Blimey, we've got some catching up to do again.

Yes, we have, lets get on with it!

So going back to Tuesday before half term we had some top notch drama before Mr Gilhams after school club started when a small fire broke out in the fuse box in the schoool hall.  It was ace, we had to go outside and then the fire brigade turned up.  It was all dealt with very quickly though and we still managed to get half of our sports session in.

We had a good old go on the Wii after tea, we hadn't played Just Dance for ages and i'm starting to finally give twinkle toes Dad a run for his money.

Well, all my audition practice for the school play failed to pay off, as once again I have been given the part of.........Narrator.  AGAIN!  This must be the third year running?  Anyway, having seen the final script I think i've done alright, I get the best comedy lines I reckon and a lot less work than the bigger parts.

After school we went to the petshop to get Poppy a new bed as we've decided she deserves a little bit more luxury in her old age.

Dad reckoned she wouldn't sleep on it.  He was wrong, she loved it!

Thursday was the last day of term, yay!  And while I was at dancing....

Dad and I went to the park for a bit, lovely!

With it being so close to Halloween, we danced to thriller, it was cool doing all the zombie moves.

We kept on moving and grooving with another round of Just Dance on the Wii.

Before we helped Dad make a start in his lovely big tub of celebrations he'd had as a birthday present.

Mum was off with us Friday.

We played Monopoly, and no one had to pay the crying fine.

And we went to the little shop to buy pretty much most of their stock.

When Dad came home we gave him his birthday presents (yes, we know it was early but we were going on holiday and didn't want to take them with us).

The presents were okay I suppose.....a new sleeping bag for porkers, an Ipod of his own so he doesn't have to steal mine anymore and some frankly far too trendy trainers for a man of his age:

Her didn't get time to sit around enjoying his presents for long though, I still had swimming lessons to go to.

And I had my Team Kennet.  We got our running vests and club t-shirts this week, how exciting!

We had to get up seriously early on saturday morning.

We did, apparently it was 1 am?

We were off on our holidays, this time to Spain.

We drove down to Bristol Airport and arrived in the city centre during club closing time, there were a lot of drunk people about which was quite an eye opener.

When we got parked up and got out of the car it was freezing cold and still dark, it was a good job we were headed for sunnier climes.

This one was a serious group outing too, there was us four, Andy, Alan, Hayley, Trish, Slim, Trace, Ben, Rach, Kimi and Marney all going on the same plane (with Chris, Ian, Owen, Laura and Darcey following on a later flight).

We were soon on our way, it was still dark when we took off, but out of the window we could see the sun starting to come up, it was brilliant.

The flight itself was great fun, we all sat together and there was a lot of sillyness to keep us amused.

It didn't take long to get to Spain and we were soon landing.

The excitement kept coming with the fastest minibus ride of all time to the hire car depot.

The driver kept shouting 'Rapido' and 'Ferrnando Alonso' in between bouts of manic laughter.

We soon had our wheels, a Mercedes Vito no less.  It was considerably nicer than Andys Focus, and infinitley better than Kimi and Marney's Tata.....the less said about that the better I think.

We were soon at the villa, everyone was relieved that it really did exist and I think pretty pleased with what we found.

The pools were lovely, there was a tennis court, pool table, table tennis table, dartboard, piano's, disco room....plenty of scope for fun!

After we'd had a dip it was a quick mercy dash to the supermarket to pick up some provisions.

By the time we got back Slim and Andy had sampled the beer and the party pretty much started from there!

By the time the Flacks arrived we were well and truly on holiday:

It was along day though, we needed a bit of a siesta up on our balcony:

There was singing, dancing and merry-making late into the night..

I'm sure the video proof will surface eventually, we did a good job of helping Uncle Slim run the bar and he made sure our drinks were tastefully decorated with various cocktail adornments.

We spent the end of the evening back on the terrace stargazing with Mum.

With so many people around, this was going to be a different sort of holiday and as such we didn't do a whole lot really.

No, we just enjoyed everyones company, there was certainly never a dull moment thats for sure!

Having an indoor pool as well as an outdoor pool was certainly a very cool thing:

Of course Sunday was the big day, Dads actual birthday, 40 years old!

We had a chef bloke come in to cook us a meal for the evening.

I didn't like it much bit the grown ups seemed to.

We had a lovely evening though, sat outside on the terrace wating the hillsides twinkle with the lights of distant villages.

We were pretty tired it has to be said, I forced myself to stay awake until the birthday cake appeared:

I wish I hadn't bothered really, it was spoiled by a load of fruit lurking within it!

Anyway, happy birthday Dad!

The next day we had a trip to the nearest beach at Fuengirola.  It wasn't all that really.

The sandcastles were pretty impressive though:

As were the statues:

There was a bloke trying to take a nice picture of this one, every time his camera shutter clicked, I seemed to just pop up and ruin his shot!

The best thing though was the 'Scenic Land Train tour'  Not because of the fantastic sights on offer, but because of our crazy bunch of friends.

We decided the whole town needed livening up, the best way we could come up with was to issue a loud, friendly 'Hola' and a big wave to everyone we went past.

I think we made a big impact on the town that day, we cheered everyone up thats for sure.

We had a quick play on the park:

Then headed back to the villa to fill the others in on our exploits.

Tuesday was a very, very wet day indeed.

Our initial plan to go to Alhambra was quickly dropped in favour of a trip to Gibraltar instead.

Did we mention it was wet?

It was a decent drive there, we quite enjoy watching the scenery roll by and laughing at foreign signs that sound a bit rude to us.  You know the sort of thing.

I had a lovely long kip instead to catch up a bit.

We parked up, still on the Spanish side and made our way to the border control.

It's weird, but apparently Great Britain own Gibraltar, even though it's in Spain.  To get in we needed passports and everything.

As soon as we were through Mum had the amazingly good sense to book us all a private tour around the rock in a minibus taxi.

It was really good fun too, the driver lady told us loads of facts and history which was all really ace stuff about the militay and what have you.

Our first stop was supposed to be a lovely viewpoint out over the point where the Atlantic meets the Med, but it was so grim we couldn't really see anything much.

Except the building opposite the had a roof garden with some truly massive rocks on it...we wondered how they got there?

Our second stop was at St Micheals cave.  As the minibus came to a stop, we noticed we were not alone.

No, we most certainly were not.....there were loads of apes, circling, looking for mischief.

I was totally in my element, I loved them, they were cute and very cheeky indeed.  One walked right behind me giving me a little tap on the shoulder as he went.  I was thrilled.

I wasn't, I was a bit more nervous of them in fact.

They were much more interested in our minibus anyway. They removed the taxi sign, prised the wipers into the up position and their finale was to remove a good length of rubber sealing strip from the roof.

The driver was pretty angry about this, she'd only had the minibus a couple of weeks, it was pretty much brand new!

They got a whack with the rubber strip for efforts once she'd prized it back off them.

Anyway, after this hilarity we headed undergound into the caves, at least it was dry in there!

They really were very impressive though, well lit, good for exploring!

When we got out and went in the cafe, there were little eyes peering through the window:

And all the fridges in the cafe had to have special monkey proof latches to stop them from wandering in to help themselves!

We carried on up through the clouds for our next stop, a long cave with loads of little alcoves where cannons were stationed.  It was really cool.

And very dark in places.

After that it was back upwards again, still in the murky greyness.  I'm sure on a clear day the views would have been really amazing.

Never mind, we made the best of it. 

We were particulalry relieved that we had done the trip by Taxi when we saw the steps you would have to climb to get to the top......they were steep and even though we couldn't see the bottom through the clouds, it looked a long way down.

It would have been hard work for Andy with me on his shoulders thats for sure.

This last stop was also the main Ape hangout spot. There were loads of them around.

Once again they seemed drawn to the taxi and wanted to take themselves some souvenirs.  It was still hilarious to watch.

We wound our way back down the hill and got dropped off in the main street to make our own way back and find some lunch.

It's a pity we didn't ask our guide to recommend somewhere to eat, we ended up in what must have been the worst pub in Gibraltar I reckon.

At least there was entertainment though, with the Basil Fawlty/Manuel-esque set up between the woman behind the bar and the cook!

We wandered around town a bit, bought some high quality souvenirs and then headed back towards Spain.

But get this, to get back we had to walk accross the runway for the airport.  It was mad, just as we got accross the gates came down like a level crossing as a plane was going to land. 

All the cars queued up either side and everything.

When we finally got back to the car we were all pretty much soaked through, but at least it wasn't cold as well.

We soon dried off though and had some proper children time back at the villa:

Wednesday, Halloween no less!

We'd taken care of our outfits and packed them in our hand luggage.

Mum had done the business bringing over some brilliant Halloween decorations that were up in our room when we woke up.

And even Dad had got on board with things this time around by booking us a trip to a chocolate factory in the nearby village of Mijas.

A real chocolate factory too, albeit a very, very small one.

It was brilliant pretty much straight away when we were given loads of samples to taste.

Before we were taken through to the working kitchen to make our own chocolate bars:

I decided that a very stringent system of ongoing ingredients testing was required to make sure only tip top ingredients were used in our bars:

There were loads of fillings to choose from, fudge, sweets, nuts, white chocolate, various fruits and even crushed up sugar cones. 

We created our masterpieces (I had the genius idea of making just a plain bar) and then got to try some of the really posh expensive chocolates that they use.  It was lovely and had so many different tastes.  I also got to ask loads of questions about chocolate, where it comes from, it's by products and goodness knows what else.  The lady answered all of them with great enthusiasm, i'm sure this will all come in very useful during my chocolate project next term.

We had to leave it to cool and be wrapped up before we could take it away so we headed off for lunch to this cool restaurant on the side of the mountian, the views were brilliant:

We had a lovely lunch and then went back to pick up our goodies which had all been wrapped in lovely coloured foil and in a named bag, which was good, because a lot of the grown ups had done dark chocolate and I certainly didn't wany any of that!

Once back at the villa we decided to slip into something a little more appropriate:

And then the main event, the super Halloween mega sweet hunt!

Everyone had really pulled out all the stops for us thats for sure.  There were millions of sweets, pretty much everywhere we looked. 

So a massive thank you to everyone who used up so much of their baggage allowances to bring us sweets, they were really appreciated.

Thursday was a lovely sunny day, we spent it at the villa, using the facilities.

We swam, we played tennis, we sat on sun loungers, we ate sweets.

But best of all we spent time just hanging out with everyone, chatting, larking about and just enjoying ourselves.

Then it was Friday, our last day.

We took another trip into Mijas as we'd decided it was such a nice place we'd show Owen around.

That, and donkey riding!  We warmed up on this one first:

Before heading out on the real deal, we were so excited it was unbelievable:

We rode all round the town, through the traffic, up narrow lanes, all over the place:

All the other tourists stopped and gave us a wave as we made our way around, it was like being famous!

We also passed Auntie Christine and Uncle Ian as well as Ben, Rach, Kimi and Marney having a pony and trap ride, it was so cool.

Back at the villa we spent out last afternoon around the pool and in the sauna:

We managed to get a group photo too which was cool:

We also managed to squeeze in another mini disco bar session before it was time to turn in for the night.It was an early start to get back to the airport on Saturday.

But we were pretty good natured about it.

We were soon on our way, watching the sun come up over the sea.

And making sure that Ben and Rach were okay in their lovely Tata.....ahem.

We were soon back home and everyone went their separate ways, it was pretty sad really.

Never mind, there's always next time eh?

Thanks to everyone who came along, we had such a good time and I know Dad did too.

Being back at home seemed strangely lonely on Sunday, although it was nice to make a fuss over poppy.

We had to go food shopping of course.

Good, that meant we could have a proper dinner, a lovely roast.  Poppy went beserk for some chicken.

We were still off school on Monday, Mum was on duty again....cool.

We had a lazy morning before heading into town for back to school haircuts.  I really didn't want mine done, but it looks pretty cool now actually.

I did, of course I so love a haircut.

It was then on to the doctors for me.  I had a bad ear.  Diagnosed as an ear infection with a suspected cause being my massive amounts of swimming on holiday.  The doctor also said that I must have been very brave as it must have been pretty painful.  I don't like to cause a fuss though, you know how it is.  One bottle of that iffy banana medicine for me.

Back to school on Tuesday, I was actually really keen to go back as I seem to be over my 'I don't like school' wobble.  I was full of enthusiasm for my travels over the holidays and couldn't wait to show everyone my Donkey Themed Mijas Snow Globe......sadly I broke it before anyone could even see it in all it's glory.  I was very sad about it indeed.

Mine survived intact fortunatley.

We noticed Poppy didn't seem to well on Wednesday.

No, she didn't get out of bed all day.

We decided to keep an eye on her.

But on Thursday she was still no better and we decided we ought to take her to the vets.

The vet didn't have good news for us i'm afraid.  It looked like poor old Poppy was really quite unwell and we made the difficult decision to have her put to sleep.

We bid her a very tearful farewell before leaving Dad in with the vet to get the job done.

He said that it was all very peaceful, and she was purring away with her head pressed up against his hand at the end.

We sat in the car crying our eyes out and went home without her.

She was the coolest cat ever, but she was pretty old I suppose, we'll really miss her.

Then it was Friday, last day before the weekend!

Swimming lessons went well after all my practice in Spain.  I wasn't shy about telling evryone just how good i'd been either.

We had the school firework party in the evening.  Mr Jones had been busy most of the week collecting wood for the bonfire.

You could tell, he'd done a great job.  It was soon alight and roaring hot. 

We loved standing there in the warm.

We bought a load of glow sticks and then headed out onto the field for the fireworks.

After last years rather damp affair, this year was pretty spectacular actually.

Once they were finished we headed back to the fire, Mr Jones had moved the fence around it in a bit so we could still be lovely and warm.

We stood there for ages talking to Mr Jones and Miss Butt and by the time we turned round pretty much everyone had gone home.

We decided to hang around though and played on the adventure playground while Dad bought discount beer from the bar stall.

We did some baking saturday morning, small cake called coffee kisses from one of Dads new cookbooks.

We're quite a slick kitchen outfit these days you know.

They were lovely as well!

We had a trip to Marlborough for lunch and advent calendars.  Yes Christmas is certainly coming....yippeee!!!  We were even allowed to buy a few new christmas decorations too.

We got some proper lovely ones again of course.  I also got a couple of packets of christmas cards for my school friends as well.  I was well keen, I even wrote most of them when we got home.

More fireworks on saturday night, this time with Laura and Darcey as well at Henwick field.

We had sparklers on the way too...cool.

Darcey didn't seem to impressed:

Before the fireworks started we ha d alittle time on the fair, I decided I really wanted a go on the Waltzer which pleased Dad no end as he hadmn't been on one for years:

I loved it too and didn't stop laughing the whole time we were on it.

I decided that i'd try and win something instead:

And I did too, a cuddly snake no less!

Andy turned up fresh from football, just in time to see the fireworks as well.

If the school ones were good last night, these ones were mega.

They were, I was pretty much awestruck by them it has to be said.

Their bonfire on the other hand was a pretty wafty affair.  It was made of palletts which meant it collapsed very quickly.

And the roped off area around it was massive, you couldn't even feel the heat.  They should have got Mr Jones to sort it out for them.

After a couple of false starts and a few tears we got a go on the bumper cars too, we love the bumper cars.

We had a lazy Sunday morning.

And another lovely roast!

Before we were forced out of the house for a walk/bike ride for us kids.

Well, it really was a lovley sunny day.  We headed for the newish sculptures down the road as we wanted to have a good look at them:

They were pretty cool as well:

After that we headed over to the city playground, a great place to learn to do monkey bars according to Ned.  Although I decided I still needed a bit of help:

We were all over the non-slide slide thing:

Dad hated watching us on it, particulalry me, he thought I was going to fall off every time. 

And then it was back to school again.

I've lost one of my school shoes...which is a little bit inconvenient......

And we're still missing the cat.  I'm not allowed another one either apparently.

Anyway, thats about it for now, we've got about an hours worth of video to edit down and put together at some point in the future, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

I wouldn't hold your breath though, it might be a while!

I went reading mad on Wednesday and made sure I finished my current book from school.  As soon as it was finished I was going up a level to red/black.  I'm going through them at a rate now.

I had an ace time dancing as well.

I got a sticker for good skills at Thursday after school dance club, I was very pleased with myself.

Yeah, he was giving it plenty when we saw him.  We got there dead early so I had loads of time to ride my bike around the playground in front of my friends.  I was pulling some mega skids.

It was our now usual Friday rush around session after school.

First off we had pizza and garlic brerad for tea, almost as soon as we got home from school, how cool was that!

Then it was off to the pool for my swimming lesson.  I did very well this week as it was mostly backstroke.

Then it was a quick change and time for my athletics club.  It was my last week of taster sessions before we have to join up for real.  I'm still dead keen and really enjoyed it this week.

Dad had gone out by the time Ned got home to play cards or something.  We made good use of the time by doing a bit of making, possibly something to do with an upcoming birthday?  Anyway, shame I didn't read the box here really:

Oh yeah, I bought my steam train project home as well, it got a bit smudged in the rain which is a shame but it still looks like it's worth every bit of the three house points I got for it:

I've also been given a few lines of the script for the upcoming school Christmas play.  The idea is we were to learn the lines for auditions to be held the following Monday.  I was dead keen on this, and read it through again and again before starting to pracice reading it out aloud.  After a shaky start and some good tips from Mum, Dad and Auntie Christine I really got into it.

By the time we'd got up Saturday morning Dad had already been to collect our..............wait for it.....................make sure you're sitting down...............NEW TV!

Yes, we now finally have a proper thin TV, we don't need to be ashamed when our friends come round anymore. 

Sadly, it still doesn't get Sky.

We went to the cinema to see Madagascar 3 mid morning.

I loved it.

So did I.

Then we took a detour to the market for more fancy cheesecake before we headed home for lunch.

I had Matilda's party in the afternoon at Northcroft, we had bouncy castle and bumpers and it made a change to Eddie Cats thats for sure.

We took a load of old telly's to the tip and then dropped in to see Laura and Darcey.  Darcey was great fun and I really enjoyed playing with her.

Auntie Christine came to babysit saturday night, with a special treat for us....a massive Lindor chocolate!

It was the most amazing thing we'd ever seen I think.

We even managed to fit a few board games in before bedtime, how cool.

We helped make sunday dinner this week.

Yep, peeling, chopping and mixing.

And we've still got all our fingers!

I had another party in the afternoon, this time for Maddie and it was in the school hall.  When we got there Matilda was wearing the present i'd given her the day before (clip in rainbow coloured hair extension thingys).  I was really pleased about that.  I was having a bit of an uncharacteristic wobble and wanted Mum to stay with me rather than clearing off home.  It didn't end too well though, I was a bit of a monkey and after two and a half hours of helping out on a cake decoration activity I think Mum was ready to kill.

Yeah, cheers Ellis.

I felt proper poorly when I got up today, no school for me.  I rallied very well though and felt much better by mid-morning.

Yeah, nice on Ellis, I had to go to school on my own, had no PE kit (so instead of playing football I had to stay in and read).  I also had my audition today.  I arrived a bit late as I didn't know it was going on and forgot a line on my first attempt.  I was told to seetle down and try again and this time I nailed it.  I was told I was the loudest boy to audution, not sure whether thats a compliment or not?  Anyway, we should find out before the end of the week who's got what part so it's fingers crossed.

Hello again, we're back for another update.

Very weird scenes on Tuesday, Mum was on a course in Bristol and had to leave really early on the train.
In fact, she was gone before we even got up. This could only mean one thing.
Dad would have to get us ready for school!
Amazingly, things went really well, in fact so well we were sitting about for ages before it was even time to go to school.
Things went well on the whole, except we forgot my PE kit bag. Which was doubley dozey seeing as we'd packed it the night before and everything. We did parachute games with Mr Gilham after school, I loved it.
We went to pick her up in the evening from Didcot railway station which was pretty cool.
Yeah, we loved the power station chimneys.
And the longer drive meant we could play on the Ipad for even longer.
We were very pleased to see her when she got back even though she'd only really been gone a few hours.
The same thing happened Wednesday, except we didn't have the spare time waiting for school to open as we got up a bit later.
I think Dad enjoyed the lie in actually.
And I got a bit of a headstart on my project about transport, i've decided to go with steam trains this week.
I was back at ballet this week with a renewed vigour. It'll be exam time soon and having found my medal out from last year, I really want another one.
We picked Mum up from the station again, she said that two days travelling was quite enough for her and she was very pleased she only normally has to walk into town for work.
We agreed with her as well, we did miss her in the mornings.
Thursday was a really rainy day, which suits me fine. I'm still loving my new wellies so any excuse to wear them is okay by me. I'm also not at all bothered about getting wet, so when it was time to go and collect Ned I wanted to ride my bike.....in just my shirt! I got soaked and my hair went all curly. Mum was a bit worried about this as it was school photo day the next day.
Friday was pretty much the most exciting day of the week....our class pyjama party! We'd had a vote on what to do when we filled our marble jar and this was the clear winner. I made sure I had my full outfit of pyjama's, sunglasses and flip flops. I looked more like I was on a lazy morning in cornwall than at school. We had sweets as a midnight snack and took a teddy in too (little Roo for me, spent all day with his head poking out the top of my sports kit bag).
After school I was back at swimming lessons, brilliant! I was looking forward to it, and when Eva and Lois turned up I was over the moon.
Then it was time to pick Mum up from work, rush home, get changed and go to Team Kennet.
Mum took him so dad could stay home and cook my tea...poor old Ned had to wait for his.
I didn't mind. I loved it again and made easy work of learning standing triple jump even though most of the others struggled a bit. I was really proper tired when I got home though....
We were up and about reasonably early on Saturday morning.
So we got off to the Oasis in Swindon for some more swimming.
I was keen to get in the water again, I haven't been for a while and with holidays coming up I wanted to make sure I hadn't lost it.
I love the pool so much and didn't stop smiling or laughing the whole time we were there.
We came home and helped Mum and Dad do some tidying as Abi, Faye, Kimi and Marney were coming round with their respective grown ups later.
Yeah, the grown ups were all eating I think, we stayed upstairs, all on Ellis' bed watching DVD's.
It was really cool, I had my Hello Kitty lights on and the big light off and all my cushion collection to slump on.
We watched Honey I shrunk the kids and most of the Lion King before we could could smell some really good cooking coming from downstairs. I had to investigate. Andy was making proper, real doughnuts, awesome! I helped him dredge them in sugar and then served them for him. I of course had to charge a handling fee....they were lovely. So lovely in fact I was still talking about them on Monday.
After our late night, we weren't really grumpy at all on Sunday.
No, we did okay actually. We went to some shop or other and got ourselves a few bit of clothing.
Yeah, Me and Mum actually agreed on a few things too which was a pleasant change.
And then we moved on to the real meat of the day, Ikea to get stuff for my new bedroom. I'm really excited about this so getting myself a coupe of new duvets and a chest of drawers should be just the kick to get things started. But first I apparently have to have a massive clear up in there?
We came home just in time to see the repeat of Take Me Out from saturday night, cool.
Then it was Monday again. We danced to 'I like to move it, move it' at after school street dance club, we loved it.
So did me and a couple of the other big brothers who had our own little dance club going on in the back corner of the hall.

I decided I didn't want to go to ballet last week, too tired again was my reason.  This time I stuck to my guns though and didn't change my mind and we stayed home instead.

Usually I would have taken this as a great oppurtunity to sack the reading off, but not these days, not with all new, improved super studious Ned.  I got to spend even longer reading with Dad instead.

I had my first session at Team Kennet Athletics club on Friday night, I was glad it wasn't outside as it was chucking it down and dark, looks like winter is on it's way for sure.  I was a bit nervous on and off before we went, well I didn't know what to expect.  Once I got there though I loved it and couldn't wait to get stuck in.

And I got to sit and watch with Mum and Dad.  He did very well actually, I was impressed!

Yeah, I was certainly keen and wanted to get stuck into everything.  We had four zones to work through, throwing (indoor javelins and a basketball), agility (things to do with footwork), Jumping (standing longjump and a high jump-hand slap-on the wall sort of thing) and then relay running.  Alexandria from school was there too, so it was nice to have at least one familiar face.  I can't wait to go back next week!

Mum had to go to work on Saturday, booo.

Yeah, buit at least she had sorted us out with some entertainment.

Indeed she had, we went to the Corn Exchange to see the Selfish Crocodile with Dad.

It was brilliant fun, we got sat down a bit early and all three cast members came to see us, find out our names and crack a few jokes.

Then the show itself started, we got namechecked a few times during the performance.

And the crocodile himself came up to our seats to try and eat Dad, before declaring him 'Too meaty'

The whole placed laughed their heads off.

We met Mum for lunch afterwards and sat by the canal with a pasty before I took her round to the bakery stall at the market that we'd clocked on the way out of the Corn Exchange.  It looked amazing, bread, bread, lovely bread!  But even better than bread, fancy cheesecake...I had to have a bit.  It was gorgeous, I love cheesecake!

We had a totally lazy afternoon before going to pick Mum up.

Then it was time to watch telly as 'Take me out' has started again.

Which I jibber jabbered all the way through.

I've started a marble jar at home as well as the one we have running at school.  When we're good, we get a marble in the jar and when the jar is full we have a treat.  I'm installing the same system at home, which obviously means a lot of talking from me. I don't think we have enough marbles in the house to fill the jar i'm using though.  Maybe I should try and find a smaller jar?

I had Adriajne's party on Sunday at Eddie Cats, obviously brilliant albeit with a slight disagreement about what I should wear.  Turns out that short sleeves and no socks isn't such a great idea when going down fast slides after all.  Not that i'd ever let of course.

We had a sneaky trip to McDonalds while she was at the party although we did have to go to some shops too.

In the afternoon we did a little bit of school work and then played some games.

First of all was the treasure hunt we devised (check the video).

I gave mum plenty of help to find mine.

I thought she was finished quickly.  I gave Dad the right run around to find his in some really devious hiding places i'd come up with.

After that little success it was a couple of board games, first up my Doggie bone game.

And then we had a go at Junior Monopoly.  This normally ends in tears and all sorts of arguments.  This time we introduced a 'crying tax' if anyone used any less than sporting behaviour.  It seemed to do the trick though, the game passed off without incident.

Mum came last, horribly last in fact.

And I won!

Back to school today, it was lashing it down as we walked in and there were rivers flowing down the paths in the playground, was really exciting!

I've been running everywhere, to school, home from school, back to school to get my book and reading diary, back to school to get Ellis after dancing, home again after geting Ellis from dancing....all training!

Dancing, I love dancing, well, I love getting to mess about with Lillie anyway!

I decided things needed livening up during the performance so joined in t the back.  I was really going fo rit too, Dad thought I was becoming a bit of a distraction though and gave me the acknowledged glare of 'stop it now'  Shame, I was getting in to it as well.

My endless jibber jabber has continued unabated. Dad asked me if I was ever quiet....of course I said....when i'm asleep!

We had a trip to the dentist last Tuesday.

We've had to change the man we see as he'll only take Dad private now, so to keep things simple, we all go to the same one as Mum.

He was very nice actually, he said we brush well and have nice healthy teeth.

Yeah, that was very good to hear.

After that we had a little time to kill before Mum had finished work so we visited the bookshop, which we loved.

And HMV where I tried out loads of those really cool big headphones that the swimmers wore at the Olympics.

After that we wandered down the park for a bit of a play as well, was very lucrative for me as I found about £1.70 in change under one of the swings.

Yeah, I was gutted i missed out on that!

I was also nearly blowing a gasket in my attempts to get either of my parents to get me enrolled in Team Kennet athletics club as well.  Mum made some calls, Dad sent some emails.....will have to wait and see I suppose.

I didn't want to go to ballet on Wednesday, the line I tried was that of tiredness.  Dad said okay then, don't go.  He didn't much like my idea of going down the park instead though.  Apparently if i'm too tired for dancing, i'm also too tired for the park.  I decided dancing wasn't such a bad idea after all.

All my fretting had proved to be unfounded as i've got a place at the athletics club, starting this friday night.  I can't wait to go and get stuck in.

I did my dancing after school on Thursday night.  I got right to the front in front of our teacher a dn really gave it everything this week.  I'm hoping to win dancer of the week for my efforts but won't find out until class this week.

And while he was prancing about I got to stay late in my playground and play.  I had a brilliant game of hide and seek with Molly and grossed her Mum out telling her all about a dead bird we'd found in the playground.

Tegan came round for tea on Friday night.

I think I only put Ned's nose out of joint a little bit playing with her.

Yeah, whatever Ellis, I showed her proper entertainment by setting up a scalextric track in my bedroom without any help from Dad.  We even did our homework together without being asked!

On the subject of homework and what have you, I took a massive haul of house points for my spelling, times tables and daily reading.  I was so pleased with myself.

Saturday was a rather special day.

Indeed it was. 

We'd had Grandad to stay for a few days lately in readiness for a special train trip.

His best friend was driving an engine that Grandad had helped mend and keep running called Tangmere.

It was going from London, through Newbury and on to the seaside at Minehead.

And arrangements had been made to put his ashes in the fire of the engine as it powered along the track.

So, not yor usual day out but very, very cool indeed.

We had quite a party to wave us off on the platform which was lovely and we got shown to our very posh fist class seats along with Anne, Uncle Trevor and Hayley.

Alan though had a special job to do.  He rode on the footplate, helped pull some levers, toot the whistle, shovel some coal and most importantly, to load Grandad into the firebox.  I'm not sure he didn't actually put himself in there as well as when he came back he was covered in soot and looked filthy.

He also said it was about the coolest thing he'd ever done and loved the noise, the heat and the speed.

Inside the carriages it was a very different scene:

It was, we got really well looked after too, nothing was too much trouble for the chaps working on the train. 

In fact, it seems Grandad was pretty famous in railway circles and everyone seemed to know who he was and said what a great chap he was. 

It was lovely to hear.

It was a lovely sunny day and the countryside rolled past the window.

There were so many animals to see, it was lovely.

We loved buying raffle tickets (even though we didn't win anything)

And we were soon in Minehead, it was a lovely sunny day.  This sundial was a brilliant find as we've been doing light and dark at school this week.  This picture of me stood on a sun dial will do very nicely for my homework.

After a bit of a climbing session (with Ellis needing to be rescued after she got stuck between two rocks) it was on the main event, the arcade:

We loved it, there were loads of 2p fall machines, our favourite!

We rinsed them for money and even better than that, tokens!

With the help of Alan, Hayley and Uncle Trevor we soon had enough tokens to get ourselves some very tasteful prizes:

A lime green skull with it's very own crossbones for me.

And a little pink dragon hatching out of an egg for me.

One last scenic shot before we boarded for the return journey:

We even let Auntie Christine and Maurice (Owen and Laura's Grandad) come and sit with us.

Yeah, we felt sorry for them slumming it in cattle class on their own little trip out.

The trip back was just as lovely, as it got darker outside our little lamps made a lovely cosy glow for us to snuggle down in.

Yeah, we got Dad to finish fantastic Mr Fox for us.

And then something really unheard of happened.  A random bloke on the train came up to Mum and Dad and asked if he could make a comment.....

Yeah he did, you'll never guess what he said....

He said what a pleasure it was to see two such well behaved and pleasant children all day!

We were all stunned into silence momentarily.

All too soon we were in Newbury, I didn't want to get off and could quite happily have stayed on for London.  As soon as we had got off I charged up the platform to the front of the train to see the engine again.

I did too, it was all so cool and exciting.  We saw Grandads friend again and thanked him for a lovely day and a great send off for Grandad.

The engine itself loooked even cooler in the dark, the glow from the fire was awesome!

Here's our own video edit of the day:

And of course, being a steam train event, there were plenty of other people who were interested enough to film us chugging along.

Yeah, we'll call them 'enthusiasts' I think, not Train Spotters or anything like that, oh no.  Anyway, here are some videos these keen chaps took and then posted on the internet themselves:

Sunday then, and a trip out for Ben's birthday to the Gurkha Chef restaurant.

Our first trip to a curry house!

We didn't know what to expect but the music was pretty groovy.

And I loved the pictures on the walls of the mountains in Nepal and the ornamental weapon selection above the bar.

We did pretty well with the food too.  I particularly liked the starter selection of marinated chicken, on the bone of course.

And I loved the hot chicken curry.  Well, I loved the taste of it much more than the mild one, but it was a bit hot.  Maybe a bit too hot to eat too much of.

We had a walk up town and ended up in HMV to get a DVD to watch.

And remarkably we agreed on one, 'Diary of a wimpy kid Rodrick rules'

It was ace, almost as ace as Dad's massive bar of chocolate he got out of the cupboard for us to share!