I went straight from school to Eloise's for tea (pasta bake, oh dear) then straight on to Team Kennet. It was the last outside session of the year. We've been really lucky with the weather this season it has to be said, I think we only had one slightly damp partial session.
Alan and Nate made a surprise late visit:
Thursday
I had what canonly be described as a homework and indeed schoolwork in general meltdown today. It seems my effort levels don't seem to stack up against Mr Toals expectations (or Mum and Dad's come to that).
Friday
I felt in a much better frame of mind following yesterdays realisation and went back to school with a fresh sense of purpose.
Another week of football club, it was more fun this week as we've been playing more matches.
Saturday
A rainy old lazy morning for us this week. We dropped Dad off at the train station as he was off into London with Owen and Andy to see a load of old bands or something.
With him out of the way and Ned otherwise occupied mum and I headed for town.
It was lovely, we bought halloween novelties and best of all a load of art supplies. Here's the first fruit of my labour, a piece on canvas:
Sunday
Another lazy day, drawing, making, painting and a roast dinner. A proper Sunday. We did venture out to the park for some Rugby practice in the late afternoon though.
Down the park for rugby practice
Tuesday
Dad and I continued our very occasional gardening project, turning our attention to the very densely planted flower bed that produces a load of flowers for a couple of weeks a year in the middle of the lawn. It was slow work turning all the earth over and removing the bulbs:
Dad reckoned that if I dug and picked bulbs as quickly as I talked we would have had it dine in about 10 minutes.
Wednesday
Ned has been providing family meals from his food tech classes for the kast theee weeks. On the menu this time was a chicken Rogan curry. Now i'm not a great fan of curry but it wasn't too bad at all.
Friday
After school Football was good, we're playing more games. I dont think i'll bet picked for the match next week though.....
Then it was on to gymnastics as is customary on. Friday now.
Saturday
We were up nice and early and headed for Alton Towers, how exciting!
We were staying the night there too, so we checked in and headed into the park.
It was the first of the scarefest weekends so everything had a halloween theme:
As part of the deal on our accomodation we also got fast passes from 10 until 12 o'clock, how awesome!
I had a slow start, but loved the Enterprise wheel. I didn't much like the look of Oblivion or the Smiler though, even though the others certainly did:
We re-grouped over lunch and I pestered like mad to have a go on this:
As is usual with our trips like this, all i really wanted to do was check in to the accomodation and check it out. I wasn't disappointed, we were staying in the Enchanted Village lodges:
Once we had a nice rest and a hot chocolate we went back into the park. The battle galleons were huge fun. Dad and I boarded a boat leaving the landlubbers behind as they didn't want to get wet.
We fitted in a go on the pirate boat, the river rapids and Postman Pat.
We had a right result for tea, instead of having another picnic or some sort of cobbled together ptovisons we went to the brand new Rollercoaster Restaurant. It was amazing, all the food and drinks were delivered on little rollercoaster carriages from the kitchen serving hatch on the first floor.
As it was halloween special opening the park was open until 9 pm so we took a ride on the runaway mine train in the dark for added excitement. We then ventured back towards Nemesis but it was restricted access due a break out of zombies! A lot of swirling smoke, spooky lights and people dressed in scary costumes stood between us and the ride. Dad and I ran the gauntlet through them, revving chain saws and all while Mum and Ned took the long way round.
I declined the offer of a trip on Nemesis in the dark though, the others loved it.
We made our way back to the lodge, the fairy lights in the trees were particularly pretty:
We had a well earned sleep after all our walking.....
Sunday
A beautiful sunny morning greeted us:
We had breakfast in the restaurant, Ned was pleased straight away as there were chocolate muffins amongst the buffet ems.
Once we'd had our fill, or in some cases slightly more than our fill we packed up and checked out:
Bouyed up by this we headed for Galactica, I got to the point where you get sat down but the strapping in was as far as I could go. I bailed out and waited for the others to come back after their ride before saying i'd changed my mind and really wanted to go on it after all.....back round to the fastpass gate it was for attempt two. This time I went through with it, got sat down, strapped myself in and didn't freak out when the seats tipped forward making us all go face down. We were off, out of the station and up the climb to the first descent. I lived it, it felt so cool swooping along the track, the ground rushing by underneath us. The barrel roll was amazing and we were soon face up for the next section before turning over again for some more dips and turns....it was brilliant.
There was no stopping me now and it was on to Nemesis:
Three corkscrews and my first proper loop...fantastic!
There was a slight change of pace after lunch in C Beebies land,
I give you iglle piggles boat ride:
Enterprise again? Yes please:
Ned managed to convince me that Oblivion was a good idea. First time with Dad too, but we dropped him for second go:
So that was us pretty much done, barely a ride left unridden by us. We made the trip home, what a cool weekend.
Monday
Back to a sleepy Monday morning.....
The comedy highlight of the day was during a game Mr and Mrs after tea hen Ned suggested our deal Olympic sport was beach volleyball! He obviously had a very short memory and had forgotten just how bad we were at it in Italy!
