Cappadocia, Turkey

I have just about recovered from my trip to Turkey, having returned on Sunday night, and now feel able to post some photos. It was very tiring. I went on a Comenius Contact Seminar and the British Council only told me I was going two weeks before, so it was all a bit of a mad rush to get ready. I'd originally applied to go on one in Bruges, Belgium, in November, so to find out I had to travel all the way to Turkey on my own was a bit of a shock! But I made it, and the photo above is the view from my hotel window.

The purpose of the Seminar was to meet people from other countries who you would like to partner up with for a Comenius Project, like the one we've just finished where I visited Turkey, Norway and Germany. There were lots of meeting and presentations but in between we were taken on sight-seeing tours. The Cappadocia region of Turkey has been known to double up as the Grand Canyon for Western movies.

This is me in the Goreme Open Air Museum. It's a place where early Christians lived, carving homes and churches into the sides of the cliffs.

And these are called Fairy Chimneys (or Fairy Chimeneys as our guide kept telling us). He did explain how they formed but I didn't really follow it. I remember he said the tops occassionally fall off and then new ones form. Strange.

This is my group, and a photo just to prove I actually did some work. From left to right they are from the following countries: Turkey, England (me), Spain, Latvia, Italy and Czech Republic. I haven't been back to work yet, but my boss informs me the women at work are disappointed that there are no men in our group! Oh Well!

Ellie's Birthday Party

Ellie had her birthday party yesterday. She went bowling with her friends, then into Burger King and after that they went upstairs at Lets Go to do some ice skating as well. Its a good job this is her second to last birthday party! (I stop once they get to secondary school.)

It was a fun evening though. After the first ten minutes on the ice we were the only ones there. The guy said we were supposed to get 40 minutes but we were on for an hour and they only got off then cos I said it was time to go home. There were a few minor incidents - a bruised bottom and a cut finger (Ellie ran over Jessica's hand) - but other than that they had a great time.

We had to do birthday cake back at our house cos Carl forgot to pack a knife in the bag (he only had the one job - what can I say?), but it was OK cos that meant I got to sit down with a cup of tea and eat my bit of cake in piece.

It was gone 8.00 by the time Carl took them all home.

Spain - again!

Yes, we did a holiday in Spain for the second year in a row - that's because its so cheap to book! So here are a few piccies of our week in the sun:

We had lots of fun in the hotel pool, even though it was cold!

We visited Port Aventura theme park a total of five times. Sunday was the best day, hardly any queues for the rides. The one in the background here was one of their favourites, called Furious, but on somedays there was a 90 minute or more wait for what was only a 30 second ride!

We went into Salou for a meal one evening. We ended up in what to all intents and purposes was a greasy spoon, but it had sky TV, so even though they hate football they stared at it like it was a god, cos they hadn't seen one for all of five days.

We chose Friday 13th to visit the Costa Carribe water park. It was cold and cloudy all day but this mean no queues for any of the rides. Great!

And this is us having ice creams at the beach on our last day. Ignore the look on Adrienne's face. She had a great time really.

Birthdays!

We've had rather a lot of them in the last few weeks.

Adrienne was 17. Look out world - she is about to apply for a driving licence!

Our nephew Noah was 1.

Ashleigh, Noah's sister, was 21.

Carl's mum was a bit more than 21.

And Carl was 43.

There are no more birthdays till October now, good job too, I've eaten too much cake!

Green Man Day

Ellie danced in the Green Man Festival Pagent today. Twice. Again. She did it last year just before we rushed off on holiday. This year I could enjoy the day a bit more. There was a huge downpour first thing that looked like ruining the day, but as you can see, after that it turned out nice and sunny.

The first Pagent was at 12.00, the girls do a little two minute section near the beginning of the 15 minute long performance. They always get a bit round of applause - its the only thing that does apart from the end. Then they do it all over again at 3.00. It's lovely and they look so sweet. Ellie thinks she was a flower fairy, but I'm fairly convinced she is supposed to represent Spring.

Anyway. After that and in between we wandered round the stalls and she managed to spend a fair bit of my money on tombolas and lucky dips. We also found the time to buy larger and J2O from the pub and wander round with that in the sunshine too. Very lovely.

A Sunday Evening Stroll

By tea time today it was difficult to tell who needed exercising more, the dog or the kids. And strangely, after tea when I said we were going out for a walk, none of them moaned! We walked through Braunton Burrows then down onto the beach, found a nice large sand dune and they spent ages running up and down it. Carl and I sat at the bottom and laughed.

Shopping trip

Another quick break in London for the girls earlier this week. These seem to be happening on a regular basis now, I quite like it. The real reason we went was for Adrienne and her friend Brodie to go to a concert at the HMV forum (which used to be the Town and Country Club in my day). An obscure American band called Switchfoot were playing. Adrienne's favourite band, and she insisted on going. I didn't think letting 16 and 17 year old girls travel round London on thier own was a terribly good idea so I went too. Not to the concert of course!

I left them at the venue and me, Caitlin and Ellie went into the West End to see 'Sister Act'. When we got there we found our seats had been upgraded, which was nice. We were in the Royal Circle instead of the Upper Circle, so a much better view. It was a good show, but not as good as 'Wicked'. We arrived back in Kentish Town just as the concert finished so that worked out brillantly. We all walked back to the B&B together. B&B was a bit of a dive but the less said about that the better.

The following day was when we did our shopping. We all went into Oxford Street. Adrienne and Brodie went off and I took the others. We found the big Primark and they bought a few things. Then I bought myself a few dresses in a shop called Uniqlo. I like that shop, reasonable prices and clothes that no one else in Barnstaple will have. Our last stop was Hamleys where I managed to restrict them to only two floors and a price range of £10.

We had a late lunch (Subway) in Trafalgar Square then it was time to come home.