THE WEYMOUTH CARNIVAL.

As mentioned at the end of our European Vacation post we arrived home from Europe and within two days were off again. As has happened too often, Mark & the kids headed off in the car while Sally went back to work. She was by herself at home for several nights then caught a train down to meet us at the end of the week. 

We were down in Dorset staying with our friend Jane again. We were there specifically for the Weymouth carnival which we had been looking forward to ever since Jane told us about it earlier in the year. Unfortunately the weather was, as it had been for the previous fortnight, pretty poor. It was dry for most of the actual carnival day and we did have another day of good weather after that. For the other three days it rained, heavily at times pretty much all up the South East coast, causing localised flooding in London. 

Below is a selection of some of the floats that went through the centre of Weymouth. The whole idea is to raise funds for various local charities that have participated in the floats. The buckets are to collect the coins that people throw.

Part of the carnival show were various aerial performances of Bi & Tri-planes, wing walkers and what would turn out to be the be the penultimate performance of the Red Arrows. Less than a week later one of the pilots was killed at another show when his plane inexplicably crashed. The various fly-pasts took place just off the beach from the spectators. This was the first time we had seen such a show and it was thrilling to see all this at times not more than 100 metres from us. The pictures show the Red Arrows flying just off the beach above Aisha & William out in the shallows. The Bi-planes had 'wing walkers' who didn't actually walk but rather stood on the wings. The video shows William more intent on a ball game while Aisha can be heard 'OMGing' in the background. 

LOW TIDE AT WEYMOUTH BEACH.

The views around the Dorest coast are spectacular and we took advantage of the one good sunny day when Jane took us down to Abbotsbury and further south along the 'Jurassic Coast' towards Lyme Regis. The cliffs along this part of the coast are littered, quite literally, with a variety of Jurassic age fossils. Only two years ago a local fossil hunter found a 2.4 metre long fossilised pliosaur ( related to the plesiosaur) skull. We also found small bits and pieces of fossil amongst the rocks we sat on. On an earlier trip there we had gone into a fossil shop at Charmouth beach. William spotted a beautifully well defined fossil of an amoenite and immediately thought it would be a good tactile present for his blind friend Luke back in Canberra. Unfortunately, a week later whilst wrapping the fossil to send, it was dropped onto the floor and broke. We resolved that the next time we were down in Dorset we would get another. So we did. 

Dorset is also famous for its pirate and smuggling exploits so we just had to have a drink at the local smugglers' inn.

Sally came down on the Friday night and the next day Jane took us off to see some more of the local sights. Lawrence of Arabia is someone we have always been interested in, given his links to Syria and the Middle East generally. We knew he lived and died in the Dorset area and, at the Imperial War Museum, had already seen the motorbike he was on when he crashed. We were amazed when Jane led us to a cemetery in a village not too far away from their holiday house. Up the very back of this little local cemetery was Lawrence of Arabia's grave. It was another 'Wow' moment for Sally & Mark. Lawrence's birthday had been the week before our visit and we noticed fresh flowers had been put on his grave. We also saw the church, with its unusual etched rather than stained glass windows (the original stained glass windows having been blown out by a bomb during WWII), where his funeral took place and the very basic house where he lived.

LAWRENCE'S 4 ROOMED HOUSE.

With the exception of one day, when the kids played badminton and Julian made them laugh by wearing springy stilts, the kids ended up spending a fair bit of time indoors. Julian has access to an extensive range of DVDs and decided it was about time the kids were introduced to Star Wars, which they had never seen. So in three days they watched all but one of the movies. They also enjoyed making Mark's increasingly famous home made pizzas again. 

WATCHING STAR WARS, IN BED, AT 2pm.

We did a visit to the pretty birth place and childhood home of Thomas Hardy and had cream tea in the lovely town of Dorchester (not named, but used as the location of his Mayor of Casterbridge novel).  After a visit to his adult home where most of Hardy's writing was done, we headed home to London with Julian who then spent a few days with us. He didn't want to go to any museums or theatre this time, just to an Abercrombie & Fitch or a Holister store. We couldn't make it to an Abercrombie store but he was able to buy a massively overpriced platted leather bangle from Holister! Fortunately our kids have been adequately brainwashed over the years so that brands don't count......for now.


If you haven't read our European holiday post either scroll down or click on the link to the right of the frame.  We are a bit behind on putting up the posts so another one will pop up by the end of the week. Thanks for reading, we know you love them !!!