all week.

But one morning - was it Tuesday? Maybe Wednesday? (They all blended together in my sleep-deprived mind. Elizabeth has a gift for forgetting how to sleep through the night when her Dad is out of town.) Anyways, one morning we were on our way somewhere, and I had to stop and get off the bike to take a moment to remind myself that I live in a beautiful city, and that I have a pretty sweet life these days. Evidence:

Awesome green bike. I saw 4 green bikes that morning. Best day ever? I think so too.

The entire city is covered in daffodils. They are such a happy flower, I love them.

The river Cam. All the trees are beautiful and green. Sorry Canadians, if this is making you kind of hate me.

Elizabeth points at ducks and swans now. She points a lot when we ride along the river.

And on an unrelated note: bike theft in Cambridge is really high - something crazy like 6 out of 10 bikes get stolen. (Okay, I totally made up that statistic, but it's pretty high.) But I had to laugh out loud when I saw this when I got home:

 

This bike owner is taking no chances! Love it!

Sleepy Reading

Matthew is away at a work retreat this week. He left yesterday morning and isn't back until Saturday evening, and I miss him already.

This morning, I missed him a really lot, because first thing in the morning is his time with Elizabeth. He gets her at 6:45 when she wakes up, and either brings her into our bed for family cuddles (on the weekends or later-start work days) or into the bathroom and she plays while he showers. So I get an extra 15 minutes or so of snoozing. But this morning, with no Matthew around, I went and got Elizabeauty, and brought her into our bed. I just wasn't ready for the day yet. I reached for the first book of hers I could find. It was (of course) Noisy Cars. With a button that goes "beep beep beep".

Whatever, as long as I could lie down. Then she let me know she wanted me to read it to her, by doing the sign for 'more' (in this case, 'more' means 'read this to me now, Mum') and pushing the book into my face. I didn't have my glasses on, so I did some 'contextual reading' via the pictures. Here were the best parts of the book, for your enjoyment:

"This is a red car. Red cars go really fast. Nanny has a red car. She drives really fast. This is called a 'family four-door' car."

"This is a police car. They have sirens that go 'nee-naw-nee-naw'. Police officers stop bad guys from doing bad stuff. They also stop you when you are driving your car too fast. If this happens to you, be like Auntie Suzie, and lie to the police officer about how your car is making a funny sound and you just want to get home safely, and they will escort you home. Or be like Uncle Chris, and get a speeding ticket, but pay it off before Mummy & Daddy find out about it."

"These are race cars, and sometimes they're called Nascar, or maybe the race itself is called Nascar, or something. Nascar is really popular in the United States. Maybe in Canada too, but not in our house. Race cars don't honk when they pass you. In fact, I wonder if they even have horns. They do make really loud sounds when they race, and there is a race in Edmonton every year called The Indy, and it is held at the old airport downtown. I wonder if there will be a race this year because the airport was closing. I wonder if anyone in Edmonton will really care. Nobody in our house will care."

"This is a convertible car. See how the lady driver has grey hair? That is because you can only afford a convertible car when you're retired and you use up all your savings to buy it. See how there is a sailboat in the background? This must be the old lady's retirement cottage by the sea, and her husband is sailing their boat while she drives to the little town for groceries at the market. When you're rich and retired, you will only buy groceries at 'markets' not 'grocery stores', and you will have a convertible too, if you want one."

She loved it.

Stair Master

Elizabeth lo-o-o-o-oves stairs. Here is evidence:

She's getting pretty quick at it, and has this very efficient technique of only using one knee - and she always leads with her left, so you have to start her at the very far right of the staircase otherwise she climbs into the wall on the left. (Lack of spatial awareness = totally from my side of the gene pool.) The other day I was awarded the Parent of the Year 2011 for forgetting to close the baby gate at the bottom of the staircase, and by the time I realized she was out of the room, she was half-way up the second flight of stairs... whoopsies... we don't forget to do the gates up anymore.

We took Elizabeth to this International Lunch that was held by the Newcomer's Society (aka the Old Ladies). Elizabeth's favourite part was the huge staircase in the church where the lunch was held. My favourite part was the entertainment. First, a trio of Israelis playing English flutes (aka recorders):

In true Old Lady form, after their piece, someone stood up and asked (with her eyes closed), "Can you tell us, please, who is the composer, and from what century was your piece?" (Seriously.)

Second on the program: A kind of installation art, where the artist wondered what it was like to experience visual art independently, with no impact from the other audience members. And so, she brought in this black box-type thing with a hole cut in the bottom of it, and volunteers sat in the middle of the room while the 'artists' moved this box around the volunteer, who looked at the inside of the box while listening to a recording through a headset. (I said, 'artists' because we couldn't figure out if this was intended as art, or if it was her research project for her PhD or something.)

See the square part resting on the table? That was where the hole was, and then the girl in red held one end, and her assistant held the other end and they circled the volunteer. Oh, and the whole rest of the audience had to stay quiet for them to 'truly experience' the art. It was a bit of an elaborate set up. 

 

 

Neither Matthew nor I volunteered, and so we will never truly experience art, I guess. This is what Elizabeth looked like during the entire 'entertainment' section:

And that is how I know she loved the stairs best.

A Quick Post on Potatoes

There has been a change of allegiance in our home. We once swore by the King Edward, but his throne has been usurped by the beautiful and buttery Marabel potato.

What you can't see is that the last line of the small print says: "No need to add butter or cream - just mash!"

When I did my last online shop, I actually googled a bunch of potato varieties - don't mock me - you'd do it too, out of sheer curiosity. This is what Albert Bartlett Products (a family business since 1948 and the UK's leading provider of fresh potatoes) says about them:

"It offers an exceptional, fine sweet flavour with a creamy texture so you don’t have to add butter. This makes the Marabel a key staple ingredient in any healthy diet." 

Their website is kind of awesome. It is dedicated to potatoes:  http://www.albert-bartlett.co.uk. If you have time, I really hope our bag of Marabels came from Douglas & Alexander Richardson's farm. http://www.albert-bartlett.co.uk/farmers  He's got great hair, or as my friend Morgan would say, "great flow".


Well, obviously we had to try them - how could we not? Imagine mashed potatoes without adding butter or milk or cream?? Or all 3?? As if such a thing exists!! But guess what: it totally does. We didn't add anything to our mashed potatoes, and they were so tasty - I'm just sad we didn't photograph them. If you need any more convincing, these spuds won some award:

Award winning potatoes? Need it, want it, love it.


My heart is won over by the Marabel potato. May she flourish in the fields of this great nation. 

Britishisms

When we first started talking about moving here, everyone said, "Do you think Elizabeth will come home with a British accent??" Now that we've been here a short while, I think probably no - given our circle of international friends, she will probably end up with a Chilean-Cypriot-German-with-a-touch-of-Britain accent.

However, there are certain words that have already slipped into my vernacular - words that are decidedly Brit, and most un-Canadian. For example:

• back garden vs backyard
• cycle vs bike
• roundabout vs traffic circle
• car park vs parking lot
• tissues vs kleenex
• shops vs stores

I have avoided others though, thank goodness:

• it's an elevator, not a lift
• it's six-thirty, not half-six (What is that about? Half-six would be three o'clock, duh.)
• it's still a cookie, not a biscuit
• I will never say, "I was stood there..." - hello, you were standing there. 
• 'up the road' - everyone says everything is 'just up the road'. Example #1: "Where is the nearest grocery store?" "Oh, in Milton - just up the road" (truth: 20 min bike ride). Example #2: "How far is the walk to the playground?" "Not far, just up the road." (truth: 20 second walk). Example #3: "It's not far, it's just up the road in London." (truth: 1 hour by train).

The best one that both Elizabeth & her parents have adopted is "Peepo!" instead of Peek-A-Boo. She loves to play:

"Where's Elizabeth???"

"PEEPO!!!"

Prettiest Baby Girl!!!

Guitar Hero

I gave Matthew a coupon-guitar for his birthday, on January 8. You know, where you basically give an I.O.U. for a gift you haven't bought yet. :) There was no point buying something just to pack it up and move it. So we went and bought a guitar yesterday - March 12. It takes me awhile, but I follow through on my coupon-gifts.

We went to a pawn shop to get it, and Matthew got all bashful about trying it out in the store. Some of you might ask, "What kind of guitar is it?" And in reponse I say, "Acoustic. Brown. Regular." The brand (do you call it a brand? a make? a style?) is Westville -and, as a non-guitar connoisseur, let me tell you, it sounds great. Maybe we will make a band and be like the Partridge family. Or the New Main Street Family singers. (Any Christopher Guest fans out there??)

 The best part about the guitar purchase was the ride home when Faff had to pretend to be a total badazz and bike home with a guitar on his back. I tried to get him to play in one of the parks in the town centre but he blushed and said, "Jammy, no."

Physicist by day, rock star by night.

Well, if the whole 'physics' thing doesn't work out, maybe we can just cycle around Europe busking.