Impromptu Visit to London (Friday 7th December 2012)

The day started off with blue milk (thanks to 'Maldad', our Elf on the Shelf - named by the kids - Spanish for 'Evil'...) Anyway, I'm not quite sure how it came about, but as Lucy and Jack had no school on Friday, so we decided not to send Harry and Tom either, and went to London for the day instead!

We rang up Tom and Harry's school to let them know, as we were driving to the train station!
Scott and I waiting in a shelter on the platform.

Once on the train, Lucy whipped out a Children's World Atlas from her bag, and we had a very educational journey!

First off we went to see Platform 9 3/4 from the Harry Potter books. Our Harry nearly knocked himself out by running full tilt into the wall, and rebounding off it - not quite sure what he was thinking!

Lucy posing near St. Pancr(e)as!! (Excuse the bad Type 1 Diabetic joke!)

We went to the British Library, and had a cool time looking at some of our literary treasures... it is such an amazing place!

We then headed to Tower Hill, and read about this part of the original wall around London, dating from Roman times. Here are the kids with Trajan. (Roman Emperor around the time the wall was built.)

A quick play on the park opposite the Tower of London.

We then took the tube to Canary Wharf in one of the driverless trains.

 We surfaced at Canary Wharf, and had a quick look around and discussion about what they do there.

Walking through some of the posh office buildings...

After that we got the tube to the Isle of Dogs, and walked through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel (which was finished in 1902) to Greenwich.

The Cutty Sark. Built in 1869, and one of only three remaining clipper ships built in the 1800's which has a wooden hull on an iron frame. It's the equivalent of a grade 1 listed building.

We then went and looked around the National Maritime Museum, which was free.

Walking up to Greenwich Observatory. It was nice to see the areas used in the 2012 Olympic Equestrian events.

 On the Greenwich Prime Meridian (A Prime Meridian is a line of Longitude defined to be 0.)

 Looking out over London from the Observatory.

After that, we walked back through the lovely Greenwich buildings, had lunch in Subway, then got a catamaran down the Thames.

The light was gorgeous (though it was pretty nippy), and the London land marks looked fantastic. We sat outside the whole way, and got off opposite the London Eye.

Going under Tower Bridge!

 HMS Belfast.

Then we made our way past the Natural History Museum, which was looking gorgeous, and went to the Science Museum.

The kids having a rest on one of the landings in the Science Museum.

We spend quite a while in the Science Museum, with the kids playing with everything.

We then walked down Oxford Street, and got some sandwiches for tea in a little Tesco.

Trafalgar Square.

Eating our sandwiches outside the Canadian Embassy!

We then headed back to King's Cross to get our train home. It was such a good day!! I had no qualms whatsoever about having the boys miss school - they saw so much! (And an added benefit was that we missed the school fair!!) A good eve to Jack becoming a teenager!

Early December 2012

Harry had his 7th birthday party on Saturday 1st December, and we had invited 10 kids from the school class round. It was bedlam!! I think Harry enjoyed it though! We did some games, and craft activities.

Lucy and Ben Hirst were a great help - which I definitely needed! Lucy and Ben had recently fallen out again, and President Hirst had bought Ben with him to a meeting in Huntingdon on the previous Thursday evening, so that I could come by with Lucy to spend some time with Ben and hopefully get things sorted out. I ended up taking them both to Tesco, to do shopping for Harry's party, and I insisted they talk to each other properly, and work out their differences. It worked anyway, and they spent hours talking in the church car park after we returned. Also had fun with President Hirst and Bishop Hough, trying to get Bishop's car started after their meeting...we tried jump starting it from my car, and all sorts, but it turned out to be something really daft in the end, like the wrong keys or something... Anyway, Ben wanted to come and help with Harry's party, so President Hirst bought him round. He gave Harry the Bear Grylls book for his birthday, which I think made Harry feel quite grown up.

Harry had a load of cupcakes instead of a cake, so he had to have candles in a cupcake!

The next day we had Keely and her gang come over!

Tom giving a donation to the Rotary Club Father Christmas on the 4th! I love when they come round - the music is so loud! You can hear it streets away!

On the 6th December, I had to make the cake for the 'Guess the Number of Sweets on the Cake' competition for the school fair the next day. Sickly!!

November 2012

On Sunday 4th November, Robin, Niki, Adam, Emma and baby Heidi came down for the day. We had a lovely time together, and the boys had a great time all playing together. I'm not sure what they were doing exactly, but at one point they had barricaded up the living room door!

 Lucy with her cousin, Heidi.

The next night was Bonfire Night. We didn't really do much for it, but the kids had some sparklers.

Harry in his Beaver's Uniform (on 16th Nov), with the Beavers' mascot. He goes on Tuesday evenings at Bury Village Hall.
On Monday 19th, we found out that Harry won a colouring competition at school.

Monday 26th November was an interesting day. Lucy had a hospital appointment at 10.30am at Hinchingbrooke Hospital, and just as we were coming round the big bend from Huntingdon down to the hospital, the car felt funny, and then quite quickly really bad. Luckily, there was just enough space at the back of the lay-by opposite the hospital for me to pull in to.
We got out, and one of the back tyres was completely wrecked - totally flat and ripped. We were due for an appointment with the research nurse first, for Lucy to have some blood tests done, so we left the car where it was, and ran over to the hospital. While Lucy was being seen to, I rang Scott, and rang our breakdown company, from the corridor. It all worked out quite well. We managed to get through all Lucy's appointments, and had a bit of time to kill before the breakdown guy came.
He spent ages trying to get the tyre nuts undone, but finally managed it, and put our cute little yellow spare wheel on! Lucy and I then had to drive back home, with the wrecked wheel on Lucy's lap, because there was nowhere else it would fit!
Even the drive home was interesting, because we had loads of rain, and the roads were starting to flood!

In the afternoon, Lucy came with me on the school run to collect Tom and Harry, and we decided to go and check out the golf course, which had flooded!

I thought it was cute to sail the umbrella, upside down, Winnie-the Pooh-style, until it started to drift out of reach. I managed to get it back from the end of the summer house... just!

The rest of November was as busy as usual - Stake Council Meeting, Deacon/Beehive Forum, cleaning the chapel, on the 8th I went on a Driving Course held at the Race Course, for when we'd got a speeding ticket. I thought it was brilliant actually - and really got a lot from it. We had a Musical Extravaganza on Friday 16th, which I sang with the Youth in, Lucy had an eye test done on 21st - with drops put in her eyes which made her pupils massive!! They then take photographs of the back of her eyes to see how the blood vessels are doing. We had Bletchley Ward Conference, and we did a Stake Youth Fireside.
I have not found life particularly easy of late - have found it hard to feel happy for sustained periods. I had quite a few talks with President Hirst around this time, which did help, but were part of a long process of feeling better.