Winter 2010

Apparently this has been the coldest December in Britain in 100 years. We've certainly had LOADS of snow

which has meant we've been able to build our best snowman ever

and we had a huge snowball fight. Our new car (well, new to us) has coped well with the conditions. Hooray for German engineering!

Luke's helped decorate the Christmas tree and ice the cake. Only a few more sleeps to wait now until the big day!

Wales

Last week we went to stay in Wales with Luke's friend Mattie and his Mum Sarah. They have a family cottage in southwest Wales near a village called Crymych. I'll let Luke show you the cottage:







While we were there we went on a sunny coastal walk round Dinas Head


hung out in the gardens of Picton Castle


and found a frog in a tree


We also played many games of dominoes, splashed about in rock pools and ate some scrumptious seafood.

Cornwall

We spent a week at a cottage in Cornwall with a couple of our friends. The cottage had a great meadow where we could play. The local wildlife liked it too.








We couldn't believe the giant rhubarb - this was just growing in someone's front garden: We were half an hour's walk from a great little beach called Maenporth. The water was a wee bit cold but that didn't stop Luke from having a good time
while some of us just concentrated on looking cool.


We had a great time at the Eden Project. This is justifiably famous for its plants, but they also put on some kids' activities for the summer holidays. One of them was to build a 'den' from a selection of poles, materials, rope and other bits and bobs


and another was to use a selection of hoses, pumps and guttering to move water around - Luke's idea of heaven I think!
The weather was mostly glorious, but even when it wasn't we managed to consume our fair share of delicious Cornish ice cream
Near us was a garden called Glendurgan where they have a really cool maze. Mike won, to Luke's disappointment.
We found an utterly fabulous pub, the Ferryboat Inn at a place called Helford Passage. The pub overlooked a little beach with a jetty for the ferries, and you could sit and watch the boats cruise up the river whilst eating wonderful seafood. This was the view from our table

We liked the Lost Gardens of Heligan too, despite getting extremely lost on the way! Our mission for our next UK holiday is to find a water pump that actually works. There are a lot of these about but I don't think we've ever seen one that actually pumps, although Luke lives in hope.

Centre Parcs

Last weekend we went to Centre Parcs, Elveden Forest. It's a holiday park for families with lots of activities, including a Subtropical Swimming Paradise which Luke absolutely adored.

http://www.centreparcs.co.uk/

We didn't do many of the extra activities (expensive, and there wasn't much time anyway after all the hours we spent in the pool!) but we did take Luke on the Junior Quad Bike Safari (ages 6-11). First they got all kitted out:

Then the instructors showed them how to drive the bike:

Then they did a few practice circles with the instructor walking beside them with a 'dog lead' - if the kid goes out of control, the instructor pulls the lead and the bike's engine cuts out. Luke did very well - steering and braking were just like his normal bike and he soon got the hang of the throttle.

Finally they were allowed to do a few laps of the real track - with the instructor following behind on another bike, still with the dog lead!

Luke was getting pretty confident by this stage and started getting up a bit of speed:

Valentino Rossi, watch out!!

New Zealand

In March I popped home to New Zealand for a week, after a work conference in Malaysia. I was rewarded by glorious sunshine and warm weather every day. I spent most of my time catching up with family and friends. I stayed with Mum and Dad in Auckland. One day we took ferries from Half Moon Bay to the city and then to Devonport. It was lovely to be out on the water. Must be a fabulous way to commute! Here are Mum and Dad on the pier at Devonport

I flew down to Hawkes Bay for a day to see Mike's mum Sue:

While I was in Hawkes Bay I walked for half an hour on Te Mata Peak, and found this grove of redwood trees. They were planted the same year I was born. They have grown a little taller than I have in the meantime:

On my last evening I had dinner with my friend Ruth:

Brighton

One day in the last school holidays I took Luke to Brighton. We took the train - it's about 2.5 hours with one change of trains. It was cold and wet, but we had a good day anyway. When you live as far as we do from the sea, you take what you can get! And someone enjoyed getting sprayed by the waves...

Our house

OK, Mum, you're right, we have lived in this house for nearly 6 months now and not posted any photos of the inside! Here we are then, a selection of rooms from home sweet home:
Mike's room. LOTS of redecorating to be done here - it looks OK in the photo but not so OK on close inspection! Lovely view though, plenty of light. We put in the blinds to screen out the afternoon sun.



Luke's room, in something like its usual state, that is, Lego everywhere. He chose the curtains. Not an action shot, sorry - he's out playing with his friend Mattie this afternoon. Hence the fact that I can post pictures!

The lounge / dining room. It looks completely different with our curtains, light fittings and our furniture. Considering that most of this was bought at different times and not designed to go together, it works remarkably well, we think.

We were particularly pleased with this light - sadly the bronze finish looks a bit plasticky in this photo. It's above the dining table, and is a big improvement to the old ones that were very 1970s thick cut glass, and also hung so low that we kept banging into them.

We've done nothing to the kitchen yet. Can't wait to get rid of those tiles!

Our bedroom, with new bedroom furniture and curtains. It'll look great once we've finished painting the walls.

Bathroom - no major changes here.

My room. We put new curtains in but otherwise it's basically OK. We need to get the windows sorted out at some point - you can see the condensation behind me in the photo and I'm sure it shouldn't do that.

To do next: the front door, which is rotting at the bottom and needs replacing, Mike's office and the spare room, which we might conceivably combine into one space as the spare room at the moment is barely big enough to get a single bed in. And then of course the garden!

Spain

We spent a week in Spain with our friend Trisha over New Year, staying at our former landlady's apartment in Estepona, Costa del Sol. It was a lot warmer than England, but still not exactly tropical (16-22 degrees). That didn't put some people off from having a splash at the beach!

Others of us were slightly less enthusiastic - I didn't put literally much more than a toe in the water.

The Plaza des Flores in Estepona - the main square.

One stormy day we drove up to Marbella. This is Mike and Luke on the breakwater.


In Marbella there is a square there with a dozen or so statues by Salvador Dali. This one is Cosmic Elephant.
There was also this fantastic sand sculpture on the beach.


Andrea and Trisha in Marbella, in a brief sunny moment!
We loved Casares, a hilltop village not far from Estepona.

Casares had a great restaurant - wild boar casserole, yummm. We walked up a LOT of steps to get there - only to find out later that the road out of town goes right past it and there's parking outside!

One day Mike and I left Luke with Trisha and took the ferry across to Tangiers in Africa. We only had a couple of hours there but we both enjoyed it - especially the souk (market) in the medina (old town).