Power of the Pyramid

No, this is not just a blurry picture of Shelley; if you cast your eyes on the background, you'll see the man wearing a gold pyramid on his head. We stumbled upon this one Christmas Eve, coming back on the tube near Baker St, so we decided to take a covert picture. It's a little hard taking covert pictures with Shelley's camera - it's pretty large; feels about as subtle as this:

So I felt a little uncomfortable. I had a feeling he might to turn on me with glowing yellow eyes and zap me with psycho-kinetic energy: "Noooo pictures!"

He didn't notice, so I felt a little bad. Anyway, it's surprising what people will do - it's an alternative therapy people, look it up!

Merry Christmas

We have successfully survived our first Christmas away from family- and even seemed to flourish. Sharing the day with new friends for the first time meant that we not only continued our own Christmas traditions, but we gained some new ones. Champagne and croissants for breakfast (for example) is a new tradition for the Lewises, which we will undoubtedly wish to continue. Of course, being in England, we had no choice but to go the traditional roast dinner (we decided on a duck- turkeys are way too big for four).

And really, a Christmas day is not complete without a little bit of friendly squabbling over brand new and rather competitive board games. Monopoly and Settlers of Catan in one day? It is amazing the Lushes still like us.


Although it certainly was not the characteristic 'cold' Christmas we had been expecting, the constant rain made for a nice day to stay indoors and watch a few episodes of our new favourite show, Flight of the Conchords.

Who would have thought New Zealanders could be so funny (intentionally).

Oh Baxter, you are my little gentleman, I'll take you to foggy london town...

Today, we suspected that it was winter. As promised, the weather has turned cold, and while there is no snow about, there sure is a lot of frost, ice, and the occasional fog.

There is certainly no rushing about these days. The ice covers the ground in a seriously dangerous way (although it does make things sparkle very nicely) and short, baby steps make everyone look ridiculous. The icy conditions do help to romanticise Christmas- and while it will be a miracle if we do get a 'white Christmas', it is quite exciting to walk past completely frozen puddles, partially frozen ponds, and pretending to smoke a cigarette whenever I breathe out (it's childish I know, but I just can't seem to stop it).



We're trying give our apartment some Christmas cheer to make up for the fact that we're not going to be around family this year- we have a surprising number of presents already. Only 12 days to go!



S.

Overcoming the Great Divide

On Monday I had to cover for a maths teacher. Yes, maths. And before any of the Lewis siblings start with the snickering, I'll let you know that it was quite a triumph.

It was a year 8 class, and I was feeling reasonably confident. I wore my omnipotent teacher's face as usual, and got the kids to line up like animals outside the room. Then another teacher came by to explain the class work to me, and suddenly I was transported back in time to 1990. It was long division. Aaaahhhhhhhhhhh! Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Long division has always been my achilles heel. Well, maths has always been my achilles heel, but if achilles heels could have achilles heels of their own, then long division would be mine. I smiled a smile to teacher that said, 'Oh, that old chestnut', and he left. Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I just knew one of these kids was going to ask for help at some point, and sure enough, in no time a girl had her hand up. I tried to ignore her, but she persisted.

'I don't get it,' she said.
'What don't you get, which part?'
'I don't get *any* of it'.
'Have you read through the example?'
'No.'

'Well look,' I said with a long suffering sigh, 'let's just go through this example together and we'll work it out.' Crafty Julian. Risky, but veeeery crafty. But it worked. In about 20 seconds I understood long division. I'm not so sure if the girl did, but that's not the point. 17 years of silliness, gone, just like that! Just like that I said. All it took was a bit of pretending.

I couldn't stop there though. When I got home I learnt how to divide to decimal places. I mean look at me, my appetite for primary school maths is insatiable!



Yes, go ahead and check the working out - it's all there!