THE JAM ARRIVES !

Thanks to everyone who has emailed us or commented on our blog. It is nice to know it is being read.

This week has brought a bit of a change to the weather with cloudier and definitely cooler days. We are still without significant rain and there have been reports on the lower than usual reservoir levels as well as mutterings of ‘hose pipe’ bans. It has struck us that for most of the ten years we were in Canberra there were water restrictions, the spring of 2010 was quite wet. As we packed up to leave it poured for three days straight and apparently, on the Friday after we flew out Canberra had 80 mm in one day. Since we have been here there have been the huge floods in QLD , NSW and Vic and the drought seems to have been broken. Since coming here the Poms have had the coldest but driest December on record as well as the driest and warmest March, April and possibly May too.

Is it all our fault ?

HERE'S TO STREHLOW PLACE !

At the start of this week former neighbours from Strehlow Place came to dinner. Tricia & Laurie, who are up here visiting their son, lived across the road, sort of, from us and have been surrogate Grandparents to Aisha & William. They had a little dog, Zoe, who Aisha loved as a toddler while William received his first chocolate, at 18 months old, courtesy of ‘Uncle Laurie’ – a practice that secretly continued for years after.

We are happy to have the jam AND Nanna !

This week has also seen the long awaited arrival of Sally’s mother’s homemade jam which Mark collected from Heathrow on Thursday. Sally’s mother, Margaret, came with the jam too. Getting her priorities correct, Margaret carefully packed the jam away in her suitcase and it arrived safely. To fit other things in she inadvertently overfilled her hand luggage and ended having to sweet-talk her way out of a $500 excess baggage charge at Melbourne airport ! Margaret will be staying in UK for about 8 weeks although not all of it will be spent with  us. She is heading off for various trips to Europe while she is here.

Sally had the kids up until almost midnight last night watching the Eurovision contest. We have watched the delayed broadcast in Australia several years in a row but this time, not only were we able to watch it LIVE, but we were also able to exercise our constitutional and democratic right to vote as well. Sadly the kids’ choice, Finland, was beaten well & truly with, as we are sure you all know, Azerbaijan winning.  

After just going back to school we are now just two weeks away from another mid-term break of one week. Once the kids have gone back there will be just five weeks before the end of the English academic year and a whopping 8 weeks off.  Unlike Australia, the Brits still have a 3 term year with lots of holidays. Their school year is just 35 weeks compared to our 40.  Once the new school year resumes in early September Aisha will go into year 8 and William into year 5, both after doing only 6 months of a new grade!  Whilst there are broad similarities between the systems the British seem to be particularly fond of quite difficult maths and homework. Aisha, being in high school, has nightly work as well as assignments and essays. William has weekly homework but was given some over the three week end of term break ! He neglected to inform us of this work until a few days before the start of the new term and, unlike his weekly work, we were disinclined to make him do it.

Our house is semi-detached which means we share a wall with people on one side but not another. The people we do share a wall with, James and Helen, are very nice people of a similar age to us but with grown sons. They are keen environmentally minded gardeners who have chooks. The people on the other  side, Laura and Justin,  are younger with smaller kids. They celebrated Laura’s 40th last weekend. They invited us and a couple of other ‘street people’. At the party we met Carl and Emma from down the road, whom we had seen in passing but not actually met properly. It turns out Carl had grown up in #19 Shakespeare Gardens, moved away as a young adult then been able to buy back in a few years ago down the other end of the street. He loves the street and the area with his kids going to the same local school he did.

Yesterday we went to see The Lion King. It was a very impressive performance with amazing costumes and life sized puppets. 

Afterwards we took Margaret to the High Commission for a quick look and some photos. 

Margaret, Sally & kids outside the Hi Comm.

Being in London gives us endless opportunities to see quality theatre. Before Christmas we went to The Hackney Empire to see a pantomime of Jack and the Beanstalk. This show had all the audience participation associated with English pantos. We were lucky to get tickets for ‘Oliver’ just before it closed and of course we saw ‘We Will Rock You’ a few weeks ago. A few nights ago Sally and a colleague saw ‘The End of The Rainbow’ a musical about the last year of Judy Garland’s life when she tried to make a comeback in London in 1969. Sally was so impressed she recommended Mark & Margaret to see it also which they will this coming Thursday.

Spoilt Sally !

Sally’s mum arrived in time for Sally’s 47th birthday on Friday. Sally's colleagues made her feel very special and gave her some beautiful flowers, chocolates, 'bespoke' perfume as well as a lunch out. 

We had a small dinner and presents at home on Friday night and today Mark’s aunt Mary is coming around for a lunch. While we haven’t been away the last few weekends we have been entertaining each week. Having perfected a pavlova years ago for various wheat intolerant friends’ birthdays she has tried a chocolate version today.

THE END OF THE FIRST WEEK IN MAY

It has been a long time since we have put finger to keyboard and updated this blog. As you might notice a great many entries have been put up in the last few days. The formatting is a bit inflexible and temperamental so forgive the huge gaps between sections and alternating lines of photos.


It has been another busy week (when aren’t they busy ?) with the Royal Wedding at the end of last week, ANZAC Day 2011 at the start of it and school resuming after a three week break and four consecutive weekends away.

Next week will be the first full week the kids will have had at school in 5 weeks what with school holidays, Easter and Wedding and bank related holidays.

There is so much to catch up on – Sally has scolded me for not keeping this up to date so I will endeavour to strive to aim to do fortnightly updates starting from …soon. 
In general everything is going well and we are happy and healthy.

Both kids have done well at school with Aisha in particular topping many of her year 7 classes. 

William was elected as his year's Student council reperesantative and Aisha blitzed the high schol kids in her swimming carnival and the headmaster referred to her in the relevant newsletter as 'Aisha Strutt, the human torpedo'. Click on the link below and scroll to the 2nd page with the pool photo. On the first page, next to the picture of the violinist is a picture of a group of made-up boys. Will is on the left of the group as you look at it. .http://www.nlis.org/sites/default/files/documents/News%20DRO%2031st%20March%202011.pdf

WILL'S SRC LETTER 

The weather has been the main topic of conversation with what seems to have been endless dry warm clear days. We have had about 6 weeks of consistently good weather, almost unheard of for the time of the year. Our neighbour commented the other day that he no longer wonders each morning what the weather will be he just expects it to be good. since about mid-March that the days have been so good. Today (May 5th) was remarkable in that I looked at the window to be surprised (!) by overcast skies and ...spits of rain !

Sally works long hours but enjoys working in London. She still gets a blast from walking past and through some of the historical landmarks that surround her. 
Having been an integral part of the kids school in Canberra, she stepped foot in Aisha's campus for the first time a month ago for a student performance evening that Aisha was a part of.  She met for the first time various parents of children Aisha and William have been having play dates with.  

Just this weekend Mark has had both ovens going, and later both dishwashers going, as he produced a roast leg of lamb with Yorkshire puddings ( as you do). His first attempt at Yorkshire puds in maybe 20 years was declared an outstanding success, which he attributes to use of goose fat (!). 
Mark will start looking for casual teaching work in the next couple of weeks. We are staring down the barrel of Sally’s mother and her suitcases full of her excellent homemade jams arriving in a week as well as British summer holidays in just over 10 weeks from now.  

Most recently we have managed to finally sort of overcome the constantly collapsing Olympic ticket website to go in the running for a bunch of Olympic tickets.  
It’s a really odd system wherein you 'book' the tickets you want - indicating either a specific price or, to increase your chances, a price range you are prepared to pay. Those 'bids' are put in along with credit card details. At some stage in June or July this year they will allocate tickets, maybe all you have asked for, none of them or some of them, deduct the cost without any consultation on whether you wanted to pay the top of the price range or the bottom of the price range,( so you have to make sure there is enough money in your account to cover the FULL cost of all the tickets you have bid for).Then closer to the games ...in 2012 we are told what they have given us. By simply selecting those events that we would like to go to Mark’s list of possibles was running at £6,000 at one stage.  We whittled it down to a somewhat more reasonable level but have no idea what, if anything, we’ll get nor how much we’ll end up paying

Anyway, hopefully we get something – just heard the opening ceremony is oversubscribed by 10 times so I doubt we’ll have any luck with that.  Perhaps we’ll get the badminton on a Wednesday morning….!

THE WEDDING !

Who would have thought 6 months ago, that two proud left wing, Australian republican’s would get their kids up at 5:15 and head down to The Mall. and,along with bazillions of others and end up with a fantastic view of the Royal wedding Procession, waving Union Jacks, singing ‘God Save the Queen’ and cheering at every sight of a family of, at times, debatable purpose ?

Well, that’s what we did. Last week saw the return to what is more usual April weather and, for a while, Friday had heavy rain and storms forecast. There was no rain and it turned out to be a good combination of cloud, a bit of a breeze and sun later in the day. We expected most of the good spots to have been long taken with news reports of people camping out two and three nights before the wedding day. Thanks to a good suggestion by one of Sally’s staff, we ended up at 6:30am, on the corner of The Mall and Horse Guards Road standing with people who had camped overnight. It was not until 10 am that anything really happened but from there on until 1pm we stood just two metres from the barricade with the kids right on the barrier. 

OUR FRIENDLY BOBBY.

LOYAL FLAG WAVING.

We had a good view as first the cars came from the palace to Westminster then the carriages came back. It was great to have the band playing directly opposite and amazing to see the precision that the Palace guards were paraded. In the 30 minutes or so before the return of the carriages various sergeants stamped up and down adjusting soldiers’ uniform and position by a few steps or at times mere centimetres.

Later, we very slowly made our way down The Mall we and ended up standing just behind the Victoria monument in front of Buckingham palace. The crowds were huge at this stage and we were quite unable to move amidst the crush. The kids could see nothing at all while Mark managed a glimpse and a few blurry photos. The sun started to come out and we were glad not only to have scored the great spot we did earlier, but that it was not the fairly warm( 26C ) bright sunny day of the previous Friday.

By the time it was all over we realised we had stood for 8 hours with no toilet breaks ! The kids did really well, especially at the end.

Sitting down that night to watch the highlights was a strange experience, especially the footage from the Abbey which we had all been at just a few days earlier for the ANZAC Day service. Aisha was one of several Australian & New Zealand kids chosen to read a prayer on the High Altar. She was in her guide uniform, William in his scout, and she did a fabulous job – it was all very short, but calmly and clearly read. She stood where the Dean of Westminster stood; went through what was described in the highlights as ‘the most sacred section of the Abbey’ - the shrine of Edward the Confessor where William and Catherine signed the register. 

A GENEROUS VIENNESE.

A HUNGRY QUEENSLANDER

A HAPPY POM

KATE HEADS OFF 

THEY COME BACK

THE QUEEN HEADS OFF TO THE SERVICE

LOOK ! LOOK!

Charles, Camilla and the Middletons in the Australian State coach

ANZAC DAY & THE ABBEY

Many of you will know that Aisha & William have participated in Canberra ANZAC Day parades for the last few years as placard bearers. 

AISHA & MICHELLE IN CANBERRA.

LEADING THEIR MEN.

WILLIAM AND JAMES LEADING THEIR MEN.

The parade passes in front of the PM, opposition leaders, Ambassadors and military big wigs and is televised nationally. Aisha in particular had become a regular bearer for the HMAS Sydney supply veterans. This is always at 10 am which has meant we've never been to a dawn service, so decided to make London our first.

GOING PAST THE PM IN CANBERRA.

So, the day after getting back from Glastonbury we were all out the door by 4:20 am and down at the Australian & New Zealand War memorials next to Wellington Arch by 4:45. Again the weather gods looked kindly upon us all and although it was cool it wasn't too cold and, most importantly, it was dry. 

The Australian memorial is beautiful with names of battle sites and all the Australian towns who lost members of their communities to war.  Like all the Commonwealth War Graves / Memorials we have seen in Damascus, Tehran, Jakarta and of course Gallipoli, it is immaculately kept. The service was moving, as all ANZAC services are, but also odd. There was a Grenadier guard in his Busby hat who played the last post as red double decker London buses drove past. It only re-emphaised that we were somehow slightly out of place being in 'The Mother Country' as England would have been thought of back in 1915.

THE AUSTRALIAN MEMORIAL IN LONDON.

We then caught a black taxi up to the hotel where the gunfire breakfast was held from 6 am but had to leave by 7am to get down to the Abbey for the readers' rehearsal. This was for Aisha who was chosen along with several other children of Australian and New Zealand families to read prayers during the service. Aisha was very excited to have been taken out through the shrine of Edward the Confessor to approach the altar from behind and came back hopping around to tell us she had also seen tombs of some of the King Henrys! It was during this rehearsal we were able to take the photos below. 

AISHA IN THE ROYAL BOX.

 The rehearsal finished in just enough time to allow us to race up to the Cenotaph to attend the wreath laying and march there (testament to the strength of the Australian-British relationship, Whitehall is closed for half an hour for Australians and Big Ben chimes 8am after the last post – amazing) !

THE CENOTAPH

That finished in time to then get back to the Abbey, meet Mark’s Aunty Mary at 8:30 and head into the Abbey for the service there. The service was just beautiful and Aisha and all the children did a great job. The Westminster choir sang as did a choir from Perth Modern School, and a small Maori choir, 6 State trumpeter soldiers in buzbees doing fanfare up on the organ platform which sent chills down our spines. Sally sat where 4 days later we saw the Duchess of Cornwall sitting while Mark & William sat where Princess Ann and her husband would sit and Aunty Mary where Princess Eugenie would sit!  At the end of the ANZAC service we all walked down the main aisle of the Abbey, past all the hoi poloi and ended up out on the forecourt being photographed by thronging tourists gearing up for a royal wedding and thinking we were VIPs. 

We were very happy that Mark’s Aunt Mary was able to join us to for the service and later come back to our house for the first time.

AUNTY MARY WITH US OUTSIDE THE ABBEY

By the time we made it home it was noon. At each event we had heard the last post, sung Advance Australia Fair, God save the Queen and God protect New Zealand while all up we had almost 10 minutes of silence.  


A wonderful day!

DORSET & GLASTONBURY IN LATE APRIL

It seems we have been on a constant tour of the old castles, churches and ruins of England. We have spent each of the last 5 weekends away and numerous weekends before those. In almost all cases we have been very fortunate with the weather. Newspaper reports suggest that the weekend of April 24^th – 25^th was the warmest April weekend in 60 years. This April has recently been declared the driest and warmest April since records began. The Brits are now talking about their dam levels being 20% lower than this time last year. Drought.......??? When parts of the UK ‘sweltered’ in 26 degree heat (!).We were lucky enough to be down on the south coast of England at Dorset for Easter staying at the holiday house belonging to our friend Jane and her husband Nigel. Mark lodged with Jane in 1991 in London and we have kept in touch.

Sally climbed  the white horse on the hill behind the village before breakfast.

Not some fossils on the beach !

We then we spent the day searching for fossils   

 (legally allowed) on the World Heritage Jurassic Coast and looking around little towns.  The beaches down this way are almost all pebble beach and can, after some time, be comfortable to lay on.

The next day, Saturday 23^rd, had us on our way to Glastonbury via a 2 hour stop at Studlands beach – ranked 6^th best in Britain. 

We wondered what the best might be like and understand why the Poms go elsewhere for beaches! For a British beach it was quite unusual being a 100% sand beach with not a pebble to be seen. It was very crowded and, while the water was very cold, we all went swimming although not for very long.

Lyme Regis is not too far down the road. This is where a young Mary Anning started unearthing fossils from young age in the early 1800s. She and her brother Joseph found the first ichthyosaur skeleton to be correctly identified, which when she was just twelve years old, as well as the first two plesiosaur skeletons ever found.  We will organise an autumn or winter visit there as William wants to go ‘hunting’. Winter rains constantly bring new fossils to the surface and discoveries are made almost weekly. 

We made friends with Rachel who was learning Arabic at the same ‘Mahad’ as Mark in Damascus. Rachel, then 21 and already fluent in at least 5 languages, was a class, or maybe two,  ahead of Mark.  Since last seeing Rachel in 1993 she had married Danny and had three kids whom we had never met while we had our two whom she had never met. At Glastonbury we visited Rachel’s mum Valerie who stayed with us for a few weeks in Damascus while visiting Rachel. Valerie has a fantastic house just outside Glastonbury in Somerset. We were able to crash their Easter weekend and had a great time.

THE BIG J COMES TO LONDON TO VISIT THE STRUTTS

We came home from surrey the day before Jane’s 14 year old son Julian came to stay for two nights.  Aisha & William loved having the ‘Big J’ here taking him on the tube, playing monopoly endlessly as well as musical jamming. See his thoughts on anti-bullying tactics expressed in a musical fashion here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCUXYwyk9M0 . This was all Interspersed with visits to the excellent Science Museum and the even more amazing British Museum. We also squeezed in watching buskers at Covent Garden before going to a performance of the Queen inspired musical ‘We Will Rock You’. Although the story line was a little ….loose the music was excellent and very LOUD.

The British museum is simply amazing. Amongst the endless exhibits of centuries of British colonial looting are unbelievable wall reliefs from Nineva in Northern Iraq. The exquisitely carved wall slabs created for his palace at Nineveh show the hunting exploits of the last great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal (668-631 BC). The detail is astonishing with lion whiskers, dog claws and tunics all in incredible detail. 

The night before we went to Guildford was the Legacy/ High Commission Gallipoli Ball held in the Exhibition Hall. Apart from its various diplomatic purposes this grand hall’s most recent claim to fame was to be the location for Greengot’s Bank in Harry Potter films. It gave us our first opportunity to in London abandon the kids to the care of adult son of one of the neighbours ! The ball was fun and supported the great work that Legacy still does supporting the families of deceased veterans. A recent edition of Australian Geographic has a photo \Gallery on Australia House. http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/view-image.htm?index=3&gid=8799