England vs France at Wembley

17th November George, Ollie and I went to Wembley to see England vs France in a football friendly. I had just flown in from Germany, and met them in West Hampstead early evening. We set off to Wembley. All the pictures are taken with my (new) trusty blackberry.

We arrived very early and found our seats. The stadium is huge - really impressive. We were sitting up high. I had a brief bout of vertigo we were perched so high up!

Here is the stadium, and the lit arch from outside.

And here is the view from our seats, about 40 minutes before kick off.

The flags of the two nations were paraded around the pitch.

And the crowd at one end of the ground made the George Cross.

George and Ollie were having a great time.

Then the football started. What a let down. England lost 2-0 and it was very boring. Almost as boring as the hour (at least) wait to get on a tube to begin the journey home. 

In short, amazing stadium, terrible team. 

Ollie's goes to Felixstowe

Ollie did his post from his trip to Alick in Felixstowe. Here it is:

"I visited my great uncle (Alick) and aunt (Gillian) in Felixstowe in the October half term for two nights. The whole family came to have a cup of tea, and then abandoned me for three days to have fun and research for a presentation about transport for school. The first thing I did was had hot dogs for lunch. Then I and Alick went to the Ipswich Transport Museum to give me a thorough brief of old vehicles, which were mostly buses but there were a few fire trucks and one electric car. Alick gave a brilliant brief and facts for my presentation as a he is a volunteered tour guide for the museum. My first night was a well deserved rest and had I a fine night.

In the morning I woke up I had a gulfed down piece of toast. I worked on my presentation for a bit on Alick’s computer but soon after he told me that I had a choice to make. I can’t exactly remember what name the other attraction was but Alick told me that we could either go to Framlingham Castle or the other attraction I didn’t know the name of. I chose Framlingham Castle. The castle was excellent because of the beautiful surroundings and strange towers. I loved it.

The next day I sadly had to leave. But there was still one more museum to see, The Power Museum. The pipes there were massive! It was all about electricity and pumping water.

It was sad to leave but a fun trip altogether."

Thaxted and Audley End

After a short but super stop with the Whites, we drove back to St. Albans, then set off to Felixstowe to drop Ollie off with Uncle Alick for a couple of days. George did the same thing last year. I hope Ollie does a post on his couple of days. He tells me he will. Let's see if he does.

After we dropped Ollie off, we meandered back to St. Albans, stopping to say hello in Ipswich to Andy and Angela and then heading off into the Suffolk and Essex villages: places like Cavendish, Clare and Finchingfield. Lovely, pretty, archetypal English villages.

We stopped for the night in Thaxted in the excellent Swan Inn. Here are a few pictures of Thaxted: 

The following day we headed off to Audley End, one of Britain's finest historic stately homes. The official website is here, and here is the Wikipedia entry. And here are some pix:

With the Whites in Bath

 A great Sunday/Monday with the Whites in Bath over the start of the half-term; 24/25th October.