White Tiger.

At Singapore zoo my favourite animal was the white tiger. The white tiger is a rare form of the Bengal tiger. It is exactly the same except for the colour of it's fur. Unlike normal Bengal tigers, which are reddish tan, or orange with black vertical stripes. White tigers are white with black or brown stripes. They have cute pink noses but sadly do not exist in the wild. They are bred in captivity and some get disorders in their body where their teeth go in funny directions.
We saw 2 amazing white tigers lazing in the sun and one of them had a piece of meat & it fell in the water so it had to put it's paw in the icy cold water to get it out, it was funny because cats & water don't mix very well so it would put it's paw in the water and pull it back out really quick to try get her meat.
I love all the big cats. Prrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

M@D!$oN

Who said breakfast?

Early in the morning when we got to Singapore Zoo, our guide led us straight to the buffet breakfast that we would share with the orangutans. Then he left us there to eat. After half an hour had past a mechanical log moved in the trees allowing the orangutans to come forward making a tree branch as their path. We could then see orangutans coming from everywhere. There were babies on their mothers backs, other young ones climbing and swinging from tree to tree and old slow grandpas. They looked like they were having so much fun. When they reached the viewing platform the zoo keepers fed them bananas and a variety of different fruits. We were allowed to go up close to the animals and have our photos taken, we could have easily touched them but we weren't allowed to disturb them while they were eating.

The zoo keeper then started to tell us some facts about the orangutans saying the average orangutan would have the intelligence of a 5-6 year old. Other facts we learnt were:

• Orangutans can make simple tools using the enviroment around them for hunting and playing.
• That we share 96.4% of our genetics with our fellow friends the orangutans.
• In the past decade the orangutan population has decreased by 90%.
• This is caused by fires or burning off forests, habitat loss, poaching and illegal logging.
• Every year 10,240,000 hectares of rainforest is being cut down. That's 19.5 hectares per minute.
• The orangutans are highly endangered and are almost extint.

I loved the colour and the nature of the orangutans and the fact that we shared our breakfast with them made it feel as amazing as wonderland. This is why the orangutans at Singapore Zoo were my favourite. We also shared breakfast with 2 big colourful macaws and a snake. Mum was very brave and held her first snake in a decade. She absolutely hates snakes, like me!

By Charlotte

Back to Norwich.

On our way back up to see Ron and Andrea in Norwich we stopped at Tunbridge to see Donna and Gareth and their two little girls Libby and Lotte. We had a nice lunch and a lovely carrot cake that Libby and Gareth had made. Oh soooo DELICIOUS!!!

 Maisy and I played with Libby and Lotte and then, we were off again. Such a short stop. But very enjoyable. Libby and Lotte are so so cute. I would love to be their babysitter.

It was then another 2 and a half hour drive to get to Norwich. 2 minutes before we arrived, we stopped off at Tesco’s to buy some flowers and mum walked straight into a pole and fell flat on the ground into a cold, muddy puddle (OUCH - an egg on her forhead)!!! She got over it quickly. Brave Mum.

When we arrived, Ron, Andrea, Georgina, Bonnie and Archie all warmly welcomed us. Jo wasn't there because she had just gone to Germany to start working.

Bonnie is an 11 year old Border Collie and is very smart and knows lots of tricks. Archie is a Papilon, which means butterfly in French because of their butterfly shaped ears, he is only 8 months and is very fluffy and cuddly.

So, so cold!   BRRRRRRR!

 While we were there, we went on a walk around Thetford Forest. It was really cold and windy. 8 degrees. Brrrrrrrr. We did a sound trail with the dogs where we had to find the instruments in the woods; there were sound cushions, xylophones, wind blocks and at the very end there was a bell tower.

The next morning it was time to leave. Very sad because we knew we wouldn’t see them in a very long time.

Goodbye Andrea, Ron, Joanna and Georgina.

Thank you for your wonderful hospitality.

Charlotte

JXOXOXOXOJ

Happy New Year.

It's not often anyone can surprise Paul and completely blow him away but Michael and Melisa managed a ripper New Year's Eve surprise party for us.We had just arrived back at the Collins' home, after last seeing them in April. Literally a cup of tea and a shower, we were planning a rather quiet night in, playing board games and not too sure if we would bother staying up for midnight. Then, one after another the old gang arrived with their families and the scene was set for a memorable night. Masses of food appeared from somewhere, firecrackers and lanterns were going off in the back garden, the kids were fabulously buzzing with excitement and the adults partied well into the night. It was a sensational night and should see in a brilliant New Year for all.

New Year's Eve Resolution?
Learn the words to Auld Lang Syne.
La laaa la laa la laaa la la.....

Happy New Year

Thank You Melisa and Michael for such an enjoyable evening.

TipsiLee

Sold the CRV this week for £4300- at 87125 miles
Travelled 23100m = 37200km
in 8 months.



One day in Bilbao.

We spent a cloudy old day walking around Bilbao admiring the architecture and taking in the amazing artworks before we boarded the 25 hour ferry across the Bay of Biscay to Portsmouth.

Hanging out at the Guggenheim Museum

Bourgeois' Maman Spider

Jeff Koon's Puppy

ArchetecturalLee

Christmas in Pau.

We spent Christmas in Pau with  David, Sandra, William and Guillaume. On Christmas morning, when we stepped outside, we saw a thin layer of white on all the roofs.
It was the first frost of the season!
 ALMOST a white Christmas.

 For breakfast we had delicious smoked salmon and eggs on toast and then opened our presents. Maisy, William and I had bought and wrapped up a Barbie doll for Guillaume as a trick, and in return William and Guillaume wrapped up an onion and nuts for us, it was pretty funny!!! Guillaume played with his Barbie all morning rearranging all the different body-parts and turning it into a headless monster.

Guillaume also got a kite and a trumpet. William got a magic box and a puzzle. Maisy got hoop earrings and Moroccan pyjamas. I got a beautiful heart locket necklace and a watch. Then we all got a massive surprise…we all got our own Kindle with a different coloured case with books already loaded onto it. I had the Skulduggery series, Percy Jackson series and Twilight series on mine. I was so totally amazed! Maisy spent as much time on hers that day fiddling and working out EVERYTHING, she was even more than a quarter of the way through one of the Percy Jackson books by the end of the day.

As a tradition, David and Sandra took us to the Pau Race track to watch the horse race. I thought number 3, a stunning brown horse would win and that number 4, a magnificent Black Beauty would come second looking at the shape of the horses, their stride and how the jockey was positioned. Amazingly the 2 that I guessed got the places I thought they would and the number three only won by a nose. I don’t know how I guessed that!??? But sadly, all the horses were panting so heavily and breathing the frosty air some had very, very red nostrils that looked like they were bleeding.

Then it was time to go back home and have a Christmas feast with one of the neighbours, Albert. We had turkey and loads of roast vegetables with brussels sprouts and chestnuts and heaps of gravy, then lemon tart, toffee oranges and a chocolate log for pudding. All D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!!!
I loved it all. 

We even fired some party poppers and party crackers with small gifts and jokes;

What is always coming, but never appears?

Tomorrow.

&

Why did the skeleton not go to the Christmas party?

Because he had no-body to go with him.

That night we watched Ratatouille and then Doctor Who.
 Such a fabulous Christmas.
We were all so lucky.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE
 AND A HAPPY NEW-YEAR!!!!

From Charlotte
X X X X

A White Christmas Eve.

The day before Christmas we went on a freezing walk in the snow. It was meant to be a 2 hour walk but we were all so frozen we could only stand it for like 20 minutes. David and Sandra took us up to the top of the Pyrenees. It was a windy road all the way up and I don’t like windy roads at all but the snow outside my window was bedazzling. It helped me to forget how I was feeling. At the top we got out of the car and threw snow balls at each other and soon it was too cold to move (or at least that is how I felt). Charlotte, William and Guillaume slid down a little hill and got wet bottoms and looked like penguins sliding on their bellies. Mum and I fell over on the ice. It was so slippery and then we had to go so carefully.

We all decided we wouldn’t continue on our walk so dad and David walked back down the hill to bring the car up for us.  We drove a little bit further and then we were in Spain again. We all had a cup of hot chocolate except Charlotte who had a cold chocolate. We also had a big slice each of Spanish chocolate cake. There was a fireplace in the café but it couldn’t even warm us up. We were sooooooo cold.

The Carr Brothers direction sense...

When we were all in the car ready to drive back down David came up to us holding a plastic water bottle, he explained to us that if you keep a little water in the bottle with the mountain air and screw the lid on tight when we get down to our normal altitude the bottle will crumple from the pressure of the air so we tried it. The bottle did actually slowly cave in and it was like someone had squeezed the air out. We also all had a guess at what time we would get home. Our ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival). Mum guessed exactly right. Boooo! Any way it was a wonderful white Christmas Eve.

M@D!$oN

School in France.

Whilst we were staying in France with our cousins, William and Guillaume,

we thought it would be an excellent experience for Maisy and I to go to school for a little while with Guillaume. So on Guillaume’s second last day of school Maisy and I joined in. Mum walked us all to the gates, and by the time we were in the playground Maisy and I were like tourist attractions. Guillaume said there were only 108 people in his school but I think the whole 108 people were staring at us. With Guillaume and I a clear head taller than anyone else everyone came to look at us. Guillaume got asked more than 100 times what our names were, how old we were and where we were from. When the lunch bell rang we were lining up for class. The teacher was also smaller than me and we were the tallest in the class. We were doing Christmas art and craft. We made clever Christmas cards and baubel type decorations. The card was an A4 piece of paper folded in half with a neat rectangle cut out of the front. In the inside of the card we stuck a sticky sheet of see through contents and the decorated it with little sequences and stickers. Because the front was now sticky, we then had to put another piece of contents on top so the sequences were stuck in the middle and could not escape. We then wrote ‘Joyeux Noël’ meaning Merry Christmas. The next step was to cut 4-5 circles out of wrapping paper and then stick them on the card to make balloons. In the end, the card looked like this:

inside

front

We had an excellent time at French School and would love to go again. Thank you Guillaume for being our translator.

Charlotte

JJJJJJJ

San Sebastian.

We all loved this town in northern Spain but only spent a very short day here.

Great tapas.
Beautiful shopping.
Spectacular coastline.
Marked down as a place to return to.
San Sebastian  Donostia

A drink with old friends - Santillana del Mar.

Before going back to my brother's in Pau for Christmas, we looked up an old friend that I grew up with in Harrow. Rob is now married to Becky and has Francesca (10) and Tobias (6) and now lives near Santander in north western Spain.

Living on 13 acres of countryside with beautiful sea views, they have renovated a large farm house that now combines a family home with 3 self-contained flats that get rented out as a nice little income. We stayed 5 nights and the days went by so fast.

The time was spent enjoying wine and beer and great food and hospitality only to be marred by a fall by Francesca that ended in hospital for 6 stitches above the eye and 2 front teeth broken off. She was so brave and was back to herself the next day. What a trooper!

After Christmas we left Davids on the 28^th Dec to get the ferry from Bilbao to Portsmouth and guess who was on the ferry to surprise us??? ------------------ More drinks!!






Thanks for a super week Becky and Rob.
Hope to see you Down Under sometime soon.
Paul