Reading Rekkie

So, those of you not yet “in the know”, my work is relocating from Prague, CZ to Reading, UK (pronounced Redding). (No, the romance of the city was not part of the selection criteria…)

As of next week (2nd Feb), I will be officially working in the UK. 

We have had our heads in the sand for the last few months, not really facing up to the reality of the move.  So, being the late Woods that we are, who always leave things to the last minute, we began our exploration of life in Reading; choice of schools; cost of housing; relocation costs; and all the diligent things that one does before embarking on a life changing move, about 2 weeks ago…

This last weekend, we made our first trip to Reading and Colin prepared the itinerary for the week-end, lining up houses to visit and schools to interview.  Fortunately, the UK is very open about the performance of their schools and they are evaluated regularly, with all the results available to view on the web (www.ofsted.gov.uk).  The admissions process is handled by the council, and is a real mission to navigate, as you must live in the catchment in order to apply for the school.  So, after receiving the list from the council of the schools where there was space, we then went and did all the homework about the suitability of the schools.  I was very pessimistic… (good schools are generally full, with waiting lists; schools with vacancies … ?).  We were fortunate though in that a couple of the schools with vacancies were ranked as “grade 2” schools (above average, but not outstanding), which we could live with.

So Friday night we set off on easyjet and spent Saturday touring the area, with agents lined up for viewings throughout the day.  Our earmarked suburbs were South Earley and Woodley, both within 40 minutes of my office.

House number 1 in Redhatch road was on the top of our shortlist, (the house on the left) right up until our last house that we viewed.

Surprise, Surprise, the current tenants were South Africans, so we had a good kuier in the kitchen.  This house was reasonably close to the school, but not really walking distance.

Another house we saw in the area (talk about skinny):

The next house, I texted my folks about as we were on our way:  20 Walmer Crescent – We lived in Walmer in PE, so a nice co-incidence.  Also, the neighbouring street was Willowside – we lived in Willowvale in JHB!

This was our nr 2 favourite (or nr 1 depending on who was answering). 

We discovered, on talking to the owner, that there is a brilliant primary school 50 yards from the house (Willow bank Junior - which we had not known about), so this was a real score.  Unfortunately, there was only place for Sarah, and although we pursued the options with the council until the 99th hour on this one, there was no guarantee that we would get them both in until Sept.

Then, the last house we saw on Monday evening, was the one I walked into, and knew it was our house:

Walking distance to the school that has space; in a cul-de-sac; walking distance to the shops and bus stop; direct bus to my office; 4 bedrooms; yard out back; and furnished as well :)

This is the primary school, which has a very homey and cosy feeling to it, and the ofsted results are also good.

So, in the 4 days, we interviewed 3 schools; viewed 10 homes; met the council; applied to the school of choice; and agreed an offer to Let!

Now, our big move date is the 14th of February (a mere 2 weeks away), and somehow within that time, we need to pack up a house;  collect the moving van from Reading; drive it back to Prague; pack up the van; drive it back to Reading; while I am working in Reading and the girls are in school in Prague…  Anyone feel like a holiday in Prague / Reading to help us move and babysit?

Visit to Hans and Šárka de Groot

Hans and his wife Šárka are Ridgeback breeders and had their 3rd litter of puppies a few months ago.  They had 4 Ridgebacks and added a 5th from the latest litter – this is a picture of their family from their website (Chiwitse Ingwe):

The welcome at the front door was rather overwhelming, but the girls very quickly became accustomed to the licking and nosing and made friends with all of them.

They also have an indoor swimming pool, decorated Nemo style, and so the girls swam up a storm before supper.

Hans and Šárka brought everything from their SA home, including the weaver nests; tumble weeds; and elephant hair, so it was very nostalgic walking into Africa once again.The dogs are more human than canine and as such have equal status in the family – taking over one’s lap if the couch is already full:

In case you didn’t believe me – they even have their own blanket…

Thanks Hans & Šárka for a great evening!!

Jill’s 40th Birthday

To provide the introductions:  Jill and Jon are Canadian missionaries, who have been in Prague for a few months.  Sarah is best friends with their daughter Malory as they are in the same class at school.

Jill invited us to join them (and their team) to celebrate her birthday.  As Jon was a youth pastor, the games were let loose and the big people got to have as much fun as all the kids, with white elephant gifts (give a gift from something useful (or useless as most the cases were) from home); and balloon popping (or stomping).

Jill in the pink fleece on the right;  It is the kiddies turn to choose pressies:

Jon sitting on the TV table, with his youngest Ella being the centre of attention: Happy Birthday Jill!

Miscellaneous Snaps

The following are a mishmash of photies from Jan:

The results of shopping with their christmas money from Gran & Grandpa:

A very forlorn looking Saz:

Posing for photos is much easier than the Maths I am busy doing:

Wii tennis – couch style:

Skating at Divoká Šárka

Remember the “Wild Woman” park that we visited in Autumn?  (Afternoon in Divoká Šárka).  Well, we were back there again this week-end to skate on the lake.

My office overlooks the Divoká Šárka park, and so every morning as I get out of the lifts, I take a moment to look out of the window and take in the view of the park.  Before we left for our ski trip over Christmas and New Year, I was watching the surface of the lake start to freeze, but the snow never fully settled on the surface.  Since we have been back, it has been constantly below –12 and the snow has formed a think blanket on the surface and evidence of skating has appeared (along with a few benches in the middle of the lake).  “When do you know that the ice is thick enough to skate on?”  Tomas’ very sound advice was “when others are skating and they have not fallen in…”.  Now was the time to dust off the skates and enjoy our first skate in Prague.

This is our street with the fresh snow fall lying all about:

Sarah and Amber took every opportunity to get towed:

Below, you can see my office building overlooking the park (we are on the top floor):

A view across the lake with everyone skating.  The snow did not make for easy skating and the well prepared came with shovels and spent lots of energy clearing patches of ice and making trails and paths across the lake:

Amber was a bit apprehensive at first, with memories of her last skate leading to a broken arm, but she could not sit on the edge for very long before wanting to join in the fun:

“Would you like snow-chains with that…?”

The 08/09 holiday account Part 1

This holiday has been a great one, certainly one that ranks highly on my favourite list of all the time we’ve spent in Europe. Two weeks of skiing in Austria is not a bad way to spend your Christmas and New Year. We missed family and friends to be sure, but spent a very merry Christmas and New Year despite the lack.

This vac has been notable on a few fronts. Firstly, a few new and novel experiences, and secondly, it has been cold. We’ve had cold days before, even at the temps that we had while we were away, but nothing as sustained as this was.

We left Prague in the low positives, hoping that there would be good snow and decent cold to keep it. By the time we arrived in Austria, LATE on Friday night, it was already getting respectably chilly, snow everywhere, and falling. Our first few days were spent in a hotel situated literally on the slopes – ski-in, ski-out access to the hotel - very nice. But in order to get to it, we had to drive a few Km up the hill… from Solden to Hochsolden. The hill in question here is Alpine, so, it was never going to be your average ascent. Given the state of the weather, this required the use of snow chains – something that we’ve taken with us before, but never had to use, despite my nervous wife’s prompting on occasion.

En route to the hotel, Hayley’s colleague, who organised the group reservations for us at the hotel, and who had arrived earlier in the evening, called to caution us to make the climb with chains – he had passed others who hadn’t used on the way, and they had gotten stuck on the hill. He, of course, made the trip in a 4x4, so… no trouble. Heeding the advice, and the rising angst in the Bugz sitting next to me, we pulled over in Solden, just before the turn-off, to affix said snow chains and continue the trip.

As it happened, we stopped over right in-front of a strip joint – many of the ski areas have a few titty bars in them – Solden is no exception. Anyhow, it was about 7 below and approaching midnight when we pulled over. I had left my big, warm jacket at home in the chaos that is always the Woods departing on a trip. Still, I figured that I could have the chains on inside 15 minutes, and could cope with the temperature just in my fleece and jeans – sure it would be cold, but doable.

The principle is quite simple you understand – the chains are dummy-proof – there is a broken loop of steel cable that fits behind the wheel – it has a single, simple clasp that ties the two ends together and then there are a series of loose polygon-shaped petals that you fold over the tyre and loop together with another chain on the outside of the wheel… perfectly simple, you don’t even have to drive onto the chains to get the tyre covered! The whole assembly is colour-coded so that you basically just have to connect the dots and you’re done. You gotta love it. Anyway – this was to be the first of the new and novel experiences I was talking about a minute ago. I have never used snow-chains before – and here I get to use them for some real testing driving – maybe it’s just “guy thing” but driving up a hill that demands snow-chains is kinda cool, any sissy can drive up a hill on a dry day by pressing a little harder on the accelerator, but snow and gradients so bad that you need chains just to have a chance of making it to the top is just more notable – right? At the pub afterwards, with your mates you could tell all the boys about the hill you conquered with your chains – real men use chains!

Well, I got the the chains from the (very full) boot and opened up the case. They were warm to the touch for about a minute… and then were nothing more than unrelenting purveyors of cold. Undaunted, un-gloved and un-jacketed, chain-man over here got to work. First tyre… ok, this is simple enough – clasp the cable behind the tyre – not too tough, not much wheel clearance tho, so have to push long sleeves up to elbows to get behind the wheels and make the join. Got it, now to flop the traction-bits over and tie them up… hmmm, how is this supposed to work again…? I get the inside loop nice and even, but while getting the first of the polys tied up, the ones on the opposite side of the wheel have buggered off behind the tyre… get hold of them, fingers are going numb, but still working ok, pull on chains to get them even again… no give, not even so that I can see the loops to secure them… I start with the furrowed brow, fussing with the chains, loosening a little here to get more give there, but they slip out and collapse behind the wheel. Back to square one. It’s been about 15 minutes now and I’m getting cold, and shivering – can’t feel much in my fingers anymore, but recognise the chains as distinct from the car by sound and the extra pain of grasping their sharp edges. After another 10 minutes or so of this wrestling match, I begin speaking in tongues – my chosen dialect on this occasion is high French, and I’m glad the engine is running, and the noise of the fan dominate the cabin so the wife and kids can’t hear the old man heaping expletives upon these non-cooperative inanimates.

Soon enough my struggle is noticed by a group of patrons exiting the titty bar I mentioned just now… They wander over having had an eye-full and a skin-full, and begin spouting advice in German – My German is bad, but good enough to know that they are not going to be of much help. As the monologue wears on, Hayley establishes rapport with the group, and by a twist of fate they happen to work for the same company, suddenly I have extra people getting their hands on the problem – maybe they can get it figured out. At this point I would gladly take the hit on my pride, if they get it sorted, I just want to get out of the cold and get to the hotel. It’s been close on an hour now and I am beginning to lose interest in how cool snow-chains are. They take over and sukkel just as much as I have on wheel one, another group takes the second chain and begins work on the other wheel. I’m saved! A group of natives – surely they will conquer these blasted chains and we can get home. After watching the experts at work for about 10 minutes, I become convinced that they are wasting my time and making slower progress than I was, now that is saying something. Still, one can’t be too grateful for help. We decide that the car must be moved forward onto the chains to enable them to be fitted correctly. Hayley, now in the driver’s seat is inching forward, then back, then forward, then back… no progress is being made. This goes on of some time and I take control of wheel one again. Now I am shivering so violently that, an outsider would have been justified in asking his companions what business an epileptic had, trying to fit snow-chains to his vehicle during a seizure.

I still have feeling in my hands but it has nothing to do with the usual sensations one would normally associate with the forms one is touching. It is a monochrome pain that varies not in location, which is from fingertip to elbow, but only in intensity. Now another group of spectators arrives, they are en-route to the skin and perfume shop. There is a motor-mechanic among them, these men are pissed as newts, they are in good spirits, and very helpful as a result. The mechanic first asks everyone present “who hates George Bush?” After we come to the obvious unanimity, the formalities are over, and he goes to work, quoting “yes we can!” from Obama’s acceptance speech, in response to any negativity. While the speech in question is one of the most powerful things I have ever heard, and the quote will go down in history, it had limited impact coming from the swaying mechie in front of me, God bless him. By the 10th repetition, it had lost all of it’s appeal. Another 45 minutes of “Back two inches… just two inches…” forward!… just two inches…” and I wanted to find a hotel for the night or even sleep in the car. It’s 1am.

Eventually, out of complete desperation I unpack the entire boot onto the ice-covered road, and pull out the jack. Ignoring all the protests from the mechanic and his mate, who was providing light on the subject by shining the light from his cell phone into the blackness of the wheel-well, I began to jack up the car. I had horse-race style commentary from the two of them… how the jack should be positioned under the car, and how we don’t even have to turn the wheel to get the chains on… etc. In a trice my white-knuckle grip on the crank had the car off the ground and minutes later the chain fitted. Repeat for the second wheel, during which time the cheerleaders all said their goodbyes and climbed the stairs to DD heaven.

So, 2 and a half hours after beginning the 15 minute job, and now pleasantly numb, I re-packed the car and began the macho drive up the treacherous hill.

“How about that weather?!”

The 08/09 holiday account Part 2

The Alpin Hotel Enzian. A very nice place. On-piste, and the kids ski-school assembles on the doorstep every morning – couldn’t be better. Expensive tho! Still, I guess you get what you pay for – which is a lot. Enzian is the one in the middle here – it has many a feature, for the kids, none more important than the indoor swimming pool with glass walls so you can don your cozzie, have a splash and watch skiers zooming down the slope outside.

How’s that for a moody sky? Lovely stuff. See the precipitous drop behind the buildings…? That, my friends, is snow-chain territory! Not for sissies.

I had hoped for a very late morning given the excitement of the previous night, but you know, the kids had slept most of the journey and so were full of the joys before the sun came up – don’t you feel sorry for me?

Actually, we got down for breakfast at about 9, most people were already out, but Hayley’s colleague, Josef and his family were waiting for us. We caught up on the events of the trip up the hill and, after they had calmed themselves they went off for a ski.

We settled in for a nice breakfast!

This is Amber’s idea of a healthy breakfast. You can tell she loves it!

Fruit is much more appealing when it looks, and tastes like cake!

Sazza busy with her kwassso…

We were in no rush to leave the building, the food is good, the view out onto the mountains is even better and there are a full two weeks of snow and skiing ahead of us – paradise methinks.

Last night it snowed, today it is snowing some more, heavy skies overhead, but good enough viz for some decent skiing, which we accomplished.

The girls love the idea of building snowmen – its just the actual building of them that is not that interesting. What usually happens is that we decide to build one, then Hayley and I get to construct the thing while Amber and Saz frolic about “helping”. I’m not complaining mind you – I quite enjoy it.

On this occasion, the snow wasn’t balling at all well, so we went with a kind of towering approach…

This is Sarah building a snow man

This is Amber selecting a clump that looks like it could be a head

Saz didn’t think we had enough snow to construct the man, and so spent time mining for fresh snow nearby and bringing it in to add to the snowman.

After about an hour of construction and a very one-sided snow-fight our towering snowman was done – well all except for the spaghetti hair, coal eyes, carrot nose and so on.

When we arrived at the hotel, we parked in front of the place, not aware that there was under-cover parking for guests. For the past 2 days, I’ve been watching the car slowly become less visible beneath the gathering snow from the bedroom window.

Now for another of those firsts… I got a snow shovel from the gaffer and set out to liberate the car in fear that we wouldn’t be able to find it when we check out 2 days from now. Apart from the snow falling on everything, the car was parked (alongside others) close to the road that goes up, past the hotel. All the snow that falls on the road is graded aside each morning and during the day by the snow ploughs, just adding to the blockage.

Ours is the one in the middle. The bank of snow behind the cars is about 3 feet deep, on top – about a foot. This is the accumulation of 36 hours – I didn’t fancy what it would look like 2 more days hence – and it is still snowing.

Last year we took care to be fit for the ski season, running and weight training well in advance to make the most of the season, this year, we have done naught – and it is about to show… more than once.

Shovel in hand I eagerly anticipated the novelty of shovelling snow for the first time. So it was 12 below outside, but I was in my ski jacket and gloves, warm enough this time and under no pressure.

Snow scoops up well enough into the shovel, I had a massive one, it must have held at least 5kgs of snow at a time. I felt like singing Shosholoza as I hefted the powder spade after spade in the crisp air.

After the first 300kgs of snow, the novelty was beginning to wear off tho, and there was still a way to go. I took care to swing the snow as far out as I could, and got most of it clear, but the poor bugger parked to my right was going to have a lot more digging to do than I. About a ton of snow later, my lower back was lecturing me like a fish-wife, but at least the car was mobile. I left all the snow on the roof and hood, but cleared the glass and drove to the parking garage – you know every last flake of it was still there when we left.

On the way out, I had to stop and get a photo of this – there was a row of cars parked just below the hotel, some of them literally invisible under the snow. When it’s cold out you are well advised to lift your windscreepers to prevent them freezing to the glass – in this case it serves another purpose – if you can identify your car by it’s screepers that is!

The girls love eating snow. So much so, that we often have to stop them from eating stuff that has past it’s “Best Before” date if you know what I mean. Our balcony was under about 3 feet of snow, and after the girls had scooped most of what they could get off of the window sills, it was out onto the balcony with their glasses to get more.

Amber is eating hers off of her tooth brush… aye. As happy as…

Some of the icicles hanging down from the roof of the balcony – look at them mountains!

Solden is a stunning place – as far as skiing is concerned, much better than Stubai, but I’ll get back to that later. It has that spaciousness that we found on the slopes in the Grand Massive – I think the widest piste I have ever seen is here, there’s a lovely fast blue that runs down to the middle station that has to be several hundred meters wide.

And wherever you look, there is just the most beautiful scenery – we’ll be back here often I hope.

Ok, so cloudy is not the best for skiing, but this is not so hard on the eyes!

We need to move to an apartment lower down the hill (below snow-chain country) for the second part of our week. Apartment Rangger it is – self catering now, no more half-board, but clean, spacious apartments, this is one place we’ll come back to. Here’s the view from the balcony looking over Solden town.

Bugz getting ready to go – you can see the glacier in the background. If this looks cold, it isn’t – cold happened a long time ago. With the wind chill, its probably about –25 out there, you literally need to pace thaw-stops into your day. It’s not an all-over cold, the clothes take care of the body, and 4 layers is cozy warm on top, but the toes, fingers and face… these take a pounding. Many a Km we skid grasping extra hard onto ski poles coz you can’t actually feel them properly your fingers are so numb.

For the first few days we didn’t venture to the top of the hill – I think the highest skiable point here is 3333m – because of the cloud. On a previous visit we tried it, got caught in thick cloud, abandoned the ascent, and almost literally had to feel our way down the hill again. That attempt was made with the kids in tow – as you might imagine, trying to get blind babies to ski is not easy.

This time, attempting it ourselves was going to be better. The sky was clear and the weather crisp as we made the trip. The higher we went up the hill, the more the wind blew, one some occasions, it was strong enough that you’d have to turn away from it to be able to breathe. At the top station the temperature was radically colder than the mid-slopes of –15 or so that we’d been skiing, I don’t know what it was precisely, but you can take my word for it! The lift station at the top had these curious snow-growths attached like barnacles on the hull of a ship, or maybe more like coral on rock.

Somehow, the driven snow gains purchase on a spot on the glass or wall and then begins to grow – see some growing in the middle of clear glass? It was all the creativity I could muster to frame the mountains in the mirror before I sacrificed a digit to the cold.

We are under 4 layers of clothing, and these little snow-growths began to form on our ski jackets! Blasted on initially by the wind, or perhaps, the escaping moisture from a warm(ish) body beneath was simply freezing on contact with the air.

This is what it looks like from the top of the hill – see how deep the mountains go…

The trip down was interesting in part because of the cold – our goggles froze over completely, so that looking through them was worse than trying to look through a heavily frosted pane of glass. The wind, whipping up snow into those drifts you see in documentaries on the Arctic, made the use of goggles essential. Snow in the eyes is not pleasant on a good day, snow blasting the eyes is unbearable. We had to stop to try and clear the visors. At first, scratching the ice off seemed a good way to go, but was messy, and seemed so abrasive as to score the visors, so was abandoned. I decided to make the trip down using eyelashes to keep the snow out and let in just enough visual to stay on the mountain, Hayley though can’t do things like this, so I began licking the ice off her goggles. The strategy was effective, but not really elegant, the spit re-froze in seconds, so a lick and wipe process was used to get the worst off – at least it got us down the slope.

The other thing that contributed to making the trip down so interesting was attempting the most severe black run we have ever encountered. We ski’d the alternative long blue route down, and it is great fun, but there is nothing like a nice challenging black to get you going. At the top of most slopes, you can see something of what is coming up – not here – you can see the slope disappear and then reappear 1500m later. I chuckled to myself as we went over – you fall once on a slope like this and you get up at the bottom. It is so steep that, the snow you disturb during a turn comes with you down the slope, rolling along the surface beside you. As it happened, the gradient actually got steeper mid-way down so that standing in a moderately tight turn, I could put my hand out and touch the mountain. An un-groomed slope like this would be avalanche material – certainly off limits for our skill level. It was hectic with a capital “huh!” Obviously we had to do it again… it was lovely.

Towards the bottom of the most severe part I was taken completely by surprise as not one, but many skiers came past in schus mode – i.e. 90 degrees to the slope, or in open carves – in either case they must have been approaching the speed of sound on their descent – madness, until I can do it you understand…

It’s hard to convey a sense of the steepness involved, but this is what I am talking about.

See you in part 3…