Strangely Sunken

Chaplin loves to dance! I swear that music is in his bones. Toxteth Lifestyles Centre had advertised a Funky Tots dance drop-in class today. I asked Chap if he would be interested in getting his grove on and he said yes. So off we went, and only got lost once. It was NOT google maps fault this time!

While lost I walked past this fantastic house. For sale!

The home has been vacant for many years now, trees have over taken the court yard and anyone interested in buying it should be warned that it needs some work. A few chimneys have collapsed and a princess or two have escaped from the towers.

We quickly fixed our navigational error and found our way over to Toxteth Centre. But we were now 10 minutes later for the class. Did that matter? Not at all! The class was cancelled due to nobody showing up for it. We were the only ones and the teacher had already gone home. Chaplin was disappointed until I told him we could go across the street to a very clean looking playground and play "olympics" together.

Bobsleigh

Freestyle Swing Skiing

Spinning like a figure skater

His fan club!

After our Olympics I took Chaplin over to visit the St James Cemetery Grounds.

I immedatley felt the strange beauty of the place as we decended down a gravestone-lined tunnel, and out into a strangely beautiful garden space. The grounds are very sunken and almost hidden behind the Cathedral. Hundreds of years ago the area had been a quarry and when it was exhausted of useful stone the city had to decided what to do with the big ugly hole. So city council hired an architect and turned the hole into a cemetery of real dramatic grandeur. In the early 1930's the cemetery was considered full (some 60,000 people buried here) and it was closed. It feel into a state of disrepair and was at one point going to be filled in! That would have been a total shame. Luckily the grounds were cleaned up and a vast majority of the moss covered gravestones were moved to line the walls. Really all the walls are lined with gravestones, and some still stand in their original places.

The east wall has a ramp/walkway lined with catacombs cut into the rock face, that leads down to the burial grounds. This walk that Chaplin stands on was used by horse-drawn hearses!

Chaplin with two walking sticks.

This is looking up at the Cathedral with my back towards the east wall. I saw this tree with it's exposed roots, heard a booming noise inside the cathedral and thought... Saruman what are you doing! Treebeard wake-up!

And get this interesting feature: during the quarry years (1700's) a natural spring was unearthed and that spring is now flowing out of the East wall (to the right of me). It's still drinkable today. We touched it! How amazing is that.

This is at the top of the park, called the St James Walk.

These pathways were laid out in 1700's for the gentry to stroll on a Sunday.

You can still see the groves and they are lines in areas with brick.

I let Chaplin dig around with his walking stick and he found...

an earthworm. Chaplin said we need to put him in a safe place, and suggested a 'cereal bowl'.

No lobster in that pot.

Adam found out today that we are extending our stay until the end of March. We do not have our return to Canada date yet as our tickets need to be arranged.

So you ask "are you disappointed or excited?"

I am excited to be getting another month of Liverpool. If we had to pack up and leave here next week I would feel rushed to see all the things I have on my list.

1) go inside the Three Graces
2) drink a few pints in the Cellar
3) Beatles Museum
4) Beatles Magical Mystery tour
5) get Chaplin to participate in a dance class - so I can say he trained in England!
6) Tate Museum

7) FACT - we went there yesterday but didn't stay long enough to feel satisfied


8) Explore the downtown area. It is unbelievable, so much character.


9) more fish & chips from the Lobster Pot.


10) Hear the choir sing in the Cathedral
11) visit the Catholic cathedral


12) Mersey Ferry tour / ride
13) St. Georges Hall visit
14) Conservation Centre - there is an exhibit i want to view there.
15) See more Lambananas! ride one perhaps?
16) explore and explore.
17) oh and eat at Wagamamas' about 20 more times!
18) gormley statues
see.. i need another month

I told Chaplin tonight that we are getting to stay longer, and he said "i want to go to my favorite home where i have my friends and toys." Maybe Leif and Laika could send another video soon?

Pure White Plumage

You have all heard this name before, maybe even a few of you can actually pronounce it:
Worcestershire Sauce.


Now here is the town Worcester, where the sauce was made some 290 years ago, but the town itself dates back to activity in 400 BC.
The town is built almost entirely of red brick, and it very cheerful in appearance. When i hear people saying the name it sounds like "Wooster". Over Christmas we had on BBC Worcester radio station and Chaplin quickly learned how to say it as "Rooster".

Grandma Fran picked our Family Saturday Outing.



First stop on the treasure hunt, Worcester City Hall.
Courtney you will know where this is - it's in Reindeer Court.
Chaplin has his back to the camera because he was watching a brawl by the local re-enactment society. The red jacket man is an actor. Everywhere we went there was another re-enactment going on. Probably hundreds of people involved. And i just don't get the appeal to it!

Second Stop - OH NO I forget what this is! Fran do you remember?


Third Stop - River Severn. This is the longest river in Great Britain.
This scene made me feel like I was in a fairy tale! it was so romantic and beautiful with hundreds of swans paddling around. And... did you know that swans find a mate and pair for life.

The swans are owned by the Queen! Fancy.


Followed the path along the river and over to the the OLD REC for lunch.

We took some of our crusts from our lunch and went back to the River Severn and feed the swans some bread. I expect a thank you note from the queen any day now.

Resume treasure hunting.
Our fourth stop was the 12 century Worcester Cathedral, and you can see it in the back of the picture.


Chaplin took this photo.

I took this photo :-)

NEWS ALERT:
According to Chaplin this treasure hunt is missing an important part.
TREASURE! he wanted to get shovels and start digging!


prayer candles.

Inside the Cathedral another re-enactment staging of fair maidens sewing and weaving.
AND on their table Chaplin spotted a tiny treasure chest. Rod spotted a large chest.

Here is the lady showing Chaplin what is inside the treasure chest.
She even gave Chaplin a dark blue friendship bracelet, and about five minutes later he lost it.


End of treasure hunt and time to go home.
Fran disappeared as soon we got home, she found us in the garden room watching TV and do you know what she had made for Chaplin? the same style of treasure chest he found at the Cathedral and inside it another friendship bracelet! What a great grandmother. Chaplin took the treasure chest with all the trinkets inside home to show his daddy. He missed his daddy and was excited to go home to Liverpool, but did let Grandma and Rod know he had a good time visiting. Thank you Rod and Grandma!

Big Cook, Little Cook

Have you ever made pizza dough from scratch?

I haven't . Not counting the time Troy and I used only flour and water to make the dough. Glue paste?

Fran looked up a fairly easy recipe for us. And then she let us loose to make a big mess in her kitchen.

Yeast. magical yeast.

measure out flour! oops - half on the floor half in the bowl.

Why do you have to kneed for 10 full minutes!

This gets tiring around minute 2.

Flatten out into square/round pizza shells. We did not let the yeast do it's magic, our dough had not doubled in size when I decided it was time to roll it out.

Big cook helps little cook grate cheese, and put toppings on!

Into oven and bake.

Rewards for all that work. Yummy slices of hot pizza.

Our lunch was good!

After lunch we put on our snow cloths and went outside for some exercise.

Over Christmas holidays Chaplin and Grandma picked out this live tree and it went into the TV room. It had an angel on the top that Sharman had made, so we called it the "Sharman" tree. After New Years Rod and Fran planted it out in their back garden, and we were inspecting it today. It is doing very well!

On to inspect the big puddles. Chaplin is looking for belly draggers (crocodiles).

He was holding up his hands and stopping us from entering any water by saying

"you can not come in the water, i must make sure it is safe."

he also said "it's very dangerous momma"

After all this dangerous stick poking we circled around and came back up to the house.

Fran and I were sitting at the patio table and directing Chaplin to run around the trees as we counted how fast he could run. We enjoyed his energy.

All you need is...

Back on the train and we were off to Pirton for a short visit with Grandma Fran and Rod.


One train change in Smethwick Galton Bridge, and before too long we were in Worcester Shrub Hill Station! Chaplin is holding his bag of toys, and he played very well (quiet) on the trains.
I would take him anywhere, he's so much fun!

Today!
All you need is... SNOW!

Went to check on our fort we constructed over Christmas. Yup still standing.
Chaplin had hoped a family of garden trolls had moved in, while i was hoping for bunny rabbits. But the vacancy sign was still up.



1) scoop up a handful of snow

2) chase mom

3) launch snow assault on her

3) then run over and hug her.


Send messages.


And build the best snowman EVER. We put him in place in front of the kitchen doors so Grandma and Rod would see him in the morning. When we got back inside we went to check on our man and he had lost his head and body! okay so not the best ever. We will fix him up tomorrow.


It has been snowing since 11:00am and it's now 7:o0pm - there is a lot of snow sticking.
Snow warning for Grandma Fran who is working late - please drive slow, please drive careful.

HEAVY SNOW WARNING from BBC Weather:
Heavy snow will continue to affect the Midlands and Lincolnshire and parts of east Wales and southern England tonight. Expect 2 to 5cm widely, with up to 20cm possible over high ground.
SNOW is causing major problems across Worcestershire (that's us!)