English Country-Side Getaway

It's no secret how much I love travel and when we took this assignment I had dreams of making my way through as many European countries as possible during our time here.  Unfortunately, between the extended unexpected plant outage which was immediately followed by the four month covid lockdown, all my plans were laid to waste.  Over the course of the year I planned and canceled a fall Baltic cruise that covered Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Russia, Finland, and Sweden, a Christmas trip to Portugal, a winter break in London, and an Easter trip to Belgium and France.  My dream of a stamp-filled passport has fizzled! 

But!  My travel loving spirit would not be deterred!  Once we were granted access to the world beyond the four walls of our home, I booked a trip!  We were allowed to leave our homes, but not the UK, so I focused my efforts on all that Great Britain had to offer.  While I had originally hoped to do London, it had not fully reopened and still had it's fair share of the covid related restrictions.  Instead, I decided what better place to socially distance than in the English countryside!  

I've stated on this blog before that our family is not a fan of road trips.  I much prefer planes and cruising.  However, in an abundance of caution we decided to limit our exposure and drive across the country.  We split the trip into segments, both going and coming, and stopped off at attractions along the journey.  We left Edinburgh mid-morning and drove through south Scotland and into England.  Scotland is beautiful!  It's like driving through a Thomas Kinkade painting.  The little villages are nestled into the base of the rolling green hills with streams and wildflowers scattered about.  The further south you go the terrain changes and England doesn't have that same fairytale type feel.  

Five hours into our drive, we reached our first stop at Liverpool, home of the Beatles.  We stayed right alongside Albert Docks and were blessed with some amazing weather that allowed us to really enjoy all the shops and activities during our time there.  We took in some shopping at Liverpool One, which was exciting in itself since we hadn't done it in so long.  We enjoyed lunch out (that I didn't have to cook!), frantically raced to beat an Alice in Puzzleland escape room, and enjoyed dessert (and even breakfast the next morning) at Heavenly Desserts.  Liverpool was an interesting town to see and provided a great kicked off for our time away.

Coronavirus, Covid, or Kung Flu! Oh My!

These three memes most accurately capture my sentiments on the current world pandemic.  

7th Grade (S1) School Highlights

This school year has been an adventure on so many levels!  It will certainly be one that won't be forgotten.  Brenna started St. George's all-in, being completely enamored with all the choices.  The course selections were incredible!  In total she was enrolled for 17 classes for her regular school day.  What we consider as core classes (Math, Science, History, and English) were broken down into Physic, Chemistry, Biology, Modern History, Religion and Philosophy, Geography, Double Math, Double English, and Library.  Then add in supportive classes like Food Technology, Drama, Art, Music, Physical Education, Product Design, Information and Communication Technologies, and finally a wide selection of Languages to chose from, of which two were required.  Brenna chose French and Spanish, although she's trying to convenience me to switch one to Mandarin for next year.  She also jumped right into extracurricular activities with things she already loved and picked-up lots of new activities that would only be available to us here in Britain.  She signed on for Choir, Debate, Judo and Self Defense, Field Hockey, and Lacrosse.  Needless to say her schedule was packed with both before and after school activities four out of the five days a week and the sports competitions spilling over into the weekends.  Normally, I would have pumped the breaks on all these activities, but the school made everything very accommodating.  School actually felt like an extension of home.  I contribute it to the boarding school environment.

Her broad range of activities connected her with lots of friends.  And since the school is very international, her friend group was a wide collection of nationalities, not just from Scotland, but also England, Switzerland, Spain, and France.  It's been a very enlightening cultural experience.  The school also did a great job of supplementing the all-girls experience with joint activities with our brother school, Merchiston Castle all-boys school.  There were sports days, ceilidhs (a traditional Scottish country dance), and dances.