With just on 9 days of school left we are wondering just where the year has gone. December 1st, marks one year since we arrived in London. We have been pondering the roller coaster of emotions we experienced this time 12 months ago and all that we have done since arriving.
The weather, while still mild and remarkably dry, gave us the first frost of the season just a few days ago. In the last post we wrote about the fantastic weather in late September. Below are some pictures of the blue sky then and William's morning walk to school through our local park more recently. Friends tell us that at this time last year it had been snowing for a week. When we arrived 12 months ago, we literally landed to snow.
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| Late September. |
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| A week ago. |
Another anniversary in December will be the 20th anniversary of Mark and Sally meeting in Damascus! Now we watch the news from the Middle East, especially Syria, in dismay. We fear Syria may well go the way of Iraq given the fact that the ruling Ba'ath party has been controlled by the Assads, members of a minority Islamic group the Alawites, for the last 40 years. While generally not as brutal as Saddam Hussein, the Assads have kept a tight grip over Syria, something we experienced first hand. Once the grip on the country is relaxed, as seems inevitable, who knows what will bubble up as rival forces jockey for power and, inevitably, revenge.
Before leaving Australia we had plans to take the kids to the Middle East to see Syria, Egypt maybe Lybia, Morocco and Turkey. Turkey looks ok and Morocco will be a 2012 definite, but the Christmas trip we planned to Egypt has turned into a trip to Spain, having taken particular note of the Australian Government's, in hindsight, prescient advice against travelling there.
Oxford
Just before the half term break - about 5 weeks ago now, we headed to Oxford just over an hour north east of London. It is a compact and easy town to walk around but a nightmare by car so we trained it and stayed in the Youth Hostel (somehow we are still able to pass for youths !) just a few minutes walk from the train station.
Yet again we were fortunate not only with the weather but also with our timing. Our visit coincided with the matriculation ceremonies of the students. Great throngs of be-gowned smart young things wandered the already busy streets going to & from their photo sessions and ceremonies. This all added to the 'special' atmosphere of the town.
Apart from being famous for the location of much of the Hogwarts scenes from the various Harry Potter movies, Oxford has been educating scholars since 1096. A formal university was established in 1167 after foreign students were expelled from the University of Paris. In retaliation, Henry II forbade English students from studying in Paris. Previously, studying in Paris was considered essential to finishing a formal education for the finest and best sons of European society. As a result, the student population at Oxford grew rapidly, which led inevitably to the establishment of formal colleges to house and protect /control the students, particularly after the St Scholastica Day riot of 1355. The riots were a result of a dispute about the quality of ale served in a tavern! The ensuing skirmishes last two days and saw up to 63 students and 30 locals killed.
Sally was keen to see where her Dad had done his bachelor's degree at Oriel College. In reading up before hand, Lonely Planet mentioned "the largest and grandest of Oxford's colleges, Christ Church". Sally recalled her Dad talking about Oriel and though she also remembered him talking fondly of his primary years at a small cathedral school, Christ Church. It didn't register with her, nor any of the other kids, as anything special at the time. It wasn't until she contacted her Dad for information on what to see, that she realised the scholarship he took up to be a chorister aged 8 to 13 was at none other than Christ Church Cathedral School in Oxford !
With Phil's typical amazing recall, we followed his detailed instructions and found the school a little way down a lane across from the college. We did a tour of the college and then attended evensong in the chapel where he had sung. We watched the setting sun reflect through the round stained glass window as, just a few meters from us, boys, some the same age as Phil would have been when he started, earnestly sang beneath the watchful eye of the choir master. It was both very moving and quite sublime.
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| Phillip's school from 8 to 13 year of age. |
The chapel where Phil sang every day for 5 years.
Oxford University comprises 38 colleges spread across the town. Doubtless all are worth seeing. They are all very grand looking and ooze history, class and privilege. The history of them all is amazing. Tom Clock tower was designed by Christopher Wren. Jesus College was founded in 1571 by Queen Elizabeth 1st. Oxford has seen 14 British Prime Ministers study there as well as numerous foreign heads of state (the late King Hussein of Jordan {who was also one of Phil's class mates at Harrow}, King Harold of Norway & Benazir Bhuto) as well as nobel laureates (Howard Florey {an Australian}, Auung Sang Suu Kyi & TS Elliot) and just famous people like Monty Python's Michael Palin & former Australian PM Bob Hawke. For a full list click here. http://www.blanchflower.org/alumni/oxfalumn.html
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| Tom quad in Christchurch College. |
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Tom Clock chimed 101 times at 9.05 pm,
& still does, to warn students to be back in college
before lock out. |
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In the dining Hall of Jesus College,
where Lawrence of Arabia studied. |
Not surprisingly though, we restricted ourselves to just a few colleges. Obviously we went to Oriel College and were delighted to be let in to the beautiful courtyards closed to tourists when we mentioned the family connection. Like so many other tourists, we felt compelled to see Christ Church College, not only because of its grand history but also because of its role in the Harry Potter movies. The history of Christ Church College Cathedral, where Phil sang, dates back to 1002 when St Frideswide's Priory occupied part of the current site. The priory was established by the chaplain to Henry I and survived until the 1520s when Cardinal Wolsey decided to knock it down to build a new college, Cardinal College. Once Wolsey fell from favour with Henry VIII over the Church of England, Henry took over and the college was renamed Christ Church, Oxford.
Apart from all that boring old history stuff, Christ Church College dining hall and the stair case featured in the Harry Potter movies as did several other buildings in Oxford.
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| The firedogs. |
Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland was written at, and drew much inspiration from, Oxford. Carroll (Charles Dodgson) was a student and then Maths tutor at Christ Church College, Oxford. The sweet shop across the road from Christ Church where Carroll bought barley sugar for the daughter of the Dean, Alice Liddell, is still there and is now an 'Alice in Wonderland' Shop. Earlier this year we visited her grave with Jane, Nigel and Julian in Lyndhurst in the New Forest. In the dining hall of Christ Church College there is the apparent inspiration for the long necked Alice - the long necked 'firedogs' of the fireplace.
As well as all the educational excellence, history and grandeur of Oxford University, the town has The Ashmolean Museum. It was founded in 1683 to house the 'cabinet of curiosities' which Elias Ashmole gave the university in 1677. The Ashmolean was Britain's first public museum, as well as the world's first university museum. We spent around three hours there and could have spent the whole three days looking at the astounding displays of relics, art and manuscripts from every age of humanity. Some of the notable ones we saw included one of the actual Arabic traditional Jelabia + robes worn by Lawrence of Arabia, (we just can't get away from that man!), the lantern used by Guy Fawkes in the gunpowder plot of 1605, the death mask of Oliver Cromwell, and Old & New testament manuscripts. Aisha, who has been learning about Rennaisance art, gave Sally a lesson in perspective, using original Rembrandts, Degas and Van Dykes as examples! We only saw a fraction of the museum holdings so clearly must go back.
The Bodelain is one of Oxford's 102 libraries. It holds over 11 million volumes which are kept on 190km of shelving and is the 2nd largest library in the UK, after the British Library. Being a legal deposit means that it receives a copy of every single item published in the UK. The library receives documents ranging from novels, text books, cook books, comics, every kind of specific interest magazines and pizza shop delivery brochures. All are kept and stored meaning the libraries shelves expand by five km every year.
We went into the Bodleian Library treasures exhibition as well as the amazing old library itself. The treasures include among other items, one of only 40 surviving copies of the original Gutenberg Bible, an original draft of Mary Shelly's 'Frankenstein' - complete with annotations by her husband, Percy, a first edition collection of Shakespeare plays published just a few years after his death and one of only seventeen original surviving pre -1300 ‘engrossments’ of Magna Carta, three of which date from 1217 and one from 1225. As well as these there are numerous stunning illuminated manuscripts and maps, papyrus texts and just amazing STUFF.
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| Frankenstein ! |
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| AMAZING STUFF ! |
As is often the case, there was just too much to really take in. Click on the link below to see some of the treasures we marveled at and many, we are ashamed to say, we just glanced over.
School International Night
The kids are both attending North London International School (NLIS). It is a small school on two very separate campuses. To reflect and indeed celebrate the truly international nature of the school there is an 'International Night' each year where parents are asked to set up or contribute to a 'stall' of traditional food from their countries. As mentioned in our last post, requests for 'traditional' items can be challenging for Australians. Traditional food can be tricky too, especially when you are presenting it in London. Roast beef and Yorkshire puds, while very common in Australia, aren't very special here and certainly not seen as Australian.
Mark teamed up with an Australian mum - she presented pavlova, he Vegemite toast. He was going to do a pav as well but suffered a 'mixer malfunction' at 7 am that very morning. Vegemite is very easy to get here now, unlike when Mark was here 20 years ago. Despite that and the familiarity most Brits have with Australia, it was surprisingly hard to get people to try the freshly made and only lightly 'vegemited' toast. Many would not even consider trying it. This is even though there is a marmite flavoured chocolate on sale here! No wonder they lost the empire! In the end he resorted to suggesting that slices of pavlova or lamington would be £10 a piece UNLESS a piece of toast was tried, in which case the cakes were free. It worked. Mark even scored a young convert !!
Aisha volunteered to perform a very Aussie version of 'I still call Australia home' that she originally devised for guides at home in 2010. She and a friend performed it here, accompanied by Sally on guitar and William on power point. Click on the video below to see how well she did. Believe it or not the audience was a lot noisier for other acts.
Suffolk and Norfolk
During the half term break, much needed after a whopping five weeks straight at school.... we all went to Suffolk. Our neighbours Helen & James highly recommended it so we loaded up the Range Rover and headed off - just a two hour drive from home. Mark, in his more than part time guise of travel agent, had booked us into a Premier Inn (moderately cheap but good hotel chain) and a youth hostel. The particular Premier Inn at Thetford was chosen simply because it had vacancies. We soon realised, thanks to Sally's relentless early morning walks of discovery combined with exercise, to be a quite interesting town with a fair bit of unusual history.
It turns out that Thetford has many claims to fame, not the least being it was the location for the exterior filming of Dad's Army. So famous and popular is this connection that an extraordinarily life - like bronze statue of Arthur Lowe (Capt Mainwaring) was erected by the river. Thetford also benefited from the generosity of Maharja Duleep Singh, the last Maharajah of the Punjab. In 1863 Singh, by then a convert to Christianity, a bit of an anglophile and a favourite of Queen Victoria, bought a run down estate (now owned by the Guinness brewing family) not far from Thetford. He restored the estate as well as the local Thetford school, church and many local cottages and in so doing earned the respect and friendship of the local people. In 1999 HRH the Prince of Wales unveiled the impressive statue of the Maharajah which sits in the local park not far from Capt Mainwaring.
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A monument to Boudicea
just off Westminster Bridge, London. |
The whole East Anglia area was home to the Iceni, a native Celtic tribe now famous for their warrior queen, Boadicea. Around AD 60 she fought off the Romans, sacking the former Trinovantium capital, and then Roman town, of Camulodunum (Colchester). The Roman occupiers mistreated the locals and roused their anger by erecting a monumental temple to the former emperor Claudius. The town was inadequately defended and the Iceni systematically destroyed it, killing virtually all the Roman infantry and most of the cavalry. She then advanced on the 20 year old settlement of Londinium, (London), which was abandoned by its Roman governor. The Iceni burned it, as well as nearby St Albans, to the ground.
Tens of thousands are said to have died in the sacking of these three towns and the impact was such that Nero reportedly considered withdrawing from Britain. In the end the Romans defeated the Celts in the Battle of Wattling Street and Boadicea met her end it is said, either by her own hand or through illness.
Before we got to Thetford we stopped in Lavenham. Renowned for its timbered buildings, it is one of the best preserved medieval villages in the UK. In parts, it has changed little in the last 500 years. In its hey day it was one of the wealthiest towns in England, gaining its riches from the wool and associated cloth trade. In particular, it was famous for its much sought after blue cloth made from the local woad plant. During the 16th century however, Lavenham found it could not compete with Dutch refugees who settled in nearby Colchester. The Dutch produced a lighter, cheaper and more fashionable cloth. 300 years later Lavenham was a centre of poverty having been unable to rise from its economic slump. Fortunately today the tourist trade has restored Lavenham to its former glory.
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| Shilling street. |
Among Lavenham's notable residents were a young John Constable and Jane Taylor. Jane lived in the picturesque Shilling street where she wrote the poem 'The Star' from which the lyrics for the nursery rhyme 'Twinkle twinkle little star' were taken.
We also visited the town of Bury St Edmunds in western Suffolk which is sort of central East Anglia. It used to be a Roman town, as well as a royal Saxon town. Around 633 King of the Est Angles, Sigebert, founded a monastery there. In 903 this became the burial site of King Edmund who had been captured, tortured and killed in 903 by invading Danes. Edmund was considered a martyr King and his celebrity, combined with reports of miracles at his shrine, resulted in the Abbey being enlarged to service the pilgrims. As the shrine grew so did the town. By 925 the name of the town was changed from Beodericsworth to St Edmund's Bury. In 1020 King Canute revoked the church control over the town imposed on it by Edmund before his death. The town has links to the Magna Carta with the barons of England meeting in the Abbey Church in 1214 and swearing to force King John to accept the Charter of Liberties, the document which led to the creation of the Magna Carta. The town also featured in the creation of the Massachusetts Bay colony sending several of its families there in 1640.
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| A gibbbet |
We had a look around the local Moyse's hall museum which features extensive exhibits of crime and punishment. Some of them include a gibbet which had been found in the 1700's covered over with earth but with the body of its last inhabitant still inside, the death mask of a notorious local murderer as well as a book bound with the skin of another local criminal.
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A LOCK OF MARY'S HAIR
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Less gruesome was an exhibit of a lock of Mary Tudors hair. Mary was the fifth child of Henry VII. Her brother went on to become Henry VIII, after their brother and heir apparent Arthur died as a teenager in 1502. Arthur had only just married Catherine of Aragon five months earlier. King Henry VII wanted to endure the political alliance between England and Spain so insisted Henry marry his dead brother's wife.
Mary and her brother Henry were close. He named his first daughter after his sister as well as the now famous warship the Mary Rose. Renowned as one of the most beautiful princesses in Europe, Mary was used, as many young women of noble birth were, as a political prize. She was engaged at one stage to Charles of Caistile until political changes meant this was no longer desirable. Later Cardinal Wolsey arranged a marriage between the 18 year old Mary to the 52 year old King Louis XII. One of her maids of honour at the wedding was Anne Boleyn. Her new husband lasted only three months when he died from, it is said, exhaustion.... As you would.
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| AISHA AT MARY'S GRAVE. |
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| Mary's window in the church |
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| A COPY OF THE MAGNA CARTA |
Mary eventually re-married Charles Brandon, the 1st Duke of Suffolk. She married for love & without the permission of her brother King Henry VIII. They thereby risked execution for treason. Henry relented and the marriage was allowed. After she died in 1533 her grieving husband decided to marry their son's fiance - the 14 year old Catherine Willoughby, as you would. Catherine also happened to be the couple's legal ward. They had two sons......!
After two nights away with us Sally headed back to London by train from Norwich while Mark & the kids drove back into Suffolk to the tiny town of Blaxhall. Unlike most YHAs, this one was nowhere near anything in particular, except the east coast of Suffolk and not served by any public transport. Despite its remoteness they were lucky to get a room. Blaxhall is a very quiet little one pub, one shop farming town. The kids were able to explore both the cabbages and the trend of 'planking'.
Guy Fawkes' night, as well as the fireworks and bonfire that went along with it, is something that both Sally & Mark remember from their childhoods in Australia. It disappeared sometime in the early 70s but is still big here - as you would expect. While "Health & Safety" is a phrase heard very often here, it doesn't seem to extend to buying & selling of enormous explosive fireworks. These are the kinds that were banned in Australia many years ago. Canberra was one of the last places in Australia where fairly tame fireworks could be legally sold and they finally stopped in 2009. While we didn't buy any this year we did go along to Alexandra Palace at the top of Muswell Hill and watch the displays across the city. Next year we will lash out and buy some of our own to detonate and see what damage we can do.We realise now that, not surprisingly, Remembrance Sunday 11th of November, is as big to the British as ANZAC day, 25th April, is to Australians. Had we known we would have gone to Whitehall to attend the ceremonies overseen by the entire royal family, the PM, as well as all living former PMs, except Thatcher, and the representatives of all foreign embassies in London. It was a wonderful sunny day with temperatures of 16, which followed a miserable week of classic English drizzle - to which we returned for another week.
That weekend Jane, Nigel & Julian came up for a long overdue visit allowing us to try and return their generous hospitality over numerous visits down to them in Romsey / Dorset. On Sunday 11th we all went down the road to the Muswell Hill Methodist church where William's scout group had another church parade. We thought it was just his group, but the impression we have is that the scouts and guides here are generally much more closely associated with the local churches than they are at home.
Aunty Mary, much recovered from her broken arm, was able to come along and again William was asked to carry the flag - still in his Australian scout shirt. Although we thought his previous Church parade would be the last time he wore his Australian scout shirt, the British shirt he was given was far too big. The Aussie one had another few weeks work until a suitable, but still too large, British one was obtained. It has even made the newspapers recently. We did wonder about the use of the term 'hottest' though with temps of 18 degrees....' warmest November' may have been fairer.
You might think that the person pictured lying on the beach in all his clothes is due to the pleasant, though still fairly mild temperatures. Even at its warmest in summer, when the mercury reached a more respectable 27, many people still went to the beach, armed with their beach chairs and sat in their street clothes. What would the Danes say ?
Well done for making it down this far. Sorry this post has been so strung out and perhaps a tad rambling. We are now just three weeks away from our trip to Spain. Aisha recently topped the class in Spanish so we look forward to her making use of her skills for real. Sally, fluent in Spanish for many years and still very good at it, has made a deal that we will buy Aisha a pair of Spanish leather shoes IF she conducts the shopping conversation in Spanish.... We will let you know how it goes.
It has been a busy weekend with the Lower School Christmas fete held yesterday. We ran the chocolate toss & Mark was able to help little kiddies part with just under £70 all up. This afternoon we entertained around 20 of Sally's colleagues and have just about finished cleaning up. Next weekend William is at Wembly stadium to parade around in front of 40,000 people then watch the Saracens play the Ospreys. We think they are rugby teams from somewhere - maybe England & Wales...
We will put up a short (promise) Christmas post before we head off to Seville - on Christmas day.
For those of you on Skype our Skype name is Strutties.
