Alpha Male to Alpha Papa

Book Week is upon us, and visiting author in Prep School is Nick Arnold - the author of the popular "Horrible Science" series. Lucas and Linnea got to buy a few of his books each the other day of course, and got them signed by the author Nick Arnold during their class sessions with him at school. His books are actually rather fascinating for adults too, full of interesting facts. Certainly written mainly for kids though - it's science with all the squishy bits left in!
On Friday all the kids in Prep School are invited to come dressed as crazy scientists to school. I have lab coats sorted, we just need to "adorn" them tomorrow - and then sort out the crazy hair on Friday morning!

So while the kids have been raving about Nick Arnold, I've been looking forward to tonight, and the literary evening offered aimed at parents and staff.
Anna and I went along last year, and met Sri Lankan author Ashok Ferrey. That was a truly special evening, and I was looking forward to another enjoyable one tonight.
Tonight's evening was called 'Alpha Male to Alpha Papa', and started out with some nibbles and mocktails in the foyer of the Arts Center. Always a nice venue:

It was really busy this year, at least twice as many people as last year. I'm glad this is becoming a tradition, and I'm even more glad people are taking the opportunity to take part when there is something this special going on. We are certainly not spoiled with entertainment here in Brunei.

Some of the older students were in charge of the refreshments, and I must say they had really gone all in when it came to the scientific theme! Really cool!

We got to drink our mocktails out of laboratory glass beakers, here's Nicky and Cécile:

Anna, and one of the librarians, Angela:

We got to listen to two interesting speakers. First Sam Kean, an American author who told us stories from his two books "The Disappearing Spoon" and "The Violinist's Thumb". He managed to make science entertaining, even to me, when he explained how human history is entwined in the story of the elements and DNA.

Secondly we heard from Simon Greenall, who is a British actor who is currently in the new Alan Partridge movie 'Alpha Papa'. He also does a range of voices for children's TV including the 'Mr Men', and Captain Barnacles in the popular 'Octonauts' show; and he is the voice of Aleksandr Orlov, the meerkat in several advertisements on British TV.

He's out here to talk to the little kids in Pre Prep (Nursery - Year 2).
He was talking to us about his life in show business and was very entertaining indeed. Lots of laughs there! A great night all around.

Like music to my ears...

Between Lucas' love for his clarinet, and Linnea's new recorder - our house is now filled with sweet music... hmm... or something. Linnea only knows two notes - and I think Lucas can play four!

I'm not knocking their enthusiasm at all though, I'll have you know I smile and cheer them on. I do encourage very much playing an instrument, music is so rewarding. Plus, you have to start from somewhere, right!

The Battle of Britain - in Brunei

'The Battle of Britain' is the name given to the Second World War air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940. The name came from a famous speech delivered by Prime Minister Winston Churchill: "...the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin." 'The Battle of Britain' was the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces.

Last night there was a party organized where the British Loan Service Team remembered the ones who fought in the 'Battle of Britain'. It was mostly attended by the LS team, but also by others who had some kind of connection to flying. We were honored to be invited.

The place was super cool decorated with war plane murals, flags and other war attributes:

The Air Force wives all donned typical 1940' uniforms, with red lippy to go with it - and nails fantastically decorated for the occasion too!

Us, hiding away in the corner!

It was a really good night! Thank you to our hosts, and their helpers, for a fabulous evening!

Bill's New Frock

Lucas' class was the first class to do a proper class Assembly this school year. His class were doing an Assembly based on the book "Bill's new frock" by Anne Fine (who came to JIS during Book Week when Lucas was in Kindy!), and apparently Lucas was going to have the main role of Bill. Very exciting!

Nathan and I both attended the Assembly, and we sure got treated to a fantastic performance! The whole class did really well, but especially Lucas of course (not bias at all..!), who had so many lines, and didn't just nail them, but also played them out with great emotion and humor.
The whole room was in fits of laughter when he (finally!) got the pink, frilly dress on, and the laughter continued all through the play. It was great!

"Bill wakes up one morning to find he is a girl... Forced off to school in a frilly pink dress, Bill discovers one of the worst days in his life is about to begin. Baffled by the way things are just different for girls, Bill falls headlong into trouble."

After "Bill" finally got his dress on, he ended up in a string of different situations, where he was treated so differently, now being a girl, to how he was used to being treated as a boy.

This book has been used successfully to challenge gender stereotyping, since it was first published in 1989. Lucas and his class asked all their friends during their Assembly to consider the different treatments boys and girls sometimes get, and help the stereotypes to be challenged.

 Very well done to you all! Another excellent Assembly!

Away day at the Spit

Last weekend we took part in one of the regular 'Away Days' that the Yacht Club organizes, to the Spit. It had been a couple of years again, since last time. This time we took the YC transportation over, and we had the Turner kids with us as well, as their parents were in Singapore for the F1.

As were many others, it was a rather quiet Spit-day I must say. The long weekend meant many people had left Brunei. Not that it mattered, more space for the rest of us - and the waves, ah, the waves! They were huge, and we all spent most of the time in the water, surfing the waves. We all had such a nice time!

The 40th birthday dinner

We had been rather slack making plans for Nathan's birthday. It felt too early planning anything before the summer holidays, and after we came back it all came around so quickly!
We couldn't throw a party the weekend before, since many of our friends had booked in to go to the Singapore F1. Instead we had loosely talked about doing a joint one a bit later in the year with Will (who turns 40 in December) but in the end we wanted to do something on the actual birthday, so we went for a small dinner party. We were lucky too, because Wednesday was (another) day off school!

Instead of going out somewhere, we hired this French chef, Chef Sebastien, who came to the house and prepared a three course meal, from our own kitchen! It was absolutely amazing!

While the chef was busy in the kitchen, we could just relax and enjoy ourselves. (Sorry the photos are a bit blurry, I was messing up the settings...) No running in and out of the kitchen, no stress about the food, no hassle - just pleasant chit-chat, and bubbles!

Time for dinner, first course was a chicken liver terrine with fruit compote and freshly baked bread. I was so busy enjoying it that I forgot to take any photo! It was so yummy!

 Main course, duo of lamb with an onion tart, coriander braised vegetables and a mini potato pie:

Then it was gift time!

 

The big parcel had a world map in gold in it, where you scratch off the gold from the places you've been to make the colour come out! Pretty cool!

 

The dessert was a strawberry, vanilla and almond slice - mmm!

And of course, later on in the evening we also had birthday cake!
Happy Birthday Sweetie!