Cosford Air Show

Sunday 14th June

Off to Cosford to see the Vulcan fly in it's last season. 90 minutes on the M54 waiting in traffic but well worth the wait. F16 was amazing, spitfires, hurricanes, the Red Arrows, wing walkers on Bi planes a great day out. It is the last flying season for the "Yellow Budgie" Sea King helicopter as well as they are retiring and handing over their air sea rescue operation to a civilian company.
We took chairs to sit on and even remembered a picnic this time, although it's really heavy to carry round. We saw the model of a spitfire made for a James (Top Gear) May tv show, the RAF parachute team, a craft fair, pipe band and of course the museum to walk round. The sky was UK overcast and grey. One day I will visit a show with blue skies for my photos!

Warwick Castle

Sunday 7th June
Went for a bit of a walk round the local castle in between church and lunch. There weren't many shows on, only the birds, jousting hasn't started yet and the trebuchet wasn't working. We saw all sorts of fish in the river though perch, pike, carp, rudd and roach and the water lilies should be out in the next few weeks.
The boat house had burnt down since we were there last, at the end of Easter according to the news on Google.

Knights Tournament

Living near Kenilworth we are able to visit the castle whenever we are free, last weekend (May 25th) it was the Knights Tournament so we went to see the knights, juggling and falconry.

A complaint

So I had an email the other day complaining that now I was back in the UK I'd stopped blogging and none of my international friends (of which there are many) knew what I was doing! In response to this here is an update.
Saturday 23rd May went to the SSE Arena to see the DR Who Symphonic Spectacular - AMAZING

We got there via the Sea Life Centre and the British Museum. 

Sunday 24th May VE day Celebrations at Duxford air musem near Cambridge. Air hangers, Red Arrows, stalls, people in 1940's dress, spitfires in the air. We went with Geoff's Mum and Bob for the day and left with 4 or 5 fridge magnets.

October Half Term

 

Busy, busy, busy. We’ve returned the mattresses t0 Ivy and then spent a day in London where we visited Madame Tussauds, the Sherlock Holmes shop and looked at the hour queue for the London Eye before deciding not to! Thursday saw us in Leeds visiting Dad and Friday at Warwick Castle taking pictures after dark. In-between times we sorted the house visited the tip and put together 5 bookcases.

 

Star Trek Convention 4th October

 

As part of Maddison turning 18 this week we took a train into London from Warwick Parkway as dawn was breaking!

Only one hiccup on the way there, the DLR was closed for part of the journey so we got off the circle line and then got back on!

Not as many stands as in Hamilton, it was for making money from photos and autographs. Maddy got a picture with Karl Urban and an autograph from Robert Picardo. James Darren sang during his selection and three of the ‘aliens’ so as well.

There was spare time during the day so we popped out to the Sea Life Centre.

On the way back we went to Baker Street :)

 

One week in

So the first full week is over and I have taught all of my 8 groups! Some have 3 lessons a week and one group only has 1. Half the groups are shared with another teacher . . .
I've found a church in Budbrooke called St. Michaels which is really friendly, the vicar even came round with a bunch of flowers to welcome us.
We've found Ikea (in Coventry) and all our usual favourites. Geoff  and Maddy have bikes now and Geoff tries to take her out every day for a ride.
The house is very echoey, hopefully this will change when our stuff gets here :). We now own 3 chairs, 2 bookcases, a table that wobbles and a computer desk. Obviously we have Sky a TV etc because that's. Who we are.