Mick, Anna and Christian

Dad

Michael Christopher Barnett 18 May 1932 - 27 September 2008 R.I.P

Frogs

"It's froggy today" said Charlie, looking at a heavy mist outside.

Five Years Isn't Such a Long Time

But there again, 20 years isn't either. It was a delight to see Giles and Sarah, Mark and Vicky, Mike and Clare, and Paddy and Jane and visit some old haunts. Here are a few pics:

Jill's Birthday

Ollie's First Soccer Match

We managed to get Ollie into a soccer, sorry, football team. It is the start of the season so there is a little wiggle room to get the kids into teams before everything shakes down and all the places are filled up. The system in St. Albans is at a club level, unlike Chappaqua, which is run centrally. Club soccer is the life blood of English soccer; which in part explains why English clubs are so strong yet nationally England is so weak.

The club that Ollie has joined is St. Albans Youth Soccer and he is playing for one of the U9 teams. He was lucky. They had too many players for two teams and are creating a third. Charlie is going to practice with the U6 age group with the same club.

Ollie's first game was against a village side a few miles outside of St. Albans. The drive there was beautiful, winding through country lanes and tiny villages amongst the rolling farmland. The game itself was played in the grounds of a huge old country estate which has now been turned into a management college.

Ollie's team got soundly beating. They were disorganised. It is a function of not having played together before. They will get better. The game was sufficiently bad for me to turn down the chance for an Ollie action shot and take a couple of snaps of the environs instead! They are on my cell phone, so excuse the quality.

The next thing is to get Georgie sorted out with a team and actually take a picture or two of Ollie in action.

Everything at Once

This week was the BIG arrival week. Hot on the heels of the car (last Friday), the container's worth of belongings arrived (it had been six weeks) and British Telecom (BT) send us 'The Hub' that enables us to get online. It feels like we have been starved since we arrived, and now been given a massive meal we can't possibly eat in one sitting. This is going to take a while to get up and runnning.

We Have a Car

A nice green Peugot 307 Estate (station wagon). It is one of the few estate cars into which a third line of seats can go, which is just the ticket for us as we will need to move the occasional 6th and even 7th person around. Our boys are still pretty small, so they can get in. In a few years time it may be a different story, but then again they may not be interested in traveling with us anyway.

Alick and Gillian's 40th Anniversary

Last weekend was Alick and Gillian's 40th anniversary. That is 14600 days, not including leap years! The family party was lovely. The bad weather turned good as the party started and turned bad just as it ended. It was particularly opportune timing for us as we could prove to the Barnett side of the family that we have actually returned.

Time for School

No more iconic yellow buses that pick the boys up from the end of the street, and a big shame that wooz didn't get to go on them :(

In its place is the jolly old English school uniform! And what a fashion moment we have in the photo above. George is modelling a Verulam blazer (Verulam being the name of his school) which is mandatory for him as he starts secondary school. In the UK most counties have children go to secondary school from 11-16 mandatory which the option of staying on at school or leaving to a college to study for 'A' levels. That means George is in with 18 year old boys. It is a tall order for an 11 year old, as I remember.

Ollie and Charlie don't have to wear a blazer, but they are still are modelling very stylish Fleetville school uniforms. They are both at Fleetville School, though there is an infants building for Charlie and a junior building for Ollie. The two buildings are on different sites about 1/4 mile away from each other.

I will try to persuade them all to write an entry about their school in the coming weeks.