The big Birthday bash

We came back to York to help prepare for Grandpa’s 70th Birthday. We had it in a very old barn dating from 1523AD and it was suppose to have sheltered the Scottish prince Rupert. There were lots of old people at the party and the band was called the Pugwash convention. They played fiddle and squeeze box and called the steps for dances like Strip the Willow and the Gay Gordon’s. We had a great time and danced lots.

Beamish Museum

We next visited Beamish museum, which was a very big outside museum. It was set in 1913 and showed what life was like in the North East of England at the beginning of the time called the industrial revolution. The North east was very important at the time because there was lots of coal mines which they needed to fuel all the steam driven machines. There was lots of people dressed up like people of the time and told us about the sort of things they did and how life was. There was a farm and a small town with lots of old fashioned shops. We bought some old fashioned lollies - Jim got his teeth into a large toffee apple and Tom was very impressed with the sherbet lemons. We went on a very old steam train called Puffing Billy which had a amazing top speed of 5 miles and hour! And we also visited an old Manor house and saw them baking bread on the fire.

We when to an old school house and wrote on slates. The teachers sounded as though they where very strict - it made Mrs Waldron sound soft.

One of the best things we did was go into an old drift mine and saw how miners use to get out the coal. Everything was done by hand and dynamite. It was a very hard life and children as young as 14 worked down there. We also saw some old pit ponies who use to work down the mine pulling coal tubs and children as young as 7 use lead these.
I think we are lucky to be children now as life back then seemed very very hard.

Trip to Durham

The next bit of our journey was to Lanchester to visit my Grandpa Frank. He was very pleased to see us. His house is quite big, has a very nice garden and has some stairs up to the bedrooms. There are lots of interesting things to look at.

We went to visit Durham, which is about 3 miles away. We went to Durham Cathedral, which was very big. It used to have prisoners in it when there was a war. Tom and I went up a very tall tower – Ellen was too short to go up. The stairs went up and up and when round and round – there are 325 steps. It was so small at the top you could hardly get passed other people. We saw the tombs of two saints: Saint Cuthbert and Saint Bede. Saint Bede is very important because he translated the bible to English, so all the bibles we read at school come from his work. There were loads of stain glass windows and we sat in the Cloisters where parts of the Harry Potter film were made.

We also looked at Durham Castle, which is now used as a University, and some students live there.

We tried English fish and chips as we sat in the main square of Durham and we decided they were quite nice but a bit greasy (but don’t tell Grandpa as he likes them).

In the evening Grandpa had a barbeque and invited some of his friend and my family. It was nice to see everyone and they were all very friendly. We saw Uncle Terrance and Uncle James, who has the same name as me and we are both named after my Great Grandpa Jimmy.

Trip to see Rachel

We had a journey from York on the way to Durham, and stopped off to visit my Aunty Rachel. She lives in a small North Yorkshire village called Swainby. Her house looked very old and was very long and thin. Her car is old also and has no seat belts. Tom and I got to start it and Ellen drove with Rachel. 1 minute up the road from her is an old ruined castle. It was very broken down and we got to climb all over it. We had to walk along the road to an old Abbey, which had some really old gravestones. Some were so old that you could not read them and we found one from 1730. One we found looked like a pirate grave as it had a skull and cross bones, a book and an hourglass timer.

Well, we arrived in Manchester airport and we got through customs without a problem. The police in the airport had guns, but we were even more impressed in Singapore because we saw one with a machine gun. Granny and Grandpa met us at the airport, and we had a real surprise because our other Grandpa had come too.
We got on a train to get to York which took about and hour.
Since we got to York, we have had lots of fun and been pretty busy. On the first day we helped Grandpa with his bees, going to some of the hives and taking off some honey. We had to get dressed up in beekeeping clothes, with a big white hat and veil which attached to the suit (they were very big and pretty hot). When we got back we put to combs in a spinner to get the honey out.
We explored Grandpas garden which has lots of fruit and vegetables. We picked strawberries, raspberries and peas which were yum. He also has toads living in the pond. By the end of the long first day we were all very very tired and I fell asleep while having my dinner.
The next day we went to walk around the big walls that go all around the city. Some of it was built in Roman times on a steep little hill and was covered with slits so that the archers could defend the city. We came to big city gates , called Barr which had portcullis that would raise to let people in. Some had two of these so the enemy would go into one, but then would be trapped and they would fire arrows at them and pour boiling oil. We saw lots of information about the about Romans and some of the old kings who use to stay in York like Henry the 8th an Richard the 3rd.
We also went to Cliffords tower which is part of the original York Castle built in Medieval times. It was built on a lager mound so that it gives a great view of the surrounding land to make it easy to spot the enemy. The hill is the one in the song about the Grand Old Duke of York, who’s 10,000 marched up and down.
We went to the Museum gardens in the City centre and took some nuts to feed the squirrels. We took the wrong type of nuts so as well as attracting squirrels we also got covered in hundreds of pigeons which was very funny and cool.
On the second day we visited York Minster which had great big stain glass windows. We saw the Rose window, which had burned down and had to be re built. We went onto the big alter and saw lots of statues of old people who where buried there. There was someone playing the organ, which had some big organ pipes. If you looked carefully there was lots of faces and gargoyles carved into the stone walls. The Minster was bigger than you could ever think and the towers and ceiling was so incredibly high.

Singapore Bit

After a long flight we arrived in Singapore. We went on the underground train a lot to get around. We stayed at the YMCA which had small rooms, but it had a great swimming pool and we loved the breakfasts because there was cake and fruit juice and you could eat as much as you liked.

We visited China town, which Tom especially liked because of all the bustle and cool market stalls to look at. A little Chinese lady got us to go to her food stall and we had noodles and fried rice which was delicious. Some of food on offer we did not recognise and I was pretty relived we did not have to eat it. Everyone was tyring to sell us stuff, but they were nice and we had a good laugh. We bought a set of chopsticks each from a special shop - I have never seen so many chopsticks in my life. The pair I chose was Black with golden dragons on.

We also went to Little India. There was lots of interesting things to see and lots of strange smells. We had a cool curry dinner - I had butter chicken. We all got henna tattoos on our hands from a cool Indian lady. Tom and mine are a sun design, Ellen's is flowers, and they should last 2 or three weeks.

The second day we visited Singapore zoo. We saw loads of different animals such snakes monkeys, white tigers, leopards and kangaroos. One funny bits was seeing two elephants walking, with one holing onto the others tail. We all went on an elephant ride which was really exciting. We saw an orangutan holding a baby riding in a zoo truck, and we think the zoo keeper did not know she was on there.

I can't wait

1. On the 4th of July I am going to England with my family. First we go to Auckland on a small plane and then we go to Singapore on a bigger plane. When we are in Singapore we are going to the zoo! It's got lots of creatures that live in hot places because Singapore is very hot. We get to go on a night safari. I have been in Singapore before when it is raining and it is warm rain, not like here!
   
   We are going to England to see my grandma and grandpa. We get to have a holiday as well. When we are in England it is going to be my grandpa's birthday. We are away for 5 weeks so my teacher and I made this blog so we can keep in touch.