Merry Christmas to all

The past few days have been nothing if not interesting. As noted earlier, we went out on Christmas Eve to the Nutcracker held at the London Coliseum. The Coliseum is very neat-looking, decorated in a baroque style. We were only able to get one picture of the venue, as the attendants were quite militant about people taking pictures. I would have understood had we been taking pictures of the set, but nonetheless, you can find additional pictures here. Of course, Maggie wore her Christmas dress, and after much putting about, we finally found something that Dalton could wear. Most of his dress pants were too short and had turned into flood pants sometime during the past year, so he ended up wearing his school trousers. The Nutcracker itself was a bit more modernised than I would have preferred, although it was really only the first half that received the "modern" treatment. The second half was much more traditional and, in my opinion, much more enjoyable. I think if you go here you can find a short video clip of different bits of the show, as well as some clips of other shows. The dancing was quite good, as might be expected.


Afterwards, we rushed back for the candlelight service at St. Katharine's in Merstham. You can find some pictures of St. Katharine's here, but we've posted some pictures previously. The current building dates from around 1220. We made it just after the first song had finished, so got to attend the majority of the service, which was in the manner of a traditional "Lessons and Carols" service. And, after that, it was back home for dinner, some Christmas music, and then finally putting the children to bed.

Christmas morning played out here much the same as I imagine it does in households across America. Dalton was up who knows how many times during the night before finally waking us at around seven to go downstairs and see what was under the tree. Of course, upon getting downstairs, the next several minutes were filled with, "Look, Mommy! I got a ....", or "Wow! A ....!" and the sounds of ripping paper. Dalton got a couple of Lego sets, including a Bionicle, some cards, and of course, the requisite chocolate stocking stuffers, while Maggie got lots of Polly Pocket stuff, a princess dress, and some other girly things.

The most of the rest of the day was spent in playing with the new toys and preparing Christmas lunch (Mich successfully cooked her first turkey - although I can't say that I did as well with the carving), although we did stop to watch the Queen's address at around three, and tried to force the kids to go rest for a bit, although unsuccessfully. That evening, we had an invite to a friends for their family Christmas gathering, so we headed over around seven. It was very nice, and I have to say that I am very grateful for being invited. It made it feel a little more like home on a day that could have otherwise felt very lonely. One of the biggest surprises though was that Santa actually came around to visit - and brought presents for us all, Dalton, Maggie, Mich and myself included. The look in Maggie's eyes was priceless. And that wraps up our Christmas tale for this year. Until next year, Merry Christmas to all... and to all a good night.

Plays, Recitals, Scavenger Hunts, and other Druidic Pastimes

This past week has been... a week, to be sure. I think I've mentioned that Dalton and Maggie have been practicing for the past two months or so, and this week were the actual plays and recitals. So, Wednesday night, Michelle went to see Dalton at his school play. Thursday night, we got the neighbors to drop off Dalton at the play, and I went to see Maggie's dance recital, while Michelle helped out backstage. Fortunately, all of Maggie's dances were in the first half of the show, because I had to leave at intermission to go and pick up Dalton. Then, on Friday, I had to head to the airport to meet my brother-in-law, and then that night, he and Mich went to see Maggie, while I went to see Dalton. Whew. Dalton was a hedgehog in "The Wind in the Willows," while Maggie was a ladybird, a Thumbelina, and a party girl. Anyway, we did manage to get a couple of pics of them in costume, so those will be coming soon.

In case you hadn't figured it out by now, Michelle really likes U2. Somebody in her U2 fan club initiated a scavenger hunt where you had to go out and take pictures of different U2 related things, with a Pop Tart. (Don't ask - or if you do have to ask, please ask Michelle.) So Friday through today we've been trying to take various pictures to meet the requirements of the scavenger hunt.

In the meantime, since we did have a guest, we rented a car for the weekend, and made it out to knock another two items off of our list: Stonehenge, and Oxford. Pictures will be forthcoming.

The weather has been nice the past couple of days, and we rode out to Stonehenge on Saturday. The ride was fairly nice, and it was good just to get out into the countryside a bit. We stopped at Stonehenge, where several people were milling around the stones, and druidic cows pretended to be contentedly chewing grass, while secretly laying their devious bovine plans. Stonehenge was interesting, to say the least. We were driving up, Dalton asked if we were almost there, and then we topped the hill, and we were there. The road passes within 100 to 200 feet of the actual rocks, which I thought was rather odd, but you can pay to go in and get a bit closer, if you like. However, in case you didn't know - you can't actually go up to Stonehenge, you can get, at most about 30 feet or so from the closest stone. Still, we wandered around and it was still one of those things where you're standing there at something that you've seen and heard about all your life and it's a little bit unbelievable.

Today was much more of a highlight for me, personally, (although Stonehenge was cool) as I went to Oxford and indulged in a bit of Tolkienism. We started out just walking through the university, although I made sure to see Merton College, where Tolkien taught for several years, and we also saw a building which I later discovered Tolkien decided looked like Sauron's temple to Morgoth in Numenor. We then went on to the Eagle and Child, where the Inklings met for several years, and we stopped in and we all had pints (excepting, of course, the children). We then went to his old house, and finally stopped off at his grave in north Oxford. All in all, I was off in Tolkien La La Land, and I was extremely glad that Michelle was willing to indulge me. I could probably go on and on about our visit to Oxford and Tolkien, but I shall refrain. I will, however, come back with photos later.

Ballet and Stiff Peaks

I think it's fair to say that this week has been fairly quiet. Things have largely settled down and this past week has been one of getting into our routine again.

On Tuesday, we got Maggie's ballet results. We may have told some of you that her ballet results were due, and would determine whether she could advance to the next level. We needn't have worried. Her results were excellent, and the examiner said that she had a real sense for dance.

It was Tuesday that I started getting a cold. I had a dinner that night, at Boxwood Cafe, after which I had to walk home from the station in the rain, as I had left my umbrella on the train just before the holidays. That didn't help matters any, and Wednesday morning I felt like a train had run over my head.

I think it may have also been Wednesday that Michelle discovered the page 3 girls. If you don't know what a "page 3 girl" is, you can probably use your imagination. Basically, one of the publications over here is running a special where if you collect coupons from a week or two of their papers then you can send them in for an inexpensive holiday in the location of your choosing (limited to locations that are available, and only in the UK and Ireland). So, Michelle started picking up this paper, which happens to be the same paper as the one that has the page 3 girls. She was a little shocked when she flipped open the front page and saw... well, a page 3 girl. I remember that in the taxi on the way from the airport, the page 3 girl in the paper in the cab was one of the first things I saw that told me that I wasn't in Kansas anymore.

Thursday and Friday were fairly uneventful. Saturday we made some eggnog, and for those of you who understand the intricacies of preparing this time-honoured recipe, I succeeded in obtaining the much needed "stiff peaks". I even took a picture, which I may post here later on.