UK week 14-15; HMS Belfast (and Chelsea parade, Battersea park, Cliveden)

Top, barbie at Dan and Rachel's, with a post-burger wrestle, our first English bbq as temps have kept climbing, hitting the hottest on Sun-Mon May 23, of round 28 degreees and windless. Above, Chelsea's celebrations on the Sunday following their FA Cup win gaining them the elusive Double for 2010.

Adventure playgrounds like this one at Battersea Park are so cool - real Huckleberry Finn feel and kids encouraged to take risks. On a Sunday there was pool, table tennis and craft stuff inside too.

George spins Lara round, even more un-nerving this way up.

At another war memorial, this one at Tower Hill to the thousands dead in merchant ships during WW2

Aye aye, we prepare to board the HMS Belfast museum ship, seen behind. The only surviving warship from the Second World War still afloat so they say.

Ellie: "It is a really cool war ship that you can go inside. There are different rooms on different floors. We did the bottom floors. The first floor we went on had the washing p[lace where you wash your clothes and the crapenters."

A crew to make Captain Bligh nervous.

Lara: "I liked the ship. There were lots of hands on things. You could touch the injured man in the hospital."

Sam: "My favourite room was the hands-on [Launch exhibition 'How Ships are Built'] and the torpedo one because you can make boats in the hands on and watch movies of torpedoes in the other room."

Climbing down into the boiler room. Amazing to be wedged in among all these pipes where engineers kept this ship going while she fought off Iceland etc

Rosa says: I like going oh the ship I like makiug my own warship.

From war to art, after the ship we caught a free 10 minute dance inside the new "Portvilion" dance bubble set up next to Tower Bridge. The video is funny, but so far we've failed to get this blog to accept our videos.

Next stop, National Trust's Cliveden House, one of England's foremost Italianate estates that was home to Lord and Lady Astor and Party Central in the 1920s. Here is Sam inside some wicker thing at the estate playground.

On guard! The date on the grass says 1668, marking the time and place of a duel between the famously brilliant and famously seductive Baron who built Cliveden, and some husband he cuckolded. Don't know who won.

Swathes of lawn ideal for rolling.

And below the Buckinghamshire house, the Thames where we went for a brief wettish row. Spot the cows cooling their calves behind Sam.

Yeh, it'll do, we'll make an offer.

And to finish our day, we hunted round fenced-off privately owned pondsides such as The Queen Mother Reservoir till we found public access to this great spot at Wraysbury, behind the village green where they were playing cricket. A pleasant dip to cries of Howzat.

Greece #1: The journey (and Athens)

Happiness is ... standing in the Ancient Agora in 27 degrees below the Acropolis in Athens.

Happiness is not ... the Athens tube, especially when you ride it only to miss your boat by 10 minutes; though at least the kids've got a seat, not like during the rugby scrum of boarding at Omonia station trying to get to Piraeus port (a bargain, only 3 euro for all of us) the SECOND time. Must've been 40 degrees squished in a corner of that train.

Sam: "it was very cramped on the tube to the airport."

Sam, seen above on the Aeropagus rock where great philosophers from Aristotle to St Paul gave Athenians what-ho, picks up the story: "THE FIRST DAY WAS EXHILIRATING AND BORING AT THE SAME TIME. THE 3 ½ HOUR WAS REALLY BORING ESPECIALLY SINCE THE PLANE WAS AN HOUR LATE. BUT AFTERWARDS IT WAS PANICKY BECAUESE MUM AND DAD THOUGHT WE WOULD MISS OUR FERRY. There was a break in the train lines and so we did. But then we stayed a night in Athens backpackers that was next door to the Acropolis but the Acropolis was closed because of a strike. Then we had to wait in a waiting room for 6 hours cos the ferry we were getting on to was at midnight. While we were on the ferry everyone else got to sleep apart from me and mum kept telling me off cos I wasn’t asleep."

So that was fun (ultimate blame rested with that Icelandic volacano cos an ash cloud delayed our flight at Gatwick).

Ellie says: "We missed the boat so we stayed at Athens backpackers and watched Greek cartoons."

Right, second time lucky at the ferry terminal.

We settle in on board in the style to which we're accustomed.

When we got back from the island, our first stop was the Acropolis museum, fantastic, only 10 euro for us all and this the only pic inside cos there's no photography.
History under our feet, quite literally. Lots of the Acropolis museum floor is glass overhanging the ruins they dug up during construction.

Next day, up the Acropolis itself, here at the Odeon of Dionysis. The star turn was by a live tortoise wandering round near the stage.

Blue view on the steps leading up to the Acropolis. Within half an hour at 9am it went from over-run to entirely over-run.

Ellie: "We went to the Parthenon.It's on a hill that is called the Acropous hill.We climbed up it."







Another blue view. The kids' highlight on top, to go with the tortoise below, was a drinking fountain that squirted such a long way you could hit someone walking by. Parthenon? what Parthenon? Later in Athens' main park at its Children's Library the 2 women told us to leave while they minded the kids for an hour. Primo!

When in doubt, or with time before your flight out, have an ice cream in the beautiful old Plaka area of Athens.

Sam: "We stayed in Athens for 2 days, one day we went to acropolis, it was quite magnificent, and the other day we went to the acropolis museum and I got to play free on the internet in the internet café cos the guy let me. We had pizzas and watched the X games.
On the plane back home I really liked it cos I hired a PSP for 9 euro and I played ratchet and clank, size matters and watched aliens in the attic and when we got home we missed our bus but we got another one but the picaddilly tube line was closed so we had to get on the district line. When we got home it was 12.30 at night and there was a heap of clothes on my bed.
I think thAT’S ALL. "

Final result, PSP 5, Acropolis 1 ...

Greece # 2: The island

Yay, we make it to Naxos early Thursday May 6, just a few hours late is all - our first breakfast at left at 10.30 once we got up.
Sam says: "Then we arrived at Naxos the man who owned the camp came and picked us up. When we arrived there it was 6 oclock (a.m) an dwe went to sleep immediately. The apartment was very nice, it hasd 6 beds and 2 bathrooms but the pool was never open the whole time. They managed to clean it though."

Ellie: "We went to Naxos one of the islands.It was very hot so we went to the beach every day." At right, on 7km long Plaka Beach (if you look real hard you might see the German guy wandering starkers up and down, up and down - quite a bit of that on Plaka actually) about 200 metres from our 'studio' (2 rooms with Breakfast - needless to say our largest meal of the day - for 55 euros, but that's cos we were early; the season picks up from mid May, and by July-Aug you're paying 70-100 euro for EACH of those 2 rooms)

At right, we promptly turn the resort into a chinese laundry.

Shopping in Hora, the main town, for local olives and cheese, bettered only by the local yoghurt.

A winding alley in the Kastro, stronghold of the Venetian Catholics who overcame the Greeks 800 years ago. The kids were also overcome, by the incline, so we never got to see the museum at the top.

Looking back at Hora from the wee temple promontory

Sam: "We also went looking at fish at these old greek ruins next to the temple of apollo. There were lots of sea urchins all around the coast."
The doorway at right is all that's left of the temple, called the Portara.

Ellie: "We went goggling (ed: snorkelling without the snorkels and with swimming pool goggles) at the ruins of old Naxos town and when we went in the hire car there was sheep all lying on the road"
The ruins are meant to be submerged but they looked pretty much like old rocks to me.

At right, amazing how interesting cartoons in Greek can be.



Sam: "we saw quite a lot of lizards and one day me and dad climbed a mountain and saw a big lizard and a barn owl." The climb made more hazardous by justified fear of extremely spiky plants and irrational fear of poisonous adder snakes.

Sam: "On the beach it was very fun, it was hot and the rocks had lots of fishes you could look at them. One afternoon we went swimming in our clothes, it was really warm cos it had been heated by the sun all day."

Old windmills minus cloth on their vanes which dot the extremely hilly interior - Naxos almost makes Wellington look flat.

Left, THE best taverna-in-the town-square we saw all trip, and about the only one we sat down in for coffee, beer and iceblocks (8 euro the lot) in Chalki, the tiny ceramic and textile arts capital of Naxos.

Sam: "We went to the cave of Zeus but it was slippery and we didn’t have a torch and it was very dark in this little tunnel you have to go down so we had to stay in the main part. "

The entry to the cave, which involved quite a scramble to get to, though more tricky still the one lane 2km long mountain cul-de-sac without a turning circle and with a ruinous fall on one side that led to the track. Below, Sam in the cave.

Below the cave some local Greeks and Germans who live there shared their dolmades, pizza and home-made and v strong wine with us - everyone loved the kids, except on the Athens tube.

My Big Fat Greek Lunch Party.

Chilling out in the northernmost town of Appollonas, all whitewashed tavernas and rocks.

Ellie: "We went out for tea one night, I had grilled chicken with coca cola, and had a yummy breakfeast every day." Food was fab though Greece ain't cheap anymore - eating out cost 55 euro for a main and a drink each. (PS if anyone thinks the ed is hung up on costs, yeh, well .... nah, just trying to make it interesting in case you want to join us some time)

Break-in underway at Naxos' main Orthodox church.

More swimming at the submerged ruins.

Bye bye Naxos.

Sam: "The ferry getting back was very nice."
(The beauty of gruelling days is it makes everything that comes after appear rosy).