Day out in London

During the two weeks Abby and Sammy had off school, when we were not in Scotland, we had some adventures in London. On this particular day, we enjoyed some lovely sun in Trafalgar Square. Everyone was out sunning themselves and hanging out. I had no real agenda going into London this time. I thought I would just go with whatever the girls wanted to do. We hung out and climbed on all the fountains and monuments at Trafalgar Square for a while, then went into the National Gallery for a mere 20 minutes. However, those 20 minutes they were really studying and examining various paintings and were pointing out quite a few things. I guess after a while for kids, it all seems to look the same.

Sammy having a lie down on the fountain in Trafalgar Square

The girls climbed up and sat with the lions in the square. Alexandra was very excited!

The girls climbed higher while I sat paranoid and imagining the worst.

Fortunately, no falls just some good posing for the camera...

I then got duped into paying a pound for some dumb chicken to cuddle my girls while I took a picture. Alex is the one who went running up to him and of course the others followed and what was I to do but snap a picture and pay the guy.

We then went to my favorite church, St. Martins in the Fields located just of Trafalgar Square. It is so lovely and reminds me of the time when Charles and I went with his lovely aunt and uncle (Ken and Christell) to hear The Four Seasons concert by Vivaldi. I cannot go to this church without eating at the cafeteria in the crypt. They have the best bread and butter pudding! However, they were out of it on this particular day, so I settled for a lovely bowl of parsnip, carrot soup while the girls had rice and chicken.

One of the reasons I wanted to venture down to London was to see the new Mormon ad campaign that kicked off in London at the beginning of April. Mormon ads are all over the major tube stations and on some 200+ buses around the city. It is quite unnerving to walk through. You almost wonder if everyone knows you are Mormon and then you wonder what they all must think. In most tube stations, there are Mormon ads on every available advertising space. Anyway, the girl above and in the pictures below is a good friend of ours. Her name is Lola and she is awesome. It was so fun to see her 10 foot tall picture everywhere. It kind of made London seem smaller for just a minute.

Here is Lola on top of our favorite food - Cornish pasties which of course we had to stop and indulge in...

We also had to stop at King's Cross to see the 9 3/4 platform from Harry Potter. I have never read Harry Potter but have recently begun reading it to the girls. We have finished the first book and movie and are now reading the second book. The girls loved seeing the cart disappearing through the wall just like the book but were too shy to pose so I got a picture of some random boy doing it, just so we have documentation that we have been there.

Abby and Sammy cracked me up. They were determined to learn their way around London. While we road the tube from place to place they both studied their maps counting the number of stops until we got off and figuring out how we would get to our next destination. Even Alexandra at one point had a tube map and was pointing and asking Sammy which station was which while riding the tube, much to the entertainment of fellow passengers.

This is the first time we saw our friend Lola in Picadilly Circus station. You can see the shocked look on Abby's face. Lola is quite the celebrity now. You can see her video on mormon.org.uk. 

Margaret Thatcher

I have been listening to the radio all day and people here either love Margaret Thatcher or vehemently oppose and hate her. She is hated mostly because of her policies up north where she is blamed for taking away a lot of the industries and reducing the power of trade unions and leaving many without work. The negative effect of it all is claimed to be still felt today. People up north hate her, even if they weren't even born when she was in office. Some friends of ours who are a very young couple (in their mid 20s) from up north can't say enough bad about her. They were probably only babies when she was in office but you would think from the way they talk they knew her personally and can't stand her. I think a lot of their hatred for her comes from their parents. The Falkland war that she involved the country in is also very controversial and brought up by those who oppose her policies. I have no real opinion on the woman either way.  I have just found the many conversations at school pickup and drop off and on the radio very enlightening. 

She is also blamed for the increase in chavs (if you don't know what that is, click on the word and read the link) in this country.  I have heard people so mad and angry at her, you would think she was prime minister yesterday (she was in office in the 1980s).  

I also heard a lot of opposition to her state funeral today too. Many people complaining that she shouldn't have one and that it was costing the country 10 million pounds and was too excessive. The last prime minister with a state funeral was Winston Churchill. On the radio, they were telling people to boycott the funeral. Not to show up even to protest (though most people agreed that a funeral was not a place to protest anyway). They were encouraging people to try and keep the numbers down on the street during the procession so it would make a bigger statement of how the country feels about her. However, I don't think that plan worked since I saw the streets were lined with crowds of people. Charles saw the whole funeral procession from his office window since he works right by St. Paul's cathedral where the funeral was held. Here is the picture he took from his window of the gun carriage carrying her coffin on the way to St. Paul's.

I am certainly not making any kind of statement here, for or against her. I have just found the whole thing quite interesting and wanted to share.

Off to the Highlands

The girls had two weeks off school for Easter so we headed for Scotland with our good friends, the Austins. We enjoyed a lovely Easter weekend with an Easter egg hunt outside and church in Glasglow. On Monday, we took a cruise around Loch Katrine. It was the coldest day of the whole week but it was still lovely.

Looking through the port hole

Lunch down in the warmth of the ship

Here is our cruise ship - pretty fancy, I know...

We went on all kinds of hikes. All Abby wanted to do everyday was hike up a mountain. She would beg and beg to do it. Sammy though pictured above, was not into hiking as much. I think she had a cold like me and was not feeling particularly well. On one of the days, Sammy, our friend Tracy and I went to Dunkeld for a leisure lunch, shopping and look around the Beatrix Potter museum while the rest of the gang went hiking. Fortunately, after our cruise on the first day, we enjoyed blue skies and warm weather which is pretty lucky for Scotland so at least they got to hike in nice weather.  

We stayed in a little town called St. Fillans in the central highlands near Perth. We could see lovely majestic mountains from our bedroom windows and then just walk around the corner and there was this lovely lake or loch as they say called Loch Earn.

We enjoyed a delicious Easter dinner of roast lamb - very traditional in Great Britain.

This is the house we rented for the week. It was lovely with plenty of space for everyone.

This is at Loch Earn around the corner from our house...

Here is Alex at Loch Earn with a hotel in the background

One of the nights, the dads made enchiladas. They had leftover corn tortillas so everyone went out to play "tortilla Frisbee." Good fun!

We spent one lovely day in Edinburgh shopping and sight-seeing.

There were bagpipers in various spots throughout the city. I never tire of hearing that sound.

This is Alex opposite the Edinburgh castle.

Here is the Edinburgh castle

We also went to Stirling and saw the William Wallace Monument (the movie Braveheart was made about him) which was constructed in the 1860s. The landmark commemorates the campaign for freedom by William Wallace and the victory at The Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297.

Here is Abby after she conquered the hike up to the landmark. Once you climbed the hill to the monument, then you had to climb countless steps to get to the top. It was certainly a workout.

This is said to be Wallace's actual sword. The shaft of the sword measures 4 feet 4 inches (132 cm) in length and including the tip 5 feet 6 inches (168 cm).The breadth of the blade varies from 2.25 inches (5.7 cm) at the guard to 0.75 inches (1.9 cm) before the point. The sword weighs 6.0 pounds (2.7 kg). That is one big sword! Impressive!

Here is the view from the top

We also went to James V’s Palace (built around 1545) at Stirling which is one of the finest and best-preserved Renaissance buildings in Great Britain. 

I must admit, I wasn't very happy that we were going to Scotland again since we just went last August (I know, I sound like a spoiled brat). I really wanted to go to France. But in the end, I was really glad, it turned out really nice with perfect weather and great company.

Holiday Reading

This book was a sweeping epic history of Ethiopia. I thought Verghese's descriptions painted a powerful picture of Ethiopia. It was slow moving in the beginning but if you can get past the first one hundred pages or so, the story really becomes engrossing. The description of the medical procedures was so detailed and interesting. I enjoyed Marion's relationship with Shiva and in the end that's what's fundamental to the book, their love, their distance, their painful understanding of each other.

I really liked this book. Somewhere around 300 pages I didn't want to put the book down. But I must admit it shouldn't have taken me that long to get to that point. I wish I could have been drawn in by the first 50-100 pages but I was definitely glad I persevered and kept on reading.

Lily and Dorothy

For World Book Day a few weeks ago, the girls got to dress up as their favorite book character for school.  Abby dressed up as Lily Quench (the book series by Natalie Jane Prior). I had never heard of Lily Quench until this year when Abby became obsessed with all the books. Sammy was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz though I really wanted her to be an oompa loompa. She said no. She does make a cute Dorothy though...

We take ourselves very seriously...

Alexandra saw everyone but her getting their picture taken so she insisted that hers be taken too. She didn't want to miss out on ALL the fun...

St. Albans

St. Albans is one of our favorite places to go. It is only 10-15 minutes from our house and it offers great shopping, theater and sight-seeing. If we are too lazy to go into London, St. Albans is the next best thing. They have a street market on every Wednesday and Saturday of the year where you can find the most unique items. I love going to the grounds of the huge Abbey (above) there is a large playgrounds, water fountains, duck ponds, roman ruins and of course the Abbey itself. It is built on the spot where Saint Alban was martyred. He was the first British Christian martyr. If you are interested in reading about him, click here.  

This is inside the Abbey. We were taking Flat Stanley around on this day for a friend in the states.

Abby found her very own tea room on the way into the city.

We stopped for Cornish pasties - our favorite!

Here is Sammy and Alexandra in front of a phone booth with Flat Stanley

Here is Abby holding Flat Stanley in front of a post box.

The girls in front of the Abbey