how was your break?

If I am paid to post I'd be fired by now. Please bear with me as I try to catch up with the tags and the comments and my bloghops. I will be one month late in almost everything, so para kayong nagbabasa ng replays.

Anyhow, the first two weeks of August was Kelvin's school holiday. I packed it with a number small activities to keep us occupied and to make the short break count. Unfortunately, Daddy had to work because after the 2-week break, Kelvin was due for his glue ear surgery (more on that later) and Daddy will take charge then.

My high school barkada, Anet, and Josh were kind enough to invite us over for a 2-day trip to Silverstone, the home of F1 racing circuit. Sayang tapos na ang qualifiers pero okay na din at least na-solo namin yung lugar. Josh managed to sweet talk some garage manager and they let us in the warehouse where they were preparing for the A1 racing. Anong A1? Malay ko din. I had to look it up. Apparently A1 represents nations not car-makers. Boring! Pero nun' ka, hubby, Josh and Kelvin enjoyed the trip. They keep on touching and looking at engines/bodies/paints, etc etc. Para sila'ng nasa candy store. I could only gawk.

At first I thought the trip will bomb. First, because hubby missed the train. Unbelievable because we got on the train at the same time. But he has to have a paper to read, he got off and it took him 20 minutes to get one freaking tabloid, by which time we were already far away. Kelvin was shouting out the window "run dad run" as if he can even see hubby. When I said his dad was in trouble, he told me not to worry as the police will help his dad! Natawa na lang ako. Pasalamat talaga asawa ko, by the time Kelvin and I got off the destination my temper was gone.

It also threatened to rain. The sky was Britain-typical, i.e. dull and grey, up until 1pm. Thankfully the sun shone through by 2pm, just in time for our garden-park walks.

The highlight of our trip was the visit to Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. Only when I visit places like these do I get hit by how "old" and properly recorded England's history is. We paid for a tour and saw animatronics that explained how the Palace came to be. The puppets were okay and the tale was interesting enough. The first door they had us open though scared more than half the audience. We were expecting a light-hearted take but were greeted by an eerie room with ghost sounding moans! Kelvin was terrified, I thought we'd have to leave. Thankfully it was only for a minute then it became boring enough for Kelvin to ignore.

I'm not big on interior-tours so that part of the trip was jus okay. But the Palace grounds was something else. It boasts of several themed gardens. We went through a maze as well, which tired everyone we encountered. It's not fun anymore if you have spent more than 30 minutes going around in circles in 30C heat! But Kelvin had the most fun in the Adventure Playground with wooden houses and climbing frames, not to mention the lifesize chess sets and the crazy golf. I liked the man-made waterfall and the rose garden. They also have a butterfly house where I saw one butterfly with tattered wings. There was a "lakeside walk" which we didn't have the energy to visit. Actually, we didn't visit two other gardens just because our feet were sore! We were all blatantly unfit, too. I'm sure we missed a lot more spectacular view of the 2100 acre grounds.

I'm really thankful with digital cameras. If I didn't have one, I would have used up more than two rolls of 36-shot films just on trees alone. I was fretting on what pictures to upload for your viewing pleasures but perhaps in agitation I ended up with the following and taking my cue from Ana, here's a slide for a neat presentation.


Thanks to Anet and Josh for a wonderful time and super-yummy food!