Had a few issues last Tuesday.  First of all, Mum came home from work at lunchtime as she was poorly.  Unluckily for her, Dad had taken the bike to work so when she rang him at lunchtime the best he could offer her was a ride on the crossbar of the bike home.  It was lovely to walk home with her though, dad pushing his bike with me in the back and Mum with the empty pushchair.

And at school I fell off the climbing frame and bumped my head a bit while I was hanging upside down.  I had a bit of a stiff neck too, but nothing to worry about.

To give Mum some quiet time to be poorly in style we headed off out to the pet shop to have alook at the rabbits and the fish.

And to try out all the squeaky dog toys.  Most satisfying.  We had to go to Sainsbury's too to get a few things for pancakes.  We needed a lemon and some ice cream but I decided that a nice bunch of flowers would help Mum feel better so we got some of those too.

I refused the pancakes outright and settled for a load of Jaffa Cakes.

I really liked the idea of the pancakes, but decided I didn't really like them that much.  Dad arrived at a similar conclusion so we set about the ice cream instead.

Wednesday trampolining was super busy again.  I love it when there's loads of others there and I didn't even mention Bumpers once.

I had my multi skills after school again, I love it.

When we went to Tesco on Thursday we saw Ned's friend Tegan's Mum.  I thought that was really cool and a real one up on Ned.  She thought I was being a really good girl as I was quite happily walking round the shop helping Dad buy things.  Some of them he even actually needed.  Like the bright pink and purple dish washing brush, very him.

Friday night we went to play with Kimi and Marny for a bit while the grown ups did some boring stuff or another.  Was great fun and as it turned out a very late night.

Which meant we weren't supposed to be up to much on Saturday.  We had a slug-around morning and then headed off to look at cars again.  AGAIN!  Boring boring boring boring.

We went to have lunch in Sainsburys cafe afterwards and had a wander around Wantage town, exciting stuff eh?

We loved the jewellers shops and we got some new books though so that was good.

And I also got some free samples of some fancy cat food for my beloved Poppy, she loved it.

When we got home I wanted to put a little idea I had into practice.  I'd made a kite at breakfast club and wondered if the two fans we had in the garage would generate enough wind for me to fly it indoors:

And it did, of a fashion....once we'd put a weight in the bottom to stop it from spinning.

It was race day again on Sunday, I think you'll find this is how most premier athletes prepare for a big day of competition:

I couldn't wait to get on the track and do a few laps.  I did a few with Dad but shouted at him if he overtook me.

Another cool thing was seeing my name at the top of the table for the series after the last event, Ned Atkins, Male 7 years, 50 points, position number 1. 

I couldn't wait to get to the park!  I love the park, there's always other children to play with and loads of climbing to do.  Having said that I did insist on wearing a lovely dress so had to try and keep a bit clean.

Once i'd bored Mum and Dad senseless with the park my saviour arrived...ANDY!

I loved showing him round the place and took him on a track tour.  I had a bit of crash in practice, well I say a bit of a crash, I was t-boned by another boy when I sort of pulled out onto the track in front of him.  We both went down pretty hard and I was pretty upset with myself.  He was okay though so it was okay in the end.

We were soon up on the gate for the first race, but I was in for a hard time as I was in with the 8 year olds this time:

I was pretty well beaten in the first race to be honest, everyone tried to explain that there was no one in my category in the first heat and that I was still only six.  So I was okay with it and couldn't wait for my next one.  I did much better in that and came second, I was very pleased.

I shouted for Ned again of course, from before the race even started until well after it had finished.  Well, when i wasn't in the park anyway:

In my third heat I think I came 4th or fifth against another batch of eight year olds, so I was still pretty happy.  This was enough to see me through to the A final in the 8's, I put in another good race and finished well in front of the other seven year old getting myself another 50 points for the standings.  Another succesful trip I think.
We came home and had a monster hot chocolate session.  That put us off our tea a bit so it was a good job Alan and Hayley popped round to finish it off for us.

Big exciting grown up stuff for me on Tuesday when I got a new car seat.  I'm too big for my baby one now and i've got one just like Ned's.  I was seriously pleased about this and squealed with delight when I got it out of the box and parked my bum in it.

There was a world record ten children at trampolining this week, where do they go all the other weeks?  We can't work out whats going on with this one, but i'm always glad when theres plenty of other kids there for me to show off to with my bouncing skills.

We had art week at school last week, plenty of oppurtunities for me to get messy and creative as well as take in the mountain of 'recyled' materials we'd been collecting for a few weeks..  Multi sports club has also started again on Wednesday after school. I loved it this week, we played dodgeball outside, in the sunshine.

Friday then, once I was picked up from school the car got packed and we went to the Pasty shop to source some provisions before Mum finished work.  We hit the road for Colchester in readiness for Saturdays zoo trip.

That's right, a day early so we had to stay in a hotel!  We were proper excited about that one, we could lay in bed and watch telly and eat the sweets that we had bought with us...perfect.

Needless to say, it was quite late before we finally fell asleep.....

So in the morning we were up nice and early and made a visit to the restaurant area for our breakfast.  It was amazing, we could have whatever we wanted, I told the chef that it was brilliant and that we normally get what we're given in a caravan on a tent when we're away.

There was allsorts to choose from, but I started with coco pops and then followed that with some toast, a few slices of ham, some cheese and then some fruit.

I also went for the coco pops, followed by a pool of baked beans and then the most exciting thing of all....slices of brown bread.  I love brown bread and never get it at home so this was a real treat.  I was almost tempted to toast it as the toast machine was seriously cool to watch.

So once we were fed and watered we headed for the zoo, it was only three miles away so we were there really quickly which made a pleasant change from being stuck in the car asking are we there yet over and over again.

Pretty much the first animals we came across were the penguins, we love them because they remind us of Nanny.  She would have loved these ones, a right lively lot they were, darting all around the pool.

We compared ourselves to the relative size of penguin species:

Next up was the sealions I think, they had a really cool pool with a glass tunnel that went underneath them where you could stand and watch them swim over you.

As well as some lovely big windows. 

We just so happened to be there at their feeding time too, they put on quite a show, fetching like dogs and jumping right out of the water to catch fish.

The Orang-utang enclosure was pretty impressive too, even though I couldn't escape from it:

The most impressive thing about the zoo was probably the other things you could see, like these fish in the Orang-utang house:

Yeah, there were even little monkeys in the reptile house, just hanging about from the roof.  The best little monkeys were the ones that invaded an empty push chair though.  There must have been at least four or five of them in it, the lady who was pushing it was terrified of them.  We all thought it was hilarious of course.

I like to take some pictures on such outings, this was one of my best:

The anteaters were especially lovely, the Mummy one was giving the baby a ride round on her back and then they snuggled down together in their hole, she used her big bushy tail as a blanket for the little one.

There were also a couple of my favourites, flamingoes (pink) and of course the Meerkats:

There were three lions, one boy and two girls.  They were really big, I loved them.  The were also quite active, scratching their big tree trunk like poppy does at home against the end of the sofa.

There were loads of baby piggies hassling their mummy for milk, they were really cute.

I almost got eaten by a crocodile:

Made a joey of myself:

Tried out a turtle shell for size:

Probably the coolest thing of the day was feeding the elephants I reckon, it's not every day you get to do that is it?  They were of course huge, really really massive.  So massive in fact that I dropped my morsel before the trunk managed to get it:

After an initial refusal, I gave it another go and was really pleased with myself for going through with it:

Even if I did end up with a hand covered in elephant snot for my trouble.  It soon washed off though.

The giraffe house was cool, they had a viewing gallery up high so you could watch them eating their hay, they had really long tongues and would no doubt be brilliant at eating the super long spaghetti we have at home.

There was of course a train to ride on, it took us all round the lemur enclosures and past some Wolves and African hunting dogs.

That I particulalrly liked the look of.

Then it was on to the Tiger area which I loved.  I loved watching them pad past, especially when one had a big stretch right up against the window showing everyone his lovely fluffy tummy.  I decided I wanted to give them a cuddle.

That was until we got to see the Leopards and one of them took a dislike to us all peering at him and decided to come at us with a big scary growl.

I think we all decided it was the best zoo we'd ever been to, I was well and truly tired out and fell asleep in my buggy.

Leaving me to have a play in the adventure playground on my own before we headed back to the hotel for some more snuggle up time, saturday night telly and sweeties!

We went to sleep a lot quicker this time round though!

Sunday morning and the delights of another hotel breakfast for us before a trip to the swimming pool.

There were no slides or anything but there was a rather lovely hot tub that you could make foam bubble beards out of.

I was on a right mission and was doing whole lengths of the pool with my armbands.

And I managed a length of backstroke unaided.  I was pretty impressed with that and decided that I ought to resume swimming lessons......

Then it was back to the room to pack our things and check out.

Which gave me one more chance to creep along under the reception desk to avoid detection by the lady behind it as we left.  I'd been doing it every time we came in or went out, she loved it.

No one wanted to get up Monday morning.

I wanted to be back at the hotel........

First off, there's a few pictures that Alan took on our London trip last week. First up, outside the imperial war museum (that little speck in the middle is me!):

And here we are inside with the type of planes my Great Grandad used to work on during the war:

And here's one of me on the 'Shark Walk' at the London Aquarium, a glass floor with big sharks swimming about underneath...cool or what?

Dad took my buggy to work in the car on Wednesday morning, the fool. How was I supposed to get to nursery? In the long forgotten double buggy! I loved it, found it hilarious and enjoed the luxury of all that space. There was room for Ned too....

.....but I decided i'd rather ride my bike to Dragon club thanks Ellis. Dragon club was cool, we played table football and we got to play loads of Playstation on the cosy sofa. I was pretty disappointed when Dad came to pick me up at lunchtime if i'm honest, i'd love to have stayed all afternoon. Still, we went home and got the Playstation 2 games out that Dad has kept hidden from me for all these years. What a rotter, some of them were brilliant, we played shooting games, racing games and skateboarding games.

While I had a nice kip after a busy day at nursery.

We had a trip to the bowling alley with Dragon club on Thursday which was really cool. When we got back we had a game of football outside. I wasn't too bothered when Dad came to pick me up at lunchtime as we were going to see Mum for lunch (something I don't get to do when i'm at school).

We obviously disagreed about where we were going to go for lunch, I favoured the Pasty shop.

And I was hell bent on McDonalds.

Mum brokered a pretty impressive compromise though and we went to the Pasty shop first for my sausage roll...

.....and then headed for McDonalds for the rest of us.

It was such a nice day that Dad insisted we go outside in the afternoon rather than another Playstation session.

I suggested the Wash Common park, and after a small 'discussion' the verdict was unanimous, Wash Common park it was:

We went super high in the basket swing before I climbed all the way to the top of the big climbing frame:

Dad was a bit edgy to say the least, so once I was back down I made sure I went up again to help him get used to the idea that it was well within my capabilities and I wasn't going to fall.
The trampoline that's sunk into the ground was well and truly full of water, it was hilarious watching the bigger kids jump up and down on it and get soaking wet, especially the seat drops. Looked a bit cold though.

Yeah, we gave it a miss. We even had time for a quick Playstation session after the park, but it's okay, i'm not addicted or anything, honest.

What with it being half term and all our schedule was all up in the air so Dad and I were heading for Tesco on Friday afternoon.

I caught wind of this and didn't fancy going with them one little bit. I had a word with Mum and she arranged with Dragon Club so that I could stay on later than normal and miss the shopping trip hell. Result. I had a much better time, we did skateboarding, cake baking and even managed to squeeze in a little Playstation action.

We had a bike ride once we'd got home from the shops and picking Ned up. I always start off full of enthusiasm but pretty soon run out of steam.

It was very muddy down the lane, and there was loads of dog poo to ride through, not so good.

While we were waiting to pick Mum up from work I decided to have a good old puke and got myself and my car seat in a proper mess. Oops. It was rubbish as I was only allowed water and none of my beloved apple juice. I also had a bit of an incident in bed a bit later on as well.

So Saturday morning I wasn't really up to much and snuggled up on the sofa with my Hello Kitty blanket, it has wonderful healing qualities though and I was feeling okay by lunchtime.

I took the oppurtunity to get and build some quality Lego and managed to get Dad involved for a bit too.

We had a trip out in the car in the afternoon to go and look at getting another car, but we didn't see any we wanted and came home again. Exciting eh?

Sunday then, and in spite of the weather forecast it was race day! Proper race day this time, the first round of the Gosport BMX club Summer series (optimistic lot aren't they?). We even had to travel in old school mode as Andy had borrowed the sat nav for his holiday, Mum's navigational skills are awesome though so we arrived safely, even though Dad tried to make us go the wrong way.

As soon as the bike was out of the car I was off for a few practice laps, I even managed to get Dad to ride round with me. He didn't need much persuading to be honest.

Mum took me to the adjoinig park and i made friends with a boy called Tom. We had a great time climbing and walking over the bridges. Best of all though was Tom's dog, he pushed us round in the roundabout, how cool is that?

I decided I wanted to show Mum how cool I was at riding the track, so made her stand on the second corner. She got there just in time to see me get a bit of a wobble on and hit the ground, hard. She helped me off the track and we had a little cuddle before retireing to the car to start on the picnic to recuperate. The weather took a turn for the worse and it started to rain quite heavily. Everyone else seemed to clear off to their cars and abandon practice. Not me and a select band of three others who kept on plugging away (we were all about the same age). I told Dad it was good practice. Dad had signed me up and pretty soon the race schedule was posted on the board. The rain seemed to ease off a bit just in time. I was in the 7 year old catgeory and was in gate two (near the inside, my favourite) of the very first race. We had to line up in the pens before hand:

Notice my Lightning McQueen inspired 95 number plate? A blast of Prodigy came over the PA as we moved up to the gate. It was really cool to hear the announcer call my name out. I got all lined up and ready to go and waited for the gate to drop. We were soon underway, I had a great start, straight into the lead:

And managed to stay there all the way to the end!

Me and Mum were screaming at him to pedal as we watched him. We were so proud that he won.

And I was pretty pleased too! I couldn't really believe it, I don't think Dad could either, I think he something in his eye?

For race two I had lane five, and once again got another great start, I got the lead into the first turn and pulled out an even bigger gap than the previous race. Two wins out of two anyone?
Mum and I did our usual screaming from the side lines of course.

I did concess that I think that they're screaming played a vital part of my victory.

Race three then, I had gate seven on the outside. As we lined up we were the race behind the fastest grown ups. I watched what they did to try and pick up some tips, my goodness they were fast, wheelieing all the way down the start ramp and flying over the first jump.

The it was our race, I gave the boy to my outside the thumbs up before we started as he looked a bit nervous.

It was business as usual, I took the lead form the start:

And crossed the line first again, three out of three in my heats:

Not bad for a first timer eh?

There was a bit of a wait before finals time which allowed the weather to get proper nasty with hail stones and all sorts. I was a bit worried there would be no one to race when everyone scurried back to their cars. It soon eased off though and the finals were announced. We were up first and I got my pick of the gates. I plumped for gate two near the inside again. I didn't get it all my own way this time though and finished a close second. I was a bit quiet initially, but soon realised i'd done really well and was pleased with how i'd done. I'm entirely sure about my final finishing position though as there were some merged age groups for the finals.

I wanted to ride some more but Mum, Dad and Ellis were pretty keen to get home. The let me have one last lap.

So that was my first proper race meeting done and dusted. I was muddy, soggy, cold and tired but I loved every minute of it.

And here I am, the calm before the vomit storm:

I thought i'd end the weekend in the same way as i'd started it, with a good old puke. A lovely cheese baugette puke all over myself and most of the car interior. We had to stop for Mum to try and clear me up the best she could (i'd already used my spare clothes for the day getting muddy at the track). For good measure I had another little go just as we pulled into our road, lovely.

It didn't put me off my well earned hot chocolate, heavily topped with marsh mallows and a crushed up flake bar though:

Back to school today, and I told everyone I came accross about my racing exploits, i'll get as boring as Dad before long.

It all kicked off after tea tonight, Ned was taking on all comers with his sword while I was dressed up as a doctor, ready to tend Ned's slain victims wounds.

We made a pretty good team actually....

This weeks big news, i've decided I don't really need my toilet seat thingy, my bum is sufficiently large now that I won't fall into the pan. Poppy and I are still deeply in love of course:

This is how we like to spend our afternoons.

While were on the subject of cats, we've been making cat masks and writing a group poem at school to read out to the foundation class children. I've really enjoyed that. We also started work on my Nursery Rhyme/Book Character fancy dress for school on friday. As i'm currently enjoying the stories of the Wishing Chair we decided to make me a wishing chair of my very own:

We made a hole in the seat part for me to get into with a lovely pair of shoulder straps to keep the chair off the ground. For a final touch we added a pair of stuffed trousers (with shoes attached) so it looked like I was sitting down and floating about.

Trampolining had a few more takers this week, didn't stop me clearing off to bumpers as soon as possible again though.

I was a little concerned after our shoppping trip on Thursday that the boot would eat all the food once dad had loaded the car up...ha ha! While we're on the subject of shopping, I sort of broke an egg while looking in an egg box. Oops, I made Dad promise not to tell Mum.

Friday was last day of term andf the aforemntioned fancy dress day. I was a little unsure about whether I actually wanted to go through with wearing my chair (even though I had added a rather fine set of red shiny wings). I had a little chat with Mum about it before I left and we decided it was a good idea to go through with it. I was glad I did, i got loads of laughs and all the grown ups at school thought it was brilliant, especially my teacher Mrs. Jackson. It was a little difficult to get around school in though, especially up and down stairs. Once shool was finished I finally got Dad to take to the book fair in the hall. I knew exactly what I wanted, a cup cake book with loads of lovely looking cakes for us to bake.

We went bowling on Saturday morning, we hadn't been for ages so we were well up for it.

It was really busy when we got there though so we had to have a go on the arcade before our lane was ready.

When we did get playing I decided to do away with the ramp and throw the ball all by myself:

And with a finishing score of 129 (including one strike and five spares) i'd say it worked out rather well for me. I beat Dad's 122, even if I couldn't quite beat Mum too.

I stuck with the ramp with Dad helping:

In the afternoon it was baking time. Now i'm all big I get to do some of the dangerous hot stuff on the cooker:

I was really good and didn't do any tasting at all:

We were like a well oiled machine, Mum in charge, Dad sorting out utensils and ingredients and Ned and I applying the skills:

They were of course wonderful.

I had Alastairs party on Saturday night, Laser Tag at Eddie Katz, and I was seriously excited. We had a great time of course and I was on the winning team with Alastair which made things even better.

I had a game of Donkey and the Carrot with Mum and Dad whilke Ned was out, I won!
Very weird things happened Sunday, we washed our car, by hand. Not in the machine at the garage.

We loved it, squirting and splashing and soaping, some it even went on the car:

It was lovely and shiny when we were finished. We headed inside for a well earned rest and sofa duvet snuggle:

We went to the cinema in the afternoon and met up with Kimi and Abi to go and see Gnomeo and Juliet. All us kids sat together and made the grown ups sit at the ends of the row.

This was all very well and good until Abi was sick about ten minutes into the film. I went to sit on Mum's lap a bit sharpish to get away from it and start on the smuggled sweets.

Oh yeah, the cupcakes we made looked like this:

Not bad eh? We're very talented.

Monday was the first day of half term, we had a day with the Aunties, Trish and Christine.

We started off by going to Sainsbury's and stocking up on provisions before heading to the Arlington Arts theatre to see a show called the Very Noisy Night about a little teddy bear.

We had seats right at the front and got to meet the performers before the show started (this was double cool as we got our names mentioned during the show).

We loved it, and then we were off to Pizza Hut!

Before heading back to Auntie Christines to fisnish off some cake making and watch Mary Poppins.

Brilliant, thank you Aunties for a lovely day.

Day two of the holidays and it was back to nursery for me.

And a day out with Uncle Alan for me. Now apparently he was a rather terrified about having to entertain me all day but he needn't have worried of course. We got on the train to London to go to the Imperial war museum. I was so excited about this, I love all the Army stuff and the history element and having my very own military geek boy to take me was just the job. We saw loads of cool stuff, even real tanks that fought in the war! I learned loads as well, which will no doubt come out in dribs and drabs over the next few months. We were heading to see HMS Belfast in the afternoon but got rather sidetracked by the London Aquarium instead. This was also very cool, there were really big sharks in the tanks and there were bits where you could walk out on the glass over them, scary stuff. Thanks a lot Alan, I had a great time and i'll be on school holidays again in six weeks time.

And what was I doing while Ned was having a great time in that there fancy London? I was being a proper little Madam thats what. It started at lunchtime when I decided to tip my water all over the table for fun and generally cause a load of mischief. They were just telling Dad all about this at pick up time when there was a bit of a kerfuffle in the toilets. We were all soaked, had our hair full of liquid soap and were chucking handfulls of wet paper towels about...oh dear, caught red handed as well. My mood wasn't any better in the afternoon really...sorry Ned for saying I didn't like my sea horse that you bought me, it really was lovely.

First of all, a picture that we missed out last week, the two tone jelly:



As you can see, the choice of colours left a lot to be desired.
So after my racing exploits last week, I decided what I really needed was a nice set of matching race pants and jersey. As soon as I was home from school on Monday night the piggy bank was emptied and counted and I decided I had enough savings to splash out. We trawled the internet looking for the coolest ones we could find and put in my order. They arrived only two days later in the post:

I was proper pleased with them and refused to take them off, well, until tea time anyway. I didn't want to slop on them did I!
I was the only one at trampoline club this week. What a shame. Still, we made the best of it, I had a really good bounce, started learning front drops (which are quite an advanced move apparently) and even managed to get Dad on with me for a few games of cat and mouse. We had half an hour in Bumpers too which I think i'm starting to like more than the trampolining.
I was pretty sleepy on Thursday and needed a bit of moving to get me out of bed in the morning. I wasn't happy and had a big old crying fit when mum dropped me off at nursery.
I had to show the class my racing pictures as one of the ladies from breakfast club thought that I was super cool. Much more exciting than that though was Tegans's party...laser tag at Eddie Catz no less. It was brilliant and we had a great time and I want to do it for my birthday too.
I suggested we go out for a walk on Friday night after tea, even though it was dark. We took a torch each and went out for a wander and it was really rather good.
Yeah, even I enjoyed it once I was moving.
We had a trip to Park House school on Saturday to see a model railway exhibition, I took the role of tour guide as i've been up there before with school.
We loved counting the carriages on the trains.
And there was even some trains you could drive. I cranked the speed dial up to max and de-railed a few of course.
In the afternoon we had a wander down the little shop for some sweets and then went to have a play in the park. There's a load of new stuff going in so thats pretty exciting:

It still isn't finished though so we'll have to wait a bit longer before we can enjoy it I suppose.

Alan, Hayley and Andy came round in the evening, it was lovely to see them of course.

Even if we did get shoved off to bed before all the cool geeky games came out. I wish I could play too.

Sunday didn't start too well. We decided to go swimming in Basingstoke in the morning, Andy came along for the ride too. When we arrived at he pool though we were told the boiler was broken and so the pool was shut, I was devastated.

I didn't care that much, I can take or leave swimming really.

We decided to carry on for Bracknell to try and salvage the situation but when we got there the queue was way out into the car park so we gave that a miss. I was very upset.

So it was a good job we were going to Auntie Christines for lunch then really wasn't it?

Auntie Trish and Laura were there too so it was a nice get together. We had a lovely time of course and got to a bit of another really cool film, Mary Poppins, can't wait to see some more of that!

And I got to put my new 'loan' baby to sleep in 'my' bedroom at Auntie Christines. Laura was also laying claim to the bedroom though, so i'm sure we can share it nicely.....

Then of course it was SUnday night bath time:

My new best friend Molly was at trampolining again. Her Mum said that she cried all afternoon last week after she had gone home because she wanted to play with me! We shared a trampoline and had a lovely time. The biggest surprise of all though was the amount of children that actually turned up this week, a record breaking 8 no less.
Now this is something I may live to regret but I got Dad to ask my teacher for some harder maths for me at school on Thursday. I really do love my nmbers and wanted more of a challenge. Fortunatley my teacher agreed with me and told Dad that I was rather good with the numbers and she'd make sure I got some harder sums to do. I was really pleased about that.
Friday night saw the long awaited return of front room weekend warm up disco time at home.
We had all our favourites on and even managed a game of musical statues.
Before I decided I should take my clothes off and throw down my best moves. I was tyring to get Mum to do likewise but for some reason she declined my suggestion.
We were up bright and early Saturday to go and see Tangled at the cinema. Sadly we had to walk as apparently it isn't worth taking the car?
I was really excited about seeing the film and had been going on about it for days. I loved it too, Rapunzel had lovely magic hair!
I really liked it too, especially the horse Maximus.
But I think Mum liked it best of all.
We went to see Joshua's new house in the afternoon, just so happened to be his Mum's birthday too, so there was plenty of cake on offer.
And a lovely get together for all us kids and Joshua's toys.
Not to mention a great game of chase and tickle the younger kids for me!
As if we hadn't had a cool enough day already we went to Pizza Hut with Yanna and Fen afterwards too, lovely.
It was a pretty late night in the end, but nothing was going to keep me in bed for too long on Sunday...Race day! Yes I was finally going to go racing on my new BMX and I was seriously excited. I got signed in and then got my race number:

Then I had a few laps of the track. I'd never ridden Gosport track before, but I think I got the measure of it pretty quickly, even with a really strong headwind in places:

I gave Ned a few tips from the observations I had made during his warm up laps (inbetween splashing in lovely muddy puddles and climbing banks of dirt in Mum's borrowed gloves):

There was a bit of a riders briefing before things got underway:

I was pretty keen to get going, so was first at the gate for my first heat:

And we were soon away for my first ever proper race. I put in a good performance too, finishing in second place. The highlight though had to be my super inside line passing move on the second to last corner. Apparently all the dads that were watching from the bank loved it!

I secured another two second places in my next two heats:

And managed to stay the right way up:

Then it was time for the final:

My first full gate start but, I wasn't at all worried about it. I didn't have as fast a start as some but I managed to pick off plenty of riders on my way finishing up in 4th place (out of 9). I should also point out that the three that beat me are regular club members and have raced before so I was pretty pleased to say the least.

I can't wait to go again!

When we got home we did something far more relaxing and decorated my new cat toy:

And after tea we ate the mega cool two tone jelly we had been making for most of the weekend. The only problem was that we used blackcurrant and strawberry flavour jellies so there wasn't that much difference in the colours when it was turned out on a plate. Never mind, next time we'll go for lime and tangerine perhaps!