Tuesday
Today was Mum's birthday.
It was indeed and I was fit to burst with excitement. I'd kept the presents a surprise and everything. We had to write her cards early as we were so late back last night.
We had arranged a morning with Kimi and Marny.
It didn't go exactly to plan but turned out cool in the end.
And lunch in Sainsbury's was good, slush puppies!
Once Dad got home it was time for Mum's presents.
She seemed very pleased with what we had got her.
And then it was time for Gymnastics, high excitement for badge week. Except it wasn't badge week. There were so many girls on holiday there was hardly anyone there so it was decided, against my protestation to move it to next week instead.....when i'm on holiday!
We decided on a pub dinner in the Hatchet in honour of Mum's birthday, she is proper classy after all.
So I had to get changed out of my gym gear in the car!
After an initial scare it turned out they did have hot dogs in stock so that was a result.
We hadn't sorted her a cake out what with the Cornwall trip and all that so it was a quick mercy dash to Sainsbury's for a pick your own pudding session.
I stuck a candle in her individual salted caramel chocolate cheesecake thing and we sang her happy birthday.
Wednesday
We had a morning visit from Auntie Christinewhich is always an event in itself. She had a card for Mum that was very rude indeed, we thought it was hilarious of course.
The weather was still glorious so we decided to make ourselves a picnic and cycle down to the park at Northcroft:
It was lovely sitting among the daffodils.
Except for the amount of kids who seemed to think it was okay to rip their heads off, trample them over or whatever destructive method they seemed to think was appropriate. Mum and I were getting more and more irrate and we told a good few of them off!
I played on the park, oblivious to their rising anger.
Dad met us there on his way home from work and was a bit disappointed that there wasn't much picnic to finish off.
Gail popped round in the afternoon, with some sun softened easter bunnies.
And my birthday present....which I was allowed to open, but not build (A lego La Ferarri, well cool).
We were pretty tired in the afternoon but we still went to Team Kennet, a little begrudgingly on my part if i'm honest.
I decided to try high jump this week, much to Mum and Dads relief as they'd been telling me to have a go for ages! I loved it, and once I had worked out what foot to take off from I really threw myself into it. Our coach Nick said I had a lot of natural spring and I managed to easily clear the bar set at 1.05m metres.
I did some shot put this week, I had pretty good technique and put in some good distances. Then we did hurdles which wasn't so great really but I put in another strong 600 metres run, coming third behind two older boys.
Thursday
We made a trip to the museum, again by bike.
They had an Easter Egg decorating thing on, there wasn't many people there though, no doubt due to the lovely weather.
Still, we loved it, we are very creative.
The lady said she certainly hadn't seen anyone else turn theirs into a smiley monsetr with headphones before.
The museum itself was pretty good too, especially the dressing up stuff:
Andy popped round in the afternoon to have a quick look at the hot water system,
He'd bought my birthday present with him, which I was allowed to open, a cricket set (which I think he's rather hoping to use) and the Lego beach hut I wanted, I was well pleased.
I helped mum pack and sort things out for holiday tomorrow....I know, we've only just got back from Cornwall!
Friday
We had a morning stroll up the hill to deliver Emma's birthday card.
The Sainsbuy's garage was just a bit too far for poor old Ned to manage.
So we got sone surprisingly nice bread rolls from Budgen's. That might cut down on the amount of Waitrose trips in the future.
We finished off the last of the packing while Mum sorted us out lunch.
She cooked my pizza to perfection, better than Dad ever does. She reckons it's because she follows the instructions on the packet to the letter rather than being a know it all.
Then we waited for Dad to come home from work so we could hit the road.
To Norfolk. None of us have ever been over the that side of the country so it was a bit of an adventure for all of us.
It was a pretty long drive but even me, queen of the peanut bladders didn't need to stop for the toilet.
We found the place nice and easily, even though it was out in the sticks a bit.
And it was lovely too, especially with this out in the garden:
It was late evening by the time we got here, so we didn't do much else except go the bed.
And muck about for a few hours before we finally went to sleep......
Saturday
So the view of the place in proper daylight was a pleasant surprise.
As well as the hot tub we had a massive garden that went all the way down to our own bit of river.
There were loads of bunnies about.
And a rather greedy little squirrel, hanging from a bird feeder stuffing his face with nuts.
Todays agenda included a trip to Pleasurewood Hills, a theme park near Lowestoft.
It looked really good, even though as soon as we got through the gates it chucked it down with rain and got really windy.
There was a well cool looking rollercoaster, three loops in all, we wanted to go straight on that.
Mum and I didn't.....
So, on we got and it started winching us backwards up the slope.....and then it stopped. We didn't go forward though. We were stuck. Properly stuck. A load of people that worked there started putting on climbing harnesses and came up the stairs to tell thst the ride was broken and they'd get us down as soon as possible.
So we sat there, with Mum and Ellis waving and laughing at us.
They did look funny stuck up there. They told us to carry on around the park so we did. We rode the horsey ride and took a lap on the train.
Meanwhile, we were given silver foil space blankets and hot chocolates to keep us warm. I wasn't that cold anyway but thought the blanket was pretty cool. The man told us that they had released the emergency brake and that we would slowly return to the station......it was very, very slow indeed. After about half an hour we still weren't down so they tried something else, which released us a lot quicker and we shot down and stopped rather abruptly in the station. I didn't spill a drop of my hot chocolate either. We got a complimentary re-entry ticket for our troubles as well.
So we were re-united and decided it was time to take the chairlift. I wasn't too keen on it it has to be said.
And neither was Dad the massive baby, he really didn't like me swinging it about.
At the other end we found a lake with some paddle boats with some rather comfy looking deck chairs for seats.
We did all the paddling while Mum and Dad took it easy in the back:
Next up was a rollercoaster called the Rattlesnake. I have a patchy, on off relationships with rollercoasters it has to be said but this one was brilliant!
Then it was onto a ride called Fireball.
Which I was too short for:
It was amazing, it span round and went pretty much upside down, this is a great shot that Dad managed of Mum and Me right at the top:
Sadly we got a little bit stuck on this one too, when the restraints failed to release for a while:
Next up we found a rather pleasant boat ride
Which turned into a pretty dark and unnerving thing about smugglers.
There were some prety unique rides too, how about a carousel with horse upstairs as well as down?
And this weird face down spinny thing:
One of my favourites had to be the Marble madness rollercoaster, it was one of those crazyones that made you think you were going to fly off the track before turning really sharply.
There was another one called Enigma. You could only see the top of it and it looked pretty lame until you went down into the dip where it looked much cooler.
I was a little bit scared of it but they convinced me to go on it, I was glad they did, it was really good.
Next up there were the dodgems, with no adults!
They were ace.
We all picked something to go on again as it wasn't that busy and then headed back to the cottage.For a lovely soak in the hot tub.
We made it inside in time for the new series of Ninja Warrior on telly which looked like it might be our sort of show.
It was a bit rubbish though.
Unlike Britains Got Talent after it which we love.
So it wad a shame we got packed off to bed after the first lot of adverts......not happy!
Sunday
So this is what we really love about holidays, lazy mornings, snuggled up for a leisurley breakfast:
On todays agenda was a trip to an owl sanctuary.
Apparently you could hold and cuddle the owls, exciting or what!
It was a pretty long drive and when we arrived the barn itself looked pretty ropey and not at all promising.
However, inside it was really cool, there were all these owls of all shapes, sizes and colours.
We had a good look round, learned some cool owl facts, like the colour of their eyes can suggest whether they are nocturnal or not.
And that Snowy Owls can only sweat and cool themselves down by opening their mouths!
We decided which owls were going to get our attention, I went for the largest type of owl, the European Eagle Owl, all 7 pounds of her:
She was seriously cool,check out the ears and the eyes. The ladies working at the place were very impressed with my strength. She didn't half squeeze my hand though, i'm glad we got given a nice stout glove.
I went for the more manageable tawny owl, Bracken:
He was really cute and his feathers were so soft. He liked being tickled on the back of the head.
We made our way along the coast road.
It has to be said the sea did not look at all appealing.
It was all rather browny-grey.
But we parked up and had a picnic in the car like a bunch of old people.
We then headed further along the coast to Cromer, it didn't look much cop so we didn't stop until we got to a big grassy field on top of the cliffs where we got the kites out.
It was seriously windy, I launched my new kite and was lucky not to end up in the sea. It pulled really hard but it was great to fly in such a strong wind.
I had a go too and decided that sitting down was the best way to go as I didn't get pulled about quite so much!
We headed back to the cottage and had a dip in the hot tub.
And then had a game of Dixit, a card game mum got for her birthday. I really enjoyed it and thought it was great.
I didn't, I came badly last and decided it was rubbish!
Monday
So it was finally my birthday, i'd been looking forward to this for ages. I had some epic presents this year, i'm very lucky it has to be said. So there might have been an Ipad, a lego Porsche and a custom engraved headset cap for my bike with my name on it.
As well as his best present, Now 90 (my idea):
Sausage sandwich for breakfast as well. Brilliant.
Then an early birthday cake so we could take it with us for our picnic lunch.
Yeah, M&M's guys sat in a hot tub, very appropriate!
We went to a place called Bewilderwood. It was like a woodland theme park sort of place, with various treehouses, bridges, swings and what have you.
It was brilliant, I particularly liked what looked like brightly coloured fairy houses that you could spot up in the trees with aerial walkways between them and little doors into the tree trunks.
The sky maze was really good, a whole maze, but made on loads of different levels up in the trees, with balance beams and tunnels and all that sort of thing:
Some of the bridges were seriously high and Ned did insist on bouncing them up and down:
The big swing was good, unitl we got out of sync, mostly due to my most energetic swinging:
The slides were very impressive too:
Especially this one that was much steeper and higher in the flesh:
There were aerial runways too:
And rather smart treehouses:
So, pretty much right up our alley, a great day out.
We headed back to the cottage and just managed a flying visit to Redwings horse sanctuary.
It was closing in half an hour so we had to make a dash round. We made sure there was time to make a fuss of these lovely little ponies:
They were sooooo soft and friendly:
We read some of the stories on the boards about how badly the rescued horses had been treated and what sort of condition they had arrived here in.
It made me really sad.
But they certainly seem to be living it up now, the place was lovely.
Once we were back at the cottage we had a game of cricket out on the lawn:
I was a bit hit and miss (mostly miss) with batting but my fielding was pretty good.
I was mostly hit, a bit too hit really and a new rule of over the fence and out was introduced.
A hot tub session was well in order after our exertion.
But a row erupted over whether to have the jets on or off.
We have been changing our own preferences based on the opposite of what the other wants. This put rather a strain on things, culminating in my birthday trip to Pizza Hut being put in jeopardy.
We pulled it back from the brink though....
So this time last year it was the Cheesecake Factory in Beverley Hills.
And this time it was a Pizza Hut in a retail park on the outskirts of Norwich.
Still, it was lovely and after a full on day and a late return to the cottage we went to bed without much fuss:
We had another lay in and sofa slump morning in an effort to get over a few late nights.
So I got busy downloading a load of new games on my Ipad.
The lure of the hot tub was too strong to resist and we were soon back in it. We then managed to convince Ned to have another game of Dixit.
Which I lost again. It's rubbish.
It was yet another lovely sunny day so we took a walk down the lane outside the cottage.
Out accross the farms, there were fields and fields of crops and then that gave way to these bacon production units:
Under tree lined canopies:
And on until we got to a busy road with no path!
Dad took charge and ordered us to wait at the garden centre while he made his way back down the treachorous road to get the car and come and pick us up.
I treated as a real life daring rescue operation and he was hero for literally a few minutes.
More cricket:
My batting was really quite good today, a drastic improvement which resulted in me only having one batting life like everyone else.
Mum also made an excellent backstop, we dubbed her 'cricket robot' due to her relentless catching and ball return.
Dad set up the barbecue at the bottom of the garden on the riverbank:
And we had a lovely late lunch/early tea in the sunshine.
Followed by yet more cricket.
An Al Fresco game of Camel Up
And more hot tub.
Wednesday
Another slow start to the day with yet more cricket and hot tub, can you see a pattern emerging here?
I happened to find a book on the local area under the coffee table and found that there was a castle nearby at Castle Acre (the clue was in the name).
It was really good, even if we did get fired at by a group of teenagers with a water propelled bottle rocket on some sort of school trip. It must have been the highest plot of land we visited all week:
We were also treated to several fly pasts at rather low altitude by a squadron of Tornado jet's.
They looked well cool and made a great loud noise.
Later in the afternoon we made our way over to Great Yarmouth, the beach looked really rather good, even the water looked quite inviting:
We had a session in the arcades on the penny falls machines.
Which were a lot harder to win on than we've become used to at Croyde and Butlins.
Even I came out empty handed!
Which should have been noted as an omen for the dog racing we then went to:
Where I didn't win a penny all night! Unimpresseed.
I did, in fact I had a couple of winners. The dogs were cool, really fast and some of them looked really cute.
Even if they did seem to do a lot of dumps right in front of us.
Thursday
What UK holiday would be complete without a trip on a Steam Railway?
We went on the Bure Valley railway, Dad said we should buy the pudding for our picnic at their tea shop, he was right.
They had massive slices of home made shortbread the size of patio slabs!
So we took the train from Aylsham to Wroxham:
The journey was pretty cool, through farmland, all very flat of course.
In Wroxham we picked up a boat tour of the Norfolk Broads, the most famous thing in the area apparently.
And apart from some really rather lovely houses with boat sheds instead of garages it was pretty rubbish.
Yeah, just a murky looking river that turned into the occasional big lake and a load of rushes being grown as a crop for thatchers. Although the Egyptian Goose chicks do deserve a mention for being seriously cute.
We spent the last evening watching the stars come out sat in the hot tub.
It was perfect.
Friday
Our last day, so we had a to get packed up and tidied up a bit.
But Mum had it well under control and we even had time for a dip in the hot tub before we left.
We'd planned a trip to Sandringham and got over half way there before we realised we'd left my CD in the player back at the cottage so we double backed to pick it up.
So, we were a bit later than we had anticipated in arriving.
I managed to really hurt my leg in the playground, which i'm blaming the Queen for personally.
Me and Mum loved it, wandering round the gardens, the sights and the smells were lovely.
We had a visit inside the house to see where the Queen has her christmas dinner:
And then wandered round some more:
The museum was cool, it had loads of old royal cars in it, even the small ones the royal children had been given by the likes of Aston Martin.
We fell in love with the cuddly Corgi's in the gift shop and had to have one each.
Even I parted with my own money for it.
So it was time to head home, we stopped off for a McDonalds on the way near Northampton.
And enjoyed the sight of hills again, actual hills.
Saturday
Dad was rather keen to get out on his bike, and we hatched a plan to go to Tidworth bike park while the girls slept in. It worked a treat.
The place was well cool, we started on a route of jumps and berms on quite a flat section of the hill before moving on up the hill to the botttom section of the easiesst track. I loved it, so next time we went a bit higher to incorporate a load of bermed switchbacks on quite a steep part of the hill. They looked massive and quite scary, but once you were riding them they felt brilliant. Next stop was the top of the trail, the push up was hard work and there were some seriously rooty sections which were pretty difficult with my smaller wheels. I had a small off but managed to get back up and make it down okay.
My lay in was lovely.
We were home by lunchtime and then spent the afternoon doing homework, urrgghh.
Then it was roller skating, proper summer season stuff, doors open in the hall and everything.
It wasn't vey busy either which was nice.
In the evening we had Alan and Hayley and much to our delight Nate round! He was much more lively than last time we saw him, a proper wriggler.
We did indeed, I had a lovely long cuddle with him before we started on the board games.
A game of Camel Up which I can join in with, ace!
Then packed off to bed, rather unhappily without a whif of playing Agricola that Alan and Hayley had got me for my birthday.
Sunday
A trip to Legoland.
A good day out, going on a lot of rides we haven't been on for ages, warp speed on the spiders:
And a good oppurtunity to spend some birthday money on the shop.
We got back in time for a visit from Auntie Trish which was nice.
Bearing birthday gifts and easter eggs, as usual we're managing to hang out easter and my birthday for ages!
And then a game of Agricola at last, which went on long into the night.......
Monday
So it was the last day of the Easter holidays.
Yep, what a downer.
We went to 4 Kingdoms with Auntie Christine and Darcey:
It was cool showing Mum around.
We met up with my friend sasha at fifth road park, but there was high drama when her borther took a sizeable chunk out of his head. there was a lot of blood and an ambulance!
Andy came round for tea and to fix the heating.
And then Sue popped in too, with easter eggs and birthday presents....how lovely to see everyone!
