Long time no see eh?
We've been rather busy so sorry we're all behind. We'll do our best to catch up and get everyone up to speed.
With the car in the garage for an extended stay I got plenty of bike time in with Dad before we went away, I wasn't complaining, but he most certainly was!
I broke up from scool...hooray! I proudly bought home the easter cards that I had made. they really were very good even if I do say so myself. We lounged about for the afternoon, before Alan kindly came to pick us up in the Gayo to go and collect our car which was finally fixed. I think he enjoyed his 20 minute drive accross town with it's rapid fire question and answer session mixed with a good old dollop of utterly inane nonsense....
Friday was a bank holiday, but Mum went to work. This turned out to be a good move on her part as were able to make her birthday cards and sneak into town to get her a birthday cake. We also managed to fit in baking several hundred cookies and getting me some nice new wellies in preparation for our holiday in Wales.
The journey was soon dealt with.
Although I did not like driving along some of the high up roads through the mountains one little bit, Mum told me to shut my eyes which did seem to help.
I loved it, we saw snow and mountains and waterfalls and people canoeing, bike riding and rock climbing as well as loads of farm animals, best of all being all the baby lambs out in the fields.
And here we are, living it up in Snowdonia:

We stayed in a Barn that had been made into a house, Ned and I had a lovely big room to sleep in.

Yeah the house was lovely and big, plenty of places to go and explore or even maybe hide. We especially liked the wet room and it was much better than having a bath. Apparently it's the cleanest we've ever been what with all the shower and hot tub action.

We made sure we went in the hot tub at least once a day, one evening we even stayed in until the stars came out!

Of course it also just happened to be easter on our first full day, the bunny had found us and the hunt was on!

Easter? Did someone say easter?

Once we had gorged ourselves silly on chocolate we headed out to Criccieth, our nearest village with it's beach:

Next stop on the whirlwind tour was Pwhelli, where they had a fair. The bumper cars were totally brilliant, so brilliant in fact that they were too much fun to get the camera out at all!

Next up was the fastest motorbike i'd ever been on. So fast infact that after two white knuckle laps I wanted off.

Once i'd sacked off that dead weight it went even faster.

And then it was time for a more sedate moment, ice cream, surrounded by spring Daffodils:

Then it was on to a place rather menacingly called Hells Mouth, it was much nicer than it sounded though:

It was just like being in Cornwall with all the surfers about.

I got to fly our new kite (thanks Andy), I was really good at it too, it was a proper two string one and I soon got the hang of steering it and dive bombing families out for a lovely walk on the beach.

So then, trains....there's loads of them in North Wales so we were obviously going to sample some.

First up was the Ffestiniog, I took the oppurtunity to send Uncle Slim a postcard while we were on board:

While I decided to find myself a fancy luxurious seat for myself and baby:

It was a really good journey, we raced cars, we crossed rivers, we saw waterfalls and animals in their fields.

We stopped off at one of the stations on the way back, there was a playground that we loved and a smart bridge where you could get covered in steams from the trains passing below:

And to top it all off they were doing footplate rides. Dad and I had never done this before so we were dead keen. I asked the driver loads of questions about what everything did and couldn't believe how hot the firebox was when he opened the door. It was all a bit smelly though.

I loved it too after being gently coaxed aboard:

Ned and I pretended to be a train when we got off:

Back at base camp we ate our meals in the kitchen so we could keep an eye on Dads cooking and monitor his wine consumption. The stools were really high and spinny which obviously went down well with us.

I also insisted that every meal be candle lit (including breakfast), so many thanks to Auntie Christine for the tea light set she found us at her shop the other day:

It was at about this point I decided i'd investigate my bedside lamp a little further. However I don't think stick my two sucky fingers directly on the bulb was the best idea in the world. A loud shriek, two blisters and a lot of crying later and Mum was soon on hand with a glass of iced water to pllunge my seared finger tips into. She was really lovely and sat by my bed for ages until I dropped off to sleep. I understand Dad sat downsatirs watching telly and stuffing easter eggs down his gullet while all this was going on.

Out and about again, this time Portmeirion, or Porkmeirion as I decided it should be renamed. Weird place but great fun for exploring.

With loads of weird places to get into:

We took the buggy for a trip out, I think it was feeling neglected as I didn't use it all week now i'm sooooo big:

I was the advance party, scouting out all the best places and points of interest for everyone else:

And best of all of course, ICE CREAM:

And then on Wednesday it was of course Mum's birthday! I was so excited I was ready to burst. We got the presents and cards (of our usual very high standard) out of the way early doors and then headed out to the Snowdon Mountain Railway.

We couldn't get on for two hours so we headed to a slate museum (great playground) to kill some time.
We posed for soem photo's and I tried to catch a sheep (didn't manage it):

By the time our train left the cloud had lefted and it was pretty much sunny. We borded the train and headed up and up and up some more until we finally reached the (very nearly) top!

We jumped out of the train and headed straight for the snow, before settling down for our picnic:

We could see for miles and even the helicopters flew below us:

We posed for some scenic photo's, frightening some onlookers half to death that we were about to fall off the side of the mountain in the process:

It was soon time to board the train again to head back down:

As it was Mum's birthday (have we mentioned yet that she was actually 40?) we took her out for meal in the evening to a nice little place called Abersoch.

I had my dancing shoes on and everything, but there was no dancing in the restaurant we went to. What a shame eh? Didn't put me off though, I had a little shimmy all on my own anyway.

After the meal we headed back to the car via the harbour wall:

And then it was back to the house for the cake (percy pig with a 4 and a 0 candle, smart eh?)

I think Mum had a nice birthday, even though I did decide to run into her bedroom at 4am and throw up on her floor.............oops. Sorry Mum.

Another day, another outing. This time to Shell Island. So called because of the abundant shells apparently. I found a great rusty piece of metal that I reckoned looked like a crab claw, better than shells or what eh?

You stick to your rusty metal Ellis, I was all over the shells, there were millions:

There was of course a picnic, but this time in glorious sunshine with mountains in the background, Dad was really loving it all:

And then a kick about:

I put a rather harsh challenge in on Mum, she wasn't too happy with it at all. She reckoned she was going to get the biggest bruise in history on her leg, I think she was rather disappointed when it failed to materialise..........

Then it was off to explore the sand dunes:

Rolling down them was fun:

Unless you're as tiny as I am and you can easily get lost:

We obviously had to do some digging:

And some drawing:

And then it was our last proper day, off to Greenwood forest park for the day.

I finally got to have a go at some real archery, I loved it:

We drove tractors, I loved that too:

We rode sledges, I loved that:

But I loved it even more on the bigger faster version next door with Ned:

We had a boat ride, there was only one oar and I dropped it in the water:

Good job Mum managed to retrieve it.

It was okay Ned, there were ropes hanging down that Dad and I were pulling us along with anyway, you were wasting your time with the oar anyway!

There was loads of climbing of course:

And some brilliant pedal car things that Ned was really fast at pedalling, even if we did have a bit of a crash on the first lap:

And then there was the barefoot trail, I hated it, I have delicate little trotters you know.

I on the other hand loved it, so much so that me and my hobbit feet had two laps around it:

It was a rather good last day as it goes:

Oh yeah, they also did tattoo's, here's my piece (on my arm) in my best Emo picture:

So that was our holiday done and dusted. Despite Dad's scaremongering about the weather we had a lovely mostly sunny week, and hopefully Mum had a good birthday! The countdown has started for the next one, which just so happens to be on my birthday.

Birthday? Did someone say birthday? We'll be back with an update very soon on the subject of birthdays................

Had a big disappointment at trampoling club this week, I was the only one that turned up, so it didn't run. There were tears, there was a long search for a toilet and there was a trip to the park instead. So not all bad then, it was a nice warm, sunny day as well so it was actually quite nice to be outside!

Baking club certainly wasn't cancelled:

Jam centred cookies this week, Mum reckons they were the best things we've done yet!!!

Onto the weekend then, we had to go to a few shops on saturday morning as it was party time Saturday night, Charlotte's 18th no less! We were super excited and well up for a disco.

Especially as I had some nice new shoes to wear.

But sadly after making several thousand sets of duck lips using pringles, washed down with coke I had to have a lie down, and promptly fell asleep, oh dear.

I had a brief power nap before taking to the floor with Laura and Mum, we loved it, but not as much as Uncle Slim seemed to!

Happy birthday Charlotte!

So after a bit of a lie in on Sunday we headed out for some fresh air in the afternoon to the woods. It was brilliant, there was so much to see, a load of trees had been cut down so you could count their rings, here's my photo of a tree that was the same age as mum:

There was a great big puddle with frog spawn in it. I loved it so much I took a picture of it:

I gave it a gentle prod and it felt really wobbly and all gooey. Best of all though were three deer running through the undergrowth, they're really fast!

I wasn't so bothered with all the nature stuff, but I did love the squashy squelchy mud.

Much like Mum's childhood is somewhat intertwined with visits to steam railways, ours seem to be featuring rather a lot of bike riding venues. having said that, we loved running down the track, we even saw some people in funny outfits digging and riding their bikes.

The trip back up was a little more tricky however:

And involved a group rescue attempt, which I loved as it demonstrated some real teamwork:

We got to the top again unscathed in the end of course:

First up, shock news! We were doing measuring at school. We got on to head measuring...and I won! I've even got a bigger head than my teacher!
Well summer was nealy upon us last week, we made the most of it and headed for the castle with the Halford boys.
Max and I had a great time playing with another ladies Dog, Doris, or was it Boris? Either way the dog had more energy than us and loved fetching the ball:

Leo and I made ourselves comfortable on various stone sofa's, well we thought we were comfortable anyway. I also got haunted by the green puffa coat ghost, scary stuff eh?

Max struck a few poses for his modelling portfolio, here he can be seen modelling schoolwear:

And in this one underwear:

My new trainers got delivered on friday. I was almost as excited about them as Dad was, the sad act. Proper grippy, proper fast, no laces...perfect!
Friday night was proper exciting with Alan, Hayley and Andy coming round for tea!
Until I decided to try and remove two toe nails on the carpet edge thing in the doorway. Much screaming later and I finally calmed down, everyone was relieved there was any glass left unshattered.
My campaigning finally paid off and we went to Starbucks on Saturday morning for a hot chocolate. Hmmm, lovely, but not quite as nice as Dads as far as Mum and I are concerned. We pretty much used up the whole shops supply of sugar between us too!
In the afternoon, Abi came round to play:

I had to fend them off!
But I gave up at tea time:

I had a reading extravaganza on Sunday mornign with Mum, she got me to read three whole books from school in one sitting. A record, probably never to be beaten.
Then it was a trip to Grandad's, and in a rather bizarre turn of events, football was on the agenda!!!!

Yeah, it was, well Ned's rules football anyway:

Last week of Swimming lessons this week, it was play week. I was utterly brilliant at standing up on the floating mats, best surf pose and everything. The instructors thought otherwise and told me to get down pretty sharpish, but I could see that Dad was impressed in the viewing gallery. So next week I move up to level 3, with yellow hats. Sadly they had run out of yellow hats by the time I was signed up, what a shame, I love swimming hats and the amount of hair I lose every time it gets taken off...........

Going back to last week, Hugo came for tea after school on wednesday. I'd told him we were going to have sausage and mash for tea, he was well up for that. So much so that the first thing he said to Dad when we got out of school was 'can I have four sausages?' He'd upped the origianl request to five by the time we got home. We tore around the house like maniacs for a bit, played some board games, terrorised Ellis and then had tea, where Hugo's final figure for sausage consumption came in at a staggering 7!

Once we'd taken Hugo home, Andy came round to look after us as it was Ned's parents evening. We did some cuddling and watched some sort of Polica, Camera, Action programme with loads of car crashes and chasing.

It wasn't a full parents evening, it was just really about my reading and writing. Things must be going okay in that department as they didn't have words with me or anything.

Thursday and we picked Max up from school and went to play at his house which was cool as we hadn't been there for ages.

Poor old Leo had collapsed with exhaustion by the time we'd got there, the anticipation of us coming round was obvioulsy too much for him, ha ha!

Baking club friday, chocolate cup cakes this week, Ellis on tipping and pouring, me on mixing. Top results once again!

Saturday and things were a bit weird. Mum went to nursery for the day...and I didn't? Whats all that about? She went on a first aid course or something? I don't know, but I do know I didn't get a day with Suzy and Eva...not happy.

We dropped Mum off and then headed into town to pick up a few bits for Mothers day (no, we hadn't left it all until the last minute). We went to see Auntie Christine, thanks for our rubber ducks!

And then we went ot the park on our bikes to ride a little bit of skatepark and play on the swings.

We posed for a photo:

And then Ellis fell off the fence:

We went home and slumped about for a bit before making mum's cards for Mothers Day. Two very nice efforts I think this year.

It was soon time to go and pick Mum up after her long day, so we took her straight to the pub for tea. We love the pub, lovely fizzy coke...

...and apple juice in bottles!

And best of all, chips! And massive pieces of chocolate fudge cake that took several attempts to finish (punctuated with long periods of lying down snuggled up to Mum).

We even got home in time to watch the Ant and Dec game show (but we missed TV burp).

Mothering Sunday then, and it was a sunny day! Off to the beach I think.

Dad didn't bother packing the wetsuits as he didn't think we'd be interested in going in the sea, the fool:

I wasn't, the pebbles hurt my delicate little feet:

And mine, so I got a carry back:

As well as the picnic (of course), there were many sporting activities, frisbee with Dad:

Boule with Mum:

Bat and ball:

And lurching around like Bez for me:

As well as some smiley snuggling:

It was almost like a summers day, tucked up behing the sea wall out of the wind:

Swimming Monday, results were handed out for the test last week....I passed with flying colours! It was 'distance' week this week, i've earned my 5 metre badge and my 10 metre badge, i'm soooo pleased about it.

Hmm, going back to Wednesday's trampolining, i'm really loving having some new friends to play with, especially Alex. We play a game at the end called cat and mouse where we have to chase one another round and round a trampoline until one of you gets caught....I let Alex catch me very easily, rather too easily according to Dad!
It's weekly project hand in day on Thursdays, we've not had our act together too much with the projects lately, oops. Anyway, a nice bit of writing always goes down well with the grown-ups. This weeks was about sounds we hear, so I was more than keen to tie it in woth our trip to Paultons park, and produce a drawing of my favourite two rides (the Cobra roller coaster and the Trekking Tractors) along with some of the noises you could hear while we rode them:



It was soon friday, which of course means baking! Chocolate chip muffins this week.
I was on pouring in duties leaving Ellis on mixing this time around.
Yup, as usual we're a slick, efficient outfit and the results were most acceptable.
Uncle Slim and Auntie Trace popped in to see us after tea, cool!
Yeah, even I didn't do my silly shy bit and got stuck straight in since i've decided I do like Slim after all. They took Dad out to play cards and rather unbelieveably he came home with a little bit more money than he went out with.
The weekend then, we had a nice lazy Saturday morning as usual. These consist of me getting up at around 7am (+/-15 minutes), petitioning mum and dad to get up for a bit, then going to 'check on Ellis' (meaning 'wake Ellis up'). Then Ellis and I get into bed with them for a bit of a cuddle which lasts a maximum of 10 minutes before the squabbling starts over how much space we have in the bed. I then start lobbying for some breakfast, which Ellis then spoils by saying she's going to get herself a yoghurt and clearing off. I then continue to hassle them until Mum gives in and gets up to sort me out some toast and jam. This week though I sped things up a little by stealing their duvet and throwing it down the stairs! So, once we're downstairs I get the telly on and don't eat my toast and jam or talk to anyone for at least an hour. Lovely!
That pretty much sums it up Ned. We were off to the Corn Exchange int he afternoon to see 'Penguin' though, ned loves the book so I was keen to see what it was all about. We got really good seats near the front and settled down for the show. It was all done with puppets and loved it, especially the bit where he went onto space with the dancing aliens.
Hmmm, being a bit of purist, I didn't like that bit, it's no actually in the book you know!
I didn't care and lapped it up.
What I did like though was the meet and greet the performers did with the puppets at the front of the stage afterwards, penguin himself loved having his beak held shut and the little boy from the story, Ben, kept making a grab for my hair as he was jealous of it apparently.
He wouldn't have been for long, on the way home we hit the hairdressers for a team haircut.
Ned was first in the chair for a trim, quickly followed be me in the next available chair, which just so happened to be next to him. I had a lot less hair to deal with than him so I was finished first and got first dibs on the sweetie tub. I loved the haircut itself, the lady was really nice and made sure I wasn't going to worry about it at all. My first proper haircut!
We went home via the park, where I did my best to knock myself out with a quality fall and then it was home for snuggles and hot chocolate.
I got press ganged into going to the BMX track with Dad on Sunday morning, I wish I hadn't. It was freezing cold, the track was in really bad shape and I fell of badly twice (one time, I wasn't even on the bike). Rubbish, I told him i'm never going there again. So there!
We had visits from Uncle Alan and then Auntie Christine and Uncle Ian on Sunday afternoon which was very nice.
Back to school and we had a yoga man visit, I loved it, we had to do various exercises named after animals like the turtle, the tiger, the eagle and the crocodile. Mum asked me if I wanted to do it at after school club, of course I declined.....
Swimming lesson on Monday, it was test day....I think i've done allright, i'll find out next week I guess. Dad certainyl seemed pleased with how well i'd done anyway.
Then today we had a visit from the Mayor of Newbury, his job sounds really cool, he gets to open stuff, go to parties and wear some really cool gold jewellery, where do I sign up for some of that?

After Last weeks rather barren output, we've got a sumptuos phot special this week for you (with plenty of video too when it's been put together).
It was book week at school, the culmination of which was fancy dress day with the theme of your favourite book character. There was no one else that came close in my consideration:

It had to be Mr Strong of course! After some rather dangerous looking box cutting by Dad it we had to to was paint, the good bit. The only other detail was his green hat, one quick trip to the fancy dress shop and we were sorted, even if the glittery headgear was a little bit too 'disco':

And whilst we're on the subject of school we had a challenge to see who could do the most sums that gave the answer of 5. I went mad and did two whole sheets worth.

And my writing is now so good that it's officially better than Uncle Alans and deemed good enough to be used to caption our great big wall display of Newbury outside our classroom.

It was of course trampolining day on Wednesday, I'm still really enjoying it, especially as Ned has to miss out while he's at school.

Friday after school, must be time for baking club. On the menu this week, chocolate chip cookies. Dad was responsible for quantities, I was responsible for adding ingredients and Ned was on mixing duties:

We really excelled ourselves this time, they were lovely and we had enough to last all over the weekend too.

Leo came round to play on friday while Disco Max got to get his dancing trousers on. me and Leo have a great time together but Ned seems to find it all a bit too much and crashes out way too early for us.

I've had another burst of interest in photography using Mum's posh camera, here's a few of my shots:

I think they give an interesting snapshot of my life...ha ha!

Paultons Park, the first of the theme parks to open for summer, it was anything but summer while we were driving there mind you, it was tipping it down, there was even some talk of abandonning the trip in favour of drier activities.

As if we were ever going to be frightened off by a bit of rain! I think everyone else was, the place was almost deserted. We got our wellies on and had a great time:

I even found my feet a bit, got on some roller coasters and the bouncy up and down thing. I was quite pleased with myself actually.

And so was I, I got to have loads of rides, many all on my own, we didn't even have to get off on the Cobra and kept going round and round.

Swimming Monday, big, big news....I swam a length of the little pool, with no floats or anything and without touching the bottom of the pool once. Even though I say so myself, it was quite something. I've really got the bit between my teeth on this one now, to the extent that I even got myself dried and dressed afterwards instead of getting Dad to do it for me.

Spring really seemed to be in the air tonight, so instead of our usual after school TV slump-athon we headed out to get some fresh air and muddy trousers. It's pretty hard riding jumps on a bike with stabilisers, so I went for the slightly easier option of the scooter instead:

And I thought I looked pretty pro with the way my school uniform matches my bike:

The playground was good too of course: