May 4, 2008
We went to bed around 11:00pm last night. After I left the computer, I joined everyone in the front room for some TV. They were watching the semi-finals of the Snooker tournament. At first I thought they were watching a pool game, which I thought a little odd, and then Jeremiah asked me if I had ever seen Snooker before. I thought he was referring to the TV channel and I said no. Then I asked if they were playing pool and he said, "No, this is Snooker." (I felt kind of stupid :) ) He then explaining the rules to me.
There are red balls and various colored balls on the pool table. Each opponent must sink a red ball into a pocket and follow it with any colored ball. If they miss, it's the next player's turn. If they hit a colored ball in the process, then they end their turn and actually give points to the other player (each colored ball is worth a certain number of points so when you sink one - when you're supposed to, that is - you add that many points to your score but if you hit one when you're not supposed to, you then add those points to your opponent's score).
After a colored ball is sunk, it is returned to the table as, I believe, there are only about 5 or 6 colored balls and twice as many red balls; once all the red balls have been sunk, then the player sinks the colored balls in order of point value until all the balls are sunk. Once all the balls are sunk, that is the end of a frame. 33 Frames can be played before the entire game is over. Whoever gets to a win of 17 frames first wins the whole game.
The reason it is called Snooker is because if you, the player, cannot sink a ball then you try to Snooker the other player by hitting the cue ball into a position where it would make it very difficult for the opponent to sink a shot. So they would be called Snookered. It was a rather entertaining game and much more interesting than pool which I originally thought they were playing.
After the game was over, we gathered our luggage and brought it up to the third floor to Luke's old room where we were staying. (Luke is Mike and Gillian's son who is living and working in China right now.) While Jeremiah lugged the luggage up all those stairs, I took some time to clean off my bag which we had a little present on from a local pigeon at the train station (A little background: As we were waiting for the train at the Walthamstow station, there were a couple of pigeons on a rafter a few feet in front of us. Jeremiah looked at them and stated that he wanted a rock to throw at them. I think they must have heard him because we had to pass under this rafter to get on the train and he happened to be carrying my bag at that time. Oh, well. At least it didn't get on us!)
One interesting thing about our room is that the ceiling is rather low. (They must not have very many tall people living in England, or at least they don't put them on the top floor - Jeremiah only has a couple of inches before his end touches it and I could feel the shortness when I was trying to put my hair in a pony tail this morning.)
So we went to sleep; although, Jeremiah was still very energized and tried to keep me awake longer, but I prevailed and we went to sleep at last - hence the later bed time. We both slept well and around 8:30am, Gillian knocked on our door with a nice cup of tea for us (she's so sweet). We enjoyed our tea in our bed and slowly woke up; although, I very easily could have fallen back to sleep. Jeremiah prevailed on this one, though, and got me out of bed to not get too late of a start on our morning, which is good because this will help set the pattern for the rest of our trip.
We got dressed and headed down stairs. Everyone was up; Mike and Charlotte were in their enclosed patio chatting while Gillian was in the front room on the phone with someone. A few minutes later Gillian walked in with the phone and it was put on speaker for everyone. Luke was on the other line. He called to make sure we got here fine and to see how we were doing. During his and Miah's chat, he wondered when any Cornthwaites would be visiting him in China. He said he would love to have anyone come to visit and that he will be there for at least another 2 or 3 years. We thought maybe Josh and Mandi were now the closest and maybe they could get some free military flights over there!?! If we can swing it sometime in the next few years, I think we will. (Oh, Josh and Mandi, we offered your place up to him any time he would like to visit Guam - hope you don't mind! :) )
It was nice talking with him (well, it was more Jeremiah talking and everyone else listening). Then we made some cereal (not literally, but put it in a bowl with milk) and ate our breakfast with a slice of toast.
Now, everyone is just kind of milling about enjoying the morning. Jeremiah is in the patio with Mike looking at some maps of China. I heard Mike mention the car they are letting us borrow while we are here (it's about the size of our Focus, but I don't think it has quite as much trunk space so I think we'll manage just fine) and that later today he could take Jeremiah out in it to have a test run (good idea since Jeremiah hasn't driven here before).
We decided to take it pretty easy today and start our major site-seeing tomorrow. It's kind of nice to not start off being so rushed and allowing ourselves to get used to the time change, which I think we're doing pretty good on so far. Although, I don't feel like I've really seen much of the country yet, so I am anxious to see more. We are going to go to a park nearby which Jeremiah said he hasn't been to since 1992. So that should be, as the British say, lovely.
The weather is pretty nice so far and it's supposed to be the warmest day of the year today. We did get a little rain yesterday evening, but nothing much. I think I'll come to expect a little rain everyday here which is fine; I came prepared with a mini-umbrella for just the occasion.
We went to bed around 11:00pm last night. After I left the computer, I joined everyone in the front room for some TV. They were watching the semi-finals of the Snooker tournament. At first I thought they were watching a pool game, which I thought a little odd, and then Jeremiah asked me if I had ever seen Snooker before. I thought he was referring to the TV channel and I said no. Then I asked if they were playing pool and he said, "No, this is Snooker." (I felt kind of stupid :) ) He then explaining the rules to me.
There are red balls and various colored balls on the pool table. Each opponent must sink a red ball into a pocket and follow it with any colored ball. If they miss, it's the next player's turn. If they hit a colored ball in the process, then they end their turn and actually give points to the other player (each colored ball is worth a certain number of points so when you sink one - when you're supposed to, that is - you add that many points to your score but if you hit one when you're not supposed to, you then add those points to your opponent's score).
After a colored ball is sunk, it is returned to the table as, I believe, there are only about 5 or 6 colored balls and twice as many red balls; once all the red balls have been sunk, then the player sinks the colored balls in order of point value until all the balls are sunk. Once all the balls are sunk, that is the end of a frame. 33 Frames can be played before the entire game is over. Whoever gets to a win of 17 frames first wins the whole game.
The reason it is called Snooker is because if you, the player, cannot sink a ball then you try to Snooker the other player by hitting the cue ball into a position where it would make it very difficult for the opponent to sink a shot. So they would be called Snookered. It was a rather entertaining game and much more interesting than pool which I originally thought they were playing.
After the game was over, we gathered our luggage and brought it up to the third floor to Luke's old room where we were staying. (Luke is Mike and Gillian's son who is living and working in China right now.) While Jeremiah lugged the luggage up all those stairs, I took some time to clean off my bag which we had a little present on from a local pigeon at the train station (A little background: As we were waiting for the train at the Walthamstow station, there were a couple of pigeons on a rafter a few feet in front of us. Jeremiah looked at them and stated that he wanted a rock to throw at them. I think they must have heard him because we had to pass under this rafter to get on the train and he happened to be carrying my bag at that time. Oh, well. At least it didn't get on us!)
One interesting thing about our room is that the ceiling is rather low. (They must not have very many tall people living in England, or at least they don't put them on the top floor - Jeremiah only has a couple of inches before his end touches it and I could feel the shortness when I was trying to put my hair in a pony tail this morning.)
So we went to sleep; although, Jeremiah was still very energized and tried to keep me awake longer, but I prevailed and we went to sleep at last - hence the later bed time. We both slept well and around 8:30am, Gillian knocked on our door with a nice cup of tea for us (she's so sweet). We enjoyed our tea in our bed and slowly woke up; although, I very easily could have fallen back to sleep. Jeremiah prevailed on this one, though, and got me out of bed to not get too late of a start on our morning, which is good because this will help set the pattern for the rest of our trip.
We got dressed and headed down stairs. Everyone was up; Mike and Charlotte were in their enclosed patio chatting while Gillian was in the front room on the phone with someone. A few minutes later Gillian walked in with the phone and it was put on speaker for everyone. Luke was on the other line. He called to make sure we got here fine and to see how we were doing. During his and Miah's chat, he wondered when any Cornthwaites would be visiting him in China. He said he would love to have anyone come to visit and that he will be there for at least another 2 or 3 years. We thought maybe Josh and Mandi were now the closest and maybe they could get some free military flights over there!?! If we can swing it sometime in the next few years, I think we will. (Oh, Josh and Mandi, we offered your place up to him any time he would like to visit Guam - hope you don't mind! :) )
It was nice talking with him (well, it was more Jeremiah talking and everyone else listening). Then we made some cereal (not literally, but put it in a bowl with milk) and ate our breakfast with a slice of toast.
Now, everyone is just kind of milling about enjoying the morning. Jeremiah is in the patio with Mike looking at some maps of China. I heard Mike mention the car they are letting us borrow while we are here (it's about the size of our Focus, but I don't think it has quite as much trunk space so I think we'll manage just fine) and that later today he could take Jeremiah out in it to have a test run (good idea since Jeremiah hasn't driven here before).
We decided to take it pretty easy today and start our major site-seeing tomorrow. It's kind of nice to not start off being so rushed and allowing ourselves to get used to the time change, which I think we're doing pretty good on so far. Although, I don't feel like I've really seen much of the country yet, so I am anxious to see more. We are going to go to a park nearby which Jeremiah said he hasn't been to since 1992. So that should be, as the British say, lovely.
The weather is pretty nice so far and it's supposed to be the warmest day of the year today. We did get a little rain yesterday evening, but nothing much. I think I'll come to expect a little rain everyday here which is fine; I came prepared with a mini-umbrella for just the occasion.
(Here's a few pictures that we took on the Hambleton's street the day we arrived)
Oh, this morning I realized that I left out parts of what I wanted to say about our flight yesterday. So here it is. When we finally started flying over land again, it was really pretty seeing all the green hills and fields. There were many plots filled with yellow; I couldn't tell if they were flowers or something else that just had yellow tops on them, but they were really pretty.
When we got close enough, I saw a large highway (probably one of their motorways) and it was so weird to see so many cars driving on the wrong side of the street. I also saw one of the biggest roundabouts I've ever seen and am looking forward to many of those to come. There were quite a few lakes strewn about the countryside; everything is just so pretty.
Other than the park today and a little driving, I'm not sure what else we're going to do, but we will at least walk around a bit and explore the area here in Highams Park.
I will try to write again soon. Thanks for the comments so far both Moms; they are very fun to read! Love you!
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1 comment:
That is so sweet of Gillian with the morning cup of tea in bed. They know how to make a weary traveler feel really special. My very first morning there when I was 18, I remember waking up to that as well.
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