Pertinent questions

Lotus has been trying to work out the Santa thing lately. Questions in the car: Do reindeer have tails? Ans: yes little one like a deer. But how do they fly when they don't have wings? Ans: (tough one) it is magic Another time: How can santa come to our place as we don't have a chimney? Ans: It is magic he comes down the heater flu. This kid is going to have it worked out well before I informed her sister - and at this rate it might be next year even before she goes to school!!

More pics

Shanghai - beautiful pics abound

But they don't show you how many tour groups squeeze down the tiny streets that lead to the Bund. This was an in your face culture shock after coming from the West.

Where to begin... we are home

More pics castle / Warwick

It would have been good to have used the Ipad to capture what it was like in the dungeon. Given I was racing through the castle (8 hours sightseeing of England before departure) I was often the only one or first into an area of the castle. Check out the pull the cord toilet (now if you went to China people take pics of the squat toilet). Speaking of which Charlotte's school did a tour of China and returned just recently. The Chinese teacher said she went to the squat toilet (pit type) with her IPhone 4 in her pocket... put it this way she now has the IPhone 5 on order after giving up getting the owner to search the trenches!! Eeeck.... Warwick Castle was beautiful and Oxford was beautiful (wish I had more time to do the walking tours) and of course the English countryside greenery near the conference was beautiful, although away from that area it was dryer. Any Merlin lovers would love the tower. Given I have girls that are fearful of fantasy I was a bit lacking in my knowledge but the show was good.

Warwick Castle

The girls would have loved this place although they would have needed to go to the Princess Castle whilst mummy checked out a few of the gory scenes. Got a shot of the playground that was empty.