First day of school!

Little Miss Natalia, age 4 years 7 months, has just started her formal education. She is a "reception" student at our local British neighborhood school, The Vineyard School. She is one of 60 new students and has 30 kids in her class. Her teacher's name is Miss Storr. The teacher came to our house to visit last week and asked Natalia to draw her a picture, so that when she arrived at school today, she would be able to see her artwork on the wall.

Our usual morning routine begins at 8 or 9 a.m., or whenever the two of us wake up. Big changes around the Frazier household -- bedtime has shifted from 9 p.m. to 8 p.m., and the alarm now rings at 7! Papa, Mommy, and Natalia were out the door at 8:35 this morning, Natalia wearing her new uniform and carrying her bookbag. The other big change is that she's no longer riding in the buggy. Her preschool was a mile from our house, whereas The Vineyard is less than half a mile from our front door. Even on her short legs, it's only a 10-minute walk.

She made us proud by getting up early without complaint, eating a good breakfast, getting dressed relatively quickly, and hopping and skipping all the way to school. There wasn't even one moment of clinging or crying as we dropped her off. She noticed a table in her new room that had been set with wipe-off marker boards, and she promptly sat down next to some other girls and started drawing flowers. A quick hug and kiss for both of us, and that was that!

Last weekend we celebrated the end of summer by traveling south about an hour and a half to the quaint old market town of Petworth. We stayed at a pub called the Halfway Bridge, then drove farther south to West Wittering Beach. It's one of the cleanest beaches in England and had the most beautiful white sand. It was much more crowded than the Wales beach, but still uncommercialized. Thankfully the weather cooperated and we had a relaxing day in the sun. On our way back home on Sunday, we detoured through the town of Arundel and visited a very well-kept (and still inhabited) castle that dates from the 11th century. They had a weapons demonstration in the Keep; quite fun for us to watch but not so fun for the participants in the hot sunshine! They wore period clothes, including long wool undergarments covered by layers of heavy chain mail, helmets, swords, shields, the whole bit. We got to try some of them on. Check the photo links above left.