What's the Name of Your House?

Dear Kids,

Did you know that lots of people in England name their houses? We're staying in April Cottage. It's on a little lane called Pleasant Place in Penzance in the southwest of England. Miss Elaine's daughter Zoe lives in Penzance with her husband. They live in an apartment -- in England an apartment is called a flat -- people don't name their flats.

This is me in front of the cottage. It's very old. People used to be lots shorter so, if you'll notice, the door is shorter than modern doors. Miss Elaine can touch the beams in the ceiling on the first floor -- and she's short.



People in England live a lot like we do -- though many homes are very old and historic -- many are very modern. When the towns were built, there were no cars so the streets are often very narrow. It's hard to find parking places and most people just walk places. The stores carry almost everything you could find in the U.S. and some things you can't. As you can see, the grocery store looks just like ours. We're using a small cart but they have big ones, too.



This is Alex. She checked out our groceries. She has a chair to sit on. That seems like a good idea. I bet the checkers at our grocery stores wish they had chairs!


Miss Elaine is having trouble with one of her hands. We are visiting the Chinese doctor. They do something called acupuncture. Dr. Tang has special needles that she sticks in Miss Elaine's hands and arms. They do not hurt. I hope miss Elaine's hand gets better! The Chinese doctor also recommends herbs and medicines. See all the jars of herbs behind me?


This is Xiao Mei, she knows how to mix the herbs and medicines. Her son is Mi Lan; he's 14 and can speak both English and Chinese. He wants to come to America because he thinks we have more video games. The little girl came to get medicine for her mother's cough.


Today Miss Elaine took me to a pub for lunch. Pubs are a very old English tradition. This pub, The First and Last, is almost 200 years old! Pubs are places where local people get together as much for visiting with their friends as for the food.



The man who owns the pub is called a publican. This is Andy. He showed me his stuffed cow! I don't know why he thought I'd be interested in a stuffed toy but I was polite and posed for a picture with Andy and the cow.


I got to meet some of the people Miss Zoe works with -- these are John, Wendy and Andy. They were interested in hearing about you. They wanted my picture to show their children. Isn't that nice?

I really like England!
Love,
Fluffy

Teddy on the Town

Thursday was rather quiet. We walked to town -- about a mile -- and up this street, Causeway Head, to the farmers' market. It was windy and pretty chilly -- not many stalls set up, not nearly as many as the Edmond Farmers' Market. Still, it's early in the growing season so there's not much for sale yet.

That afternoon we walked in the other direction -- to Newlyn. About a hundred years ago, Newlyn was a famous arts and crafts center -- lots of painters and potters and copperworkers. The arts kind of died out here for a while. Michael Johnson is an artist who works in copper and bronze. He let us see his workshop. He likes to do sculpture but he does all sorts of things -- even made the belt buckles and other metal things for the movies "Pirates of the Caribbean" both Two and Three. The big piece behind me in the picture is called a monstrance. Do you see that he's made some of the rays out of pieces of silverware? He says that art makes us see things in new ways. He must be right. I would never have thought that my fork was for anything but eating!



Yesterday was a big day. We went to the National Seal Sanctuary. Did you know there are 33 kinds of seals? There are six kinds at the Seal Sanctuary -- grey seals (the only kind that live in the ocean off of Cornwall), common or harbour seals, Patagonian sea lions, California sea lions and South African fur seals. They also have the only Arctic hooded seal in the United Kingdom. I don't remember how he happened to come here. The Seal Sanctuary works to rehabilitate injured or sick animals and then release then back into the ocean. They tried to release Sahara, the hooded seal. They drove him north to Scotland and turned him loose hoping he would find his way to the Arctic. Nope, he got turned around and wound up on the coast of Spain so they went and got him. He was very thin and not very well. So now he lives at the Seal Sanctuary where he is safe.

I can't tell seals and sea lions apart. They both belong to the pinniped family, along with walruses. Seals have little ear holes and sea lions have little ear flaps. Do you think this is a seal or a sea lion? Miss Zoe says it is a seal and she's right about most things.


One of the seal trainers took me in to meet Flipper, a grey seal. I had a good time at the Seal Sanctuary. I wish you had been there with me.




Miss Elaine took this picture out the car window on the way home. Look at the roof -- it's made of thatch. In the old days, lots of houses had thatched roofs -- now only a few are left. Thatch is made from bunches of water reeds or wheat straw. Did you know that last names often reflected occupations -- so, hundreds of years ago, if a man worked on roofs, he might be known as John the Thatcher, or John Thatcher. Can you think of some other names that might have referred to work?


I love England and I'm even learning to speak English! In America we speak English, too, but sometimes we use different words for the same thing. It can be quite confusing. Here are some words the English people use and the words we use:
chips: in England these are like French fries
crisps: we call them potato chips
biscuits: we call them cookies
lorry = truck
car park = parking lot
lift = elevator
pavement = sidewalk
pram = baby buggy
nappy = diaper
Did you notice the sign by the thatched house? In America, it would say "Yield."

Love,

Teddy

Teddy Goes International

Hi Kids,
Do you have any idea what it's like to spend 22 hours in a dark bag? Well, I do! But now I'm in England and I'm having a great time. I've had a really busy day. It started with a walk to town. Lots of people walk or ride bikes here. They have cars but gas is really expensive -- about $4 a gallon -- and walking's healthy for you. And you get to see the scenery better. We stopped in front of this beautiful golden rain tree. And Miss Elaine liked the blue front door.

We did some shopping -- and lots of window shopping. They have a lot of things here that we have at home -- like Hannah Montana stuff -- but they have a few things we don't usually see.
Like pasties (I wrote you a postcard about pasties but you won't get it for several days.)



Many years ago, most of the men in this area worked in the tin mines. They had to take their lunches with them because they spent all day underground. Their wives would take pie dough and make pies like these. Sometimes they would put meat and vegetables in one side and fruit for dessert in the other. The circle of dough would be folded over the fillings. The outside circular edge was sealed to keep the filling in and the edge was made thick so the men could hold onto it and it wouldn't break. Their hands were dirty from mining so they would eat the filled part of the pie and throw the thick edge away. The mines are all closed now but people around here still eat pasties.



I'm in Penzance in Cornwall, almost as far south and west as you can get in England. Penzance is technically on the English Channel, the arm of the Atlantic Ocean that runs between England and France. There are still a lot of fishermen around here and fresh fish is easy to buy. I went into a fish market -- that's all they sell -- to check out the fish.


We saw some policepeople and Miss Elaine asked them if she could take their picture with me. They were very nice. The police lady got out her handcuffs and put them on one of my arms. She was just kidding!

Later we saw some firefighters. They were doing some training but they stopped to let Miss Elaine take their picture with me. We did it quickly so they could get back to work. People here are really nice.

Tonight after dinner we walked down to the beach -- it's right across the street from where Miss Elaine is staying. We saw some men lawn bowling and then we saw some swans. This is a beautiful place!

Love,

Teddy