Talk Time

KZW this term have had Talk Time. Each student has a designated Talk Time slot during the week and are encouraged to stand up in front of the class to share their opinions and experiences on topics decided by Miss Williams. Ella has been allocated Friday on the odd numbered weeks. Topics so far have included -

1. Holiday Happenings. Give a brief summary about your school holiday.
Ella took in her travel journal from the UK.

2. Something that moves. Bring in an object from home that moves. Describe it. What is it used for? Which room was it from? How does it move?
Ella chose her Ladybird music box.

3. Make an object that moves. Does it roll, bounce, spin or slide? Show everyone how it moves and describe how you made it.  
After a few suggestions, Ella decided on a shell and bead wind chime!

Next weeks topic is Favourite Canberra Icons. Select one and tell us three interesting things about it. I wonder what Ella will pick.....

Busy Making...

We've ben busy making costumes over the past few weeks. First project was to create costumes for Makhaya's Spooky Birthday Party. We walked out of the reject shop with witches hats and broomsticks and proceeded to Lincraft to purchase some black material to be transform into cloaks. A quick google search to find instructions on sewing a cloak and actually with minimal sewing we had two cloaks!


Andy took his two little witches to Makhaya's party (while I was recovering from a cold). Unfortunately Katy spent most of the party in Andy's arms and the other half of the party outside.  She was scared to death with many of the costumes!!

Meanwhile last week was Bookweek and Ella decided to go as Little Red Riding Hood. Great I thought...another cloak! Back to Lincraft for red material this time. Another google search and a few hours later involving much more sewing a red hooded cloak was successfully made. Katy and I attended the Bookweek parade at Aranda. It was great to see so many characters with Wally, Cat in the Hat, Fancy Nancy, Harry Potter, numerous fairies, witches proving to be popular and less so Rainbow Fish, Saucepan man, Peter Pan and Darth Vader.

Big Rider(s)

Just before we left Canberra for the UK, Katy was threatening to begin riding her pedal bike. Of course, we had no access to bikes there, so she lost her momentum. Today I decided it was time to try to regain that momentum. It was Ella's weekly hockey game, during which Katy usually lolls about on the sidelines protesting about accumulated boredom. It's a nice flat area down there, so I decided to take her bike down and practise. 

To my great surprise, it only took about 10 minutes of pedalling for her to recover her form, and by the end of hockey she was cycling like a pro. (Caveat: she can't yet start or stop, so parental guidance still recommended.) To say she was proud of herself is an understatement.

An equally momentous achievement occurred later in the afternoon when Nat, after months of searching, finally made a snap mountain bike purchase! The task involved visits to a number of bike shops, most of whom didn't even have a suitable bike for test riding. Since we no longer have a roofrack on our car, Nat then had to ride her new purchase back home, after which she joined Katy for a riding training session in the street ...

Seven Ages of Man

That was the theme to Dave's 70th Birthday Party held on the weekend! As per Dave's promise on his 65th birthday where he declared that he would reduce his workload by one day per week each year, this party was a truly momentous occasion which coincided with his retirement too!

Guests were invited to wear something from one of the ages - childhood, university, mountaineering club, orienteering, fatherhood, environmental consultant and retirement! There were numerous white lab coats, graduation gowns, a school blazer, orienteering paraphernalia, hiking gear, and even a dog! Most organised costume award goes to Cathy who had shirts printed with original Dave drawings from her childhood.

The speeches matched the occasion too. Dave had asked a person from each of the ages to speak. Kris gave an awesome speech by providing us with an overview of life working with Dave! Just as impressive was the birthday cake assembled by Susie and Cathy. There were various lego people exploring the great outdoors - a couple of ice climbing up the snowcapped mountain as well as a skier on top,  one crossing the river via a flying fox, another swimming in the river, a few walking the dog along the ovaltine track and one running between controls!

A slide show was complied for the evening. Susie came across this beautiful one which was taken around 1976 of Susie, Dave and Andy. What's interesting is how much you can see Katy in Andy. Funnily, Andy showed Ella the photo and asked who was in the picture. She replied without hesitation Daddy, Ella and Katy!!

Home Sweet Home

It's been a week since we arrived back home in Canberra. The flights were long but fine. We all managed to get some sleep and entertain ourselves with the movies and games on offer. Proving once again how small the world is, we bumped into a friend at the playground in terminal 3 at Singapore Airport who was also returning home to Canberra after a school holiday European adventure. The airbus 380 from Singapore to Sydney was a dream - so quiet and smooth plus we had the bonus of sitting all together in the middle 4 seats.

Sydney airport was also quiet which meant a record time (according to travel expert Andy) through immigration and customs before locating our hire car for the short drive to Canberra. Sydney was much warmer that expected but as we continued driving south we watched the temperature gauge slowly drop from 14ºC to 9ºC when we arrived in Canberra. Winter was truly here - grey drizzly and bitterly cold!

The girls became excited as they began to recognise familiar landmarks. Eventually they went nuts as we passed Aranda Primary School and drove into our suburb Cook! I suppose we didn't realise how much they really missed the place they call home. We were greeted by Diego and a very excited Pippa.

We were very grateful to Isa and Diego for looking after our house - it was spotless when we arrived. It only took a short time for the home to become a bomb site. Christmas had come early for the girls who discovered all their toys again spreading them everywhere along with our luggage!

Our plan was to stay up for as long as we could to avoid jet lag. Slowly we began the process of unpacking before tucking into the fresh bread and homemade italian bean soup Isa and Diego had so kindly organised. It hit the spot for us tired travellers on such a wintery day.

We'd hoped to join Belinda for her 40th birthday afternoon tea celebrations, but by 2.30pm I'd had it, deciding to have an hour cat nap. Andy's parents arrived to play with the girls while we took the hire car back to the airport. According to Andy though I couldn't be woken from my slumber so he went with his Dad.

Ella was next to crash at 4.30pm followed by Katy at 5pm and Andy making it til 5.30pm! Needless to say I was wide awake up at 2am and was beginning to wonder what I was going to do until I was interrupted by Katy who needed the toilet and an hour later by Ella. Eventually at 4.30am we were up eating breakfast.

This early morning pattern continued with the girls taking it in turns to wake up early. Finally by Friday we had our first sleep in - waking up at 5.50am!

Last Days

On Sunday after a lazy morning and on the request of Ella, we headed into Pitt Rivers Museum. A museum of anthropology and archeology, it was founded in 1884 by Lt-Gen Augustus Pitt Rivers who donated his collection of 20,000 objects. Entry is via the Natural History Museum which is unfortunately closed until 2014 due to renovations. 

Another interesting building that houses the now 500, 000 piece collection which is arranged according to how the object was used rather than by age or origin. The children once again each selected a trail to complete - Ella chose 'Charms' and Katy 'The Great Wooden Mouse Hunt'. These trails provided the opportunity to wander around the museum trying to find wooden mice (Katy) and specific charms (Ella) while looking at exhibits and chatting about the sometime weird and wonderful objects inside!

We concluded our tour of the museum by making a Uchiwa, a japanese fan which came in very handy, providing s little bit of relief from the hot weather.

On the way home we stopped off at Ferry Leisure Centre for a swim in the learning pool. Harry, one of Katy's nursery friends was there too and together they enjoyed playing in the water.

On Monday, Andy did a final school drop off for each of the girls before catching the train to a 2 day conference in Buckinghamshire.

Tuesday was the girls last day at Cuttleslowe Primary School. They both enjoyed the experience and will miss their teachers and new friends.

In between packing on Wednesday, the girls and I played hide and seek, painted our nails, went swimming, watched Come Outside (an old BBC kids show which Ella has recently discovered), ate our last chocolate owl at the coffee shop and visited the post office! Andy arrived home just in time to read some bedtime stories :)

It's now Thursday morning - our last day!!  Katy and I've been writing this while Andy and Ella are still sleeping. It will be a fairly easy day we don't fly out until 8pm tonight. FInal pack and clean up of the house, a detour to Robin and Jo's to drop off some goodies then on to Windsor Park for picnic and play before starting the loooong journey home.

Woodcote Steam Rally

The day dawned on our last weekend in England. We had long planned to spend some time with Robin, Jo, Emma & Sophie this weekend, so when Robin invited us to join them at Woodcote Steam Rally, we jumped at it -- without really thinking about what a steam rally might be. So, what is a steam rally? Well, it's just like the Canberra Show, except a bit smaller and instead of showing pigs, sheep and horses they show off steam rollers, tractors and so on.

 

For example, the steam roller on the left was build over 100 years ago, has been painstakingly restored by a steam fanatic and was most probably driven along the A roads to get here at slightly above walking pace.

Below left is a steam engine built in 1902.  It started life as a mobile generator for a showman (i.e. to run a motion picture show). Later in life it powered a dodgem car ride (original call speed rides). But it could also drive -- at up to 18 miles per hour on a flat road. Below right you can see a miniature -- some of these are tougher than they look and one guy even claimed he could tow a car with one.

 

We started our day by strolling around the steam engines, unwittingly missing the miniature steam parade. Katy got to sit on one of the miniatures while it was puffing away, and they even had a glider which Ella climbed into and pretended to fly.

Then, we found the funfair. Katy selected the jumping castle with Sophie (below left) while Ella & Emma both went up the massive slide (you can just see Emma emerging from the bottom of the slide, and Ella half way down). Then the played hook-a-duck and we decided it was time to sit in the shade for lunch.

 It was un-Englishly hot, so Robin & I decided we needed some refreshment from the beer tent (there was some local beer festival) over lunch. And, finally, probably the highlight of the day for me, was a fly past by a Lancaster bomber, a hurricane and a spitfire.

The afternoon and early evening was spent at Robin and Jo's house. The paddling pool emerged and all 4 girls played happily until it was time to escape. A very relaxing way to spend the last Saturday of our UK visit.