From Anna and Flat Mrs. Creed in Leicester, United Kingdom [to Alexis]
Dear Alexis,
Thank you for sending Flat Mrs Creed over to Leicester, I am just waiting for her to arrive at the moment! In the meantime, I thought I would tell you a little bit about me and the place Mrs Creed will be visiting!
My name is Anna and I live in Leicester in England. I am currently at university studying to become a doctor. I live in a house with 2 of my friends who are doing the same degree as me. It is common here for people to live with their friends when they go to university if they are moving to another city. My parents and siblings live in a city further north in England close to Liverpool which is where the Beatles are from!
At university, I play water polo which is a sport that combines swimming and netball. We play lots of matches with other universities across the Midlands (which is the area in the middle of England where Leicester and other cities like Nottingham and Birmingham are). We have something called varsity once a year where we play against the closest university geographically in every sport. It is a lot of fun! The university year usually runs from September until June and then July and August are the summer holidays as this is when it is hottest here! We also have some time off at Easter and Christmas time.
Leicester is a city in the middle of England. It became more well known in 2016 when the city’s football team called Leicester City Football Club won the national league. This was very unexpected as the odds were 5000:1 at the start of the tournament! Leicester is also home to the Leicester Tigers rugby club and we have a big cricket ground too.
We have the national space centre here which we claim is the only place to house a space rocket upright indoors! Lots of famous astronauts have visited over the last few years including Tim Peake who went into space in 2016.
In 2012 there was another exciting event in Leicester as King Richard III, who was the King of England from 1483-1485, was found buried under a car park in the middle of the city! He has now been buried in Leicester cathedral and there is a museum built around the place where he was found which you can visit.
Last month Leicester had to go back into Lockdown due to Corona virus and we all had to stay at home and not travel out of the city. This was when other cities in the UK were opening things like shops and restaurants. Things have got better in the last 2 weeks and we are slowly coming out of Lockdown with restaurants and cafes beginning to open. This week, in the lots of other places, gyms opened but we are yet to have that happen here!
I am looking forward to having Mrs Creed come to stay with me here and taking her to see some of the sights of Leicester! I will let you know when she arrives and tell you a little bit more about the city and places we visit! I have attached a photo of my dog Toby who is a chocolate Labrador and a photo of the deer in Bradgate park which is close to Leicester.
Anna
From Jess to Flat Mrs Cripps and Linley, in Chelmsford, Essex, England:
Attached is a photo of one of our local beaches at
sunset (Mrs Cripps should be familiar with this beach!) It is called
Chalkwell.
We are still in the middle of a
heatwave (33 degrees Celsius today!) so it was very busy. Lots of people eating
fish and chips and having picnics! We just went for a walk along the seafront.
As you can see the tide has gone out
and there isn't a lot of sand!
Hello Paige,
I am very pleased to be your friend in England and show you
what life’s like here, although it’s a bit strange at the moment due to
COVID-19.
Firstly I have to introduce you to the most important members
of my family! In the first photo is Tink (tiny poodle) she is 9 years old and
was born in Perth WA. Then there’s Merlin he is 10 and also was born in
Australia but I’m not sure where. They flew all the way to England and have
been living here for the last few years, we lived near Perth for just over 4
years but I was born here in Wolverhampton and that’s where we live now.
The next photo is Bertie and he is 7 and then Dora who is 2
next week. (She’s very naughty and climbs my curtains!)
I live here with them and my husband Steve, my daughter Izzy
who is 18 and my son Will has just left home last week and he is 24.
This week I’ve taken Flat Paige to work with me and I’m going
to send another email after this one introducing my family to show you where we
have been.
Next week I’m taking Flat Paige to see the sights of
Wolverhampton and I’ll tell you a bit about the city.
Have a good week, stay safe,
Sarah x
Hello
again Paige,
So this is work for me, I am a gardener and I thought I’d
show you a real English country house and garden.
I go to lots of different houses and lots of different
gardens, this one is a very old house and is called The Old Rectory because it
had the church in its grounds and this is where the vicar would have lived. The
house was a lot smaller when it was first built.
In the second photo you can see that big gardens have big
plants! Flat Paige had a lovely rest on the big leaf whilst I worked on the
pond!
The
pond is lovely and full of fish and we have a boat to get to the island in the
middle, I got on with some tidying up while Flat Paige hung out in the trees!!!
I’ll be updating you next week with the adventures of Flat
Paige......
From Melissa to Flat Emily, in London, England:
Hi Emily!
Thank you so much for sharing your Flat Emily with me. I am
Melissa, I am 27 and Mrs Thomas is my Mum!
I live in London, England, United Kingdom and I work with
Australian Teachers ensuring they have the correct paperwork to relocate to
the UK. I love netball, going to the park and eating lots of good food!
I am very fortunate the COVID-19 restrictions have been eased
on this side of the world and am currently on Summer Holidays in Greece which
is just a 3 hour flight away.
I am returning to London on August 17 where I can print you
out and take you to some of London's famous landmarks including Tower Bridge,
Buckingham Palace, a Red Phone Box and a Double Decker Bus.
I look forward to sharing Flat Emily's journey with you in a couple of weeks.
Stay safe!
Melissa
From Flat Mrs Cripps and Natalie in England - to Shivvy.
From Tania to Flat Hayden from Iceland.
Hi students!
Well, I have arrived safe and sound in Iceland! It was
a really long journey to the other side of the earth! The town that I am staying in is call
Borgarnes (bor-gar-nes). It is a small town in Western Iceland. Only around
3,750 people live here. It is a pretty little farming town and there are lots
of sheep and horses.
This is what the Icelandic flag looks like:
The language that the people speak here is called Icelandic.
It is really strange, and I can’t understand it at all! Luckily my host family also
speaks English and they are able to help me with asking for things.
It is summer here, but it is still quite cold, around
10 degrees. My host family says that it sometimes gets up to 25 degrees. In the
winter it can be as cold as -20 degrees! It has also been raining a lot since I
arrived. It almost never gets dark here in the summer, but in the winter it is
almost always dark. It must be really strange to go to school at night time! I
wonder how they manage to wake up in time…?
I have been exploring the town a little bit. A lot of
the houses here are quite old and they are painted in really bright colors. It
must make it much more cheerful when it is dark in the winter!
Here are some photos of a really old farm-house which
was built in 1919. As you can see the roof has grass on it, which kept the
houses warm back then!
This is the name of the house. I can’t pronounce it,
but I was told that it means The Side-Field Houses.
People in Borgarnes like to play sports, especially
Soccer and Basketball. They also like horse riding and swimming. They even swim
outside in the winter! The water in swimming pools is really warm and that’s
because of something called geothermal energy. My host family is going to teach
me more about this on the weekend, so I will be able to tell you all about it
next week. We are also going to visit a farm and see some waterfalls. We are
also going to visit Iceland’s capital city, Reykjavík. (Rake-ya-vik).
Bye for now!
Flat Hayden
From Ann and Flat Sienna in Scotland
Hi there
Just letting you know that Flat Sienna arrived in Inverurie safely via email.
A little bit of information about me (Ann) Flat Sienna’s host for the next few weeks.
My name is Ann Sinclair I live with my husband Mike and our daughter Gail, we have a one year old Grandson called Cameron who lives with his Mum and Dad just a few miles from us. We also have two dogs one is called Pip🐶 the other is Cody🐻we take them for lots of walks.
We live in Inverurie which has a population of about 12,000 people the name comes from the River airy which flows through the town there is also the River Don as well which is larger.
Flat Sienna has arrived here in the time when we have our summer holidays, we have a caravan for our holidays we hitch it onto the back of our to tour round mostly Scotland but sometimes England and Ireland too.
We are away in our caravan just now though only 45 minute drive from our home..but it’s nice and a change of place to see and explore.
Here are some photos of where we are just now a place called Banchory and the Castle is Crathes Castle.
From Catherine and Flat Mrs Granger in Langley, BC - to Cody.
Langley, BC
Hi Cody! I’m finally rested enough to get out and tour a bit more. Last week, my hosts Catherine and Leon took me to the beach! This was about a 45-minute drive from their home. The beach here is more like mud than beautiful sand, but the water was warm enough for some people to swim.
Vancouver is sheltered by Vancouver Island, so it has a tide but nothing like you’d see on the Pacific Ocean coast. The water between Vancouver and Vancouver Island is called the Salish Sea. I am hoping we can get to the island while I am visiting here. Then I can tell you more about it.
So, we went for a walk at the beach and the most interesting thing I spotted was the city of Vancouver over the water. All those high-rise building backed by the mountains. After walking for about an hour, we stopped for an ice cream before heading back to Langley.
By the way, have you figured out where I am yet? Here’s a map so you can sort it out.
If you look at the red oval, you can see a town called Abbotsford. We are 10 minutes west of that. Can you see how close is it to the USA? Notice the map is in English and French? I’ll tell you all about the languages people speak in Canada another time.
On Sunday, we decided to go for a walk to the local Rotary Park called the Arboretum. That just means it’s a park with a lot of trees. There are different areas to walk through. Catherine wanted to show me the beautiful building that Leon helped build called the Interpretive Centre. You can see it has huge trees in front instead of columns. And the doors are decorated with art from the local Kwantlen artists. British Columbia is well known for its great evergreen forests, so the columns are quite appropriate for this area, as is the Indigenous art.
Further back in the park, they have a statue or monument to the Canadian soldiers who died fighting in Afghanistan. This area is called a walk to remember. That silver ribbon is engraved with all the soldiers’ names. Oh hey, there’s Leon in the picture! He was in the Canadian Armed Forces for many years. He bought that hat in Australia. He wears it everywhere!
After our walk, we drove to see Mount Baker. It’s a huge mountain that is covered in snow year-round! You can see it from such a great distance. It’s actually the northern-most mountain in a chain that starts in California. Mount Baker is actually in the USA. By the way, Canadians don’t call the USA America, because they live in the Americas too, so that seems odd to them. They mostly just call it the US.
Anyway, Catherine and Leon live only about 14 kms from the US border! They promised to show me that on another tour.
I hope you are having a good time even though you are staying home because of Covid. We are able to get outside and tour around but we are very cautious and don’t go far from the house. People are very nice and try to wear a mask when they are close to others.
I’ll write more another time.
Cheers!
Flat Mrs. Granger in Canada
From Gayle and Flat Mrs. Donnelly in Canada, to Bhargav
August 13, 2020
Hello Bhargav,
Thank you for your letter. I was so excited to hear from you! It was nice to hear a little bit about you
and where you live.
I am a teacher of Kindie in a city called Burnaby
which is a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and live in a city
called Port Coquitlam which is also a suburb of Vancouver. I will send information about these places
another time. I lived in Sydney for a
year in 2018 and taught Kindie at Greenwich school. I wasn’t able to get to Victoria while I was
there. ☹ I hear it is lovely.
Australia is such a beautiful place!
I just got back from a week of holidays in Alberta
Canada, (the province next to British Columbia on the map) and have some
pictures I will share of some places I’ve been.
One of my favourite things to do is take photographs. I hope you will like them!
Today I wanted to send you this letter so hopefully
you will have something for your Zoom session today. It is Thursday afternoon here at 12:20 – for
you it is Friday early in the morning – 5:20 am to be exact. My guess is you are still sleeping!
I do not have a favourite holiday place. I like to try to visit as many places as possible
and each one makes me love it for different reasons. You are lucky to have been able to go to New
Zealand. I wanted to go there but ran
out of time. I think I would like it
there.
Yes, we have beaches here, though they are nothing
like your Australian and New Zealand ones.
Yours are SOOOO beautiful! Ours
are beautiful also but in a different way and we do not get sunshine like you
do. I am close to the North Pacific
Ocean and live in a coastal temperate rainforest. We get A LOT of rain here and only a little
bit of snow (sometimes) in the winter where I live. Our beaches have sand and rocks mixed and
lots of the rocks have barnacles so walking barefoot can be tricky in some
parts. I will try to send you a picture
so you can compare. I used to enjoy
building sandcastles and making trenches in the sand when I was your age
also. I understand the fun in that! I used to swim in the ocean but not very
often because our water here is pretty cold…
not warm like yours. And, the
water is REALLY salty. I did not like
getting that in my mouth. We do not get
big waves here either. Vancouver is
built on the Burrard Inlet. To get big
waves for surfing you need to go to Tofino or Johnstone Strait on Vancouver
Island or Haida Gwaii off the coast of Northern British Columbia. Surfing is way better in Australia!
I am looking forward to hostessing flat Mrs.
Donelly. I am on school holidays until
the end of August so will try and get some pictures of her for you when I get
out and about. I also have some pictures
of her great pal Flat Stanley. I was
going to Edmonton Alberta for a week so took him with me. I will send some pictures soon with descriptions
of where we are. So fun!
Please send my any questions you might have and tell
me more about what you like to do.
Thank you again for your letter.
Cordially,
Gayle
From Bianca and Flat Mrs Corwall, in Ottawa, Canada, to Ria
Hi Ria,
I was EXTREMELY excited to receive Flat Mrs. Cornwall by email last week! She arrived just in time for a camping adventure, so I printed her out and covered her in contact just in case she went for a bit of a swim .
But firstly hi, my name is Bianca! I am 36 years old and am a research scientist. Did you know that I am originally from Australia? I grew up not too far from where you live, in Healesville, but after finishing my PhD in chemistry, I moved to Canada to conduct scientific research in a laboratory at the University of Ottawa. I now work at a big company (Abbott) that makes medical devices, including ones that test for the coronavirus!
I have lived in Canada for a little over 8 years now and have experienced many new and wonderful things during my time here. Below is a picture of flat Mrs. Cornwall and I out the front of our house, where I live with my partner, Josh. He is a French-Canadian.
I cannot wait to
show you pictures of Flat Mrs. Cornwall exploring my hometown, Ottawa, and a
little bit of Canada! But first, I want to answer the questions you sent in
your letter.
1)
Do you have any parks where you
live?
Yes! When I walk
across the street from my house, there is a small path that leads straight to a
park. This park is quite big. It has a soccer field, a basketball court, a
playground and even a splash pad! In the summertime, when kids run across the
splash pad water shoots up from out of the ground and cools everyone off
nicely. Here is a picture of Flat Mrs. Cornwall at our park.
2)
What language do some of your
friends speak?
Canada is a
bilingual country. This means that most of the people here can speak in 2
languages: English and French. When kids in Canada start school, many go into a
program called French Immersion. This means that they do some of their classes
in English and some in French. Most of my friends here did French Immersion so
can speak both French and English. Ottawa is in a Province (Australia calls
them states) called Ontario and if you drive over the Ottawa River into Quebec,
you find yourself in a completely French speaking Province. Because of this,
most people in Ottawa can speak both languages fluently!
All the
packaging and signs in Canada are also in both languages. Below, I’ve put a
picture of my tea-cup. Tim Horton’s is a popular coffee shop chain in Canada.
You can see that French is on one side and English is on the other 😊
When I go for a walk near my house, I see dogs, lots of birds (including Canada Geeese) and cute little creatures called squirrels and chipmunks!
4)
Am I allowed to go out of my
house (because of Coronavirus)?
For a very long
time (March to July), we were not allowed outside for much. Same as you are
now, we were only allowed out to go to the supermarket (we called them grocery
stores) or other essential places. In Ottawa, kids stopped school in March and
won’t return until September! For four months, restaurants etc were not open.
Finally, things started to improve here, and we are now allowed to do more fun
things – but with a lot of restrictions. We have to wear a mask when we go to
public places and inside buildings. BUT we are finally allowed to go camping
again, which is my favourite summer activity.
In my next
letter I will show you some pictures of Flat Mrs. Cornwall camping in Canada!
Bye for now 😊
Bianca
UPDATE: September 15
Hi Ria, Mrs. Cornwall and I have had lots of excitement and adventures over the past couple of weeks! Firstly, ice hockey with the professional players started up again! This is THE sport of Canada but because of Covid-19, they shut it down in March and the hockey players were not able to finish their season. My friends and I were extremely excited to have sport to watch again in August! Here is Mrs. Cornwall with two of Toronto Maple Leafs biggest fans , and what it looks like in an ice hockey stadium (although this picture was taken a few years ago, because we can’t go inside stadiums right now).
Playing hockey (of all types) is an extremely popular thing to do in Canada, whether you are a kid or an adult. Since moving to Canada, I have learned to play both ball hockey and ice hockey and before Covid-19 struck, I would play these sports 5 nights a week! Here are some pictures of me in my ice hockey gear (lots of padding) and scoring a goal in ball hockey (I am the one in green)!
The next bit of excitement and adventure for us was our upcoming canoe camping trip! This time we were off to Algonquin Park, which is about 3 hours west of Ottawa. Algonquin is the oldest provincial park in Ontario and the first provincial park in Canada. Itis a HUGE park that is famous for its wildlife including a large population of moose and bears… both which I have seen in the wild in this exact park (see pictures below from some of our hikes in Algonquin Park – we saw a moose and a bear)!
This trip, Josh, Mrs. Cornwall and I were going to Booth Lake with 2 friends. To get to Booth Lake, we had to canoe AND portage. Portaging is where you carry a canoe (usually above your head) from one lake to another. The site we wanted to camp at was 7 km away from Shall Access Point (“start” on the map below) and had 2 portages (90 meters and 645 meters). We paddled across Farm Lake, Kitty Lake and Booth Lake, portaging between the 3.
Portaging helps you get deep into the center of Algonquin where there are no roads and no other people. It’s amazing, because it is so quiet and you’re more likely to see lots of wild animals. Also because of this, you need to put up bear lines so that you can put your food and other animal attracting things high off the ground so that the bears don’t get to it! Here are some pictures of Mrs. Cornwall at the access point and on the portage route to our campsite. We got caught in a thunderstorm on Kitty Lake!
Dear Ms Moore,I’m Ryan,9 years old.I lived in shanghai,China.Shanghai is a big city with more than 28 million population and many nice scenery .I studied in a internal school in grade 4.I love my school very much.
My family stay at apartment ,this is my community photos.
I traveled Au in 2018 and spent 1 month to study .I hope to make next visit after COVID and meet you all with a perfect journey again and expect more study there.Will continue to send out more Infos when I gather and hope that you all know China and shanghai more .Tks
在 2020年8月11日，07:53，Moore, Mary M <Mary.Moore@education.vic.gov.au> 写道：
From Anne and Flat Lachlan from Uganda.
Dear Rolling Hills students
Flat Lachlan has arrived and settled into his new house, here in Wairaka, Jinja District, Uganda, Africa. He is at the front door trying to get in. If you look closely I think you will find him in every photo. Just outside the house is a big mango tree that you can see in the photo next to it. The mangos are very small and just forming, so we have to wait.
At the moment the place is very quiet as we live on the school compound and there are no children and so since the trip is a very long one from Australia, flat Lachlan this week explored the things to eat around the grounds. First he found the chickens.
Then he found a big tree with some large fruit, he found out that they were called jackfruit. He even got a little lost in the leaves.
He tried to climb one of the avocado trees to show you how big the avocados are but it is hard to see them. When they are ripe we will take a picture of one with him. They are nearly as big as him.
Flat Lachlan likes having some fun and spied some tyres underneath an avocado tree that Flat Lachlan climbed. These avocados are a smaller variety than the others. The children normally play on the tyres. And, in the background he saw the kitchen. So, he went to investigate. He found Millie there doing some cooking. She is only using the small stove at the moment as there are no children and only workers to feed. Normally, children have a liquid porridge at recess and then have posho (cornmeal) or rice and beans for lunch.
This made Flat Lachlan feel like investigating what other food was around. He found this tree with very small round fruit on it. They are not ready yet, but they are guava. When they are ripe they will turn yellowish.
Then Flat Lachlan found some fruit that he recognized. They look like
bananas. BUT, they are not bananas that you eat without cooking. These are what
in Australia are called Plantain and in Uganda are called matooke. They are
cooked (usually steamed in banana leaves) and then smashed (like mashing). They
don’t taste like banana but are delicious.
 |
So he walked some more and found some more bananas. At last, I have some that I can eat. But alas, no, these ones are also different. These ones are for making juice that is used to make banana pancakes called mandazi. They will be fun to eat when they are ripe. There are also some that he found that are just sweet bananas to eat.
There is lots to explore, but Flat Lachlan thought you might like to see
what a classroom looks like, this is what Flat Lachlan saw, but there is also a
picture of what it looks like with children that we showed Flat Lachlan. This
is the Prep class, or Foundation class learning about how to read.
From Karyn and Flat Mrs Walton to Addison, from Maplewood, Minnesota, USA
Hi, Addison –
My name is Karyn Mikel and I
am very happy to host your Flat Traveller, Mrs. Walton.
I live in Maplewood,
Minnesota, which is in the middle and north part of the United States.
Maplewood is a suburb of St Paul, the state capital of Minnesota.
Your dogs Zumboot and Teddy
are very cute! I live with my two cats,
ZsaZsa and McKenzie. My cats love cuddles, being brushed but mostly they like
to sleep.
I know where Rolling Hills
School is! J My dad was an exchange teacher and I went to
visit my parents when they lived in Castlemaine for a year. We really enjoyed a visit to the Healesville Sanctuary
and got to feed wallabies!
I like to read, too and some
of my favorite books are the Laura Ingalls Wilder books about growing up on the
prairies of Minnesota and the states around it – Wisconsin, Iowa and South
Dakota. We have 50 states – lots of
states and capitals to remember!
Weather
– Because we’re in the northern hemisphere it’s our summer right now so
temperature are usually around 70-90 degrees Fahrenheit or 21 – 32 degrees
Celsius. We have four very different seasons.
Right now summer is hot and can
be humid. Fall is very beautiful with
brightly colored leaves on the trees of orange, brown, and yellow. Winter
usually has lots of snow and can very cold, 20 degrees Fahrenheit above 0 to 20
degrees below 0 (-6 to -29 degrees
Celsius). Spring is lovely with all the green leaves coming back on the trees
and bushes and can be quite rainy.
I’ll write more later about your other questions.
We
are in semi-lockdown so Mrs. Walton and I haven’t gone a lot of place but have
had fun.
Putting some steaks on the barbie with my dad:
Checking out a friend’s tree that fell over in a storm:
Hope
you liked hearing a little bit about Minnesota and Mrs. Walton’s adventure so
far! I will write more again in a couple
weeks.
Karyn
