The final episode!

Tuesday

So it was the last day of the summer holidays for both the Park House kids and the St Barts contingent.  In light of this i'd been rather pro-active on the various group chats to try and pull everyone together for a day at the park.  The organisation went well and there were loads of us down there, I also packed myself a bag with a few supplies and the picnic blanket which was widely admired.  It was a lovely day out in the late summer sunshine with a few visits to Best One of course.

Last day of the holidays fever had obviously spread as far as Mum and Dad too, so it was off to Pizza Hut for tea.  It had been a while so was warmly received by Ned and myself.  We had a lovely evening, lots of laughs, fun, reminiscing and looking forward to my new school.  Ned as surprisingly warm about the whole situation which made a welcome change from his usual antics (which we all know are just a front) he's almost as glad as I am that we'll be back at the same school again.  He was almost looking forward to going back to school himself in some ways I'm sure.  Those lazy lay ins and long days on the XBox must be taking their toll.

We took a group family walk up the hill to school when we got home so I could time my walk to school.  Well Ned took his bike and wheelied pretty much all the way there and back.  There was quite a complex plan of meeting up with a whole raft of us (Iyah, Amelie, Amber and Weasel) in the morning so it needed working out well in advance.

I went to bed as excited as I do on Christmas Eve or the day before a hot holiday.

Wednesday

From the moment I woke up Mum said my smile was so wide i'd need a bigger head.  I'd been looking forward to this day for so long and it was finally here and I was loving every minute of it.

The grand meet up got off to a bad start with Iyah running behind schedule but we clawed it back and we all managed to get there on time.  

On the way up the hill we passed Harrison and Max on their way down the hill to St Barts.

We also caught up with a new year 12 who's new shoes had ripped her feet to bits and was desperate for tissues to mop it up a little the poor girl.

We met up in the hall before making our way off with our new tutor, who we remembered from the induction day luckily.

I went out of my way to mingle with all my new classmates and made friends quickly with Scarlett and Lola amongst others so that was a good start.

All this without the obligatory new school uniform picture? That's bad form, sorry, here it is:

Note skirt rolled over a little bit to shorten it but nicely fitting blazer which can be unusual in these sort of pictures so I understand?

So one of the lads managed to get himself a bad behaviour point on his first day which was quite an achievement and Amelie had a comedy willy drawn on one of her chairs which was a real highlight of the day.  I also got Mr Wilder as my history teacher, Ned's tutor, I didn't let on and neither did he....... 

After our first day was done I walked home with Leo, one of his Falkland friends and the two ex John Rankin Aidan's amongst others so that was a nice bit of integration.

Ned came down from his lair to see how i'd got one as he didn't start until tomorrow.  He was actually very interested, understanding and took a lot of time going through my timetable over tea giving me the lowdown on all the teachers i've got.  He was overwhelmingly positive on the hole as well which as nice to hear.

Thursday

So day two and school was noticeably busier as the full school was back not just year's 7 and 12.  This of course included Ned and all his friends who couldn't wait to acknowledge his little sister and make sure he heard all about it too.  Like water off a ducks back for me.

I sat next to Leo in English which as cool.  Somehow in the middle of the day I managed to pick up a decent size lump of discarded chewing gum that I managed to smear right up the back and side of the heel on one foot and across the top and laces of the other one.  It played on my mind all day and I couldn't wait to get home and get Mum to help me sort it out.  Sadly she wasn't in so it was down to Me, Dad and Google.  We got it sorted out in no time (thanks to gentle hand soap and a wet wipe, top tip for you there everyone).

Friday

The last day of the short school week didn't start well with a monumental Spanish/French class mix  up which saw me mistakenly sent to Spanish even though I should have been in French.

It got resolved.....eventually and I got back to my French class in time to interpret our teachers opening French statement for my classmates that didn't understand it.

Oh and another thing, having a surname that starts with A is rubbish when establishing the ground rules with new teachers.   Some of them insist on a full and formal response when calling the register and as i'm first I get it wrong and get corrected with out having the benefit of copying the established protocol.

Saturday

Well after a three day week, I needed a lie in.

Followed by a big old cooked breakfast and then a trip to the Newbury Real Ale festival.

There was a good turnout again, Nate, Joel, Alan, Hayley, Andy, Owen, Kirsty, Nick and Chris were all there and set up for the day quite nicely when we arrived.

Joel loves his beer:

But he coudn't hack the pace:

We also found these two, once again in the posh VIP area, they did lower themselves to talk to us though and it was lovely to see them:

There were a lot of people here this year:

As is the norm at the moment, I got my human stepladder to get me a good view of proceedings:

We hung out all day, it was great fun playing with Nate and Joel, throwing the small foam American football MILES with the lads and dipping in and out of our picnic supplies.

There was music going on pretty much all day, none of which I was particularly familiar with except for a few tunes here and there i'd heard around the house now and again.

We stayed until the end of course and I had a great day, thoroughly enjoyed it even if a small group of drunk teenagers were having a little too much enthusiastic fun with a camping chair launching it into the air which I didn't much care for.

We said our goodbyes and went back to our bikes to ride home.  We made sure we didn't make the same mistake as last year and had plenty of lights to help us home.......sadly there wasn't plenty of air in Dads rear tyre so that was him walking home as we sped off into the darkness.

Sunday

Football season is back....boooo. So Ned had the first game today, anyway match in Basingstoke.  We dropped him off for warm up and team talk and god knows what else they do before the game and headed into town for a rapid mission to Sports Direct.

Basingstoke mercy dash, on the shopping list....some school uniform appropriate base layers for our PE kits and a proper American football for me and Dad to throw about after yesterdays success at the beer festival.  We managed it in time to get back to the football in time for kick off. Ned has seemingly upped his efforts at football and after receiving a lot of positive feedback during pre-season training he made the starting line up.  This of course meant we had to watch more of the game rather than launch the new American football as far as we could across an adjacent vacant pitch. It was a good bit bigger than the weird little foam one but I got to grips with it nicely after a few goes.

The match ended up 4-3, so they only just lost, I think they were reasonably pleased with their season opener.

We took off pretty rapidly so fortunately missed the post match talk and just about got me to Lilly's birthday party on time.  It was the first time I'd really seen any of the St Barts lot since we started our new schools and I was the only Park House representative there.  She had a bouncy castle and a sumo suit thing for entertainment which was great fun. I should advise anyone reading though not to go on a bouncy castle in a sumo suit. By the time I had fallen over in the back corner of the castle I was unable to get up or indeed get out of the sumo suit.

Monday

So back school and still having new subjects and classrooms on the timetable as we hadn't been through a full week yet. 

In the evening Owen came over and we finally got to do our indoor Skydiving that he got us for Christmas.

We warmed up with something to eat first, I was outvoted so it was KFC although I went next door to the golden arches and smuggled it back in to eat with everyone else.

Once that was done we moved onto the skydiving place, it looked pretty cool from outside...the tube in the middle looked very high though and I was beginning to get a little nervous if I'm honest. We watched the previous groups efforts for a bit before it was our turn which put my mind a little more at rest, it looked a lot of fun.

We watched the video then got kitted up in our flying suits (snug), goggles (tight strap and prone to steaming up), ear plugs and helmets before moving into the seating area right next to the tunnel.  It was pretty noisy and not surprisingly rather windy.

Ned was first out of our lot, and pretty much nailed it straight off, looking like he'd done it all before.  He did go a little more wobbly after his composed start so that was reassuring and after a quick reassuring snuggle up to Dad it was my turn:

I think my gymnastics based flexibility was an initial hindrance but I soon got on top of it:

We had two goes and on the second did the proper high fly right up to the top with the instructor which was brilliant fun and also managed a very long and high fly flight without the instructor having to drag me back at all.  Mum, Dad and Owen also had a go of course, with varying degrees of success and resulting injuries.  Thanks Owen and Kirsty!!

So that's it, we'll go out on a high quite literally.

As with Ned, once secondary school starts the Blog comes to an end. 

Thanks to everyone who's bothered to keep reading this long, all the way back to 2005 in fact if you've been following from the start.

So this can stay here now, to embarrass us with long forgotten photo's and videos, all the cringey stories, clothes, haircuts and all the rest of it.

Unlike Ned, I am a little more concerned about this whole enterprise coming to a halt so you never know if I might dig out the old login and password one day, but it's pretty unlikely.

I'd like to thank everyone who has helped both of us develop, grow, interact, have fun, sing, dance, compete, relax, be entertained, listen, care, learn, appreciate what we have, eat, drink, ride, fly, surf, drive, swim, skate, run, walk, crawl....you get the idea.

I'm sure there's going to be a few turbulent teenage years to come, hopefully we're  all equipped to deal with it.

See you around.

Tuesday

Went to the Pool with mum again this afternoon. Ned obviously didnt want to come and Dad had already gone to the bikepark.  What a pair of fools, it was boiling hot and we pretty much had it to ourselves too.  We even got to squeegee the changing room floor which was very therapeutic, I can't resist a good old squeegee session.

After tea we went to try out the new trim trail in Penwood.  We went to the wrong woods at first but did have a nice walk, enjoying the tall trees and having a chat.

After a brief google we found the right woods and the trail.  It wasn't the best thing in the world but it was entertaining enough.

We did end up in some rather thick undergrowth at one point which took some effort to get through.  We also managed to find a seriously cool treehouse and a chicken coop which was a bit of a surprise.

A fallen tree is always good for a climb:

Best of all was the cropped of rope swing, a bit of a stretch to reach and hard work to hold on to but a lot of fun and it swang out a good height over the slope below.

Wednesday

Uniform stuff today, my new shoes arrived, very smart too.  I did don my whole new ensemble but I think i'll keep those sort of pictures for next week when i'm officially a Park House pupil.

Thursday

Mini Golf today, a trip to Tidal Bay in the not very coastal Basingstoke, well Sherfield on Loddon anyway.

It was really good too, well, except for Ned being a pain in the neck with his 'jokes'

The course was fun, quite tricky in places though but there were some massive carp in the ponds ans some really cute turtles in another pool too.  I wasn't in contention for the win but did play a lot better than I usually do.  We sat and totted up the scores in the clubhouse over a fizzy drink:

Rather boringly, Dad won.  

Friday

I rediscovered my Lego today, and obviously roped Dad in to help not that he took much persuading.

Saturday

Lazy morning with a bit more Lego (we're making a plush villa, not one of the instructions driven sets) and then a trip to the Pub with all the gang.  We hadn't been out there yet this summer despite the on-going good weather so it was time to put that right:

Sunday

Outdoor Pool again.  Ned was going with his mates too so it was all a bit awkward but it worked out okay in the end.  Obviously anything a group of teenage boys try to do takes about 3 times as long as anyone else so we had plenty of dive time at the deep end before they all turned up. We'd packed the water pistol thing which was great fun until Dad squirted me right in the eye with it . We managed to successfully avoid the boys by setting up our blanket near the changing rooms knowing full well that they would head to the far side.  He did come over to tell us that they were leaving and was very pleasant. When we got home he even thanked us for giving him plenty of space down there which was nice.

Monday

So with the holidays drawing to a close it's time to cram a few more activities in. trampolining today at Red Kangaroo in Reading. I had been here before so was desperate to show it off to the others.  I think they liked it too!
Like all these places it has it's own unique features that make it fun, like this total wipeout inspired sweep game:

There was also an airbag as well as the more standard foam pits that Dad and Ned seemed to enjoy.

These barriers between trampolines were great fun (and much higher in real life than they look on these pictures)  It took me a while to get over this one even though Ned made it look incredibly easy:

The light up button press game thing almost finished off Mum and Dad I think.  Having said that, by the end of the hour we were all pretty much done.  With very pink faces.

Mum had made tonight's spaghetti Bolognese, the memory still lingers from last time she made it (albeit years ago) with the salt overload but she redeemed herself with tonights effort.  Even Ned finished his plateful with zero whingeing which is unheard of.

he must be in a good mood actually as I was even allowed to talk about how excited I am to be starting school on Wednesday, a subject that was previously banned in his presence.....