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
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
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:
