Mainsah Mania

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'Mwezi and 'Maka dressing the Christmas tree

Happy Birthday Dad!

And an especially happy birthday from Wamaka:

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/k1C7Oudl4QxjaB0E

and Namwezi:

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/tVjdAVcpOPP03n6F

Photos from London

Dear All, here are some pictures from Dylan, Chil and the girls' visit to London last month.

Happy Birthday to Chil

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CHIL!

Have an excellent day Chil - we'll be thinking of you.

We hope to see you fairly soon.

With love from

bill and claudia

Protea + Mulenga

Some pictures from our recent trip to Protea Safari lodge with Mulenga

Hibernation

If you've been wondering what we've been up to, there's been a bit of hibernation. The Ottawa winter, since our last post, was loooooonnnnnngggg....

With frozen waterfalls...



...0ur friend Sylvain, demonstrating what happens if you leave a can of coke in your car when it's -20 overnight

The longest skating rink in the world - the canal at the bottom of our street

But although there were still snow banks in some shadows last month we've had a blink-and-you've-missed-it spring, and suddenly summer is here. The farmers market is open and everyone's out on their decks firing up the BBQ. Hibernation's over.

PS I'll have to report our hibernation-breaks to New York, Sudan and the Emirates in another post.

Update from Kaela

Well let's start from the top

Me
I'm cool- excited to be starting school June 1st. I'm getting a French AuPair called Amandine Delpeuche. She arrives soon. Can u believe that is the cheapest childcare I can find? A live in AuPair.
We are all eagerly waiting to meet Yosi's family at the end of May. Lesa has sent a schedule, name tags and script and we are ready, set....

Tashe
Her recent disastrous foray into the game of basketball was followed by some shocking success at Volleyball! So we best stop there. She continues to get good grades (although Eva sat her down after her last report to sternly enquire why she got only 96% in English). She still has issues with 'mean' girls but has recently been chosen as a champion for 'project good role model'

Sunjo
Is the star football striker with 7 goals in 2 games this season! He recently remarked that Asamoah Gyan was the greatest football player ever. 4 DVDs later ( Pele & Maradona's greatest hits) and he was crushed into submission. He is finding that being elected to the student government involves too many meetings at recess. This experience might have soured any political ambition.

Zanga
We are still trying to work out exactly what sport Zanga likes. He continues to be the most popular child in the family, with lots of requests for playdates. We recently decided to have a daily dinner tradition where each person round the table states what 'random act of kindness' they performed during the day. Zanga always tops the list closely followed by Sunjo. I'm afraid Tashe and I struggle and are constantly disqualified.

Eva
Is on cloud nine after watching ManU beat Chelsea( 2-1) live at Old Trafford last weekend. He walks around singing: 'Who are ya, Who are ya!' & 'Can you here us Merseyside' & 'You're not singing anymore'

Happy Birthday to Mia And Ella!

I don't suppose the twins are checking the blog each day but here's to a very Happy Birthday (for tomorrow) to Mia and Ella from all of us in the UK - have an excellent day girls!

Norwich Evening News, Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Congratulations!

65 years is a truly amazing achievement. Looking forward to your platinum in 5 years time!

Dylan

I guess Winter's here!

Chil's in Winchester for Lucy's wedding, well, the weather's changed!
I wonder what the girls will make of it tomorrow?

Autumn in Ottawa

It's still just about Autumn (fall) in Ottawa... although it was 2c this morning when we went to the farmers market. Its been really pretty in the Glebe which has a lot of old trees.



The road on the right is closed on Sunday mornings except for bicycles and goes for miles along the canal to Byward market. Chil had bought the first bike that she's ever owned, I've got one for the first time in about 10 years and we've even got a little trailer for the girls! They love the trailer but don't love the helmets.



We spent a weekend with our friend Mike Shanahan in Montreal, who was visiting on a sabbatical from the UK. Here's Namwezi running after squirrels. Our friend Sylvain had taught the girls a few words in French the weekend before and they remembered to say "bonjour" and "au reviour" to the Quebecois in the park.

And here's Namwezi again, getting to grips with the local sporting culture. Wamaka is in the shadows.


Hope you have enjoyed Autumn. We're getting prepared for the winter that is surely just around the corner. Last year was mild but apparently they had 8 meters of snow the year before, so much more than Toronto.

Love, Dylan and Chil

Happy Anniversary!

Happy 40th anniversary Mum and Dad




If you have a fast internet connection you can see a hi-def version of this video at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1435548/Happy%20Anniversary%21.m4v

The picture speaks for itself!

Luke sent me this comparison... uncanny!

Happy Belated Birthday Claudia!

Would you believe it's still your birthday here!?? It's the time difference, you see...
Hope you had a great day,

love Dylan and Chil

Ottawa Summer

We've moved into our home for the next year or so (seen above). Our friend Yvonne's place was really nice and had home comforts I'd not imagined: the fridge was plumbed in to provide chilled filtered water and ice, the BBQ was plumbed in to the gas, there was forced air conditioning (and forced air heating for the winter) and even centrally piped vacuum, you just push a hose into the wall! But it's great to have our own place again and we are getting more and more settled in. We've got some really great neighbours and the Glebe is a lovely area to live in with a lot of stuff for kids to do. We have a spare room so can start accepting visitors straight away!

The slow, some say catatonic, pace of life is taking a bit of getting used to, but we have not been deterred by Ottawa being called "the town that fun forgot" and have unearthed some fun anyway.

Our big news is that we have some childcare for the girls, a nanny for 4 days a week so Chil can start thinking about her career again. The girls seem to enjoy getting out in the Glebe during the day and about and apparently their antics get all the other kids laughing. We also have a babysitter so we can explore Ottawa in the evenings a little. I'm well settled in at work at CHEO, they are a friendly bunch and it's great to finish in the operating room at 15:30 so I cycle home and can see the girls in the park before 4!

Last weekend we went to visit the cottage of some friends, about a 90 minute drive from home in Quebec. It's amazing to be right out in bear country, off the electricity grid and by a quiet lake after such a short time on the road. It took us about 90 minutes to get from Tooting to Islington on a Saturday afternoon, a considerably less picturesque drive. The girls enjoyed splashing about looking for frogs. Little fearless Wamaka wanted to head for the middle of the lake and as always took some dissuading. We ended up drying off in front of a campfire where the girls managed to get toasted marshmallow hair.



Namwezi and Wamaka are saying more and more words: hi, bye bye, yes, no, more, all gone, dog-dog, woof woof, miaow, up, socks and their favourite - shoes. They are getting less and less shy on Skype which is definitely the best way to get us all. Let us know when you're online.

Dylan

* * * Happy Birthday * * *

Happy Birthday Chil!
We hope you have an excellent day.
with lots of love,
from bill and claudia

Green bin racoon

It's not just me that's getting confused by Ottawa's refuse system.

Ottawans

We've been in Ottawa for one week now and the girls have recovered well from their trip. We have been given a very warm welcome by our friend Yvonne who has kindly offered to house us for the rest of this month and for July in her beautiful home in leafy Glebe. It's a much shower pace of life than Toronto and we have been adjusting to all the other differences of the nation's capital. In particular, the Ottawa recycling and refuse system is pretty complex. Ultimately I put out the neighbours trash by mistake after quite a lot of poking around to check everything had gone in the right bins. Apparently the neighbour thought I was one of the homeless people who searches the bins for the bottle deposits, which doesn't say much for how well I was looking with the jet lag.

We have already experienced very hot days, a heavy rain storm and a 5.5 earthquake which slightly curtailed Chil's shopping for suddenly needed summer clothes. Most of our time has been taken up with trying to find a place to live although we've found time to keep up with the World Cup and to explore this part of Ottawa. We haven't found a place yet but are starting to get a feel for the city. Next week Wednesday is Canada day, a national holiday, and I start work the Monday after.


A performance on the Trinidadian national instrument, the bottle and spoon, at the Ottawa Jazz Festival, by the excellent Drew Gonsalves and the Mash Potato Mashers.

Before You Leave . . .

It was really great to see Dylan and the girls in Norfolk last week. The girls were remarkably well behaved and Dylan wasn't too bad either; he seems to be getting the hang of almost single-handedly looking after Namwezi and Wamaka. Respect!

I thought I ought to post a few shots from their couple of days here. We went for lunch to the Wiveton Hall Cafe (Big House near the coast at Blakeney, small, informal bistro-type cafe and lots of acres of strawberries in tunnels and in the open air, plus asparagus and soft fruit bushes) and we witnessed exactly how much The Twins like strawberries . . . lots!

Hope you like these few pictures. We take this opportunity of wishing Chil, Dylan and The Twins a smooth and trouble-free flight to Ottawa and trust that all your planning will make the next few weeks easier for you all.