To Be or Not to Be

Took a tour of Stratford, and among other things, had our photos taken at Shakespeare's house. It was a cool and very blustery day, leaves and dirt were whipping around like mad. But we loved the town, the little shops, and brick streets. Most of all, we were fascinated by the long boats that cruised up the canals. Makes me want to sell the sail boat and pick up a long boat and tour England's waterways (not Rick - he likes more action and these boats just chug along).

Our British Thanksgiving

We couldn't find a turkey or pumpkin, but we did have a roast chicken and stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy. Not to mention that the wine here is so reasonable, that we enjoyed a bottle or two of that. Here's a shot of Chan and I in the kitchen before we chowed down on our dinner. Holy cats, the boy has stretched a metre or two! I think it is the British sausage rolls.

Happy Thanksgiving

home•sick Pronunciation: \ˈhōm-ˌsik\Function: adjective, Meaning: longing for home and family while absent from them, home•sick•ness noun

Have you wondered why immigrants create a little Italy or China town? Are you embarrassed to admit that you actually feel miffed at their inability to depart from the lifestyles of their home countries? After all, what is wrong with the country to which they have moved? Didn’t they leave their homelands for a better life? How can they possible integrate into a new culture if they cling onto the past?

Living in England, as a Canadian, is not a drastic leap, but that still doesn’t stop me from missing some things that were a part of my everyday life. Most of all, it has made me more cognisant of how an immigrant must feel when they come to Canada. At least I am not dealing with a language barrier or a lack of family nearby. Still, it feels strange sometimes to be away from my good friends and my eldest son and the step kids, my house in the country, my long term job, and the stores where I would frequently shop. Suddenly, I can understand how challenging it must be for an immigrant that is trying to shop for food and can’t figure out what is a good deal and what is not. How painful it must be when they get on a bus and can’t understand why they ended up at the wrong stop. How strange it must feel when a holiday that was celebrated at home is not recognized in their new country. So if homesickness is the longing for home and family while absent from them, then one could appreciate that the remedy for this is to be with home and family. And since home and family can be many miles away, would it not be reasonable to expect that one would be entitled to replace it somehow, someway?

I am Rick and I like Math

And the ever so popular sticky note rendition of Rick without a shirt.

Mr. Pillowhead

As many of you are probably wondering what I was referring to in my earlier posting of "Lessons from a Boy" in which I mention Channing entertaining us with his skits including Mr. Pillowhead. Here is a shot of him in costume, so you can get an idea of how mortifying this character truly is!

Been there , done that...

Well, it was back to London today. Rick wanted to visit the Sherlock Holmes museum on Baker Street. We also had to stop at the Euston Rail Station to check out the trains to Birmingham for our trip next weekend to see my relatives. Trains run frequently from Dartford to three major stations in London and from there we can either take the Tube or bus around the city. It seems that there is virtually no where that you can’t reach through public transport and if you change your mind about where you want to go, within minutes you head off in another direction exploring and weaving through this fabulous city.

Since it was on Rick’s wish list to visit 221b Baker Street, we hit the gift shop first (notice a theme with our touring?). To my surprise, he passed on purchasing a tie or a t-shirt since they were too expensive (14 pounds for a tie). I did, however, manage to score a solid souvenir which teams up nicely with my Dr. Who badges that I now have pinned to my pack. For 50 p, I got a button that says, “221b Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective 1881-1904”. I think that the Doctor would be proud to be on display with such a crime solving legend.

While Rick toured the museum, Channing and I relaxed at a cafe around the corner and indulged in a terrific cup of coffee for me and hot chocolate for the boy (so good that he had to ask for a spoon to scoop the cream from the bottom of the cup). They had the most wonderful display of desserts in their window and Chan and I admired the cream cakes with glazed fruit, coconut and chocolate sprinkled on squares, wisps of whip cream on pastries, and even pies to make you drool. As we sat inside, we would watch the pedestrians strolling by and every once in a while one made an abrupt stop to look in the window for a few seconds and then carried on. They were probably thinking the same thing I was, sure looks good, but I better not eat that. I had Channing take a photo of me sitting outside of the cafe with the treats behind me. He asked what the point was in taking a photo if we didn’t eat anything. Typical male! I said that it was so pretty and I wanted to remember how it looked. I also couldn’t get my Granny Mason’s saying out of my head, “A moment on the lips is a lifetime on the hips”.

With Rick’s tour of 221b Baker Street complete and his purchase of a book called, “The Mysterious World of Sherlock Holmes”, we continued our trek and made stops at Piccadilly Circus and watched a truck advertising home repairs blow bubbles out from under the hood (or the bonnet in UK terms). The driver started singing along with Lionel Ritchie’s “Stuck on You”, into a microphone near the steering wheel. Lots of people stopped to take photos and the three of us chuckled and then Rick slapped his forehead in disbelief. I wasn’t sure if he was more interested in advertising his handyman or karaoke abilities. My first impression, unfortunately, was both sucked.

We eventually stumbled onto Harrod’s. We were so fixated on taking photos of the buildings along our journey, that initially we just thought it was another interesting place to admire. But when we noticed the streams of people coming and going and the fur protestors at the store entrance, we realized it was the world famous department store.

Once inside, it was difficult to decide where to go first. The security guards asked the guys to take their back packs off and carry them. I thought we were going to have our bags searched and then it became apparent that it was so that they wouldn’t knock something over. We wandered from perfume to handbags and upstairs past ladies (I am not usually intimated by clothes but I literally made a complete circle in this section of the store, didn’t touch a thing, and walked right back out again) and men’s wear (I kept shushing Rick cause he was practically yelling the prices of things out while we were walking past) to the toy department. Perhaps it was because it was okay to touch and do in this department that we spent the majority of our time and ultimately experienced the most fun.

Channing preferred the station where the sales clerks were demonstrating miniature helicopters. He tried to give it a go himself and the clerk asked if Chan wanted him to lose his job. Oops, not such a good idea to try that, I guess. Chan and I played with slot cars, watched a snow demonstration (yes, my fellow Canadians, they were selling snow making kits for 14.95), skipped over a remote control snake that slithered along the tiles, and tried out some bizarre looking remote control plastic cars with big wheels that flipped like a tuna freshly yanked from the ocean and tossed on deck. Rick wanted a crib board and a deck of card and couldn’t find either, so set out to find a Frisbee. Interestingly enough, even in the world’s largest department store, he couldn’t buy a Wham-o Frisbee. He found a child’s car that will go 19 miles per hour for 20,000, a 20,000 bike, a 100,000 under water propulsion device, and an 80,000 grand piano, but no Wham-o-Frisbee.

When it was all said and done, we had been there, didn’t buy the t-shirt (pretty sure the stuff at the Sherlock Holmes gift shop were looking pretty good now), but settled for a Disc Magic Frisbee for 4.99 and me having a free photo with the door man. However, we did have to listen to Rick complain the whole way home about how this Frisbee paled in comparison to the Wham-o for its soft texture, blah, blah, blah. As a consolation, I did have the addition to my crime fighting hero’s collection and it was "Elementary, my Dear Watson."

Lessons from a Boy

There are times as a parent that I feel like my heart will leap out of my chest with pride for something that my kids have done or said. Yes, there are also times that I want to wring their necks too! Making this move to the UK, as you can all imagine, was a massive undertaking. So many pieces of the puzzle needed to come together in order to make this a reality. Sometimes it feels very surreal, when I am standing in line at the grocery store and listening to a shopper next to me chat on her cell phone in a British accent, or when I look at the menu board in a cafe and they have a "Chip Butty" for a pound. Until that moment, I was under the impression that my mom made up my favourite sandwich of warm chips tucked inside a slice of bread and butter.

This move has shown me that the words, "can't", "impossible", "intimidated", and "never going to happen" don't exist in Channing's world. As my friends, Sophie and Stan like to say about someone that approaches a difficult situation with a strong mental attitude, "He's a 100 percenter". In the short time that we have been here he has eagerly attended his classes and makes a genuine effort to be social, friendly and fit in. He made a friend Tom, a tall athletic lad in Year 11, who now calls for him in the morning and I watch the two of them head off looking so handsome in their school uniforms. At night he goes to movies, rides the buses, plays soccer (sorry football) in a nearby park, and goes for 4 km runs with a group so he can stay fit.

Since we are still without a TV, to entertain us he does skits in the living room such as dancing with the umbrella while half humming and half yodeling "Singing in the Rain", sticking a pillow on his head and clucking like a chicken in a performance of "Mr. Pillowhead", and finally taking three sticky notes and drawing a right breast, a left breast, and the makings of a moustache, sticking them on himself and saying, "Hey look, I am Rick. I like math and I have man boobs." Rick’s straight-faced response is, “Chan, I don’t have a moustache.”

On weekends, he willingly tags along with us as we tour around. He brings his camera to make his next interesting video to go along with the techno music that he has been working on in his spare time. He is producing what I call a Bollywood Techno style song that is excellent and I hope to be able to share this with everyone once he gets his video edited.

I think as adults we like to believe that we have all the answers. It isn’t easy to show our children that sometimes even we struggle in some aspect of life. But I have learned that it is okay for your kids to teach you something. For me, it meant discovering that I want to be a 100 percenter too.