WILLIAM'S 11th BIRTHDAY PARTY

On the weekend of 7 July, William finally got to celebrate his 11th birthday on 10 June at a party with friends! Without having been able to plan much in advance, and in keeping with the kind of parties we did at home, this ended up being a home made party. The idea was to get the kids down to the local park for games and back to decorate pizzas at Daddio's.

Unfortunately the weather conspired against us and we realised we would have 10 kids inside for 3 hours! To fill the time we decided to get them to make the pizzas from scratch - dough and all!

While we were pushing to cook and eat the pizzas around a fun game of celebrity head and then have time for cake, it all worked out and William was pretty happy.  The parents were exhausted, particularly the hard working Daddio!

One thing we didn't have to do was to bake William's birthday cake as he did this himself. It was a re-run of the Nigella Lawson devil's foodcake that he and Aisha made for bake off number 2! 

The other thing that made us proud was that in response to questions from parents about what presents he would like, William said he had everything he needed and suggested that people make a donation to Breast Cancer Care. This followed on from Aisha running the Race for Life for Sally and 'Aunty' Feeeeee in May. Although he did get some presents there were also donations, which was great. 

Happy Birthday to me !

Happy Birthday Will ! We will try to do your 12th on time and might get around to making a cake for you. However, as you are turning out to be such a good baker maybe a new 'Strutt tradition' should be started .....B.Y.O - 'Bake Your Own'!

BAKE OFF #2 , MARK & WILL'S GARDENING EXPLOITS.

In late June the kids clashed again with Bernard & Simon in the second great bake off, this time held at their place. The pressure was high as, unlike the first bake off Click here for the inaugural bake off & scroll almost to the end, an impartial judge had been sought. The kids had practised a particularly yummy Nigella Lawson cake for a few different events and reckoned they had it just about perfect. While a last minute change of dates to allow Will to attend a birthday party meant the judge was no longer available, the competition went ahead nonetheless.

Aisha and William showed determined collaboration in an effort to outdo the competition, a rhubarb and sour cream with toffee drizzle cake!

                                                                In the end it was a close call.....

Too close.

After giving points for presentation and, of course, taste, amazingly Mark & Sally declared... another draw!

Who would have thought ?!

A return match is now necessary to once and for all declare the outright winner. Not only will a judge definitely be there BUT it will be a blind judging. The cakes will be cooked and presented before the judge arrives with no indication of who cooked which cake. There could tears and frustration worthy of any reality TV programme!

MARK AND WILL'S GREEN THUMBS
Back in November last year Mark planted a stack of bulbs in the garden. He dug small plots, removing the builders' rubble and London clay replacing it with fluffy British potting mix, horse poo and compost. He planted roughly 250 bulbs, laid down the necessary anti squirrel devices (holly branches) and waited.

The all too brief warm start of spring teased with promises of a repeat of the FABULOUS spring of 2011 (have we mentioned how good it was and how terrible this year 's weather has been?!) The much anticipated blooms came up in early March and threatened to flower just as we headed off to Italy. click here for the Italy post We wondered if they would flower and fade in the time we were away. Despite the rain and wind of much of March and April the flowers were all in good shape when we returned and stayed pretty much intact for a good five weeks before starting to fade and fall apart in late April. William took most of the pictures below.

William has developed an interest in gardening as well as cooking. Having seen how well the hanging baskets that Mark and Margaret made last year went, he was keen to have a go. He did the ones below by himself and, although they were a late, the poor weather we have been having (have we mentioned how bad it is?!) means that they wouldn't have come on all that much had they been planted when they should have been.

The Olympics loom, as do the long summer holidays. School finishes on July13th and resumes on September 10th and when it does William will be in year six and Aisha in year nine. Yikes!

Coppetts' Wood; Aisha's injury; Aisha's piano recital and William's sports Day.

Following in her mother and uncle Tim's footsteps, Aisha has a love of nature and, having been involved in Landcare work through Guides in Australia, has joined a conservation group in Coppett's Wood just off the North Circular road. (Putting Coppett's Wood London Borough of Barnet, London, UK into Google maps should bring it up). Led for the last 30 years by a recent conservation award winner, Ollie Natelson,  this dedicated small group have been fighting to keep this unique green spot free from exploitation by developers.

Over the last few months Aisha has been volunteering with this small group of mostly adult volunteers to work on tree planting as well as rehabilitating some of the more degraded areas of the wood. Although to our Australian eyes a lot of it looks like degraded weed infested land, we are assured it isn't! Blackberries, stinging nettles, dock and ivy are, of course, all native British plants. Sally joined Aisha on her first day at which they planted young trees to help form a corridor to protect bats from the strong lights of the adjoining sports field.  Aisha ended up planting a sapling grown from a seed, from a tree, from one of the Queen's estates, planted as part of her Jubilee celebrations!  In years to come, Aisha hopes to be able to revisit to see her tree, big and tall!

Since then, Aisha has started on a project which will go towards her Baden Powell Guide badge.  She has learned skills to survey a patch of overgrown and degraded land which she and the group will then clear so that it can, in due course, become meadow.

Tree planting in March.

Aisha plants the Queen's tree and makes the local newspaper!

Aisha's uncleared patch on a midsummer's day in late June.

Coppett's Wood has an interesting history and is an important green area in north London. At one stage it was part of Finchley Wood (as was our local Cherry Tree Wood) and was owned by the Bishop of London. In 1603 Finchley Wood was used by London plague refugees. As a result of the bishop's clearing of Finchley Wood for timber, Coppett's Wood gradually shrank to the size of what is called a "common" here. By the 17th and 18th centuries it was used for bare knuckle boxing, horse racing and pigeon shooting. It was also known as a haunt of highway men, as were many of the wooded areas around the general North Finchley area. During WWII it was used as a military training area and several tank traps still remain.

Emptied WWII tank traps rolled aside waiting for ....

It is lovely to see Aisha so enthusiastically taking part in care of this historic wood. Through her work with the group she was keen to attend the Coppett's wood festival held in mid May. Sally had just had her surgery and we Mark took the kids in to see her after the festival. There were many stalls and a reasonably sized crowd attended. There was Morris dancing, which we have seen before including in Brugges. Click on the video below to see a bit of North London Morris dancing.

In the last weekend of June Aisha did two days in a row at Coppetts Wood. Mark had arranged to go up to collect her. He was just a few minutes away when Sally rang to say she had just had a call to say Aisha had fallen, cut herself and an ambulance had been called. Mark assumed that this was a classic example of obsessive British 'Health & Safety' overreaction and that he would find her with a bit of a graze.

Bad  Daddy !!            

When he got to her he found her being very well cared for by her conservationist colleagues. With five minutes left of the morning's work, Aisha had tripped over a root while carrying a set of garden shears. Dropping the shears as she fell, they tumbled around and she landed on the pointy end of one blade which ended up going deeply into her right knee. There was quite a lot of blood. While she had apparently made a quite bit of a fuss at seeing the internal workings of her knee, she had stayed talking to Sally by phone and was remarkably calm by the time Mark got there. 

While the ambulance station is very close by, it took them about 25 minutes to get there and when they did, they'd come all the way up the track without anything to carry Aisha out on. They explained they were going to go back to the ambulance, parked a good 5 minute walk away, to get their portable chair but said they weren't sure if it could traverse the muddy grassed track Aisha was on as it was only designed for use of flat concrete. Furthermore, they said that if the chair didn't work they would have to return to the ambulance, get the rigid spine board and call another crew to assist them in carrying her out because, for health & safety reasons, two officers weren't allowed to do so........

At this point Mark suggested that perhaps, since it was highly unlikely the chair would be any good, they should forget the chair, call the other crew now and go back and get the board, so to reduce the time his baby girl was lying in pain, bleeding in the mud & periodic heavy rain.

Having had a quick look at her knee and bandaged it, the ambulance crew left to get something to carry Aisha out with. Mark wasn't sure what they would come back with and half wondered if a helicopter would soon fly in ! 

Eventually the first crew came back. They did not bother with the chair but came with the board and started to get Aisha moved onto it from her wet, muddy spot. The 2nd crew soon arrived back, by which point the first crew had realised their board was missing some vital strapping required to secure Aisha to the board. Fortunately the 2nd crew had brought their board and it had all the requisite straps.  Aisha was then moved from the first crew's board to the 2nd crew's board and, with their arms laden with equipment, the four officers took her out to the waiting ambulances. 

Mark did not at any stage comment about the reason for lost empires..... 

Mark drove up to the local hospital, arriving just after the ambulance. After waiting just over an hour Aisha was seen by a doctor. The wound was deep, requiring 6 stitches. Fortunately it appears no ligaments or tendons have been damaged.

Ouch.

Aisha has been hobbling around on crutches and enjoying being driven to and from school. We weren't aware of just how many parents regularly drive their kids to and from school. One family have their girls chauffeur driven in a Bentley! Rest assured, Aisha will be back on the bus by the end of the week.
 

The jeans of death !

The knee of pain.

Aisha's nature plot may have to wait a while for its rebirth but she is determined to get back to Coppett's Wood.

Meanwhile she performed at her music class recital with crutches. Click on the video link below to see how she did considering her injury, having to use her left foot to work the pedal, the odd sounding piano and the breeze.

Fortunately, we have better news about our boy child!  William had his postponed school sports carnival in the last week of June. As he had done last year, William did very well in the races especially his speciality of the longer distances. In the fun races at the end, William discovered a previously hidden talent for the egg and spoon race, getting to the end without dropping said egg once!!  Sally took advantage of the rare opportunity to attend a school function and cheer her boy on in a distinctly un-English manner. At the start of the clip you may just be able to hear her gentle, almost hesitant encouragement from the sidelines. She is indeed getting better.

As we begin July and with the Olympics and paralympics looming, the weather figures have come in with the April - June period officially being the wettest and dullest ever recorded ( since 1910). Click here to read about our fabulous weather. We have now received all our tickets for both events and hope the weather improves and the normally packed road and tube systems will be able to cope.

Paris in the the Spring

Back in early January we booked WAY ahead on Eurostar for our our long awaited first trip to Paris in early May. While Mark had been there twice before Sally never had. Sally's brother Tim, his wife Andrea and their 3 year old daughter Caitlin who had flown up from Tasmania to visit us in London, joined us for the trip to Paris. For more info on Tim and family and their visit to us see this earlier post.Tim, Andrea's and Caitlin's visit.

Caitlin was keen to help with the planning.

With memories of the long queues that greeted us at London St Pancras station when we went to Brugges in early March, Click here for our Brugges post. Mark & the kids along with Tim, Andrea & Caitlin allowed themselves plenty of time for this trip. Murphy's law meant that, of course, there were no queues this time and we made it through all the security and customs in about 15 minutes and waited another hour or so to board the train! Sally took a later train after work and joined us in Paris around 10:30 that night.

Mark initially thought of getting an apartment as we had in Rome, but a spring time Paris apartment for 7 people staying for different numbers of nights became prohibitively expensive. In the end he found a hotel at Porte De Lron which, while further out than we had originally planned, worked out very well. It was one tube line into the centre of Paris or jumping on the 83 bus at the terminus which was just a hundred meters or so up the road to go up the Boulevard St Michel.

We had various ideas for our three days in Paris, but after talking to one of the reception staff, Derya, we decided to take her advice. Again the weather gods seemed to be facing the other way as, although they threatened great amounts of rain, very little actually occurred.

While Tim and Andrea took Caitlin to the palace of Versailles, we decided to heed Derya's advice and headed up to Rue Mouffetard in the 5th arrondissement. We could not have found a better introduction to Paris. Rue Mouffetard is in one of Paris's oldest and liveliest neighbourhoods. The street itself was one continuous array of restaurants, shops, cafés, and a regular open market.

Chocolate crepes - yum!

Aisha likes cheese!

William buys strawberries.

Mark likes oysters!

Gelati for everyone!

Apart from crepes, oysters, cheese and wine we found a couple of reminders of Australia. One fromagerie had, for reasons not quite clear to us, a supply of that quintessential Australian delicacy - Vegemite - in its distinctive yellow and red jar! We also saw a standardised native Australian calistamon for sale. Neither are quite what you would expect to see in Paris.

Of course we had to go to see the Eiffel tower. Again, following Derya's suggestion, we went to what she described as 'the best place to see the tower '. Indeed it was! We realised it was also the spot from where Hitler viewed the tower in 1940.

There were many people there enjoying the same view. It seemed that 'glamour' style posing was the thing to do, with many sweet young things spending time arranging themselves before striking very coquettish poses. We thought it was a very good idea.

After wowing the surrounding crowds, we decided some more sensible poses were required. 

William had been learning to do cat's cradle shapes along with most of his class and was very pleased with himself when he made the Eiffel tower at the Eiffel tower!

Looking a bit like The Wiggles, we saw the Arch de Triumph, Champes Elysees and the traffic intersection where the Bastille used to be.

Tim appreciating French history.

Bastille baby Aisha at the Bastille.

William found a Mercedes showroom on the Champs Elysee. Both he and Caitlin's teddy Ga Ga were impressed and it was hard to get them out. Will then found a street 'vendor' with a couple of Ferraris to rent. We didn't rent them.

With a lot of walking, the issue of toilet stops is always in the forefront of parents' minds. Tim was less than pleased though with having to pay to wee, especially when Caitlin's needs coincided with a luxury WC which cost lots.

All is forgiven!

Not happy Tim!

Our French neighbour had recommended a restaurant in the Marais area to us which we were able to find and get a table at. The setting was very French and the food was great, especially the desserts. It was the night of the French elections and anticipation was high that Sarkozy would go - as he did.

Most of us tried snails and Aisha decided they were.....interesting.

mmmm.........

The desserts were more popular.

The waiter took note of our orders and then totted up the bill at the end on the paper table cloth.

Throughout the day we had seen polling booths with not too many people voting. At the train station that night we watched excited Parisians celebrating the change of president.  Some, with initials of the new president written on their faces, egged on a train driver who let out loud and long train horn blasts as he came into the station to the amusement of all!

The next day we found another cafe that claims to be the oldest in the world.  Old enough to have been enjoyed by Ben Franklin, Napoleon and Voltaire, it looked interesting for its history, clientele and its menu. We have booked a table for our return trip for Aisha's birthday on 14th July. The big question is ......will Mark have the calf's head ????

We had a good time just wandering around. As we had not long come back from Italy we purposely decided we would not race to museums or galleries. We knew there would be a next time when all that would be possible. Having said that, we did go to the museum of science and technology while filling in time until dinner and found a scale replica of the 1880s Statue of Liberty given to the Americans by the French.

The museum displays a wide range of original early vehicles, machines and scientific tools and devices. We arrived with just 40 minutes left before closing time but were able to see the replica of Foucault's pendulum, along with the original sphere he used. The pendulum was used in 1851 to demonstrate the rotation of the earth. The original pendulum did swing until 2010 when the cable holding it snapped and it was damaged in the fall.

The original.

After dinner we headed up to the Montmartre district for a wander and a climb to the top of the hill to look at the view over Paris.  We attended an evening service at the Sacre Coer church, climbed back down again and finally got back to our hotel very late!

The rest of the time, there was plenty to see just walking the streets.

A living wall of real plants.

Hotel de Sully - 17th C aristocratic mansion 

There was a park behind the Notre Dame which proved a godsend for tired kids.

We return to Paris in a couple of weeks for a long planned trip for Aisha's 13th birthday on Bastille Day. We had been unsure how the trip would go if Sally ended up having to have chemo. As chemo has now been ruled out, we look forward to the trip with a great sense of relief and as an opportunity to celebrate all we have got through in the last couple months.