Christmas 2007

My generous company gives its ex-patriot employees (me) and their families one yearly trip home. We chose to go back to Raleigh at Christmas to stay with Christina, Derek and Lincoln for about two weeks. It was great. Every day but Sunday was 'shopping day'. We were lucky because many stores were having sales, plus just buying in the US saves at least 25%. We brought back four more suitcases than we left with, all big ones, and all packed to the seams.
This will always be "The Christmas of the Wall" to me, because as you will see in the picture, we decided to remove a wall - only to discover that from an engineering point of view, it is not a smart idea. So the wall stays, but since the sheet rock is already off, we have some options we are considering. You can't see it from this shot, but the other interior study wall is being remodeled as well. The shower is gone. So there are opportunities there as well.
The second shot is the family gathered in the living room, everyone looks happy. I think Christina's family is happy because we were there, the Allens are happy because they know they are getting American food for supper.
The third shot is the wrapping paper wasteland that we always create by the end of Christmas morning. Imagine how it would look if we weren't trying to clean up as we went?
And the last shot is Amanda with her gift pile - and a beautiful Christmas smile.

Wanna Peel A Tomato?

Brittany, Amanda, Rebecca and Christina each put on clothing to be giving to Mom for Christmas then wrapped themselves in wrapping paper. Hopefully, these pictures will come out in the right order. One at a time, Mom "peeled her tomatoes" to find out what her gifts were. Brittany is wearing a tan sweater, Amanda a dark sweater, Rebecca a gold blouse and forest green vest over it, and Christina a matching skirt and jacket. Mom loved it!

Horse Races at Christmas #1

The city of Ascot is kind of like a college town, dominated by one major attraction. Instead of a college campus, in Ascot it is the massive Ascot Race track. The horses run varying distances, the ones we saw were all about 2 miles, which was just one lap.
Holiday events all take place at the race track. This weekend they had family events around an afternoon of racing, and John, Brittany and Papa decided to check it out.


The Ascot Brass Band was there playing Christmas carols. There were six races, we saw four of them. In the first race there was a horse named 'Gentle John', we chose to root for him because of the name. Second place. In the second race we picked 'John Terry' - the name again - pulled up lame in the first corner and came in a poor last. The third race we let Brittany pick our horse, she picked the one in pink, and it won! The forth race we let John pick, and it won!

Horse Races at Christmas #2

Santa was there, of course.

They also had a carousel and spinning tea cups. The kids could just get on and off any time they wanted to. No lines, no rules, just get on and off while it is not turning. Very nice.

Other than the fact that it was really cold, and there are no seats in the grand stands (wonder if that's the way it is at the horse races in the States??), it was a ton of fun.!

We Deliver - And That's All

Houses have mail boxes, and mail is delivered, but they don't pick up. You have to take it to a red pick up box, normally somewhere in your neighborhood. Our mail man comes by bicycle, in shorts, even in the winter. Not a pretty sight.

Pantomime

Pantomime (not the same as "mime") is a form of British theater done around the Christmas season, usually from early December to mid-January. They also refer to it as "panto." It originated in the 16th Century with traveling productions and has been a regular holiday tradition since. It is not done in the US, but is a tradition in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and other current or former parts of the empire.

Looking in the media, there are tons of performances advertised all over the place. Most of the larger towns have productions. It is very common that they bring in famous names to perform in the leading roles, Patrick Stewart and Ian McClellan were two names mentioned in the article I read about it. The only name I was familiar with was Henry Winkler, starring in what appeared to be the most publicized performance being held in London. They are all based on children's stories, performed for a family audience, they are all musicals, and they are comedies. According to the ads, the Henry Winkler performance was 'Peter Pan', and he was Captain Hook.

The performance we attended was in Windsor - after a day at the palace. The story was 'Cinderella' basically, but with quite a bit of slapstick comedy thrown in. No actors we were familiar with. The characters interact with the audience quite a bit. The audience boos the villans and cheers the heros. In the second half, one of the leading characters named 'Buttons' (you don't remember Buttons from the Cinderella story???) stopped the show and invited four children on stage for a rousing, audience participation version of "Wheels On The Bus." They also had a list of birthdays they read out. Clearly the play is re-written annually because several of the production numbers were done to current songs, two from Hairspray and one from High School Musical 2. There was ballet, big production numbers, and even tap dancing. The ugly stepsisters were played by middle aged men, so quite ugly, but hilarious. (cross dressing is also part of the tradition) There was also a recurring character, Rupert Bear (a person in a pooh-like bear costume), who is evidently the star of a children's TV show and evidently much loved British children's books who would walk on occaissionally and advance the plot. I never did understand why he (it?) was involved.

It was great fun, two hours of singing, dancing and laughing. A wonderful family tradition we will experience again next Christmas.

Windsor Castle

We live in the "Royal Borough of Maidenhead and Windsor", meaning we are in the Queen's neighborhood. So, to be good neighbors, we thought it time we baked a plate of cookies and dropped in on the Queen. We live 6.3 miles from the castle, which is in the town of Windsor. (I think the castle came first)
Queen Elizabeth II splits her time between two primary residences, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Palace, the place where the Royal family is quoted as saying, "that we feel more comfortable than any other." And of course they feel comfortable, it's about 484,000 square feet and 1,000 years old. It, like the Tower of London, was originally built by William the Conqueror between 1066 & 1087. (And like the Tower, no photography allowed inside) As is the case with our house, it has been regularly remodeled. The oldest section is the round tower seen behind the kids. It is on a man made hill overlooking the surrounding countryside, a very defensable position. One of the highlights of the tour is Queen Mary's Dollhouse built as a gift for the queen. It is a cube about 6 feet on each side, the exterior of the dollhouse looks like a castle and can be lifted for access to the individual doll rooms. Each is beautifully decorated, complete with electric lighting and working plumbing.
Pieces of the Royal Art Collection are on display in several rooms, with some amazing examples of great masters over the centuries. Of particular interest were several DaVinci drawings. And of course there are many, many 20 foot tall paintings of Kings and Queens. The collection is so massive, and so fragile, that they rotate the pieces on display.
We saw hundreds of swords, guns and suits of armor. They make a point of showing you just how fat Henry VIII was by the size of his suit of armor. The man was tall and must have weighed over 300 pounds!
The very 'castle like' picture is the interior courtyard and where the Queen accesses her Royal apartments. (Sadly, we were not invited in - rude!) The other two pictures are the guards which are in the process of changing (we, of course, picked a day with no fancy 'changing of the guard' demonstration - just marching). And then the flag you see indicates whether or not the queen is home. If the flag is the Union Jack, the flag of England, the Queen is elsewhere. If the Queen's colors are flying, she is home. The picture was taken on a typical English day - grey and ugly - so you can't really tell from the picture. You'll have to trust me, the Queen was in residence.
The tour took us through many of the rooms the Queen actually uses for entertaining. Just amazing. There was a fire in the castle in 1992 which destroyed several of the rooms we visited, so they had been rebuilt and were in immaculate condition. There is a huge hall where the Queen entertains in which they seat a table for 160.
I did note that the Royal family throughtout the centuries was uniformly homely. Very sad.