Handheld Learning Conference Day 2: Walking to Westminster

If you have visited my pages before I am sure you will have noticed I like my food. Breakfast today was great I had scrambled egg, sausage, bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes. oh and some toast and marmalade. I thought I'd better try this marmalade stuff, because one of my ancestors, a bear called Paddington, who I met on my last visit to London with Mr Mills, seems to have liked this stuff a lot. Mr Mills said he always carried a Marmalade sandwich in his suitcase, just in case. It is Just as well I did have a good breakfast, because we went for a bit of a walkabout to start our day.

We left a bit earlier so we could walk along the Victoria Embankment. The Embankment runs along the River Thames. Today it is one of the city's tourist attractions, but it was built to have an even more important job in the past, a job it still does today. Most people who visit don't even realise this. Even though it is very beautiful, and the views are amazing, its reason for being there is under your feet and mostly invisible. The embankment was designed and built by Sir Joseph Bazelgette during Victorian Times, to carry new sewers that would carry waste away from the city, and help clean up the river water which had become very smelly and dirty. The grand plan for the embankment was also to help make getting about in the city easier. The streets had become crowded, with vehicles, and so on top of the sewers that were built the road was widened, and part of the new underground railway was built into it. This photograph shows a memorial to Sir Joseph from the Embankment. The fact that many of us don't realise this is all part of how clever , and how ingenious Sir Joseph's design was.

We left Old street Station at 8.00. Old street is on the Northern Line, which is one of the deep tube railways in the city. it was very busy, hot and crowded on the train. We changed trains at Bank and finally got off the tube at Embankment.


Behind Embankment station you can see the London Eye. or the Millennium Wheel. This is on the other side of the River Thames. We didn't get time to go on it. This was a real shame, because some of the photographs I have seen on the Internet show how fantastic the view is from the top. The next time I visit I really must encourage my host to take me.


This is Cleopatra's needle, it really is an Ancient Egyptian monument, it has Hieroglyphs, Ancient Egyptian Writing on it. But why is it in the middle of London? Well it didn't really have anything to do with Cleopatra, it was given to Britain to commemorate two battles that happened in Egypt. The Battles of the Nile and the Battle of Alexandria. They didn't arrive in Britain until Victorian Times. Beside the obelisk are two Bronze Sphinxes, these are not ancient, they are Victorian, and were used to decorate the memorial. The bottom of the "needle" was broken and couldn't stand on its own, so a new base was built and the obelisk put on top.


This is a view looking back along the embankment as we walked towards Westminster where the conference was that Mr Mills was going to. Embankment Station is near the Bridge you can see in the background. This is the Charing Cross Railway Bridge, and is where Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Hungerford Suspension Bridge used to be. This was taken down to build the new bridge to carry trains across the river. The chains that once held up the roadway on the Hungerford Bridge, were taken to Bristol to help finish the Clifton Suspension Bridge, as a memorial to the famous engineer.

You can see how grand the top of the embankment is, with these beautiful lamps, and a wide pavement. It is hard to believe that underneath my feet are pipes carrying a railway and sewers, but like I said Sir Joseph was an amazing engineer.

At the end of our walk along the Victoria Embankment we came to Westminster Bridge. This photograph is a statue of Boudicca, in her chariot. Boudicca was the Queen of the Icenii, a tribe of Celts who lived in Britain after the Romans invasion. The story of her life is very complicated, but she is famous for leading a rebellion against the Roman invaders that burned the Roman city of London (Londinium) to the Ground. She is seen as a symbol of bravery, pride and freedom. Her statue faces the palace of Westminster, the home of our Houses of Parliament, and where our government meets to make important decisions about things we want to happen in our country.

It was only a short walk to the Methodist Central Hall from here, where the conference that we were visiting was held. I was a bit pooped when we arrived, and like Paddington would say, I was ready for elevenses, a cup of cocoa and a snack. Unfortunately I didn't pack my marmalade sandwich, so we settled for a cup of tea instead, then I settled myself down for a snooze.

Hand Held Learning Conference Day 1: Moblogging Rocks

Well I'm back in the room we are staying in having a look through some of the photographs we took today, and getting them ready to put on the blog tomorrow. We took one or two extra pictures on the way back this afternoon that I will be sharing with you then. I thought we would have to wait until we got back to school or Bristol to do this, but the people at the conference have set up a cybercafe, and something called a wireless network, that mean we were able to write our last post on Mr Mills laptop at the conference hall and to upload it to the internet there and then. How exciting is that. MOBLOGGING ROCKS!Tomorrow morning you will be able to read what I am writing now, see where I am and have been doing. As well as the sights we have seen some fantastic computer tools that hopefully one day students in school will be able to use to do what we have been doing.

Anyway here are a couple of extra pictures we took on the way back to the hotel. The first one is of a red bendy bus we saw in Parliament Square. So what you might say, we have Bendy Buses in Bristol. It is not the type of bus that is important, but the colour. Even though London Transport Buses are owned by different companies now they still have a red livery. Livery is an intersting word, it is very old, and comes from the days when everything was pulled around by horses. We use it to describe the colours used to paint trains and buses. There are lots of words like this still in use today, like "stabling points," places where trains and buses are kept over night. We know buses and trains don't need stables anymore, because they don't have horses but the name is still in use.

This is a photograph of the Houses of Parliament, from outside Westminster Tube Station. I used to think that the clock tower was Big Ben, but I learned today, that "Big Ben" is the name of a huge bell inside that chimes the time.

We are in October at the moment, but in November people all over the UK will be having firework Parties to help remember something that happened here, in 1605. I wonder if the students in Year 2 and 3 will be able to help me find out more about the story of this man, Guy Fawkes, why he is so famous? What happened on November 5th 1605? And why it is so important?



As you can see from the photograph, the weather today has been drizzly and overcast. By the time we went to catch the tube this evening it was also getting dark.

Tomorrow morning we are going to walk along the River Thames, so I hope the weather is a bit brighter and sunnier. Take care for now. Tizz.

Handheld Learning Conference Day 1

Howdy Teyfanters this is Tizz writing from Westminster Central Hall, in London. This is amazing I am sitting in the middle of a room full of people, working with Mr Mills to send you this report. We got here ok, we caught the train from Temple Meads Station in Bristol last night, and arrived in Islington about 10.30 pm. We had to catch 2 tube trains when we got here.

After breakfast this morning we caught the tube to Westminster. Shhhh! I don't think Mr Mills was sure exactly where we were going. He had to stop and ask a policeman directions.

When we got off the tube, we were right outside the Houses of Parliament. Believe me the clock tower with Big Ben inside is a lot further up than it looks on the TV. We promise to get pictures tomorrow. In the meantime here are a few pictures we took today.

This is where we are at the moment. This is Westminster Central Methodist Hall.

Earlier today we met some of Mr Mills friends, from University and The CLCs in Bristol. Here I am posing with them. Its been a long day. I hope all is going well back at school, can't wait to see you all when I get back.