Bergman Travel Diary

2009 The Journey Begins By The Bergman Family Book Preview

Today we took a wintery trip to London for a taste of the Christmas Celebrations. When we turned on the radio to listen for weather and traffic updates we discovered that most of the South east was covered in another blanket of snow overnight. We took great care on our slipperly local roads and were relieved to find that all the major roads had already been gritted in preparation for today's traffic. Only ten minutes from home we discovered that the landscape had indeed been sprinkled with fresh snow. QEII park and Butser Hill (which we have visited a few times) was beautifully white. As we got further north the volume of snow became obviously more intense so we decided to stop off at The Devil's Punchbowl, at Hindhead, for a play in the snow. It was quite deep here ... approximately 1/2 a foot and really fluffy. After a few snow ball fights we headed back to the car and finished our trip to Richmond station. Once there, we took advantage of the all-day travel cards offe

There a many traditions in England that have never translated to Australia. One such tradition is that of a Christingle service. Today Zane and I were fortunate enough to take part in one of these. Christingle services haven't been around that long. They started in Germany in 1747 but didn't come to England until 1968. The service is simply a celebration of the love of Christ. It surrounds a model made from a number of items. The base of the model is an orange which represents the world. Wrapped around the orange is a red ribbon. This represents the blood of Christ surrounding the the world. On the very top of the orange is lit candle representing the light of Christ. To show the fruits of the Earth that Christ gives us is four tooth picks with either dried fruit or sweets threaded in them. This also represents the four seasons. The services was conducted in darkness with only the light of the candles, sort of like a Carols by Candlelight. It was a very special service and both

After dropping Kerry off at her school's Christmas Fayre, Matt and the boys decided to visit a local park in Portsmouth. Although the boys were having plenty of fun, we decided to go for a walk to give Storm some exercise. While on our walk we came across a rather dilapidated sign. Too our amazment we were standing in an historical area dating back to King Henry VIII (1500s). In front of us was a great mound that just looked like something put there as a sound barrier or the like but, as indicated on the sign, it was a fortification built to protect the area. After walking around and on the forification we found many cannon turrets hidden in the wall as well as a number of well hidden doors. Unfortunately all of these were boarded up but we remain surprised at how much history is surrounding us, almost in our backyard!!