Oh Christmas Tree...

At last, school has finished for the year. The frantic level of activity which bubbles along from mid-November in the build up to Sinterklas, followed by the ensuing hype for Christmas, leaves both kids and parents feeling a bit strung out by the end of the term, so it was bit of a relief on all sides that we had the final, festive goodbye last Thursday night. The school organized a Christmas dinner, with each class festooned with trees, decorations, and candles. Remember this is the darkest time of the year for us, with the sun disappearing by 4:30 in the afternoon, so with the lights turned off and candles lit in every room it made for a magical atmosphere. Each parent supplied some food and the kids quite frankly stuffed themselves on little bits of this and that.
Carl surprised all of us this year by volunteering to sing in the choir. In the central hall area of the school a small enclosure was created with live sheep, Mary & Joseph and a baby providing a touch of realism (the sheep had the best costumes). Behind that a cute choir of 8 girls...plus Carl...sang carols to entertain everyone as the food was laid out and people arrived.
Afterwards the parents can back to enjoy mulled wine and more carols outside before we all headed home, to a well deserved two week break. Holger is away for Christmas so it's just the 3 of us again; last year we spent a month in New Zealand/Singapore so avoided the dark days of Christmas altogether. However we'll make our own fun and have plenty of friends and family to spend time with.

Best wishes to all for a wonderful Christmas!

Northern Italy

For my work I'm helping to organize a conference in Northern Italy, in the lakeside town of Stresa. It's on the shores of lago Maggiore, one of the largest lakes in Italy, and is a stunning location; think deep blue waters with a backdrop of the snow-covered alps.

Although I haven't spent much time here it seems a great place to visit, although I suspect in mid-summer it will be heaving with milions of tourists. Last year I attended an event in Como, another lakeside town in Northern Italy, but I like Stresa a lot more.The locals are friendly, the food was fantastic, and the Prosecco wine delicious!

I'll be back in September and am looking forward to spending more than 24 hours there this time and hopefully seeing a little more of the town.

China #3 - Giant Abroad

Foreground; the venue for the conference I'm organizing in 2013

Last time we talked, I was in China, and there are still some cool things I want to share about that experience. Once I arrived in Shanghai, I had a slew (I've always wanted to use that word!) of appointments/meetings, yet I still managed to find a a few hours to myself.
 I headed to the Pearl Tower, one of Shanghai's most obvious landmarks. Remember I mentioned that Shanghai was busy? Well it seemed that almost everybody had decided to visit the tower today too. Queues of tourist buses were disgorging people out front and I soon found myself in a shuffling line, waiting for one of four lifts to take us up to the first viewing platform. I was dubiously eyeing the lifts, wondering how many days we'd be waiting to catch a ride but the line moved surprisingly quickly. I soon found out why; when the doors opened we were physically shoved into the lift, squeezed in like sardines. I don't know about you but being pressed up against four total strangers, 1 on each side, from my boobs down to my toes is not my idea of a fun cultural exchange. The fact that I was a head taller than anybody else meant my nose was poking into the hair on the back of the guy's head in front of me. In an effort not to either breathe down his neck or inhale his dandruff the best option seemed to be to hold my breath until we reached the top. A smartly dressed attendant recited her touristy info first in Chinese, then in English for my sole benefit. She looked me square in the eyes the whole time which was very disconcerting, and by the time the doors slid open I was red in the face from both the undivided attention and lack of oxygen. Gratefully gasping in great lungfuls of air I resolved to find an emptier lift on the way back down.

The view was predictably impressive but remarkably I was the only foreigner up there. Being such a big city you'd think there would be thousands of foreigners in Shanghai but I was very obviously the only blond walking around. Some of the simpler folk up there apparently were visiting from way out in the country becuase they seriously looked at me like they'd never seen a white woman before. Eventually my worst fears were realized; a young man approached and in halting English asked if he could take my photo.
"Please, hello yes. I take your photo yes".
"No thanks.'
"Yes, I take photo"
"No, I don't want that thanks."
"Yes, please I take photo."
This guy was really persistant. We were starting to draw glances from people around me and I could feel my cheeks getting red again.
"No. Seriously. No photo".  I was having visions of a photo of my head being photoshopped onto some Chinese equivalent of Naked Facebook.
"Yes, please I take your photo...is for my mother."
He moved aside and there were his mum and dad, each about 4 feet tall and 180 years old. Oh.My.God. They were grinning and nodding their heads enthusiastically. What could I do?
As we posed, Ma snuggled up at eye level with my left boob, Pa with my right, I could just imagine what they would tell their friends back home, how they'd met a giant white woman with a huge red head on their trip to the big smoke.
After we said our goodbyes, them smiling so broadly I suspect they had decided their son and I were getting married, I decided I'd had enough for one day and headed back to the lift. Where I found my nose again buried in the hair of the same guy I'd travelled up wtih. At least he didn't want a photo.

China 2 - off to Shanghai

After a few days in Beijing I needed to head south to Shanghai. Rather than flying I decided to take a train so that I'd get to see something of the country. I love train travel anyway; the fact that you just turn up a few minutes before you're scheduled to leave and literally walk on and walk off is so much more appealing than waiting around for hours at airports. Plus trains are usually more reliable and comfortable. The high speed train to Shanghai travels at up to 300 km/hour and reaches it's destination in less than five hours. The adventure started with the taxi ride to the station...if you've never been to China just imagine you are in one of those Bumper Car rides at a fun fair, with the only rules being you've got to stop just before you actually smack into the car in front and it's compulsory to keep one hand firmly pressed on the horn at all times. I eventually made a conscious decision to just not watch where we were going any more because I was convinced we would never arrive in one piece.
Once at Beijing South train station however I was hugely impressed. It's as big as an airport, super modern and easy to navigate. Check in is similar to an airport with all luggage x-rayed, and only ticket holders can access the gates to the platforms (Europe could learn from this!), where we were greeted by chic hostesses and stewards. The high speed trains are super modern and stylish, a first class ticket is still cheaper than flying and if I lived there, I'd never get on a plane again!

It seemed to take forever just to get out of Beijing...that city is truly enormous. In fact it's one of the most populous cities in the world with close to 20 MILLION people living there. Makes you feel a little claustrophobic just thinking about that many people in one place, right?
Gradually the dry brown planes and windswept subsistence farms of the province gave way to signs of spring. Green grass shoots started to appear as we headed south and about two hours out of Shanghai we started passing through hills and even some low mountains. Then suddenly we were passing through the outskirts of a city...and arriving.
Now I know it seems obvious to say it, but Shanghai is really, really big. I hadn't realized beforehand that it's the largest city in China with...wait for it....23 MILLION residents. In fact I'd kind of been looking forward to a slightly larger Singapore, I suppose. Wrong. Shanghai may have a reasonable ex-pat population but there the similarity more or less ends. This is hard-core Asia whereas Singapore is Asia-lite. One of the biggest hassles? You can't just jump in a taxi and go anywhere unless you speak Mandarin. Almost no-one speaks English except for tourist places. If you go anywhere, you have to make sure you get a friendly local to write down in Chinese characters the name and address of any place you need to visit including your hotel so you can get back again. It felt weird to climb in a taxi, say hello, then point to a piece of paper and hope like hell you arrived where you were hoping to go. However it was all part of the fun and I was determined to squeeze in as much as I could during my time there.

China - Part 1, Beijing

This has been a busy month for travel as I spent a week in China, recovered for a few days than popped down to Italy for a quick visit. It's all to do with work and I won't bore you with the details, but the good part is that I got to spend a little time being a tourist and having a look around.
I'd never been to China before so was really looking forward to the experience. I started off in Beijing, visiting a nuclear energy conference which was held at the National Conference Centre, inside Olympic Park. It was kind of strange seeing the famous Birds Nest Stadium, the torch  and the Water Cube, which were such iconic features of the last Olympics.
However the day I arrived I headed into Beijing city with my collague. Figuring we were going to be jetlagged anyway having missed a night of sleep we may as well just keep going and get to see something, we braved a Beijing taxi and walked around the Forbidden City, People's Palace and Tiananmen Square.


"ummmm...do I stand out here?"

My caption of choice for the photo above would be 'spot the tourist'.  Kay and I were literally the only pale skinned blonds in a crowd of thousands. It was the week of China's most important public holiday, Tomb Sweeping, kind of an All Souls day. Tens of thousands of locals take the opportunity to play at being the tourist and visit spots of national importance. The crowds were horrendous. Mao's tomb (above) was hugely popular and at one stage we found ourselves literally shuffling shoulder-to-shoulder through a long pedestrian tunnel which funnelled us into an ever-narrower press of humanity. Just when we felt things were starting to get a bit hairy the crowd in front of us suddenly turned around and started pressing back! The doors had been shut at the far end so we had to make our way out the way we'd come. Fortunately there was no panic and we all eventually spilled back out into the large square but it was an uncomfortable sensation accentuated by the fact that there were soliders and police everywhere, both among the crowd and watching from the edges. Apparently there had been talk of protests being staged on China's social networking sites the week before, so the government had shut down Facebook, Twitter, and all the Chinese equivalents. Locals later told me that as a result probably a fifth of the crowd in Beijing was undercover police/military but fortunately we didn't have any problems.

I was looking forward to seeing the famous Tiananmen Square (above), although it would have been more impressive if it didn't have six lanes of traffic whizzing over it! I never realized that it's used as a major thoroughfare in the city. 

Beijing is an unusual city, very business like and despite China now being relatively open to foreigners most of this capital city was surprisingly untouched by Western influence.It was only early spring so it was quite cold and bare of greenery, which exacerbated the problem the city has with dust being blown in from the Gobi desert. Deforestaton is making this problem worse every year, and as one fellow conference delegate said, it's the only city he's been to where he wants to shower three times a day. In the evening we found a small local restaurant and using sign language and a menu which thankfully included photos we ordered some delicious dishes of celery and lily buds, prawns, and garlic kai lan. It was great to be eating real Asian food again! 

Normandy 4

I've just realised I never showed you the photos of the amazing house we stayed in during our second week in Normandy. La Chapelle is a 15th century chapel which was lovingly restored about 5 years ago. I'ts actually the former chapel and priests living accomodation together; the door separating them has been removed.

The original leadlight window is still in place, and there are niches evenly spaced down the walls of the living room - the former chapel- which once would have held statues. Above you can see hubby at the massive wooden table which seats 10 people, checking emails in quite a profound contrast to the ancient surroundings. The stone walls were incredibly thick and that, combined with the stone floor, kept the whole place quite cool.

One of the most amazing features was the vaulted wooden ceiling which went throughout the length of the building. It's obviously been replaced when the restoration was done but they certainly made a great job of it. Even the staircase leading to the upstairs - there are four bedrooms, sleeping 9 people with 2 bathrooms - was handcrafted and held together with wooden pegs rather than nails in keeping with the original style. Despite the age of the building it was fitted out with all the modern equipment you could want, although it was the massive garden the kids loved most. So if you're looking for a fab place to stay in Normandy, we can recommend La Chapelle.

Normandy 3

 ...where was I...oh yes, locking up the kids. Well of course they weren't really locked up, these see-through boxes are part of a very cool attraction at Alligator Bay, a reptile park with tunnels for the kids which wind  through several of the snake exhibits. Look out points allow the kids to pop up in the midst of an enclosure full of pythons, or anacondas, etc, which was quite exciting and just scarey enough to have them screaming and squealing in only partly-faked terror. When do we we become to old to scream just for the fun of it anyway? I'm sure the power of a good yell is vastly under-rated and to be honest there are often moments in my day - usually when a deadline is rapidly approaching - when a blood curdling scream would actualy be the most appropriate response.

Apart from snakes Alligator Bay had hundreds of retiles, from lizards to turtles to (obviously) alligators. And while they are all quietly impressive, I hadn't realized how much they poop! And stink! I mean these giant tortoises are all very nice and all but the kids were like "oh my God look how big that poo is!" It really made me wonder why people would want to keep reptiles as pets. Quite apart from the bite-your-leg-off factor of course.

Well enough reptiles, we were about to leave the hamlet of Ver behind and head northwest to our second holiday house...a 15th century chapel which was recently lovingly converted into the most amazing house, in the hamlet of Cerney, which is in the middle of nowhere, about an hour's drive from Rouen. More about that shortly!



Normandy 2

There are a lot of 'must sees' in Normandy and pretty much near the top of everybody's list is surely Mont Saint Michel. A rocky tidal island about 1 km off the coast (more like mud flats really), the monastry was first built in the 8th century and it's been a strategic spot for even longer. It's an impressive and beautiful site, with every rock having been built upon. From a distance it rises elegantly from the polders and tidal flats surrounding it, seeming to float magically in the bay.

On closer inspection however the illusion was somewhat shattered by the sheer numbers of tourists clambering over the Mount. The first hint was the queue for the carpark, which started about 5 km from the actual site. Have paid our 6 euros to park, we joined the swelling column of foot traffic making its way across the causeway to the Mount itself. Unfortunately the Weather Gods weren't impressed by the effort we'd all gone to just to get this far and as squalls of wind blasted us, driving rain horizontally into our faces and whipping hoods and jackets into a flapping frenzy that sounded as if we accompanied by a flock of hysterical seagulls all taking off at once, I had time to reflect on the joys of mass tourism. Yes, we knew Normandy would be busy in July, and yes we were trying to be tolerant, but my God! The people! Finally we arrived at the impressive entrance port, just in time for the rain to stop, and the wind was silenced by the high stone walls all around.

We then joined the throng of people shuffling forwards, in some places shoulder to shoulder, as we headed up the stone-paved paths (there are no roads of course). I admit I was a little disappointed to see that the paths were lined, chocka-blok, with souvenir shops. Signs in Japanese, German, Enlgish and 20 other languages tried to entice tourists in to buy postcards, place mats, calendars and t-towels all printed with pictures of the Mount. Other popular items seemed to be nougat, little wooden boats, and replicas of every possible type of ancient weapon. Predictably the boys were entranced by the swords, muskets, battle axes and morning stars and reluctantly agreed to keep shuffling rather than get side tracked.

So it was nice to see Mount St Michel but if you're planning a trip I suggest you go in spring or late autumn to enjoy the experience more. To the credit of the French, none fo the shops had neon signs and none were visible above the walls/ramparts from a distance. It was only once you entered that the tourist trade took over. Apparently it's also very beautiful at night but once we'd clambered down to the bottom we were pretty intent on just getting away from the crowds.

However nearby (literally about 4 km) was a place the kids were really keen to see; Alligator Bay. I know, coming all the way to France and then visiting a reptile park is kind of odd, but it looked very cool and we weren't disappointed. Plus it was an opportunity to lock up the kids....

...but more about that next time!

Normandy 1

Our trip to Normandy, France, started as it was to pretty much continue; with a visit to an historic site. The first day we drove as far as Les Andelys, on the river Seine. Ít's about mid-way between Paris and where the river finally meets the sea, on a strategic bend which allows sweeping views over miles of the surrounding countryside. This is where Richard Lionheart built his magnificant castle, Chateau Gaillard. Niels has wanted to visit this for years.

Today there's not much more half remaining as it was intentionally demolished once the French had wrested it from the control of Richard's son and heir after a two year seige. Still, what's left is still very cool to visit and the boys enjoyed prowling around the dungeon:

 ...and part of the wall has been restored so you can see how it would have originally looked, with a striped pattern made by two different types of stone. We stayed the night in a very cool family-owned hotel in the town, with Dad working as chef in the kitchen, Mum taking care of running things and the daughter serving meals in the dining room. I highly recommend the Hotel Paris to anyone passing through the area, and if you stay, make sure to eat dinner there too! One fo the best things we discovered in France is tht when you go out for a meal as a family, there is not a separate kids meal comprised of fries and some other deep fried junk food. Instead, for the very modest price of 7 - 9 euros they just order off the regular menu and are served small portions. So Niels enjoyed two types of terrine followed by duck, while Carl scoffed down langoustines followed by delicious monk fish fillets in a delicate sauce. Heavenly! We drank their wine for them of course!

The next day we braved the traffic around Caen and (eventually) found the tiny settlement of Ver, near to Gavray, in southwestern Normandy. This was home for the next week as we settled into a converted barn and planned our day trips to nearby sites.

One of the first was to Utah Beach, one of the famous beaches from the D-Day landings. Standing on the damp sand, the wind whistling around us and watching Carl and Holger trying to get a kite in the air, it was hard to imagine what it must have been like in the early morning of 6 June 1944 when thousands and thousands of allied troops struggled to come ashore and find shelter from the hail of gunfire and shells pouring down on the from the German positions. Today it's a peace stretch of beach but then it must have seemed like hell on earth.

 There is an impressive memorial museum dedicated to the men who died here - largely American - and dotted along the shore are reminders of once took place.


While in the area we also visited the Azeville Battery, a huge network of underground tunnels topped with canon emplacements which was once home to 170 Germans. It's hard to imagine living underground like a mole in those conditions but with a clear view out to sea in the directly of the UK, it was a hugely strategic place.

It was a sobering day and a reminder that we should never take the freedoms we enjoy every day for granted. Tomorrow we decided, we'd do something a bit more cheerful, and hope for sunshine! More about that next time.

Back from Normandy...

...and the second load of washing is in the machine. It's been a fun couple of weeks with lots to do...the first week we stayed in western Normandy and the theme was pretty focused on WWII and the D-Day landings, with a bit of early British history thrown in re. Richard Lionheart during a visit to Chateau Galliard. More later, including photos, but first it's a well earned gin and tonic before hitting my beloved bed, sorely missed this past fortnight.

Running in circles

You know the problem with taking a holiday is that enormous amount of work you have to finish beforehand to clear a couple of weeks free. Hence you've heard nothing from me in a while. That and the fact that life has been so very very busy with the end of the school year, camps, work, etc.....
Last week Niels had his annual Scouting camp, a week-long adventure with a group of 20+ other kids. With a theme of Lord of the Rings, the kids were woken at 11pm on the second night by a grey-bearded Gandalf, who beseeched them to destroy the cursed rings in the lava lakes of Mordor. The Scout leaders who are in charge of his group really out-did themselves this time, with an imaginative, non-stop series of adventures that culmiinated in the kids tossing their rings into a fiery inferno after trekking by moonlight through the forest near Lunteren. Goodness knows what the locals thought, hopefully they are used to Scouts getting up to all sorts of nocturnal adventures.
I collected him - and an enormous pile of washing - after seven sunny fun filled days and brought him home to his first shower in days and a welcome nights sleep. It brings back fond memories of my childhood when I would spend a week in the summer holidays at Kiwi Ranch, a horse riding camp near Rotorua. I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist any more but I have fond memories of riding horses up and down the hills overlooking Lake Kawau, trekking the paths through the pine forest and riding through creeks. By the end of the camp all the kids would be gaining confidence in their riding and we would race to the paddock in the morning to grab the fiestiest horses because they were the most fun. It was a Christian camp and we endured a couple of hours of 'education' in the evenings. I would have endured a month of such brain washing if it meant I could have stayed to ride the horses during the day! I even convinced my Mum to try and buy one of the horses - a pretty mare called Tosca - but her owner couldn't bear to part with her.

The only steed Niels got to ride on his camp was his trusty bike, but he had just as much fun regardless.

Back To Nature

Buzz Lightyear enjoys a late breakfast

Now that Carl's foot is well on the way to mending - although he still insists he wants to keep the crutches until school starts again (no chance) - I thought I'd share more of our camping adventures with you all. For years I have resisted hubby's attempts to go camping with the kids. It all just seemed too stressful when they were small. We did try it in Sweden when Niels was 2 years old. We borrowed a large tent and headed off, stopping halfway at what turned out to be a crowded campground by a lake. Rain the previous two days combined with the sheer number of people had made the ground muddy and slippery, and as we struggled to figure out exactly where each of the 284 support poles in the damned tent were supposed to go it was inevitable that our lively 2 year old would get bored and wander off.
At that time Niels favourite activity was to try and climb into cars and pretend to drive them. Any car. Not just ours. A passing stranger, fellow camper or lurking child-snatcher would be his best friend if he could only sit in the front seat. After hauling him a couple of times out of cars nearby that belonged to other families he seemed to get the idea.

It was time for a new distraction. While we were still tied up in sheets of canvas (all the wrong shape! How can you make a tent out of 27 pieces of randomly cut canvas!?) Niels spotted the lake through the trees and that was it. His new favourite activity was called 'Run-to-the-lake-then-stop-when-the-water-reaches-my-chin-and-sit-down!'

Can't you see I'm busy?!

He literally would run into the water and plop himself down on the sandy bottom, the only sign of where he had disappeared being a stream of small bubbles gurgling out the sides of his nappy. To a stressed-out Mum who has just spent 8 hours or more in a car and is facing the prospect of sleeping in the mud with a kid determined to either disappear or drown, it was all too much. The rest is a bit of a blur but I vividly remember desperately just wanting to go home; Niels was crying, I was crying, hubby was still optimistically trying to get the damned tent up and I felt like the world was ending. Looking back I can laugh and wonder why I got so wound up about it, but back then it seemed like this was a cruel self-inflicted torture, certainly not a holiday.

The rest of the holiday went ok - especially once we gave up on the tent and stayed in a cabin - but my enthusiasm for camping with kids had evaporated.
Scroll forward 8 years and it didn't seem like such a big deal. The boys are older, more self sufficient, toilet trained, passed the age when they get tummy upsets and holiday illnesses. Surely nothing could go wrong...
The first night we were finally in our tent, me in the middle with a boy on either side like a mother hen with her chicks under her wings. It was dark and I was hoping I wouldn't notice how hard the ground and how thin my mattress was, when Niels said "Mum, my tummy feels funny........I feel sick!"

Frantically  fumbling with the zips I just managed to get the tent open and Niels outside before HEEEEEEAAAAAVVVVEEE! He puked everything he'd eaten during the day in a big steaming pile. Lovely.

Our (second) campsite

Needless to say the next morning we re-located to a new site. After taking ten minutes of agonizing stretching before I was able to heave my aching bones into an upright position, I staggered off to the office to organize a new site for the next night. By the time I had returned to prepare breakfast I was almost able to stand upright, and once the kids were off playing I headed home to fetch the thicker cushion we use for our garden bench to sleep on.

Lazy days...

Night 2. My new mattress is softer but only about 1.2 metres long. I'm 1.65 so obviously there's quite a bit of overhang. Utilising spare clothes wadded into piles I managed to create a narrow mattress just long enough to sleep on, assuming I don't need to move until morning. Rolling over is out of the question. We're all a bit tired tonight so the boys fell asleep quickly, leaving me to try not to think about rolling over or how stony the ground is. For hours. Eventually I must have fallen asleep because Carl woke me up at 3:45. "Mum my bed's wet...did you spill something?"  Unbelievable, he hasn't peed the bed for years but here we are. And we're not talking about a littel boy pee, we're talking a 10 litre "look what a man I am" flood which had half the tent awash. All the bedding had to be dragged out, the floor mopped, new pjs found and even another pillow made. Eventually, faced with the reality of 2 beds for 3 people, Carl crawled into my sleeping bag and promptly fell asleep, leaving me trying not to think about how numb my arm under his head was. And how I now couldn't lie flat. Until dawn.

That morning my mission home was to fetch new bedding for Carl and do two huge loads of washing.
Night 3. Nobody puked. Nobody peed. But we still hit the trifecta because Carl had injured his foot jumping into the lake and woke up crying at 2am with it swollen and sore. Eventually after lots of cuddles he settled down and slept again, once more leaving me to watch the tent slowly lighten as dawn approached.
So yes, our camping trip was a success, but I can't say it was easy. The kids had a blast and I enjoyed sharing it with them, but our next trip will also be within a short distance of home, I can promise you that. And I'm taking my bed.

Roughin' It

De Vrolijk campground, Laren Gld.

With hubby away, the kids having a two week holiday and gorgeous weather arriving just in time, I decided to take the boys on an adventure and take them camping for the first time in their lives. I've been camping a few times in the past; our first holiday as a couple was camping in Denmark, while one of our most adventurous was camping in the Rocky Mountains in Canada, listening to the crackle of large animals prowling the woods at night while I cowered under a thin sheet of canvas, hoping the steel bear-bins in which we had to store our food were far enough away to ensure the bears would stay 'over there' somewhere. We counted 23 bears -both grizzlies and black bears - on that holiday but fortunately never had to share a tent with any of  them.

This time I chose the campground 'De Vrolijk' which is about 15 minutes away in Laren. I figured it paid to be close to home in case it all ended in tears and we needed to bail out. Plus the camp has a large lake with a beach where the kids can swim and play, a major attraction.

Long story short, our camping adventure was a huge success, with the exception of Carl's accident on the final evening. At about 5 pm, just as we were getting ready to think about cooking some dinner (tinned meatballs, mosquitoes and sand with rice) over our single spirit burner stove, he did one jump too many into the lake and landed awkwardly on his right foot. His toes dug into the mud, his weight landed on the back of his heel, and he ended up with a very sore foot. The next morning it was swollen up impressively and he couldn't put any weight on it at all. Hmmmmmmm. Cue forward a couple of hours to us sitting in the ER at Zutphen hospital. My back was aching from piggy-backing him everywhere and he was looking sideways at the wheelchair a nurse was trying to coax him into.

The triage nurse who first saw him suspected a broken ankle (OMG!), but x-rays eventually showed no broken bones, but plenty of swelling and deep bruising. At this point Carl cheered up considerably when he realized that he would be getting an impressive pressure bandage, and this was nothing to the sheer joy the next morning when I picked up some crutches for him so he could be mobile.

So far his biggest concern is that the bandage and crutches remain a permanent fixture until he's been at school for at least one day, and he wants me to email photos of him, fully handicapped, to his teachers as an advanced warning. Niels is jealous of Carl's special status and between moments of muttering darkly looks like he wants to chuck himself under the next car to get crutches of his own. I wonder what age we are when getting injured is no longer fun and exciting? About the age we stop having a parent to fuss over us 24/7 I suspect.

...And It's Still Winter...

For the third year in a row, hubby took the boys to Sweden to visit their Aunty and cousins in the spring break. I say spring, but as you can see by the photos, winter still has a strong grip on Scandinavia. However there were no complaints about the cold (mainly because I wasn't there!), and they all had a great time. It was also the boy's first ever time on skis, and they spent some time burning off energy cross-country skiing.

Niels was determined not to be photographed, so this photo above is the only one of him on skis. Carl, a natural exhibitionist, was only too happy to pose of course. He also celebrated his seventh birthday with his cousins; it's hard to believe he's growing up so fast. Last night he came downstairs half an hour after I'd put hi mto bed to announce he had discovered a wiggly tooth. He returned to bed...then raced downstairs ten minutes later with the tooth in his hand and a bloody hole in his top gum! Apparently he just couldn't wait for nature to take it's course and pulled it out himself. Eeeeuuuuuww!

Och Aye, It's Glasgow!



My tartan

 So we made it to Glasgow, woo-hoo! By Saturday morning Niels was looking a bit rough; his temp had gone up to 39.1 so I gave him a dose of paracetemol and he seemed to cheer up. He is so rarely sick it was bit of a novelty for all of us, and we kept our fingers crossed that it wasn't going to develop into anything too bad. First priority was the slap-up buffet breakfast downstairs. Niels first ecstatic words were "Cool, they've got haggis for breakfast!" and he tucked into a plateful of that. (I know, I know, but he's a half Dutch-half New Zealand kid who lived a large part of his life in Singapore and loves haggis, what can I say). I enjoyed some black pudding while Carl tucked into a bowl of baked beans...I wasn't volunteering to sit next to him for the rest of the day!
We spent the morning with friends, whose daughter kindly offered to babysit the boys while we went to the party that night (thanks Karen!). After indulging in a lovely roast chicken lunch we resisted the urge to just roll our now considerably round bellies back into our beds for a wee nap and instead headed off to the excellent Science Centre, one of Glasgow's highlights. After half an hour in the very cool interactive and hands-on Science Mall we watched an amazing film in the Imax theatre there about the Hubble space telescope. Emerging feeling very small and insignificant in the grand scale of things indeed, Niels was clearly started to wilt so we walked back to the hotel - which is next to the Science Centre - to chill for a few hours.
Surprisingly both kids were keen for dinner, Carl indulging his passion for good old English fish and chips with a bowl of baked beans on the side (guess whose bed he's was going to be sleeping in tonight?).
In the evening I slipped into my new tartan skirt and it was off to the party. It was an enjoyable evening and we returned to the room by about 11pm and said goodbye to Karen. Both boys were asleep in one big bed so we were getting ready to hit the sack...when in wobbled Carl, shivery and feverish, tearful and jittery. I took his temperature and it was FORTY TWO DEGREES!!!!
Cue controlled panic mode as we simultaneously stripped him off, dosed him up on Paracetemol and draped wet towels over his upper body to try and quickly cool him down before he started having a seizure. Clearly he'd caught what Niels had but in a more aggresive form. Crisis averted, but we would be keeping a close eye on both of them for a few days.
The next morning the boys were both feeling pretty rotten but making the most of it. After a very small breakfast - let's face it none of us needed more food anyway! - they crawled back into bed and stayed there until we caught our bumpy flight home.
Funnily enough they both keep saying what a fun weekend it was and how much they love Scotland, which just goes to show that if we could all look on the bright side of life as much as kids do, we'd all be happier people.

Bumpity Bumpity Bump...

Ok as hubby rang especially from the North Sea last night to remind me, I can't keep complaining about the winter because we DID make it to Scotland last Friday afterall, despite the high winds. After our flights were cancelled we were luckily able to get seats on the evening flight departing at 8:35 for Glasgow and discovered it is possible to get sea sick on a plane. Yes, sea sick.

Meanwhile, Niels had come home for lunch on Friday and seemed off colour. He was quite tired so rather than send him back to school we bundled him into bed for a rest since it was going to be a late night. By the time we went to the airport he had a bit of a high temperature so I packed Paracetemol and my digital thermometer just in case.

As we boarded the plane the first thing we noticed was that it was MOVING. Not rolling down the runway, but sloshing from side to side as the wind gusts outside made it heave and pitch like a ship anchored in a stormy bay. We staggered down the aisle like 150 drunken sailors and it's the first time I've boarded a plane and heard every passenger clicking their seat belts on before the engines have even started. Ominous. The kids were excited to be off to another country, favourite monkey and bear clutched in their hands and no sign of sleepiness despite the late hour.

Taking off was...interesting. Remember that stormy bay? Apparently there were a few ski jumps installed just for fun and we bounced over every one before the wheels left the ground. Trying to keep a jolly I tone I said to the kids "this is fun, isn't it...aaaaAAAAAAAAAaaaahh!" as the wings dipped first left, then right, then the plane did that bizarre maneuvere where the nose twitches left, the tail flicks right, and you just know deep inside that planes are not supposed to fly diagonally! As we climbed steeply - presumably to avoid any more ski jumps - the sloshing sensation continued and Carl slowly turned pale, then slightly greenish. Out came the sick bag and I was left cursing the fact that Mum's always get to sit between the kids; why is it never Dad's that get puked on? Was that hidden in the small print of the marriage vows?

Amazingly once we gained altitude the flight smoothed out, the puke crisis was averted and the landings - there were about four before the wheels finally settled on the ground for good - were not too frightening. As my Dad says, any landing you can walk away from is a good one. It was off to the Crown Plaza where the kids were too hyper to sleep before 1 am, and hubby and I resorted to splitting up and taking one boy each into our beds and shutting the connencting room doors to settle them down. Hardly a romantic start to the weekend.

Houston, We Have Lift Off...

Okay so apart from familiy visits, what made October such a busy month this year? Well I did get to spend a week in Houston, Texas, home of Long Horn cattle, Stetsons, and an event which the company I work for organises every two years called Stainless Steel World. Come on, tell me that name doesn't make you want to grab your passport and jump on the next plane??!

I won't go into details of the event here save to say it was a lot of fun. I didn't really get to see much of Texas; in fact I didn't even see Houston at all as we were located in a brand-spanking new town which seems to have risen up out of the hot-baked earth like a shiny new button, Woodlands. It's kind of a purpose-built community with artfully placed canals, swathes of evergreen trees able to withstand the hot humid summers and the freezing cold winter, and an absolutely HUGE shopping mall. So guess where I was headed when I got a couple of hours free?

The only thing I was really keen on getting was a little something for the kids. I travel for work fairly infrequently and this is the longest I've been away, so I figured I'd have some making up to do when I got home. And boy, did I more than fulfill anyone's expectations!

Have I ever mentioned how much the kids (and, ahem their mother) love Star Wars? Well if you've ever been to our house you would know. Also if you've ever read this or this . Suffice to say we are all huge fans and when hubby's at sea we often save impromptu Star Wars Quiz Sessions during dinner to test each other's general knowledge, and they are closely-fought competitions indeed. Back to Houston; one fo the first shops I came across was Build-A-Bear, an old favourite from Singapore. The kids each have a toy from there - a bear for Niels called 'Beary' and a monkey who is officially called Triceratops Transformer but is now known as "Monkey" for Carl. Let's face it, in the originality stakes their name choices do let them down a bit. The coolest part about Build-A-Bear is that you get to dress your furry friends in some of the cool outifts they sell there, and they've just released a range of....Star Wars outfits! Above is Carl proudly showing off Monkey dressed as Captain Rex (from the Clone Wars series for those not in the know out there).

In the top picture he's also sporting a particularly cool set of Buzz Lightyear pyjamas, from the Toy Story 3 merchandise which is swamping Disney stores in the US at the moment. "To infinity and beyond...!" For Niels I found some very cool Phineas & Ferb sweatshirts AND the soundtrack on C.D., which is doubly-cool!

And finally, who could visit America in October and fail to notice the Halloween accessories? Here you see the boys drinking I.V. bags of blood (strawberry flavoured!) which I picked up to go with the collection of Frankenstein brains, Zombie body parts, and eyeballs from a local store.

In all a very successful shopping trip, which was topped off by a set of Star Wars cookie cutters and even a hand bag!! (SSShhhhhhhhhhhhhh!). But those aren't nearly as interesting as Zombie eyeballs.

Summits Up!

Here it is; proof that we did indeed climb to the top of Mt Maunganui during our holiday in New Zealand.

Actually, 'climb' is a bit of an exageration, admittedly. There is a fantastic path all the way to the top, and although parts are steep it's easily do-able. Carl demonstrated this rather aptly by choosing to RUN all the way to the top. I plodded on at a stately walking speed. Oh, and before you think that's me in the photo above, it's actually my sister Christine (who hates her photo being taken) so you'll have to take my word that we look just as alike from the front as well!

It was a gorgeous day, and we were only 10 minutes into the walk when the boys stripped off their shirts and started running around in their singlets. Ahhh, winter in the Antipodes! Not a snow storm or treacherous stretch of black ice to be seen.....

Blue skies, even bluer seas....could there be more perfect winter weather??

So there you have it; two thumbs up for doing the summit walk up Mt Maunganui, and actually for everything we did on our holiday.