Attention!

While we were walking around Whitchurch Fair with friends, Alexandra and her friend were approached by the Naval cadets and so our children were recruited to become cadets at TS Dauntless - Navy Cadets . They meet once week in Whitchurch (a 20 minute drive) and do all sorts fo things - marching, standing at ease, learning different skills, like tying knots, camouflage painting. They have been bowling with the cadets and there is talk of a trip on a Naval ship to the English channel !! Sarah may move over to the Marine cadets - same unit, though. They are loving wearing the uniform and participating in it all - must say, this took us quite by surprise:)   

We also attended an outdoor adventure day at Uphill reserve (Weston Super-Mare). Had a great day rock climbing, canoeing and orientering with other home-edders.

Both girls have started music lessons again. Alexandra has guitar lessons - she really enjoys her teacher, who makes her laugh and enthused.
Sarah has started playing the violin - she has a good ear and has already started trying out playing songs she likes.

Hitting the road...

Once Gary's contract ended at the end of June, we decided to make the most of the time and travel a bit. Our first stop was Cornwall. We stayed in a cottage inland of Polzeath. Polzeath has a lovely beach and is a centre for surfing.

Just North of Polzeath lies the historic harbour village of Port Isaac - very quaint. While we were there they were filming for a local TV production, Doc Martin

 Cornwall is also the home of Cornish pasties and we indulged at Padstock:

We travelled South and came to St Ives with the beautiful blue-green sea - but still chilly water:). Also came to Marizion, an island with a castle just west of Penzance (sadly, saw no pirates!)

Cornwall has a super ecological site, Eden Project. They have  2 biospheres - one with a Mediterranean climate( and yes, Cape Town and the West Coast featured :), the other a rain forest climate. This is a MUST visit place if you are ever in the area!

We headed home for a week and then took a slow boat to nowhere :) This was one of our best holidays ever. We rented a narrow boat with another home ed family and did a week on the Shropshire Union canal (West Midlands) from Wolverhampton to Chester ( an old Roman town) and back. Sarah, espceially, enjoyed opening the locks. With a week of sunshine, we had a wonderful time!

On our way home we stopped at the RAF museum: 

As well as Cadbury World :)

Then back home for another 2 weeks before we went to Keswick in the Lake District. WOW! What a beautiful place. Lakes and meres, tall trees and mountains - England's wettest area but if I could choose a place to live, that might just be it. We attended the second week of the Keswick convention. Henry Olange(ex-Zimbabwean cricketer) was one of the speakers and also treated us to a cricket match with his invitation team against the local team.

And then home again for a week before we left by train to London for 4 days. I initially really worried about finding our way on the train (let alone all the other horror stories we heard about the tube stations!!) but armed with our Oyster cards (Alexandra still goes free :), the tubes really proved to be a wonderful way to get around London. We were blessed to have accommodation in Rachel's (my room-mate from school) flat while she was in SA and also caught up with Bertus and his wife Tracey and their delightful twins :)

It is impossible to do justice to London in 4 days but here are some pics of our whirlwind trip.

Buckingham Palace

Nelson's Column - Trafalgar Square

London Eye

Big Ben

Thames River, Big Ben and Parliament

 Will need to get back there some time soon! For now, we are back in our normal routine at home :)

Nature - One Hour Challenge:

The Outdoor Hour

I have been looking at ways to incorporate Nature Study into our homeschooling. Shirley, a friend of mine told me about this programme. We are meant to do the 10 week starter but since a pear study is this week's challenge, and we have a row of pear trees outside our window, I decided to jump straight in here. So we went outside, into the glorious sunlight, and had a look at our trees:

Most of the pears have already dropped onto the ground or been picked for home-made cider (these particular pears are used in the making of pear cider).

We had a look at the pears on the branch as well as how the leaves grow on twigs growing out of the branches.

Then we went indoors to have closer look at the leaves and to cut open the pears to look inside.

We do have a microscope but Sarah fashioned an impromptu one using her lamp and magnifying glass :) Here is Alexandra testing it out looking at pear flesh cells

Journaling our findings - Sarah also used pastels and created a story about pears being picked and exported. Alexandra sketched her fruit and noted down some interesting facts.

And then, seeing as we are in the throws of a wonderful Indian summer, we used our pears (or rather ones I had bought, as cider pears are not too great to eat) in a delicious summery fruit salad.

So, altogether, a super "first" one hour challenge

Indian summer

Well, summer this year started well in April and then seemed to lose the plot a bit. But for the last week, we have been in the throws of an Indian summer (well, technically, it isn't an Indian summer as we needed to have frost first!) But we definitely are not complaining about the wonderful sunny, warm days with temps reaching 28C! And we have made the most of it by spending much time outdoors at Noah's Ark zoo, Bristol zoo and Clevedon!

BRistol gorillas - raised £427 000.00 for charity

Looking at the seals from the underground tunnel

Clevedon pier

Looking at ladybugs

A lookout for sugar traders watching for ships from the West Indies coming into the Bristol Channel, circa 1835

Sadly, the weather is set to change again later this week and I have even heard rumours of snow expected by the end of the month! Guess central heating is going on soon - but for today, still enjoying sunshine!