Piano debut

Susanna played the piano for her first audience at this morning's school assembly.

We found out last week that she would be playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at the monthly Celebration Assembly which includes everyone at school, plus a lot of parents.

She practiced everyday and nearly memorized the song, learning to play it without reading the music.  

She was third on the piano this morning, after some older children played their songs.  She did very well!  One minor mistake, but she came back and finished the song.  She got lots of applause!  Brad was able to work it into his schedule, so we were both there to see her.

While daily practice continues to be a bit of a struggle, she does seem to enjoy learning to play piano.  I hope that she sees the older children playing and realizes that maybe she can be as good as them some day!  

Which one sounds good to you?

Walkers, the UK version of Lay's potato chips, recently started a contest to come up with a new flavor of crisps (chips).  

They are currently down to six finalists, and supposedly one of them will become a permanent flavor.  The six flavors are:

• Chilli & Chocolate - I just enjoyed a bag of these.  They were okay, not great, but did have enough chocolate flavour.
• Fish & Chips - Seafood flavored crisps (they already have prawn) don't appeal to me.
• Cajun Squirrel - Really?  Squirrel?  No thanks!!
• Onion Bhaji - Sounds promising, probably because its a meatless flavour!
• Crispy Duck & Hoisin - Also sounds okay, if I had to pick a meat-flavoured crisp.
• Builders Breakfast - Tried these... Ben rejected them after one nibble (and he loves crisps!)  This is a complicated flavour involving bacon, eggs, toast and tomato sauce - I think it was the egg bit that put me off.

Brad is not at all interested in any of these new flavours.  He likes plain or salt & vinegar.  I like to try new things, but I'm sure at the end of the day I'll return to salt & black pepper, my current weakness.  

It will be interesting to see if whatever new flavour wins really sticks.

A walk in the mud

On Saturday my friend Rachel came for a little visit at the new house.  We thought it would be fun to take her to the local pub, which claims to be the oldest free house* in England.

We hadn't actually walked there before ourselves, but we had a pretty good idea of how to get there without spending much time on any roads.  So we set off on the footpath that runs adjacent to our house, through some woods and down a hill through a horse farm.

Of course it rains here a lot, but it wasn't raining on Saturday, and therefore we didn't realize just how muddy the path would be.  Ben was the only one wearing proper footwear (wellies) while the rest of us had regular shoes or boots.  We had to tread very carefully, stepping on little patches of grass where ever we could, but we still had many near misses as we slipped and squelched along down the path.

We did make it to the pub where we found a cozy booth and warmed right up by the fire.  Susanna had apple crumble for her meal (we did give them both a proper lunch a bit earlier in the day) but Ben entertained us with his varied meal.  He started out with French onion soup and then some chocolate ice cream.  At the same time he also enjoyed some cheese, bread, tomato slices, cucumber and raw red onion.  No food combination is off limits!

At the end, I think we all agreed that the walk was worth it, despite the mess.  Maybe I should go now and clean my boots...

* Wikipedia defines "free house" as a British pub that is owned independently of the breweries that supply it.

Birthday season

We didn't plan it this way, but it really works out well having kids with birthdays in February and April.  We can get through autumn with back-to-school, Halloween, and Thanksgiving, then Christmas, and then we can focus on birthdays, one at a time.

We've gotten four invitations to friends' parties so far this year, and we are also in the process of planning two parties in our own house.

Birthday parties do seem to be big business around here.  Most people (from what we've seen, anyway) have them at venues, often indoor soft-play places or community centres.  Plenty of options, like anywhere.  We considered other places (well, I offered) but Susanna was determine to have hers at our new home.  Ben first wanted a bowling party (just like last year) and wasn't interested in the farm park or anything else... until I offered up a pirate party.  New plan!

The kids and I walked to town this afternoon to visit one of the two toy shops there.  Its so nice to have these small, locally owned shops nearby (not just for toys, but for lots of things.)  And I was thinking this afternoon that these toy shops must be fairly safe despite the "credit crunch".  The birthday party culture is alive and well and there are always presents to be bought; we were there to buy two.  Any time we go in there after school there are several kids who seem to be choosing gifts.

The one thing I still don't understand is why they cut the cake, wrap it in a napkin, and send it home in the party bags.  

NHS

I avoided it for as long as I possibly could, but in the end we had to go.

All autumn, Ben just seemed to go up and down with sickness, never quite getting better before getting sick again.  The cough, runny nose, headaches (he said) and occasional fevers finally got to be too much.  So I called the doctor.

Here you don't see a pediatrician unless you get a referral from your G.P.  And there is one main doctors' office for the town, and generally that is where you go, at least to start.  We could actually walk there in a fairly short amount of time.

Brad took him to his first appointment, and I've taken him to a few more.  So far so good.  

When you go in you tell them you are there and then take a seat.  Same as the U.S. so far.  But rather than exam rooms and corridors that doctors and nurses float between, each doctor has his or her own office.  All the offices are right there off the waiting room, so you just wait until whomever it is you are there to see opens the door and calls you in.  Exam room and office, all in one.

Wait times have been very reasonable, or no different then I've come to expect for a visit to the doctor.  Maybe their system is a bit better - no one puts you in a room and then forgets (or seems to forget) you are there.

When  you are done, you just leave.  No stopping by the desk to hand over your credit card.

And if you get a prescription, you hand it to the person at the chemist, and 10 minutes later they hand you what you need.  No forms or signatures, and for kids, no payment.

So maybe I was worried for nothing...  Its been a good experience so far.  I'm sure we'll have more experiences with the NHS as we go along, and now I am much more optimistic about it all.

Just another January

I feel like I need to post but I feel like I don't have much to say!  

We are in our second week of "spring" term.  I'm not sure why this is called spring term.  It ends shortly after spring actually starts, and if you look outside, "spring" is not a word that would come to mind. 

Anyway, Susanna has a new teacher this term.  She is a supply teacher, filling in between the teacher covering her class last term and the teacher who had a baby in September and is supposed to come back after Easter.  Assuming she does, that means three different teachers this year.  Susanna doesn't seem bothered by this and I hope it doesn't have any impact on her learning.  At this point in her education, I doubt it makes much difference.  The aide is the same in the classroom, so that is some consistency.

Ben is back at preschool and has four days this term.  On two of the days he can stay for lunch, and I go to get him at 12:55 instead of 11:45.  I like the extra time and he likes staying for lunch so its a win/win.

We are also getting back into activities.  Susanna is taking piano lessons again this term (and since we invested in a new keyboard I expect this to continue until we move).  The lessons are during school - they take her out of class for 20 minutes every Monday.  She is also back at Rainbows, and today she started an after-school art class.  Ben has only Tumble Tots (like Gymboree) at the moment.  He will hopefully start football (soccer) again next month.  Swimming is on hold until April - its nice to have a little break from that.

Brad is having his "busy season" at work.  It hasn't been too bad so far...  Since he does audit and not tax, the busy-ness tends to be spread throughout the year more and more, so the usual busy season isn't as bad as it used to be.  There are a lot of deadlines, though, and he has a number of clients to juggle, so its still a bit more stressful than usual.

And I am enjoying a bit of free time again with the kids back at school.  I am working to finalize the organization of the new house which is going very well.  And of course I have to organize and transport the kids to school, activities, and social engagements, which keeps me very busy indeed!

I hope that everyone is having a great start to 2009 and staying warm this winter!

Snow day

Today we were surprised to wake up to some snow!  It was really just a dusting, but enough to at least make some footprints in!  The kids were happy to see it, but not as excited as they might be for a few inches...

Tomorrow is back to school, so today was the last day of Christmas holidays.  We didn't have anything special planned as Brad had to head back to work, but we ended up going to Susanna's best friend's house for much of the day.  The kids had a great time together both inside and out, and even managed to make a tiny snowman with a carrot-stick nose.  

We also went for a walk on some of the walking paths around our houses.  To get to her friend's house, we go out our front door and onto a path, cross one street, go down another path and then its just a few houses away.  If we go the other direction on the path, we end up in the woods, and also near some farms complete with horses.  I'm pretty sure we could walk for miles and miles on these paths and perhaps even find a pub or two along the way, but with our two kids, we're lucky to go a few metres.

Now its nearly time for tea, then showers and bed, then up for school in the morning!  I'm sure I'll be up late tonight running around the house gathering the various bits of school uniform, P.E. kit, and school bag!

Only six more weeks until the next school holiday...

Home improvement

Now that we are living in a proper house, we have decided to make a few small improvements to make it feel more like our home.

Today we visited the English equivalent of Home Depot and spent lots of money, as is easy to do in stores like that!  We actually went for lightbulbs (so many to choose from here - it usually takes five tries before we pick the right ones!) and came out with new light shades, toilet seats, a lamp and a tool box for Ben.

Ben's room originally had a hanging light bulb with no shade, so I decided to buy a pretty one for Susanna and put her shade in Ben's room.  I found this for Susanna and of course she loves it.

Then I put her old shade in Ben's room and realized how ugly it was, so I bought a simple green shade for his light.

Brad decided that we needed new toilet seats (and of course I agreed) as the old ones were, well, old.  Ben picked out this one for the kids' bathroom.
We also got new shades for the lights in the foyer...
and the sitting room.  Its amazing how such a small, inexpensive thing can make such a difference!
We are officially moved out of our old house.  We met the landlord yesterday for our walkthrough and to return the keys.  It is such a relief to be done with that house and have only one house to worry about!  The kids are especially glad that we won't have to stop by there anymore to grab stuff or check the mail.

Tomorrow is our last day of "holiday" - Brad returns to work on Monday, and the kids go back to school on Tuesday.  Its been nice having so much time to relax, but I think we are all ready to get back to "normal"...  Though of course I will feel differently early Tuesday morning!

Pantomime

The English have a tradition of doing pantomime every year at Christmas time.  Smaller theatres in smaller towns/cities each do their own show, and the shows are generally kid-themed.

This year a town near us did Snow White, and we were excited to go, though not entirely sure what to expect.

We loved it!  It was sort of an original twist on Snow White with some new characters and a few changes to the storyline.

Pantomime is generally musical, audience engaging, and comedic.  There was lots of "adult" humour and lots of singing and dancing.  It was a bit long for kids - nearly two and a half hours including intermission.  But in England you can eat and drink in your seat, and they sell ice cream at intermission, so its a bit easier for the kids to sit through it all.

We have tickets at the end of the month to see another pantomime - Sleeping Beauty - being put on by employees of Brad's firm.  Brad won't be starring this year, but maybe next year...