The Last Day...

Always the hardest. Not just because of the packing and me sitting on the suitcase willing it to shut - I bought a whole new wardrobe for me! It was a good job we had a bigger luggage allowance than usual.

We popped across the green to discover that the conker trees we starting to drop their treasure, last time we were home and the cockers were out, Ebi-kun was too young to learn to play, so we collected a handful to bring back with us.

There were some strange antics going on, apparently Ebi-kun was a racing driver of a super car and my mom was ??? the engine? Who knows but they were having fun!

We popped out to pick up some last minute bits and bobs and dropped by at the little farm shop, which has grown considerably! They now have lamas, this one was a firm favourite, just look how cute he is!

Then last night snuggles watching Deal or No Deal - to which Ebi-kun seems to be addicted, that and The Cube.

It was an amazing trip home, we did so much and had so much fun. Plus I didn't have to suffer the Japanese summer, which is always a good thing.

Meeting the cousins

Agh! Just found some more post from our holidays that i hadn't finished writing!

My step sister and family have been living in Greece almost as long as I have been over here and we've never been in the UK at the same time, until this summer that is. They have moved back to the UK and moved into a new house a close to my moms, a couple of days before we left.

So although they had only moved in the day before, we decended on them for a visit.  Ebi-kun and A have chatted a few times over skype, last time Ebi-kun was giving A origami lessons, very cute! They totally hit it off - here they are all giving my mom a massage, not sure if that was pleasure or pain!

Ebi-kun and A disappeared off upstairs to make loom bands and record tutorial videos!

And I got entertained by little M, who is two and a half but talks really well, she had me in stitches, cute as a button too.

Thanks to the likes of Skype, it doesn't feel like 13 years since I last met Lou in the flesh and there was no awkward half hour when the kids first met for the first time, I seem to remember that happening a lot as a kid when we would visit relatives that we only got to see say once a year.

We did really well as far as catching up with people went, I think we managed to squeeze almost everyone is, having a couple of family parties helped! Can't wait to do it all again next year.

A Fairy Tale Wedding with a difference…

We got 'paper married' on December 15th 2003, so today it is our real wedding anniversary, we didn't have the ceremony until the 28th and that is the day we tend to think of as our wedding day. I have posted about our crazy fun wedding in Cambodia here, what I have never posted about before is our slightly insane wedding party in the UK.

We decided to go with a fairy tale wedding theme and asked everyone to come in costume, it was brilliant and so much fun. This post is rather picture heavy but they are worth it!

The girls!

My Uncle Gra as Gandalf, he didn't really need much to get the look! And my cousin Jude as Maid Marian.

This was The Baron, the host. We had the party in a 15th century hall and I sneakily suspect that The Baron was around when they built it!

My Nana as the Fairy Godmother and Queen Mom

King Den and Queen Fran taking a dance! I think several glasses of wine had been consumed at this stage.

The fairy Godmother wondering where her sherry is…

These were my first ever students and they came over from Italy for the party! What does it say about Italian fairytales when one comes dressed as a Mafia gangster?

My younger brother complained about having to dress up, said he wasn't going to do it and had a big sulk, then turned up in a green fairy outfit! He assures me those boobs are his own…

Queen Kez and King Mark who traveled down from the North, looking very posh and proper.

Prince Charming ditched Cinderella for the night and hooked up with Snow White, I'm not sure what happened to the 7 dwarves, very suspicious if you ask me.

 The food was a traditional medieval feast, which was quite bemusing for some of the overseas guests, didn't stop Yasutoki digging in…

The drinks were quaffed, the food devoured, there was some mad entertainment and some interesting dance moves…

Even The Fairy Godmother was getting in on the act.

Of course there was the cutting of the cake, I can say from experience, that a samurai sword isn't really suitable for cutting a cake!

We had tequila slammers for the toast drink, my Nana had never had a slammer before and got it all wrong so she had to have a second one! (That is her excuse anyway). It was a fantastic night and so much fun to see everyone in their amazing costumes. Sadly it was all too much for poor Little Red Riding Hood…

Looking at all these pictures makes me want to do it all again!

Have you done London with kids?

If so, I need your help! We have booked tickets to go back to the UK for Christmas - whoo-hoo!

Now that Ebi-kun is a bit older, I wanted to take him to London for a few days to see the sights. My best mate Di and her little 3 year old will be joining us.

So, I am trying to decide the best places to go, I am a northern lass myself and haven't ventured down into the big smoke that is London very often. In fact I can find my way around Tokyo without problems but London, I am clueless.

If you have any good book recommendations too for Ebi-kun, that would be helpful too!

We are on a budget so it needs to be cheap or better still free, suitable for a 7 and 3 year old and not somewhere pretty generic like a zoo or aquarium. Where would you go? Or better still where have you been and recommend?

And.. it will be the week before Christmas - mental I know! where is the best place to see the lights/window decorations?

I think we have tickets for the London Eye sorted but that is about it!

My thoughts so far...

Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace.

The Natural History Museum

Tate 

Bus tour

Covent Garden to see street performers

London Eye

Christmas Lights

Hamleys or Harrods

The National Science Museum

I am sure I am missing some gems, please share you experiences in the comments, I need all the help I can get :o)

Of eggs and bunnies...

Being in Japan, I often get friends asking me about traditions from home and how they started and usually I am completely clueless, but I do have a handy book to help me out and strangely enough, it is a cook book! The Farmhouse Cookery Book is so much more than just a cook book. Each recipe has a little section dedicated to the history of the recipe and then there are also sections on festivals and traditions.

According to this book, the crosses on hot cross buns used to be on all bread in the medieval times, it was believed that the cross would ward off bad spirits and help the bread rise. During the 17th century the tradition was dropped except for on Good Friday where it became a symbol of the cross.

As for Easter, many of the traditions pre date Christianity. The name Easter comes from Eostre the Saxon goddess of Spring whose feast day was the spring equinox, eggs were sacred to her as they symbolise re-birth and from this we get the Easter egg. In parts of the UK there is a tradition to roll hard boiled, dyed eggs down a hill, I have vague memories of doing this one time but I can't place where or how old I was. On the other hand, I had never done an Easter egg hunt until I came to Japan! And the Easter bunny... well she is descended from the hare that the devotees of Eostre regarded as as representing fertility and the spring regeneration of life. Not from the book, but I remember reading somewhere that the Eater bunny with the basket delivering sweets was started in Germany, but don't quote me on that!

Easter for me growing up would mean going to Church in the morning then getting an Easter egg when we got home, a big hollow egg with more sweets inside. Yum, and I don't know why but Easter egg chocolate tastes different somehow :o)

Mom would also make simnel cake, a fruit cake with a layer of marzipan in the middle and decorated with marzipan eggs.

Now, I make an egg for Ebi-kun which he hunts for in the morning, he has to follow a pile of clues to get to the egg then we head to the park to meet up with the playgroup and have a big egg hunt and picnic, lots of fun. What do you do for Easter? Do you have any special traditions?

Step back in time....

A couple of weeks ago when we were back in the UK my best mate came to stay so we could catch up proper (the hen night involved too much cheese, wine and dancing!), mom suggested we went to The Ceramic Experience so off we went. It was great, all three of us had fun in the ball pool - luckily there were no other kids about otherwise they would have been in stiches laughing at Di and me screaming as we went down the slide! BabyEbi picked a penguin to paint so I did a sea turtle and Di some romantic hearts - well it was her wedding a few days later. Once you have finished you leave them to be fired and pick them up the next day, I was very impressed with the final items. They also hace a cafe which is reasonably priced, I think for the three painted items, tea for two and juice it came to about fourteen pounds, not bad really. Mom was working that day and so she missed out, she really wanted to go so I suggested she took BabyEbi another day, they painted something special for DaddyEbi's birthday, can't say what yet.... but here is the penguin

Monkey Forest

It turned out to be a lovely day yesterday so we went to the Monkey Forest which is about 45 mins drive away. It is fantastic, the monkeys are free to roam and play in the trees, there are no cages so you can see them like they would be in the wild. BabyEbi loved it we got within a couple of feet of some of the monkeys. There are members on staff at the ready to answer any questions or to make sure that the public don't disturb the monkeys, although they come very close you are not allowed to touch them. After the monkeys we went just down the road to Trentham retail park where there are some lovely little shops and cafes, so we had a nice lunch and a wander around the shops, a lovely day out. We have a busy weekend planned, off to see my brother and his family in Liverpool Saturday and I am hoping we can drop by one of my best mates whilst we are in the area then Sunday we have a big family lunch at my aunt & uncles. Monday, best mate and bride to be is popping up for the day and we are off out for a nice meal in the evening we haven't organised the rest of the week yet.

Slugs and Snails and Puppy Dogs tails

It finally stopped raining so BabyEbi decide to explore Nanas back yard, it isn't very big but there are plenty of intersting things to poke at, some strange flowers....

and he discovered a snail, he was fascinated by it, spent a long time investigating it then kept going back to have another look, I don't think he has come across a big snail before.


When he was finally done investigating the yard we went out to look for conkers, opposite moms house there are three big conker trees so we found lots of them. BabyEbi wasn't interested in the ones already on the floor he wanted to find ones still in their shell so he could peel them out, we came back with 2 pocketfuls, I am sure there was a world champion conker or two in there. When we were kids we would try all kinds of methods to harden up the conker to make it a champion, soaking it in vinegar, baking it in the oven, rubbing it with salt, I'm not sure if any of these methods worked! Apparently kids are now banned from playing conkers in school, acording to the EU it is dangerous, hmm yes, well I am pretty sure I have never heard of anyone dying in a particularly vicious game of conkers, a few bruised knuckles maybe......

Drunken Zombies

My best mate Di. is getting married in a couple of weeks, so I flew home early so I could go to her hen weekend. It was held at Hamps Hall which was great. 10 minutes walk from the nearest pub but pretty much out in the country, beautiful setting and the Hall is well kitted out .
The theme was zombies and there was a scarily good turn out.....


It was the first time BabyEbi has been without me but he was as good as gold and I had a whale of a time, luckily the zombie make-up didn't bring the bride to be out in a rash and although she did try to swing from the beams she went home with no broken bones too. I have to find an outfit for the wedding but I am really looking forward to it. I have missed all my other mates weddings but I was not going to miss this one.