Boxing Day

The Next Couple of days during and after boxing day, family from both sides coming in to say hello. But of course we reckon just saying hello is quite boring, so we took them over a couple of day onto all the walks around us. Over three days we went on three separate walks across the Forest of Dean. On Boxing Day the family and I headed up to May Hill. The largest hill in Gloucester. With a total height of 999m, it is not classified as a mountain. For May Hill to be a mountain it needs to be a minimum of 1000m. Just missed out. Although it is just a Hill though, the scenery is quite astounding.

On the Second day of Family Gatherings, some of the family from Paul's side came along and we walked along to a place called Saint Anthony's Well. This area was surreal for winter. Whilst the Weiss family were telling me it would be freezing (Because it's Winter duh) there will be next to no leaves. But what we saw was something you could only see in the movies or in the rarest of autumns. 

All the pink leaves had fallen from the trees and made a beautiful environment. A lovely stroll through the countryside was exactly what I needed to get to know the family a little better. 

Third day Zoe's family came back around where we went for a little walk along a small mud track. Unfortunately though i did leave my SD card in my laptop so i couldnt take any photos, but it was a quick tour of all the areas where freeminers could mine in the forest. To celebrate boxing day for three days was cool and a very surreal experience from a tourists perspective.

CHRISTMASSSSS!

Today is the big day. Christmas time is here and joy is spread around the household. Up n early, the boys were going around waking us all up, excitement still in their eyes. We all congregated downstairs to open up all the gifts found in our stockings.  Chocolate, fake snow and more chocolate filled my stocking as the smile grew across my face. In the stocking was also my breakfast. A good ol little bowl of coco pops. So being me, i scoffed down the food like a fat kid on a cupcake. But of course the brits ate their food even faster and were waiting by the tree ready to power through the gifts. We put a cap on when everyone can open their gifts. At the turn of the hour 9am everyone was able to open their first gift. So 5 minutes before I set up the camera ready to record the festivities. Paper begun to fly everyone as the wrapping paper begun to be torn off the presents. Considering I'm only a visitor the Weiss family treated me very well this Christmas, giving me a variety of gifts from classic rugby balls to British coffee cups. To return the favor of the Christmas Spirit I had several gifts prepared for each member of the family.

But of course Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a traditional Roast Lunch though. After the gift opening Zoe and Paul jumped back into the Kitchen. Whilst the fam cooked continued to prepare the lunch, all the boys tried a puzzle in which you have to move a little ball through the maze...except the maze was 3D and very difficult. The maze was called perplexus epic, and at best us boys have only completed approximately half of the maze. This kept us occupied until other family members arrived to the house for the roast lunch.


 

At lunch I met some of Zoe's side of the family: Dylan, Anne, and Keable. The rest of Zoe's family is as outgoing as what she is. The lunch was full of conversations and cheeky banter followed by a beautiful roast turkey and pork.

As a little gift to the whole family, I gave one clip on koala to every member of the family. Although to me I saw it as a cheap knick knack, every member of the family thought it was a stroke of brilliance. It is always good to spread the Christmas Cheer.
Merry Christmas to all xo

Christmas Eve Celebrations

The hype is building up as the big day approaches towards the fat man sliding down the chimney. Food being prepared and delivered left right and center. The excitement from the boys is definitely building as santa prepares to jump in his sleigh. Sam showed me a website which tracked where Santa was travelling and when he is expected to arrive. This just made the boys even more excited. Although today was a bit of a indoor day, the excitement still never left.

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

All year I waited for this night to come around. The night where I could finally see the new star wars film. The anticipation all led up this night. 5:15pm on a Wednesday the Weiss' and their family friends went to the nearby Mitcheldean Cinema, payed 1.5 Pounds and sat in the best seat we could find. THE MOVIE WAS SOOOOOO GOOD. Not going to spoil anything though but it is brilliant.

Windsor Castle

This is the tale of a small boy travelling through the high and low points of the United Kingdom; and today was definitely one of the highlights of the journey. Today the Weiss family and I traveled to the the largest castle in all the kingdoms. Windsor Castle.

Waking up at the crack of dawn we all quickly got ourselves together and jumped right into the car and begun our 2 and a 1/2 hour journey to the well acclaimed castle. After the very long trip to Windsor, the fam decided to go for a little discovery walk along River Thames and discover the area. As we were walking along the River Thames we encountered an overly excessive amount of the Queens Pets, more commonly known as the white swan. The sheer amount of swans was purely overwhelming to say the least.

Although the swans only had me excited, the big excitement for the day was in Windsor Castle. Windsor Castle is the largest populated castle in the world, so it took the majority of the day to search through. Unfortunately since the castle is of such high stature, photos were not permitted inside any parts of the castle. But I still got a few happy snaps on the outside, and lots of souvenirs for home.

Lydney Harbour

Monday morning came round for us and for the first time in weeks, we slept in. It was glorious waking up at 9am instead of 6:50. But of course I didn't come to the UK to sleep all day, so the crew went to  a not so common place called Lydney Harbor. Although we left in the thickest of fog, we reached Lydney with the most beautiful sky I have seen to date.

With many rocks to jump around on, sights to look at,  boats/yachts to admire,  and a glorious day to view, there was literally nothing that could ruin this fine view.

Grans 95th birthday

Today marked a big day for the Weiss family as they celebrated Granny Weiss' 95th birthday on Hayling island, south of London at inn on the beach. This was a very sweet get together as I met the extended for the first time. To see such a diverse family come together to celebrate a persons 95th is always a delight. When Gran arrived she went around greeting everyone with kisses on the cheeks...until she reached me.
"Who's this and who is he with?"
After I explained who I was and that I was staying with Paul, she turned into the sweetest lady.
"If you're one of the family, you're going to have to give Gran a kiss on the cheek."She was a little lucky though because she may have snuck in a little bit of lip.

Overall though it was good to meet the whole family from all across the UK to celebrate a healthy life.

GO KARTING/Swimming

Today was a mighty tiring day for all the Weiss family and myself.  We kicked it off really early as the sun rose whilst we were still at the Explorer camp. Of course we look like a dogs breakfast due to the  "No Sleeping until 3 am" rule. But with all the hype from yesterday, the adventures of the UK still awaited us for the day. Today we had the last swimming lesson of the year at midday for half an hour, then an intense GO KARTING session in the afternoon.

Of course the swimming was the hardest thing to get motivated for when you're half dead. But once I jumped in with Tom and Sam, I was fit as a whistle and ready to go. Since it  was the last lesson of the year it was more of a muck-up session. So after the warm up there was a race to see who could coil their rope and throw it to the other side of the pool fastest in 3 attempts. In my second time ever doing it I improved to reach and tie with first position, against people who have trained for months. Has a lot to say about the Brits life saving capabilities :)
But before you could say drowning, the 1/2 hour lesson was up and it was time to get out of the pool.

Once we dried up and got changed we all quickly dashed home for a bit of R&R for an hour or so before the big race in the afternoon. Unfortunately since he was too young and short, Joseph was unable to participate in Go Karting. But we still brought him along to be our photographer for the day.

We arrived at the karting area pumped and ready for some high paced action. We suited up and  started out pretending like we were going to rob a bank with our balaclavas on.

Once we got all our gear on the engines started to rev and off we went. Lap after lap we were all neck and neck. It all went by in a flash. Before we knew it, our 25 laps were up. Since we were quite the competitive family we were all desperate to see who won. The results finally printed, and I came a relatively close 3rd, with Tom taking the top spot. But in the long run it was all for a bit of wonderful cheeky banter which left a smile on my face for the afternoon.

Explorer Camp.

For the last Explorer night for the year, the explorers decided to have a farewell camp to finish off the year. This was a great camp full of new friendships and arguably one of the most relaxed camps to date.

Basically all we did for the night was play twister, blast music, eat food, Verse in Wii sports, and sleep. But one of the big rules for this explorer group was that nobody is allowed to sleep before 3am. This put a big turning point into the camping experience. The friendships made that night will never be forgotton.

Last Day of School.

The past two weeks have been massive in terms of meeting new people. Two weeks and there was at school and there was always a new face to meet. But unfortunately Friday the 18th it was the last school day for the year. It was pretty lame. For the first half of the day there was a school wide assembly where there was awards presented. After the hour or so of awards being presented the whole school headed down to the local church for their Christmas ceremony. As i walked once again I met a new selection of faces and engaged in some quality banter. But in the long run their ceremony was pretty OK. The main deterrent for this traditionally good festival was the school trying so hard to sing Jingle Bells. The pitch was so off tune it hurt my ears. But the rest of the ceremony was good fun. But alot of people were quite upset with the idea that I may not see them at all ever again. A lot of distress was caused. But there will always be a time to move on.

RUGBY UNION!

Boy was I in for a treat today. Paul bought 4 tickets to see the Gloucester v Worcester Rugby Union game. This game was one of the most exciting build ups this week. We sat 5 rows behind one of the goal posts so we saw all the brutal tackles and heavy scrums. Although there were many brutal tackles, Rugby Union is a lot softer than many Australian sports. The night was still a bundle of fun with plenty of energy, especially from "the box". The box was an area where many fans stood and chanted their supporting team. The energy from the box was amazing, left me speechless for the majority of the game. In the end the local Gloucester team won against Worcester 27-13.

A Trip to the Castles

The weekend keeps on spawning eventful surprises as the Weiss family takes me out on yet another discovery of the United Kingdom. Today we decided to do a bit of a large tour starting by climbing Coppett Hill and looking at the beautiful view to be then followed by a trip to Goodrich Castle for the remainder of the evening.

So as most days start, we begun the expedition early in the morning with a strong hearty breakfast. Once we got the breakfast in our stomachs we quickly had a quick look out the window to see fog covering the windows. The fog was so thick I couldn’t see the Land rover parked in the driveway. But we still went for the idea to continue our journey through the fog up Coppett Hill.

Paul, Tom, Sam, William, Joe, Sasha (their dog) and I powered through the fog and toward Coppett Hill. This was a prime time to see how athletic the family was by walking with them for a "brief walk". Since it was so foggy, I had to stick very close to Paul or otherwise I would've been as lost as a blind navigator. We eventually reached the top of Coppett Hill where there was meant to be a view of all the surrounding villages, but what we found is the thickest of fog. We could barely see each other!

Since there wasn't much to look at except thick fog, Paul decided to take us for a trip up to Goodrich Castle. Here we had a look at the historic ornament in Goodrich. This was a massive throwback to see how many of the citizens would have lived back in the day of Castles and Knights. 

 Paul was telling me all about the amazing views which would have been there if there was no fog. But I still used the power of the imagination to look at the castle as it would have been.

Saturday Swimming

Unbeknownst to myself, turns out all of the Weiss Family has swimming training. So in a bit of a rush I got ready for one of the easiest swimming lessons ever. Although I do not find myself the strongest swimmer, I found this to be one of the easier swimming lesson I have attended in a while. Although it was a swimming lesson, they focused more on life saving techniques which was good fun. Since it was a half hour lesson it was a fun little lesson in a heated pool.

Rock-climbing Night

The second night of explorers had come around and tonight we planned to THE WAREHOUSE for a rock-climbing for a few hours. The rockclimbing in this area was a fair bit easier in comparison to the local rockclimbing in aus. But in this Rock Climbing Facility you have to tie your own knots before you climb. The first couple of climbs was a bit sketchy because I didn't 100% trust my knots. But the more I climbed, the more confidence I had in my knots.

After 45 minutes our group headed down to a bouldering section where we played a game. The leader placed two sports bags at either end of the bouldering section. Then we played a game where we had 5 minutes to see how many golf balls from one side of the room to another without falling. This was a highly competitive game which was becoming increasingly difficult. At the end of the day though our team unfortunately lost.

Since the parents were out this night, the explorer leader drove Sam, Tom and myself home, singing every single song on the way home. In between songs we decided to try organise a quick easy camp for the next explorer night. So now the plan for next Friday is to have a camp outdoors and have a good get to know you night.

KS3 Disco

Thursday night was my only night off this week, every other day though was packed as. But of course I'm not here to relax, I'm here to make the most of my experience. So I looked around and turns out that Dene Magna was staging a disco for Grade 7-9 and needed volunteers. So Tom and I decided for fun to go to the disco and help out selling drinks.

The disco lived exactly up to expectations. Pop music was the only thing played with little teenagers thinking they're cool. It was hilarious to watch from the side. But the only touching part of the night was that one of the wheelchair students in grade 8 got out of his chair and started to dance.
It was beautiful. The idea that a kid with a disability whose legs rarely work got out of his chair and danced for 1 song was really adorable.

Christmas Carols in the Church

Wednesday evening after school we all decided to treat ourselves to a local carol service. Although it was a little cold, the service was one of the best local services I have been to. Between the massive Gloucester orchestra, the male choir, the female choir, and the school choir, the harmonizing voices was one to remember.

Last Scout Night

The closing week of school is coming quickly, meaning that the last week of scouts too was falling upon us. It was my second week up at the scout den and quite possibly my last, as the scouts do not meet until the day before I come home from my trip. So it was time to make the most of it.

For the night the leaders had organised for a Christmas celebration for the scouts. Food, Decorations and Carols spread in the hall as we all sung and danced our little hearts out. But with such a high energy bunch, Paul the leader approached me asking to run a few Australian games to wrap up the night. So doing what I do best, I ran some highly intensive games for the scouts.

To start it off I ran a classic game of fly. Many of the scouts were mind blown by the idea of such a simple game. To play fly all you need is 6 sticks. By putting together 6 sticks in an orderly fashion parallel to each other, the aim of the game is to traverse past the gaps in the sticks without stepping on the sticks themselves, or  double stepping in any of the gaps. As this was a new concept to the scouts they were all over this like a fat kid on a cupcake.

We played a few more common games to wrap up the last scout night. These games had the main common goal but in differing variations. With such high energy though the kids were bouncing off the walls. The sugar they consumed from all the Christmas sweets had them on a rampage of excitement. Pinatas and lolly wrappers literally littered the hall.  So once they reached the peak of their excitement, the night had wrapped up and it was time for closing parade.

Parade in the UK runs ALOT differently in comparison to Australia. In Australia we create a horseshoe with each patrol in differing sections of the horseshoe. In the UK, each patrol creates a single file with the patrol leader at the front. The second big difference between our parades and theirs is that the UK do not pray on parade. Where we usually have a scout briefly prepare a prayer for parade, these guys  do not pray at all.

But the sweetest part of the parade was that the leader came up to me and gave me a bag of gifts from the scout group. In the bag there was a scouts coffee mug, scarf, badges, and a few edible goods in the bag. It was a gesture greatly appreciated by myself with gifts to be treasured for a long time to come.

Hopefully I get to go to another night next year to say some final farewells.

Oh Christmas Tree!

8th of December and the Christmas spirit has begun to flood the household as we begin bringing in decorations and costumes ready for the big event.

Although usually they would get a real christmas tree, this year they decided against it to stop the tree shedding all over the carpet, but we all managed to pitch in and help create a beautiful Christmas Tree to remember

A Trip to Bristol

This day was very exciting indeed as it was action packed from the moment I woke up until the moment i went to Bed. So today the family decided to head into Bristol for the day and check out the SS Great Britain and have a feast at a buffet chain called Za Za Bazaar.

So once again we left for the days journey at 9am sharp and drove an hour and a half to get to Bristol. We immediately went into the SS Great Britain and started to have a look around both under the boat and on top. The ship spanned across approximately 200 meters over 3 stories and split into different sections relative to their respective pay grade.  There was first class in which there was massive banquet and private quarters for each client. Then there was second class which was our equivalent to economy class. This was where the workers of the SS Great Britain would have stayed. This had cabins shared between 4 people and little small areas to have tea.  Then there was third class. This area literally was the worst smelling area in all of Bristol. It took almost 3 hours to get the smell out of my nose and smelling clean (ish) air. The third class was where all the toilet wastage was stored, the animals were kept, and near the hard working engine room. The weirdest thing about the third class rooms was that I was the only person to think that it was a terrible smell. A lot of the people just walked straight through it whilst I was only person drowning in the stench. After we looked at the cabins we headed above deck and looked at took photos of the pirate looking ornaments and all the good features of the boat.

Once we finished our little tour of the SS GB, we went for a walk around Bristol, looking at the christmas lights set up around town. On our way through we had a stop for lunch in a buffet called Za Za Bazaar. This was better than any Sizzler in Australia. ItT WAS MASSIVE! The buffet was split up into 5-6 large islands of food. These included Entree islands, Asian Cuisine, Indian Cuisine, Mexican islands, and of course, the dessert island. These islands had massive varieties food to satisfy all customers big or small. So being Australian I immediately went to see what types of meat there was and boy did they not disappoint. 4 Plates of stuffing food later and I was done for. I could barely move. Except of course there is always enough room for dessert. 3 jelly cups and a plate of ice cream later and I had to call it quits. I could feel a storm of indigestion brewing in my stomach. We payed for the bill and all stumbled out of Za Za's in a not so smooth fashion.

Immediately after leaving the buffet though we happened to walk straight through a food market. I'm not too sure how but Zoe and Will were looking through almost every stall taste tasting a lot of the food. It seemed to be the motif of the day. Food.

We slowly made our way past the stalls and headed towards the Cathedral in the centre of Bristol. The sheer size of the cathedral was almost overwhelming. So of course I tried taking as many photos as possible. The mixture of the Massive Cathedral and the Christmas lights in Bristol really did make the day a magical one.

One of the most cherishing things I saw whilst walking back was that in the water there was 14 white swans and 3 black swans all swimming in a cluster along the River Aven. But since it was a massive day we all slept on the hour and a half trip until we arrived home and immediately went to bed.

Dene Magna Christmas Fair 4-5/12/15

Assistance Needed Immediately! Turns out before I even left for the UK the Weiss family had signed me up to help run a christmas games stall at the Dene Magna school Christmas Fair. So on Friday afternoon after school, Tom, Ollie a few new faces and myself helped transform the hall which was being used for exams into a Christmas winter wonderland. From singular tables to winter stall galore we transformed the hall ready for the event the next morning.


Bright n Early we woke up on the first Saturday as we got ready for the Christmas Festival. 9am came around and we were up at the school ready to sell our game. We set up a stall where the participant needed to throw ping pong balls into a series of jam jars, winning whatever prize was inside the respective jar. We also had Pin the tail on the Donkey, Name the Bear, and Guess the number of lollies in the jar. Together myself tom and Ollie ran the stall and scammed plenty of money off little kids. But in the end it all went to the fundraising towards a school trip to Okinawa in Japan. It was also a good time to look at some of the familiar faces from the School and buy a few gifts for Christmas.

First Night Of Explorers.

First Night of Explorers

Explorers had been all the hype since I had arrived. What activities do they do? What do they have planned? Are they more fun then us? Throughout the week Zoe had been hinting that the explorers would be plucking, skinning, and cooking pheasants if the weather were right, but unfortunately the weather went a bit south and we ended up for the first night going onto an abandoned farm/paddock and having massive nerf war between the unit.  This was a prime time to get to know a good portion of the unit, even though i couldn't see their faces most of the time. But on the first week of doing Explorers I was given an Explorer Scarf made particularly for their unit. It is cool groovy looking blue scarf with flames on the end, reminding me of a hot wheels car from back in Aus.

In the long and short of it though, I believe their Explorer group had left a reasonable impression on me for a good first night. It was a good way to meet the group via a Nerf war.

Second Day of School

Word is quickly spreading of my arrival with several more people coming around and greeting me and wanting to know why I came to their school. Many have said since I have arrived the school has never been so drawn to one section of the school. This would of mainly been to my "Big surprise" that I was a triple jump prodigy in their school. Although I perform just above average in triple jump in Aus, the students of Dene Magna were very excited to see someone who could jump 13m in triple jump. I "performed" 3 jumps, each with growing publicity. By the third jump the majority of the school had gathered around to see me jump.

I also met a very comforting grade 8 student by the name of Bailey, who reminds me alot of my next door neighbor Bradley at home. He seems to be my closest friend for the following couple of days as he shows me around the school and introducing me with the title "The Australian Slayer". I get a good giggle out of the nickname and gives the girls something to lean on. Still wouldn't consider getting with anyone though. Too much loyalty with the Mrs. at home. But false hope is always a giggle.

The First Day of School Wednesday 2/12/15

Now the glitz and glamour of just arriving has begun to wear off, I was introduced into the first day of school. Thinking it would be similar to school at home, i woke up at 6:50am....but the sun wasn't even up! So I continued to get ready like i would at home. Shave, Shower, Clothes on. Came back downstairs almost all ready to go to find Tom and Will in their dressing gowns looking like they had only just woke up. Slowly but surely we left out the door at 8:35 to head to their school Dene Magna.

Dene Magna is a small public school consisting of around 500 students consisting of many similar personalities to Australia, such as the loud mouth, the quiet kid, the opinionated person etc. I was greeted by the school Principle Mr Brady where he informed me all about the school and my role for the next 7 weeks. Once we had our introductions he showed me to my first class which was English with Mrs Meek. Mrs Meek is the Head of English and stated that I could either watch from a distance or just jump straight in helping out with novel work. Since it was the first lesson I kicked back and observed how everybody worked.

The second lesson I had that day was Maths with Mr. Jones. He was really excited to meet an Australian and immediately asked me to introduce myself to his class and got me to help him teach some maths to his class. I absolutely enjoyed it. The sudden intensity of teaching a brand new class really was exciting and pushed my limits considering I myself only just left school. But it really goes to show that if you have enough confidence you can be anything.

Once this lesson finished I moved along to my first tea break. This was spent in the Teacher Aide office where I got to know some of the teachers on a first name basis. Whilst every teacher in the school was drinking some tea, I was sipping on some good ol water.

The next bell went where i headed to my next Math lesson with Mr Macdonald. This lesson was on the opposite extreme of exciting. In a nutshell he sat me down and I did nothing whilst he taught. No introductions or anything. But thats alright.

At lunch the awareness of my arrival grew excessively as massive clusters of girls gathered round from all grades to listen to my voice and to constantly tell me how fit I was. Turns out Fit means good looking and not overly athletic. I'm enjoying the publicity thus far with many people to meet.

A day at the Museum

On the first full day of the exchange, all the boys and Paul were either at school or work. So Zoe (the mum) took me down to discover the roots of the Forest of Dean at the Forest of Dean Heritage museum. We left the house at 9am bright n early to make the opening for the museum. We walked in and were greeted by a lovely man named David. He was one of the final original miners from the Forest of Dean back in the 20th Century. He gave me and Zoe a very well in depth of the background of the area and what his role was in the mines. Once we finished our discussion we headed into the actual museum where there was all types of mining artifacts and photograph from the mining age.

We both took our time, soaking in the area and soaking in the information provided by the museum. Taking many photos of the pottery and the scenery surrounds.

But the highlight of the day struck when there was a small tour for the infamous children novel "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". I got Zoe to take a photo with me with every single handmade caterpillar on the tour. This experience really was an eye opener for me personally as I saw one of my favorite childhood novels come to life.