Racing!

Hello once again everyone, hot enough for you?
We’ve been making the most of it that’s for sure. Last Wednesday we picked mum up from work and went straight down to the outdoor pool, it was brilliant. I’d only ever been here once last year and I cried my eyes out and we went home after about 3 minutes…..this time they struggled to get me out! We did loads of splashing and I raced dad up and down the pool, I kept beating him! I hope we can go again soon.
Thursday afternoon dad got me to work in the garden. He got out something he called a gazebo (looked like a tent to me) and I helped him to put it up all the while singing the Bob the builder theme tune. He wouldn’t let me have a go with the mallet, so I tried to bang a few pegs into the ground with a plastic golf club, I think he was impressed by my ingenuity. Once that was done, we got the big paddling pool out and filled it with water…it took ages! Finally I got to go in and have a good old splash about with Mum and Dad before dinner.
On Friday Dad didn’t take the usual route home and we ended up at the racecourse. We watched the horses being unloaded from their lorries and being led into the course before going up to near the starting gate to watch the start of the first race. As the horses thundered past I shouted ‘HOOF’ at them a few times. I thought it was really good but now I’ve become a bit obsessed with racing. On the way back I got Dad to race a train pulling out of the station and although we out accelerated it for a bit, it soon overtook us. He’s too slow, I need a faster pedaller!
Mum went to work Saturday, so Dad was fearing the worst….he needn’t have. We had a nice slow start in the morning and went to meet mum for lunch. In the afternoon I came home and went to sleep on the sofa…all afternoon! I even missed the thunder and lightning. That evening we went to the pub to meet up with all the holiday gang and Nick, Carol and the bump and had a pretty late night.
Sunday we went to feed the ducks in Hungerford (I ate most of the bread), we had a picnic on the common (I only wanted crisps and cake but wasn’t allowed any) and then we went fruit picking again!


This time we picked Raspberries! They were better than strawberries in so much as I didn’t have to bend down quite so far to pick them up. I was stripping the bushes bare and mum and dad were having a fit in case they had to pay in instalments for my mighty harvest….they only cost £1.03 (after Mum had chucked the iffy ones i’d put in the basket). Still, I probably ate a fivers worth before we even got to the shop to pay….ha!
Dad was pretty brave on Monday and got the painting stuff out single handed (albeit in the garden). He even made me some potato prints which were pretty good to be fair. What he doesn’t understand though is that I’m in my green phase at the moment…dark pond slime green (well that’s what colour it goes when I mix ALL the colours together anyway), He just doesn’t get true art.
In keeping with my racing interest at the moment, I tried to egg dad on to race lorries up the dual carriageway on the way to the supermarket this afternoon. He overtook one, but wouldn’t got for the next one so I cried! He said something about getting told off by the Police if he wasn’t careful.
We got in the pool again tonight:

We played ring-a-ring-a-roses, but no one wanted to do the falling down bit except me. Pretty soon I’d ditched the singing and the dancing in favour of just the falling down….I thought I was hilarious!
We got a letter from nursery today, saying I can go up a room in two weeks time, I can't wait to get back with the old gang again!
Now then, there’s some new arrivals we need to talk about!
First of all we have another Nedster! The eagle eyed, computer literate among you will have noticed his comment on last weeks entry, but for the rest of you, here’s a link to another Ned on the other side of the sea, how cool is that:
http://thenedster.blogspot.com/

And also, a very special welcome to Abi Hardy, who still isn’t even a day old yet! How brilliant is that? I can’t wait to show her a few tricks to keep Nick and Carol on their toes. Mum’s been telling me all about it, hopefully I’ll get to give her a cuddle soon (I’m into cuddling at the moment).

Cornwall!

Back again, did you miss me?
This is how they packed me:

So we’ve been to Cornwall again, there were fifteen of us this year so there wasn’t many quiet moments.
We dug sandcastles at Watergate:

We had a rather one sided tug of war match with Sarah and John:

We had lovely weather on the beach:

Sat in the first class carriage on the steam train with Fen and Yanna:

…..and got grated cheese all over the seat eating a picnic:

I got over my fear of showers:

(steady now ladies)
Sadly the donkey derby wasn’t on so we had a nice cold drink overlooking Newquay harbour:

We had a lovely day out with Slim and Trace and dad tried to look like a lifeguard:

After we had been on the beach we went to have a cream tea in the middle of a farm. It was ace, there were chickens and geese wandering about and we threw apples for the pigs to eat in their orchard.
We all rode on bikes:

I think I’m probably pointing out the pasty shop in far off Padstow here. I was also armed and dangerous with a water pistol! Tucked in behind dads bulk I’d let rip with a stream of water at unsuspecting passers by. Dad kept me entertained on the bike by weaving through the others and racing along, although Chris and Alan were really zooming on the tandem.
We sat outside and ate like kings:

So just the same old same old really!
Other notable events had to include the boat trip to puffin island…. The weather was beautiful and the surf had all but died off so no one really believed the man on the boat when he said it was rough out at sea. We should have. The boat was getting tossed around like one of my bath toys. Now poor old Ben isn’t the saltiest of sea-dogs to be honest and I don’t think it helped with me shouting out ‘Up’ and ‘Down’ as the boat rocked from side to side. There were kids being sick left right and centre and Andy was laughing his head off. At least we saw a few puffins!
I kicked dad off his skateboard at the skatepark and started scooting along on it all on my own, that pleased him!
I caught some fish in a net with Sarah and John and Dad managed to drain a rock pool into a lower one by digging a really long trench in the sand….it was great watching the water rushing down and once it had all emptied, John had me running up to the top rock pool with buckets of water to fill it back up.
We played on a machine in the pub where a robber got chased by a policeman and when he caught him he hit him over the head! I was quite worried about it until mum explained it was only pretend, anyway, dad let me help him play a game called Area 51 where you got to shoot aliens…..not sure he should have done that?
As is customary on these sort of entries I’d like to thank Andy, Ben, Rach, Alan, Sonia, Owen, Linda, Chris, Kin, Melissa, Yanna and Fen for helping me have such a good time. Can't wait till next time!

Hot hot hot!

Blimey it’s been hot! I’ve been going to bed in just my pants to keep cool (steady on now ladies). My skin has been much better since I went in the sea last month so I don’t have to scratch myself hardly at all now.
Saturday we went to a barbecue at Yanna and Fen’s:

They had some really smart toys and best of all they had their own little wooden house in the garden, although no one would come in there with me as it was so hot. Melissa is great, she gave me beans and everything for my tea.
Sunday Uncle Slim and Auntie Trace came round to put their tent up in the garden:

It was as big as out house I reckon. I ‘helped’ Slim sort the ropes out….
They’re going on holiday in it next week and wanted to make sure it was all okay before they went. Dad even cooked them some dinner (a roast the silly fool, in that heat!) and we had a play in the garden.

Mum is off work so on Monday afternoon we went to the Coral Reef swimming again. They must have known something was up from the start as I couldn’t really be bothered with the small childrens slide, I had my sights set much higher….the flume rides! After climbing endless stairs we got to the top of the tower and there were funny tubes with water rushing down them. People were getting in them and zooming off before disappearing round a bend with a scream. It looked great. We sent mum off first and then I got on Dad’s lap and we were off……but really slowly. We splashed down (finally) in the pool at the bottom and I made sure we got another go…. This time was much better, he managed to get a right head of steam up and came flying out of the bottom bouncing off the sides like pinball before going right under water. I didn’t mind at all and wanted some more…we had about five goes in all before their tired old legs couldn’t carry me to the top anymore. On our trip around the pool I also noticed a tunnel and an open doorway I hadn’t seen before…we went through it and ended up outside, but still in the swimming pool! How weird is that? This bit was really good and I did a lot of really good swimming out here. After all the fun of the pool we went to a park at the lookout and I had Mum and Dad climbing and swinging after me all over the place, it was smart!
Today I went to see Grandma in hospital (she’s broken her foot) I took her some chocolate and a big picture of me and her to cheer her up, I know what the ladies like. She loved it and I entertained all the old dears on the ward before coming home for bed.
There’ll be no update next week as I’m off on my holidays tomorrow to Cornwall for a week and a half…so to keep you all sweet, have a look at some of my pre-blog web stuff on the following links and see how much I’ve grown:

http://uk.geocities.com/dhtraildigger/NEDSPICTURES04.HTML

http://uk.geocities.com/dhtraildigger/NEDABOUT04.HTML

http://uk.geocities.com/dhtraildigger/NEDWARMING.HTML

See you all soon!