Travel to/from Ireland

We travelled to Wales/Ireland for 10 days this summer (with Grandma & Grandpa Dobberfuhl).  We drove, taking the ferry from Pembroke (southern Wales) to Rosslare, Ireland en route to Waterford, our first destination.  We all managed to enjoy the 4-hour ferry ride to Ireland.  The children expended lots of energy playing in the onboard playground while the adults visited with some Irish natives, getting the 4-1-1 on everything from culture to politics. 

The trip back was neat too.  We took the 'speed ferry' from Dublin to Holyhead in only 2 hours and got to enjoy a showing of Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast' in their cinema-style seating.

More local outings...

Continuing with some of the must-sees within an hour's drive of our home:

Cambridge

  We toured Trinity College:

...and King's College:

The River Cam, for which Cambridge is named:

Also in Cambridge, we visited the Fitzwilliam museum, the local market, and the American WW2 Military Cemetary:

Another favourite outing of ours is a beach-trip to Hunstanton on the North Sea.

The North Sea is not as toasty-warm as beaches in California/Florida, but for a family of mid-westerners, a beach within an hour's drive of home is pretty exciting regardless.

On the way home from the beach we stopped at Norfolk Lavender and enjoyed seeing the lavender distillery, shop and museum.

Local Highlights with Grams & Gramps

There were plenty of local 'attractions' to share with Grandma and Grandpa.  We spent a rainy morning in the nearby market town of Stamford, shopping the outdoor stalls and sampling the bakery.  We also visited the Burghley House and the Gardens of Surprise.

We had fish 'n' chips at Linfords a couple of times.  Linfords is consistently ranked in the top 10 'chippy' shops in the UK, and conveniently located only a few miles from our house.  Salt, vinegar, and then wrapped in paper.  So authentic.  And very delicious.

Sunday afternoon walk on the "Snail Trail" and public footpaths near our house.
Crossing the stile:

Downtown Peterborough

The Guildhall

P'boro Cathedral

Uh... the bakery (definitely a must-see!) ...and the new fountains:

And finally the P'boro Museum (free!) which was hosting a hands-on exhibit about Medieval Life.

I told Emily this was the English version of "time-out."

We also took a little trip up the road to Sir Isaac's Newton's birthplace and childhood home - Woolsthorpe Manor.  It is also the location of the famous apple tree and fun little science discovery centre.

Time to say goodbye

Grandma goes home tomorrow and she will be missed! She has been such a trooper keeping up with the craziness of daily life around here and has helped out so much. I haven't had to do dishes for nearly a month now, nor have I had to iron clothes or scrub the main floor bathroom - that has all been done by Grandma. She has also served as book-reader to the children and has been a welcome addition to our nightly puzzle and board game activities.Amidst the routines of daily life we somehow managed to tour Grandma around a bit, as you can see from previous posts. This past week or so we made some trips closer to home including Castle Rising (in nearby Norfolk county) and the North Sea. Emily enjoyed the hiatus from preschool on these days so that she could be Grandma's personal tour guide.

Above: Old Hunstanton Beach, one of our family's favourite destinations. By lunchtime the tide was out so we had a great time exploring the tide pools and collecting all kinds of shells and crab skeletons.

Some of our other fun "English-y" activities included watching the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice (whilst constructing cake boxes for Amy's birthday party) and visiting many antique stores in the area.

After having Grandma around for 5 weeks she has truly become part of our little family and we will miss her tremendously. It will be a sad day tomorrow when we have to send her back to Canada, but we hope she will feel adventurous enough to come visit us again soon. We love you Grandma Brooks!

Another afternoon in Cambridge

On Saturday we headed to nearby Cambridge where we hopped the park 'n' ride double-decker bus into the city centre. (It was Grandma's first time on a double-decker bus!)

We wandered the markets and visited Trinity College and the Sedgwick Geology museum (dinosaur bones are the coolest!)
We also enjoyed a picnic lunch on the university grounds before heading home.

Burghley House and the Gardens of Surprise

One of the fabulous things about living in England is the myriad of historical treasures nearby such as the Burghley House - today's day-trip destination. It featured historical intrigue for me, "English-ness" for Grandma, and extensive grounds for the little girls to burn off some energy.

Construction of this Elizabethan stately home began in 1555 and reportedly took 32 years to complete. The main part of the house has 35 major rooms on the ground and first floors. There are more than 80 lesser rooms and numerous halls, corridors, bathrooms and service areas. We had a particularly fun time identifying the numerous "secret doors" which lead to passageways used by servants.

Outside the house are hundreds of acres of gardens and horse training grounds. Today we explored the Gardens of Surprise and the sculpture gardens. The water fountains are, of course, one of the garden's greatest surprises as you can see in the photo below:

Even the low 70-ish degree weather didn't hold the girls back from getting completely soaked.

We finished our outing by taking a stroll through the sculpture garden and enjoying this little amateur maze.

Organic Outing

Peterborough is hosting "The Green Festival" this entire week and as part of a series of free events for families, I booked the kids and I (and grandma) for a "chop and chat" workshop at a local organic farm. The write-up said it was suitable for ages 0+ and it involved a walking tour of some of the vegetable patches and a chance to see a demonstration on how to cook up veggies in a "delicious" way.

Well, we walked quite a long ways around this farm and grandma got quite tired out - as did the kids (which I ended up carrying the last half mile) but thanks to a very sincere prayer offered up by little Emily, we all survived - even the camera - which got temporarily lost in the strawberry patch (hence the fervent prayer).

Our reward? Well, aside from quality time together (ok, they all complained at me most of the time and pleaded that we never again do that much walking) we did get to taste some freshly made stir fry with ginger sauce (yum!) and were given two large boxes of fresh organic veg to take home with us (see photo) with a net worth of 25 GBP (=$40). Wow!

Admittedly, I was - once again - the only one really excited about this, though Grandma has been supportive. Lets just say no one is hurting for fibre in their diet around here... the last few days have featured a lot of vegetables: veggie pizza, vegetable lasagna, veggie trays with ranch dip, salads, etc.

Our overall assessment: the free veg was nice, but based on the exorbitant pricing and how inefficient the organic farming process is, we think we'll stick to our local Tesco supermarket for all our veggie needs... at least for the time being.

Pets!

It all started out innocently enough with my usual morning jog through the neighbouring countryside... except that it's half-term week (no school for the kiddies) and Emily begged to come along (Amy stayed home with Grandma). I begrudgingly agreed - knowing that I wouldn't even get to the mile marker before Miss Fussy-Pants (Emily) would be whining to get out of the jogger stroller. Just as I predicted, she starting fussing just about the moment we got oustide the village...

It was then that I noticed the recent rains had washed in an abundance of rocks - well, they looked liked rocks at first - and I plotted to side-track Miss Fuss-Pot with a rock collection to entertain her for the duration of my jog.

In actuality, the "rocks" turned out to be snails. Even better! I collected a large one and a little "baby" one onto a stick and gave it to Emily to keep her quiet for the remainder of my run. And it worked! Although we had to stop once for a search and rescue mission for the little one who, according to Emily, "jumped" out. Once we returned home, both girls were eager to begin nesting in their new "pets." We used as much logic as we could before turning to Google (What the heck do snails eat?!)...

Hours later - after a trip to the library for research purposes and then over to a garden centre - we came home and built our very own terrarium to house our new little friends.

Emily named the snails. The littlest one is called Alexa, the middle-sized one is Sally (we found her out in our back garden whilst collecting pebbles for the terrarium) and the jumbo one - of the extra-slimy variety - is called Suzie.

Snails, by the way, love to eat apples.