Upton House

15 minutes up the road lies Upton House, the resident of the current 2nd Viscount Bearstead. The original owner of Upton House was one of the founders of the Shell Oil company. The property is now owned by the National Trust, although it is still used as a residence during the winter months over Christmas. Quite funny are the collection of family photos strewn through the living room with the Queen, Prince Philip, Diana etc.

Banbury Fair 2007

As the nights get longer and colder.. and we approach the Autumn solstice...

..it means it is once again time for the fair!!




















Lucas wasn't that thrilled with the rides, I think he enjoyed the fire engines the most!

The Rollright Stones

We took a visit to the Rollright stones last week, which includes a Neolithic circular stone formation and an ancient tomb. Think Stonehendge, just a lot smaller. Lucas enjoyed having a run around in the countryside.







Later that evening we had a visitor on our back porch. We have quite a few frogs which live in our backyard, under the rubbish bins.

Banbury Canal Day

It was Canal Day again.. when Banbury hosts a canal-based fair.. bringing water-borne travellers from throughout the United Kingdom.





Lucas also got to ride on Thomas the Tank that day. We've also taken some more video of him in the last few days.

Friends and family

We've had a steady stream of friends of family coming to visit us over the past few weeks. Not too long ago we were fortunate to be visited by our old family friends Claude and Michelle from Dijon in France. Michael stayed with them as a Year 9 exchange student back in 1987.. and from that point on the families have remained good friends. I haven't seen Claude and Michelle since 2000, so it was great to catch up with them again and for them to meet Nat.



Lucas in the meantime has continued to grow. We are now attempting to take him swimming every Sunday morning in Bicester. He's still a bit young for swimming goggles though...














And he can't quite fit into his mum's clothes just yet..



Henrietta and Brendan (old Melbourne friends now living in London) came and visited a few weekends ago. We took them for a 'ye olde pub lunch' at The Unicorn in Deddington.



And finally, our parents stayed during September and October to spend time with their favorite little grandson. This also allowed us to scoot off to New York Lucas-free!

New York - Day Three

We began the day with breakfast at Balthazar's in Soho. Shiong joined us, as well as Wendy (visiting from Sydney).



After breakfast we did a quick tour of the New York Museum of Natural History. Highlights were dinosaur exhibition, a great photo exhibit of some Apollo shots on the moon's surface, several skeletons of early man, and this life-sized model of a Blue Whale.



Then it was down to docks at Pier 43 for a cruise around Manhattan Island.









After the cruise there was just time to grab dinner and a fantastic Malaysian restaurant that served authentic Assam Laksa... a dish that is a Penang specialty (different to mainland Laksa) which Nat has had once before in 20 years. She was very happy!



We then spent the evening the Jazz Club 'Birdland', where it was 'Cuban Big Band' night.

We were back at JFK airport at 6:00 am Monday morning for the long flight home.. thankfully the inflight movie system survived this time so I got to finish watching 'The Flying Scotsman'.

We got home at about 10:45 pm Monday night... at which point I was ready for a holiday!