British school system...

Since the British school system is different from the one we are accustomed to in United States, I thought I would try to explain how things work here. I did borrow the below graph from Wikipedia.com, where you will find a much more detailed explanation if you are interested. Just type in "Education in England".



This chart kind of shows the age of children based on the year. The middle section shows how Alyssa and Nathan's school district (catchment area) is set up. Children attend primary school until they reach 11 years and then they will transfer to secondary school which they will be required by law to attend until they are 16. Kids won't have any more changes until they graduate from this school. They go into secondary school as 11 year olds and have to live in peace with the 16 year olds! Yikes!

This is different than the US schools where law requires student to attend school until they are 18. However, England is currently passing a law to require students to stay until 17 years of age.

Currently, when students reach 16 years they have a choice of going on to "Sixth Form" College, where they prepare for GCE A-level examinations required for University, or they can stop their formal schooling and attend a trade school, get a job, or do what they like.

Unlike the US where about 75 percent of high school students move on to attend university, it does not seem to be as important to students here. I could not find any statistics to support this theory, but this is the impression I have. Parents here don't talk about their children going to university like they did when we were in the US. I remember parents talking about which university they wanted their child to attend as their child was crawling around the floor in front of them! Here parents complacently state that "you can't force kids to go". I suppose that seems strange to me because a 16 year in the US is still considered a minor and are still under the guidance of their parents.

I still feel like I don't quite understand the school system here, but I am trying. The fact that you have to spend two full years preparing for college entrance exams here seems a bit daunting to me. I am personally glad that I did not have to do that. From what I here about the exams, they sound extremely hard and stressful!!

Going to college...

Alyssa just started her final year at primary school, "year 6". In the US, that would be grade 5 because here they start "reception" at age 4 so "year 1" for British students starts when the kids in the US start kindergarten. School started the first week of September and three weeks into the year, I have already recieved a letter explaining that Alyssa needed to apply to the "college" of her choice for next year.

In order to apply, I had a choice of either completing a lengthy application by hand or by going to the county website and applying using their secure application process. Being electronically driven, I chose the website.

Before I began, I had to type in a number supplied on the letter I recieved. The number resembled the codes Microsoft uses for product activation in that it was ridiculously long. After this, I found I had to verify Alyssa's age, current school, address, and any medical history that might have a bearing on school related activities.

Finally, I managed to get to the screen that gave me the opportunity to pick our preferred school. Our "preferred school" is 3 miles down the road from the Hardwick Primary School. It is the only public school in our catchment area. It is a very well regarded school and many families move into the village in order to attend the college. As it turns out, however, a very large development further west has added a heavy load to our catchment area and it is no longer guaranteed that we will get to attend this school. The form informed me that I was "encouraged" to select THREE schools as there is a possiblity that we won't get our first choice. This means that Alyssa could potentially get sent into Cambridge for her secondary school.

This knowledge does not sit well with the other parents I know who are also applying for the "Year 7 transfer". They have said that they chose Hardwick more for the schools that the location (perhaps they don't like to spend so much time driving behind farm machinery to get home). We all have our fingers and toes crossed that we will get our kids into Comberton College so that we don't have to spend more time shuttling our kids to school activities than we currently already do!

Despite all of the handwring by parents, Alyssa, thinks it is fabulous that she will be attending "college" next year as opposed to her peers in the States who will be ONLY be attending middle school.

English spellings

Three things of note in Alyssa's year 6 (5th grade) spelling words. They are "Spellings". Dates are formatted DD•MM•YYYY. Plus airplane is spelled "Aeroplane". (Or "spelt" as they say here)
Aerodrome, I suppose is spelled the same way we would do it.
-Dale

Thank you for your custom?

This was a new expression to us. "Thank you for your custom" Does a custom-er provides a business with "custom", or is it our custom to patronize this Hotel? -Dale

Alps

This was in Chatel, France, a ski town about 75 miles from Geneva. These bits are called the "Dents du Midi".

-Dale

A day at the beach...

To celebrate the end of the finishing of school on July 22, we decided to take a family trip to the beach. We returned to Brancaster, shown to us by some friends that has beautiful sandy beaches that are not overcrowded. We took all of our regular beach gear, awning for sun protection, sunscreen, cooler for lunch and snacks, buckets, shovels, etc. However, we were missing the one thing essential for all British beaches: a wind screen. If you double click on the picture to the right, you will notice all the blue and striped wind screens stuck in the sand. The first thing packed here is the wind screen and a mallet to pound it in. We found that out after our emergency purchase of a wind screen that day. The sand was so packed together from the wind and wet that it was like trying to dig a hole in cement. We spent most of the day righting out wind screen since the wind kept blowing it out since we could not get the wind screen poles deep enough.

After a day at the beach, tradition recommends going and getting fish and chips for dinner. We went to nearby Hunstanton for this. Hunstanton is an established beach town with boardwalks, carnival rides, ice cream stands and all things associated with beach going. The boardwalks were not made of "boards" but of cement and probably served both as boardwalk and protection from the sea.

The best part of our day was that it was nearly 80 F and it did not rain!!

Creative thinking...

Alyssa needed to create a costume for a carnival. I thought it was so hilarious that everyone should see it.

Just in case you are wondering, she was a bumble bee.

Royal Albert Hall

Alyssa and Nathan had the opportunity to sing at Royal Albert Hall in London with their school choir along with 33 other schools
across England. The show lasted over 3 hours and included over 19 songs! Dale and I were not sure who was going to tip over first, them or us! The performance was a massive fundraising effort for a children's charity, Barnardos.

Royal Albert Hall is absolutely gorgeous! It opened in 1871 by Queen Victoria. Today, it hosts leading artists from all over the world have appeared on its stage. According to Wikipedia.com, each year this venue is the site of more than 350 performances ranging from classical, rock and pop concerts, to ballet and opera, to award ceremonies and lavish banquets. Originally, it was supposed to have been called The Central Hall of Arts and Sciences, but the name was changed by Queen Victoria to Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences in honor of her husband.

The ballerina and the football star...

We made it through a weekend of a 5-a-side football tournament for Nathan and an elaborate ballet production for Alyssa. Here are a few pictures of events...




Alyssa in the forest scene...










Alyssa in "The Golden Goose"...










Nathan at the trophy ceremony at the end of the season...










Nathan with his team, the Hardwick Harriers

Brussels...

We traveled to Brussels on our way to see the Amstel Gold race in Maastricht, Netherlands. Full of beautiful architecture, a day of site seeing is barely enough time to appreciate all that the city offers. We walked to the famed city square that hosts the City Hall.

We also took a trip through the city to the Atomium, built for the 1958 World's Fair. It is a steel structure (335-feet tall) steel spheres connected together to create an atom magnified 165 billion times.

Finally, we made sure to try lots of chocolate and taste the beer too just to make sure we got the entire Belgium experience.

food

This is Lyle's Golden Syrup. I never saw this until I got over here. It's used on pancakes or oatmeal just like Maple Syrup is. It can also be used to make baked parsnips w/seasame seeds. Yum!

I heard a joke the other day:

Did you know it only rains twice a week in Ireland?

Yup, Monday to Friday and Friday to Monday!

-Dale

Oh the rain... !!!!

I remember hearing when I was little that if you washed your car, then it would make it rain. I must admit that the superstition stuck and even as an adult I dared not wash my bike the day before a bike race. However, I am starting to wonder if I should wash my bike now. After a week of endless rain and flooding, I looked at the forecast today hoping to see the end of this miserable weather. What I found instead is another week of rain. Even the kids were talking about how they don't ever get to go outside during break at school with all the rain. Alyssa optimistically told Nathan this morning on our way to school that next week they would be playing out again. I don't have the heart to tell her what I have read today.

Gilbralter...

The Rock of Gibralter towers over the coast of Spain that touches it on each side. We drove there from our rental apartment in Calahonda, Spain in a steady rain. The low hanging clouds allowed little site seeing, but it did not stop the towering rock from darking the sky a bit more.

Gibralter is a British Territory and once we got past the border control, we felt like we had returned to England. Everything was in English and we had quite a selection of pubs and other English department stores to choose from.

Because Gibralter is very small, everything is smashed into a very small area. As you leave the border control, you drive right over a giant runway. With all the tight security restrictions in the States, I was quite surprised to find myself driving on a runway!!

We squeezed our rental car around tight corners, navigating slowly up the Rock of Gibralter. Many corners were so tight, there was several shades of paint from the side of cars decorating the buildings. The roads wasted little time taking us up and we were soon looking down on the Strait of Gibralter. It was easy to understand why this was such a strategic military location during World War II. At its narrowist point, there is only 8 miles that separates Africa from Europe. As we looked down at the water, you could easily see Africa off in the distance.

We drove up as far as the roads would allow and then we got out and started walking. As we we turned the first bend in the road, we met our first monkey sitting on a wall at the road's edge. It just sat there looking at us giving us no indication whether or not it cared about our existance. It was strange meeting up with a monkey outside of the zoo. It just did not seem natural, but we found many more monkeys during our walk that day. There were all shapes and sizes. Some looked like they were going to grab us around the legs if we got too close, others looked like they wanted to play. We were advised by a lot of signs that the monkeys did bite, so we tried to keep our distance.

We did make it to the top, but the clouds hid any views from us.

Jamón ibérico...

We always make sure to get a little Iberian Ham when we are in Spain. We learned about it on our first trip last year. It has a very distinctive flavor and can be very expensive. We tried a little portion this time that cost 60 euruos a kilo. The thing that amazes me is that there is so much of it to buy. Everywhere we go, you can find a corner of a store filled like our picture here. There seems to be an endless supply of it in Spain, yet they cans still sell it for high prices. I suppose the cost is supported by what needs to be done to produce it. I won't even attempt to explain Iberian ham, but I will supply you with the Wikipedia definition. This is much better than my limited knowledge of it and as I researched it I learned a little more about it too.

According to Wikipeida.com...

Jamón ibérico is a type of jamón, a cured ham produced only in Spain. It is at least 75% Black Iberian Pig, also called the cerdo negro or black pig, the only breed of pig that naturally seeks and eats mainly acorns: according to Spain's Denominación de Origen rules on food products jamón ibérico may be made from cross-bred pigs as long as they are at least 75% ibérico.
The Black Iberian Pig lives primarily in the south and southwest parts of Spain, including the provinces of Salamanca, Ciudad Real, Cáceres, Badajoz, Seville, Córdoba and Huelva. Immediately after weaning the piglets are fattened on barley and maize for several weeks. The pigs are then allowed to roam in pasture and oak groves to feed naturally on grass, herbs, acorns, and roots, until the slaughtering time approaches. At that point the diet may be strictly limited to acorns for the best quality jamón ibérico, or may be a mix of acorns and commercial feed for lesser qualities.

The hams are labeled according to the pigs' diet, with an acorn diet being most desirable:

The finest jamón ibérico is called jamón ibérico de bellota (acorn). This ham is from free-range pigs that roam oak forests (called la dehesa) along the southern border between Spain and Portugal, and eat only acorns during this last period. It is also known as Jamón Iberico de Montanera.[citation needed] The exercise and the diet has a significant impact on the flavor of the meat; the ham is cured for 36 months

The next grade of jamón ibérico is called jamón ibérico de recebo. This ham is from pigs that are pastured and fed a combination of acorns and grain.

The third type of jamón ibérico is called jamón ibérico de pienso, or simply, jamón ibérico. This ham is from pigs that are fed only grain. The ham is cured for 24 months.

Trip to Ronda, Spain...

Our first outing in the south of Spain was a drive to Ronda. We turned north from the beaches of Marbella and started our ascent to one of the most breathtaking towns I have ever seen. The road to Ronda was a very winding two lane road plagued by slow moving dump trucks and fast moving cars passing the trucks on the inside of every turn up the mountain. The road had random stretches of guardrails and short stonewalls, but nearly every one had a missing section or was seriously damaged. Neither this nor the steady rain seemed to put any concern into the minds of the passing drivers. The fact that we were traveling up a steeply graded road did not seem to slow anyone but us. Perhaps it was chorus of whimpers from his three passengers that made Dale slow to a crawling speed. I would have taken pity on the fact that Dale had to crawl along the mountain roads, obviously wanting to go faster, if I had not been so nervous myself!

We arrived to a village perched on the side of a cliff. The view was amazing. From the edge of the village you look down on crumbling walls, dirt roads, olive groves and abandoned stone ruins that made you imagine times past. We wandered the streets in the steady rain taking stock of the beautiful doors that decorated every building and home. There were no doors put on buildings simply for use. They all were strong, heavy beautifully made doors beautifully carved and nearly all carefully tended. The doors are one of my favorite things to look at in Spain.

Ronda is well known for the impressive bull ring built at the edge of town. Within the complex is a small museum and horse training center. We saw people working with horses, the bull ring and all the gates and ropes used on the day of a bullfight. To see a bullfight must be a statement to society as well because the cheapest tickets to be had were 50 euros per person. We had to settle for sitting in an empty bullring, but even that was fun.

Early flight to Spain...

When you are sitting in front of a computer making travel reservations, anything seems possible. As I made our flight reservations for our trip to Spain, I looked at the cost grid and decided that I was willing to get up really early in order to save some pounds in airfare. However, as I struggled out of bed at 3:30 am this morning, I declared that there actually is great value in the time you spend sleeping and have thus declared that I will never again try to catch a 6:25 am flight.

The good side to this story is that we arrived in Spain at 10:30 am despite it being one hour later in time zones and we had an entire day to unpack, explore and enjoy a nice dinner. The bed was quite comfortable when I finally crawled in at the end of today.

Thanksgiving...

I now have a much better appreciation for all the Thanksgiving meals that I have enjoyed at other peoples houses. After years of being spoiled by the wonderful cooking of all my fabulous relatives and friends, I decided it was time that I held a proper Thanksgiving feast for other people. This idea led me to host a Thanksgiving dinner for some neighborhood friends this past week. I must say that it is a little more difficult to celebrate Thanksgiving here since we still have work, school and after school activities on Thanksgiving Day and the day after.

The run up to our Thanksgiving dinner was a test of our organizational skills. If I did not have my dear friend Michele Bote to help me every step of the way, I am pretty sure I would not have been able to pull it off. In fact, if you read her blog, Michele's cycling blog noted under "My favorite Blogs", you will find her own account of her Thanksgiving week here. We did our best to pack in as many site-seeing trips as possible in between our cooking sessions. However, time was against us since I had to pick up the kids from school at 3:00pm each day.

Despite the fact that we were spreading ourselves thin trying to see the sites, fit in bike spinning classes, and eat meals other than the big one we were trying to prepare, Michele and I managed to present a lovely feast to our guests from England. They were all gracious and enthusiastic about our tradition and made the day even more special.

For our dinner we smoked a 20 lb. turkey on a Weber along with as many traditional dishes as we could create. This included sweet potatoes, stuffing, oyster dressing, green beans with bacon, cranberry relish, a big salad and mashed potatoes with gravy. We had pumpkin pies and apple pies for dessert after which we all had to roll ourselves out of our chairs.

The hardest part of our wonderful feast was the next day when everyone had to get up and go to work and school. Because it was a workday, our Thanksgiving meal did not commence until 6:00pm. After a late evening on Thursday, all I wanted to do was curl up under a blanket and do nothing on Friday. However, when I showed up at the school grounds Friday morning to drop the kids off, I was greeted with wide smiles from all my guests who expressed their great hope that I would host Thanksgiving again next year.

The rising and setting of the sun...

Our clocks turned back from BST (British Summer Time) on Sunday, October 28. The main reasons given for the use of summer time are the saving in power given by the longer hours of daylight in the evenings and the increased useful daylight leisure time available to those who work. This differs from the US where (starting in 2007) the time change does not take effect until 2 AM. on the first Sunday in November. This is a change from past years due to the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Now the US time changes are different that the rest of the world. When the US time changed prior the the UK back in March 2007, I remember hearing a great deal of concern, voiced particularly by the financial markets, that the time difference will create problems.


The reason the US opted for a longer period of daylight savings was stated by the authors of the
Energy Policy Act of 2005. The amendment to shorten the winter, lengthen the summer and save energy by extending daylight saving time by at least four weeks, was, proponents claimed, going to save "the equivalent of" 10,000 barrels of oil per day. It remains to be seen how much energy will actually by saved, but hopefully the US will actually "save" that much oil, not simply put it to use in some other mode.

I have not quite adjusted to our time change here. The sun rose at 7:05 AM this morning and will set at 4:20 PM. I have been scrambling to get dinner on the table, thinking that it is later than it is with the darkness closing in on us so quickly at night. By November 30, the sun will rise at 7:42 AM and set at 3:56 PM and by December 22 (the shortest day of the year), we will only enjoy a mere 7 hours 50 minutes of daylight when the sun rises at 8:04 AM and sets at 3:54 PM. At the rate I am going now, by December we will be eating dinner at 4:30 PM and be in bed by 7:00 PM! I am sure I will adapt, but I don't think I will ever quite get adjusted to quickened pace of the setting sun here in the UK.

Accents

I came across something interesting today while reading the British newspaper, "The Guardian" http://www.guardian.co.uk/. This paper is the UK's equivalent to the left-leaning Washington Post. In the Financial section there was an interview with an American named Jules Kroll. He was described as having a "refined east coast accent." What does that sound like I wonder?
Further reading reveals that he was born in Brooklyn and currently works in Manhattan. Ahhh... so that's what "refined" sounds like to the Brits.
-Dale

Life according to the exchange rate...

When we first moved here, we thought that the exchange rate of dollars to pounds was pretty sad. However, I had hope that it would improve. After looking at the steady decline of the dollar over the previous year, I thought that it would have to end at some point and start to improve against the pound eventually. My thoughts were that it could not possibly continue to get worse.

Now, we have been living in England for a year and I can say that I was absolutely wrong. To give you a feel for the state of the dollar against the pound, here is a graph of how many dollars it takes to buy one pound (notice how the bars keep getting taller) since the beginning of 2007.

I try hard not to think about the dollar cost of everything when I buy it. However, it certainly can put a damper on the fun fare food when you realize that the candy floss (cotton candy) that you just bought your two children cost you $16.