Reading World War II Weekend

Followers of this blog will know that both Mr Pict and I have a keen interest in history.  Mr Pict, however, is really into military history which is not really my bag unless it intersects with family history or social history.  My husband is very much an American Civil War nerd but his next favourite period of military history is the Second World War.  He was, therefore, really keen to go along to an event in Reading that focused on that particular conflict and, since I like to go on jaunts and have new experiences, I decided to accompany him and our youngest son.

It’s a massive event.  It takes place over a whole weekend, though we only went for a day, and covers a huge area.  We were absolutely staggered by the number of people who were in attendance.  There were umpteen parking lots to accommodate all of the visitors’ cars and multiple school buses taxiing people from those lots to the actual airfield that was hosting the event.  That place absorbed a heck of a lot of people without it ever feeling ridiculously crowded – though there were exceedingly long lines for portaloos – and I was impressed with how organised the staff were at keeping people flowing.

Given it was being accommodated at an airfield, the event was especially focused on the airshow element and there were vintage planes galore.  I know nothing about planes and even less than that about vintage planes but Mr Pict was excited.  We had a gander at a lot of planes that were being exhibited at ground level, watched a reenactment of a dog fight, and watched planes doing aerial stunts.  The highlight of my husband’s day was seeing a Mitsubishi Zero, which apparently was the fastest propellor plane (if I was paying attention to what I was told).

The other thing there were a lot of were reenactors.  For obvious reasons, the majority of people chose to depict American military personnel but there were also some Brits, a smattering of Poles, some Japanese pilots, a smattering of Russians, and a surprising number of Germans.  I observed that the latter had by far the most immaculate uniforms and best posture.  The reenactors were really into the details too and I enjoyed looking at all of the vignettes they had created in their camps and the still lifes of vintage objects they had curated.  I guess I like those little human details and the creativity because, goodness knows, the vehicles, weapons, and military paraphernalia don’t do it for me.

There was a fun Home Front section housed in one of the hangars.  Part had been turned into a movie theatre that was showing old newsreels and cartoons.  We didn’t catch any of those but we did sit in some shade to take in one of the radio show performances which happened to be a couple of singers.  There was also the recreation of a 1940s American sitting room, a group who were putting women’s hair up into “victory rolls”, and a candy store.  From the latter, we bought a fresh lemon that had a lemon candy straw poked into it.  It was deliciously refreshing.

We watched a reenactment of a skirmish between the Germans and the Allies in a French village.  I was amused by the incongruity of a bunch of blokes in German military uniforms standing around and chatting in front of a fleet of yellow school buses.  When they got going, however, the action was very well choreographed and the volume of the artillery noise was pretty arresting.  I could feel the vibrations in my sternum.  The smoke and noise and crowds was a bit too much sensory overload for our ten year old so we skedaddled from there to the flea market section where a bit of retail therapy (even in the form of “window shopping”) got him recalibrated.

We somehow managed to spend four hours there despite the fact we were getting toasted by the blazing sunshine and the fact that 2/3 of us were not that engrossed by the subject.  I thought the whole event was very polished and there was clearly a lot to do and engage with if World War II history is your thing so it was definitely worth doing.  It was an enjoyable day out and I was glad I tagged along.  I don’t have a need to repeat the experience but I can definitely envisage my husband making a return visit.

Self-Portrait as Book Worm

This week’s Art Journal Adventure offered a prompt that simultaneously served as a suggestion for overcoming the intimidation of a blank page and that was to use text pages as a starting point, a first layer.  Fear of the blank page is not something I find to be a struggle; my challenge is always finding the time for art and adequate time to develop something to completion, even in my art journal.  I have, therefore, been trying to follow the advice of Sue Clancy and her method of working in short bursts.  I usually try to find a block of 15-20 minutes minimum in which to have a short burst of art time but some weeks I have to work in even shorter gobbets of time.  What I am finding is that even micro bursts are effective in keeping creativity flowing and stopping the art muscles seizing up from rust.

This art journal page, therefore, was built up over three very short bursts.  In the first, I quickly adhered some dictionary pages to the page in my journal.  That took somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes – however long it took for a pot of pasta to boil.  The second burst was under 5 minutes and that was drawing myself as a Book Worm.  The final burst was probably ten minutes in which I added the colour using a variety of media.  The resulting page is simple but I think it is fun.  Had I decided that I needed 25 minutes to create this journal page, I never would have found the time last week; however, by finding small pockets of free time here and there throughout the week, I was able to gradually build the page up so long as I kept it simple.

As indicated, this is a self-portrait of myself as a book worm.  I have always loved books.  Some of my happiest childhood memories are of poring through books in the library and making my selections.  I once ended up in hospital with a concussion because of reading: I was walking in Edinburgh with my nose in a book when I walked at full speed into a concrete lamppost.  I was always a voracious reader who could gobble up a several books in a week.  Even when I was teaching High School and was incredibly busy with little free time, I could read a book a week.  In the past decade, however, the rate at which I can consume books has tapered off.  I still read daily but not for the duration I was once able to.  Nevertheless, since reading remains one of my favourite pastimes, I still think I qualify as a Book Worm.

Storytime at the Library

My oldest three sons started elementary school just four days after we arrived in the US.  They mumped and moaned about it a bit but actually they thrive on routine and structure and on time apart from each other and me so jumping straight into school was in their best interests socially and emotionally as well as academically.  The school is fantastic and they are really enjoying it and have settled well.  Unfortunately for my youngest son, we have not been able to identify an affordable preschool option at this juncture so he is stuck at home with me.  We are doing the home preschooling thing, of course, but that doesn’t involve him mixing with other children.  He had been in preschool five mornings a week in Scotland and loved it so it has been a difficult adjustment for him to be home with me all day.  So my aim, until such time as he is enrolled in a Pre-Kindergarten programme, is to take him along to as many child-oriented events as possible.  Thus, this morning we headed off to the library for a story time session.

In Scotland, my preschoolers had attended Bookbug sessions in our small, local library.  They were great fun, parents and children all sitting together being led in song and rhyme and having a picture book read to us by the leader.  It was subtly promoting literacy but was also about engaging parents with their children’s learning through play, about socialisation and about fun.  I guess I drove off to the library expecting the storytime session to be if not a carbon copy then very similar.  It turned out to be really quite different.

The immediate difference was that the session was held in a side room just off the children’s section of the library whereas in Scotland our local Bookbug sessions had taken over an area of the main library, albeit in the children’s area, so that other visitors had to just put up with our screechy, pitchy renditions of “Ally Bally” and “Pop a Little Pancake”.  The next difference was that the kids were ushered to sit on the floor on a comfy rug while the adults sat on chairs that lined the walls. This both suggested and enforced the children being separated or disengaged from the adults who had accompanied them.  It was all about the children and just the children.  The major difference was that there were no songs or rhymes at all in the storytime session (though I guess the clue was in the title) just lots and lots of books.  The man leading the session sat at the front of the library and read the stories to the children – and my youngest was rapt for the entire half hour – but also ensured that they understood concepts like cover, illustrator and half-title page, questioned them about the problems being encountered by characters and engaged them in analysis of patterns and illustrations.

I assume the library sessions in Scotland are run in the way they are because they are aimed at children below preschool age and that means under three whereas, in our current school district at least, a lack of affordable preschool provision means that sessions like this need to attract and engage children up to Kindergarten age (though the flyer said the age range was 3-6).  So instead of literacy being learned through song and rhyme in addition to story, a little more academic rigour is appropriate.  For me, it was strange not to be participating in the session and I felt quite redundant but my four year old was engaged throughout and that was the critical element.  Comparisons are unfair anyway and actually I have no preference for the style of session but it was certainly an interesting and enjoyable first experience and one we will repeat.