Springtime!

Well, we thought we’d been a few months since posting, but didn’t realise that it has now been one year, almost to the day! Sorry if you’ve been waiting for more posts – we promise to fill in the gap over the next few weeks.

Anyway – to Spring! The country here has undergone a transformation. After the bleakness of winter we had the transition to gold. First the daffodils, now the rape crops are filling the fields with bright yellow and gold.

The trees are all green (except for the palm in our front yard which seems not to have survived the harsh winter), the hedges have gone from masses of sticks to lush green and flowering and the songbirds are out. From about 4.30 in the morning. While we’d be happy if they slept in a little longer in the morning it is something special to hear blackbirds, robins and a host of other songbirds when we wake up. There’s even a cuckoo nearby who doesn’t seem to understand that he’s only supposed to make his noise on the hour.

We’ve just come off a couple of weeks of stunning clear weather which happily coincided with school holidays and a week off for Scott. He had to work in Nottingham for a couple of days (Thursday and Friday) at the end of the first week of the school holidays, so we upgraded the hotel to a family room and Carolyn and the kids spent some time exploring Nottingham during Scott’s working days, in nice weather for once. On Saturday we packed the car up and spent the day at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. The house had belonged to Bess of Hardwick, the Countess of Shrewsbury. It is a magnificent property with wonderful gardens. We were fortunate to encounter a chaffinch warbling and singing while we stood just a few feet away. Unfortunately we couldn’t time a photo of it actually doing this, so you’ll have to take our word for it.  There was also a lovely pear and apple orchard and many, many blossoms. They even had a wattle tree in bloom.

 

Hardwick Hall April 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We decided to make the most of the good weather during the holidays and get out to visit some new and familiar places. Belton House is a favourite and we had a great day walking through the vast gardens which were full of spring blooms. And of course it was Rosings Park in the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice, so we can always imagine Colin Firth striding along the footpaths, brooding about something. In case you’re wondering about the close up of Jack - Scott was lining up a nice picture of Carolyn looking along the “approach to Rosings Park” path when Jack (with perfect timing) stuck his head in the way to ask “what are you doing Dad?”. Apparently taking a photo of you, Jack!

 

Belton House April 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Another day trip took us to Peckover House in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. This is a town house with a beautiful 2 acre garden – well worth a visit if you are ever in the area. Wisbech was the home of Thomas Clarkson who, with William Wilberforce and others, played such an important role in getting slavery abolished, so there is a monument to him just a short walk from Peckover House.

 

Peckover House April 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Gold, Gold, Gold!

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz … you know the rest or have no idea what this is about, so why bother continuing?

Spring is here is the Northern Hemisphere and you can tell because of these things:

• The birds are twittering. A lot. from 4.30am.
• Daylight savings is back, so the sun (gold) is up before 6am and setting around 8.30pm already.
• The sun is out more often, sending the temperature soaring into double-digits at times.
• Everywhere you look there are daffodils (gold). They are so plentiful on the side of the roads that they’re going for 50p per bunch in the shops.

Spring has also brought with it a refurbishment at the Cardsave office, requiring 19 consecutive days of work for Scott over Easter and the weekend previous. Now that the refurbishment is over, he’s moving on to migrating Cardsave to new systems, so there will be more overtime for a few more weeks. But let’s rewind a little.

The last week of Term 2 saw the European Student Convention, a gathering of the schools and home-schools who use the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum. Locksley Christian School sends the students from the Upper Learning Centre to Convention each year, so Jack got his first taste of it this year.  Over the course of 4 days the students compete in events in academic, sporting and cultural categories and Jack was entered in a wide range of things including a chess tournament, track and field, art and drama. The Clown Act was Jack’s biggest and most daunting event, being only his second time on stage and his first solo on-stage performance. We had received an SMS telling us that Jack was in the running for a medal for his act so tuned in on the web site to watch the evening rally, where medals were to be presented. Jack was called up, so we knew he would be receiving a medal. Imagine our surprise when he wasn’t called up for third place and our joy when he wasn’t called up for 2nd place either. He had actually won and, we’re told, was in a different league than the other clowns. We were (and still are) very proud of him for doing something new and “out there” and for doing it so very well. Congratulations to Jack for a great result and to the other Locksley students who won a large collection of medals. Jack was just as happy at the opportunity to spot supercars on the trip as he was winning his medal (gold).

The first week of school holidays was pretty quiet, with Scott at work throughout the Easter weekend. It was also quite a quite a cool week, as we forgot to order heating oil, so the heat ran out on Easter Sunday for a couple of days till new oil could be delivered.

We’ve tried to make the most of the weekends since Easter where Scott hasn’t been working. We had a daytrip to Binbrook and Willingham Woods a couple of weeks ago. Binbrook is a village on the Lincolnshire Wolds and during WWII was near an airbase (Binbrook airfield) which was home to a large RAAF contingent. While the base no longer exists, there is a monument to the RAAF flyers in the village and St Mary’s church in Binbrook has a roll of honour for all the Aussies based there who lost their lives in the war. When we parked to see the monument, we discovered we were in Orford Road and, seeing that Jack was wearing his Sea Eagles shirt, we thought it a good photo opportunity. Matt Orford was the Sea Eagles half-back till the end of 2009, now he plays for Bradford in Yorkshire. We went down to the church and were very grateful when the church warden interrupted his lawn-mowing to walk home and get the keys to open the building just so that we could have a sticky-beak.

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Willingham Woods is not far from Binbrook and is a lovely wooded area with ponds, walks and excellent climbing trees. Kind of like Sherwood Forest on a much smaller scale and perfect for a relaxing picnic lunch. Jack spotted a couple of Porsches, a Maserati and a Lamborghini Gallardo on the way home while enjoying some Roses chocolates.

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On Thursday the 15th of April, we packed up the car and headed west to West Yorkshire for a couple of days. Heading initially for Haworth, Nev the satnav decided to take us on down a dead-end road, then made us turn left when the map showed us having to turn right. Scott being the stubborn mule he is sided with Nev instead of Carolyn (a bit risky, that) and headed up a single lane road which would require reversing if someone came the other way. At the top of the steep hill we came across a most beautiful view across the valley to Haworth which we were able to enjoy from a park bench at the side of the road while eating our lunch. The view included a gum tree in someone’s back yard - why someone would plant a gum tree in their backyard in the Yorkshire moors is quite beyond us, but it was nice to see. After lunch we headed into Haworth and walked up the steep cobbled road to the Bronte Parsonage Museum where we could see how the Bronte family lived. Patrick Bronte was appointed the Perpetual Curate of the Haworth Church and raised his family there including his famous children Charlotte, Anne and Emily who wrote their famous novels in the parsonage. It was quite moving to see how they lived and to learn more about the tragic circumstances of their family.

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Off to the Belmont Guest House in Harrogate and a most delicious dinner at Brio restaurant – if you ever visit Harrogate and want a great feed, go there. The Belmont provided another delicious meal for brekky on Friday then we headed out past a car dealership which made Jack so excited he almost cried (it had Porsches, Bentleys and an Aston Martin), through Killinghome (a village which ironically had everything except a funeral home or slaughterhouse) and out to Fountains Abbey. We planned to go just for the morning but ended up leaving at 6pm. The abbey was built by a group of monks from York who didn’t like the way the Benedictine monks there were living – too comfortable they thought. So they went to Fountains to set up their own place. Unfortunately they had no money or shelter, so ended up spending their first winter there living in a makeshift shelter under an elm tree, eventually being given some money to build something more permanent. It ended up being a huge monastery which made a large income from sheep farming and the produce that came from them (wool, milk. cheese, etc). It was in the end targetted by Henry VIII for dissolution, when the monks were booted out and the abbey stripped of anything of value, the proceeds going toward the cost of Henry’s wars.

The property itself was sold and eventually acquired by someone who liked the romance of the place and added landscaped parkland to it in the the 17th century and is now a World Heritage site. It was a most beautiful and fascinating place – very picturesque and somewhere that we will visit again. Jack had to get a video of the Porsche\Bentley\Aston dealership on the way back to the guesthouse which was interrupted by another tasty dinner at Brio.

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Sunday morning brought another fantastic English breakfast before we saddled up and headed off, via places like Bedlam to Brimham Rocks. What an amazing place – full of weird rock formations and wonderful views across the moors and Menwith Hill, a RAF base which,like Pine Gap in Australia, “provides communications and intelligence support services to the United Kingdom and the United States of America”, but looks like a bunch of giant golf balls. Jack and Anna had a wonderful time exploring the rocks and caves and we enjoyed watching them and looking at the views.

We broke up the trip home with a quick stop at Nostell Priory near Wakefield. Quite a lovely place and somewhere we plan to visit again soon.

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Time Flies!

Forgive us, it’s been 3 months since our last blog entry. As penance, we have been told to write immediately. So, what’s happened since the last entry?

Spending our first Christmas away from our families was not the easiest thing we’re ever done, but we coped admirably. We were invited, along with the Hill family who came from South Africa, to the Cutmore’s on Christmas Eve. They had decided that they wanted to bless both families for moving overseas into their community, so as well as putting on some delicious food and a lovely night of conversation ad fellowship, also gave us all Christmas gifts. We were really touched by their generosity and kindness and it certainly helped to lessen the homesickness we were beginning to feel.

As Christmas was going to be nothing like what we were used to, we decided to make it completely different. So instead of the traditional roast Christmas dinner or cold meat and salads we had chicken schnitzel and potato casserole followed by trifle. A new tradition was born. The day was spent calling family in Australia, giving and opening gifts, preparing and eating our new traditional Christmas dinner and relaxing while watching DVDs, including our favourite Christmas movie - “It’s A Wonderful Life”. Unfortunately as the day wore on it became apparent that we were all coming down with colds so ended up going to bed early. We had booked to spend a few days in London between Christmas and New Year but as the colds turned out to be quite bad, we ended up staying at home for the duration – at least until New Years Eve when Scott had to go back to work. The day at work was thankfully less eventful than the trip in, which included hitting one of the 3 remaining deer in the area. It was ok (if a bit sore) so didn’t need to be put down. Neither did Scott. Or his car.

But we haven’t mentioned the snow! it started again a couple of days before Christmas and we had the delightful privilege of waking up on Christmas Day to snow falling. It kept up for nearly two weeks. We didn’t take many pictures, because they would have been just like the last lot of snow pictures, but we did visit Scamblesby where we got some pictures of it under a light dusting of snow to send to Scott’s sister and brother-in-law (Jeannine and Stuart) who stayed there in the summer. There is a story there which we will tell in a later blog entry, but here are the Scamblesby pictures.

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Jack and Anna had 3 weeks off school over Christmas and soon after returning were performing in the school production “Rock Solid” at the Riverside Theatre in Louth. Jack was one of the narrators and Anna one of the actors and they both sang and danced. They (and all the kids and teachers) did a great job and put on a wonderful show. We have a DVD and will be sending copies to family soon.

As well as leading worship in services at old folks homes each Sunday afternoon, Carolyn and Scott have begun playing in the worship team at church and led worship one Sunday in February – our first time leading worship since October 2008. We’re really enjoying playing again and particularly appreciated the opportunity to lead worship. We’re certain that one of the reasons we were brought here is to be part of the worship team. Scott spent his Christmas money on an acoustic guitar which he is using for this. He bought it on eBay and it turned out to be identical to the one used by Rob, the worship leader. Same brand, model and colour. A little embarrassing.

Later in February during the half-term break Scott had a day off so we headed out for the day for our first trip for 2010. We headed up past the Humberside Airport (which has its runway so close to the road that you are stopped with level-crossing lights when a plane is coming in to land), over the Humber Bridge and north to Beverley to see their beautiful minster. Good thing the spell checker caught that error, otherwise you’d think we went to see the Beverley Monster! They provided a scavenger hunt style thing where the kids had to find all the things that were in the photos on a sheet of paper. It sounds easy but turned out to be quite difficult. With a bit of help, they found them all and in the process saw pretty much every detail of the minster. It really is a beautiful building and had a very grand and reverent feel to it. After a picnic lunch in the car (it was too cold and windy to sit outside) we headed toward the coast through some places with interesting names (Tickton, Catwick and Sigglesthorne being the highlights) to Hornsea where we had some yummy cakes and coffee for afternoon tea at the seaside. then we headed down the coast to Withernsea, where we had the unique experience of watching the kids playing on the beach in the sleet before heading back home via Hull. Quite a pleasant (if cold) day out even though Jack’s supercar-spotting was quite fruitless.

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Jack made “Honour Roll” at school and went with the other kids who made it on a 2 day trip to London. They had a day at the BBC TV studios where they had a tour, did some acting on camera and saw some of the technology in use. Jack was a bit disappointed not to run in to Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May (from Top Gear) so missed the chance to kick Clarkson in the shins for being such an outspoken git. Maybe next time.

Scott’s work is very busy and he now has an apprentice to train. his name is Tom and is known as “The Youngling” or “Scott’s Padowan” among other less-flattering things. Tom was chosen as one of two apprentices to be showcased on Grimsby’s Channel 7 tv in a programme where they were discussing the options for school leavers. So the crew came into work and caused quite a disruption while interviewing Tom and Scott. Unfortunately Scott’s bit ended up on the cutting room floor (must have been something he said or perhaps they had no idea what he was saying because of his accent) but you can see the interview (and something of the office Scott works in) here. Start at about 5 minutes into it so that you can avoid the annoying presenter, although if you watch it all you’ll get a good idea of the way people in Grimsby speak. That’s if you can understand anything they say.

The week that programme went to air, Anna was on BBC radio and TV. There’s a new school opening in Hull in September which is using the same model as our school. The BBC wants to create a controversy out of it being run by crazy fundamentalists so came to Locksley to interview the head teacher for the breakfast radio programme. They also interviewed a couple of the kids, including Anna. They called back that afternoon to arrange to have a tv crew do some interviews but the school declined as they have special needs kids and aren’t allowed to expose them to cameras. So the crew turned up the next day anyway and started interviewing parents. The school had no option but to let them in (to avoid the “crazy fundamentalist Christians refused to respond to us” kind of thing) and Anna ended up being interviewed again. We’re hoping to have a copy which we can let you see in future so you can see a bit of what the school is like.

Scott’s work sponsors the Hull AFC football club and invited Scott (and some other staff) to the match against Arsenal yesterday. So after a lifetime of wanting to go to a premier league match, Scott got to see a top 3 team (that would be Arsenal – Hull are coming 3rd last) in action, while being plied with food and drink in the comfort of an executive box. After being collected in Grimsby they were all driven to KC Stadium in Hull, ushered into a reception room where they were given champagne (real French stuff) for introductions, then taken on a tour through the stadium conducted by one of the ex players - into the dressing rooms, the media lounge and onto the ground where photos were taken. Not a great game but Hull managed to contain Arsenal, only succumbing in the last couple of minutes to a heart-breaking goal. The atmosphere was fantastic – it’s amazing how much noise they can make without looking like they’re doing anything. The best thing was the chant the Hull supporters trotted out repeatedly using the tune used by church or town hall clocks - “Same old Arsenal, always cheating. Same old Arsenal, always cheating”. Pity that Arsenal won, but it was a great day out.

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Officer, There’s Snow in My Palm Tree

We’ve been repeatedly told that the chance of snow at Christmas is so small we should forget about it. But after a week of increasingly cold temperatures, it all turned rather icy and snowy on Thursday.

Scott had the joy of a 30 mile drive home after a work Christmas dinner (at the Ship Inn in Barnoldy-Le-Beck) over the Wolds in constant snow with lots of wind and icy roads. ‘Twas an interesting drive, but quite slow.

Friday brought with it some sleet and soft hail showers and in the afternoon the snow started. Most of it was blowing away, but at times it was heavy enough to stay on the ground. By the time Scott finished work, his car was covered in almost 2 inches of snow. After scraping the snow and ice off the windows he headed home, again with snow falling steadily but this time the roads were covered in snow and the going was quite slow – down to 10 mph on the A16 where the traffic normally runs at 65 to 70.

The kids had had a ball playing around in the light cover of snow at home, but we were all pleasantly surprised to wake up on Saturday to a cover of about 3 inches. After breakfast jack and Scott headed off to their hair appointment. They took 15 minutes to get the car clear for the 5 minute drive, only to find the hairdressers had decided not to open after all. So, back home and after a cuppa we all donned our warm jackets and outdoor gear and headed off for a walk to St Botolph’s, a disused but still maintained church about 2 miles away.

It was a joy walking through the snow over the local football field, through paths along the dykes and paddocks to the church. The building has been around since the 13th century and was used as a functioning church until the mid 1900s. It has no windows, doors or fittings, but still has a good roof and a lot of atmosphere. On the way back the kids enjoyed seeing how thick the ice was on the puddles (some up to an inch thick), so were glad to have their wellies on.

So, we may end up with a white Christmas after all. we hope so.

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Donna Nook Seals The Deal

The weekend after we went to the Lake District it was very very wet. So wet that a lot of the Lake District was flooded and washed away. Most of the teachers from our school were down south for a conference, so we had the Hill kids (Morgan and Connor) stay with us for the weekend while their parents (Graham and Sheryl) went to the conference.

Amongst lots of playing on the Wii and the Playstation the kids had a visit (with Scott) to Donna Nook to see the seals, which all come in to have their pups at this time of year. The weird thing is that Donna Nook is the local RAF bombing range, so they have to be very careful to make sure they don’t drop any bombs where they might endanger the seals. If you look carefully at a couple of the pictures you’ll see the bombing targets in the background, surrounded by hundreds of seals. Unfortunately the planes didn’t do any bombing practice while we were there.

It was quite wet, windy and more than a little smelly, as the seals give birth in the sanctuary and don’t clean up the mess. Very slack on their part, especially as they attract lots of terns (which we would call seagulls) who all want to get their bit of afterbirth. Who’d want to be a tern?

The authorities fence off the area lest visitors get attacked by rampant seals which are anywhere from half a mile to a couple of feet away.

We’re told that the seal numbers rise dramatically around Christmas, so there can be thousands of them out there with their new pups. Boxing Day is when heaps of Yorkshire people come over to see them and almost outnumber the seals. Guess where we won’t be going on Boxing Day.

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