The Education Learning Curve

Today my children all return to school.  This year, I have two left in Elementary – one of them in his last year there – and one in Middle School and one in High School.  With four boys in three different schools its going to feel like a second job for me to keep on top of their schedules, deadlines, requirements, and commitments.

Every new year of having my kids in American schools has brought with it new challenges for me as a parent.  Between technology developing too rapidly for my grey matter, the generation gap, and a vocabulary gap because of being British, it can be difficult for me to understand what a homework assignment even requires the kids to do.  I do a lot of googling and watching demonstrations of methodologies on YouTube.  This year, however, with one kid in High School, I feel like I am in for an even steeper learning curve than ever before.

My oldest and I attended a High School induction day a couple of weeks ago and that revealed to me how out of my depth I was.  I went all the way through High School, an undergraduate degree, and a postgraduate degree, and I then taught High School.  I am, therefore, well versed in education and the transition between primary, secondary, and tertiary education.  In Britain.  When it comes to how all of this functions in America, I have next to nothing.  And I had better learn quickly because the years are rapidly flying past.

The talks that were delivered at the induction event involved a huge amount of assumed knowledge.  Acronyms were being bandied around with no allowance for anyone, like me, who had only a scant idea of what they stood for, what concepts they represented, or how they pieced together into something coherent.  What I think I grasped, however, is that there is a through-line from the beginning of High School to its conclusion that will determine prospects for tertiary education.  Yikes.  I thought I had a couple of years to figure this stuff out.  Apparently not.  So I need to hit the books myself now and get on top of such things as GPAs, SATs, ACTs, credits, dual enrollment, AP courses, and all of those other things I am clueless about.

This new experience, this new area of life I need to research, is another stark reminder that my adult life and experience was all but reset to zero when I emigrated.  Whole areas of my knowledge were voided and made irrelevant and – even after nearly four years of living in America – I am still a stranger in a strange land trying to fill those gaps in knowledge with new learning.  I am an old dog so new tricks are hard but I will work hard to understand what I need to know.

Lemonade Stand

This Labour Day weekend, my four boys got to experience an American tradition: running a lemonade stand.  They suggested the idea and we supported it.  This was not something they would have experienced back home in Scotland so we were keen to let them do something that their born-and-bred American peers have probably done.

They made a gallon of lemonade from scratch, all taking turns at squeezing the juice from the lemons using the citrus reamer.  I think they liked how aggressive they were getting to be with a kitchen utensil.  I am given to understand now that actually the American tradition for lemonade stands is to use a powder mix as the base of the drink but never mind.  They had never made lemonade from scratch before so that just added to the joy of it all being a new experience.  I also baked chocolate brownies for them to sell.

We left them to come up with the promotional posters and to decide on things like the price points.  We provided them with a float and showed them how to set out their income and expenditure accounts, a basic version of course, and then it was time for them to set up their stall.  A Saturday of a holiday weekend and with a storm predicted was always going to be slow going so I used the modern grapevine – Facebook – to send a message around the neighbourhood that they had set up stall and were selling freshly squeezed lemonade and brownies.  What was lovely was that so many neighbours stopped by to give them some support and encouragement, financial and verbal, but they also got some passing trade from cars driving through the neighbourhood and from our mail man.

It was, however, still pretty slow going and so they learned something about the boredom involved in certain retail ventures, about handling a rush period alongside stretches of inactivity, and finally about the math of determining profit.  They actually made a surprising amount for a couple of hours of work and were quite pleased with their earnings.  I think they had hoped to rake in much more, however, so it will be interesting to see if they wish to repeat the exercise next summer and – if so – what they might do differently.  It was fun to see them experiencing something new about America, something that is a tradition for many American families, but I mostly enjoyed seeing them work cooperatively as a team and having to interact with other people without having we adults hovering as a crutch.  I like to think they have learned some life skills from the whole experience.  They also got to eat lots of leftover brownies.

Scoffing Shane’s Confectionery

I have lived in Pennsylvania for just over two and a half years now and in that time I have sampled a few state foods.

Despite the fact that Mr Pict and the Pictlings love them and I go into school every two weeks to deliver them to the kids, I do not like pretzels.  I know I should be drummed out of the state for such an admission but I just don’t like them.  I can eat one if I have to but it is not something that I enjoy.  I did like Tomato Pie but I prefer more traditional Italian pizza than this twist on the theme.  I tried Tastykakes and was disappointed – as I had been by my first ever Girl Scout Cookie.  I do like Rita’s Water Ice and frozen custard and like that I can deploy it as a bribe / reward for my kids ever so often in the summer months.  I have mentioned several times on the blog now that I do not like American chocolate, despite visiting Hershey twice now.  The Pictlings have had no such difficulties adjusting their palates to American chocolate but the taste and especially the texture remains alien to my Scottish mouth.  In addition to visiting Hershey, we also did the Turkey Hill Experience to learn how this local ice cream is manufactured.  Ice cream I love; it just doesn’t love me as I am lactose intolerant.

Recently I tried a new local food in the form of some sweet treats from Shane’s Confectionary.  Having started operations in 1863, Shane’s claims to be America’s oldest continuously running candy shop.  It’s store on Market Street, Philadelphia, opened in 1911, when the business moved into retail from wholesale.  Having fallen on hard times in the post-war period, the candy shop was recently lovingly restored.  We will have to take a trip there with the kids some time.

We actually received some Shane’s candies as a New Year gift and, knowing they were special, I saved them for a rainy day.  We had some cherries that had been soaked in brandy and covered in chocolate.  These tasted divine and the crunch through the chocolate into the chewy, fruity centre was pleasing.  They also had a lilac metallic lustre to the chocolate coating which made them extra magical.  There were also some chocolate caramels.  The kids all loved those but, given American chocolate does nothing for me, I was not bowled over by those.

The boys also had a moulded sugar steam locomotive.  Apparently these clear candy toys  – brought to PA by the Amish – are a holiday tradition at Shane’s, with parents buying them up for their children’s Easter and Christmas gifts.  I have happy memories of going to an Edwardian style sweet shop with my Gran and picking out a variety of boilings which were plopped into a paper poke and treasured and savoured during shopping expeditions.  I completely understand the tradition and the element of nostalgia.  The train was literally just boiled sugar though and, therefore, would have been too bland for my liking.  Give me Kola Kubes and Soor Plooms any day.  There were no complaints from the younger sweet-toothed Picts, however.

So that is Shane’s Confectionery ticked off the list.  I wonder what my next experience of edible Pennsylvania will be.

Halloween 2015

My kids absolutely love Halloween in America.  They started talking about plans for costumes during the Summer and the middle two have been literally counting down the days for months.  Although this is now our third American Halloween, the novelty of the experience has not worn off on my kids.

Festivities began on Friday with parties and a parade at school.  The school has rules about gory costumes, face paint and hair spray so there was much angst over needing different costumes for school than for actual Halloween.  Happily, since my younger kids love dressing up, we have two sacks full of dressing up gibbles for them to dip into and everyone got something together.  I went in to help with the First Grade party and was assigned to a room full of fairground type activities on a Halloween theme.  By far the most popular activity with the kids was one involving hitting a wooden frame with a mallet and thwacking frogs in the air.  The objective was to get the rubber frogs into buckets in order to score points but the kids much preferred seeing how high and how far they could propel the frogs across the room.  Ceiling tiles were battered, I had to drag frogs down from overhead projectors, and crawl behind bookcases to retrieve them.  Some groups invented twists to the game such as goal keeping and using the sticks from a hockey type game to bat the frogs as they flew through the air.  It was exhausting and I had the sound of the mallet hitting the wood ringing in my ears for hours afterwards.  Good fun though.

Then – after a very quick dash home to get some laundry in the dryer – I was back to the school to watch the parade of kids and staff all dressed up in their costumes.  It was great fun seeing them all, especially the kids who had made their own costumes.  The parade was immediately followed by more parties, this time for my Third and Fourth Graders.  Last year, I was a Room Parent so all my party time was spent in one classroom with one of my kids and I rarely saw the other two participating in festivities.  I was very glad of the opportunity this year to spend time with all of my kids during their parties even if it meant speeding up and down a corridor to pivot between classrooms.

I didn’t get much chance to sit down or stand still in one place during Halloween itself either.  It was another hectic day.  We also reached a bittersweet milestone as my oldest son went out Trick or Treating with friends.  It was the first time we had not had all four of our kids with us to go guising but we are very happy indeed that our oldest son has made such good friends here that we wanted to spend the evening with them.  My oldest was dressed as a plague doctor.  Apparently only one adult on his whole trick or treating tour had a clue what his costume was but, even though we had assumed everyone would get it, he rather liked being a tad obscure.  My other three went trick or treating around our neighbourhood with our next door neighbour kids and the children of our friends.  My 10 year old was the Joker, my 8 year old was Robin and my 6 year old was Frankenstein’s Monster.  The kids walked and walked until their pails were so full of candy and other treats that their arms were getting a bit orangutan like and their feet were sore.  We visited haunted houses, met Chewbacca on his porch, and my little Frankenstein’s Monster even got to meet his biological parents.  Then it was everyone back to my house – where we had left the dads on the porch to hand out treats to visitors – for steaming hot bowls of soup and hot dogs.  It was a long and busy two days but filled with so much fun and laughter – and sugar.

PS  If you would like to read a comparison between Scottish and American Halloweens, I covered that in my first Halloween post.

PPS If you like all things monstrous, then you might be interested to check out my altered book project over on my art blog, Pict Ink.

Pumpkin Picking

In what has become a Halloween tradition in the two years that we have lived in America, we headed to Shady Brook Farm this weekend to have some spooky themed fun and pick out pumpkins.  Mr Pict and I had thought to take the kids somewhere else, change things up a bit instead of repeating the previous years’ jaunts, but the boys all protested and wanted to return to familiar territory.  The Pictlings have determined the tradition.

The boys bounced on the giant trampolines, looked at the animals, played on the climbing frame, and ate pretzels, funnel cake and deep fried oreos.  The middle two boys had a shot of a corn cannon, blasting corn cobs at various objects.  Everyone guffawed when my 10 year old managed to hit the giant corn doll in its groin.  Our 6 year old had fun blasting zombies with a paint ball through a rather too rapid fire technique.

There are two barns that get decked out spooky style for Halloween.  In the evening, folks can wander through the dark interior while real life “ghouls” terrorise them but by day it is equally fun to wander around and see all the grotesque and fun decorations.  The kids love the alien barn.  Donning 3D glasses makes paint jump off the walls and models of aliens seem to vibrate.  The kids think it is massive fun.  My 12 year old and I then had a wander through the horror barn.  It’s grotesque in places with imagery lifted from gory horror movies but it’s the room full of clowns that freaks me out the most.

Then it was time to head to the pumpkin patch so that each of the boys could select a pumpkin for carving.  I guess the pumpkins were nearing the end of their season as there were many rotten and smashed ones littering the ground.  It, therefore, took a while for the kids to find the pumpkins they wanted.  We set them a size and weight limit which was not an issue for our 10 year old who wanted the smallest, roundest, most orange pumpkin he could find.

We then did some freestyle carving to turn the pumpkins into a My Little Pony, two vampires and Jack Skellington.  With that, the pumpkins were ready to be transformed into lanterns for Halloween.

 

 

Our Geek-End

Saturday was Free Comic Book Day, an annual event we were introduced to last year.  Knowing what was in store for them this year, the boys bounded out of bed.  The middle two even dressed themselves appropriately, one in an Avengers t-shirt and one in his homemade Star-Lord t-shirt.  Despite neither parent having an interest in comic books or superheroes, my three younger sons are obsessed with that whole culture.  Our 9 year old in particular is a walking, talking encyclopaedia of Marvel and DC knowledge.  He can talk ad nauseam on any character one dares to mention.  It may not intersect with our interests but Mr Pict and I are always happy to promote geekdom in our children so we support their comic book obsessions.

When we arrived at our local comic book store we found that the car park was jam packed and we grabbed the last vacant spot in the adjacent car park.  Last year, the tables with the free comic books had been set up inside the store but this year they had set them up beneath a marquee outside the store.  Although we arrived just after opening time, a lengthy queue had already formed.  The queue was moving swiftly and the event  was well organised, however, so it did not take long for the kids to reach the head of the queue and start selecting their three free comic books each.  Just as last year, there was a large and diverse collection to choose from so they had no difficulty picking out three each without there being any crossover.

Having done the free bit, the kids then went into the comic book store to peruse their wares.  I thought I had seen the place at its most busy during the same event last year but it was even more jam-packed this time.  It was great to see so many people milling around from the young to the old, many in costume or at least themed t-shirts.  The staff gave my 9 year old props for designing his own Star-Lord t-shirt which had him puffed up like a wee peacock.  The three younger boys all follow a comic book series so they picked out the latest editions of each from the shelves.  My oldest meanwhile is a collector of Funko Pops so he looked at the massive stack of Pops available in the store.  In the end, the only way to compel the kids to leave the shop was to remind them that we had pre-booked cinema tickets and had to go.

The cinema trip was a continuation of our geeky day as we were off to see ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’.  To say my kids and husband had high expectations of this movie is a terrible understatement.  Sequels can often disappoint. ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, ‘Godfather II’ and ‘Toy Story 2’ are rare exceptions.  In my humble opinion, ‘Ultron’ did not surpass the fun and spectacle of ‘Avengers Assemble’ but nor was it a case of “diminishing returns”.  Some characters (Hawkeye in particular) were fleshed out more in this movie, promoted from being elevated sidekicks, while others (such as Thor) were pushed to the peripheries.  The character relationships were developed further and all the individuals were shown to be working effectively as a team.  However, at the same time the movie seemed to be about fractures and splinters appearing in the group which made it a bit less rip-roaring fun.  There were stupendous action set pieces and the baddie – pretty much a personification of the internet gone bad – was effective.  There was a flabby section, however, where my eyes began to droop and I wasn’t that engaged with all the new characters.  But the cinema trip was not about me and the important thing is that my kids were on the edge of their seats throughout, loving every moment of it and lapping up all the comic book geekdom.  My 8 year old was sitting next to me and kept leaning over to whisper to  facts to me or his predictions for the movie.  He was disappointed but forgiving when one of his predictions failed to materialise.

Then we went home to cook and eat a barbecue in the sunshine.  My youngest boys decided that they should make “mocktails” for me.  They pillaged the fridge for fruit juice and fresh berries and the cupboards for candy and lollipops and constructed several drinks for me to sample.  They even made little decorations for each glass.  It was sweet, cute and thoughtful of them – even though they used up gallons of juice and punnets of fruit.  I am going to have to stock my 1970s cocktail cabinet with actual liquor so that they can learn to make me actual cocktails.

Our Halloween

My kids were giddy with anticipation over Halloween this year.  Their experience of their first American Halloween had been a wonderfully positive introduction to life in America for them. They loved everything about it and were eager to repeat the same fun experiences this year.

Having selected a pumpkin each when we visited the pumpkin patch, the boys settled on imagery and I set about carving them.  The reason I did the carving is that, with the exception of the smallest pumpkin, which really was tiny, the skins and flesh of the chosen pumpkins was extremely tough.  I resorted to using exceedingly sharp kitchen knives in place of the carving tools and, of course, the children could not be let loose with kitchen knives.  That really would have been a Halloween horror!  So we ended up with a large Minecraft Creeper, a baby Creeper, a galloping horse and the head of Jack Skellington to place on the steps leading up to our front door.

The younger three boys had Halloween celebrations at their Elementary School.  They each had parties full of crafting, snacking and games and were all involved in the Halloween parade.  The High School band played while all of the costumed children walked in a large square on the playing field.  As a member of the first Kindergarten class, our 5 year old was actually the leader of the entire parade.  He was clearly loving it, waving to the crowds as he passed them, though his Iron Man mask meant he could barely see where he was going and he had to be steered in the right direction by his teacher.  That morning I had told the children that I was going to levy a tax on them of one piece of their Halloween candy for each Elsa, Anna or Olaf costume we happened across on the day.  There were five Elsas in my youngest son’s class alone.  My kids said no dice to the tax proposal.  There were some really inventive costumes on show and it was fun to see all of the kids enjoying themselves.

My boys had daytime costumes, appropriate for school (Iron Man, Boba Fett and a weird Dark Knight Ninja combination that my 9 year old insisted on cobbling together) and different costumes for evening.  I got the majority of their costumes from thrift stores and the younger ones like to play dress up throughout the year so I don’t mind the costume changes at all.  My oldest son was a Clone Trooper, the 9 year old was Star-Lord (because he is obsessed with ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’), my 7 year old was a Werewolf (he has been longing for a werewolf costume for years) and the youngest was Frankenstein’s Monster (his favourite classic monster).  I also dressed myself up as a Vampire, complete with pallid face and bright red lips.  Thankfully I was not the only adult wandering the streets in costume or I might have felt like a total pillock but the kids appreciated my efforts and my get-up entertained them so any embarrassment factor was worth it.

Together with one of the boys’ friends, my monstrous mob traipsed the streets of our neighbourhood for two hours. Mr Pict had devised the route as if he was a military General manouvering troops.  At first they were part of a pack of neighbourhod kids but gradually they pack drew out into a long line which was probably easier for each household to manage instead of having to open the door to a dozen kids bellowing “Trick or Treat” in unison.  The majority of houses in our neighbourhood were participating in Halloween and handing out edible treats but some had gone to incredible effort to entertain the little ghouls.  One house had set up their garage as a den of horror.  My 9 year old and his friend refused to even enter and the 7 year old came out howling, but the other two loved it.  Another house had set up three rooms in their house to be a haunted house full of spooky props and people in costume.  My 9 year old again didn’t go in but everyone else had fun on their spooky tour.  Our neighbours had set up their porch with elaborate decorations including a zombie baby doll, Frankenstein’s Monster sitting in an electric chair and the Bride of Frankenstein standing alongside them.  My boys loved going up to the Monster, especially the little one who declared he was Frankenstein Jr.  It was a really fun night and my kids came home with their Halloween buckets full to beyond the brim with sweeties, chocolate and crisps which they then spent half an hour trading up.

And they never did give me my ‘Frozen’ tax.

Picking Pumpkins

It is a weird experience to have now lived in America long enough (a year last Friday) to be cycling round the same events and holidays and experiences.  We arrived in the country amid the build up to Halloween and now here we are with Halloween on the horizon once more.  This time last year we went to Shady Brook Farm for the kids’ first ever experience of picking pumpkins to carve; yesterday we returned to Shady Brook Farm to pick out some pumpkins to carve this year.

The farm runs a whole Halloween event.  In the evening, adults – or at least adults who like a thorough scare and have strong bladders – can explore various barns, fields and corn mazes in the dark while people dressed as various horrific things terrorise them and they encounter horrible props.  In daylight, it is still possible to wander through the attractions but, of course, there are sources of light and there are no actual human horrors lurking in corners, just grotesque props.  We, therefore, started our afternoon at Shady Brook Farm by heading into the Horror Barn.  I went in first with my 11 and 7 year olds.  Later Mr Pict went in with the 5 year old.  Our 9 year old didn’t want to do it at all, which is fine.  Getting the creeps is not for everyone.  The thing that unsettles me in the barn is actually the claustrophobia.  The narrow corridors created by hoarding and the darkness creep me out far more than corpses dangling from a ceiling and vampiric girls chewing on pet cats.  However, this time around, the first room was filled with clowns.  I have a proper, deep-seated fear of clowns.  Even happy clowns give me serious chills so horror clowns really make my flesh crawl and my spine judder.

After the horror barn, we went into another barn that is a 3D Alien experience.  It’s pretty lo-fi but really effective.  We were each handed a pair of 3D spectacles and then we entered the darkened barn where the walls of the corridors had been painted with fluorescent paint that vibrated and sprung forward from the walls.  There were also dangling dayglo threads and the odd alien figure lurking in a corner with its big eyes and long fingers.  There was also a walkway through a rotating cylinder that was dizzifying and the exit was via two large inflatable pillows that we each had to squeeze between.  It was exactly the same as last year but none of us minded because it was a ton of fun.

The boys then played on various items of play equipment: an inflatable assault course, a bouncy slide, giant bouncing pillows to trampoline on, wooden play equipment with slides and fireman’s poles and a rope spiderweb.  They also snacked on pretzels because we cannot take those kids anywhere in Pennsylvania without them eating pretzels.  After the snack stop, we decided to undertake one of the mazes.  Last year we had attempted the large corn maze and became terribly lost and bewildered and then panicked as one by one the kids all needed to pee.  In desperation, we actually exited via an unofficial gap, having entirely failed to discover each of the designated stations and the exit.  This year, therefore, we stuck to the weenie haystack maze and the kids had fun playing hide and seek among the haystacks and crawling through and inside the corn tunnels and the corn wigwam.

A tractor-towed wagon ride delivered us to the pumpkin patch where the kids selected and rejected and selected again about half a dozen pumpkins each.  A couple of them were even set on taking home pumpkins that were too heavy to lift.  They were told to scale back their ambitions.  With carving designs in mind, they finally chose pumpkins they felt were the perfect size and shape for what they wanted to create and construct and two were even green instead of the traditional orange.

It’s rather nice to be cycling through things again as it means we are establishing new traditions in our new country.

*PS  I am unsure as to why some of my photos are appearing so small.  I have just moved to using Flickr to host my photographs for the blog and I clearly have not got the hang of it.  Hopefully it is not too visually annoying.*

Whale Watching

One of the most memorable and incredible things I have ever experienced on my travels around America is whale watching.  On a road trip around New York, New England and South-eastern Canada back in the summer of 2001, we encountered whales just off-shore and even heard whale song from a cliff top.  Then, when we arrived in Gloucester, Massachusetts, we went on a whale watching trip where we saw two dozen humpback whales, including some breaching, and minke whales.  It was simply spectacular.  I was, therefore, keen for my children and parents to experience something similar and as such we had booked to go on a whale watching trip with Captain John’s tours out of Plymouth Harbour.

The area we headed out to is called Stellwagen Bank, a National Marine Sanctuary.  It is a plateau at the mouth of Massachusetts Bay that forms a rich and biodiverse ecosystem.  Due to the wealth of food in the area, Stellwagen Bank attracts marine mammals, including whales, and that is what makes whale sightings so likely.  Everyone was excited and buzzing with the frisson of expectation as the boat left Plymouth behind and forged out to sea.  We passed Duxbury Point lighthouse, which used to be manned but is now automated through solar power.  It stands near the point where the naturally occuring deep water ends and that means that it is very probably the place where ‘The Mayflower’ anchored for the pilgrims to decant from the ship into the shallop in order to make landfall.  We also passed Plymouth Lighthouse, which stands on a peninsula known as the Gurnet, and was the first to ever have a female lighthouse keeper, a lady named Hannah Thomas who took over duties when her husband went off to fight in the Revolutionary War.  Legend has it that it was the only lighthouse to ever be hit by canon during the War of Independence.

Our guides for the day were two naturalists who explained what we were seeing and experiencing over a tannoy.  There was an intern named Sam and an experienced naturalist named Krill.  Krill was her nickname, of course, but I am not sure it is a good omen to be out at sea with someone named for whale food.  Furthermore, there was a chap on board wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words “Call me Ishmael”.  All we needed was an Ahab, Jonah and Gipetto on board and we would surely all be destined for Davy Jones’ locker.  The naturalists were very knowledgeable  and described the differences between the different whale species we might see on our trip and indeed the fundamental differences between tooth whales and baleen whales.  The kids even got to touch some baleen and a tooth, which they all loved.  It didn’t take too long, however, before Krill pointed out a pair of Finback whales in the distance.  Finbacks are the second largest creature to ever live on the planet, the biggest obviously being the blue whale.  I had never seen a Finback whale and didn’t get to see one on our trip either as they were too far away for me to spot by the time I got to the correct side of the boat.  Never mind.  That was a mere aperitif for what was to come.

Our first close encounter was with three Humpbacks – two adults and a calf – who were logging not far from the boat.  Logging is like napping while part of your brain is still active.  Oh how I wish I could do logging!  I could achieve so much and still feel rested.  Why have humans never thought to evolve this ability?  We were obviously hesitant to stay around the resting trio for too long so the boat scooted off a little further and that was when we encountered our first active whale, a Humpback named Dyad.  We saw her surfacing, her thick, dark back and fin slick and glistening with water, and then dive, including some deep dives which resulted in her presenting her fluke (tail).  All the passengers rushed from one side of the boat to the other in order to spot Dyad, scanning the surface for the green bubbly water or a dark shape breaking from the water.  Back and forth we rushed, as if intent on recreating ‘The Poseidon Adventure’.  We all gasped and oohed in unison each time Dyad appeared.  She never came too close to the boat but was close enough for us to observe her behaviour and see the detail in her fluke, marks as unique as a fingerprint which assist the naturalists in identifying individual whales.  We all thought this was as good as it was going to get and were pretty pleased with the experience.

And then Samara appeared.

When Samara first joined Dyad, we were able to hear some trumpeting sounds.  Apparently this indicates excitement but I don’t think the whales could be anywhere near as excited as we were.  Samara proved to be a very inquisitive, sociable and perhaps somewhat reckless and impulsive Humpback.  For quite some time, she swam around the boat, coming so close that my Mum and seven year old got sprayed by the air emerging from her blowhole.  She swam under the boat and we all ran from port to starboard and back several times trying to be the first to glimpse her as she reappeared, looking for that bubble-filled green water or a flash of white fin.  It was an experience beyond our most hopeful and optimistic expectations to see a whale so close.  Samara’s proximity also served to emphasise the whale’s vast scale and yet she was graceful and gentle despite being so massive and powerful.  Breath-taking.  Krill explained that Samara is just six years old and that, through their observations, they believe that Humpbacks live to be anywhere between 60 and 80 years of age so perhaps Samara was just a playful child and that was one of the reasons she was delighting in playing around the boat.  Krill also told us that the most famous whale in this region is named Salt.  She was first observed in 1975 and is probably in her mid-40s.  Salt is the mother of 13 calves since whales typically produce offspring every two to three years, losing 40% of their body fat through nursing each baby, hence the need for recovery gaps.

It was an utterly incredible experience.  We were all awe-struck.  We may not have witnessed the spectacular breaching displays that Mr Pict and I had seen back in 2001 but back then only one whale ever came close to the boat, albeit so close that an extra foot on my arms would have allowed me to stroke its head.  This time, however, we got to see more whales closer to the boat and to see Samara so close and for such an extended period was so utterly exciting.  I guess we got very lucky on both our whale watching trips.  My parents, who had expected to just see a few whales bobbing on the horizon, were gob-smacked and my animal-daft 7 year old was so over-excited his voice was a high-speed helium squeak.  Indeed, it made such an impression on him that he has been setting up his cuddly toys to go on whale watching tours ever since.

If, dear reader, you have never been on a whale watching tour I urge you to consider doing so.  I am sure you will not regret it.  I know I am just hoping that I don’t have to wait another 13 years before my next expedition.

 

PS  If you want to read the blog entry about our particular trip, written by the on-board naturalist, you can do so here.

 

Saturday Night at the Movies

Last night our township organised a free drive-in movie event.  I have only ever been to a drive-in cinema once.  That was in Vermont in the Summer of 2001 and I saw a Jackie Chan movie.  The film was actually just a sideshow to the whole experience of being at a drive-in movie theatre, one of those iconic American things to do.  It was a very fun experience.  We were keen to have the boys experience that so, although it was not actually a designated drive-in cinema, we all went along for the evening.

The movie was being shown in the car park of the university campus.  The car park was on a slight gradient though it could not compare to the proper ramped parking at a permanent drive-in.  The screen (which was inflatable) was also a quarter of the size of a usual drive-in cinema.  We did not care a jot for either of these technicalities.  It was all about the experience.  Heck, even the movie we were going to see was one we had all seen umpteen times before (the excellent ‘Monsters University’).  We had a bit of a worry about visibility of the screen.  This was because some people were sitting in the boots (trunks) of their cars but that meant the boot doors were raised and limiting our ability to see the screen.  Thankfully a quiet word later the boot doors were lowered and we could see again.  As well as people sitting in their boots, there were also people sitting out in front of their cars in deckchairs and even people sitting on top of the roofs of their vehicles.  We opened the sun roof to reduce fogging of the windscreen and the children all demonstrated signs of being tempted to clamber out of it but Mr Pict and I soon put the kibosh on any such plans.

We had a great time watching the movie.  The screen was a bit murky at first until we were plunged into proper darkness and the colours become more vivid but, as we had seen the film before, that was not a problem for us.  The sound quality coming through the car radio was great.  The boys chewed and chomped their way through a packet of gummi bears each and were engrossed in the film.  Even when it started to rain, we just closed the sun roof, switched on the windscreen wipers and kept watching.

It was a fun first experience of drive-in cinema and now we cannot wait to take the boys to a proper drive-in.  Roll on Summer.