Foreign Perspectives

Archive for June, 2010

We’ve been meaning to take the kids to Streamvale Farm for a while now but in practice the first, and last, time we went was last week on a school trip.

The charge even for the school trip was £4.80 per child ie the full price. To be fair that did include a tour guide although I’m sure that any of us who’ve lived in the country for any period of time would have done at least as well; certainly, for me, she didn’t add any value so it was a full £4.80. That’s unless you count the “mid-morning break” as a discount but even then 10p worth of watery orange and a small biscuit is hardly the level of discount that a school would ordinarily expect for these things.

So what’s included in the tour? We began with a look at a non-working milking parlour with no practical demonstration and merely one photograph of what a cow getting milked looked like. Granted, dawn milkings aren’t conducive to school trips but I’m sure that they could have managed a video at least. It went downhill from there as we walked along the lane to the badger set with it’s very small sign marking the spot. Badgers are nocturnal so nothing to see there though a proper display would have been possible. From there it was on past the duck pond to the field with the deer which the children were allowed to feed through the fence (by far the high point of this part of the visit) before circling round to have that mid-morning break. The next stretch gave the kids a chance to feed some of the chickens and ducks although with no background explanations as to what they ate or whatever ie just a stop for amusement rather than education.

From there we were off past the couple of dogs in a pen to the “petting zoo” (for want of a better description). This should have been the highlight of the trip as there were getting on for a dozen different animals. However, in practice the only interaction with them was the guinea pig hastily handed around the kids (with no consideration for its welfare) and the goat roughly dragged from one child to another for a suck on a bottle. It could have been so much better and it was no surprise that the kids preferred the small playground inside the “zoo” which seemed to be there for no other reason than to create some interest for children.

We finished up the tour with a go at milking a dummy cow (which would have been better placed in the milking parlour) and a chance for a hurried feel of some chicks with the customary lack of consideration for their welfare.

With the tour over, it was time for lunch (not included in the price, of course) and then it was off to sample the playgrounds. The first one for us featured one of those zip slides that made no allowance for safety and I was amazed that one of the kids didn’t end up in hospital. That was the only feature as the other playground items were rather cheap productions (one of which states quite clearly that it is only for home use) and the positioning of the tyre swing far too close to one of the diggers is another accident waiting to happen. Finally, it was off to the second playground where there were loads of little tractors and trailers although the trailers couldn’t be used as none of the attachment pins was to be found and on the whole everything was rather run down.

None of the weekend rides were running which was odd as some of them sound like the kids would have loved them. They’re all at extra charge though, as is everything here.

Overall, very poor value and dangerous to boot.

As the school year ends, there are an increasing number of events that I’ve ended up taking part in which makes me look towards this time next year with some trepidation as we’ll have added another school into the mix by then.

Over the past week or so there’s been the trip to the new school with the class, then the evening session at the school that was mainly for the parents. The daytime trip ended up giving James something of a headache which kept him at home a couple of days thus eating up a little more of the week. Tuesday was the usual blur of activity. Then I was off to Streamvale Farm with John. That’s a place that we’ve been meaning to take the kids to for ages but, frankly, I’m glad that we didn’t waste the money on it as it’s very, very poor value and dangerous to boot, of which more anon. Finally, Friday saw the final trip to the physiotherapist for Mum through to the school BBQ.

Saturday isn’t much better, as usual, as we’ve Kumon in the morning followed by the football coaching in the afternoon with just an hour between them both. Having said that, it does seem more relaxed in that we go to the places and wait for the kids rather than doing the home and back trip each time as we always end up doing during the week.

Family history is something of an on and off hobby for me as it can sometimes be several years before more information becomes available.

In between times, it’s often worthwhile looking again at the information already to hand as there are often hidden gems amongst it. For example, the original family bible from William Stewart who was born way back on June 28th 1835 though it probably dates from September 6th 1858 when he married Eliza Dalrymple. He kept that up to date throughout his life as did his children although there are gaps both in later and earlier generations.

Those gaps can largely be filled in though. One very simple thing was realising that there was a very consistent habit of naming the first born boy and girl after the father and mother. Thus, when the “first” born wasn’t that meant that there was either a stillborn child or, more likely (because stillborn children didn’t get named), a child who died quite young. That such children existed has been confirmed in all cases where I’ve had later information about the family so, for example, the 1911 census confirmed several of these children in various branches of the family.

Other bits of information can sometimes need more thought. It was puzzling as to why David J Tannihill of Market Square Lisburn paid for the grave of my great grandfather Andrew. However, later on I found that when he died he was living in 155 Mayo Street, Belfast so if his family had bought the grave they’d have had to pay the non-resident rate for the grave. Who David Tannihill was remains, for the moment, a mystery as indeed does the reason why he wasn’t buried in Belfast instead.

I’ve suspected for a while that some of the location information I have for various people isn’t quite right as we tried to get some birth and marriage certificates where they were recorded as living at the time but found that the information just wasn’t there. So, the plan was to get the certificates from known locations and work backwards from there. That was a problem though as I didn’t know for sure where my grandfather was born. Or, rather, I didn’t realise that I really did know. That information came from his older sister Mary who died when she was 2 in Killymackel, Derriaghy (near Lisburn) of bronchitis. Thus I know that the family lived there in 1896 but in Mayo Street by 1906.

Interestingly, Derriaghy is where my Dad continued to go to the Masonic Lodge so presumably they would have some information about everyone from him back to my great grandfather and perhaps even the generation before that. Also, some years back I went round the nearby Presbyterian churchyard which seemed to have a number of Stewarts buried although at the time I hadn’t linked that with my lot (another visit is called for to recheck that information).

Finally, there’s my latest flash of inspiration. Whilst I’ve known for a while that my grandfather was in the first world war and that there should therefore be a service record for him, what didn’t occur to me is that there would be a corresponding service record from his time in the police so that’s something else to look into.

One of the biggest problems with planning out a science degree with the Open University at the moment is that they’re in the process of completely revamping the entire science degree programme which in turn means that expiry dates for courses have been changing and start dates for new courses are being juggled too.

At the simplest level they’re basically cancelling all but one of the science summer schools with the final year for the level 2 schools being 2011 and 2012 for the level 3 schools. That’s caused a whole bunch of upheaval in degree schedules for many people who want a named science degree (BSc physical sciences, BSc life sciences, etc.). Since for those named degrees you generally need one L2 and two L3 summer schools there’s going to be something of a fire-sale atmosphere around the October booking time this year and next.

Next, there’s the problem that in a number of degree programmes there’s a fair number of courses expiring in 2011 and 2012. Normally, these courses would be replaced with an updated version but that’s not happening this time around. Thus the excellent S320 Infectious Disease course has one final run in 2011 and the landmark S204 biology course also finishes in 2011. For infectious diseases, it’s the end of the road with no replacement in prospect but even the main biology course isn’t getting fully replaced and instead there’s only going to be a shorter course covering part of the ground.

Oddly there’s been a lot of development around some areas, notably biology which has acquired four 15 point biology cum medical courses (which, if the cardiology course is anything to go by, are excellent).

However, with all the upheaval recently, hardly a month has gone by without me having to rejig my plans for the next couple of years.