Buckingham Visit

Saturday proved to be an excellent Autumn day and we made plans to nip down to London. This was the last weekend that Buckingham Palace State Rooms were to be open for tours so we thought we better jump at the chance. We had never taken trains from Newmarket (closest stop for us) so we decided to start our journey there. With our rail card, we get cheaper tickets when we travel. It is amazing how many tourists are there at the end of September (oops, we are included in that tourist hoard). It was a most excellent day. In addition to the State Rooms, we saw the Queen's Gallery which had some amazing art. Maggie's favourite part was the Royal Mews. This is where they keep the cars, carriages, horses, and other parts of the wheeled fleet for the royal family. We also were able to see the changing of the guards which was quite a spectacle.

As is typical with our adventures, we tend to stumble onto the unexpected. We were in search of a quick bite as we had 45 minutes before our admission to the Queen's Gallery.

We ducked into one of the back streets of London and stumbled into a sandwich shop. Two sisters ran the place and we had a nice chat with them as we ordered. The kids saddled up onto a window

seat for their jacket potatoes and ham and cheese toasties. Mom and Dad had a little lunch date at one of the corner tables. We had noticed pictures of Pete Sampras on the wall (signed and all) and when one of the sisters stopped to chat, we asked her about it. She shared that when Pete was on his stretch of Wimbledon dominance, he stayed at a hotel just down from the shop.

He came in every morning for breakfast and the sister's father made Pete's lunch every day. After a couple of years, others joined the mix and it reached a stage where they were feeding a number of the Wimbledon players. It was really a nice little side treat.

Junior Skelton's get a taste of diving

After church today, we went on a little dive adventure. About 4 villages over, a dive shop in the area was hosting a session to give a

dive experience. A lady in the village hosted the event at the pool and her husband and three children participated. One of her children happened to be in Maggie's class at school. After a quick session on the side of the pool, everyone splashed and after some basic instructions, they were learning some of the basic mechanics. We must have talked about diving enough around the dinner table because MJ and Mags took right to it. We were quite happy that they both were very comfortable and were quickly going through the drills. Dad was deemed the photographer for the day and the dive shop wants the pictures to advertise for the next class. Dad also got to help the poor folks that were struggling with some aspects of diving. Like dumping air so you don't just bounce around on the top of the water. After a bit, the dive master realized that Dad really wanted to get wet so he gave me a tank and I got to jump right in with the crew. Now all they talk about is getting certified and going on a real dive trip to Egypt. We'll see how that goes.

The other news of the week is that John was named player of the week for his basketball league. He came home with a trophy and medal. He returns the trophy but gets to keep the medal. He was telling me about it on the phone and I asked him how many points he scored. The answer was none. I asked him if he tried real hard. He said he tried the hardest on the court. He said he kept trying to get the other kids to throw him the ball because he's the youngest out there. That is when I asked the question of the week, "did you touch the ball". The answer to that is no but since he was excited to play, that is what counts (I keep telling myself that is OK). It's all about having fun.

High Lodge

There is no better way to preserve a mother's sanity than to escape from the house when the natives are restless. The Downing Gang and the Skelton gaggle decided that a trip to High Lodge would present a better alternative than locking the kids in the woodshed. High Lodge is about 45 minutes from our village and is in the middle of Thetford Forrest. It is one of the coolest walking trails/play grounds you have ever seen. You hike for a bit and you then stumble upon a play area. You can climb a huge rabbit, spider, squirrel, bird or can slide down one of the tallest slides you have seen. They have swings and jungle gym looking things. We enjoyed a picnic lunch and later in the afternoon had an ice cream break. The ice cream of choice was the Magnum, a first for Mom. It's basically like an Eskimo Pie on a stick. High Lodge is also home to a huge ropes course called Go Ape. Marshall & Maggie are ready for the adventure and just waiting for Dad to be available to take them. John is not quite old enough and Mom thinks she should stay down on the ground with John. We hope to post pictures of that adventure one day soon! All were quiet on the drive home and everyone slept well that night!

Icknield Way and Mrs Bette

Saturday was a wonderfully sunny day. Dad just got back from the US and we all needed some sunshine. We took a nice leisurely stroll to the next village over, Ashley, and then took a nice cross country walk on the foot path between the villages. The entire country is covered with footpaths with many having interesting history. As we emerged on the Cheveley side of our path, two dogs came to greet us. The owner, an elderly gentleman emerged and asked us if we had hiked the entire distance of the Icknield Way. He shared that it was 106 miles (references indicate 105 miles but we'll stick with the wise man of Cheveley's measure). Parts of this trail follows old Roman Roads from times past.

The path cuts between houses and we are then out in the middle of horse country. The horses will come right up to visit with you. The

clump of trees between the horse and John is the church in

Cheveley. If you have superman eyes, you can see the church tower sticking up.

No walk is complete without a stop in

to visit Mrs Bette. She is probably one of the longest term residents in the village. She has a great goldfish pond and she will always invite us in to pick an apple off her tree. John always likes to remind that he is

almost as tall as Ms

Bette because she is hunched over.

Home - Wrightsville Beach

Family took home leave in August. It was the first trip back in a year for the family and all were excited. We realized we were pretty slack with the camera but we'll remember the details.

Papa and E-Mommy came for the weekend and Laurie and the Shirazis all came as well. The kids were very excited to see the family and had a blast with the cousins. Tom and Darla were

gracious enough to host us all for a Skelton reunion on Saturday out at Figure 8. Excellent time. Lee Ellen, Myles, Jana and Jason were there. Elise was exceptionally cute and JB failed to show but that was OK because I am not sure we could have pulled off the delivery with all the chaos. We are especially bummed because the sunset shot of the pier is our only shot of the whole day.

On the left are the Skelton/Shirazi cousins.

As the Skeltons vacated, Gigi and Granddaddy Doc arrived. We failed to get a single picture of them but we enjoyed sunset on the beach, shopping and a trip to Two Guys Grille with them. We loved sneaking in two services at PC3 and the kids loved jumping back into the youth groups. We even got to go to a wedding with our small group. Don and Unwha

married off Christine to a dashing groom, Andrew. This was a beautiful wedding and we were excited to connect with our friends.

Don't the girls clean up nicely and isn't the mother of the bride just

lovely. Of course, the weekend is not complete without a Friday night on the beach. Our Euchre gang with kids in tow joined us at the beach to watch the

sunset.

This was just like the old days.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh was one of the highlights of our visit with Lawton and Debbie. We were lamenting the fact that we were missing our annual dive trip but I think we all agreed, Edinburgh is in the top 5 list of cities to visit. The trip started out like an MTV reality series. 4 adults and 5 kids in a foreign country. A 4.5 hour train ride to a medieval city where Scotch is the drink of choice. Let's see how they get along after 4 days. You get the picture.

The castle is one of the coolest we have visited and we have

punched the clock at a number of castles. The 1.5 hour wait to enter was lower on the highlight list but once inside, it rocked (no pun intended). This shot is from the bottom of the hill, just down from the Grassmarket. Here we are at Maggie Dickson's pub in the Grassmarket. This was our favorite stop. The Grassmarket was where all the hangings took place and it was a nice threat when the kids didn't behave.

Maggie Dickson was hung but when they put her body on a cart to take her for burial, the cobblestone streets caused a CPR effect and she was resuscitated.

Since she had already been punished by hanging to the death, she was free to go. Our Maggie liked this most of all.

We spent an afternoon on the Britannia, the royal yacht of Queen Elizabeth. Very cool tour. We also dove into the Scotch Whiskey experience in hopes of learning about how it is made and perhaps finding something we liked.

Despite all that we learned and tried, we came to the conclusion we are not

Scotch people. Cool picture with the collection though. Our best spots were dining outside on the High Street. Once the kids chowed down their food, they were off to watch the street performers. That let the grown-ups almost have some quality time. The Scottish Clans were in town so we got to watch the clans parade with more tartan and bagpipes than you have ever seen. Holyrood House was closed as Prince Charles was in town and there

were games going on. The queue was quite long and we skipped this one but you can see the house behind the kids.

We had other random adventures like a creepy tour of the old underground city on a street known as Mary King's Close. We nipped into the National Museum and spent a good bit of time on the Royal Mile.

SC Invasion

July saw an invasion from South Carolina. Lawton, Debbie, Hannah and Harris came for a couple of weeks and we got into all kinds of interesting adventures. Since they needed to reset their time clock, we took them to family day at the July Course in Newmarket. If you just read Vivian's blog on ladies' day, this was a different experience. She figured she knew how to bet and by the end of the day, MJ's college savings is all but gone.

Emmanuel College is part of Cambridge University and Debbie's uncle taught there during the summers for over 20 years. Here is a picture from the courtyard. We also enjoyed Punting on the Cam during our day in Cambridge. We took them to Wimpole Hall which

is a working farm with a great manor house. The best part of that is the hay bale maze. We hopped over to

Framlingham Castle for an adventure. Here are all the kids perched on the wall. I think they got in trouble for this one. Speaking of trouble, the real trouble came when MJ unwrapped the drum kit he got for his 14th birthday. Lucky for us, we had

Uncle Lawton

over to help put the whole thing together. He also gave MJ the quick lesson on how to play. While he was at it, he also proceeded to make our back door neighbor hate us by doing his best Tommy Lee impression for an entire day.

Our neighbors, the Downings, hosted us for a cookout one night and we got to engage in a girls versus boys Kubb battle. Kubb is a game that

originates from Sweden and is supposedly a Viking game. If you dig into the history though, you can't verify that. Regardless, it was an a very nice evening and as you might expect, the men won. Remember, boys rule and girls drool.

The find of the week came from Millets, our favorite outdoor store. They are the Team Crabby

t-shirts for Hannah and Harris. Uncle Lawton always takes us to the secret crabbing spot when we are at Edisto. We load up the crab pots and head home for a crab boil. He has been deemed Captain Crabby for his knack for finding the perfect spot and now his kids officially sport the team shirts.....

Newmarket Ladies Day

I attended Ladies Day at the Races with 15 other women. We were dressed for the occasion with hats and fascinators on top of our heads. Alison had to help me because I didn't know how to fasten my fascinator! We gathered at 11:00 am and then carpooled to the racecourse. It made our drive quite interesting. I couldn't turn my head without pulling the feathers that had attached to the roof and it was very difficult to see past Alison in the front seat with her wide, pink hat! We set up a tent and then set our table, complete with tablecloth and a vase of flowers, thanks to Jayne. They pulled out champagne glasses, as I was expecting Solo cups....We visited in the tent and admired everyone's outfit before heading into the race course gates.

Karen's husband recommended one of his horses for the first race so I bet 5 GBP each way (meaning that he would get 1st, 2nd or 3rd place) and I got a 22 GBP payout. I was off to a good start. We watched the horses parade, then

placed our bet and then went to the grandstand to watch the race. We decided to place bets on the 2nd & 3rd races and go back to our tent for lunch. We enjoyed eating so much that we missed 3 races but got back in time to bet on the 5th race, where once again I had a winner: 16.60 GBP I bet on a few USA horses too....got to be loyal to my homeland! I had a few losers but overall it was a great day!

We stayed in the parking lot until 5:30 and then went to Alix's home for a Bar-B-Q. Here is a picture of a group of the ladies but some of them have changed clothes and I am not in the picture. We had plenty of food supplied by all of us and the party lasted until 11:30 p.m. when I announced that the Skelton mobile was leaving. Many did not

want to walk home so they climbed in my car and I made the rounds through the villages dropping everyone off.

This is an annual event for these ladies and they make a full day of it! I am thankful to have been included and certainly enjoyed my first UK horse race, where I actually saw the horses unlike the Carolina Cup....

Southwold

We headed directly east to the coast of England....Southwold. It is well-known for its beach and its pier. The pier is loaded with an

entertainment center with all types of quirky games that one can

play. Maggie is walking a dog with John chasing behind and John is getting his brain washed.

This is a classic beach town and has the little beach huts that are common along the coastal area. Proportionally, they are every

bit as expensive as beachfront property in the States. Imagine paying $200,000 for what is basically a

garden shed. It was a beautiful day and there is nothing like eating fish and chips on the pier.

The big purchase for the weekend was a new car for Uncle Lawton. We had a family vote and decided that he was such a fishing nerd

(I have copyrighted this term) that he would actually be excited about his new wheels. So Captain Crabby, look for the UPS truck to drop this off soon.

Our first Cricket Match

We attended our first cricket match this summer. It is a celebrity match where a local squad plays against a celebrity team known as the Lashings. The match was held at the Culford school, which is a private school that our neighbors, the Downings, attend. We got a first class education about Cricket and had an excellent afternoon in the sun. The little thatched roof building on the left is the locker room. Not quite the locker rooms that we had at my schools. They also had a refreshment stand. It was a lot like the stand at Winter Park in Wilmington except they served scones and you could get a proper tea in a china cup. The food was served on China.

The school campus was beautiful and it's known for having the oldest iron bridge in England. Here is a shot of the bridge.

To top it all off, our neighbors brought over the school newsletter and there is an article highlighting the events of the day and there in the middle of the cricket picture is a very snazzy looking Vivian and Marshall. Vivian is now known as Posh Spice over here and you can just call me David Beckham. We're celebs and will soon have our own reality show.