Yet another half term break !

Last week we all, Sally’s mum included, returned from a trip to South Wales via Salisbury & Somerset. Boasting its new UK plates the Range Rover took us off for another driving holiday. Leaving on Tuesday of the half term break, Mark, Aisha, William and Margaret went back  to have a better look at Stonehenge, this time in more pleasant weather. 

We went on to West Pennard just outside of Glastonbury where we spent two days with Valerie, Rachel’s mum. She was enormously welcoming putting us all up and preparing not only a delicious dinner but two mornings of ‘Full English’ cooked breakfasts. We stayed with her at Easter but did not actually get too far out of the back garden. This time we made it to the 'Bath and West Show’ the local annual agricultural show. 

Valerie at West Pennard.

The show was similar in size and style to the Sydney Easter Show but with fewer rides. The kids enjoyed watching a sheep dog demonstration, practised their lambing techniques and had a couple of goes on the twister. They also watched a horse shoe making competition and saw a traditional punch & Judy show. William had a go at air rifle shooting, as you do, and after several very wide shots scored a bullseye!  There were some fantastic displays in the flower tent – the sweet peas and begonias were spectacular, while the 60 year old bonsai azaleas were incredible. There were some carnivorous plants which had their eyes on William !

William's Bullseye !

Beautiful Begonias

Sweet William & Sweet Peas

A carnivorous plant has its eye on  W !

On Thursday we reluctantly left Valerie and went into Glastonbury and visited the excellent rural life museum, which gave us a good insight into the hardships of ‘the good old days’. 

Glastonbury is a small town that in recent times hosts the annual Glastonbury festival but has been of significance since Neolithic times. It is associated with the legend of King Arthur as well as a supposed visit by Jesus and his great uncle, Joseph of Arimathea. Across from the Tor is a smaller hill where the ‘Glastonbury Thorn’ could be found. Legend has it that on arrival there Joseph struck his staff into the ground where it took root and grew. A cutting of this thorn bush survived until last year when vandals cut it down. There have also been suggestions Glastonbury  is a possible location for the Holy Grail, again brought by Joseph of Arimathea. 

The top of the Tor has been important since the 5^th Century when an Iron Age fort stood there. Later it became a site of pilgrimage where a medieval church of St Michael was built and stood until around 1275 when, on September 11^th, an earthquake shook south west England and toppled the church. This was replaced in 1360 which survived until King Henry VIII’s purge of the Catholic churches when it was largely ruined and the Abbot of Glastonbury hanged atop the Tor.

The climb up the Tor was much steeper than we expected. It was another blisteringly hot British day with clear blue skies and temperatures hovering around 26!!!  Margaret, at 73 with arthritis and various artificial bits and pieces but minus her walking stick, did a great job being hauled up by Mark. The kids raced on in no time at all but were a bit puffed at the end.

Margaret made it !

Resting Kids.

We stopped off at Bathampton to visit the grave of Arthur Philip the founder of the first colony at Sydney Cove in 1788. For a figure of such significance to Australia’s history, his grave is fairly unassuming and in fact his final resting place was forgotten until 1897. 

It has also been suggested that his grave is in fact not where it is currently marked but either outside the church or possibly lost altogether. 
For more information on him see this link. Arthur Philip

 

On Thursday night we stayed at a rather nice though slightly ‘Fawlty Towers’ style farm stay near Cardiff. The kids shared the luxurious king size bed while Mark and Margaret took the singles. There was a small gym at the farm stay and the kids had fun ‘working out’. Aisha took things too seriously though and ended up slipping off the treadmill and ‘skinning’ her shin. Ouch.

We drove on through Swansea to one of the kid friendly surprises Mark had organised – a visit to a local chocolate factory. Mark required extra protection from the chocolate (or was that the other way around ?) The kids had a go at making next year’s Easter bunnies and eggs. 

We then drove on down to the Gower Peninsular where, with temps hitting 27, we again went to a sand beach and went swimming this time in water that was surprisingly pleasant.  

   We impressed the locals with our style both in and out of the water. 

After a couple of hours at the beach we drove up to The Brecon Beacons National Park to a Youth Hostel we had booked for two nights. The hostel was nestled in between classic Welsh valleys and not far from a large lake/reservoir. As Mark drove back down the Cardiff to collect Sally from Cardiff train station, a Friday night hot spot for the hip, young and horrendously drunk, he had a fantastic view of sunset in the Brecons, sadly not recorded.

Part of the view from the hostel

A boy and his Nanna.

The Hostel.

Getting back to the YHA close to 11pm we were amazed that it was only then almost dark. We again had very good weather for most of the trip although Wales did live up to its reputation of changeable weather by giving us swimmable weather on Friday, cool cloudy weather on Saturday followed by cold drizzle the final day. 

On our way to the next kid friendly surprise we stopped at another bit of 'boring stuff' - Brecon Abbey where we were amazed to see a ‘William Strutt’ hanging in the Abbey. 

William was an English painter, whom we knew about, who came out to colonial Australia and became a significant colonial artist. Most notable is his work on the  'Black Thursday' fires in Victoria of February 1851 as well as his works surrounding The Bourke & Wills fiasco. 

Black Thursday.

Bushrangers.

The burial of Burke.

We finished our time in Wales with a visit to the 'Big Pit', a former Welsh coal mine now a museum run by the former miners.Their aim is to act as a tool for educating about coal and to teach and hopefully hand on aspects of Welsh culture. It was a poignant visit for those who could still remember the Thatcher govt’s attempts to close down the mines and the subsequent miners’ strikes of the 1980s.

We drove from Big Pit’ 4 hours or so back to London, mostly in pouring rain, in time to finish homework and start school the next day.

We also had to get ready to go off the following weekend to Devon to retrace some of the Wosrfold family tree. 

We have just returned from that trip, the highlights of which will be ready in a few days.

Back from The USSR !

Sally returned from her work trip to Russia two weeks ago. Regrettably we ended up not joining her - it was just too complicated to do. She had a great time marveling at so many aspects of Moscow, of course not the least its history. She had three days of work then opted to stay on by herself for a further three days, taking in a UK public holiday. Below is a compilation and summary of her E-mails to us and to her family in Australia. 

 

The traffic is very, very heavy.  It took two hours from the airport to the hotel.  The smoking is even more here than in London with people still allowed to smoke inside. It’s really expensive and I am not sure how the average Russian copes.  There is, however, some very serious money here- very high end shops around, some pretty impressive cars being driven around 

very fast.......

 

... and women dressed up to the nines - amazingly lots of them walk around in really high heels even though the pavements here and the cobble stones are worse than London!  There is so much to look at and be amazed /confounded by!

I thought of you all tonight, but especially Kathryn.  Do you remember like I do the afternoons after church and Sunday roast when Dad would put on one of our ballet records?  It was usually either Swan Lake or Coppelia and Kathryn would dance around while the rest of us galumphed!

Tonight I am in Moscow, having been here since Wednesday afternoon for work, and I found my way at the end of our meeting past St Basil's and Red Square to the new Bolshoi (the old has apparently been under renovation  for about 10 years),  

Having been unable to find tickets on the internet, 

I was told the only option was to try to buy a ticket at the front of the theatre. Twenty minutes before start time I handed across less than I had expected - about £30 - and texted Mark to say I hoped I'd got a real ticket.  I certainly wondered if I was throwing away good money, but at 7pm the curtains went up and I sat for the next 2  1/2 hours watching the Bolshoi Ballet perform Coppelia!!

It was amazing and something I will remember for the rest of my life.  The music was all familiar from childhood, the costumes gorgeous, complete with lots of pairs of Russian red boots and the whole performance just wonderful.  The grace and strength of the dancers was hard to believe - it was all just fabulous.  It is hard to imagine in this big, busy, commercial and open city that when we were dancing around all those years ago to Delibes, Russia was the centre of the Soviet Union and the Bolshoi was something few people other than Russians got to see. I keep saying it, but "if you had said to me a year ago".....I am so excited and can't believe I have been lucky enough to have this experience.  The beauty of the ballet combined with the childhood memories brought tears to my eyes.   While I was there by myself, I was amongst locals, Dutch, Americans and Spaniards - everyone so happy to be there and loving it.  While I was there by myself, you were all there with me and Kathryn was dancing,

The Moscow Metro is really fast and efficient, even though the carriages are older than London; they come more often and are larger and longer.  Unlike London tube stations where you never know how they are going to look, the layout of all the stations is the same here. Unlike London it is the amazing decorations that differentiate them.  The very difficult thing is trying to understand where you are because there are no signs in English, just in Cyrillic.  Fortunately one of my colleagues recognises letters from her Greek and another from his time in Mongolia. When he and I “did” the metro last night I got him there with my amazing map reading skills and he used his amazing Cyrillic skills to work out how to get around and which way to go!

TUBE STATIONS NOT MUSEUMS !

 

 

I went up to Ishmailov markets by metro with 5 others on Saturday morning.  It was great fun wandering among all the stalls and seeing how similar some of the stuff is to Iran and Syria.  I would have spent much more, but I ran out of money and had to come away with less than I would have liked :-(  Anyway, it was a fun experience.

Lunch was at the markets - everyone ordered bbq lamb shashlicks which were brought upstairs to a smoky room above with little old ladies (babushkas?) in charge of everything.  I had fish instead and it was beautiful salmon.  

I have no idea where it came from!

Crapdogs ?

The ladies who served lunch

We went to the Kremlin in the afternoon.  I could have spent a day there, but there are so many people go through in summer time that they limit how much time you can have in places like the armoury museum.  The Kremlin is absolutely huge - a city within walls it has many churches, govt buildings, theatres, presidential building etc etc.  The churches are stunning while the artefacts in the Armoury are beyond price and unlike anything I have ever seen.  More pearls, diamonds, rubies than I have ever seen on some incredible items like bible covers.  We didn't even get to see the diamond store, though I might try tomorrow. 

 

Another hot day of walking the streets of Moscow!  I was out for 9 hours today and am exhausted, having walked everywhere with few places to sit down and stop.  I have been sweating heaps (who said this place was cold – it’s been high 20s every day!) so I’m heading up to have a shower and will then try to get to a concert (probably won't happen but no harm in trying).  I have been to the Russian Fine Art Museum and seen Flemish masters amongst others, the Church of our Saviour and the Diamond Fund at the Kremlin (rivals the Crown Jewels) – stunning stuff.  I didn't get all the complex rules though…

… the Tchaikovsky concert hall organ recital was an absolute hoot - The young beautiful female organist was fantastic but it was bizarre going from traditional to modern to choral to rock with string then string and recorder in between (with organist mimicking flamenco then going off to change her outfit for the first of several times!). Her last departure was off the stage on a motorbike !!  Quite different from anything I have ever seen before!

Lat day - I caught the metro by myself this morning (all in Cyrillic!) and went down to see St Basil's.  I was going to try to see national history museum but ran out of time having decided to spend more time at St Basil's which was gorgeous.  Came past tomb of Lenin to see if I could go in, but having missed the 2 hours it was open yesterday, today it was closed.  Have seen lots and done lots but I leave with a list of things I would still like to see here and with St Petersburg on the list too - that as they say will have to wait for another time!

Sitting in the Domododevo airport.  French Open is on to occupy us - we got here early having allowed 2 hours to airport (what it took from airport to city) but got here before 3 for a 5.30 flight and flight is now going to be at least 40 minutes late because the aircraft is late from London.  Ho hum! See you all soon XXX