Mind Reading...

Amy: Hey, baby... I know what we can do tonight!

Stephen: *leans over.* Whisper, whisper, whisper.

Amy: *blush*

Stephen: Am I right?

Amy: *no response*

Stephen: Am I? You just don't want to answer me because I'm right. Because I'm a mind reader.

Amy: Am I that easy to read?

Stephen: Yes

Amy: Can any...?

Stephen: *interrupts* Only those who are very observant. Besides, you derive great pleasure from me knowing what you are going to say all the time. Don't you?

Amy: *nod* Then why haven't...?

Stephen: *interrupts* Because.

I hate it when he sees right through me. And I love it.

(And any of you with your head in the gutter... SHAME ON YOU! )

All I want for christmas is my two front teeth...

I have SO much to tell you all, so hold tight for this super-long edition of the Family Blog!

PART 1: Cinderella ain't got nothin' on me!

Some friends of Stephen's got married just recently, and as his invitation was for him and his partner, I got to go! (Never mind his repeated threats to take his former colleague. heehee.) We had an ongoing thing... I had been pestering him for a dress up night while he had been calling me a silly girl and telling me that only girls like doing the dress-up thing. Needless to say, a wedding was a perfect opportunity. We both had to dress up.

The wedding was to be held... wait for it... in a castle! And there was going to be dancing! It was a masked ball! I can't help but wriggle with excitement right now, and all this happened a few weeks ago. There was a rush to make masks, because Amy apparantly does not buy masks, and looks for any and every opportunity to play with plaster of paris. Stephen's mask was Herne the hunter, a fur covered stags face with a leather nose, and mine was a dryad, covered in ivy, moss, and bark. I made an ivy boutonniere for his suit, and an ivy coronet with tendrils for me. I curled my hair and wore it long.


His suit was gorgeous; it even had a waistcoat, and his tie matched my dress perfectly. My dress was a green floor length gown (which had to be taken in 2 inches!) that looks purple in the right light.


The castle is called Lympne (pronounced Limb) castle, and is in Kent, about 45 minutes from where I live. It is lovely. It was dark and cold when we arrived... so I didn't get to see the outside from a distance, but we did a little bit of sneaking around the empty parts of the castle.

Parts of the castle are as old as the 13th century. If you want to look at their website, go HERE.

The dancing was a Céilidh (pronounced Kay-lee), which is an Irish-Gaelic Barn Dance. Stephen, of course, said that he doesn't dance. He was the most handsome man at the wedding, he took my breath away all night, and he did so dance with me. At one point, during a dance that sent us off in 2 different directions, he hunted me down so that I would end up dancing with him. As much as I couldn't keep my eyes off of him, he couldn't keep his eyes off of me, either.

We drank A LOT of wine, got home very very late, and could not stop commenting on how wonderful the other had looked. It was a magical night. I must be a princess.


PART 2: The Craziness Lead-Up and Tamale Goodness

The last time he wwent to London, Stephen went out of his way to hunt down a little shop that carries Mexican items, and bought me some masa harina and dried New Mexican red chiles. All so I could make tamales for Christmas. I decided that it would be even more fun if I invited along some friends, so the Sunday before Christmas, I invited Sam and Rob to come and make cookies and tamales with me. We ended up with 2 dozen tamales, berlinerkranzen, vanilla kipferls, peanut butter cookies, gingerbread cookies, sugar cookies (decorated, of course), and ladies fingers. There was so such, even after they had been split 3 ways. The tamales were sweet, with coconut, pecans, pineapple, and raisins. Having never made masa preparada before, it was an adventure. Of the 3 batches we made, we actually got 2 of them to float. The third... well, we just pretended it floated when Stephen took a drop of it and squished it flat and lay it across the top of the water. Even Ashley got in on the fun, by helping to paint sugar cookies, and of course, eating them.

That means that there were all of those cookies, tamales, an apple pie, and a sweet potatoe pie for Christmas dinner. Yum.

Now if I could just get over the homesick bit.

PART 3: Merry (insert holiday here) to All...

Merry Christmas to all of my family and friends. I miss you all. A lot.

Ok, so maybe this wasnt as long as I thought it would be.

Ok! Enough being lazy, dad-gummit!

I am badbad. I know. Term has been over for a week, and I have not written to you all. Not even once. I'm sorry, really, I am. I decide, ok, today I'm writing... and I end up painting. Or staring blankly at a wall. Or sleeping. It seems so hard to even think about /doing/ anything at all.

Our family is doing well. Ash is really settling into school, enjoying more and more success. She was the only kid in her GCSE science class to take the higher test. She is turning in homework, and doing well. Even her maths is going ok. She has finally remembered (though she may well deny it if you ask her) that she enjoys maths.

I have spent some time in various schools in the area. One, a 'special school' for children with behaviour disorders, left me feeling very disturbed. How can anyone expect a child with a behaviour disorder to intrinsically understand what is and is not appropriate behaviour if there is no-one there to model said appropriate behaviour for them? I simply do not understand the concept of segregating children with special needs. I see the need for extra support (though the seeming definition of 'extra support' is very lacking, in my opinion... as in non-existent.) I don't think that the way to do it is to make sure that discrimination continues by teaching all children that anyone who is different needs to go to a 'special school'. I have to be careful... I could rant about it for quite a while. Let me just end with saying that as much as I am torn by the concept of special schools, I am even more disturbed by the lack of teaching that I saw in such schools. (or at least the ones I have been to.) The kids might as well be on the street or at home. Teachers didn't really care, there were no specialists dealing with those children and their individual special needs, there wasn't even any modification of teaching to make the learning more available to different needs. Everything was 'dumbed down' and that was it. Inclusion is the big talk of the moment here... but I have yet to see places that have implemented it.

And here is something else to think about... the UK is JUST as concerned about test scores as the US is. There seems to be no escaping it. Why is it that so many educational experts see that test scores only show how well tests can be taken, and not how well a child learns? Why does the modern 1st world get so caught up in competition and test scores? (I hear all about how far behind the UK is compared to other countries based on test scores as much as I did in the US also.)

Ok, ok. Enough already of the boring AmyGripesAboutEducation thing.I want to share some of my home with you now. Be aware, none of these pictures that I am going to share with you are ones that I have taken. They are found on the internet. I swear there will eventually be pics of personal things, but just not yet.


This is just a quick map to show you where in the UK we are. Canterbury is in the southeast of England, and is one of the smallest cities in the UK. It is far smaller even than Las Cruces... I figure it is about 4 miles from 1 extreme side to the other, with most of everything in a 2 mile radius. Easily walkable. London is about 1.5 hours away by train. To see an interactive map of Canterbury, click HERE.

This is Westgate, perhaps a 5 minute walk from my house. The town used to be circled by walls, which have now been turned into what we call the ring road. There used to be a gate in each of the four directions. This is the only one still standing. It has been turned into a museum, which Ash has visited and said it was nice. I'm taking her word for it, as I have not been there yet.

If you were standing to take the last picture of Westgate, and turned around, this is what you would see. If you were really really tall, that is. This is the High Street, which is the equivalent of Main Street. All the main shops are along here, along with the library. It really is the hub of the city. The red building you see is our favourite kebab shop.


This is the Old Weaver's house on the High Street... built 1500. It is an Italian restaurant now. The River Stour runs along side, and just at the other end is the ducking stool, which they used to use to strap in and dunk suspected witches and nagging wives. (No, I haven't been on it. Meanies, the lot of you!)


This is the Cathedral, and the reason that Canterbury is a city. One of the definitions of a city is a place with a cathedral... and thus any place with a cathedral is a city. This particular cathedral has quite a bit of history, being the burial place of the black prince and the assassination spot of St. Thomas Becket. Here is the cathedral from Stephen's work:

The University where he works is at the top of what I like to call hell-hill (because that is what it feels like to climb it.) You can tell just how big the cathedral really is. It is over a mile away.

These pics are just a start of what all I want to show you. Hopefully they will make up for the fact that it has been so long since I have last posted. And here's to my getting back in the swing of posting. Love you all!

Have Yourself A...

First of all, a very Happy Thanksgiving to all of my friends and family. Even though I didn't do anything, really, but study... I was with you in spirit. Imagining Anna's pumpkin cheesecake, Dar's turkey... my pecan and pumpkin pie. I miss you, my family and friends.

There was, of course, not enough time or fundage to call everyone that I wanted to call, or talk as long as I wanted to those I did call. But my thoughts were with each one of you.

There are still 4 projects left on my plate... and they are all due next week, so this really is crunch time. Last night I dreamt about not getting them all done in time. That I was trapped doing them forever and nothing was actually getting done at all, and that the clock was pressing down on me, crushing me. No wonders what I have been thinking about, right?

There have been so many changes here...

The Christmas lights are turned on in the High Street at night. It is amazing to me how something so simple really transforms the whole street. The trees look as though there are will-o-the-wisps floating in them, the whole street glows, and there is an air of Christmas. It makes me excited for the holiday.

The weather, while still cold, is far less cold than I expected. I still freeze, it is still at least as cold as the deep winter in New Mexico, but there has been no snow, and only one day when I walked outside and swore my face was going to fall off from the bitter frost. It has been raining a lot... which I still haven't gotten used to. I still LOVE the rain so much, seeing it grey outside makes me happy.

The river here is SO sensitive to the rain. When it doesn't rain, the river is low. The ducks and moorhens walk around on rocky patches. But the day after a rain, the river runs deep, and if you see a duck at all, it has attached itself to a glob of waterplants to avoid being swept away. It often amuses me that the ducks are so graceful when they swim, while the moorhens have to paddle like crazy and still get swept downstream. That is the joy of not having webbed feet. Poor moorhens.

Speaking of moorhens, the babies I watched from the time I got here have finished growing up and have moved away. Occasionally Stephen and I see one that he says is one of the babies, but I have no idea how he can tell. They all look the same to me anymore.

The one change that I am not happy with involves the sun. It gets really dark here, really early. By 5:30 it is midnight black. The sun is setting at 4. Stephen tells me that by the deep of winter, we will walk to work/school in the dark, and walk back home in the dark. I can't really imagine that yet... and wonder how I will respond. I hope I am not someone who needs the sun in order to function. I have never not had the sun before...

There are changes in us, too. Ash has taken to going out wandering with her friends, and occasionally she wanders out past when I am comfortable. In her defense, my comfort level has nothing at all to do with time, but with how dark it is... so I feel like she is out WAY too late and it is only 6pm. She is so good about coming home when she says and letting me know when she is going and with whom. For the most part, anyway.

I am ready to be done with this degree. I feel as though I am most productive when I don't have to interrupt what I am doing in order to go to class. I spent a few days at one of the local schools, focused on behavioural disorders, and I enjoyed it. I miss being in a classroom. Next term I will spend 6 weeks in a classroom, and I am looking forward to it. I never wanted to be a teacher because of the studying... but because I love being in a classroom learning with the kids. (Though I find that there are some specific classes I really want to take right now... physics, for one. And something math-y.) I miss Tristan so much that it hurts. And I made an apple pie that was so lovely... including the pie crust, from scratch. Yay me.

Stephen is enjoying his job; at least as much as I suppose it is possible to. He has lots of opportunity to direct his own tasks. He likes that. Gaming happens at our house, which I like, because I can pretend that I am involved even though I'm not... and it makes me a little more ok with the fact that I simply don't have time to do fun things like game the way I want to.

Well, this post is long enough to perhaps make up for a bit of my not blogging as much as I want. By the end of next week, things should calm down. I only have 1 big paper that /must/ be done over the break. The rest of the page long list is simply things to keep me ahead. So I should have more time to keep you all up to date. More soon, then!