Monday, September 29, 2008

Last News from Chepstow

Hi, all!

This will be the last time that we are able to "blog" as we leave for London tomorrow morning.

The Sports tour came back from a very successful week-end away, and were victorious!

The rugby score was 50 - 0, and believe it or not they had a very hard time as the referee, also being the headmaster, blew our boys off the field.

Our hockey girls won their match 4 - 0, unfortunately there was one injury, Carin Luiters, and the match was called with 10 minutes to go.

Today the teams played against our hosts, Chepstow, and it seemed to be more equally balanced. Our boys won their match 36 - 7, but the first half had Stirling supporters nipping straws, as the score was 7 all. Our hockey girls beat their team 1 - 0. So a good day was had by all, with Chepstow really putting up a good fight.

The sports team went to the Big Pit, which is in Wales, today and went down a mine and were taught all about mining techniques.

The exchange team went to Bristol to do a bit of "shopping" AGAIN!!! Some of our girls had their hair curled for nothing, and some of our girls had a great time creating their own teddy bears, but this came at a cost! We were treated to Macdonald's for lunch, and then came home to support our sports teams.

Remember us tomorrow, as I think there are going to be a lot of tearful goodbyes. We have had a wonderful two weeks: seen a lot, been spoilt a lot, and made some really good friendships. It is quite ironic that some of us would have started off this tour with tears of homesickness, and tomorrow it will be tears of sadness at the leaving of a wonderful, memorable part of our tour.
Also pray for good weather, as it is the one day of our tour that we need to have sunny skies as we are going to an amusement park for the day. We have been blessed with two weeks of sunny skies, but they are predicting rain for tomorrow, so we are being a little greedy, but we really need good weather for just one more day!

So London, here we come, I hope she is ready for us!!

As always we have been commended for our children's impeccable behaviour. This happens at least two or three times on any given trip. The English cannot believe that such a big group of children can be this well mannered, and believe me they are!

See you all at the airport on Saturday!
Janice

Friday, September 26, 2008

Pictures of Gloucester Cathedral, Bath, Skiing, a tea time snack in bath and Azi Playing for St. John's






Good morning all.

We realize that you are anxiously waiting for news on the blog, and probably visited this site a hundred times this morning to no avail. This site is more frustrating than negotiating overseas traffic, as this is one of many attempts this morning to try and get things through. At this stage I am sitting at a computer the won't be able to post photo's, but I thought I would get the news through, and then maybe do pictures later. At this stage our exchange children are in a Russian class and then moving along to an Art class to do Celtic Crosses.

Our sports teams are leaving this morning for a week-end of away games. Speaking sport the results from Wednesday are as follows:

Hockey VS Colstons: The game started off well scoring 3 goals in the first half. In the second half, the girls played better hockey - playing 2 VS 1 and calling for the ball. Another 3 goals were scored. Final score 6 - 0. Goals were scored by: Carin Luiters; Luche Klaasen x 3, Gabby Naidoo and Amber Williams.

Boys rugby is doing well and they are winning all their matches. The schools here are very improessed with our standard of rugby.

Yesterday (Thursday) the whole tour went to Bath and spent 90 minutes going through the Roman Baths, which are very impressive to see. The rest of the day was spent doing the children'ts favourite pasttime of SHOPPING.

Today we all joined the school for their Assembly and the exchange tour did a little recital on what we have done over the past week and a half, as well as doing our thank you's as we leave Chepstow on Tuesday for London. The headmaster complimented our children on their behaviour, manners and sportsmanship, and said he expected to welcome many more such tours in years to come. He also mentioned that the host families are very impressed with our children's manners and behaviouir. It brought a lump to our throats, even more so because we have been so impressed with our children.

The exchange students have an off week-end with their host parents, and are all looking forward to it. The weather has been absolutely stunning, and we are constantly told how fortunate we are as the English have been through a terrible summer of constant rain. Having packed in all our winter woollies, we are in actual fact walking around in short sleeves at the moment.

We are all now over the homesickness bug, and realize that we only have one week left of this amazing tour and are making the most of every minute.

We are all out for the week-end, so you can expect more on the blog on Monday when everybody gets back from their different expeditions.

Regards, have a great week-end
Janice

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Hi to all!
I do apologise for not getting photos on, but if you knew how busy things are with 54 children and getting everyone to the correct places at the right time as well as keeping everyone happy and finding lost bags etc, plus getting into the computer lab with the teacher to downlaod photos isn't always easy - and Mrs Hayes is really struggling to get things posted onto the blog - she sent yesterdays news to last years blog and has somehow not got todays on either,
So here is the news from me - it is now 18:15 and we have just returned from rugby matches.

Today we visited the Chepstow Castle as well as JK Rowling house that she grew up in. After lunch the sports team travelled off to Bristol to play Carlston. Yesterday's games went off well against Beau Dessert. Girls played a little better and won their match. Boys only played a couple of minutes before they ended the game and mixed the teams up.

Three of the boys from the school group played today in Cheltenham against Dean Close. Azi scored a try in his match and Peter played for the first team and scored 2 tries. Everyone was most impressed. Keegan even had a game and really enjoyed it.

Tomorrow we are off to Bath (both groups) and on Friday we have our farewell assembly and the sports group go away for the weekend.
Will do my best to get some photos to the computer teacher to post onto the blog.

Hope the weather has improved back home.

Mr Loxton

Into week 2

On Saturday we all went to Warwick Castle - what an amazing place! The Sport's group and Academic group spent the day together. After Warwick Castle we visited Stratford upon Avon. Sunday was a day of rest with the host families. On Monday we all went to Cardiff to see the Millenium stadium. Absolutely fascinating! We also had a chance to do some shopping - hopefully we still have some pounds left for London! Today we visited Gloucester and tried out dry skiing -lots of fun and laughs and sore bums!! We saw Gloucester Cathedral where Harry Potter was filmed after that - the children really enjoyed this. Our sports teams have been excelling. Matches vs Bedford. The hockey was played on a very sandy astro turf. Girls won 5-0. Lemise Stewart scored 5 goals. The boys rugby had a good win too 48-22 On Sunday we played Clifton College in Bristol. A tougher game. Stirling won 2-0. Goals were scored by Luche and Gabby. Boys rugby against Clifton 42-0! They were so impressed with our boys! Where ever we have gone people have had such positive comments about how well behaved and friendly our children are. We are so proud of them all!