All Posts in "Month: April 2010"

A restful day at Ardingly Reservoir

This weekend was the warmest we’ve had this year.  It was too beautiful to be indoors, but we didn’t want to be going out too far, so we settled for a walk at Ardingly Reservoir.  This was next to Ardingly College, a prestigious private school.  What a beautiful setting for a school![ad#ad-1]

We arrived rather late in the day, so we didn’t have time to make it all around the reservoir.  The parking lot, charged at a pound a day, closes at 7PM and has a barrier to prevent people from hanging out after hours.  The reservoir was much bigger than we had expected.  We regretted that we had not thought to come out earlier and bring along a picnic.

It didn’t turn out to be such a good walk, though.  Not that the place was not conducive to a walk, but the kids just wanted to goof-off, giving each other piggy-back rides and rolling around, etc.  Our pace could only be described as an intermittent leisurely stroll.  We only picked up speed when they spied a small pig farm.  Unfortunately for them, the pigs were far too comfortable wallowing and did not come over.

There were small paths for birdwatchers, but we did not enter as the kids were too loud and we didn’t want to interrupt any serious birdwatching.  There was also a small area all around the reservoir that was fenced off for anglers.  I’m not sure if there’s a private angling group that the place is reserved for.  We’ll definitely have to come back later in the summer to spend the day.

Yank by — April 27, 2010 in Leisure 0
National Stud Centre day

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I took a week off during the Easter holiday to spend some time with the family.  We didn’t have much time or money so we could only do small things.  Plus, the kids still had gymnastics most of the week.  But the highlight for them was visiting the National Stud Centre in Newmarket.

The girls love horses and have done so since they were babies.  They have not had formal riding lessons (as they are so expensive) but they have gone riding and the guides have always noted that they sit well on a horse.

We had watched the Grand National the week before.  One of the horses in the race came from the National Stud Centre and had not returned when we visited. But it did not detract from the kids’ enjoyment of being around the foals and seeing other former prize winners.

They also learned a little about breeding.  I must admit it was a bit uncomfortable when the older girl started asking questions about how it all worked.  I wasn’t exactly ready to discuss sex and breeding, even if it was about horses, especially in front of other people.  Luckily, she didn’t pursue the subject in detail as her younger sister would have done.  She was more interested in the fact that the workers lived in houses on the grounds.  She hopes to join them someday.

Foal at the National Stud Centre, Newmarket
Foal at the National Stud Centre, Newmarket

The National Stud Centre has a racecourse next to it and they run races during the summer.  There is also the Newmarket racecourse, which was not too far away, so we drove over to see what Newmarket was like.  It was rather small, still retaining some of the old village character.

From there, we decided to go over to Cambridge, as the younger girl hopes to go to King’s College someday.  After walking around the town (it was late afternoon and most of the shops had already shut) and around the colleges, we stopped for ice cream and watched the punters going down the Cam.  As we walked around the back, we took pictures of her and her Pooh Bear with King’s College in the background.  It will serve as a memento, in case she doesn’t go to Kings.

Yank by — April 27, 2010 in Leisure 0

I sat the theory driving test recently.  I meant to go through the entire thing last year, but so many things kept coming up, so it was put off and put off.  When I heard about the new “case studies”, I wanted to sit the exam before they were introduced.  When that didn’t happen, I tried to download the updates from the practice software we had from previously.  The updates didn’t install properly, so we were forced to buy the latest software.[ad#ad-1]

What a joke!  It was such a waste of time and money to get the new software.  Maybe the case studies were meant to give young drivers something more to think about than just rote memorisation of facts, but in the end, the questions were no different.  You didn’t even need to read the case studies to answer them.  I only read them for my own amusement.  I thought the makers of the practice exams probably got it wrong since they might not know what the case studies were about. But when I got into that exam room and saw the case study at the end, I nearly burst out laughing.

The other point I found amusing was that they allowed people to take the exam in other languages.  Now, how is that supposed to make the roads safer?  We’ve seen drivers out there blatantly disregarding road signs and signals and we wondered if they were “foreigners” who didn’t understand.  Of course, they could have been natives who blatantly disregard road etiquette, but it does make you wonder.  Furthermore, we saw a story recently about people who make the stupidest excuses to avoid paying fines and some try to pretend they don’t understand the language.  Well, if they made it a requirement that people can only get a UK driving license if they do it in English, maybe they can remove that poor excuse.

Yank by — April 27, 2010 in Travel 1