When I wake up in the morning, I will have lived in England for 1 year.

Looking back on the past year, I struggle to conceptualise how much can change in one year. This blog has been a one-year diary of moments of our time in England, but all things change and so too should the focus of this blog.

I will continue to document and diarise some of the brighter moments as they happen and continue to add photos, but I would like the blog to grow and to evolve with the changing time and seasons.

I may begin to write more than once a week and there may be times when I will write less frequently, but I will continue to post the blog reminders at the usual spots.

All-in-all, this year has passed by so fast.   

To the friends in the UK who have helped so much in the past year; Steven, Melanie and Duncan, Mike and Jo, James, Philip, Steph, Amanda and Justin,….

and to Mikes family, Tracy, Rodger, James and Kirstin and Rodgers family,…

thank you all for all that you have done to make the past year what it has been.

To my friends and family back in SA who continue to stay in touch, I miss you all every single day.

Today was Jenna’s 1^st Holy Communion in the Catholic Church. It was a beautiful hot sunny day, a beautiful service and Jenna looked so pretty. She has been preparing for this at catechism classes for a year now. So how do I feel about it? Well this piece of the blog promises to do 1 of two things. It will garner the understanding of those who agree with it and it may anger or alienate those who don’t. Mitchell took his first holy communion in East London, a few months before he turned 12 (and we had held him back 1 year, at that). A lot of Catholic churches in South Africa do it at that age. I don’t know if they all do it, or if it was just the Diocese of Port Elizabeth, under which St Patricks fell that did it at that age, but the reality of the situation is this… Mitchell was old enough to try and understand, to question, to make choices, to make up his mind. Jenna and the other little children in her group are only about 7 years old. Many of them didn’t know how to shake hands and receive their certificates in front of the camera, some couldn’t remember where to stand or when to sit, how to kneel, or when to clasp their hands together. So how do children of that age understand what they are doing when they “partake of the body and blood of Christ”? It is my opinion that it makes it seem forced. It makes it feel as if understanding is less important than simply doing. This is one of the sacraments of the Catholic faith which is not taken lightly. It follows on from the promises parents make at baptism and is a precursor for all other sacraments to come. These children are not presented by their parents as at baptism, they walk up to that alter, so how can it be done at a time when most children simply cannot understand it? So the questions I am left with tonight are: Why did we let Jenna partake? Why did we succumb to the pressure? We are certainly old enough to have asked why, to have questioned, to have made up our minds. Someone said to me recently that if you live in a place where people call a “jersey” a “jumper” you should embrace the new vocabulary and say “jumper” too, in other words we should “fit in”. So in SA Jenna would have waited a few more years, she would have attended more catechism classes and grown into an informed understanding, but when in Rome…… !

I am not disappointed that Jenna took communion today. I simply ask…. What did she understand by what she did today?… and when I ask her that question, I am not totally convinced.

This week I want to explain this formula to you [3xA4, 3/60, 24]. I posted it as a status on my facebook profile this week in the hope that someone would question it, and unsurprisingly, nobody did. We tend to shy away from asking things in a public domain when we fear that we might look foolish for not understanding. The truth is, I wanted someone to ask so that I could have explained it there, where people who do not read this blog would have seen it.

Some years back, I went on a team-building function with a selected group of people from the office I was working in at the time. We all went down to the Mpekweni resort on the SE Coast. It was one of those sessions led by an independent facilitator. We walked into the conference room on the first day and lying on each of our desks were 3 pieces of A4 paper [3xA4]. He asked us to roll each of them up into a tight ball and to place them alongside each other in front of us on our desks. He would tell us later what they were for. Obviously it bugged us for the next few minutes as we waited to find out the purpose of those 3 paper balls. The facilitator then said to us that when we convened the following day, we would be able to juggle. All it took was 3 dedicated minutes out of every hour [3/60]. It was imperative that if we just practiced for 3 minutes out of every 60 we would be able to achieve it within 24 [24] hours. (Now you have the formula that I believe in so much). No way were any of us going to believe that we would be able to juggle in 24 hours! We stood up at our seats and he showed us the technique very briefly, and then simply left it there! He had given us the tools we needed to succeed. We broke for drinks and toilet breaks and to stretch our legs every hour of that day (for a reason no doubt) and every hour I would grab those 3 balls, go and stand outside and try to juggle for 3 minutes. At first it was a disaster and I thought that all I would end up with was a sore back from bending down and retrieving the balls that fell on the floor all the time. Even when we met for dinner in the hotel restaurant that night, my 3 white paper balls were in my handbag. When other people were running off the bar to get more drinks, I would sneak out and try again, and again. By breakfast time the next morning I realised that not many people had taken up the challenge to learn to juggle. Most had not practiced once; some had tried with a half-hearted giggle and then thrown in the towel… I knew how far I had come, and all the way through breakfast I relished the chance to show them. We met in the conference room for the start of day 2 and it was time to see who could juggle. Some could throw once or twice, but that was about all. I walked calmly to the front of the room and stood with my back to the group… and… I juggled. When I packed my stuff to move to the UK I held those 3 white balls in my hand and decided that I would pack them and take them with me, and tonight as I write this blog, sitting in the living room in England, I have those very same three white balls on the table next to me. They are simply 3 pieces of A4 paper which are scrunched up tightly, but to me they are the belief that when I put my mind to something, I can and will achieve it. For me, [3xA4, 3/60, 24] means that that which seems unattainable is possible.

So, as I set out tomorrow on week-3 of my “couch to 10km’s” of training, I will know in my heart… 3xA4, 3/60, 24!

(That which seems unattainable is possible).     

PS: I tried to juggle tonight and although I am a little rusty, I still have it!

Roxi is still chewing her way methodically through the house. I had forgotten just how puppies can chew, and this little one is relentless. This week she destroyed my mobile phone charger and the mouse from my laptop, she steals our socks and buries them in the garden, she raids the laundry bin, nothing is out of bounds, anything that she can get her teeth around is free game, but she is energetic, fun and playful and she makes Mitchell and Jenna laugh a lot.

Jenna’s horse-riding is coming along so nicely. She had a wonderful lesson on Sunday afternoon. The beauty of this means that perhaps the “lead rein” role might be able to end sooner than later. It must be wonderful to sit on that elevated level and look down on your parents running next to the horse, dodging the huge piles of recycled grass. At the moment the lessons focus on the children being able to maintain their balance in a trot. As the horse speeds up she must be able to rise and sit in sync with the horse, so that she does not fall off.

Mitchell has ended up with the World Cup Soccer leaving somewhat of a bitter taste in his mouth. National pride and supporters vibe is one thing, and known only too well to South Africans who usually shamelessly display their support for their team or their favoured player, but Mitch has ended up in the unfortunate position of being the victim of mob-mentality at school at the moment. 5 boys in his class have targeted him and are relentless in their contempt and disdain for South Africa. It reached a point this week where Mitchell didn’t want to go to school. He just felt like he couldn’t take another day of it. He said that it wasn’t so much what they were saying about South Africa that got to him, but rather how it just went on and on, even during the lessons they would turn around and shout at him about it. I suspect it must be rough to be the 13yr old “lone wolf”. He no longer even wants to watch the matches, because he knows that no matter what happens he will face the wrath of the mob the following day. This does of course mean that I have changed my allegiance and beyond my support of South Africa (Bafana Bafana), I secretly hope that the England team will be on a flight home sooner than later – but that’s only the maternal me, the lioness.

My “couch to 10k” program is wonderful. One thing about getting motivated to start a new exercise routine is that you probably won’t succeed if you do it alone, and although I AM doing this alone, I have this electronic voice in my headphones attached to my iPhone, which tells me when to run and when to walk. I have never been a runner and quite frankly never really saw the joy in it, and even though I have done a few short runs here and there, I just never really got why people do it, but when you can see the actual results (even within 1 week), when you can see that the distance you ran last week (that almost killed you) can now be done without even getting out of breath, it is motivational on its own.

On Saturday Jenna’s school had their Summer Fair. Mitchell volunteered to be the target of Jenna’s sponge-throwing endeavours. I think he underestimated the power and accuracy of her throwing arm. It was a fun afternoon of games and English tea and scones on the lawns of the school.

The school year is fast drawing to a close over here and lots of fun activities are planned. I am glad we moved Jenna when we did instead of waiting until the start of the new school-year. It has given her time to settle in with new friends and become part of a lot of activities. She has surprisingly taken to athletics like a bug to a light. Mitchell too has a musical evening coming up at his school entitled “Music from Musicals”. He will be playing as part of the guitar club ensemble. 

The highlight of this week (well the one that I didn’t miss, at least) was without a doubt, the Bon Jovi concert at the 02 arena in London. I have been an avid Bon Jovi junkie for years now and I have always said that I would give anything to attend one of his live concerts. We arranged the tickets months ago and this date has been looming on my calendar for ages now. Jon Bon Jovi is not just a magnificent songwriter, guitar player and musician, he has the most incredible philosophies on life and humanity and he is not afraid to express them in the media and on stage. The concert was absolutely unbelievable and I wish I could put into words just how spectacular I thought it was. It was powerful and exciting, loud and alive; in general, it was just a masterpiece of music.

This week also saw Jen start at her new school. Private schooling in the UK is very expensive and they private schools are the equivalent of our former model-C schools in SA. Jenna is very happy. She is already far more organised than she was at the previous school, she gets up in the morning much happier and ready to face her day. The school day is very long, starting at 08:25 and ending at 16:00. The nice thing though is that they play sport. Jenna has already played her first rounders match against another school and I was surprised to see just how well she can whack that ball. I guess she must have some of her grampa’s Border baseball skills.

My car is finally fixed! Seems like I did more damage to it than we had thought. The new exhaust manifold arrived in the mail this week and I finally got my car back on Saturday. What did we ever do before online shopping? Imagine this? You can go onto the internet, put in the details of the make and model of your car, then sit back and wait as the sms messages start arriving with price comparisons from various dealers. You pick the one you want, order the part and wait for the postman to deliver it.

Mitchell is going to be part of his guitar-clubs concert in the next few weeks. At the moment he is working on the chords for “House of fun”. He and I started running this evening. We have decided that we need to get fitter and lose some of this winter covering that we have gained. He is so funny to run with and I don’t know how he can run and talk so much when I can barely breathe.

The world cup soccer started this week and who could miss the deafening howl of the vuvuzelas? You see them on TV, at the matches, in the streets, and now we have them in the supermarkets in the UK. It certainly is a distinctly African World Cup and I think that so far South Africa has a lot to be proud of. For me, it is just wonderful to see the reminders on TV of just how beautiful SA is, how extraordinarily vibrant the people are, and how much potential the country has. For those of us living outside of the borders of SA, whether you like football (soccer) or not, I think perhaps we are missing out on something quite spectacular.

This week was half-term and we started off on Monday with a trip to Buckinghamshire to visit our friends and enjoy a wonderful lunch and a walk in the hills. It was the first time we took Roxi on a bit of a road trip, and we did not know what to expect, but she travels like a dream. We arrived in Buckinhamshire to a wonderful day and a wonderful lunch with Steven, Melanie and Duncan. We took Meg (springer spaniel) and Roxi for a walk in the hills and Roxi walked like a dream. She is a really awesome little puppy and a testament to her breed. Nose to the ground, walking next to us, she was the perfect little tracking, hunting dog. Steven and Melanie have recently acquired an allotment near their home and I was so surprised at Mitchell and Jennas reaction to it. They both want to start gardening vegetables and fruit. I think I will start them off with troughs of small things in our garden and see how well they do, before setting them lose on a larger area. Jenna is hoping for an invitation to go and pick stuff in the allotment when it is ready (hint, hint)

The rest of the week was spent doing things in and around our area. It was a very busy week and seeing that my car (that I drove over a tree stump last weekend) is still out of commission, it meant that we had to juggle everything around one vehicle. The mechanic says that I have cracked the exhaust manifold on the car and the hunt has now started to find a replacement option.

Jenna starts at her new school tomorrow. She looks absolutely beautiful in her new uniform.  I am so proud of how resilient she is. She is so excited about the move.

Mitchell played a cricket match this morning on what must be one of the most beautiful cricket pitches I have seen here in England. It is locacted in the village of Withyham and is surrounded by woodlands on most sides, the cricket field has a farm with Shetland ponies on the one side and a field with pheasants and rabbits on the other. Mitchell is only 12 but he played for the u/15 team and scored what was a very proud 8 (NOT OUT!).

Yesterday we went to a real South African braai at Amanda and Justins house. Complete with boerewors and Chakalaka we were just missing the putu pap. South African music blared from the stereo in the window and “Sharks shirts” were the order of the day. It was a beautiful day in the sunshine amongst fellow Saffas. The men headed off to the nearby pub to watch the rugby match between SA and Wales. Braai fires, sunny skies, and a rugby match to finish it off. Could this be the recipe for a true South African man’s dream.

So the highlight of the coming week for me must surely be the BON JOVI concert on Friday night at the 02 arena in London. We will be meeting Mike and Jo and I must admit upfront… I am like a little girl waiting for Santa!

I just watched a program on TV here: “Piers Morgan on the South African World Cup”. I am proud of South Africa and what they have put together for the world cup. There certainly seems to be an incredible vibe in the country at the moment, and although I cannot be there to share it, it is wonderful to follow it in the posts on Facebook and to see it advertised everywhere. I hope that the weeks ahead can be a flagship moment for South Africa and that the country will use the opportunity to its fullest.

This week also saw the end of Jenna’s time at the primary school she has attended for the past year. It is half-term break now and as soon as the schools reopen next week, Jenna will start at one of the private schools near us. She is so excited and absolutely delighted. It does mean that this week will be spent once again, shopping for school uniforms. She received the most amazing send-off from her friends at the school she is leaving. She has made some really good friends this year and we will all have to work hard at making sure that she stays in contact with them.

Today Mitchell played a cricket match in Edenbridge for the Bidborough Colts team. Driving through Hildenborough on the way to the field, a camera speed-trap went off on the side of the road and I suspect it was directed straight at ME! It means a fine and points against my licence, but that was not the worst to come. I arrived at the cricket field and as I was parking my car I drove over a sawed off tree-trunk that was sticking out of the ground. The sound was terrible and I immediately reversed to get off of the stump. I suspect this did even more damage. I got out and inspected the car and it did not appear that there was any visible damage, but when it was time to leave, the damage became evident. I suspect I have either ripped a hole, the size of a crater, into the exhaust or broken the manifold. My car sounds like an ancient tractor and it is a fight to engage the gears. Philip was spending the day with us, so Mike drove my car home and I went home with Philip. Mitchell’s team won the match and apart from my motor vehicle issues, it was a good day out in the warm May sunshine.

What is family? Are your family the people with whom you share DNA? Are your family the people you see every day of your life and are they defined as such simply because they live in the same house as you? I grew up with a very special person in my life. He stayed in our house for a few years and then moved to rent the house next door to us. He has always been a part of my life. Growing up without a father in my life, “Uncle Ivan” became the person who filled that role for us. He was the one who fixed the punctures on my bike; he was the one who drove with my mom late at night to fetch me from Numbers Dance club or parties I had attended. He was always at my school concerts and most often would sit right up in the front row. He killed snakes and spiders in our back yard, he sat with us until late on summer evenings and watched the setting sun, and he brought us our Christmas tree every year and watched as we decorated it. He spent every Christmas with us, whether we were at home or away on holiday, he taught my son to ride a bike and how to climb a tree. He is the type of person who could never say a bad word about anyone. He would fetch me from school on rainy days so that I didn’t have to walk, he would sit by the side of the field when I played a hockey match or marched in a drummie competition. He was at our house the night of my matric farewell and he sat in the front of the church on my wedding day, he told the funniest stories of his life as a young boy and the things he would get up to at school. When Mitchell did a school project on his family tree two years ago, we included Uncle Ivan and a photo of him, with the caption “Grandpa on loan”. The day I left South Africa I went around to his house to say goodbye but he was not there, and I left without saying goodbye. When I went back in September, I again went around to his house and there was no response to my knocks at the door. This week I received the news from his daughter, that he is now very frail; he has had a few strokes and is spending his days alone at home. He may not have been my biological dad, but he was a father to me. I have never met another person, who so simply “gave without condition”, and I doubt that I ever will.

Uncle Ivan is a part of our family, not because of genetics, but simply because he is.

This week Mitchell heads off to France on a school trip. He is having an understandable mixture of excitement and trepidation. He will be visiting Sacre Coeur Basilica, Disneyland Resort, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Palace of Versailles, Louvre museum, Notre Dame Cathedral and the, Eiffel Tower, They will be taking a boat trip on the river Seine, visiting Calais, as well as lots of French restaurants and shopping centres. (Note to Mitchell: Remember moms gift!)

Jenna had another riding lesson this week and as the other children in her group did not arrive, she had an impromptu one-on-one private lesson. This week she asked that Mike take the lead rein. I wasn’t complaining as it was the hottest weekend we have had, so I got out of the run around the arena in the heat.

Jenna attended another taster day this week at a local private school and we have decided that it is the one for her. She even went with her year group to play a rounders match against another school in Tunbridge Wells. This means that she only has 1 more week at her current school as we are moving her to the new school immediately after the half-term break.

On Friday evening while Jenna was at gymnastics I took my camera and headed out into the fields around East Peckham to take a few photos. The beautiful yellow fields of the rapeseed (for Canola oil) seem to be coming to an end now, but there are still a few magnificent fields that look like a yellow ocean. I parked my car in a little tree-covered lane and walked around the village and into the farms. I walked into a church yard and there was a headstone for a baby that born in 1967 but had only lived for 2 days. The grave was neat and adorned with fresh flowers and I stood for a moment staring at it and wondering who still places those flowers there? After all those years, someone still cares enough to remember a soul that only lived for 2 days.  That is what it is like when life HAS NO price-tag attached to it, when life has meaning and it is simply, not cheap.

South Africa faces being under a huge microscope in the next couple of weeks. The eyes of the entire world will be on the spectacle that is the Soccer World Cup. Not since the abolishment of apartheid, have South Africans needed to stand together and prove to the world that the “rainbow nation” was not just a catch phrase, that South Africa is not just another African-continent disaster story, and that it can be seen to stand proud alongside other powerful nations in the world. I had coffee with my friend Amanda this week. Her, and her family have been living here for about 10 weeks. Her in-laws live in Kloof, near Durban. Last Friday night 2 men entered their home  and for 1 hour and 45 minutes they beat and robbed Amanda’s in-laws. They are just two simple law-abiding folk in their 60’s, who were spending a Friday evening at home, but their world was turned on its head when they were brutally beaten in their own home. Why the violence? Why the terror? Why do criminals in SA have to torture and abuse people, sometimes for hours on end? If they have to rob someone for a mobile phone, a radio, money, or a car, why not just take what they want and leave? Why the terror? Why the brutality? That is what it is like when life HAS a price-tag attached to it, when life means very little and it is simply, cheap.

 Someone posted a link on Facebook today. It was a BBC news story about “How dangerous SA is” and it quoted statistics, had many comments from readers and even had a neat little graph, but the truth behind those statistics is a frightening daily reality for thousands of people. Every country has its good and its bad, and someone once said to me, “it all comes down to how much of the good and the bad you are willing to live with”.

Amanda’s in-laws are now selling the home they have lived in for so many years and are forced, out of fear and terror, to move to a gated enclosed complex, with no guarantees that the same thing won’t simply happen there again. Their lives are being dictated to by the criminals. It feels very different when it is real, tangible, when you can look into someone’s eyes over a cup of coffee and talk about it happening to family. It feels very different to reading statistics in a graph.

I hope that SA can host a World Cup that we can all be proud of, but I hope so much more, that life in SA will someday become priceless.

Roxi is now the ruler. Everyone knows it!! But in all seriousness though, she is as cute as a button and I think that as she grows into a beautiful dog she will certainly bring Jenna a lot of joy.

Jenna attended a taster day at a prospective new school this week. She went for the whole day and absolutely loved it. The entire school, from reception to year-6 only has 135 children. It is situated in the most beautiful old building with new modern classrooms built at back of the property. When she came home and I asked her what her favourite part of the day was, she said, “The two science experiments and the puddings at lunchtime”.  She has 1 more taster day to attend this week, at another school and then a decision can be made about when and where she will move to.

Mitchell and his friend Tom have been spending a lot of time together over the past few weeks. They are busy with the plans for a down-hill racer they want to build in our garage. When Mitch came to me this week and said he would need the use of the garage for a few weekends, I thought his new-found band would be moving in to rehearse in the garage, but fortunately it appears that he and Tom need it as an automotive assembly plant. Tom will be one of Mitchell’s room-mates on their trip to France next week and I am just delighted that Mitchell has found such an awesome friend.

Jenna went to her second horse-riding lesson this week, and I remind you that it is the job of the parent to hold the lead-rein and walk (and trot, and sprint) next to the horse. Well last week we had Briar, a very spritely little pony (someone said it looked more like a donkey), but this week we had Scooby. Scooby was about double the size of Briar and it dawned on me that I was going to have to run around next to this giant horse. It is a lot of fun though and the parents end up laughing more at ourselves than anything,  especially when you happen to be right behind a horse that suddenly decides to “let go” on the track of the arena, and you don’t see it, and step in it!

Mitchell took a really nasty fall this afternoon, he ran to get something out of the car and decided to jump the low front wall of the property like it was a hurdle in an athletics meeting, but he jumped too late and ended up smashing both his shins into the brick wall and then falling over the wall onto the pavement on the other side. I can’t even try to imagine the pain he felt. His shins are pretty bashed up.

Next week this time, Mitchell will be packed and ready to head off to France for a week. He is so excited about the trip and the list of places he will be visiting reads like the brochure from the holiday of a lifetime.

The garden continues to become a whole new colour-palette each week. New flowers bloom and older ones die off again, some of them you wish could last a little longer, but its almost as if they were only meant to bloom long enough as a message that better flowers are yet to come. (Roxi is of course adding her bit the destruction of the garden).  The weather is letting us down a little at the moment, and although the days are so nice and long now, it is seldom warm enough to go and sit outside and enjoy the setting sun.

Image taken from Google.

Learning about an entirely new political system has been fascinating. Watching a democratic South Africa develop, and comparing politics to the way it is done over here, is just like a soap-opera,(just missing all the good-looking people). Was it right for us to vote? When you have only been in a country for 10 months and you could be gone again in 16 months, should you really be allowed to have a say? Personally, I didn’t think it was necessarily right for aliens such as ourselves to vote, but then it dawned on me that my children get to live with the schooling system decided by these politicians, the police who protect me every day are ruled by these politicians, many of the day to day things that we live with are controlled by these politicians, so the question remains in my mind…. Should I have voted?

This has been a cooler week in the UK. After weeks of glorious sunshine and warm weather, the winds changed, to come back down from the north again and brought along a snappy return of the cooler weather. It was nice to have some rain again (although you seldom imagine that someone in the UK would say those words).

Mitchell had a cracker of a cricket match today. He feels that it was undoubtedly his best ever performance on the cricket field. He plays for the local club team, and I think he has found a comfortable place within the team. He scored 23 (not out) today and took a catch while fielding.

This week we met with our landlords. They are currently back in the UK for a short stay and have decided to move to Australia permanently. This means that the house we are living in is soon to go on the market, but that is not a train-smash at all. It does however mean that house-hunting is high on the agenda at the moment. The markets have changed in the last year and fewer houses are available for renting. Far more houses are on the “for sale” market at the moment.

Yesterday was Jenna’s first horse-riding lesson. She has waited 10 months for this moment, and her excitement was just infectious. As I said in last week’s blog, the parents of the beginners have to hold the reins of the horse, so there I was, out in the indoor arena, in the soft sand in my heavy boots, and the instructor sets the pony off on a trot around the arena. You try keeping up with a running horse! After we had been to riding we went to get Jenna some second-hand horse-riding equipment from my niece. So now Jenna walks around the house dressed up like a rider all day.

One of the most important decisions that we made this week was to move Jenna to a private school. She is currently at a little primary school, but I honestly feel that this is not the right place for her. We met with the headmaster of the new school last week and I was excited by his open-minded approach and his willingness to listen and to treat Jenna, and us as individuals and not just as “part of the system”. She will be attending the school soon for a taster day and all my fears of her not wanting to move, leaving behind new friends again, were just squashed when I saw her excitement at the prospect of moving.

On Friday I took a trip into London to enjoy the city I have become so fond of visiting. I love to walk around London and look at the beautiful architecture. I love to wander down the narrow little streets and past the quaint old shops. On this trip I went to parts of London I have not been to before. I ended up in the modern banking area of London with its eclectic mix of old buildings standing alongside modern glass-fronted structures. There were “Suits” (the name given to the typical men in black that pace the streets of London – they are the stony-faced ones, with the iPods in their ears, who will walk right over you in the underground), pubs filled with people, and a general Friday afternoon hustle and bustle. I met up with James at Liverpool station and it was so good to catch up and enjoy some of his favourite jaunts. It was just a wonderful day with wonderful company.

It has been an incredible month weather-wise, and even though the blog has not been written, you can be sure that we have been active and busy, so sit back, and get comfortable as you plunge back into a trip through the past month.

This blog starts back at Easter weekend. Somehow I still like to mark the time here by “the firsts”, like “the first Christmas” and in this case, “the first Easter”. We celebrated Easter with Tracy and the family. The cousins all enjoyed an Easter-egg hunt on Ken and Lauren’s farm. Ken and Lauren are another ex-South African family who live on the most beautiful farm next door to my sister-in-law. The farm has a lake, the most amazing gardens, views over a small valley, deer and geese abound, and the weekend that we were there, the garden was covered in daffodils.

We ended off the Easter-weekend with a trip to Aldeburgh in Suffolk on Easter Monday, with Steven, Melanie, and Duncan. Aldeburgh is a beautiful, typical UK seaside resort, with a long pebble beach, ice-cream vans, and colourful shops, old washed up fishing boats and quaint little stores tucked away down narrow little alleys. It was a cold, windy day and we walked to the Martello tower at the end of the pier. Jenna loved the time she got to spend with Meg. Meg is Duncan’s Springer spaniel and Jenna absolutely loves the time she gets to spend with that “personality filled” dog. After lunch we drove from Aldeburgh to the ruins of Leiston Abbey. Leiston Abbey was founded in 1182. The beautiful thing about this abbey is that you can see exactly how the old building may have looked in its glorious heyday. So much of the ruin is still standing and you can really get a sense of people walking through the arches and doorways, all those years ago. From Leiston Abbey we drove further north to Southwold. By now it was really freezing. Standing on the Southwold pier felt as if the wind could slice right through you, and then we saw a youngster strip off to his costume and head into the sea. Nothing like a little bit of perspective, I tell you. This beach was wonderful because Jenna got to bury her little feet in the real sea-sand. So many of the beaches here are covered in pebbles, so when you do find those treasures of real soft sea-sand you just want to run to it and feel it against your skin.

During the final week of the school holidays I took Mitchell and Jenna to Hastings, on the south east coast. It was a beautiful sunny day and we managed to fit in a trip to the Aquarium, a trip up the funicular railway with a breathtaking view from the top of the hill, a walk through the smugglers caves, and a real “junk-food, slap-dash, burger and chips at a seaside store” lunch. The smugglers caves were an absolute gem. The stories and the way they are presented, the realism and the true sense of how it must have been in those days were just incredible. I can’t wait to go back to Hastings, there is still so much that we still want to see and do there.

I also took Mitchell and Jenna into London during the holidays to visit the Natural History Museum. Jenna had not seen been there and she had also not seen the Science Museum. We wondered through a truly packed museum with so much to see and experience. The one benefit of the Natural History museum however, is also its biggest draw-back. Almost every exhibit in the museum has an interactive station where the children can play and do activities to learn more about what they are seeing, but this slows down your pace through the museum. The hall with the exhibition of mammals was undoubtedly my favourite. The massive blue whale which stretched from one side of the hall to the other was just something incredible to see. After we had been through the museum we met Melanie and Duncan for a walk through the science museum. We didn’t have all the hours in a day that it needs to do a complete walk-through, so we took the children straight up to what is called “The Launch Pad”. Here the children are free to play and experiment on everything from magnetism, light, heat, water, building, air, forces,…. you name it. I was so surprised with Jenna’s reaction to it all. She absolutely loved it. Mitchell has been to Launch Pad before, but for Jenna this was like a magical world. We ended our day with a walk through Hyde Park, once Steven had finished work. From a beautiful stroll along the Serpentine, to a game of frisbee on the lawns, and even Mitchell sitting down on a wet duck-dropping, it was a perfect end to the school holidays. The Hyde Park gardens are a most incredible sight at the moment with colours and patterns that you just simply have to see to believe.

The return to school meant a return to the daily routine of sport and activities. Mitchell’s cricket has got off to a big start for the season now and he is captain of the team at school. He also plays for the Bidborough Colts team. I enrolled Jenna at a horse-riding school in Hildenborough and her first lesson is on Saturday. I think the excitement it will bring this week, will mean that she will probably not sleep a wink. On the flip-side, the parents of the beginner-riders have to walk the horses on the reins while the children are riding, so I may have unwittingly enrolled MYSELF there too.

We have had weeks of the most pleasant, sunny, blue-sky days. I had started to wonder if the rain would ever come back, then this weekend the heavens finally opened up. I have seen flowers and colours in plants in the past few weeks that I never dreamed existed. Purples and blues like you have never seen before. In the forests, the blue bells have opened up and created a carpet under the canopy.  The crocuses gave way to the daffodils, and the daffodils have given way to the tulips, every tree, and every shrub has come alive in the warm sunny weather. Parks have filled up with people again and tables on the pavements outside the pubs are filled with people enjoying the late setting sun. The sun sets around 20:30 at the moment.  

One of the funniest things to have come out of the past few weeks was a story Mitchell related to me about school. It started off when he was eating a sweet (similar to a wine gum) in the canteen at school and he dropped it on the floor. He simply did what he would have done back home and bent down, picked it up, dusted it off and ate it! At Hudson the children had what was called the 10 second rule. As long as they picked it up within 10 seconds of it landing on the ground, it was considered edible. Well! This was just like the end of the world for the British kids sitting around him! He simply looked at them and said there was no greater number of germs on that floor than on anything else they had touched and then used their hands to eat their food.  But this was not to be the end. Mitchell has been asked repeatedly by some of the boys to give them his treats from his lunchbox, like the yoghurt-covered biscuits that I pack for him. So now his strategy is simply. When they ask him for his food, he looks at them, says nothing, calmly bends down and touches the food lightly to the floor, stands up, and then says: “Is this what you want to eat?”.  With screams of “you savage” they run away. He has now decided to do a presentation to his class on the way children from poor, disadvantaged countries will eat the food from a tip-site in order to survive. I have never stopped my children from putting things in their mouths that had been on the floor. When they were babies they would crawl around and pick up everything from the floor, the soil, the back garden and eat it. They have survived, they are incredibly fit and healthy and they have strong immune systems.

In a few weeks time Mitchell will be spending a week in France. I can’t wait for him to experience this.  The owners of the house we are living in have decided to settle in Australia and are putting the house on the market, so house hunting has begun in earnest again…  

Here’s to the long days and the late-setting sun, to the flowers and the colours and a true sense of the circle of life.