Jersey Day 67

Jersey is a fascinating place. I have been dragging the family to dolman sites. These huge stone circles were built 6000 years ago and are just incredible. I spend a long time wandering how and why they were built. They are a feat of engineering to celebrate and worship the sun. We went to La Hougue Bie today, this site has an underground dolman covered in a huge mound of earth. Inside it was dark, damp, cold and a little spooky. On top of the mound a stone church was built in the 14th century. There is also a reconstructed neolithic house which was interesting for the kids and a Nazi bunker that is now a memorial to the millions of people who worked and died for the Nazi cause. The Nazi's occupied Jersey during WWII and this has had a huge effect as you can imagine) on local history. The Nazi's built many defence buildings including a series of granite towers around the coastline. These are interspersed with Martello towers which look very similar but were built during the Napoleonic wars.



So lots of history here, and because it it a tourist destination there are lots of things to see and do. The beaches are beautiful with long stretches of honey coloured sand, intersting rocks for climbing on and of course the sea. Unfortunately the weather is not warm (at all!) so beach trips include jumpers and hot chocolate drinks to keep us going!



Nolly (Martin's mum) is coping very well with us. Her usually tranquil life has been shattered temporarily but she seems to be managing. We went smimming recently and she set off to do some laps. on her return she said that she had done 40 laps. When we are all at home, collapsed in front of the TV or relaxing she is in the garden pruning, clipping and shredding (well done Nolly!)



Yesterday we went to France (not that far away just and hour by ferry). St Malo is an old walled city built by pirates. During the war 80% of the city was demolished half by the Nazis and half by the allied forces, it was then rebuilt as an exact replica - so it looks old but you know that it isn't really! we strolled around the cobbled streets and walked around the entire city on the external wall, visited the beach and ate far too many crepes and hot chocolates - yummy!



The boys and I went horse riding last Thursday - just a gentle stroll around the country lanes. The boys both loved it except Maxi kept saying that his pony might run away with him! Zac was so enthusiatic that him and I went back for a lesson today - so there he was trotting and stopping and starting. He did really well and yes I was very proud of him. I had a great time too, it really is like riding a bike because you don't forget how to do it. Martin is OK, he is working today (not an unusual occurance it does happen quite regularly!) He has managed to go wind-surfing once and has swum twice so is quite chirpy.



So that's us really. This blog doesn't really capture all the stuff that we are doing, like zoos, museums, Maize mazes, pubs (for dinner honest!) castles and stately homes, beaches, gardens, parks and playgrounds. But we seem to be quite busy. We all miss home at different times. We called a few friends in NZ a while ago and Maxi spent the next day reciting the names of all his friends saying "such and such loves me, such and such loves me" in an endlessly repeating pattern (Pia you seem to feature a fair amount!) Zac talks about all his friends a lot and I think he is secretly missing school. He had a panic about Xmas and we had a number of discussions about whether there was only one Santa and whether he would know where to come and whether Xmas would be just just the same as at home (Xmas present worries methinks!)



We are back to the UK on Friday for another week with my Mum.

Turkey Day 45

We've just come back from a week in Turkey with Gin's family, Tina, David, Adam, Mary, Josie and Kim. It was fantastic, we had clear blue skies every day and our apartment was right by the beach.

Each night we ate by the sea while the kids played on the sand.The kids loved being with their cousins and making lots of new friends on the beach.

Apart from the usual tourist stuff we lazed around swimming, snorkeling and eating Turkish Delight. We went on a bus trip to an authentic Turkish house where they had carefully hidden the washing machine. We were woken by the muezzin every morning calling from the mosque.

Gin and Tina went for a Turkish massage - complete with skin peeling, foam massage, sauna and other pampering. She said it was fantastic but it took three days for her skin to recover!
Zac learnt to snorkel and was really excited after seeing an octopus. The octopus squirted ink at Ginnie - obviously she is too scary! Max tried snorkeling but put both his mask and snorkel on upside down so he didn't get far.The exchange rate is about 1 million Turkish Lira to the NZ Dollar so we spent a lot of time counting the zeros on our banknotes and Zac seemed to be much more willing to do menial tasks for us when paid in millions rather than dollars. While waiting at a bar for us Tina and David saw lots of banknotes blowing past so they diligently collected them and waited to see if the owner arrived. Nobody appeared so they counted their windfall, it was about 2 dollars.

We had a ride on some inflatable doughnuts towed very fast behind a speedboat, Zac was so light he bounced a lot and closed his eyes most of the time. Martin tried wakeboarding, to waterskiing what snowboarding is to skiing. Gin bought a fake gucci bag and watch and Zac and Gin got fake tattoos.