What a day we had on Saturday! We parked alongside Longsands Beach in Tynemouth, ate our picnic lunch on a bench at the top of a cliff, and walked along the beach to Tynemouth proper, where the village was decked out with banners and flags and had more foot traffic than we've ever seen. (Tynemouth is only about six miles down the coast from where we live so we go there often.)
On our beach walk, we took pictures of what looked interesting along the way...
Chilly enough to still be light-jacket weather. The water is COLD.
Algae-covered rocks at low tide.
Ollie's shoes look small in Mike's hand.
The beaches here are dog-friendly. Seems like dogs don't mind the cold water.
Well, dogs...and surfers in wet suits.
There have been two rescues in two weeks at the beach
because of strong rip currents. Swimmers are supposed to
stay between two flags posted on the beach; that area
is patrolled by RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution).
A classic VW auto show was on for the day. We saw so many bugs and vans. All--well most of them--were restored and shiny-as-new. The show was on from 10am to 4pm, with a parade of all the cars at 4pm.
Named the "Doodle Bug," passersby were invited to draw in chalk all over
this bug painted with chalkboard-paint.
One of many VW vans on the road.
Super cute. (Priory in the background, upper right).
All the colors were great!
Multiply this by 10 and that's about how many vans and bugs
we saw at the festival. There were people in costumes of the
era, and booths with food, and raffles and face painting.
It was a proper street fair.
While we waited for the parade to start, we sat on the grass with a bunch of other people just outside the Tynemouth Priory and bought some treats to pass the time:
Ice cream with flake, as it's called...the chocolate cookie stick that is stuck
down into your cone. We thought "flake" was like "sprinkles." Shouldn't they
call it ice cream with chocolate stick? Or ice cream with chocolate cookie?
Getting my vitamin D. And my beer.
Oh goodie! Time for the parade to start! This video is a bit long, but if you're a VW fan, you won't want to miss it.
We also walked out to the end of the north pier and lighthouse at the mouth of the Tyne River. It was a loooong way out there but what a great walk. The lighthouse was adorable. On the way out and back, some of the waves were crashing over the walls of the pier. Merrit really wanted to get wet, so we stood around for a while trying to predict the right place to stand. It was a bit like standing at the foot of Splash Mountain at Carowinds, but getting wet there is more of a sure bet.
Merrit finally got his wish!
Not soaked, but exciting all the same!
We made it to the end of the pier. This lighthouse is really
petite and cute. Not that old either. About 100 years.
There are stories of mermaid sightings all around these parts. I just read in the
local paper the other day that a resident artist is trying to raise money to
create and place a mermaid statue somewhere on the rocks near the mouth of
the Tyne. Wouldn't that be cool?
We walked all this way! To the right: North Sea and King Edward's Bay. To the
left: The Tyne River, which flows from Newcastle, about eight miles inland.
We walked back and realized we'd worked up an appetite. We ate dinner at an outdoor cafe in Tynemouth.
Look at those front teeth coming in!
Mike and Ollie take a little walk while we wait for our food to
come. Ollie, he's on the move. Always.
The sun started to go down at about 8:30pm. It's crazy how
long the days are here. Kids had a late night, but they slept great
after such a full day. We all did!
For his eight birthday, Aunt Rita and Uncle Tom took Merrit shopping in downtown Black Mountain. What Merrit chose was a book called The Klutz Book of Animation. For all our homeschooling friends and/or bored summer-vacationers, there are tons of fun projects in the book to engage a young, aspiring animator.
Check out Merrit's first animation. We did this together in about an hour (my role was simply installing and opening software programs and cueing up the music...he did everything else).
If you have a webcam, a computer with an Internet connection that you are willing to let your kid use, and can download a free software application called SAM, you have everything you need to let your kid create his or her own short animations. Hope you have as much fun with this as we had--and will continue to have!
Thanks Durenda and Tom for such a great birthday gift! Here's that book again. Not that you need the book, but it does have lots of good ideas and some background information on animations in general; you can get it at Amazon.com.
I tagged this post "history" and "homeschool" because our trip to the Roman fort at Segedunum yesterday was on the first day of what I'm calling our Summer School Program (more about that in another post).
Just outside of Newcastle upon Tyne, the fort is right alongside the River Tyne. Some parts of the ruins are actually underneath a busy highway and a nearby apartment complex. The name of the district/village where the ruins are located is called Wallsend. Why? Because that's where Hadrian's Wall (which we saw a few weeks ago) joins up with the walls of the fort. The wall's end.
All that's left of the buildings now. Just outlines on the ground, really.
Merrit, Ollie, and a friend inside the ruins of the building that used to
be the fort's armory.
From the top of the nine-story observation tower, you can see the outlines
of where the fort's various buildings used to stand. On the TV screen, an
animation shows a time-lapse representation of the land stretching out
below...grasslands to Roman fort to fort in ruins to farmland to coal colliery
to shipyard to present-day archaeological site and museum. Very cool.
The boys duel like gladiators in the gift shop.
Merrit works at building an arch with oversized foam bricks.
What the latrine in the barracks' bath house would have looked like.
Inside the bath house, which has been reconstructed based on the ruins and
what archaeologists know about how the Romans lived and used bath houses.
This was the "warm bath room" in the barrack's bath house, where a fountain like
this one would have spouted warm water for washing the face and body.
After Mike got home from work on Monday, the four of us had dinner with another family and drove down to nearby Cullercoats beach. We didn't know that there were caverns at the beach but our friends, who are local to this area, showed us where they were and we all went exploring. You can tell from the lines on the rock and where the seaweed grows that these caves are partly filled with water at high tide.
We had brought fish nets and some line/hooks to go rockpooling. At low tide, little sea critters get trapped in the rocky pools and watery crevices. Using a cracked-open snail in its shell for bait, we caught one little crab.
We have a six-week break, starting today. The schools here are sort-of on what we'd call in the U.S. a "year round schedule." A controversial schedule..some parents love it, some parents hate it...but it's how it's done here, so, everyone takes it in stride.
When we walked up to the school yard yesterday, there was actually an inflatable slides and two bouncy houses for the kids! And of course they played games and cleaned out their desks and watched movies all day. I remember it being like that when I was in school. The last day of school was always just one big party, wasn't it?
On the last day of school, we had a special breakfast
for the little student!
Merrit gets goodbye hug from his Year Three (what we'd
call 2nd Grade, because kindergarten is Year One over here)
teacher, Miss Inglis. She loves kids, and has been a great
teacher this year. She's actually moving up to teach Year
Four next year, so we'll be seeing her again, even though
Merrit's class will have a different teacher (don't know
who yet).
Merrit says, "Miss Inglis is a very nice teacher. I
like her projects, like the diagram project where we had to
draw a grid and color in squares."
Merrit with his class's teaching assistant, Mrs. Barnes.
Merrit says, "Mrs. Barnes is funny and she also helps
us out a lot when we are doing difficult projects. She
gives us good instructions."
Here's to a great summer. Six weeks of completely free days! Now...what am I going to do to keep these guys busy?!
Leaver. That's what they call students who are graduating and moving on to another school. These last few months, Ollie has been attending a private nursery school two blocks from our house as a benefit that the government makes available to all children ages three and four:
All three and four year olds are entitled to 15 hours of free nursery education for 38 weeks of the year. This applies until they reach compulsory school age (the term following their fifth birthday). Free nursery education can take place in nurseries, playgroups, preschools or at their childminders. (source)
So, Ollie's a leaver. He is moving up to five-afternoons-a-week nursery school in September. He'll be at the same school that Merrit attends! Here he is, in his construction-paper cap and button-on black gown, which looked more like a magician's cape.
The group on stage before the ceremony. How did the teachers
get them to all sit so still??
Ollie gets his laminated certificate from his teacher, Miss Emma.
Waving to the crowd. He's a natural.
Ollie was feeling this hat.
The leavers leaving the stage, walking under the teachers' arch.
Photo Op!!
Two of Ollie's nursery school teachers, Miss Emma and Miss Michelle.
