Well it's been a while hasn't it?

Certainly has, sorry about that but time has sort of run away with us a bit.  We've been doing so many cool things it's hardly surprising really.

This update will be a big one, so we're going to use some dates to pin things down diary style, make yourself comfortable....here we go!

7th August:

Remember the Olympics?  Seems ages ago now doesn't it? 

It certainly does but it's made quite an impression on us, especially after we went.  It involved an overnight stay in London (cool hotel, much better than the Birmingham Travel Lodge thats for sure) and a very early start in the morning.

Yeah, personally I wasn't so keen on the early start myself.  Maybe I should have listened to Mum and Dad telling me to get to sleep the night before instead of mucking about and giggling until late into the night.

I was fine, we were out and walking to the Underground station at 5:30 in the morning.  I think it's fair to say we were going to beat the rush.

After a few dead ends we finally found the underground station and settled down, the lady opposite me was putting on her make up as the train trundled along.  I found it fascinationg to watch and picked up some good tips.

It didn't take that long to get accross London and we were soon at the Olympic park itself.  Having seeen it on the telly so much, I was so excited to actually be going.

I could have taken it or left it to be honest, I was pretty tired.

We sat down for a delicious breakfast of Tuc sandwich biscuits and Tracker bars....hmmmm, tasty eh?

We had time to have a wander around the park before our event was on, it was really smart, a bit like Disneyland actually, but without the rides.

There were cool things going on though, like little races (chocolate prizes too, perfect):

We got as far as the velodrome and the BMX track (neither of which we sadly had tickets for):

 Before heading back accross the park:

 Soaking up the atmosphere:

Passing the BBC studios where Nicky Campbell was interviewing Beth Tweddle:

We passed the Olympic village as well, the balconies were all decorated with different countries flags and it looked really cool.

We eventually made it back to the aquatic centre in good time to see our event:

The mens 3 metre spring board semi finals:

I know, exciting eh?  Didn't have us down as diving fans did you?

Well, as you can see, i'm really not:

I was though, it was great.  Our seats weren't as bad as Dad made out they were going to be and we were lucky enough to have a good bit of drama with the British representative, Chris Mears really raisng his game to make the final.

Raising his game?  It raised the roof thats for sure, the crowd went mad.

It was quite an atmousphere it must be said.

Once the diving was done and dusted it was on to the main event of the day, lunch, in the worlds biggest McDonalds:

Yeah, it was pretty big too!

Then of course it was off to to the 'tat' shop.

My request for this massive Wenlock was declined (well, he was £150) so I had to make do with a small one instead.

And I braved a massive crowd and a total jostle-fest to get myself some really cool badges with Wenlock riding a BMX (Dad was gutted, he wanted one too)

It had been a long day so we decided to leave in the mid afternoon.

We made the stupid mistake of leaving via the suggested route to the underground station at West Ham instead of Stratford where we came in.

Turned out to be quite a walk.....

But at least the train back accross London was pretty much empty and we got a seat no problem.

We were soon back to the car and indeed back home in time to see Chris Hoy win another gold medal at tea time.

Wednesday 8th

Back to Mr Gilhams sports holiday club, full of Olympic enthusiasm.

I had my friend Lillie there too so I was well happy.
Thursday 9th

Dragon club, wheels day.  We took our scooters.  This turned out to be a great move as we had a scooter obstacle course race, it was total carnage but great fun.

To top it off we were both made Super-dragons for the day...yay!

Friday 10th

Dragon club again, this time we had got to choose our theme.....and it was water day.

So we took in a change of clothes, a towel, and most importantly our super soakers.

I helped Mum out massively by scootering all the way there with a huge backpack on.

It was brilliant fun, we soaked everyone, kids, adults the lot.

We had the best water pistols by a mile so it made things a lot easier for us.

Dad came to pick us up, and looked a bit worried he was going to get a soaking too.

We spared him though as we had to go home and pack the car ready for Cornwall part 2.

Indeed, another week in Cornwall, lucky or what?

This was made even more brilliant by the fact that this was our group week away.  The advance party of Darcey, Laura, Auntie Christine, Uncle Ian, Owen and Auntie Trish had already left so we were playing catch up.

In light of this as soon as we had picked Mum up from work, we dropped by Andy's and headed West.

Saturday 11th

It was brilliant on Saturday morning when we got up, the sun was out and in addition Kimi, Marney, Ben and Rach had also arrived.

Once the Tesco man had been we hit the beach.

We did, we were so excited to show Darcey around.

And Auntie Trish, it was her first time down there and she had a lot to see.

The sea was as flat as a mill pond so there wasn't any surfing done.  We didn't mind though, we knew the waves were coming so we just had a lovely swim, played in the dinghy and we were treated to a fabulous synchronised swimming display by Auntie Trish and Laura.

We had a frankly exhausting game of Danish longball (wind assisted batting...not a good idea).

Although everyone soon grew tired of Auntie Christine reminding us all how baggy her wetsuit had got.

Alan and Hayley finally arrived in the late afternoon after the Gayo was a little unwell and had to visit the exhaust garage.

What a great start to the week:

We were packed off to bed strangely early on Saturday night, in readiness for our Zoo trip the next day.

Sunday 12th
Yeah, our zoo trip, we had to be in Newquay at 5am, yes, thats right 5 am! Early or what?
We got up pretty well actually (as seen in the video later) which is more than can be said for Auntie Trish who must have fancied a lay in. Ahem.
Kimi and Marney came along as well as Ben, Rach and Andy but the early start was just too much of a hurdle for the rest of the gang.
Well, they missed out.  We saw a lot of stragglers wandering around from the previous nights entertainment in Newquay or at the boardmasters festival which was quite an eye opener.
We arrived just in time, walked in and saw my old mate Garran from school (he went up to big school last year though).
It was pretty weird going to the Zoo in the dark.  We woke the monkeys up, they loved it of course.
We walked round with out guide and had a lovely time.  Things got more interesting at he penguin enclosure as we got to feed them.
We loved grabbing a hand full of stinky fish and throwing them into the pool for the penguins.
I felt rather sorry for the older ones at the back and made it my mission to make sure they got fed by launching them with a Ned-super-throw right to the back of the enclosure (see video).
We made up the Otter's breakfasts by putting meal worms inside egg cartons, tying them up with a piece of long grass.
And we made fruit kebabs for the Lemurs!
We carried on walking round the zoo, it was fully light by the time we'd finished, just in time for a lovely cooked breakfast.
After that there was a meet and greet session.
It was cool, we got to stroke a lovely lizard:

A skunk who was hiding in the ladies jumper.

He was lovely and soft, not at all smelly.

And then there was the constrictor!

Auntie Trish was not keen, not at all keen.

Andy on the other hand amazed everyone by having a stroke.

Well done Andy.

So, weirdly we were pretty much all done on our day out by 9am.  We headed back to the caravan, had a quick slouch about and then headed for the beach again.

We enjoyed the still flat conditions with the dinghy.

Yeah, we even managed to dive off it into the sea, cool or what?

We watched the Olympics closing ceremony in the evening, I for one was really sad about them ending.

Monday 13th

It was a bit gloomy first thing on Monday, so we made the most of some slouching time and an extended leisurley breakfast.

It didn't last long though, we were forced to go out for a walk: 

Well, everyone else walked, I managed to sweet talk Andy into giving me a lift on his shoulders.  He's easy prey, Mum and Dad have a habit of saying no if I ask too often.

We were heading for a bit of beach called Mother Iveys Bay.  By the time we got there the sun was well and truly out and it was looking glorious:

We hadn't bought any real swimming clobber (what a mistake-a-to-make-a!) so it was down to my knickers for a swim with Andy:

It was lovely as well, we had the beach pretty much to ourselves and had a lovley time swiming about.

I took my chance to get a few running races done with anyone who was up for it (mostly Laura).

Once we'd finished swimming I thought i'd do a spot of rock climbing and throw a few catalogue poses:

While Alan and I had a history session, relating to when this was used as a natural harbour in the olden days:

By the time we got back to Treyarnon the waves had finally started to show up, so it was surf boards out and down the beach.

Tuesday 14th

The weather was still really nice, so guess what?  We went back to the beach for the day. 

We took Darcey and her entourage for a paddle:

And competed in a vast number of Olympic inspired novelty races accross the sand (hopping, backwards, cartwheel's you get the picture) all orchestrated by Auntie Christine of course.

She'd even organised medals and held an impromptu medal ceremony.  What a legend she is!

Wednesday 15th

Todays highlight was the annual trip on the Padstow speedboat.

We couldn't get on the front (bumpier) as someone beat us to it.

But we did get on at the back (wetter).

As usual it was super fast and this time even more entertaining as Dad got soaked, really soaked.

And the icing on the cake was that it was mostly around his lap, making him look like he'd wet himself when we got off the boat.

Thursday 16th

We had a split in the camp today, I went to Crealy with Kimi and Marney.

And I went Karting with Mum, Dad, Andy and Owen.

We had a lovely time, playing on everything and riding a pony.  Thanks for taking me Ben and Rach I really appreciated it.

And we had a great time too, blasting round the track.  It was good to go with both Mum and Dad as well as Andy and Owen.  I was so excited about Karting it had to be seen to be believed.  I couldn't wait to get going and when we were let out onto the track (before the grown ups ha ha) I passed three kids in front of me on the first, short straight.  At the end, we'd all claimed we'd won...I think the winner was in fact Karting.

When we all got back and re-grouped and exchanged our stories I decided I wanted to keep up my 100% daily dip in the sea stats over both our weeks by going surfing.  I struggled to drum up much support and only had Dad for company.  With about two minutes of us leaving the caravan it started to rain, which got really heavy and then turned into massive hail stones.  Did we turn back?  No, of course not.  We're used to Cownwall holidays, if it rains, it usually stops soon enough.  We carried on regardless and soon enough by the time we got to the sea it had all passed over. 

We had to say a fond farewell to the Flacks in the evening as they were heading home. 

We really missed them after they'd gone, especially with our little social visits we frequently made down to their caravan.

We went to a nice pub for tea, the playground looked brilliant in the garden, such a shame it was pouring it down and we didn't get to try it out.

We did get though, what must rank as one of the best garlic breads I have ever eaten.  Delish.

Friday 17th

The weather was pretty poor again today, we stayed in most of the day playing Uno and watching telly.

Yes, telly, now the Olympics were over we had to watch something else.

It was a good job Andy had bought his Sky box down as we could watch endless episodes of Mr Bean (our new funniest thing in the world) and Tom and Jerry (our second most funny thing in the world).

We also had a few games of a grown up's board game called Settlers Of Catan.  I became mildly obsessed by it it has to be said, but it was BRILLIANT!

We also had to say goodbye to Kim and Marney who also went home.

It's a bit sad at the end of the week when everyone starts drifting off.

Never mind, we still had Andy, Owen and Auntie Trish!

Saturday 18th

The weather was much better on Saturday so it was low tide rock pool business.

Yep, we took Auntie Trish down to show her round too.

We decided against a trip through to the cave as conditions, once again were against us.  It was looking very much like that particular trip would have to wait until next year.

Never mind, the rock pools were great as usual and we had a good old mooch about.

Then we finally cracked open the outside furniture and took lunch outside in the sunshine, lovely!

Auntie Trish and Owen then decided to leave too, so that was pretty much everyone except us and Andy.

We had a lovley pizza and chips at the youth hostel, overlooking the sea in the evening, a lovely way to spend our last night.

Sunday 19th

It was another lovely day, we headed out accross the headland to the other side of the beach and kept on walking for miles and miles and miles.

We saw some lovely beaches at low tide that you could only really get to by boat or abseiling.  We should get a boat I think.

Some of the paths were rather muddy, so I got shot of my crocs and really enjoyed squelching about in it:

We headed back and set up camp on the beach for the afternoon......making the most of our last few hours.

It was lovely and sunny with plenty of waves for us.

Then it was time to pack, clean up and head off home.

As usual, it was a totally brilliant week.

It certainly was, in no small part due to all our friends and family.  Thanks to all of you for making our weeks away so special.

Monday 20th

Mum had the whole week off with us.

Cool or what, just what we need a load of lay ins and cuddles.

In a scheduling masterstroke, Mum had arranged for my friend Lillie to come round and play on Monday.

And in another inspired moment, invited Alastair round for my entertainment too.

We had a lovely day though, I really enjoyed playing with my friend.

And so did I.

I don't think Dad particulalrly hurried home from work that day....he found us in the park though.

And then we all went to McDonalds for lunch (with an ice cream for pudding no less).

After that we went to the big park at Wash Common for some climbing,swinging and basketball action.

Tuesday 21st

The men came to replace my new bed (it has a small, barley noticable dent in it).  When they unpacked the new one, I pointed out to them that it was even worse than the oneI already had.  Mum wasn't best pleased.

I also succumbed to some sort of bug I think and spent the afternoon being sick.  Oh dear, not what we'd planned for Dad's afternoons off!

Wednesday 22nd

My turn with the sick bowl, but I shook it off pretty quick and was well enough in the afternoon to go to Maidenhead adventure golf.

It was pretty good fun as well, even if I did struggle with the concept of the game a little bit.

After that we hit Toys R Us to buy a load of presents for a run of up-coming birthdays.

And then Decathlon to secure a new beach tent after our old one was finally deemed  to be at the end of it's useful life. 

It was sad to see it go, we'd had some great times in that tent.  It has to be said there were some not so good times too, like when the tide came in on me and mum while I was about three months old and Dad thought that her waves of distress was just a friendly wave from out in the sea.

Thursday 23rd

I had an appointment at the hospital in Reading in the morning (nothing to worry about by the way).  Mum took Ellis and I up on the train and we had arranged to meet Dad later after he'd finished work and go to the cinema.

We loved it on the train of course, but the hospital waiting room was nothing short of spectacular. There was so much to play with.  In fact, once Ned had been seen, I asked mum if we could stay on and play there!

By the time we'd finished I had a think about our plan for the day and decided it would be a waste of a nice day to go to the cinema and sit indoors.  I hatched a plan to have a picnic by our favourite stretch of river in Hungerford instead.  Everyone was in agreement that this was a great idea.

We love it here, the paddling, the cows and the picnics.

We had a slightly longer walk back by the canal which was nice.

Friday 24th

We had our re-scheduled cinema trip today.  We watched Brave and we loved it.

Even with the bits with the very slightly scary bears.

We still really love going to the cinema.

After that we went for a 'back to school' haircut.

I was a bit reluctant to have my magnificent mop trimmed, but I can see where i'm going a lot better now.

After that we had a trip to Pizza Express for tea.  Nice day!

In fact, nice week, thanks Mum, we love it when you're off work.

Saturday 25th

We went to Chapel Row Country Fayre with Darcey, Laura, Owen and Andy.  It was dead cool actually.

We had a lovely time walking Darcey around on the grass.  She's getting pretty good on her feet these days.

There was also inflatibles, sheep racing, Falconery and a laser tag game.

But best of all was a travelling farm, with some rabbits.  I love rabbits.

After that it was a quick pitstop before Liams party at Eddie Katz.

And this time, brothers and sisters were allowed to go too!  

We had an ace time and we had the place all to ourselves.

Sunday 26th

Alan and Hayley came round for tea, Dad went to bed feeling poorly as soon as he dished up the meal.

We had a great time without him, looking at Alans old pictures he'd got from Grandad's old slides.

Monday 27th

Bank holiday Monday.  We had a lazy morning and then went for a walk around the Chase.

Was disappointingly lacking in mud though.

Tuesday 28th

Auntie Christines on Monday.  We're loving spending time with her and of course Darcey.

Her walking is coming on really well now.

Wednesday 29th

Dragon club.  Getting there is still a drama, I just can't cover distances as well as Ned.  It's even worse when I ride my bike into the fence of the allotments and scratch my face up. Oops.

Once at Dragon Club we've been up to all sorts as usual of course but my favourite activity has been playing a game called V-Rally on the Playstation.

Thursday 30th

Dragon club again, but no bike crashes on the way as I was allowed to go in the buggy once again, what a luxury!

I can't believe you went in it Ellis, what a baby!  It was like old times taking her to nursery again.

Friday 31st

Last day at Dragon Club, we had a cool time again.

So thats Dragon club finished until next year I expect.

In the evening I went out for a bike ride with Dad and Owen after tea.  We went to the Croft trail again in Swindon.  It was brilliant, even if it was quite muddy and a bit slippery in places.  We'd earned a drink so we went to the Cock pub afterwards (where Dad, Owen and Andy waste one night a week playing darts and pool and cards).  It was cool to see what ot wasvlike in there and say hello to the big dog that lives there but I wanted a mum cuddle so I finished my drink off quick smart and requested we go home.

Saturday 1st

After the boys late night, Ned wasn't up to much Saturday morning so I had a lovely time helping Mum and Dad give the car it's annual bath.

I was saving myself for a trip to Max and Leo's in the evening if you must know.  Had a great time on their new trampoline and playing with Max's stuff.

Sunday 2nd

After another late night, we didn't do much.

Just sat about playing on computers, Ipods and Ipads all morning until the Downhill world championships sd being shown and Dad took over a bit.

He even watched during lunch, what a hypocrite he is!

In the late afternoon we went to watch Alan and Hayley finally use their wedding present and go up in a hot air balloon.

It was massive, really huge.  They got there just in time to hop into the basket and float off.

The burner was pretty loud it must be said.

It also looked rather close to Alan's head as well!

We waved them off as they slowly gained height and drifted off accross the field and over the trees.

Then the realy exciting bit started, we got to chase them cross country in the car.

It was brilliant fun, especially when we saw them go really low over the A34.

They landed in a field just behind it.

It was a shame we didn't actually see them touch down.

Monday 3rd

We spent Monday with Auntie Christine and Darcey.

It was a lovely day and we spent ages out in the garden.

Dad joined us after he finsished work and none of us was in any sort of hurry to get going so we sat and enjoyed the afternoon sunshine with Laura as well.

My ipod is proving to be of more use than just endless games and music, one of the apps is a talking cat that has a toothbrushing timer mode.  Toothbrushing hasn't been the same since.

He's a lovely little cat, and he plays us a lovely tune while we brush away.  Ive also kicked up a fuss about my minty toothpaste, I don't like it!  Mum found me some strawberry flavour stuff.  It looked good (pink and a bit sparkly actually) but i'm still not keen on the taste though.

Tuesday 4th

Last day of the holidays, re-organised at the last minute so we could have Dad.

Yeah, he asked us what we wanted to do and between us we came up with the grand idea of a roadtrip to loads of skateparks and bike tracks.

With a load of playgorunds thrown in along the way for good measure.

We started off dropping mum at work and then heading into Victoria park:

Then it was off to Thatcham, the skatepark was a bit naff, but the nearby park was pretty good:

Before we pressed on for one of our favourites, the pump track at Bucklebury:

I was absoloutley on it, getting faster and faster:

Until I went a little too fast and had a couple of crashes.  The second one making a bit of a mess of my elbow.  Should have worn a long sleeve top of course.

I was happy to see 'Pump Track Cat' of course, he came out to see us on a previous visit:

After that it was on to Henwick sports field.

There's a load of new playground equipment which is pretty good as it goes:

Then we went to meet Mum for lunch.

Pasty shop and then down to sit by the canal in the sunshine, lovely.

Then it was back in the car and off to Hungerford:

The playground here was rather good too:

We then had an ice cream stop before heading further up the road to Marlborough.

The skatepark was totally full of kids on scooters though, so we didn't bother and made do with the playground instead:

It was time to head home, we were totally whacked out anyway.

But we had just enough energy for one final stop in Digby Road park before we picked Mum up from work:

When we got home we had to have baths and all that, because tomorrow was first day back at school.  I couldn't wait to go really.

I could, I really didn't want to go back at all and be in year one.

Wednesday 5th

It wasn't as bad as i'd feared though, and I came home pretty enthused about the whole thing actually.  I have a new teacher, Mrs Walsh.

And I have a new teacher too, Miss Strickland.  I had a pretty good day too as it goes.

Thursday 6th

Todays big news was that I had my first after school dancing session.  We danced to Call Me Maybe (a real favourite at home).  It was brilliant, although I wasn't too sure about it all when the Mums and Dad's came in to watch the last run through. I soon got into it though.

It was pretty good actually, I sat with Dad and couldn't keep still myself!  When we got home Ned taught me all the moves in the front room and we put a show on for Mum when she got home.

Friday 7th

Last day of the week already, came round nice and quick.

We had a bit of a low key Barbecue in the evening to make the most of the last bit of summer:

Owen, Laura and Andy came round too, which was cool.
Saturday 8th
Swimming!  At last.  After weeks of requests we finally went to the Coral Reef.
I didn't want to go, until we got there and I loved it, even though I only found £1 left in the locker doors despite an extensive search.
We picked up some picnic stuff from Sainsbury's and headed ot the lookout for lunch. 
It was a lovely day again and we loved the park: 

Sunday 9th

I went to Lois' birthday party at Hungerford rugby club, she's one of my old friends from nursery so it was lovely to be invited.  We had a great time with a magician that was really funny.

While Ellis was there the rest of us went for a walk by the canal and let the ducks have some of the bread Dad and I were eating.
Monday 10th

Weekend over, back to school again.....

Yeah, and my first after school dancing session.  Our music was Dancing on the Ceiling this week.  I loved it.

And that, I think finally gets us back up to date. 

Hopefully you've managed to get through it all to get this far and we'll be back to more manageable sized updates next week.

Olympics video:

Cornwall Video Part 2!

End of the holidays video:

The first Cornwall video....better late than never eh?

Should be another one along soo hopefully....

Well, we've had a sneaky week away as you may have noticed by last weeks non-update!

We have indeed, but before we get on to that we had a pretty action packed week beforehand.  We started off on Tuesday with a day with Auntie Christine and Darcey.

We had a trip to the Discovery centre in the morning which we loved before heading back and having a splash in Darceys paddling pool.

We loved that too, even though it was a rather small Darcey sized pool!

Wednesday we went to Mr Gilhams sports club at school.  We had a great day, I won the player of the day award and got my pick of DVD for the afternoon session.

And I had my frined Lilly to play with too so I was rather pleased as well.

Thursday we went to Dragon club for the first time in a while.  We scootered in.

Even me, all the way as well!

We made planet paintings using a marble, which seemingly ruined both of our outfits with some rather permanent blue paint.

Good job we were wearing some of our old stuff as all the posh stuff was washed and ready for holiday eh?

Dad picked us up and we headed down to Victoria Park for a bit.

We went out on the boating lake in a padle boat, we'd never done that before so we were dead excited, just me, Ned and the open water.

Ellis' legs were a bit short so I did all the pedalling, I made a good job of it too.

And shortly after Dad remarked that last time I was in a paddle boat my hat fell in the water....my hat...fell in the water!

It took some skilled driving by me to enable us to pick it up, all soggy and yucky.  Still, it soon dried out.

We had an ice cream before playing on the park until Mum came out of work to meet us.

Friday I rode my bike to Dragon club, again, all the way.

I stuck to the scooter again.

We had another lovely day there, particularly the rounders match.

Which was great until I got smacked on the arm by the ball.  Still, I won the super dragon award for the day which more than made up for it.

I also had a particularly persistant female admirer who endured a pretty lengthy game of kiss chase to try and catch me.....no such luck!

Once we were home it was time to pack the car and pick up Mum from work before heading off to Cornwall for the week...yay!

Yay indeed, a whole week in the caravan, we couldn't wait.

Andy came down for the weekend too and John and Sarah were already going to be there.  As if all this wasn't exciting enough we had the Olympics starting too, brilliant.

The journey down was lovely actually, we had a nice tea from the Pasty Shop in town, a great sunset to watch and the Olympic opening ceremony on the radio. 

We really wanted to see it as well though, so it was lucky we made good time and got there in time to see a good portion of it.  Made it a pretty late night, but it's only once every four years isn't it?

In fact, we got there so quick that it was still quite light when we arrived.

So saturday morning, the freedom of the campsite at our disposal:

After a brief scare when the Tesco delivery was almost claimed by John and Sarah in the other caravan we headed for the beach. 

We are both totally loving the beach at the moment, we can't get enough.

Rock pools, surfing, swimming, whatever, we love it all.

Todays highlight however had to be Dad smacking himself in the nose with my surfboard though.  Even though it obviously hurt quite a lot, it looked totally hilarious!

We were introduced to a game called Danish Longball by John, I loved it.

There was also a real life nature documentary unfolding out the back of the caravan when a bird of prey plucked another bird from the sky and proceeded to enjoy his meal right there on the grass.

We went out for a bit of a walk on Sunday morning, to keep Mum sweet mainly.

Yeah, we looped round to Constantine beach, had a brief paddle in the rockpools before heading off back through the sand dunes.

We hadn't been that way before do it  was a bit of an adventure, through the Golf Course and up a really narrow track before popping out on familiar territory by the shops.

We had earned a nice luch, so we sat out by the caravan on our picnic blanket in the sunshine.

We headed for the beach in the afternoon, there was a potentially huge blunder when we realised no one had bothered bringing any of our beach toys, spades or anything. just surf boards.

We made do though, after a surf session we dug out big enough holes by hand to bury each other in the sand.

We had a few laps of the campsite on the bikes as we'd obvioulsy not used enough energy during the day.

We also said goodbye to Andy as he had to head home after the weekend.

Monday then, it was a bit cloudy so we thought we'd give the beach a miss and head out on a bike ride instead.

Yeah, we went to Wadebridge, got Mum and Dad a bike to ride form the hire shop and headed out on the Camel trail, destination Padstow!

Ned rode his own bike but i had a thing called a tag along attached to the back of Dad's.  It was a quite brilliant idea as if I didn't fancy pedalling I could put my feet up and let Dad do all the work.  I didn't do much of that though, in fact a lot of the time I asked Dad to stop pedalling so I could drive us along from the back!

I loved it, I had the luxury of my own bike of course and I was putting in sprint bursts all over the place.  There were loads of people riding along the trail so I had plenty of targets.  Best of all though was that we were all together having a bike ride, we were so excited that Mum had a bike for the day.

 We loved riding along the estuary and the six and a half miles to Padstow soon passed. Time to lock up the bikes and head into town for a spot of lunch by the harbourside:

Notice the differnece between Ned and I? There he is, all greasy sausage roll and fizzy coke.  And then there's me, freshly made sandwich, a portion of cucumber and a bottle of water: 

We had a bit of  a wander round, I failed to win a massive cuddly toy on a charity lucky dip stall, much to Dad's relief.  I think he was a bit worried about getting it back to Wadebridge by bike.

The ride back was every bit as pleasant. The tide had pretty much come in so the estuary was much more alive with boats.

When we arrived back at the hire shop both Ellis and myself were sad we weren't going any further we'd loved it so much.

We handed the hired bikes back and had a quick trip into town for a little retail therapy.

Before we headed back to the caravan to watch the original version of Charlie and the Chocolate factory on DVD which we loved.

We had a shopping outing to a big surf shop on Tuesday morning, we're getting quite into picking our own stuff these days so it wasn't quite as dull as it might sound.

It was of course beach time after that, we had a full family surf for the first time ever which was really good.

There were also plenty of land based activities, more Danish longball sand burying and tunneling.

I was really into being in the water, and while Mum and Ellis went back up to the caravan I convinced Dad to stay in the sea with me a bit longer.  I did a load more surfing before ditching the board for some actual swimming and even some body surfing.

On the way back Mum and I stopped off at the outside shower to clean our feet off when I burst intoa few dance moves moves.  Another lady spotted me and asked if I did ballet lessons!

Things were a bit grey on Wednesday morning so we stayed in for a slumpy morning watching the Olympics and playing tri-ominoes.  Like dominoes, but needlessly more complicated.

We also had a few hands of Uno before heading out the youth hostel for lunch, outside in the glorious sunshine overlooking the sea.

We hit the beach once again in the afternoon, it started off all very nice but it did start to rain a bit...we didn't care, it just gave us more room as the wimps cleared off!

We made a shelter out of surf boards and toughed it out until it cleared.

We eventually headed back to the caravan for a game of Yahtzee and to watch Team GB win it's first Gold medal at the Olympics.

After careful studying of the tide table, Thursday morning was deemed the optimum time to vosot Bedruthan steps.

Fortunatley the weather obliged too and we made our way down the many steps to the beach:

It was great, we had it pretty much to ourselves and soon got creative:

Here's a few Moshi Monsters I did:

It really was lovely down there, we had the rock pools all to ourselves:

I was inspired by the olympics to indulge in a spot of fishing net javelin:

It looked there had been a giant dog on the beach:

Wetsuit catalogue pose:

Fortunatley, the wind didn't change....

A couple of gratuitous close ups:

We even had the forethought to bring some luch down with us and found a lovely sheltered shelf of sand up in the rocks for our picnic spot.

We had a game of boules all around and up and down the campsite in the afternoon.

Before heading down the beach for a surfing session, we really were dead keen to get surfing again.

The tide was really high and the waves were pretty wild, people were getting picked up and shot onto the beach all over the place, it was wild!  I loved it, declaring conditions as 'Wicked' and 'Awesome' amongst other things.

I though it was maybe a little bit too crazy and diverted my efforts into making a sea defence wall to hide behind out of sand.

We had an early morning trip down the beach on Friday to asses low tide conditions for a cave trip.  Things look good to begin with.

Until a massive wave came rushing up the gap and nearly swept us off our feet!

Me and Dad thought it was hilarious.

Mum and I weren't quite so amused!

So we headed for the relative calmer waters of the big low tide swimming pool instead.

It took a while to get us all up the rocks and down into the water but once we were all in we were loving it!

Especially when it started raining and all the lightweights cleared off, we had it all to ourselves.

We had a little trip out later on to Watergate Bay and then Fistral, just for a look around:

So then it was saturday, our last day.

Boooo!  Rubbish or what?

We certainly made the best of it though, the sun was out so down the beach we went again.

We got a great spot, our own little sandy cove with a big old pool left by the outgoing tide, perfect place to perfect my snorkelling technique:

We then headed over to the low tide pool again for some snorkelling.

And I paddled my surfboard all around it.

Before we took on one of the narrower gaps through the rocks which I was really pleased with myself about.

We headed back to our beach camp area and Dad and I got involved in a rather pointless competition to see who could place a sandcastle highest on the rocks behind us....I won of course!

So that was the end of a great week, no arguing, no telling off, no naughty steps...nothing.

Indeed, we all did very well this time around, weird huh?

And in one last brilliant twist we didn't have to go home via the pub for dinner and held out for a Macdonalds on the motorway services instead....brilliant.

Sunday was a very lazy day indeed, as you might expect.

Then today it was off to Auntie Christines...once she had remembered!

Last week of term!
Yay, we're on countdown to summer holidays and we can't wait.
Things were pretty hectic in the run up.
Especially as I wanted to make Mrs Douglas a cake.  Ever never gone in for end of term presents before this year but I figured Mrs Douglas was worth some effort.  I made the cake with Mum, she's a much better baker than Dad and it tunred out fantastically well.
Seeing as Ned was making cakes for teacher I thought I ought to get in on the act as well:

So here's my 3HD cake, freshly decorated by my good self:

And here's my smiley faced tribute to Miss Zimmerman's class:

It's not all been fun and games though, in fact, it was no games at all really as sports day was cancelled due to a waterlogged field. Such a shame, I was so looking forward to it as well. Mr Armstrong did rustle up a scaled down indoor affair in the hall which was really good but none of the parents could come along.  It was open class room on wednesday afternoon though and Dad managed to come along to that. I got to show him all my work, I think he was most impressed by my art actually even though there were a few stories that i'd written that were almost a whole page long (amazing for me)

We had a dancing lesson open to Mums and Dad's to celebrate the end of term too. I was so excited that Mum was going to come along.

I was excited as I cold watch Ellis' dancing instead of having to read!

Anyway, I loved having and audience and really played up to them.

We took our cakes in Thursday for last day of term.  I spent some time telling Mrs Douglas the various combinations of fractions she could divide the cake up into but she wasn't having any of it.....she said it was staying as one piece...all for her!  I think she liked the look of it.
Mis Zimmerman was very pleased with mine too. A good start to the last day of term all round then.
And it was only a half day as well.  Actually, I was pretty glad as we'd spent most of the week tidying up and clearing stuff away...booooring!
So Dad came to pick us up just after lunch, we said our goodbyes to all our friends.
And I had not one, but two cuddles from Mrs Douglas.  I also got a bookmark with a photo of me holding a real Olympic torch on it and a book as a present (A local torch bearer bought it into school for us to have a look at, cool or what eh?)
So we were free from school.....it was a nice enough day outside and it was only lunchtime....what to do?
What to do indeed...how about a trip to the BMX track?
Great idea Ned:

My poor little bike struggles with some of the bigger jumps you know.  Not that I mind a bit of scrabbling about in the dirt and dust of course.  I was pretty much unstoppable on the rest of the track though: 

I was most definatley stoppable.....with a puncture!  Dad was devastated as it was probably the first time he hadn't bought the pump and spare inner tube with us.  I wasn't bothered though, I just played a little Ipod and then stole his bike.  I was better on it than him anyway:

It had taken a while but we finally had our 'good school report treat'....a trip to Pizza Hut!

Lovely lovely Pizza Hut, what a great way to finish the school year!
So with only actually being a Thursday we broke up on, we still had a friday to have without Mum and Dad....thank goodness for Auntie Christine eh?
Indeed, a lovely quiet day with her was just the job after out hectic week.
Even if I did have to go for a swimming lesson still in the afternoon.
Something realy weird happened on Saturday, the sun came out.
And it was nice and warm.
Unbelievable stuff this year eh?
We made the most of it by spending all day in the garden.
We did, Dad didn't take much convincing to get the new paddling pool out either.  He bought it during the driving rain and hose pipe ban at a reduced price so he was well smug about his purchase now!
We also got the water slide thing out too, as well as the water pistols.
It was a brilliant day.
Topped off with a trip to the local shop for a few sweets...perfect!
Sunday Mum had some business to attend to with Anne to do with Grandad, so Dad had us to himself all day.
His initail plan of going BMX racing fell through when I decided I didn't fancy it after all.
So we hit the pool again!  It was marginally warmer than yesterday so that was a welcome outcome.
Then the Laws came to the rescue with an invite to a barbecue at their place.
We had a quick detour via Decathlon in Reading where we tried out all the exercise machines,
Boxing stuff.
And had a game of table tennis.
Then it was more sports for the rest of the day at the Laws, I love going over there.
Yeah so do I, especially their rabbits and this time their cousins hamsters as well to coo over.  I want one!
Then today it was back to Auntie Christines.
But this time with Darcey too, more the merrier eh?
We made the most fantastic butterfly cakes ever (as verified by taste testers Mum and Dad).
I reckon it must have been the glitter icing, thanks for that Laura!



Well we have genuine exciting stuff to report this week.

We do indeed, how about we start off with the Olympic torch coming to Newbury!

Yeah, how about that?  We were allowed a day off school to go and see it which was obviously brilliant.

We didn't even have to go with boring old Mum and Dad either, no, instead went with Darcey, Laura, Auntie Trish and Auntie Christine.

The only slight downer was that we had to walk all the way to town from Auntie Christines, as we all know, I don't do walking.

I've never seen town so busy, it was mad!  There were people everywhere and we couldn't even get accross the market place!

We made the best of where we were though:

Caught a peek of the torch, waved some flags and generally got into the spirit of the whole thing.

After things had calmed down a bit we met up with Mum for a picnic lunch in the park.

Before I had to walk all the way back again.....boo and indeed hoo.

We had a great time and are now totally hyped for the Olympics coming up.

Yeah, thanks for taking us!

As if I hadn't done enough on my feet for one day it was dancing day as well.  Still, another lesson, another star sticker for me for a great piece of dancing I threw down.

And then in another milestone event it was my lasy parents evening of reception year.  A full half hour appointment it was as well.

Yeah, Ellis and I had a lovely time playing in the Reception playground, it seems like ages since I was there.

Anyway, it sounds like i'm doing really well and Mum and Dad were very pleased with my progress. 

We took Dad shopping again on Thursday, and again it went surprisingly well.

How could it not?  We're so helpful after all!

Friday, we packed up and headed west for a sneaky weekend in the caravan, a starter before the main event if you will later on in the 'summer'

Yeah, how exciting.  We had the usual late night to bed but we were soon tucked up in bed, getting charged up for a couple of days on the beach.

To add even more excitement, Finley was down as well, with Chris and Kate and Bailey the dog!

Oh we loved Bailey.

We really loved Bailey.  So much so we even borrowed him to take him for a walk.

We shared him really nicely and I reckon he had a lovely time:

Once we'd worn him out (well he only has little legs) we hit the beach.  The sun was out and it was just like summer.
Yeah, at last.  It was wetsuits on and climbing, diggging and splashing time for sure.
Weirdly, I also got seriously into my body boarding as well.  Like really into it.  I haven't been that bothered before but for some reason I couldn't get enough of it!.
We rounded the day off with a barbecue and a bout of Tom and Jerry cartoons.
Tom and Jerry...brilliant!  Can't believe we'd never seen it before.
Sunday then, more sunshine...better get back on the beach!
Yeah, I was chomping at the bit to get back in the sea again.  I was asking about tide times, wind conditions and all the rest of it.  I even suggested we take a packed lunch down with us so we could stay all day long.
I was happy with that arrangement, plenty of time to get into my climbing, I love climbing:

I made friends with another boy my age and we went off surfing together, I didn't even want Mum or Dad to come with me, we had a great time.

And then John put in a brief showing, he showed us some really cool climbing routes up the rocks with his extensive local knowledge.

We stayed on the beach all afternoon before heading back up to pack up and leave. 

Stopping off at the pub on the way home for a meal and a drink to tide us over on the journey home.

Cheers Andy and Owen, great fun as always chaps, can't wait until next time!

We didn't get home until pretty late at night so it was straight to bed when we arrived home.

Monday, we were all pretty sleepy....especially Mum.....