Parks Arrival and a Week in Scotland

Hello lovely people :)

We are nearing the end of our week break and our return to teaching.

Quick update on the week before half-term break…

Sam worked at the all-boys high school on Monday and Tuesday teaching science (which isn’t her favourite) and Thursday teaching art.  Wednesday she turned down work at a different high school and ended up getting a day in primary (reception and year 1) but all the way up in North-East, so a bit of a trek.  Friday she decided she didn’t want to work (after getting up and ready and to the train station) so she came home and got the house all ready for her family’s arrival. So she basically worked full-time at the all-boys school for the first half of summer term, and ended up enjoying it when she was in the math classes that she had quite often.

I worked all 5 days. I taught year 6 at a really nice school on Monday (I’ve been there before), and an easy day.  The class was split in half, so only had 13 students in the class at a time (they were doing a bike riding thing).  In the morning the student teacher did an activity about making their own spy gear, and I just had to repeat the same activity with the afternoon group. Also had an assembly where the head teacher re-enacted him and his family watching some big soccer game.  It was hilarious. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday I taught year 6 at another nice school.  This class was really funny.  I had a great time with them. Friday, I thought was going to be great…year 5/6 PE at a new school.  It was not so good.  The kids were mental. Didn’t want to do what we were supposed to do, wouldn’t listen, were just major pains in the butt. So didn’t end the first half of summer term with a good day, but the rest of the week was great.

All 3 schools I went to that week called the teachers by their first name, so I got to be Lisa all week.  I kind of like it in primary school.  Also, the year 6s had just finished their big tests (SATs) the Friday before, and with only 1 week until half-term break they were all a little wired.

During the week we went to the gym, talked with Ms. Plesha and my class on skype, I met up with Andrea for dinner and a catch-up, and I got my third tattoo.

We ended our week with our traditional Girls’ Night In. Mary, Brianne, Meghan, Jess, Sam and I had pizza and ate junk food and just had a great night chatting and hanging out. 

Can’t believe it’ll be the last one before Mary and Brianne leave us :(

Saturday morning we got up and headed out to Heathrow Airport to pick up the Park family (Sharon, Tom, and Krista).  We left around 10, Meghan (who had crashed at our place), went up to Green Park with us before splitting off for home. We made a wonderful sign and got a good spot by the doors to wait for their arrival. 

When they got there they jumped, hugged, “EEEEE”d and the rest, then we headed for the car rental place.  They had decided to rent a car for the first week they were here so we could drive up to Scotland.  So we got there and the place was PACKED.  They were on number 272 and we were 338.  It took us probably about 2-2.5 hours to get a car.  Finally we get one, pick the only SUV that was not a Fiat, piled in and headed out.  Sam was on navigation and Sharon was driving.  We didn’t get too far and made a wrong turn, and then we started smelling what smelt like the clutch burning. So we detoured through the airport to turn around onto the correct route again and then saw a code 89 on the dash and decided to take the car back and get a new one (there was no manual in the car and we couldn’t get a hold of the rental place).  So tried to get back, made the same wrong turn and went back through the airport, then finally made it back.  We switched to a Fiat, and hit the road again.  With the traffic we didn’t end up getting home until about 6.  We unloaded the car then walked up to the grocery store and back. We made a quick meal, then started a movie but the Parks crashed fast. 

Sunday the Park family went to Warwick Castle for the day. They had a bunch of events going because of half-term, so they did a bunch of them.  They went to the bird of prey show, saw the trebuchet fired, a show about King Arthur and the sword in the stone, did activities related to Horrible Histories (a cool thing here), then they explored the castle. It was very geared towards younger kids, but they had a good family day.

I spent the day with Mary.  We walked from Victoria station up past Buckingham Palace (there was a running event up there called the London 10000), towards Westminster and Big Ben.  We ended up walking along the Thames towards London Bridge.  We stopped for lunch in a really cute area called Gabriel’s Wharf, then for a drink out in the sun further down (where we had gone with Brianne and Sam the week before).  We had a great day.

 Then began our week in Scotland.

Monday we left bright and early and headed North.  We stopped every little bit for a break, a longer one just across the Scottish “border” at an outlet mall, then finally a long stop in Glasgow.  We did a 2 hour bus tour of Glasgow.  It’s a really cool looking place; big mix of old and new.  The bus tour itself was very informative, but the weather wasn’t really conducive for an open-air tour as it rained on and off most of the time and it was rather windy, but we toughed it out in our rain jackets.  Krista and I stayed out in the rain the whole time, Sam, Sharon, and Tom moved undercover after a while when space opened up.  After it was over we made the final leg of our journey to Linlithgow, a small town just outside of Edinburgh, where the cottage we were staying in was located.  It was such a cute little place with a pretty view of the hills around, and a gorgeous golf course just a short walk up the road (West Lothian Golf Club).  We did a quick grocery run, made dinner, planned our next day, and then headed for bed. 

Tuesday we drove into Edinburgh in the morning.  The weather decided to cooperate with us most of our trip, luckily, so it was a bit cloudy on and off through the morning but cleared up in the afternoon. We did a 2.5 hour walking tour of Old Town Edinburgh.  We saw little closes (alleys) that led into really neat little courtyards off the main streets, usually with little shops, museums, or living quarters, we saw Edinburgh Castle, Blackfriars Graveyard, the Grassmarket, a cathedral, lots of old buildings and got some history about Edinburgh, the crown in Scotland, the stone of destiny, and how Scotland and England became the UK.  We also got to see the pub that JK Rowling started writing Harry Potter (wrote the first 2 books there mainly), the school that she combined with Edinburgh Castle to create her image of Hogwarts, and in the graveyard we went to there are apparently names of some of the characters on headstones in there (Tom Riddle Sr and Jr, McGonagall, and Moody). In the 2.5 hours we didn’t even see half of Old Town, and there’s a New Town that we didn’t get to at all except to drive through. After the tour we had lunch in a pub we had seen earlier. We took that time for a bit of a rest then headed down the Royal Mile (the main street in Old Town) to the other end of town.  There are 2 old volcanic rocks that have been inactive for a really long time…Edinburgh Castle is built on the top of one and the other is called Arthur’s Seat and there are a bunch of paths to hike up it. We did the hike and ended up at the highest point, took a bunch of pictures and admired the view.  You could see all of Edinburgh, the Castle, and the coast.  It was gorgeous!  And the sun had come out so it was warm and sunny, although there was a cool breeze at the top.  We made our way back down, then headed back to our cottage to make dinner.

Wednesday we decided to drive north up the coast towards St. Andrews. We stopped at the Palace in Linlithgow to see it before we left.  It’s a cool looking building right on an old loch. It’s just the shell now, but really well maintained.  We didn’t want to wait for it to open and didn’t really want to pay, so we didn’t go in, just walked around it.  Once we got going, it was a wonderful drive.  We made a few stops in some little towns then at a market/store thing, and then made the drive the rest of the way to St. Andrews where we got some snacks from the grocery store before driving out to the golf course and coast.  The beach there was the perfect stormy beach scene.  Windy, big crashing waves, nice sand, big rocks, grey skies.  We took some pictures then went up to look at the golf course.  We ended up playing an 18-hole putting course on the beach side of the old course. It was a lot of fun.  I got a hole-in-one on the first hole and came really close a few other times.  After some pictures there we went back down to the beach and went out onto the rocks for some pictures…we may have got a bit stuck as the tide was coming in, but we eventually made it back in with a shoe each only a bit wet. When we left St. Andrews we were heading to Stirling to see the castle there.  It took us a while but we got there.  It stands on the edge of a cliff and the town around it is really cute.  We got up to the castle and took some pictures in the main gates and up on the outer wall then decided we didn’t want to pay the money to go in so we had a fun photo shoot out on the grass in front.

Thursday Tom decided to go golfing at the course by the cottage and the 4 girls headed into Edinburgh again.  We started the day going to Edinburgh castle.  We wandered around in there for a few hours listening to the history on the audio tour devices. Once we had finished in the castle we got lunch down in the Grassmarket then went to the National Museum.  There are some great hands on sections in there but unfortunately there was a school group in there so we didn’t get to do many of the activities.  We spent a couple hours in there, then went to our final stop of the day, the Camera Obscura and Optical Illusions Museum.  This was a great way to finish off the day.  We tried everything in the 6 floor building.  We had a lot of fun in here. Then we headed back to the cottage for dinner with Tom.

Mix of Sam and my faces

Mix of Sam and Krista's faces

 Friday we got a bit later start than we did on Monday.  The plan was to drive down the East coast and stop in Leeds at a market then to stop in Cambridge before returning home.  We started the drive and it was really pretty, but took a lot longer to get to Leeds than we planned for.  The market there wasn’t as exciting as we thought it was going to be but we had paid for 2 hours of parking so stayed most of that time. When we headed out we started looking at time…it was already after 4 and would take over 2 hours to get to Cambridge and then another 2ish hours to get home after, or from where we were it would take 3 hours to get home. We decided that we would have to skip Cambridge this time and just headed straight home.  It ended up taking longer than expected and we didn’t get home until after 8.  Sharon, Sam, and Krista dropped Tom and I off at home to unpack and start dinner while they went grocery shopping.  We thought they may have died (they didn’t have their phones) because they didn’t get home until 10, but they made it back ok.  Our fridge and cupboards are now more full than they’ve ever been and we all passed out pretty quick. 

Saturday we had to return the car to the rental place near the airport then we took the tube up into Camden Town to show them the market.  We spent a couple hours up there, Sharon loaded up on souvenirs and we got lunch and ice cream.  Then we headed down into Piccadilly to pick up their London Pass and check out prices for Billy Elliot. On our way home we stopped in Victoria to show them where the bus depot is (they’re going to Stonehenge and Bath Monday) then how to find the train to our place.  We made a nice big stirfry for dinner and had a relaxing night, finishing with Sam, Krista and I watching Frozen (finally! Been wanting to forever).  Today everybody went off in their own directions…Sam and Sharon to Portobello Market in Notting Hill, Krista back up to the Camden area to find a couple vegan shops and explore, and Tom made his way into West Croydon to find a couple souvenirs and explore.  I had a nice lazy day…went for a short run, read my book, then ended up meeting Sam and Sharon on the bus to West Croydon for a Primark visit.  It was a good day.

Sam and I are back to work this week…not sure how much there will be.  Sharon, Krista and Tom are going to Stonehenge and Bath tomorrow and have a 3 day London Pass for Tuesday-Thursday.  They head for home next Saturday morning. We had a wonderful time with them in Scotland and I’m grateful I got to tag along. 

 Can't believe how fast time is going.  Keep you posted...we've got a busy couple of months coming up.

Thanks for reading.

We out.

Sam and Lisa