Well we're back!
Indeed we are.
We finished school on Friday for half term and had a sneaky early evening drink up the Bowlers arms with the Halfords.
And I finished nursery for a week too, dragged away from my beloved Eva for a whole week.
I picked all my own clothes to pack for holiday but apart from that we had a lazy day on saturday, acclimatising for our week in the sunshine by lounging about in the garden and having a barbecue for lunch.
Yeah, we laid on our backs looking up at the aeroplanes going over the clear skies above....
Then the next day, we were on one ourselves (after a very early morning start):

We had a slight delay before we took off due to a pukey passenger, she had to be escorted from the plane by a doctor, I hope she's okay now.
Once we were airbourne we adopted our favoured positions, me having a lovely nap spread across mum and dad's legs....
...and me whooping an hollering during take-off, playing DS, looking out of the window (particularly good over the alps) and then pulling the window blind down, much to dad's annoyance.
In what seemed like no time at all we were coming in for landing at Pisa airport.
I announced in my best loud voice that we were coming in for landing, and then we were in Italy at last. I loved spotting our bags coming round the conveyor belt and pretty soon we were on our way to get our hire car.
This took a while if truth be told.....
Yeah but while you lot were queing up, I had a great game of spin the high cafe chair with another little girl, it all went a bit wrong when we span one so hard it toppled over with such force it almost started an earthquake...oops!
We were soon on our way though, driving on the wrong side of the road and everything.
The tunnels we went through on the way were brilliant, loads of them and some of them so long you couldn't even see the end!
When we arrived at the campsite mum and Ned went off to find out where we would be staying and get our keys, dad and I were quite happy in the car with the aircon running full tilt until and old man came over and asked us to kill the engine, I think he was watching Italian Deal or No Deal in his nearby tent and couldn't hear it over the din of the engine. Once we turned it off it soon got so hot we had to get out too, only to find Ned schmoozing Elinor, the lady with the keys for us.
She was of course my new best mate and I latched on to her straight away, paying her plenty of visits during the week to tell her what we'd been up to.
We soon settled in, the sun loungers were to my liking:

The deck outside was met with universal approval, despite the look on mums face here. i think that is a result of the standard of bread on offer. We tried every type of bread from every shop and restaurant we came accross, but it all seemd really quite hard going.

As big brother the top bunk was definatley for Ned, but at least he let me have a little go on it with him, I loved climbing the ladder in there whenever I got the chance unwatched:

I think this baugette was just about passable:

On our first full day we went to the supermarket to stock up, now this was much more exciting than our wednesday trip to Tesco.

Yes, even I was moderatley entertained for a bit, but the pool beckoned in the hot sunshine.

Indeed it did, the top pool was more to our liking than the other one we briefly had a dip in on the first day:

Best of all was the showers, there was a little tap at the bottom for washing your feet, it came out like a raging torrent:

Then it was barbecue time, dad even let me encroach on his territory for a bit of alfresco cooking:

Mum and I had to settle for just looking after the equipment for them:

We made a bit of a mistake with the shopping, what we thought was strawberry milkshake turned out to be cream, called MUKKI of all things!

The site itself was lovely, covered in trees and little pathways for me to explore but best of all were the lizards. Here we are inspecting one of their hidey holes in a wall:

Here's a shot of me posing on some stairs:

And here's a shot of one of the lizards we saw, according to the internet it's an Italian Wall Lizard. I wouldn't argue with that, it was in Italy, on a wall and was most certainly a lizard.

Did we mention how great the pool was?

It was brilliant, all covered in soft grippy rubber stuff, ideal for us little and not so little ones:

It wasn't all grippy though, ha ha!

I took the oppurtunity to try on some alternative footwear:

There was even a little train to shuttle you up and down the hill to the pool:

We had a few quiet moments, I love guess who!

We even had a few trips out and about, here we are in Pisa by the river Arno:

We were of course searching for the leaning tower:

It was brilliant, I loved it, I loved it so much I bought a postcard of it and a small model of it too!

We sat and ate lunch looking at it, contemplating how it doesn't fall over:

I enjoyed my fruit drink:

We wandered around the grounds, it was great for me, lots of steps and ledges to climb:

I amazed mum and dad with my ability to enjoy the architecture, I lapped it all up:

I took a particular fancy to the Santa Maria della Spina for some reason and demanded a number of photo's by it:

Even just boring old flights of stairs were brilliant:

After all that charging about, we decided a relaxing day by the pool was in order. I loved my strawberry towel and cuddling up for a soggy kip:

And I certainly made myself at home, when I could tear myself away from my new found friends:

I always had time and room for Ellis though:

So after were all recharged it was off to Florence. We went on the train this time and if I thought the tunnels on the roads were long the one on the train trip was unbelievable.

So here we are on the Ponte Vecchio a pretty weird bridge with shops on.

Jewellery shops too, I loved them and wanted enough bling to make Mr T struggle to hold himself upright under the weight of it. I promised mum i'd put my own shoes on all the time if I could have some, two American ladies overheard my offer and pledged to match it if she bought them some too. Sadly all three of us were declined.

They seemed to love their rowing in Italy, even in the heat!

I can't believe we've got this far without mentioning the main attraction of this part of the world, the ice cream:

We went to the Giardini di Bobboli for a walk around and some picnic lunch, the entrance was very grand indeed:

Here is the obligatory self timer shot of the week:

And here is a shot I begged dad to take of my butt:

After a long slog up the hill (with Ned in the buggy I might add!) we got some great views over Florence if that sort of thing floats your boat:

Our main reason for coming to the park was to see Bacchus though, we searched for him everywhere:

We couldn't understand any of the maps of the place as they were all in Itailian and we had given up all hope of finding him. We we're heading for the door when we spotted him just by the exit! A naked bloke, riding a giant tortoise. If thats what wine does for you, you can keep it!

We headed on for the Piazza Della Signoria which was full of statues. I was intrigued by them but to be honest some of their facial expressions rather unsettled me:

They didn't bother me, I was fast asleep:

I did a little people watching too:

I slept some more:

We wandered around the Duomo, it was okay I suppose but it was getting pretty hot and we getting al ittle weary:

So we headed back to the railway station to head back to base. Which was a great idea but the information boards were a little lacking and we had no idea what train to get on. Mum went off to find out and came back directing us to platform 16 to board the train that was just leaving.

Dad sat in silence, terrified we were heading off in completely the wrong direction into the Tuscan countryside, never to be re-united with the hire car again.

I don't know why he was so worried, everyone knows mum's a train spotter!
We earned another day by the pool after our cultured jaunt, and seeing as the bread was of such a poor standard we had to ditch the picnics in favour of the poolside catering, result!

Dad was the lucky recipient of my soggy sleepy cuddle up session this time, doesn't he look cool with his sunglasses falling off:

So here we are in our stylish pool attire, a Belgian lady was coveting my sunsuit actually, apparently you can't get them in Belgium:

And I finally relaxed my no photo's rule for this one of me by the best pool ever.

And here it is in all it's glory. I barely saw mum, dad or Ellis on our pool days and made it quite clear that I didn't want to play with them at all as I had my new found band of older friends who were much better fun. Actually, if my mates weren't about I did lower myself to spend a little bit of time with the family.

It was great to have mum and dad all to myself while Ned was far too cool to be with us actually!

All too soon it was time to come home again, rubbish! I really loved every minute of it and made it perfectly clear that we were to come back again as soon as possible.

When we got back to the airport to come home the weather looked none too clever so it was probably a good thing we were leaving:

Once we were inside the terminal building, I found my friend from the cafe chair near disaster the previous week and we wasted no time at all getting into more mischief! We were soon on the plane and heading home, resuming our normal positions of DS and window for me...

...and sleeping across as many laps as I could stretch to for me!
So then it was back to school, nursery and work for everyone...until next time!

We had another after school trip to the park to see which ones of Ned's friends were about......unluckily for everyone else at the park, and indeed anyone within earshot (probably about 150 miles?) it was Alastair!
We had a great time, chasing each other, climbing, running, having a bundle and then antagonising the older kids through the fence at the athletics club!
Andy looked after us on Thurday night after tea. I'm not sure what Mum and Dad were up to though?
Finkley Down farm then, we had our school trip. It was great on the whole, except I didn't get to hang out with my mates all day like i'd hoped, we were in small groups. Never mind. I didn't even get to sit on the back seat of the coach as the grown up helpers/teachers did (I guess you never grow out of some habits eh?). Never the less it was a good day out, the animals were great, especially the chicks we got to hold, nearly everyone else's did a poo on them. Best of all was the go-karts and playground though.....
I hope you're all ready for another shock this week....we didn't go anywhere over the weekend!
We didn't, but I did have a haircut! That took a very long time indeed, there was a lot of it. I had decided that it was high time for it to go though so I had to be patient while the lady hacked away. The lollypop was a well deserved reward I think.
I got one too and didn't even have a haircut!
We carried on into town afterwards, I bought myself some new spiderman sunglasses:

As well as a Star Wars Clone Wars t-shirt. I am very cool indeed. We went to show off my new look to Auntie Christine in her shop.
I got a smart new sun hat!
We had a visit to the park on the way home and I amazed Mum, Dad and even Ned with my advanced climbing abilities.
Once home we aettled down to watch Total Wipeout, my new favourite programme, apart from Primevil, oh or Beat theStar....
Sue came round to look after us in the eveniong as Mum and dad were going out for a second weekend running! I don't know that they think they're up to?
Needless to say we had a lovely time without them!
We all had a lovely lay in on sunday morning.....
And in the afternoon we went to see Kimi, he's two now!
We had a lovely time playing with his toys that he shared with us very nicely.
And I got to look really big compared to Marny.
We got home and had a cuddle:

Swimming again on Monday. Things didn't start too well when dad wanted me to get out of the car before i'd had my fill of Frank Turner on the CD player......I had a right old crying fit and refused to go into the pool. I gave in eventually and did pretty well actually. Dad keeps telling me that it's not a race when we have to work our way accross the pool but it's hard not to get caught up in it. Still, I do try and managed to get accross the pool first without resorting to running instead of proper swimming.
I've decided that the potty just isn't for me after all, no, I want the proper toilet instead! I made sure I told everyone that I managed my business on the proper toilet last night as well. I even had a go at Nursery today, that impressed them no end! As did my skills at body painting this morning.
So that pretty much brings us up to date, there's a short video in a pathetic attempt to try and distract everyone from the lack of photo's this week and to try and make up for the lack of update next week as we'll be on holiday.
Not Cornwall this time though..............

Hello again, here we go with another round of news.
Yup, first off i'm doing a lot of walking backwards. I can do forwards easily, even running (especially now i've decided to keep my hands out of my pockets which makes falling over much more pleasant).
It was announced last week at school that we are having a trip to Fnkley Down farm this coming Friday, i'm so excited about it you wouldn't believe it. I've been having a christmas style how many more sleeps type countdown and everything. While we're on school news I got to do show and tell again this week! Check me out! I sat and did a lot of writing (mostly animal names) and a few pictures that seemed to go down well with the teachers, I think i'm on to something with my choice of materials......
So then, wednesday is still shopping day, still learning my colours with the fruit and veg. Really good on strawberries, raspberries and red peppers, not too bad with carrots or orange peppers and passable with banana's. So i'm not doing too bad really.
Chard appeared on our front garden last thursday afternoon, which was something of a surprise. He'd been doing some manual labour at my school and thought he'd pop in for a bit. We had a great game of slaps!
Friday we went down the park after school, Ned loves it as a lot of his friends seem to go down there. I don't mind, that means I get Dad to myself, to push me on the swings for ages and help me with my jumping.
Down the park with my friends from school is brilliant fun!
So the weekend then, now brace yourselves for a shock........we had a day out in Thatcham!
But it wasn't as bad as it may first seem, we went to the bike jumps on the sports field, I wanted a go:

It was my idea to go there, so I can take the blame:

Here we are checking out our lines (we're like the Athertons http://www.athertonracing.co.uk/ )

Once we'd had our fill of wheeled action we took to the park:

Mum looked really comfy on this roundabout:

The hunger was obviously kicking in by now so we headed to the Discovery Centre for a picnic. Mum had never ventured any further than the playground before so she was pleasantly surprised.

We even walked all the way around the lake (once we'd managed to bribe Ned):

I do like a climbing oppurtunity:

We stopped to wash our hair:

And then finally reached the playground, hooray!

Auntie Christine came to babysit, I was more than happy with the arrangement and made sure I had plenty to say to her!

I needed a little encouragement but soon came round to the idea of course, I was just tired after our thrilling day out and mildly traumatised by Primeval on the telly!

Lazy day sunday, we watched some bike racing on the internet, watched some cars racing on the telly, we played in the garden in our tent which we filled with toys and cushions to give it a more lived in look. We went for a short and sweet walk up the field and then did a little tidying up in the garden, it's actually starting to look like somewhere you might want to play for a bit......

Especially on Monday when Dad removed the fence by the path (under mum's instructions), it's provided us with a great little slope to ride bikes and scooters down, or my favourite, me driving the tractor with Ellis in the trailer!

We headed back to the park straight after school again today, Alastair was there this time, we terrorized the park for a bit and then started on the bigger kids doing athletics in the field next to the park!

Had I mentioned that I can't wait until friday?

We went up the common with the Halfords last week. We found a suitable dwelling for ourselves and made a few small amendments just to put our own stamp on it:

What he really means is we piled more logs up until the whole structure was really unstable and Ned was the only one daft enough to get inside it!

I contemplated life as a pixie:

But decided that a life with limited access to shoes simply wasn't for me.
We also like a nice cosy up now and again too:

So then it was soon enough the weekend! A long one too. Great.

Yup, Saturday morning we went to the Oasis for some swimming action, it's been a while since i've been so I really enjoyed it. I went on my first ever flume ride too with Dad, we spent ages climbing the steps until we finally reached the top and launched ourselves down a water chute that twisted and turned all the way down to a splash pool at the bottom. I loved it.

And I really loved jumping in off the high wall, especially when the wave machine was going as then I could make sure I only jumped when the water was really low and hit the bottom every time, despite Mum and Dads timing advice!

It was also Deans birthday so we headed off to the bowlers arms to watch some cricket and take a long cool drink on the decking outside, lovely!

Yeah, Max, Thomas and I also got a little game going when someone lent us a bat and a ball! Then it was onto the Halfords for a barbecue.

We played in the garden....

...and the boys headed upstairs to watch Star Wars when it got too cold and dark outside. I was not happy having to leave at midnight at all, I still had plenty left in the tank!

A lovely lay in on Sunday before heading off to Grandad and Anne's for lunch, and then off out to do the scarecrow trail, this years theme, tales and fables! Just my area of expertise!

Here I am contemplating one of the more cryptic entries:

The three little pigs was easilty solved though:
As was Pinocchio:

I got to walk loads and make friends with all the Wanborough cats so I was very pleased!

Crafty raft day on Monday, the boats are not very interesting if truth be told (we only saw a couple anyway), but the fair, thats a different proposition alltogether!

Max and I went on the tiny teacups:

Dad helped the man on the ride out a little with the odd sneaky spin for us. i think we enjoyed it a lot more than Ben did.....

Then of course it was wrestling time with uncle Al, he loves it!

And then finally I got to get in on the fun, I loved this roundabout:



Yeah, I didn't mind having to look after her on it in the least:



We walked back to Andys, I tried to take as few real steps as possible:



We bumped into Uncle Slim and Trace at a barbecue, I helped them reverse a landrover with no backwards gear, as you do:


And then Andy came round for tea with us, doing his best to provide equal lap space for us both to watch you've been framed!
Okay then it's time for this weeks gardening round up, Dad's carrotts are still showing no signs of growing at all, my cress that I bought home form school on the other hand is really flourishing!
I finally got to do show and tell at school, i've been trying to do it for weeks but never get picked. Mum reckoned i'd dtand a better chance with one of many paper aeroplanes than my previous hope of the Ben 10 watch. She was right!
And a few bits of Ellis news, I can now manage a roly-poly! How about that? I did my first public one on saturday night to a rapturous reception. I'm still expanding my vocabulary at every oppurtunity and i'm not doing quite as much falling over as I used to. I'm also having a great time at nursery with Eva, my friend. Every when Dad comes to pick me up we're the only two still awake, and although sometimes we are having a cosy time in the book corner, more often than not we're climbing on something, or sat at the table making a mess with some art stuff or just generally running about being nuisances!