Dec
27
Here I am blogging from a hotel room in the beautiful old city of Bath. Just how popular is this blog to my regular readers that I would drag my laptop along on holiday with me and sit up until after midnight to write the story of a week in our lives? Thank you to all my regular readers for continuing to read this blog each week, for your comments and your support. You continue to give me a reason to write, which has become something I thoroughly enjoy doing.
After last weekend’s snowfall we expected the snow to melt away rather quickly, but with the daily temperatures seldom rising above 2 or 3 degrees during this week, it lasted for days. The snow eventually started to melt and then re-froze which created some adventurous driving conditions. I did a side-slide around the corner into our street and with my heart beating in my throat, Mitchell and Jenna both cheered from the back seat: “Cool Mom, do it again!” Like they thought I had somehow intentionally done it. Our snowman eventually became one with the snow on the pavement again; his head rolled off first and finally all that remained of him were a carrot, a few raisins and some pebbles. I am sure he will be resurrected in a few weeks time, if we are lucky enough to have some more snow.
On Monday evening we took Jon to play ten-pin bowling at the Bowl-Plex in Tunbridge Wells. Once again I showed my true form and with 3-strikes in a row the game was all but wrapped up for me. Mitchell shakes his head and laughs at my blatant arrogance when I dance around and cheer, but being the family’s ten-pin bowling champion is a coveted title in the Wright house at the moment.
I am loving winter in the UK. When we left South Africa a few people said: “Yes, you are going over the in summer, but you will only survive one UK winter and then you will be back. You wait and see you will be back”. Well, the truth is, we are still waiting for this long, dark, terrible winter that everyone described to us. We are waiting for the dull dark depression and the misery. So far it has not changed our lives one bit – although Jenna has now finally got used to wearing shoes. We have had to shovel the cars out of the snow, learn to drive on ice, we have had to scrape the frost from the car more than once a day on some occasions, we have sloshed through the mud and tried to negotiate walking in the car park on sheets of ice, but the wonder of it all does not cease. Each day something new comes up and we have to find a new way to deal with it, a new way to solve the problem and then be able to sit down and say “So, that wasn’t so bad and now the next time we will know better”. It’s about changing, about seeing a different perspective, about pushing yourself through new boundaries and then standing on the other side, looking back over your shoulder and knowing that you learned, that you grew, and most of all, that you laughed all the way through it.
On Tuesday Jon, the kids, and I drove through to Penshurst Place which is a beautiful 650 year old home but unfortunately many of the most beautiful UK tourist attractions are closed to the public in the winter months, so we were not able to get inside the grounds, but the drive through Penshurst was absolutely beautiful and with the streets and fields still covered in thick snow, it made for some picture-postcard moments. 
We stopped in Tonbridge at Barden Park Lake, which is where the Tonbridge Yacht club is. This park was beautiful in the summer and this would be my first trip back there in the winter months. I found it to be prettier than I had remembered it. Birds were able to stand out on the frozen surface of the lake, the children’s playground was covered in snow, and the whole park made for a walk of the most amazing photographic moments. We left on the train for London at about 14:00 on 
Tuesday to go to the Winter Wonderland and German Market in Hyde Park. I had an image in my mind of what it might be like, but I could never have truly imagined how it would be. It’s not about the goods on sale or the hectic roller-coaster rides. It’s about each individual little store and how it is decorated. The lights, the smell of cinnamon, the German folk music, people in costumes, little handmade chocolates, glass ornaments that sparkled in the coloured Christms lights. On some of the stalls there were authentic little decorations on the rooftops, not your stereo-type Christmassy things, but little old wooden wagons, a chicken, or an old basket. There were more stories to be told about the rooftop decorations than anything, for me.
On Wednesday evening Philip arrived to spend 2 days with us in the run-up to Christmas, so now we had our two best friends from East London with us. (Philip lives over here in the UK now and Jon is over for a 3 week holiday.) It felt like the Friday and Saturday nights back in East London, when they would both come over for dinner and we would all laugh and chat. I don’t know if there could have been a more authentic way for us to spend our first Christmas in the UK, than to have these two guys with us.
On Thursday Mike, Jon, and Philip travelled into London to meet James (who has already made his appearance in a previous blog a few weeks ago) for lunch. James is an ex-student of mine from PE Technikon and was in the same class as Jon. The boys day out in London turned out to be a about new friends and a good curry, a few nice beers and a discovery of new sides to London that were previously undiscovered. The guys rushed home to be back in time to see Jenna as an angel in a Carol service. She looked absolutely beautiful as her and her little classmates from school sang carols on Christmas Eve. We went home to a lovely Christmas Eve dinner, complete with candles and hats, crackers and Turkey and not forgetting… granny’s trifle. Some things will always just belong.
Our first Christmas day in the UK finally arrived and with it came a beautiful sunny day. The last few patches of snow that had held out to give us our first white Christmas melted away and the ground finally began to dry up. After opening all our gifts, Philip headed off to his brothers family in Broadstairs. 
Christmas day was a quiet and relaxing day, we took a walk around the Tonbridge Castle, climbed to the top of the motte and bailey and got the most beautiful view of the town. Jenna and Mitchell took along a bag of peanuts in shells and old bread and we spent ages feeding the ducks and the squirrels. The squirrels come right up and take the peanuts out of your hand. This was however not the end of the day’s festivities. We spent the evening at Mike’s sisters house in Bidborough. There were 17 of us around the dinner table and this is how I remember Christmas dinners as a child, just sitting around the table for ages, talking and laughing, dishing up desert and sweets and spending time together, but I missed my brother Michael more than anyone can imagine.
We set off at 08:30 this morning from Tonbridge on our road-trip to the Brecon Mountains in Wales. Our trip is taking us to Stonehenge, Old Sarum Castle in Salisbury and the magnificent Salisbury Cathedral. Driving to Stonehenge was incredible. We had seen it so often on TV and had obviously developed images in our minds of how it would be, but we were wrong. You drive over a little hill on the freeway and all of a sudden there it is, right there in front of you, just as it has been standing there for more than 4000 years. There are no big imposing gates to the site and the visitors centre is cleverly tucked away (almost underground) on the other side of the freeway, so you get a real sense of this place, not as some tacky tourist spot, but as a place of significant meaning. You walk away from it wondering what they knew back then that we just take for granted today. What was important at that time, that we now just fob off as unimportant? I will go back to Stonehenge in the summer months and stare again in wonder at it. If you have ever thought it was beautiful in pictures and on TV, then you will surely appreciate how truly magnificent it really is when you stand on the ground where once, 4000 years ago, a group of people, very different to us, once found wonder too.
Old Sarum Castle is a ruin of a Castle, standing on a hill overlooking the picturesque town of Salisbury. This castle was in its heyday in about the 1100’s. Try to imagine that. Standing in the place, in the rooms, in the grounds of a Castle where a King walked so many hundreds of years ago. The views from the top of the hill made me stand for a moment and appreciate why that spot was probably chosen. It certainly has a view that is fit for a King!
The Steeple of Salisbury Cathedral stands like a towering symbol over the city. You can see it from miles around and it is like a beacon, drawing you every nearer to what must be one of the most incredible places I have ever seen. The details in the architecture, the fine craftsmanship that took place so many years ago, before computers put the designs together, when men created all that with their bare hands. You cannot stand there and not wonder in absolute awe at how incredible the buildings of that time were. Salisbury’s little streets are packed with the most amazing little old buildings sandwiched between others. There is a medieval part of the city where the little buildings and plaques with stories on tell of a time that we can hardly ever dream to imagine.
Tomorrow we continue our trip to Wales, over little bridges that stand up against the raging rivers which are now carrying the snow-melt, along little roads lined with trees that hide old stone cottages, buildings that look as if they come of the pages of an illustrated children’s storybook.
The buildings we have seen today have stood the test of time, some have stood almost unchanged for 4000 years, but the stories and the legends surrounding them have changed. I hope that my life will be a little like Stonehenge, sturdy and strong but filled with wonder and mystery. I know the outer surface is certainly not staying unchanged, like those immense immovable rocks, but the foundations of which I am made, like the walls of Old Sarum Castle, where you can see the outline of who I am really am, are solid and strong. The seasons will continue to change like they have done for thousands of years, different people will pass by everyday and all together they will make up the stories, the myths and legends of who we are.
Christmas has passed now and this week brings with it a whole New Year, new beginnings, and pages and pages of new adventures… My wish for you is for a wonderful 2010.
April 6th, 2010 at 4:54 am
Nice article, was curious if you would allow me to link to it in a post im currently writing for my own site? Thanks Melissa Suffield
May 5th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Of course you can use it, link to it, advertise it…. the more the merrier.