Wilfred goes farther afield

Hello!  It's me, Wilfred!  And I have only one more month to go living here in the Britain along with my two dads.

(Sorry to be late posting this week -- we've been in the Yorkshire wolds on my half term break,  and my dads had no internet signal or cell phone service!  Yikes!  I don't know which was scarier for them -- that, or Dad driving stick shift left-handed on the wrong side of the road!  I will tell you all about that adventure next blog, but first here is a look at my lead up to half term week.)

In London, there always seems to be some excitement going on.  Sometimes it is big stuff, like President Obama visiting the Queen, and sometimes it is small stuff  happening right under my window on Elvaston Place in South Kensington.
 

The Mall leading to Buckingham Palace -- ready for Mr. Obama's visit

Every once in a while I hear clop, clop, clopping in the street below and when I rush to look, horses are being trotted by.   The Queen's mounted guards take them for a trot to get the horses used to people and traffic, so they won't be distracted when they do their horse jobs for the Queen.

Below my bedroom window on Elvaston...

Do you think the white one was the royal wedding run-away getting a brush up?

The horses have a big job coming up in June, when the Queen celebrates her birthday with the trooping of the colour.  That is when the Queen inspects all her guards who protect her from the baddies-- and she has a lot of them!  Guards, I mean.  It is a big show -- they even put up grandstands and sell tickets.  Poppy wanted to go, but they sold out really fast.  Luckily for him, he was walking down the Mall and he saw the guards doing a practice!

At Ravenstone, there has been lots of excitement as everybody gets ready for half-term break.  Hard to believe that the spring term is already half over.  The last couple of weeks, we did some very  fun stuff.  We had a literature week, when an author came to visit and read from his book.  AND we had a fun day, when we got to dress up as a character from literature and guess who I came as?  A TRAIN!  I was James from Thomas the Tank Engine.  Dad helped me make my costume.


My favorite character from literature was a train!  Dad helped make my costume.

We also had a sports day at Battersea Park and my dads came with other parents to watch.  We were divided into teams and we got points for our team by competing in events.  I came in second in the bean bag toss, which was my best sport.  I think I came in near the end of the potato and spoon race (Dad called it, the "Irish Event"), and my team kind of got mixed up in the relay race and Emmanuelle tried to hand the baton to the wrong team, so that didn't go too well. 

It didn't matter to me.  I just liked being outside and running around.  I cheered for everybody and said, "Good one, Mir Ali!" and "Way to go, Julie!"  People told me I was only supposed to cheer for my own team, but that makes no sense -- everybody is trying.  Anyway, my team came last, which I didn't mind, except I really wanted to get a medal and they only give them to the winners, not the losers, which means a fun day ends up a bummer for most of the people.  Sometimes, I don't get sports.

This is me at Sports Day with Thomas, Samuel, Riley and Mrs. Heath in TRACK SHOES!

Ready for my best sport, bean bag toss!  That's my teacher Miss Saunders (in BLUE JEANS!) with Miss Lou

Can you see me in the race?

In long jump -- the trick is to fall forward!

The potato race needs concentration and a steady spoon  hand



The relay is all about passing the baton... to the right team...

 

Me with Mir Ali and Bella.  Sometimes, I just don't get sports...

On the weekend, Poppy and Dad and I decided we would explore London a little farther afield, so we went for a day out in Richmond.   Daddy and Poppy had been reading about Richmond and thought it sounded like an interesting place.  Poppy really wanted to go to see a place called Ham House.

To get to Richmond, you take the District Line to the very end -- as far west as you can possibly go. To get to Ham House,  you then have to walk a mile and a half on the footpath OR you can take the bus.  I don't like walking as much as Dad and Poppy.   I wanted to take the bus, so my deal with Poppy was that we would take the bus there and then walk back.   We took the 65 bus to the Sandpits Road stop on Petersham Road by Ham Polo Ground.

Richmond Tube Station

65 Bus to Ham

The bus winds through Richmond and then follows the road west toward Ham.  Richmond is a very nice town, built up in the Victorian times, full of fancy shops and cafes and people with expensive sunglasses.  We got off at Petersham Road and walked back to some gates and down a long alley of big leafy trees, where Richmond's richies walk their dogs. 

On our right, we saw people practising polo in the field.  Polo is a bit like field hockey and a bit like croquet only you play it on horse back.  Dad gave Poppy a hard time because Poppy expected to see Camilla walking her dog and he had his eye out for Prince Harry or Prince William.  Later, we found out that the princes had just been at the Ham Club playing in a charity polo match.  "See," said Poppy to Dad, "And you mock me!"

Polo: sort of field hockey with croquet whackers on horseback

Guess who plays at Ham?

I don't think they take the 65 bus

Ham House has hardly changed a bit in nearly 400 years.  It belonged to an earl (which is my middle name but no relation).  The earl was the first King Charles' whipping boy.  Do you know what a whipping boy is?  In olden times, the English people believed that the King was next to God and since the prince was the king's son and would one day be king, no one was allowed to punish him when he was little, even if he misbehaved or if he didn't do his school work.  So, when the Prince was a baby, another baby was brought to live with him in the nursery and they would become best playmates.  Whenever the Prince was naughty,do you know what they did?  They punished his best friend - the "whipping boy".  Can you even believe it?

When King Charles and his whipping boy grew up, they were still best friends. King Charles made him an earl and gave him the most beautiful house on the Thames River -- all the property between the royal palace at Hampton Court and the royal palace at Richmond.  Things got tricky for the earl's family and King Charles, because there was a revolution and a man named Cromwell arrested the king and the king got his head cut off.  The earl escaped from England, but somehow, his daughter, who was a countess, kept Cromwell from taking her house. She was very crafty, they say.  

Ham House was the home of King Charles I's whipping boy and BFF

We got to Ham House just in time to have lunch at the cafe.  The cafe is in the old orangery -- which is like a greenhouse kind of where they used to grow oranges and lemons and things that don't do so well in England.  The National Trust runs Ham house today and they need to make money to pay for it.  The cafe has tables outside in the part of the garden where the earl's family used to grow flowers for cutting and fruit and vegetables for the kitchen.  Now they use what they grow to make yummy stuff at the cafe.

This is the kitchen garden where they used to grow herbs and food for the earl, but now for the cafe. 

After lunch, we watched a movie in the old dairy barn, all about the history of the house -- especially about the crafty countess who kept it going after her dad and made it so beautiful... even if she did spend all her money...

Even the dairy barn is fancy -- check out the table legs

Then it was inside the house.   Ham House sure is fancy.  It had to be, because the king and queen came to visit a lot and the earl had to have a special guest room that included a throne!


Entrance hall, Ham House

Part of the Queen's guest apartment

They also have a great big gallery full of pictures of themselves.  A man who worked at Ham House told me that they had something fun that kids really like.  "A train?" I asked.  No, he said and he handed me a carved lion face and told me to look for the hidden animals carved in the picture frames. 


Not sure the National Trust always understands kids...

As we looked at the pictures of the different owners of Ham House, we kept thinking that they looked familiar.  Then we saw a picture of the countess' daughter and we said, "Oh my gosh, she looks just like our friend, NADENE!!"  Poppy used to teach Nadene and he said that she always said she was long-lost royalty.   Dad said there was no doubt she had a little Ham in her somewhere.


Dene?  Is that you?

We finished our visit to Ham House with a look around outside.  Ham House has a great backyard that gets rented out a bunch for film shoots.  It was used in a movie Poppy really likes about when Queen Victoria was young.


Nice big yard



Making movies helps pay for looking after Ham House

It was time for us to start our  mile and a half back to the tube station.  I was mad because I wanted to take the bus again, but Poppy said a deal was a deal.  At first, I thought it was just dumb walking, but then I saw some cows.  I like cows. "How now brown cow!"   

I will keep my end of the bargain, but I won't like it.

Hey, cows in Ham...who knew?

What's up ahead?

A boat race on the Thames!

That water is freezing!

A mile isn't far when there is interesting stuff to see



Like cricket on the Richmond green!





A house worth guarding

Soon, we were back at Richmond tube stop.  At the Richmond station, you can also catch the London Overground -- part of London's new suburban trains.  Poppy promised that we could take the Overground train to Gunnersby before transferring back to the Underground to get back to Gloucester Road.  And you know me, any day with a train in it is a good day!

Poppy let me take the Overground from Richmond to Gunnersby

Well, that is all this week.  Be sure to check in again in a few days, when I will tell you all about my adventures in the land of Robin Hood, highway men, pirates, sea captains and dead relations in Nottingham and the Yorkshire coast.

Bye for now, Wilfie!