observations from the far side of the world.

Last night we went to a Science fun night at Senor Onion's school. Impressively quite a few people showed up. It was a fascinating exposure to school and village life. The whole exercise had people at assorted tables with a project. That evening's project had us building these circular gliders out of card stock, straws, and masking tape. Once you had the basic idea of how the thing was built, you then messed about with the design to make one that flew really really far. Most of the small children were coloring and racing around with gliders their parents built. I ended up building one with Senor Onion that flew the furthest from our table. Quite simple in design.
The other family we sat with showed how small the world is. They live over in the same village as my in laws, and it turns out Mr. Jenner's middle brother has done work for them over the years. When Mr. Jenner mentioned his parents, the couple said, "OH, you are one of the Jenners." Of which there seem to be many. Yes. One of them. It seems that the husband's family has owned this holiday place since the fifties and now they are living in it full time. Like us, they are trying living out here in the sticks for a year to see how it goes. They are from Bath, renting out their home, have two children, (one of whom is in Senor Onion's class) and seem like very nice people. The wife and I briefly talked about the difficulty in living so far from one's parents. Hers are 500 miles away, which she said isn't much in comparison to me, but I still think that is considerable. It's a long-haul of a drive to get out to the west country. There's some kind of time slip that makes it even longer. And I don't just mean the drive near Birmingham. They arrived the weekend before school started, so they are finding their feet as well. When Mr. Jenner mentioned coming from Seattle, they asked, "Microsoft?" Because let's be honest, that is why a good portion of English people end up there. The husband had been to Seattle and had nice things to say about it. (from his accent, he sounded like he was from the North. I have my suspicions about where, but I will ask him next time.) So who knows, maybe we will run into them more often.
So we made the gliders and then had pasties provided by the PTA. As always they were too peppery. Oh Cornwall. You only know two spices. Peppery and curry.
Then at the end there was the contest to see which group's glider flew the furthest. We did not win but it was all right. Got the kids home to bed and watched Wartime Farm, co-starring Peter Ginn's raised eyebrow. I don't know what I love more, Ruth's earnestly awesome geekery about house-hold items (and I am with her) or the bromance between the two guys. I would want to hang with Ruth any day of the week. Talking laundry techniques through the ages.

I had a chat with Senor Onion's teacher as well last night about living in new places. She is originally from Canterbury and then was in Exter for university. So she too is one of the crazies living in the sticks. She said someone told her the best way to meet people is to have kids. She said it seemed like a drastic measure to meet people and it takes awhile to produce results. THere was a good giggle over going to such lengths for a social life. I do like Miss B.

I feel like I ought to take a picture for American friends and family of the Christmas chocolate/biscuit/food aisle at the super market. It is something to behold. I was explaining it to my sister last night. All the interesting/unusual tat that is particular to this part of the world. Things like the tins of Roses chocolates, those gift box sets of Cadbury bars, giant tins of crackers (to go with cheese), and so on.