All you teachers, singers, education type people and parents - we need your help!

Hi Guys,

As we start on our walk on Sunday we will also start planning our activities that we´ll do with the kids at Project Why. 

One thing we´d really like to do is to sing a lot with the kids.  We need your help as we´d like you to post on our blog site your favourite songs you like to sing with your class or with kids in general! 

My favourite is ...

I like green bananas and pink icecream,

wobbly jelly makes me scream,

Mum´s hamburgers are pretty cool,

but I like fish and chips best of all!

Fish and Chips,

Fish and Chips

Makes me want to lick my lips

Eat them for breakfast lunch and tea

Fish n' Chips are for me!

If you could add a link to a youtube video of it (or of you singing it) even better!

Looking forward to your comments!  Thanks xxx

The Love Boat

Cori rightly pointed out that she wanted to know all about the ferry trip from Portsmouth to Bilbao. Here are a few observations, suggestions & comments...

All those hundreds of “The Love Boat” episodes I watched came flooding back. I really did expect Issac to come along and offer me a drink. He was our favourite character as his real name is Ted Lange - about the only show we stayed to watch the credits for.

However, it definitely wasn´t as nice as the Love Boat. Shall we say it was the Holiday Inn version. Here is a link to a video of it. Please keep in mind this was probably filmed a long long time ago. When we went on it it was about 6 weeks away from being “discontinued” ...

80% of the people on board sailed to Bilbao and straight back again. Our guess was they were on their for the VERY cheap booze. As it was a a car ferry there was even a service where you could buy slabs of beer (note plural slabS) for around 50p a can and they would deliver it all to your car on the below decks.

18% were there to whale watch. Yes, whale watch. They had whale watching kits (whale watching trousers, whale watching fold up chairs, whale watching binoculars, whale watching tripods, whale watching cameras with lenses that were about 8 times bigger than the cameras). These whale watchers came in all shapes and sizes but I reckon most of them were German (there was some debate about this).

2% of the people on board were a little like us, not in either of the top two categories but like a bufft, a cheap way to get to Spain and enjoy being rocked to sleep by the waves.

We didn´t play any bingo but it was on offer!

¿Si?

Alan has summed it up pretty well! I haven´t felt this foreign in a long long long time. It hurts my head just ordering coffee but we are pretty determined to not give up and to keep trying.

As a lot of you know I have trouble with telling the time army style (24 hour clock) so actually thought we were going to be having 2 classes a day, 45 minutes each. But in fact each class is an hour and a half long with a 30 minute break in between. We are definitely at the bottom of the class surrounded by very bright Dutch girls who already speak 4 languages! Luckily everyone is very nice and patient with us and there is only seven of us in the class.

It´s really made us reflect on how over the years we´ve chosen to do things where our strengths already lie. It´s definitely a wake up call to do something we are not naturally good at! My empathy for people who live in London/NZ and don´t speak English, has gone through the roof.

Church was a great experience this morning. I enjoyed the singing a lot but the sermon went way over my head (and I was even paying attention)! If any of you out there understand Spanish a bit more than us please check out the website and let us know if we should go back next week!

The beach is truly beautiful and we swam our little hearts out yesterday. Its just an observation but it seems that all the young Spanish people are slim, tanned and generally gorgeous but when they get married they tend to do the opposite. I guess everyone here must know I´m married! Also, I haven´t had the balls (breasts?) to go topless yet... we´ll keep you updated.

The house we are staying in is very nice and we have the whole converted attic to ourselves complete with bathroom. It´s at the top of a hill which is good exercise for us and great preparation for me to get my pair of knees over the Pyrenees.

I am really missing having a laugh with people I know well but am grateful me and Alan get on so great and don´t get sick of each other easily! We´ve been married two years tomorrow and that, my friends, is defiantly something to celebrate.

Love you lots

Em xxx

To prove how nice it is check out this youtube video ...

So far, so good

Hi there just a quick up date on were we are and were we at. So first of all we set sail last Saturday the 16th of August. We arrived in Bilbo on the Monday 18th August. We got a lift from the port to San Sebastian and our driver had a great philosophy, no language so lets have music. How ever from a bit of miming and patience we learnt there was a festival going on and that San Sebastian is a lovely place. Her also pointed out the paper factory i think was just one of those bizarre phrases he knew in English like i know how to say that's a small fish in French.
We then meet the host of our house, a very animated and alive Spanish lady showed us to our rooms and made us very welcome.

The Spanish classes have been hard but we have come a long way, we celebrated the fact that we could read a sign post on Thursday that was day four of our Spanish classes. Were also working out more about our land lady and having lots of laughs.

We have generally been walking around watching street buskers and lazing around on the beach as well. Also this past week there been fire works every night as there has been a fire work competition on.

We found a nice little Church to go to on Sunday which was nice. All in Spanish but that dint matter it was good to go and we meet some one that spoke a bit of English and she explained the sermon and we weren`t far off also she said we can sit with her next week.

All in all we are having a blast and its a great experience. I personally feel that we a have stepped out of a comfort zone and so far so good.

Al

What a send off at MCC South London!

I think it may be too soon for me to even start discussing the service we had at MCC South London last night. It was an amazing and very moving experience. Alan’s magic was ... MAGIC! I even sang and preached. The music group made up songs for us – which were BRILLIANT and lots of lovely people came along and we raised nearly £500!!!!

 We were given a pilgrim’s blessing too so we are now all set for our pilgrimage (Jean’s right, it’s not just a walk).


I really can’t thank everyone at church enough. Your support and love has made our relationship today what it is – we have been surrounded by inspiring role models and had so much fun – not quite sure what we’ll do without you all... 


 Em xxx

What a Party!!!!!

We were totally overwhelmed by all the people that turned out to our farewell drinks at the Science Museum last night. The Isambard (our EXCLUSIVE Science Museum staff pub) was decorated beautifully, the bar staffed and stocked, pizza was eaten, there were wonderful presents, hugs and dancing and everyone was sooooooooooooooo generous (we drank the bar dry!!!).
It hit home last night how much we will miss everyone and a bit of doubt crept into my mind as I really realised how much we were giving up. Luckily all our friends were super encouraging and we really felt the love in that room last night.
We haven't counted the loose change yet (sore heads) but in notes alone people donated over £100 to Project Why - which is wonderful as that’s just about the right amount to pay for a teachers salary for one month on the project. They employ all their teachers locally so the money supports the surrounding community.
We also received some very helpful and gorgeous presents. I received a back pack which I'm actually in love with (I woke up and stroked it this morning...)
Only eight days to go before we get on the ferry. We're looking forward to Science Night now on Saturday night and the service on Sunday at MCC South London (where everyone is welcome).
Love Em x