USA Day 5: Stehekin

Today we had a leisurely morning (sort of - when Will has the seed of a plan for the day, there is a lot of bustling activity preparing for that plan!) and then went on an Expotition to the river.

We packed a big picnic, a few deck chairs, and loaded the whole herd of us into the 2 cars to go over to the Orchard and the field beyond. We thrashed through the brush until we got to a sandy bank in the shade.

Since there were various fishing poles and options, we took turns fishing and getting line untangled for awhile and then had some lunch.  The deer flies were not much fun, and there were some mosquitoes too, but standing in the river helped keep them away.

Tryfan with Phoebe, Rhiannon with Ingrid

After lunch we headed back to G-Buck's house, then pretty much left her there for some peace and quiet while we did some more swimming in the lake

 In the late afternoon we came back home to have happy hour and make dinner - another joyous affair!

 At 8:00 pm Rebecca, Laura and I went up to the Ranch to have a little wedding crash adventure. Turns out it was Jessie and Kacey who were getting married. We felt like we knew Jessie already since we sat behind her on the fast boat uplake, and then when I found out that Tammy's son Dylan was playing in the 'Bitteroot Beets' band at the wedding, it just seemed appropriate to go crash it. We expected the reception to be a little larger than it actually was (~ 35 people, most of them sitting around), but once we arrived there was no turning back so we just joined in the sparsely populated dance-grass.

But it was a gorgeous night in a gorgeous location, and we had a good time. It was fun doing something a little bit 'off piste' with the girls!

USA Day 4: Wenatchee to Stehekin

We are still transitioning to west coast time so keep waking up early, but with the temps cool at this time of day, it is a blessing to be up and about. Rhiannon was first to the hammocks and Tryfan soon after.  We got to hang out with Shelly a little bit as she was preparing to leave at 6:30 am, and then we left at 7 to get to Chelan by 8 so we could catch the Lady Express.

It all went according to plan and we got on the boat at 8:30, then uplake at 11! We had a happy reunion with Grandma Bucky as well as Laura Reiter, and we all loaded into good ol' Bruce and drove straight to the Bakery. We saw all the familiar faces who were having lunch at the Bakery and it was all the same delicious food as what we remembered from last time and all the times before. I love walking into Stehekin Bakery! After some lunch we continued on up to G-Buck's house to unload stuff and then go swimming in the lake.

It was pretty hot here today too - over 100 degrees - and the lake felt So Good to dive into. For the first time ever, you could actually swim around and not just plunge! Eric & Kristin left a SUP here earlier this month, and Will brought his uplake so we had 2 that we could use to paddle around.

So we spent a few great hours down here at the lake, then went home for happy hour and dinner! 

USA Day 3: Seattle to Wenatchee

I woke up early again and this time went for a little scamper around the neighborhood before other people were up. Actually, the NGans family left at 5am to drive straight to get on the Lady Express from Fields Point on Lake Chelan, but we lingered this morning and left the house at 9 to go meet the Phil Gans family at Ballard Farmers market! This was a very happy reunion. First we met Egan, Wheeler, Allison and Ruby for a coffee near the market.

Then we ventured down through the aisles until we happily (and loudly!) reunited with Phil, Libby and Molly.

Libby, Molly, Ruby, Allison, Wheeler, Tryfan, Phil, Egan, Rhodri and Rhiannon with the trumpet accordion player in the background

We ended up breakfasting on Mexican food which was amazing, and sitting in the shade near a really great busker playing trumpet and accordion. Here is a little video of the action:

At 11:30 am we parted ways and headed to Cle Elum in time to watch the local rodeo action at 1 pm.

 This turned out to be a Very Small Rodeo with just a few events and mostly the same names riding in those events. It was 105 degrees when we pulled up and fortunately the bleachers were in the shade so we could keep sort of cool.

Tryfan even participated in an event for 10 years and younger where they had to take off their shoes and walk across the arena to where the clown was standing. As they were walking, a couple of 'helpers' mixed up all the shoes so then the race to go put on shoes and then run back to clown was a bit chaotic as people were looking for their shoes. The guy who won had clearly done this before because he was wearing slip ons and didn't have to look too hard for his shoes, but all the participants got a bright green bandana that says 'Cle Elum Round Up' on it. Tryfs is stoked.

We left around 2:30 since we still had quite a bit of driving to do, plus at least one grocery shopping trip along the way. Good ol' Safeway in Cle Elum did us fine and then we got to Dave & Shelly's place around 4:30. In fact, we dropped the kids off there so they could swim while Rhods and I went in search of a fruit stand to buy a box of fresh picked local peaches and then another grocery run for some specific items Will asked for. Finally we also got to swim and settle into Wilshire Suite by the River (aka Dave & Shelly's new airbnb studio). We ended up having dinner around 9 pm and enjoying the conversation with Dave. Shelly was working until late so we didn't see much of her unfortunately.  Anyway, it was a full day and now we are ready to head uplake to Stehekin.

USA Day 2: Seattle

Last night Rebecca and I made a trip to Fred Meyer and got a little carried away! Will barked at us for being late coming home but it was mainly my fault - we were down in the basement clothes section and got totally sucked into the clearance racks. Kinda funny, really.

In the morning we Lewis' woke up really early, around 5am, and tried to keep quiet for awhile until a more civilized time to stir. Will fortunately woke up early too, so he joined us downstairs for coffee.  We had a great breakfast and then us 4 headed to REI for the long awaited shopping trip to their flagship store. After nearly 3 hours we finally left and met up with Will & family over at Greenlake Lake Park for a picnic with Egan, Wheeler and Wheeler's new girlfriend Allison! The afternoon was spent paddleboarding on the lake, swimming a bit, eating, and chatting. This was the perfect way to spend a whole afternoon and with long lost family that we never get to see!

Egan, Wheeler and Allison

 Around 4 pm, everyone went separate ways and we detoured to the Ben & Jerry's ice cream parlour to indulge.

We did a little bit of shopping at Trader Joe's (actually, I did while the kids napped in the car with Rhodri) and then home to Will & Rebecca's house to have a BBQ outside and get ready to go uplake tomorrow. Another great day!

USA Day 1: Sussex to Seattle

We had a funny start to our journey today.

Apparently today was the busiest travel day of the year in Britain, and so Gatwick Airport tried very hard to make it a fun atmosphere by hiring entertainers to circulate through the airport. This brought smiles and laughter to the long frustrating queues, and what a difference this made to the atmosphere! We were especially tickled by the 2 men dressed as 1980's pilots.

The flight itself was fine, and long, but no problem. We were met at Seattle airport by Will who drove us to his house, then took us on a circuitous walk around the neighborhood in the afternoon. It was perfect - first some authentic Mexican food near his house at Gordito's (home of the Baby Burrito), then walking around the neighborhood to collect first Phoebe and then Ingrid from their nursery schools, have an ice cream along the way, and then go to a nearby Farmer's Market.

Good to walk! But it also felt pretty good to get back to their house and relax. Definitely a great start to our trip.

USA Trip overview

Here is our itinerary:
Fri July 27 - Fly Gatwick to Seattle on Norwegian Airlines
Sat July 28 - Hang out with Will & family in Seattle
Sun July 29 - Leisurely morning, then travel to Wenatchee by nightfall
Mon July 30 - Go uplake on the Fast boat
Tues July 31 - Stehekin
Wed Aug 1 - Stehekin
Thur Aug 2 - Stehekin
Fri Aug 3 - Stehekin
Sat Aug 4 - Stehekin
Sun Aug 5 - Go downlake and stay in Manson
Mon Aug 6 - Travel Manson back to Seattle
Tues Aug 7 - Fly Seattle to Billings, MT and drive to Arrow Mtn Ranch
Wed Aug 8 - Arrow Mtn Ranch
Thur Aug 9 - Arrow Mtn Ranch
Fri Aug 10 - Arrow Mtn Ranch
Sat Aug 11 - Arrow Mtn Ranch
Sun Aug 12 - Arrow Mtn Ranch
Mon Aug 13 - Arrow Mtn Ranch
Tues Aug 14 - Drive through Yellowstone and stay the night in Jackson, WY
Wed Aug 15 - Explore Tetons and stay another night in Jackson
Thur Aug 16 - Explore east/ south Wyoming, stay somewhere
Fri Aug 17 - Get to Lafayette, CO by nightfall and stay with Marah & family
Sat Aug 18 - Fly Denver back to Gatwick

Vacation launch

Since we have been running down our food in preparation to be away for 3 weeks, we decided to go for dinner at the Red Lion and hope to encounter other friends there. Success! We saw Cat & B, the whole Mills family, the whole DF family, and a few other randoms as well. It was a perfect way to kick off our vacation which we leave for in the morning!

Heights of Abraham

..by the Heights of Abraham
where we all went
up the cable car
with our whole family smiling...

This was the song that Tryfan and I made up to the tune of 'River of Babylon' by Boney M.

The Heights of Abraham turned out to be pretty fun actually!
We packed up camp and hit the road around 10:15, got to Matlock Bath rail station and parked at 11am for a 3 hour tour of the famous destination. We indeed took the cable car up the hill, and then we explored around for an hour before the 12:00 guided tour of the Masson Cavern followed by a little snack up on the Titchers Shaft. Then we had a proper lunch at the restaurant, then ice creams from the stand before taking the cable car down and hitting the road to arrive home around 7pm.

Originally we were going to stay in the Peak District for another whole day, but I have too much work to do and can't really afford to take another day off right now.  Our next adventure starts this coming Friday in just a few days, so we need to get ready for that!

Trapped! in Buxton

We had a lovely early evening walk around Buxton to see the opera house and other highlights of the town including a choir performing a few pieces from a bandstand.

 Turns out that this weekend was the final few days of the Buxton Festival and with the weather this good, many people were out and about. In fact, we ended up having a really difficult time finding a place to eat! With time ticking before the 8:30 performance we had booked onto, things were looking pretty grim until we remembered about the fish & chips spot near where we had parked the car. Stumbling into that place and realizing that they had a sit-down area as well was a beautiful happy moment! It was such a happy moment that we took a photo. I especially like the decorations in this place.

We got to Poole's Cavern near the town center in plenty of time to explore and mingle before the show started. We really didn't know what to expect other than what we read here, but it turned out to be "something else". I loved it, the kids were blown away, and Rhodri was a little less impressed. It was pretty realistic and dramatic, and we all had to wear coveralls and helmets with headlamps.

Here is the main performer with Rhiannon and Tryfs.

 At first it was not obvious that it was a performance because it felt so real with a lot of loud noises, darkness, shouting of instructions from our guides. As the performance went on, it got a little weird with some expressive dancing and hugging, and then ended in a strange way. But anyhow, it gave us something to talk about and it was unlike anything we'd ever seen before! 

Epic walk

So after leaving Shrigley Hall, we drove through Buxton and over to our campsite at Shallow Grange. We set up the tipi and settled in just before a heavy downpour started! It has been really dry and hot, so the rain was welcome, and we were glad to be settled inside the tipi snacking and relaxing when the drops started to fall. For dinner we drove to a nearby pub in Chelmorton and had a great meal where we also learned about some walks in the area.


This morning we set off on what was advertised as a 9 mile circuit walk which followed the vales of the Peak District near Chelmorton from our campsite. We went through some beautiful vales and along the Wye river, then ended at what was supposed to be our midway point at the Anchor's End pub. We haven't been on enough hikes lately! In fact, we ended up calling a taxi to come pick us up and take us back to the campsite, but it was fine in the end.

(still need to upload some other photos of our walk here)

Waiting for the taxi outside the pub

After a bit of recuperating, we will go into Buxton to explore, find a place for dinner, and then go see the live performance of the trapped Chilean miner story. Should be interesting..

Shrigley Hall and the end of school

School finished at 3pm yesterday and we headed straight out of town up to Macclesfield near Manchester and stayed at this grand old place called Shrigley Hall for the night. Rhodri had a meeting this morning so the kids and I got to play and explore until he came back around 1pm.

 The kids and I did a treasure hunt exploration trail that the hotel had put together, and that was really good. We even won a prize at the end for completing it, which was a bottle of rose wine (they were out of chocolate which was their normal prize).

We also went swimming in their beautiful converted church, and played some crazy golf before Rhodri arrived back and we continued our weekend in the Peak District.

Bye Bala

My friend and colleague Bala is moving back to India and I'm a little sad. I went into the London office today so that we could get together one last time before he leaves this weekend. I'm sure our paths will cross again, but he and I had some good times together in the Training & Development team of SLB.

In fact, I had really been dreading today because there were 3 different meetings that I had going on in London, all unrelated to each other, and then I would end the day with a farewell drink with Bala. But also, Rhodri is still away so we had to call in reinforcements and have both Cat and Emma step in to help with picking up kids from school, feeding them and babysitting until one of us got home around 10 pm.
I was really glad when today was over - it felt like a marathon!

Old friends in the hood

Tonight we had an impromptu little gathering at the Coach & Horses pub to reunite with our Danish friends Ole and Bettina and Casper. The Denslows and the McArraghers were there, but Rhodri had to drive to Cornwall for the day (!) to give a Nordic Life talk to some military dudes so he missed out.

See if you can spot the photo-bomber in this pic!

Another lovely Sunday

Today I picked up the kids from camping on their own and we came home to recover and unpack, then in the afternoon we headed to Sophie & Oscar (& Emma's) house to go for a dip in their pool. Later on in the day, Cat and B came over to watch the Final match of France v Croatia and then we had dinner together. We all love days like this!

Girls day out

This week was Emma's 40th birthday and she wanted to celebrate by getting a group of girlfriends together and going to the Griffin Inn for the afternoon. It was perfect weather for doing this and we had such a blast!

We rode in Hellie's yellow beetle convertible with the top down and slightly illegal use of seatbelts in order to fit us all in.

We all went back to Danni's house and she made a birthday dinner for our girl Emma as well as the most delicious birthday cake I've ever had! 

We sat around a campfire until pretty late and then Hellie dropped me back home (even though it was walking distance). It was a great day and I'm so glad that Emma could have a fun birthday event to look back on.

Practice camping session

This weekend is the annual Danehill Camp Out at the Old Dairy Farm and it will go all weekend but we are only staying tonight. It is a practice session for us because we are going camping as a family next week and thought we'd better make sure we knew where all our camping stuff is while we are going just 3 miles down the road.

Actually, this annual camp out will be the last one since Grace is graduating from Danehill this week. Normally we go on the Friday night and then come home to sleep, but this year the kids and I stayed the night. It was pretty fun. We camped next to the Miles family and the Moir family who traveled from Guildford just for the night. Turned out there was nothing too rowdy or crazy this year, but it was fun nonetheless.

Post note: the kids ended up camping by themselves on Saturday night since I was going to Emma's house and Rhodri didn't want to camp. This was a first for us but it turned out fine. I brought them breakfast on Sunday morning and we packed up and came home around 9am.

Olivia!

Today was the Kestrel class play and it was shown at Cumnor House school auditorium as they have done the past few years. Tryfan had two parts: a lady of the night and Sherlock Holmes. He was great in both roles and it was a really fun play to watch.

Its HOT

This heatwave is not abating.
We've had a ridiculous number of days with pure sunshine, no clouds, little or no wind, and it feels like we are in a different country. Our poor lawn is brown and sad looking, the potted plants are acting a bit needy, but the rest of us are soaking it up. Amazing. I think we are looking forward to the day that it cools off to 'normal', but for now this is actually quite nice.
One absolutely incredible upgrade we've made to the house is a new awning to replace the old moldy one that wasn't designed for a house with a deck!

We placed the order several weeks ago, but today happened to be the day that they came to remove the old and replace with the new.

World Cup Semi-final

Today was the big semi final game of England v Croatia on 'Waistcoat Wednesday' in honor of dear Gareth Southgate who always wears a lovely waistcoat on the sideline as he is coaching the England side. We invited a couple of families over and converted the house into party-mode with the TV console rotated 90 degrees and the chairs set up stadium style.

England couldn't pull it off in the second half, although they looked great in the first half, and Croatia ended up winning 2-1 to go through to the final against France which is in a few days. But we had a good time watching it together with the Painters and the Talmans.