Anglesey Abbey

What do you DO all day?

I get that a lot, even more here than in the U.S. I think even less women here stay home with their kids, for many diverse reasons. I even get the question from fellow SAHMs, who maybe have more kids, younger kids, homeschool their kids, etc. I never take offense to the question. I really do have a lot more free time than many, many people. Anyway, today I came up with one answer: I hang out with retired people! If you understand that by "hanging out" I mean I seem to enjoying going to the same places they go. Today's example, Anglesey Abbey. Just me and the retired folks, soaking in the autumn beauty.

Anglesey Abbey is about six miles outside of Cambridge. It's a fairly easy bike ride, unless you're like me, obeying your GPS and ignoring your commonsense. I mindlessly obeyed it, slopping through muddy fields, dodging cow pies, bowing under heavy brush, carrying it across steep stairs - all within view of a perfectly paved, lovely bike path. But by that time I was not going back, nor trudging through the muddy fields and over the fence to get to the bike path. But anyway, a fairly easy bike ride (or drive) from Cambridge if you take a normal route, as I discovered on the way back. (Basically, follow bicycle route 51 until you hit Church Street, then turn left.)

Part of my special GPS route on the way there.

I haven't lived someplace with a real fall season for quite a while, so I'm really loving walking anywhere with fall color. The grounds at Anglesey Abbey are gorgeous. It's maybe not quite fall peak yet, but still very pretty.

One of the many statues that are throughout the gardens.

The silver birch trees and flowers are part of the winter walk. All the grounds are divided up into different gardens and walks, with different themes.

Anglesey Abbey has a Dahlia festival in mid-September, but they were still looking pretty now a month later.

For some reason, this is the spot I can picture the Lord of the Manor strolling about with his house party guests.

I wasn't in the mood for touring the house, so maybe I'll come back either for the Christmas lights or later in the winter for the snowdrop flowers and check it out then. It was lovely having a perfectly sunny day to enjoy a day of fall. 

Yay Property Managers

Any guesses what this is a picture of? 

If you guessed water damage at our California house, you are correct!

When we found out we would be spending a year in England, we thought of four options of how to deal with our California house.

1. Sell it

Mike could have got on board with this option, but as the girls and I are attached to our home and neighborhood, this was never seriously considered.

2. Leave it

This option had the benefit of being the least amount of work. By leaving all our stuff as it was, we'd avoid the hassle of movers, packing, storage, finding renters, etc. We ended up giving up this option, mainly because we decided we couldn't afford it.

3. Leave It with Cheap Renters

The idea of this one was to leave all our stuff in the house and garage, and then rent the house at a greatly reduced rate because of the inconvenience. We did pursue this for a while, but weren't able to find just the right person. People would say they were interested, because the rent we were offering was really low, but then they'd want us to move this, store that, clear out these spaces, etc. If we had to do all that work, we decided we'd just as well get market rate rent.

4. Property Manager

We went with option number four, clear out the house and rent it at market rate using a property manager. As anyone who has ever moved or prepared a house for sale/rent knows, it was a tremendous amount of work and bother. I'm glad we never seriously considered renting it out on our own and trying to manage the house from overseas. Two reasons. One, after we arrived in England, the first renter lined up backed out, so the whole process of finding a new renter had to start all over again. How we would have managed that from England, I'm not sure.

Two, now apparently our roof is leaking. That is a tremendous bother. Someone has to arrange a handyman to come over to take care of the immediate problem, get roofers to do bids on the repair work, get the inside damage tested and removed, hire someone to drywall, hire someone to paint, and possibly more. The silver lining of this is that that person is not me. I'm not terribly happy to be paying these bills, but I'm sure happy that it's not me doing the work! 

School in the UK

 Anya on her way to school, back when she could be out without a coat.

I've been thinking for some time that I'd like to do a post comparing school in the UK with school in the US. To be accurate though, all I can really do is a post comparing the specific schools my girls have attended. I'm not sure that I have enough experience to give a comprehensive comparison. For example, one thing that struck me about the primary school is how few people drive their kids to school, like maybe less than 10. I think it is so quaint, and really a much more relaxing way to arrive to school than fighting traffic, long lines and car exhaust. But then I talked to a mom who has a child in a slightly more suburban school outside of Cambridge, and she says at her school there are long lines of cars and traffic. So the difference might be more suburban versus urban, than US versus UK.

It's taken me a while to collect enough information to do this post. I'd love to be able to follow my kids around school for a week, so I could really tell what's going on. All I get are little crumbs of information, gathered here and there, with the exception of a couple of areas of interest that I hear all about. But here's what I've managed to figure out so far.

* Elementary school = Primary school. Secondary school runs from age 11 to age 16. School is optional after age 16 (although this is will soon be changed to age 18). 16+ go to Sixth Form or trade school type programs, which are separate schools from the Secondary.

* School placement is done strictly by birthday. There's no deciding your child isn't ready and holding them back a year like in the U.S.

* Children in England start "Reception Year" at age 4, so if they're 4 by September 1st, that's when they start. I hear conflicting stories about whether this is the equivalent to Kindergarten in the US, just started younger, or if it is more like a government-paid year of preschool. Depending on the answer to that question, my children have either skipped a grade, or just have their grade labeled differently (Year 5, instead of Grade 4; Year 8, instead of Grade 7).

* Most public schools (called state schools here) require uniforms. Anya's school does not, but they still change into a uniform for p.e.

* It is very cheap outfitting your child for school when they require a uniform. Camille's school doen't allow scarves, jewelry, or anything but school shirt, school sweatshirt (optional). black pants, black socks and shoes.  You could spend money on brand-name black pants and shoes, but there really isn't any room for any further personalization.

* I didn't have to buy any school supplies for Anya, except her p.e. uniform. The secondary school had a few required supplies, but less than what was required in the US.

* Both my girls report that the science here is harder, and also more interesting. Apparently, they spend more time on experiments and labs, and less on book work.

* Both my girls also find the math here easier (and I didn't find their programs in the U.S. particularly challenging).

* The primary school has much less testing. In fact, besides weekly spelling tests, Anya hasn't had a single test so far. In the US, it seemed like there was an assessment of some sort almost every week. On one hand, she enjoys school so much more with less tests. On the other hand, I don't really know how she's doing in school, or know how her teacher knows if she's learning the material or not.

* They only do a big standardized, year-end testing once every two years. Anya's so excited that her year isn't required to do testing this year. Unless she wants to! Which she doesn't. I don't think any testing is scheduled for Camille's year either.

* On a similar note, Anya rarely brings home any sort of school work. They do their work in notebooks at school, so I don't see anything that she's doing.

* There is much less of a reliance on textbooks and workbooks in the UK. At Anya's school they've studied language arts by working on a longer project, like writing a story or script. Anya says the teacher will talk about grammar as part of the project. Science is based on labs and experiments. Math is done from problems the teacher gives them. History/Social Studies has been done with plays, music, and projects. Anya enjoys all these lessons much more than in the US. At Camille's secondary school she has a textbook in her science class, and that's all.

* The primary school has much less homework. Anya has spelling homework, which is a more challenging list than in the US, but that's all. No worksheets.

* Neither of my girls' primary or secondary schools have any fundraisers scheduled that involve selling anything. Hallelujah!

* Both of my girls have less p.e. time here than their schools in the US. Anya only has p.e. once a week. Camille has a double period of p.e. once a week, and also a dance class once a week. They both had p.e. every day in the US.

* Both girls are required to take French here (much to their chagrin). (Interesting side note: Camille has been struggling with her French class, which I didn't find remarkable considering she's in 2nd year French but has never studied a foreign language before. When my husband started helping her with her homework he thought the work was ridiculously hard and decided to go talk to the teacher. I thought he was maybe overreacting. Well, it turns out Camille had been placed in ADVANCED 2nd year French. She's now been switched to just regular 2nd year French and is already much happier!).

* Class sizes are about the same at Camille's secondary school here as in the US. At Anya's primary school she has a split class of 30 students - half Year 5, and half Year 6. But they also have two full-time teacher's assistants in their class. Right now they also have two full-time student teachers until the mid-term. So at least temporarily, a ratio of 6 students to 1 teacher! In the US she would be in a class of 34 with one teacher.

* I may just not know the system here yet, but home-school communication was much easier for me in California. There's a Back-to-School night early in the year, teachers give out their email addresses, and so many graded assignments and tests are brought home that I've never been surprised by any of their grades on their report cards. Here, mid-term is in a week and I'm in such suspense of what their report cards will look like. I have no idea how they're doing. Nothing comes home and Anya's school explained to me that their policy is to not share teacher email addresses. Camille's school uses a computer system for giving out and turning in assignments. As a parent, I have my own log-in, but it only tells me what her upcoming assignments are. I don't have any access to how she was graded. Either the schools think that students are coming home and sharing everything with their parents (wrong!), or they feel it's between the students and the school. It's not what I'm used to.

* Anya misses her school playground in the US, which had playground equipment, wall ball, volleyball, basketball, kickball, tetherball and soccer. Here they have a cement courtyard and a grass field, along with some balls. They are allowed to run at recess and play tag here (one of their stranger rules back home forbids running at recess).

* And to end on a frivolous note, Anya reports that when you bring a lunch it's referred to as "lunch". When you buy a hot lunch from school it's referred to as "dinner".

My title here in the UK

At a welcome-new-parents-tea, we got a chance to sneak into Anya's class and get some photographic proof that she's doing some work in class. For part of their history unit on the Tudors they wrote these letters in early modern English/Tudor English.

Book & Movie Tour, aka Peak District

I'll admit, this whole weekend was inspired by book and movie scenes. None of which my kids care about, but guess who plans the vacations at our house? So here was our agenda: Lyme Park, Pemberley in the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice; Lees Hall, inspiration for Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre; and Stanage Edge, site in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie where Elizabeth goes on her tour of Derbyshire with the Gardiners. But the Peaks District is an absolutely beautiful place to go, even for those crazies out there who don't care about Pride and Prejudice or Jane Eyre.

It might seem like we didn't get a lot done in our two days, because I frequently needed Mike to pull over so I could get out and look at the scenery. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?

Notice the sheep grazing on the hillside.

Just another random "hurry, pull over" spot.

First scheduled stop, Pemberley, aka Lyme Park. 

Here is the courtyard where Mr. Darcy rushes out to find Elizabeth. I think they cleaned off the moss for the movie.

We found this statue more freaky than enticing.

Luckily, there were still many opportunities for pictures without the statue. 

Our second day was in the upper part of the Peak District. The scenery changes from farms and rolling green hills, to a little darker feel. It's moorlands. Instead of limestone, it's darker rock. This is the area Charlotte Bronte went to visit a friend. The home she stayed at is considered the inspiration for Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre. This area of England definitely has more a Bronte feel than an Austen feel.

This is Lees Hall, the inspiration for Thornfield Hall. I can imagine Mrs. Rochester up on that roof, can't you? I have to say, this is apparently not a big tourist draw, so if you go to visit bring an ordnance survey map or detailed instructions. It's not easy to find and very few people we came across seemed to have any idea of its existence.

There are so many hikes that take in Stanage Edge. While tempted by some of the 7 and 8 hour hikes, I decided on a two hour version - the longest I could possibly imagine bribing my "hates walking, hiking and the great outdoors in general" girl to do. In the end, with the temperatures cold and the weather raining sideways, we did the ultimate quickest route - probably less than a half an hour. We found a very close parking spot, took a direct route up the hill, very quickly appreciated the view, took a few pictures, and then high-tailed it back to the car. Even so, Anya elected to stay warm and dry in the car.

This photo is our attempt at the Pride & Prejudice movie shot. Just imagine us in dresses flowing in the wind instead of our winter parkas.

 The walk along the top of Stanage Edge, which we elected to take a picture of instead of walking.

You can see from my hair that it was very windy. Most of the pictures our hair is lying flat only due to the fact that our hair was weighted down with rainwater.

This wasn't quite the trip I had imagined. We'd had a stretch of beautiful, sunny fall weather, so I'd imagined sunny, brisk hikes and blue skies with puffy clouds. We instead got rain, wind and cold, but mostly we felt it added to the English atmosphere. We saw a lot of hikers and walkers. The English don't let the weather interfere with their outdoor plans, so we tried to follow their example.

English hikers all kitted-out (there's me throwing in an England English phrase) for the rain.

Camille and I had a good laugh trying to fight the wind and get this picture taken at the same time.

Lastly, here's proof Anya was on this trip too. She maybe wasn't too interested in anything I had planned, but she's very good at keeping herself entertained in the backseat. 

Ely

How good are you at accepting Plan B, when what you really wanted was Plan A? I'm not very good at it myself. This past weekend I had made plans I was so pleased with that it made my heart all a-flutter in anticipation. Then at the very last minute, due to problems I won't go into now, we had to cancel. I must admit I didn't take it well. This picture shows my feelings on the matter, if I had been a little more composed about it all.

I was ready to spend the weekend in mourning, but luckily Mike forced me into accepting Plan B - a little Saturday afternoon trip to Ely. Ely is a small, cute town about a 15 minute train ride from Cambridge. The main attraction of Ely is its cathedral. In a small way, it reminds me of St. George, Utah. The town is small, with short buildings and leafy trees, with the exception of this magnificent church, made more magnificent by the contrast of its grandness next to the smallness around it. It must have been an even more amazing site in the 1200s when this cathedral was built.

We didn't spend much time inside, because it was a nice fall day we wanted to enjoy. We spent time walking around the town and edge of town looking for nice views. Here's the cathedral from a couple of other places:

Ely is next to a river, and has very pretty river walks along it.

Also, like all of England, the town and country is full of public footpaths that cross through farmland and other private property. It looks like Mike is just walking across someone's field in the picture, but I assure you he's on an approved footpath.

In addition to our walking, we had a nice lunch in town. Two things about our lunch struck me as uniquely English. One, we were asked if we wanted chips (fries) with our pizza. I'm pretty sure only the English think chips go with just about anything. Second, we were asked if we'd like some ketchup with our pizza. And we didn't get the fries, so it really was offered for the pizza. I have never actually seen an English person eat ketchup with anything, so I think they were just being nice and trying to accommodate our odd, American ways. This person knew Americans like ketchup and wanted to be helpful. We had a good laugh about that.

Ely is really a nice place to go for a visit, and not just as a consolation prize.