Tuesday

We were having a new front door fitted, it was well exciting.

Well we thought so anyway.

It did mean I couldn't go to Gymnastics though which was a bit of a shame.

Netball was cancelled as well, so not a great afternoon for our sporting endeavours.

Turns out it was a good thing in the end anyway as I needed to do my homework project.  Of course i'd left it until the last minute, it had to be in Wednesday.  We've been learning about Sir Isaac Newton so I came up with the idea of making a video presentation, complete with falling apple.  Well, I say falling apple, we tied some string to a branch, balanced the apple then Dad tugged the string at the right moment causing it's fall.  It missed my head though.  Still, i'd worked out my script and delivered it well enough, just leaving Dad to edit it on the computer, add some credits and save it to a memory stick.

Wednesday

I managed to wobble another tooth free.  It had been wobbly for ages but i'm quite honestly tired of the amount of interest it seems to generate so I kept well quiet about it.

Mothers day is coming!

Better get making cards then.

So thats just what we did after school.  We were pushed for time but did very well.

Even Dad was impressed with our clearing up afterwards.

Thursday

We made our hats for our forthcoming Easter assembly at school, if theres one thing we always make sure we do at John Rankin, it's making sure we've made a hat for any given occasion assembly.

I'd been a bit of a toad at school lately, to the point where Dad got an informal call from my teacher.  I didn't like all this one little bit so decided to pull my socks up a bit.  Good news then, I seemingly managed it, everyone was much happier with me.

The same cannot be said for me sadly, I've been a bit of a madam lately.  This came to a head at bedtime when I decided I was leaving home.  So I left, in my pyjamas, with only my blankie and panda to my name.  Truth be told I didn't get very far, just round the back of the.  Bare feet didn't really help, and I was soon knocking on the door to be let back in.

Friday

I went home with Alastair after school, we had Minecraft, we had pizza and we had ice cream.  After that we also had film night at school, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, it was brilliant.

I thought i'd take the oppurtunity to have Lilly round for a play and stay for tea.  I was really looking forward to it but it didn't really go to plan as she felt poorly and we took her home early.  I was pretty disappointed it has to be said.

Still, Dad almost bought me round by getting me to wrap mum's mothers day presents.

And then whenMum came home from work she'd got me a little gift too:

A tapestry kit! Dad went out for the night so Mum and I settled down to tapestry and a bag of giant chocolate buttons...brilliant!

Saturday

A lovely day, lets get outside!

A trip to Lepe was just the ticket for a day like today.

So we organised ourselves a picnic and set off.

We did a bit of Nerf bomb throwing:

Which went well until a puppy made off with it!  It took a while to get it back, and when we did it was covered in slobber.

The tide was right out, and a really long bank was revealed, it felt like you could walk to the Isle of Wight!  I found loads of shells that were still hinged in their pairs, they were brilliant, I decided they were just like castanets!

I was looking for good skimmers, and crystal looking stones.

The park was good of course.

And so were the ice creams (much cheaper than in Cornwall, hence the double cornets)

We headed home in time for auntie Trish to come round for the evening.

Excellent, saturday night takeaway and sweets!

Sunday

It was mothers day, we couldn't wait to present her with our cards.

I think she was more impressed than usual this year with our creative efforts.

And once presents were dispensed we set about making breakfast.

We did a good job too, perfectly toasted toast, a full round of drinks and best of all (according to Dad anyway) no mess to clear up afterwards.

How about another picnic? 

Yeah, why not!

Moors Valley country park this time.  

It was pretty busy it has to be said.

And pretty muddy still in the picnic area.

Luckily we got a bench to sit on instead.

I found this cool little stone which looked just like a duck:

Well, it did, if you looked at it from the right angle.

The park was great fun.

Until I jumped from the top of the climbing rock from such a height my knees smacked me in the cheek.  It really, really hurt.

Then we headed off on the play trail.

It was brilliant.

Yeah, it pretty much was, and I enjoyed reliving the fun of my last birthday as we passed by Go Ape.

Monday

Last week of term, yay!

Yep, our dance class had a good finish when we dragged our grown ups onto the floor for the finale.  Well, it was a good finish until Dad planted a great big smacker on my bruised and tender cheek after yesterdays free fall.

We had our last cross country session before the race tomorrow.  It was deemed too late to try and cram in any extra trainig so we had a fun sssion with various games and the like.  Lets see how tomorrow goes.

Tuesday

Okay, you readers had better brace yourself for some truly shocking news......I won writer of the week award at school.  Not just for my class, but the whole school! I know, it's pretty incredible isn't it? What made it even more sweet is that during the build up to the award being presented I said to Hugo that I had no chance of ever winning this one.....next thing I know, my name.is called out and i'm up on stage in front of the entire school.

In equally shocking news, I got really clingy when Dad dropped me off at gymnastics, I didn't want him to go and wanted a cuddle.  He was strong though and managed to convince me to go in.

I had netball and had the benefit of a one on one goal shooting session with one of the teachers after my matches had been played.

Wednesday

I had the first of my level 5 swimming lessons after school.  For a moment I thought I was going to be in the same class as my friend Matilda from school, sadly I wasn't.

I also had my hopes dashed that Hugo might be about when we spotted Luca and Matice were in lessons, but sadly he was still at after school club.

The lesson went really well, and I liked my new teacher.

It was my parents evening after tea.  I reckoned Mrs Jackson would say 'okay' things about me, so I was only a little bit worried.  Turns out I shouldn't have been as I got a glowing report.  Apart from a very few motivational issues on rare occasions things are going well. Apparently i'm very bright, articulate and socialise well and she also said that if I mantain my personality and attitude i'd be set for life!  Mum and Dad were rather pleased I think.

Thursday

I earned a marble in class today, to re-enforce my parents evening comments.

We performed a spy themed dance after school, it was great fun, rolling about, hiding, pointing our imaginary guns around.

When Dad picked me up I casually dropped the fact that there was a bake sale at school tomorrow in aid of Sport Relief.  I've maintained that that is all the notice we were given. Anyway, it was nothing a quick trip to Marks and Spencers, Tesco's and Wilkinsons couldn't prepare us for.

Once tea as done and dusted we cracked on with the baking.

Yes indeed we did, we actually co-operated pretty well for once as well, I dis all the heavy mixing.

And I was responsible for the majority of the ingredients measuring and egg cracking.

Due to time constraints we couldn't put the icing on, that had to qait for morning.

I didn't even see them come out of the oven as I had to go to bed.

Friday

I was up early doors to get the icing and strawberry garnish sorted:

We were very pleased with our work.  

And fortunatley we only had to donate 6 to the bake sale, meaning that we had enough left over to have one in our lunch box and one each for after tea that evening.

Sport relief day proved to be great fun with a lot of sports and games on offer for us in the afternoon.

We had a pretty much full on sports day type arrangement running, the parents were invited and everything.  Dad came along and we played Netball, Tennis, Cricket, a few Football penalties and some Hurdling too.  Combine this with a cake sale and you have a pretty much perfect afternoon in my eyes.

Sophie was lucky enough to purchase one of our beautiful baked creations and praised it very highly!

But todays big news was thst my wobbly tooth finally came out:

So here I am, all nice and gappy!

Sue came round to babysit in the evening, which was proper cool and exciting.  But sadly I was pretty much exhausted after a busy day.  She didn't really get much in the way of conversation out of me i'm sorry to say, from my semi conscious slump on the sofa.

So it was down to me to entertain our guest, I think I managed the task okay.

Saturday

So after an early(ish) morning snuggle in bed with Mum and Dad watching some dog competition or other we had a trip out.

Indeed we did, in light of both of our good efforts at school this week we were allowed a treat.....

We decided on JJ's....

...and Pizza Hut!

We couldn't wait to get on the drop slide, straight from the top, no messing! 

We had a lovely time, even if we were still a bit tired from the previous night.  

We did let Dad come with us for a bit of a play for old times sake.

Pizza Hut was calling though and we made our way to the Basingstoke out of town branch.

Sadly it was full, with a 30 minute wait.

We decided we could get home in 30 minutes so made our way back to Newbury and waltzed straight in to sit at one of the big round booths.

Once we'd eaten our fill and got the leftovers boxed up we headed home and watched The Little Mermaid.

I saw the first half before I noticed that the skies were looking much brighter and less like rain so took off down to the park.  I found Hugo, Ben and Joe, we had a good time on our bikes.

Andy came round in the evening, we had a game of Catan:

Mum won, I was a close second though.  Dad and Andy were lagging way behind though.

Sunday

It had turned colder over the last couple of days, but never the less, Sunday morning was bright and sunny, Dad was outside soing some gardening so in my mind, it was summer....water fight season!

So it was swimming costumes on, water pistols out!

With strict instructions not to get Mum or Dad wet or there'd be trouble.

As is usual with our water fights, there's an qual amount of arguing and whingeing as there is fun.

But we loved getting wet, even if I did have to admit that it was a bit on the cold side.

We spent the rest of the morning playing with our long forgotten toys from the conservatory.

Specifically the wooden train set and the duplo, which combines to form a very cool railway based safari park.

I then helped Mum clean the conservatory, well, I say helped but I think I may have been more of a hinderance really.

Then it was homework time....deep joy!!!

But once it was done I sloped off to Hugo's for a game of Fifa on the Xbox.

And I found one of last years birthday presents, a make your own lip gloss kit:

Mum and I had great fun making up the concoctions and trying them out.  It has to be said, the sparkly blue one made me look very cold.

Monday

I'd volunteered to do some courses on being a good listener in view to being a 'buddy' for next years slew of new infants, I was really pleased to have been chosen, until 

I realised that the workshops might well be in our break and lunchtimes.  Imagine my relief when it turned out we missed class instead and still got break and lunchtime!

Now we seem to be following the juniors, we also did the Spy dance after school.

I bought a letter home saying i'd been picked for the cross country team for the forthcoming competition, not a massive surprise, there's hardly any upper school boys thst are up for it this year?

Tuesday

I came home with my new reading book.....bearing a gold sticker!  Yeah, a gold sticker, thats up two whole levels in one go.  

It was our first netball club since the tournament.  I think the experience has done us good, we played our matches in a much more relaxed and easy flowing way.

And despite two bridges being closed we managed to make it to gymnastics on time.

I've discovered chili sauce, 3 chili rated according to the side of the bottle too.  It's lovely, but very, very hot.

They even made me to pick me up on time, which was good as Dad got to see me doing our tumble track obstacle course.

Wednesday

Hmmmm, not sure what happened, move along, nothing to see here.....

Thursday

Well the weather has been lovely for days, all my beloved puddles and mud have all but dried up.  I've even had to revert to my normal school shoes instead of my wellies.  Still, it's not all bad, we got to play in the Adventure playground at school until Ned finished dancing.  It was great fun, Neave was there as well as all the boys, who at one point all removed their shirts much to my bemusement.

Friday

Last day of the week....yay.

I'd lost five minutes golden time this week, it's really got to me.  We did sports leaders though, which soon cheered me up.

I'd lost an 'undisclosed' amount too.  Oh well, never mind, easy come, easy go.  A bit like my pocket money really.  Mum is docking me £1 everytime i'm not dressed and ready for school in the mornings (after repeated requests).  I'm down to zero this month already.  Still, at least I can't lose any more now and I can max my pyjama time in the mornings.

It was the last week of the swimming term which meant fun week.  It was great fun, we had some races, we played a game of water polo with the other classes and we played on the floating mats.

Saturday

Our first trip of the year to Legoland.
Indeed it was, well, it only opened the day before.
First stop was the boats.
Yep, and what a load of nonsense that ended up being.
Indeed it did, there were numerous attempts to sabotage each others vessel, at one point Dad and Ellis managed to get us spun right round and facing the opposite direction.

We had to have lunch pretty much straight after of course, we do like an early lunch.

We found a nice bench in the sunshine and I took a rather good selfie of us all:

We had a bit of a photography session in general actually:

Then we went on the Wave Runner, a ride we don't often go on.
Thats because it isn't often sunny!!!
We got pretty soaked but it was excellent fun.
Onwards to the pirate boat, we sat too near the middle for our liking.
So we had another go and when we got to the gate mum asked if we could wait for the next ride and go on the end....result.  The end is sooooo much better.

As we were just starting to dry out from the Wave Runner, we decided that the Viking River splash would be a good idea......we got soaked again!
We then zig zagged back accross the park for the Dragon roller coaster.
Before heading back the opposite direction again for the driving school.
This years big news here is the inclusion of one and one only Police car.  Complete with Siren and flashing blues.  Obviously I wanted it.  Mum apparently told Dad that i'd manage it somehow, but he thought the odds were stacked against me.
I wasn't bothered.
So, as the gate opened sure enough I had manouvered myself to the front of the queue.  Form there it was a burst of my best race walking (strictly no running allowed) to the location of the car that i'd been watching closely.  It was pretty easy in the end, and here I am, real life Police Interceptor:

It was getting pretty late by now, we headed back up the hill, having a couple of goes on the little Duplo train which we still love.
And then getting pretty much the last go on the Fairy Tale Brook before it shut for the day.
Not a bad start to the season at all!
And home in time to watch my favourite programme, Saturday Night Takeaway (on +1 anyway).

Sunday

Haircuts were called for, but it was pretty busy and we had to wait for hours, so after that it was straight to Alan and Hayleys for lunch.  
We never really get to go there so it was quite a rare occasion.
Lunch was lovely and we had my special request for pud, Jammy bakewell tarts....lovely!

It was pretty late by the time we left for home but we still had time to make the most of the fading daylight with a trip to the park.
We had a kick about which was fun.
And I got stuck in my Gillet, which wasn't.  The zip took a lot of persuading before I could be freed.

Monday

After school dancing was fun.  I've decided to focus my attention on Harry, the lucky boy.  It was like he had a shadow.
I arrived in time to watch the performance with a very red face from cross country.  My cheeks were as hot as a radiator!

We helped Dad fix his bike wheel after tea.
I think we did a good job, it looked all lovely and shiny anyway.

Tuesday

Pancake day, we had some at breakfast club, that was a good start to the day.  Then we did our sponsored pancake toss:

I managed 32 flips in a minute, with no practice.  Pretty good I reckon.

We had a trip to the library.  We had to walk down all the class together.  The trip was a bit of a let down though to be honest, a load of talking and about 40 seconds to actually look at books.

It was of course gymnastics day, yay!  On the way home conversation moved towards my belved ex pet Poppy.  I decided she'd make an excellent pet as a ghost.  We wouldn't have to worry about her when we went away and best of all she wouldn't make me sneeze!

We had our final netball practice before the upcoming tournament.  Exciting stuff, although I am a little nervous about it all.

Being as it was pancake day, we got Dad on duty after tea.

I had to supervise him of course, poor man, he had to make thousands.

But we all got to have a go, and the verdict was unanimous this year, traditional pancakes are lush!

Especially when kept simple with just fresh lemon juice and a lot of sugar.

Reading is going well at the moment, I tore through Olly the Octopus in record time with Mum.

And I watched another slew of Minecraft videos on Youtube.

Wednesday

We had an assembly with a visitor, a hearing dog for the deaf.  He was a cocker-poo (obviously hilarious).  It was all very interesting but sadly we didn't get to give the star of the show a cuddle.

After school we had a cuddle up session watching an episode of Worlds Most Dangerous Roads on Dave.  Right up my alley.  They were in South America.

I was pretty into it as well though, we certainly wouldn't fancy being driven along some of it thats for sure.

Once that was finished it was onto another favourite, Storage Wars.   We watch all the best stuff.

I took to my bedroom to finish my maths homework, I can't concentrate with Ellis chirping on, Dad's singing and the telly blaring.  

Thursday

Our after school dance was loosely based on Indian style moves and I loved it.  So did a lot of the Mum's who commented on my performance afterwards.

Not ones to leave things until the last minute we were frantically trying to sort out our costumes for tomorrows world book day at school.

Tensions got a little high at times but I think we got there in the end to everyones satisfaction.

On top of that I also had a class assembly to learn my lines for and my spellings to learn before Fridays test.....oh dear.

Friday

Well the costumes were good in the end:

The Demon Dentist for me.

Rapunzel for me!

We do rather enjoy a dressing up day at school, everyone joins in, even the teachers.

Here's some big news, I finally passed my level 4 swimming and picked up some lovely positive comments along the way.  It's certainly taken a while.  Poor old Eva didn't though, so thats us split up at lessons for the time being, I hope our paths continue to cross though.

Auntie Christine came round to babysit in the evening, even though she was feeling a bit under the weather. 

It was lovely to see her, it has been a while since she's looked after us.

Saturday

Early start at the netball tournament up at Park House school.

It was a lovely day as well, which was a bonus.

The netball itself was okay although I think the John Rankin C team wasn't going to set the world on fire.  We lost four of our five games, but the one we won, we won very well!

I took advantage of the lovely day and the wide open expanse of playground available by practcing my roller skatng:

I'd only shuffled around the house on them since Christmas, so I had a lot to learn.  Within a couple of nervous shuffles holding Dad's hand i'd got it cracked though:

I was soon gliding accross the tennis court with relative ease.  I loved it!

And even though we didn't perhaps get the results we wanted we loved it too:

I'm sure it will stand us in good stead for future tournaments, and 

I hope we can repeat the success of our A team, they came third overall!

It was all done and dusted by lunchtime, so we headed into town for lunch in Costas.

Before getting Anne a birthday card from Mum's shop.

I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing off my Lego set from Christmas (a swimming pool complex with a slide, diving boad, hot tub, cafe and changing rooms with a shower).

I headed off out to see who was about.  The usual suspects were found down the park, Hugo, Ben, Ali.  We went to the shop for sweets, and might have, maybe knocked on a few doors and ran away.  We came back to our house for a bit of a Minecraft session.

Except Ben, he was more interested in my Lego.

Sunday

Anne came over, we took her out for lunch in honour of her birthday.

We had a nice meal, especially the puddings which were awesome.

It was a lovely sunny day so we ventured into Victoria Park afterwards.

It was heaving, but good fun.

It was, especially seeing my old friend Pedro, I hadn't seen him since nursery but we still recognised each other straight away.

Once we got home, I could only find Hugo, but I didn't mind that.  He stayed around our place until his mum summoned him home at tea time.  Then it was A Top Gear special in the evening, but sadly Mum had managed to break my television while tidying my room.  I always said it was better left messy.  The upshot was that I was allowed to stay up and watch it, so not all bad.

Monday

At least Dad bothered to turn up in time to see our dance this week.  

Cross country was good, I got to be custodian of the stopwatch, a very cherished honour, only bestowed upon the most senior team members.

After school it was the top notch excitement of having a new tyre fitted.

We love having new tyres fitted, theres so much to look at and ask questions about.

We're sure the bloke loved having us hanging about and getting in his way.....

Tuesday

I love words and spellings and all that so I really enjoyed it at school when we had to describe various characters from the story of Peter Pan.

I also had a good day, we had to design menu's for astronauts, and on a more earthly type of scenario, a menu for school dinners too.

While we're on literacy, we've also been doing a short story competition thsts been on the radio and everything.  I finished it off well ahead of schedule, unusually for me, and handed it in on a cool wristband memory stick Dad got me from work.  The story was about an onion called Gary, who loved drumming.  Yeah, you read right.  Only myself and Fin managed to hit exactly 500 words.

I didn't remember to take my PE kit to school, so had to do netball in my uniform, never mind, at least it wasn't Rugby or something.

It was viewing week at gymnastics, so we got to show off our moves to the Mums and Dads and brothers an sisters.  It was quite useful as it gave Dad an insight into what moves we're working on so we can practice at home.

Wednesday

Well, neither of us have any clubs on a Wednesday.
So it's a great day for a midweek slump in front of the telly after school.
So thats what we did.  Nothing to see here, move  along......

Thursday

We've been working with Ned's class again for the go-givers charity initiative.

Indeed we have.

I love working with Alastair, he's such a laugh.  We came up with the idea of some naked yoga, like in the book Gangster Granny, much to our own utter hilarity.

We hung around after school as the sun was out again, i love playing on the adventure playground.

I had the choice of an extra netball session or dancing after school, I went for the netball, i'm loving it at the moment.

Friday

I had another good week at swimming.

I didn't, I had too much maths homework even for me to finish inside the half hour available to me.

It was school disco night though so that was good news.  

I spent the night with Dad watching silly animal videos on the internet.

And I spent the night dancing and dancing and dancing.
I got shown a few highlights when I got in and then we settle don Ice Road Truckers for a bit on Channel 5.
Yeah, we loved it and fell for the totally over the top 'will they won't they crash through the ice and die'
They didn't.

Saturday
Bit of a lay in before Tolly and Harrisons joint birthday party.  We'd got the presents and cards organised well in advance so all I had to do was settle on my outfit and hairstyle. 
We dropped her off and went to Waitrose for lunch stuff and best of all cheesecake!  I told the lady on the counter it was by far the best, second place went to the ones on the market and third place was Marks and Spencers.
The party itself didn't go too well sadly, it was overrun with boys.  I ended up getting hit on the nose and wanted to be taken home early.  Mum soon came to get me and I spent the afternoon feeling sorry for myself and snuggling up on the sofa.
I went out with Hugo for a bit to the park then we came home to play computer games.

Sunday
We had a visit from Anne in the morning, it was nice to see her.
She didn't stay for lunch though which was a shame.
After lunch we had a trip to Toys R Us as I had a voucher to spend and we had to get some birthday presents for others.
It was cool to have a look around, but the selection of bikes and scooters to bomb around the shop on seem a lot more limited these days?
We finally watched Despicable Me 2 in the afternoon, i've been campaigning to watch it since I got it for Christmas.
It was brilliant, we all really enjoyed it and laughed pretty much the whole way through.

Monday
Back to school, more Go-givers malarkey with Ali.
Yes, i'm afraid it was.  But on with other news and it was my first proper netball match, away, against Franci Bailey school in Thatcham.  It was really good, I loved it, even if I did have to mark six foot tall year 6 girls.  We lost out first game but won our second.  Tom and I were the only boys who were picked, so we were a  pretty rare breed......
Dad missed dancing as the phone engineer had to come and fix our internet.  Then we had to wait for Ned to return to school, I passed the time riding my bike and running laps of the playground:

Then running a few laps:

Then playing on the juniors adventure playground and squelching in the mud as much as possible.

I finally arrived back, our teacher Miss Knowles told Dad she didn't know anyone who talks as much as me....anyway, here I am in another school sports kit, this time the netball one (we weren't allowed skirts, I did ask):