Introducing Mr & Mrs Clark

And so to the second week of our UK visit and as has been the focus for every visit we have made whilst we have been living in China, it was time for a wedding, on this occasion of my little sister, Zoe to John. The build up began with us all heading over to have breakfast with Zoe and Chloe (unfortunately for John he had to work). It was lovely to see them and also meant we were able to handover the 30 pairs of dancing shoes that we had brought over from Shanghai. 

Lucy then set off with Zoe, Chloe, Kaytie, Alice, Jo and Amy on a girly day down in Bognor Regis . They had a great day having manicures, given by 3 Vietnamese men, which I think Lucy found slightly strange and when she started to excitedly chat to them about her recent holiday to Vietnam they then had to admit to never actually having been there themselves.

Whislt Lucy was enjoying the pampering , I headed over to Bucket Nut with the boys. We had a lovely day with my Father, Harry and my Aunt Ilse. The weather was lovely and William and Oliver had great fun playing in the garden with their cousin Charlie and having a ride across the field on the tractor.

       

Jeremy and Natasha then arrived and we all headed up to the Gallipot for lunch. As ever Father played the perfect role as landlord and we enjoyed some lovely food and drink in the beer garden. 

       

After the lunch had been polished off the three boys happily headed off down the garden to play and sometime later came up to announce to their Grandpa that they had come up with a plan to make him lots more money by making his garden furniture look wonderful, which they had achieved by flower arranging, luckily not with Granny's flowers!! 

       

On Friday, we met up with Zoe, John and Chloe, Kaytie ,Richie, Alice and Charlie, Harry and all of my cousins and my aunt Ilse at the Weald & Downland museum. It is an open air museum, with a collection of houses and buildings from a variety of different periods of British history that have all been moved to a single site set in the beautiful Sussex countryside. Both Lucy and I had visited several times as children, so we really enjoyed being able to take Oliver and William there. It was a lovely sunny day and we all enjoyed wandering around the grounds and enjoyed eating lunch by the lake.

      

                                  

It was a great chance to catch up with my family, given that we are all scattered around the globe. I then took the boys back to Guildford whilst Lucy and the others headed to the hotel to get settled in. By the time I arrived everyone had clearly not been missing me as they were enjoying drinks on the terrace, where it was lovely to finally catch up with my aunt Nita. More guests gradually arrived and we got a chance to meet John's family. We enjoyed a lovely meal and then as people gradually made there way to bed us youngsters settled in for the night at the bar, staying for possibly one or two drinks more than we should have! 

We had an early start on the Saturday and made the most of the buffet breakfast with proper British bacon and sausages. Lucy then went to have her hair and make-up done whilst I went to collect the boys from Guildford. 

 Eventually everyone was ready and piled on the coach to go to the venue and I had the honour of driving my little sister on her last journey as a Hawkridge. Richie was taking the Bridesmaids and as we were setting off I thought I should just check that Zoe knew the way. She has never had any semblance of a sense of direction so I should not have been surprised when she said she did not, but fortunately Richie had the trusty sat nav. A quick look through the list of recent destinations saw a post code that Zoe and I both recognised, so we assumed that must be the one. Richie led the way but just as he pulled on to the dual carriageway and I was about to start imparting some pearls of wisdom to help Zoe with married life, Zoe suddenly turned to me and said 'oh hang on, that's my house's postcode' After a few quick phone calls I managed to get hold of Richie and call him back, set the correct destination and we still made it to the venue with plenty of time to spare!! 

It was another sunny day and the wedding venue was a beautiful converted barn complex. The ceremony was lovely; Zoe looked gorgeous, John scrubbed up well, Kaytie's reading was excellent, William, Oliver, Alice, Charlie and Chloe performed their duties and reading brilliantly, Justin sang wonderfully during the signing of the register and Harry just about managed to operate the iPod correctly for the music. 

                                       

       

       

       

       

With the formal part of the day over with, the children made the most of being able to run around and play and also eat lots of sweets, naming the tables after sweets proved very popular.

                                    

                                 

The meal was excellent, as were the speeches and then it was time for the dancing. The whole day and evening ran smoothly and on time thanks to the considerable skills of the mc!  It all got started with a barn dance, which was a lot of fun and then the DJ arrived and the drunken dancing began. 

                                   

                                       

Some of the children even re-appeared to join in the fun!!!

                                    

 As midnight arrived it was time for us to all make our way back to the hotel on the bus and whilst the boys slept we enjoyed a good sing along, not sure who could have started that off!! Finally, with the children tucked up in bed, all of us youngsters found ourselves back at the hotel bar for a few more whiskeys before finally collapsing in bed, proving we had clearly not learnt from the night before. 

All in all it was a fantastic few days, a great chance to catch up with the family and I hope John and Zoe will look back on an amazing start to married life, as we certainly had a good time.

Harry, Hosteling and Holiday fun!

Our journey to the UK did not get off to a great start when our plane, having reached the runway, had to return to the terminal to off load a passenger who wasn't well.  However, we reached London in fairly good time having used some shortcuts according to the pilot! As we were circling over London, William announced that if we kept doing it until the fuel had gone we would drop out of the sky!

The main reason for our return to the UK at this time of year was for Zoe and John's wedding, however it was also perfect timing to meet Oliver and William's newest cousin, Harry.  It was lovely to spend a couple of days with Anna, Antony and Harry who is gorgeous.  All of us enjoyed lots of cuddles and loved spending time with him.  

       

                                  

                                  

                                  

       

On Mother's Day I managed breakfast out with my mother and then we all attended a tea party given by William and Oliver at which Harry was the guest of honor!

                                  

We also spent time with Sue and Suresh during the first week.  They came to Guildford and the boys took them to Costa and the Farmer's market.  They were also keen to take them to explore Guildford castle and it's grounds.  

       

Oliver and William spent a day with them and Alice and Charlie while Sam and I went school hunting and we also spent a day together at Godstone Farm.  

       

        

        

Anna's birthday fell at the end of the week and we had a lovely family brunch which was a proper English fry up, much to Sam's relief.  

        

During our middle weekend we rented a youth hostel in the Devil's Punch Bowl, where we met up with the Rowland's family, the Magee family and the Hughes family.  

                               

There were nine children altogether who had great fun making dens and sharing rooms and even beds!  

      

The adults didn't do any of that but we did share a few bottles of wine!  

                                  

It was great to catch up with our friends and the first time we have seen Lisa and Darren in the UK.  

                                   

The following couple of days were spent relaxing in Guildford and shopping for bits to take back to Shanghai.  The boys even did some gardening with my mother, which yielded results in the short time we were there.

                                  

       

On the Wednesday we took the train up to London and met up with Ellie and Dan at the London Dungeons.  Initially, William and Oliver were a bit scared but they soon got in to it and enjoyed seeing Ellie locked in a cage and Dan being hit on the head with a hammer!

       

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." ― Dr. Seuss

Book week along with UN day is a pretty big event on the school calendar especially as it requires a lot of forward thinking for the dressing up on Book Day.  As soon as we started discussing it with the boys at the start of term they decided that they both wanted to go as Fantastic Mr Fox.  Sam and I got on Taobao where you can order pretty much anything and found some fox masks.  Some girls in the office had dressed as foxy ladies at the Chinese New Year Party and had tails (not too risqué) that they lent the boys.  

                                  

                                  

Through out the week there were lots of book related activities culminating in the book parade on the Friday.  I had told the school that I wasn't available to work as I wanted to watch the boys.  However, I received a phone call to say Oliver's teacher was off and I couldn't refuse the chance to join in the parade with them.  I had to cobble together a costume, luckily I been a witch at Halloween and the year 2 team were going as characters from Hans Christian Anderson.  

                                  

The school also held a bookathon during the week to raise money for Heart to Heart, a charity providing treatment and care for children with heart problems.  Last year the boys had decided to read 101 books and I was very relieved when they told me that they wanted to do less this year, until they told me it was 100!  However, between the four of us we managed to do it.

At the same time as book week M on the Bund, a famous Shanghai restaurant, runs the Shanghai Literary  Festival.  My friend Alex and I managed to get tickets to hear Alexandra Zaprudra talk about her book on the Holocaust.  I have been to a few events at the past two Literary festivals but this year marked the first time for Sam, William and Oliver.  We went to a children's workshop on The Dark Horse by Sarah Brenen.  All of us love her books and it was great to hear how she wrote it and also to hear her read it.  

                                    

Oliver and William throroghly enjoyed it and even asked a question each.  They also enjoyed getting their books signed.  

       

       

Horse Play by Sam

Despite being out of China for Chinese New Year, we still managed to get involved in the celebrations in Shanghai, both before and after our holiday. The lead up to CNY in the office is rather like Christmas in the UK, with various team lunches and after work drinks, which culminates in the office Annual Party. In China all companies set aside budget every year to organise a party and it certainly seems that generally no expense is spared. The evening consists of a formal Chinese banquet, lots of lucky draw prizes (this years prizes at Ford included suitcases, ten iPad minis and two MacAirs) and every department putting on a performance to provide the entertainment throughout the meal.

Two years ago I performed a dance and swore never to do it again, unfortunately, rather like Steve Redgrave, I proved unable to keep to my word. A colleague asked me if I would be willing to get up on stage as part of a large group and sing a song. This didn't sound too bad, so I agreed only to discover a couple of weeks later that I was actually to be part of a 4 piece 'boy band'. 

                                      

As we were made up of two Brits and two Chinese, we decided to perform a song that could be sung both in English and Chinese, so not only did I need to try and sing in tune I also had to make sure I could pronounce the Chinese properly. We had a few rehearsals and organised our outfits to tie in with the theme of the night - The Golden Age. 

                                      

                                      

                                      

It was a great night and we seemed to go down fairly well with the 800 strong audience.

                                       

Having called ourselves ShanghHai IT, at the end of our performance we tried to make sure people didn't think we were taking ourselves too seriously.

                                       

We came a close second in the vote, only losing out to Marketing & Sales by one vote and let's be honest, it is their job to entertain!!

                                       

William and Oliver's school also do a number of activities in the week or two leading up to the CNY school holiday, the main event being a day when the children go to school in clothing representative of China and then have a morning of Chinese activities around the school, which the parents are invited to attend. Oliver and William enjoyed going to the different classrooms and solving riddles, playing games and following the Chinese tradition of hanging a thought or hope for the coming year on a wishing tree. 

                                   

                                   

They collected stamps as they completed the different activities and when they had enough they were able to end the morning with some candy floss. 

                                   

On returning from our holiday, we decided that we would once again head to the old town to see all the decorations that they put up, especially all the lanterns. We decided to go on the 15th and final day of the new year celebrations, the Yuanxiao Festival, also known as the lantern festival. Families get together for a meal in the evening and the traditional dish to eat is rice dumplings in a sweet soup. Candles and lanterns are lit to help guide wayward spirits home.

To begin with we headed to our favourite dumpling restaurant, it was very busy and whilst we waited to be seated we were rather surprised to see another waiting family tucking into a McDonalds!

                         

                                    

After eating we went to look at the lanterns.  Despite the fact that they barricade the area and sell tickets to enter the old town, it was still absolutely packed.

       

 However, regardless of the crowds it was definitely worth it, because the lights and lanterns were spectacular set against the wonderful old Chinese architecture.