York with Greg

On the advice of my friend Helen we dashed off to York by train for the weekend. It was a great town and aside from some engine problems (what do you call the guy who drives the train?), we had a nice weekend. Brian's friend, Greg, from Perkasie is visiting us this week and that made it a special weekend. We enjoyed the castle, cathedral, museums, architecture, and of course visited a few pubs.

Alexandra Palace Park School Trip

My class at St. Michael's recently earned their 30th marble (whole class good behavior). After a class does this they get to take a class trip. We chose to go to Alexandra Park with Year 3. It was a great day.After spending the whole time we were picnicing by the pond chasing away geese and ducks. The children delighted in feeding them left over bits of their lunches. Then we headed up to the play area. We had lugged along heaps of PE equipment to play with so the kids played- football, rounders, basketball, tennis, skipped rope, swung, slid down a long slide, and played endless chasing games. The weather was perfect and though we were very tired when we got back it was a fun day.

Mom and Dad's Visit

My mom and dad came for a second visit. We darted off to Bruges almost as soon as they arrived for the bank holiday weekend. We stayed at Tine's Guesthouse and had a wonderful 2 bedroom flat with a patio, kitchen, living room, bicycles. Tine was wonderful. She even picked us up at midnight from the Bruges Train Station on Friday night. Each morning she came up to the flat and made us a wonderful breakfast and left us a packed lunch. We enjoyed wandering Bruges both on foot and bike. We ate lots of chocolate and mussles, and drank plenty of beer. It was a lovely weekend. On Monday we headed to Brussels in the rain and saw a bit of the city before we headed back to London. Mom and Dad stayed in Brussels for an extra 2 days and then came back to London on their own. The next few days here in London were among the warmest and sunniest we've had in many months- they took full advantage of them while seeing the sights in London. Friday night we all met in the city and went on the London Eye. The views were amazing! On Saturday we headed to Dover and then down through Romney Marsh in the south eastern corner of England. We managed to dodge the raindrops until late afternoon when we arrived in Eastbourne. We stayed in a beautiful old fashioned Victorian seaside hotel called the Cavendish in Eastbourne. We had a great dinner and then went to Beachy Head to see the sunset. We enjoyed this so much this was where we began again the next day.