Harrison and I were passing each other love notes at school. We thought it was hilarious, the teachers didn't and they got put in the bin. I made him another one as soon as I got home before we left for gymnastics.
We really enjoyed netball this week, we played proper games. It was pretty hard but great fun, especially Maxim's home goal attempt.
Wednesday
Nothing too exciting to report, except the fire drill during breakfast club.
Fire drills, always a worthwhile diversion.
Thursday
I was a right old sleepy head, didn't wake up for ages. In fact I only had five minutes to get up and get ready for school. Plenty of time for me though so it wasn't a problem.
After school dance club was a bit special this week, we performed in our pyjamas. This was great until it was time to go home during the biggest hail storm i'd ever seen.
It was really cool, but quite hard to ride my bike home in!
Friday
The weather was really wet and cold and horrible.
I had to make a start on my homework project.
To top the misery and woe off, the car was declared broken too.
This meant that we didn't make it to swimming lessons. It didn't really matter as it was fun week being the end of term and ll that.
On the upside, my project turned out rather well even if I do say so myself.
We even both did our reading books, just a well we were so organised as we were off on holiday the next day.
Shame we didn't really manage an early night as we'd planned.
Saturday
It was another early one as well, but we both got up and got ready really nicely. With the car out of action we had to go to the airport in a taxi, so it was a good job we were being all posh this time round and going from terminal 5 at Heathrow.
All our previous taxi rides have been much like a wild runaway roller coaster ride, but this one was much more sedate (well, it was 4:15 am).
We arrived in plenty of time for our 7:00 am flight to Rome.
I was so excited, i'd wanted to go here for years since we learned about the Romans at school.
I haven't done that at school yet, but I had been promised a swimming pool and some sunshine so I was equally enthusiastic.
As we made our way through the airport, amongst the sea of people we spotted some familiar faces, our friends Edward and Eva. They were off to Kos!
The flights were all very civilsed on British Airways, we had window seats and everything, lovely.
The flight was only two hours and we were soon landing in Italy. I told Dad how I couldn't wait to step off the plane and feel the heat and the sunshine.
Things are different in Italy, there was a lovely kids playground right next to the baggage carousel for a start.
We were in no hurry to get our luggage back thats for sure.
Sadly, another seemingly common trait of the Italian way was the particularly long wait for our hire car.....
Again we were very well behaved and had a good old Ipod session while we waited.
It turned out the wait was well worth it though when we got our key for an Alfa Romo Juilietta. I've been Alfa spotting on the roads at home for months so this was a genuinely exciting thing for me.
Yeah, but it was really hard to get our set belts to click in.
Never mind that, we were soon on the road and heading for our campsite.
It didn't take long to get there, even with our small sat nav induced detour.
We were still too early to check in though, so we headed to the poolside bar for a bite to eat while we waited, Pizza of course!
Once this was dealt with we were still too early to check in so we sent Dad back to the car to extract our swimming costumes and a towel, it would have been rude not to try the pool after all.
The pool was awesome, pretty shallow and lined with a grippy, soft rubber surface.
With a good selection of slides and what have you.
We got changed and went for a walk around the site for a bit, there were some seriously cute cats strutting about.
Finally it was time to get our keys and get unpacked.
And have a little sofa time before the inevitable supermarket trip.
The supermarket was very close by though, and it also had some really cool stuff to look at in the way of food.
We headed back to site where I did a superb job of unpacking the shopping and putting it away.
We had a bite to eat:
Then we tuned in for the night, it had been a very long day.
With our Horrible Histories Romans book by way of a bedtime story.
But of course, as we were sharing a bedroom there was plenty of sniggering and nonsense before we gave in for the night.
Sunday
After such a long day on Saturday we had a bit of a lie in before taking breakfast out on the deck.
Before deciding to head off to a place called Ostia Antica for the day.
We made it there safe and sound despite some really spirited Italian style driving, involving a gridlocked junction and a lot of blaring horns. We thought it was hugely entertaining.
It helped Dad get a real feel for the roads though, rule number one, don't sit still for more than 20 seconds or you'll get a good old horn blasting to wake you up.
Anyway, Ostia Antica used to be the main port for Rome until a big flood changed the course of the river, leading to the town that had grown up around the port to be abandoned.
It was really cool with so much to explore, a whole Roman town, complete with mosaics, fresco's the works.
We had lunch sat at the top of the amphitheatre and watched a couple of young German wannabe gladiators having an epic sword fight with their toy swords and shields.
For me the best thing about the place were the lovely wild flowers that were gently blowing in the breeze between the buildings though. Oh, and the cats skulking about the place.
The statues with winkles were obviously hilarious:
We got back to the campsite in time for a late afternoon swim to cool off after a lovely sunny day outside.
Then it was back to the decking where I attempted to eat my own weight in pizza and a few games of cards,
Monday
While we were eating our breakfast (outside on the deck of course) there was a top quality cat fight in the tree opposite, it ended with a loud cat squawk as one of them fell out of the tree and ran off. We thought this was hilarious.
It was looking like a lovely day so we decided a day on the site was in order. Luckily as we were up pretty early we managed to secure ourselves a go-kart each from the camp site shop. As it turned out this was no mean feat, as it was quite an ordeal to secure one before they were all gone for the day.
As the site itself was so big and pretty much flat they were brilliant fun. We used them to go to the park, the shop, the pool and best of all the ice cream parlour.
Ooh, the ice cream parlour.
So many flavours to choose from!
We had a delicious slow cooked bolognese sauce for tea, it was a lot more slow cooked than Dad had intended I think....he left it bubbling away all morning while we were at the pool. It was lucky he didn't burn the caravan down!
We also made friends for the week with Dan and Grace from Cambridge. They were great fun, loved the cats as much as we did and enjoyed riding on the back of our go karts.
Tuesday
Well the good times couldn't last for ever I suppose, we had to go into Rome itself.
I was well excited about it of course, we made our way out of the campsite to the nearby bus stop. No one had told it was on the other side of the road, the main road into Rome, which was like a motorway! Crossing the first half to the central reservation was okay, but huddling with a load of Germans in the middle as the traffic sped past at 100mph was quite an experience.
We made it safely across though and were soon on the bus. It was only a short trip until we reached the underground station and got on the train.
The train was awesome, much wider than our underground and pretty much empty, but best of all the carriages didn't have doors between them meaning you could see right up and down the whole length of the train.
Of course, being in Europe there were buskers on the train, in this case a man playing an accordian, we thought he was pretty good although the locals looked a bit more troubled by him. I did have a little dance it has to be said.
After a few stops we arrived at 'Colosseo' but even with a name like that we weren't prepared for the sight that greeted us as we climbed the stairs from the station. There was the Colosseum right before us, just like it looks on the telly. It was pretty amazing it has to be said.
Even I was quite taken with it.
The blokes dressed up as Roman Soldiers just added to the spectacle and we made our way inside.
Inside was pretty cool it has to be said.
Best of all was the wildlife, we saw plenty of little lizards basking in the sun shine, even better than that was a lovely black cat, lying out in the sunshine, oblivious to the hundreds of people wandering about the place.
We had a great explore, up and down the steps taking in the views and imagining the events that would have taken place here.
There was of course a lovely gift shop....roman coins and Colosseum models aplenty!
We made our way back outside and took our picnic on the the grassy slope overlooking the Colosseum.
Which was lovely, except people kept trying to sell us stuff...silly toys, silk scarves, god knows what else. We found that rather weird it has to be said.
After that we headed off for a wander about to see what we could find. We loved the Trevi fountain and made sure we tossed plenty of coins into it to ensure we would return in the future:
Then we had a date with La Bocca della Verità (The Mouth of Truth).
You put your hand in it's mouth and then you get asked a question, if you fail to tell the truth it apparently bites off your hand!
Dad almost got me going saying that no one had lost a hand in the last ten years....
Anyway, we both got asked if we were 'The Little Rabbit'
Tuesday
Well the good times couldn't last for ever I suppose, we had to go into Rome itself.
I was well excited about it of course, we made our way out of the campsite to the nearby bus stop. No one had told it was on the other side of the road, the main road into Rome, which was like a motorway! Crossing the first half to the central reservation was okay, but huddling with a load of Germans in the middle as the traffic sped past at 100mph was quite an experience.
We made it safely across though and were soon on the bus. It was only a short trip until we reached the underground station and got on the train.
The train was awesome, much wider than our underground and pretty much empty, but best of all the carriages didn't have doors between them meaning you could see right up and down the whole length of the train.
Of course, being in Europe there were buskers on the train, in this case a man playing an accordian, we thought he was pretty good although the locals looked a bit more troubled by him. I did have a little dance it has to be said.
After a few stops we arrived at 'Colosseo' but even with a name like that we weren't prepared for the sight that greeted us as we climbed the stairs from the station. There was the Colosseum right before us, just like it looks on the telly. It was pretty amazing it has to be said.
Even I was quite taken with it.
The blokes dressed up as Roman Soldiers just added to the spectacle and we made our way inside.
Inside was pretty cool it has to be said.
We had a great explore, up and down the steps taking in the views and imagining the events that would have taken place here.
Which was lovely, except people kept trying to sell us stuff...silly toys, silk scarves, god knows what else. We found that rather weird it has to be said.
After that we headed off for a wander about to see what we could find. We loved the Trevi fountain and made sure we tossed plenty of coins into it to ensure we would return in the future:
We stumbled across a building called the Pantheon and had a look inside.
It was really cool to see what Roman buildings would have been like inside as it was so well preserved and not a crumbling ruin like the other stuff.Then we had a date with La Bocca della Verità (The Mouth of Truth).
Dad almost got me going saying that no one had lost a hand in the last ten years....
Anyway, we both got asked if we were 'The Little Rabbit'
I decided to admit to it just in case, I didn't much fancy losing a hand.
Accompanying this was a church with a well creepy crypt, and a much more welcome tut shop.
Even Dad got it on the tut action and bought himself a very tasteful Lambretta fridge magnet emblazoned with a picture of the Colosseum and the word Roma. He's classy.
I got a really cool book, it has pictures of how the old roman buildings are today and overlays of how they would have looked when they were built. I'm sure I could be persuaded to show anyone who expresses any sort of interest whatsoever.
After a long day and a lot of walking we decided to head back to camp, sadly we were just a little bit too late for a swim as the pool had closed for the day.
It wasn't all bad news though, our friends Dan and Grace were around and even better they had go karts. They were only too pleased to return the favour and share them with us for the night as we zoomed round the site, tempting the cats out from their hidey holes.
Funnily there was no sign of our tired legs we were complaining about when we were trudging round Rome.
Indeed we had quite a second wind and rounded the day out with a session of the shopping game, which Dad is still totally rubbish at it.
Wednesday
After our full on Rome day we took it easy today.
We started the morning off with a round of mini golf.
Which was good fun, even if I did get a bit too competitive according to Mum.
Then we hit the pool to make up for yesterday, with the added bonus of a trip to the ice cream parlour....delish!
And we gave them all names too.
We had a bit of a slouchy snoozey session before Dan and Grace turned up with some cat food for the site cats. Armed with that we managed to attract 11 cats!
We went to the site restaurant for tea, where my pizza binge continued with gusto.
We then made our way to the children's entertainment, we had a bit of a dance.
But I was pretty sleepy and wanted to head back to bed.
I hung around for the games afterwards but they were pretty wafty it has to be said, I decided to turn in for the night too.
Thursday
Another trip out, this time a bit further afield to Lake Bracciano.
It gave us a good oppurtunity to spend some quality time in the Alfa and see what else was on the roads.
It was also a nice chance for a catch up kip.
We took the long way round, passing by the beach at Ostia, it was all a bit weird though, you had to pay to go on it? It was certainly nothing like Cornwall that's for sure.
We arrived at the lake, managed to find the beach section and get parked up. We were the only ones there and it was a really beautiful place, I loved it.
We had a picnic, sat on the coarse sandy beach, there were some lovely bits of gravel to add to my collection.
Once lunch was finished I decided it was well and truly time for a swim. I waded out to my waist and then with a little squeak I was off and swimming, it was lovely.
Once Ned took the initiative we all followed suit, the water was warmer than in the swimming pool I reckon.
We sat on the beach soaking up the warm sunshine to dry off.
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Dad wondered what the faint burning smell was, I quipped that it was Mum's legs (they were a fairly bright shade of pink it has to be said). I think he was hoping it was some sort of rustic wood burning pizza oven I think.
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Dad wondered what the faint burning smell was, I quipped that it was Mum's legs (they were a fairly bright shade of pink it has to be said). I think he was hoping it was some sort of rustic wood burning pizza oven I think.
We headed back to the camp site without the diversion and got back a lot quicker. Just as well too, the pool was waiting for us and so were our friends.
We had a great afternoon.
We spent the evening playing with Dan and Grace and rounded the day our with a trip to the ice cream parlour with them.
Friday
It was a bit of a sad start to the day, our friends were off!
Yeah, they were driving to Venice, so we bid a fond farewell to them.
It had been great fun having such nice friends for the week.
We spent the day at the pool, at the park and looking out for the campsite cats.
We also had an extended board game session, dad proved he was still rubbish at the shopping game.
We had another pizza binge from the takeaway (except Ned, who preferred the frozen ones we had bought at the supermarket the weirdo).
We had one last trip to the ice cream parlour and soaked up the views out over the countryside towards Rome in the distance.....
Saturday
Time to go home. But we had plenty of time for a morning snuggle up:
Of course, last day of the the holiday always means ice creams for breakfast (to empty the freezer).
We loaded up our stuff and headed back to the reception to drop off our keys and have a game of giant connect 4 outside (or connect 6 in my case). I also managed a quick final paddle in the pool before we hit the road back to the airport.
Just as we stopped to top up the car fuel it absolutely chucked it down with rain. Luckily they had pump attendants so Dad didn't have to get wet.
Dropping off the car at the airport was a heck of a lot quicker than picking it up which was quite a relief.
Indeed it was, and despite a bit of confusion dropping off our car seats at the outside baggage desk (leading to an Italian man in the queue with us apologising on behalf of his entire country for their inefficiency) we were even able to tuck into a McDonalds for lunch before we boarded the flight for home.
The bloke from the queue earlier would have no doubt been un-impressed that we were half an hour late taking off.....we didn't mind though.
So a few bits and bobs that didn't really fit in, but need to be mentioned I think.
First of all, as a blonde haired girl in a dark haired country I was universally loved.
I couldn't believe how much interest she generated actually?
Secondly, the food, I ate so much of everything this week, Mum reckons i'll have a growth spurt. Here I am munching on a large chunk of Parmesan, Dad and I went mad for the stuff:
So that just about rounds it up I think.
Except for a big thank you to Andy who came to collect us from the airport. Therefore taking the full brunt of our 'holiday download talking'
Then it was Britain's Got Talent on telly. I even downloaded the app this week for my Ipod so I could join in.
Sunday
So, we were well and truly home, at least the weather was nice.
Dad and I had a trip by bike to the M&S at the retail park for a few bits for our barbecue lunch.
We spent the day out in the garden, it wasn't too bad to be home after all I suppose?
Saturday
Time to go home. But we had plenty of time for a morning snuggle up:
We loaded up our stuff and headed back to the reception to drop off our keys and have a game of giant connect 4 outside (or connect 6 in my case). I also managed a quick final paddle in the pool before we hit the road back to the airport.
Just as we stopped to top up the car fuel it absolutely chucked it down with rain. Luckily they had pump attendants so Dad didn't have to get wet.
Dropping off the car at the airport was a heck of a lot quicker than picking it up which was quite a relief.
Indeed it was, and despite a bit of confusion dropping off our car seats at the outside baggage desk (leading to an Italian man in the queue with us apologising on behalf of his entire country for their inefficiency) we were even able to tuck into a McDonalds for lunch before we boarded the flight for home.
The bloke from the queue earlier would have no doubt been un-impressed that we were half an hour late taking off.....we didn't mind though.
So a few bits and bobs that didn't really fit in, but need to be mentioned I think.
First of all, as a blonde haired girl in a dark haired country I was universally loved.
I couldn't believe how much interest she generated actually?
Secondly, the food, I ate so much of everything this week, Mum reckons i'll have a growth spurt. Here I am munching on a large chunk of Parmesan, Dad and I went mad for the stuff:
Myself and Mum were rather none-plussed with the cheese, what we really liked were these biscuits (and their associated ice-cream spin-off):
But one thing everyone agreed on was the washing up liquid...Bum Bum anyone?
Of course with the abundance of wild flowers it seemed only right and proper that I decorated our table with some:
Except for a big thank you to Andy who came to collect us from the airport. Therefore taking the full brunt of our 'holiday download talking'
Then it was Britain's Got Talent on telly. I even downloaded the app this week for my Ipod so I could join in.
Sunday
So, we were well and truly home, at least the weather was nice.
Dad and I had a trip by bike to the M&S at the retail park for a few bits for our barbecue lunch.
We spent the day out in the garden, it wasn't too bad to be home after all I suppose?
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