Tuesday

Our Tudor project is still full on at school.  We spent a good part of the day doing Tudor art, drawing wooden artists dummies and then adorning them with authentic period costumes, I loved it.

Mum had a meeting at school in the morning, all about what we'll be learning this year.  Bit of a shame, means I can't really fob her off about what we're supposed to be doing.

Wednesday

It's that time of year again, school council elections!  I really need to work on my manifesto for next year as apparently being a good listener and not being afraid to voice the concerns raised by my fellow classmates is seemingly not enough to get you elected in the face of an offer of Ipads for everyone to use at school.  Needless to say I didn't win, and the Ipad promiser did, lets see how he delivers on that one.......

It was aslo Maxim's last day as he's moved to Falkland school.  Although we didn't always see eye to eye (probably down to our competitve sporting nature) i'll really miss him.  Still, i'm sure our paths will cross frequently enough what with team Kennet and the various schools athletics competitions.

We had to have a quick dash to the sports shop after school as well, football club starts at lunchtimes on Thursdays instead of after school, meaning I can go!  Exciting stuff eh?  I had to get some shinpads and some football socks.  The socks were hilarious, they were soooooo long.

Right, maybe I can get a word in now Ned?  I was awarded a marble for my writing today, one and a half sides! That must be a record?

I also made a lovely present for Owen, comprising some bubble wrap, brightly coloured pipecleaners, some folded strips of coloured paper and a healthy dose of sticky tape.  Dad gave it to him that evening when they went out, he was apparently very pleased with it.

Thursday

Even though lunch itself was a bit of a rush, football club was really good fun.

We also had a few extra viewers for our our after school dance club, with a selection of teachers having a watch.  It was cool to see my teacher among them.  Especially as after the dancing had finished she told Dad how brilliant I was at our P,S,H & E workshop earlier in the day.  Apparently I was very enthusiastic, very poite (it was with teachers from outside the school) and I had a lot of valuable input to the session.  Predictably, Dad asked if she'd got me mixed up with another pupil somehow.

Friday

We went swimming by bike.   

Brilliant!

The lesson went by in a flash as usual and we made sure we had time for a few laps of the wafty pump track at the top of the hill....

....and of course a high speed trip whizzing back down the hill.

Once tea was done and dusted we decided to have a game of monopoly.

It didn't go too well and ended up with Mum losing the plot and us getting packed off to bed rather earlier than we woud have liked.

Saturday

Off to Newbury show, with the lure of the animals I was well up for it,

I on the other hand did not want to go at all.  After the pure drudgery of the craft tent, my fears appeared to be justified....dull city.  But, then there was the food tent, with all it's delicious freebies.  From cheese and marmite bread, to chocolate, to fudge to chili sauce I was all over it.  I was converted to the show there and then.

Then there was he animals of course, starting off with these doggies:

There was hundreds of them! I then got to help in a sheepdog show too.

Then there was the slightly not so real piggies:

But the real ones were much more cute it has to be said:

We really wanted to buy a piglet, although seeing the full grown versions made us reconsider this idea, they were massive!

There were all orts of other weird and wonderful things to see:

And one of my favourite things of the whole day, this little dog, who worked for the Fire brigade:

He loved a game of fetch and never seemed to tire of it at all.

Another real highlight was the sports area.

We got to bounce:

We got to climb:

We got play some football:

And then we picked our own specialist activities, I went for badminton.

And I went for wrestling.  It was totally brilliant, the emphasis was on technique and skill rather than brute force and mindless violence with games involving snatching a tag from each others ankles or belt loops.  I took on various challengers and lapped it up, the chaps teaching it were super cool as well.

And while he was grappling I got a baminton lesson, which I was really into.  I'm stimll a bit too young for their club but i'm dead keen to go when i'm old enough.

I think my real highlight of the day was our Land Rover ride though.

Yeah, fortunatley the man let me on even though I wasn't actually tall enough.  Good job I was wearing my Reading Football club crown to give me a few extra centimetres.

We got to pick where we sat too, I couldn't believe I got the front seat uncontested.

Me and mum sat in the two seats right at the back, leaving Dad in the middle on his own.

Our driver was really cool, apparently he made the special edition versions in the week and then got to drive them at the weekends.  He revved it up and took off around the test track route, it was steep, deep and pretty wild.

I couldn't believe how crazy it was and I think Dad was terrified we were going to tip over sideways on more than one occasion.

It was awesome, me, Ellis and Dad would have gone and bought a Land Rover right there and then given half a chance.

We rounded out the day watching a cattle parade in the main ring. I loved all the baby cows and bulls.

And Mum and I laughed our heads off at the bulls massive nadgers!

Auntie Trish was on babysitting duties in the evening, we were suitably tired out for her.

Although we managed a rather late night of course.  We wathched the war film the great escape, which we totally loved, especially the motorbike jump!

And then we also managed to watch Through the Keyhole with Keith Lemon who we find totally hilarious.

Great night, thanks Autie Trish.

Sunday

We had Alan, Hayley and Anne round for Sunday lunch, we do love having visitors round.

Even if I did manage to sneak off down the prk with Hugo shortly after lunch.....

Monday

After a few days of complaining on and off about my ear hurting, I finally succumbed to it big style.  I was in tears when Dad came to get me from dancing after school. It was not a good nights sleep on Monday it has to said......

Tuesday

So after last nights ear related trauma, I had the day off school.  Oh dear.

So I had to go in alone.  I had a good day though, my Tudor art was deemed so good it was paraded around in front of the class.  They must have been impressed with it, most of them copied it!

I went to the doctors in the afternoon, ear infection confirmed.  Nasty banana medicine given, not that nice orange flavoured stuff Ned had!

Wednesday

Our last outdoor team Kennet session of the summer.  Just as well really, it was pretty dark by home time.  Dad reckons I was on fire this week though and was looking faster than ever in the running he saw me do.

Thursday

We may be a year early with this but we decided to vsit the Park House open evening.  It was seriously impressive.  We listened to a talk from some pupils and the headmaster and then got a guided tour by a current 6th former.  Wow, what a load of cool stuff you get to do at big school. We got to try all sorts, from setting fire to stuff in the science lab, tasting food in the cookery area, playing keyboards in the music room, watching dance performances in the studio to test driving sewing machines in the textiles area.

I loved the gym too, exercise equipment and loud thumping music.

It was quite an eye opener thats for sure.  I need to see what St Barts has to offer now.

Friday

After last weeks Monopoly row being put down to tiredness after riding to and from swimming after a busy week at school, we were back in the car.

Yeah, we weren't happy about that at all, but on the plus side we did get to play a couple of games of monopoly in a much better frame of mind!

Saturday

We had an early-ish appointment for Mums phone to be looked at in Basingstoke.

So we hit a few shops as well, got myself a lovely new purple winter coat.

And I bought my black tights for Ufton Court.

The Apple shop was next, we'd never been in one before and it was pretty snazzy it has to be said.  I got myself a little bean bag thing and got busy on some low level Ipads.

There were computers, Ipads, Ipad mini's and Iphones all over the place, I loved it and geeked out big time.

It was a bit of a shame Mum got her phone sorted out quite quickly really.

We let Mum try a few items of clothing on in a few shops beore heading to the golden arches for lunch....it's been a while.

In the afternoon it was Luca's party.

I got an invite too, as a friend for Hugo.

It was at Eddie Katz, we had a great time as you can imagine.

For a second week running, Auntie Trish came round to babysit!

I know, we couldn't believe our luck either.

We played Monopoly, ate sweets and enjoyed some Saturday night telly and conversation, brilliant. 

Thanks again.

Sunday

Legoland! 

For a full day out this time, we wrre pretty excited about it as it may well have been our last trip of the season, it closes next month. 

It was the usual fun and games, even though mine and dads boat breakingdown on the boating school was a bit of a low point, still, we got another go as compensation.

A very pleasant surprise in the afternoon, we ran into the Halfords on Leo's birthday outing.

We had a ride on the pirate ship with them:

We also had a wander around the model village with them which was cool.

We headed off in our separate ways after that though, Leo had some birthday money to spend in the lego shop.

And we had to go on the dragon rollercoaster, right at the front:

We decided to round our day out in a soggy way, two goes on the Viking river rapids and a trip on the log flume made sure we were very soggy indeed.

Monday

No after school clubs for either of us today, just some quality sofa time with the telly.

And then some homework.  I'm making a castle, I have some very grand ideas for it so hopefully it comes to fruitionthe way I want it to.

I've got noticably more this year.  Spellings, sentences, maths problems and our learning log projects.....grumble, grumble, grumbe.

Tuesday

We did football in PE and played Dodgeball at playtimes, I am enjoying the sport now we're back in the swing of things at school.

And I got my first reading book of the new term, which I know made Mum very happy.

Gymnastics was really good this week too, on the way there I was telling Dad that my favourite apparatus was the bars, and thats exactly what we did for most of the session.

Wednesday

I was very excited to be able to take Dad on a brief classroom tour when he came to pick me up.  I showed him my new peg and where I sit now.

I got a letter from school all about our Ufton Court trip.  The fact that we got a letter about it has ramped up the excitement level several notches so we're approaching fever pitch.

Thursday

I had my first after school dancing session of the new term, it went rather well and was a lot of fun.

Friday

Last day of the week, and it couldn't come soon enough for us.

We were both pretty whacked out after our first full week back.

I had enough left in the tank for swimming though.

And I had enough energy left to talk non stop to Edward and Eva's mum for half an hour pretty much without a breath.

Saturday

We packed up early and headed off for Brooklands museum.  

Mum had the tickets as a Christmas present so it was high time we used them.

Apparently it was the first motor racing track in the country back in 1907, cool or what?

There were loads of cool things to look at, hidden away in sheds and buildings.

I loved the motorbikes.

And I loved my eye-spy book, it had all the things around the museum in it to tick off.  Some were harder to find than others and were rewarded with more points accordingly.

I had little teddies to find among the exhibits, each one had a letter attached to it to spell out a word at the end.  They were in some funny old places, one was even hanging upside down, from an upside down formula one car on the roof!

Here I am clutching my book next to the Napier Railton, the car that still holds the lap record for the fastest lap around the track.

I don't think theres much chance of anyone ever beating it now though, seeing as most of the track has gone.

In fact there was a Marks and Spencers on a bit of it.

I easily spotted the Bentley badge on this one!

I was amazed that all of the cars and the motor bikes had what looked like a litter tray underneath them, catching drops of oil from their engines.  

The circuit was also used for bike racing and they had loads of old bikes from penny farthings through to boneshakers, choppers, BMX's, road bikes and mountain bikes.  There was nothing on show i'd have fancied taking round the pump track though.  Dad took great delight in pointing out the old bikes he used to have, a Raleigh Striker and a Raleigh Burner.  I thought they looked a bit rubbish.

This one was pretty cool though, it wad called an Ellis!

We stopped for lunch which was in the old clubhouse.  It had a pink room that the ladies used for reading apparently.  It was rather nice, although there were plenty of photo's showing the ladies in their racing overalls And getting out on the track which is where I think I would have been given the choice.

There was also a particularly hard to spot item from my book in one of the cabinets in there, a Michelin man ornament....well spotted Mum, it was worth lots of points.

As well as the wheeled sport, the place was also used as an airfield so there were plenty of aeroplane things to see too.

They used to make sections of Concord there too, so we got to have a tour of their concord.

It was really cool, we couldn't believe how fast it used to go either.  Or how hot it got when it flew, or that it grew 15cm in length due to this heat.

We lapped it all up, but really do wonder why it has to take so long for us to get to America these days?

We got to sit in the cabin while they played a video, detailing what is was like to fly in Concord.

It was pretty convincing too, I had to look out of the window several times to double check we hadn't actually taken off!

We went for a wander up to the section of track that still remains.

It was a lot steeper than it looks on this picture, as Dad can testify, having ended up on his backside twice!

In fact the only one of us who didn't end up getting a much closer look at the track surface than we wanted was mum.

Of course, being a race track, we had to have a run along it!

We then paid a visit to the London Bus museum, it was really rather good, loads of buses, all shiny and lovely.

I befriended one of the staff members to help me with my Eye Spy book and he took the chains of a normally closed bus so we could have a look around it.

It was well cool going upstairs on it!

According to my unticked pages of book, we needed to visit the aviation section next.

A massive shed full of all sorts of aeroplanes where we got to sit in the drivers seat of a harrier jet:

The man pointed out all the good switches and buttons for the rockets, guns, bombs and ejector seat.

I struggled to reach the foot pedals a bit but I reckon I could have flown it home no problem.

We also got to use the bomb drop simulator (after just about passing the maths test).

All I really had left to find then was some leftover war defences (the place was quite a target during the second world war due the planes being built there at the time).  After a bit of a detour into the wilderness we found them and after a quick photo stop on the bridge we were done:

Instead of heading home though, we headed for an overnight hotel stop.

Brilliant, we do love a hotel trip.

Especially when there's a swimming pool on tap to help soothe our poor old tired legs and feet after walking around all day.

We had a great swim, and as usual ended up with the pool to ourselves, cue a series of high energy swimming races.

We headed back to the room for bed-slump-picnic:

We then had a group cuddle up session watching Saturday night tv.

Sadly there was no Strictly, so we had to make do with the X Factor and Keith Lemon doing though the keyhole instead.

We had a lovely lay in in the morning.

Then headed down for breakfast, we do love a hotel breakfast and never seem to tire of the novelty of being able to help ourselves to whatever we like.

Especially hot chocolate on tap!

There was time for another swim before we had to leave. Excellent!

We headed for home, I spent the rest of the day pottering about the house and designing the cover for my new school learning log.

While I went to see if Hugo was in and then spent the rest of the day playing on the computer with him.

Monday

Oh dear, I woke up at 4 am with a screaming ear ache.  I'd been suffering with a bit of a cold as it was and this tipped me over the edge pretty much, there were plenty of tears and cuddle requests.

I also woke up with the most blocked up snotty nose of all time, although I didn't feel too bad otherwise.

I did, so no school for me, and a trip to the doctors instead.  One bottle of medicine and a confirmed ear infection later I was on my way home again for some serious sofa time.

I had a good day at school, I won some golden time for being so good in assembly and really threw myself into after school dancing.

I spent the morning cuddling up to Mum and the the afternoon cuddling up to Dad.  Poor me.

I even put myself to bed before tea was even dished up.

Tuesday

Our last day of the holidays.

And by special request and arrangement, Dad was on duty for the day.

I'd banned any bike related activities as well, so that put a whole new slant on his usual solo days out.

Indeed it did, I was quite open to a bit of bike related activity really but was up for anything.

We decided we should do something Mum wouldn't be interested in and with bikes out of the question , ice skating would be the perfect answer.

So we headed for Oxford Ice rink and got there just as it opened, we were well excited putting our skates on.

Especially me, as mine were well cool.

Well, the ice was seriously slippery, and seriously hard when you ended up on your bottom.

Indeed it was, I struggled a bit to begin with, so we went and got me a push along penguin.  I was soon gliding along behind him with ease.

I ventured out on my own, clinging hold of the side to begin with before I found my feet and started to get around really quite well.

I decided i'd gone as far as I could with my little penguin friend and decided holding Dads hand was a much better option.  I had mixed fortunes with this approach, as I did have spells of graceful gliding, but there was a lot of falling over, a real lot of falling over.

While all this was going on I was going about my business and doing lap after lap, building my confidence.

We managed well over an hour of skating before we decided that we should leave the ice with a full complement of fully functioning limbs.

It was great fun, mum woud have hated it.

She would have loved the next thing on the agenda though, Hinksey Park outdoor swimming pool.

I was well excited, i'm still mad keen on swimming.

It was so much nicer than the outdoor pool at Northcroft thats for sure.

Indeed it was, the changing rooms were nice and the pool looked really rather inviting.

It was even pretty warm water too, result!

We jumped, we splashed, we dived for our dive sticks.

Then we got out and a picnic by the side of the pool.

We were soon back in again though for more splashing and some stop watch time trials of various silly tasks.

Then it was a quick scooter ride around to the nearby park for a bit:

We stayed for a while, until we got bored of it, which just so happened to work out well as by the time we got back to Newbury it was time for my gymnastics.

Once we'd dropped her off we headed straight to the library, i'd finished my last two books for the summer reading challenge and I was seriously pleased with myself.

I marched in there as proud as punch and really relished going up to the lady on the counter to claim my certificate, my medal and my final game cards.

They then came pick me up once I was finished and it was off to get Mum before rounding out the day , and indeed the summer holidays with a trip to Pizza Hut.

What a way to end the holidays, perfect.

We've had such a cool break this year, we've done so much, been so many places and had so much fun.

Indeed we have, so thanks to everyone involved this year, you know who you are!

Wednesday

Well, obviously with yesterday being the last day of the holidays, today was the first day back to school.

I didn't want to go at all.

I did!

It was of course business as usual and we had no idea what we'd been doing all day when asked after school.

Nope, that's the rules though.

Although I did win two marbles for good behavior.

Thursday

I also got a marble on Thursday for sustained effort and enthusiasm during our history lesson.  I even put the whole class right about the correct order of various historical era's.

At home, it's all been about Clash of Clans though, my latest Ipod game sensation. I've even got Mum and Dad to try this one out though I don't think they have quite as much enthusiasm about it as I do though.

Friday

The end of the school week, thank goodness for that.

I had swimming in the afternoon, but sadly we didn't ride this week.

And i'm struggling with the idea of Edward doing lessons again and not playing with me on the park!

There was an event on in town in the evening, called 'Ablaze'

We weren't sure what it was, but there was stuff on fire along the canal, it sounded too good to miss.

Although we nearly did, when we got to West Mills the queue was massive, right back to past the church.  It looked a loooooong wait.

But in actual fact it moved pretty quickly and we were soon onto the tow path.

It was really rather cool, there were fairy lights along the trees, and braziers all along the middle of the canal.

Add to that people playing instruments and singing dotted along the route.

There were weird spinning things.

Everything looked so different with the flickering flames reflecting on the water.

The pond in the park was transformed:

Although the swans were not impressed:

The park really was quite something:

There was stuff onfire everywhere:

There was some weird music coming from the bandstand, Mum loved it, I did too, in fact I burst into a spontaneous dance routine as I watched the flames dancing all around me.

I sat down and took it all in:

We were really glad we went, even though after our first week back to school we were seriously worn out......

Saturday

Lazy morning after last nights outing.

Yeah, it was rather called for I reckon.

We headed into town for 'new term' haircuts.

And lunch in Costa (although i'm smuggling in very high quality Greggs sausage rolls for my main course).

I had Lois' party after that, ceramics painting at he garden centre like we did with Auntie Christine.  While all the other girls picked ballerina's or mermaids to paint, I picked..........a Skull!

So we had a couple of hours to kill and ended up looking at the show house on the new race course housing development.  I'd moved in within seconds of stepping through the door, how cool to be that close to all those horses!

They came to pick me up, I was soaked as Eva and I had darted outside while it was chucking it down with rain.

We went home and watched some Saturday night telly....

Yeah, Strictly come dancing.

And the Mum upset us by refusing to let us to go and babysit Darcey with her....not impressed.  Even if she was already in bed.

Sunday

We had a walk up Beacon hill in the morning.

Yeah, it was a long way up, but we pretty much ran all the way up it.

There was of course the obligatory war based conversation from me, where would you attack or defend or spot advancing soldiers.

The view from the top really was worth the climb:

We had Auntie Trish coming round for tea.

So I helped Mum tidy up a bit.

We love having Auntie Trish round, we had a nice chat with her, performed song and dance routines for her.

And had a couple of games of cards with her after tea.

Monday

Back to school for our first full week.

But a least our after school clubs have started up again.

Yeah dancing was great fun, we danced to the Madness song Baggy Trousers and had to pretend to be really naughty...not too hard for us lot!

And I was back to cross country club, which has started earlier in the season than ever this year.  They must be taking it more seriously or something, although we certainly didn't notice.  It was as great fun as it always has been.

Tuesday:

A day with auntie Christine and Darcey.

We were re-aquainted with our painted pottery, I was super pleased with mine.

I wasn't quite so pleased with mine, the paint colour lacked the depth and impact I was hoping for.

We played out in the garden nearly all day:

 

It was gymnastics again, my old friend from Nursery and School Adrija was there for a taster session, hope she liked it and comes again.

While she was there I took my latest book that I had finished back to the library.  I collected my stickers and carefully selected 'random' game cards from the box.  I was well hyper about it.

They were done very quickly, in time to watch some gymnastics action properly as it was the last week of term viewing session.  Which was great, until everyone laughed at me for splatting face down on the horse (it was intentional by the way).

Wednesday:

We went to the school holiday club, neither of us were looking forward to this at all.

No, we like the relaxed and laid back vibe of Dragon club.

But it turned out to be really quite agreeable actually.  We got to do some art stuff,make cowboy hats and sherrif badges....

And we got to do some sporty stuff too, but the main focus of my day was Dad coming to get us, and take Hugo and I to Games Workshop.  Hugo's already hooked and he's done a good job of getting me involved.  I made a figure, painted him up and played a quick game against Hugo (which I won) inside half an hour.  Now we're considering pooling our resorces to fund a starter set.....

I quite enjoyed seeing what it was all about too actually.

There was even one of old teaching assistants called Mr Nash in there playing a game too, so that was cool.  He was awesome at playing dodge-ball with us, I told him he was missed at school, that went down well in front of his mates.

I finally went back to Team Kennet this week, it's been weeks.  My enthusiasm was running at the same high levels and to make it even better we had a team 'sort of quad kids' tournament.

While he was doing this, I was doing timed sprints u and down the side of the track and once i'd puffed myself out I did some of my maths problems book.

The competition went really well, I performed well and felt good and our team won!

Each team member won a nice little Team Kennet pin badge, I was proper chuffed.

Thursday:

Mum was off again today.

So after a typically sluggish morning we finally got moving and headed off to town for the annual ritual of buying new school shoes!

Yes we did have to go through it again.

I'm an 11.5 F.

And i'm a 2G.

I didn't get a little toy inside mine, not happy about that, but a trip to the Entertainer soon remedied that, thanks Mum.

We went home for lunch and then packed up some stuff for tea and our swimming costumes before swinging by Dads work to pick him up and we headed for Southbourne.

Yay, a seaside trip!

What made it even more brilliant was the Red Arrows starting a display over Bournemouth pretty much the moment we spread out our blanket on the beach to sit down.  It was an awesome display and I loved it.

They flew really low over us and I loved the coloured smoke coming out the back of the planes as they flew by.

After we'd watched that it was time for a bit of digging and general beach stuff.

Before hitting the water for a swim, it was such a lovely afternoon it would have been rude not to.

No wetsuits either, but the water was actually surprisingly pleasant once we were in.

We enjoyed the waves and I swam a long way out alone.

We'd worked up an appetite so headed back to the blanket for a well needed picnic.

And then went for a walk along the prom once we were dressed until the sun went down.

What a lovely afternoon.

Friday:

We had to go to school club again today.

But we had a great day!

Highlights were archery on the field and sweets.

Yeah, sweets, as prizes, we loved that.

Dad came to get us quite late as the traffic was so bad across town, in light of this we decided the best way for us to get to the swimming pool in time for my lesson was to ride our bikes.

It was a lovely afternoon for it and it really took no time at all, it wasn't far to the canal and then it was a short ride along the tow path until we got to the bridge over to Northcroft.

In fact, we were so early we had time to play on the park before we had to go in.

Swimming went well again.

And then we rode our bikes around the wafty BMX track at the top of the hill for a while, well, until I had a pretty nasty off and grazed my hands and elbows.  I shrugged it off though and we bombed down the hill to play on the park until Mum left work and met us.

And we made our way home along the tow path again.

 Apart from the injuries, quite a success.

Saturday:

A trip out, Bekonscot model village.

We hadn't been here for a while.

Apparently last time I came here I had just learned to walk and spent most of the time chewing the lovely low railings.  I was much more interested in what I could spot this time around, as well as chasing the trains around too.

It was pretty good actually, the more you looked, the more you could find.  My favourite things though had to the real life frog that had wandered into the model zoo and the real life duck roosting on the model rowing boat jetty.

I loved all the beautiful flowers, the gardens were really lovely.  And the massive fish in the ponds were well cool too!

My new sparkly cuddly toy liked it too:

We had a lovely picnic and a play on the park before having a wander around town.

The highlight of this being a trip to Temptations gift shop to laugh at the rude birthday cards.  Bums, boobs and farts....hilarious.

Sunday:

I had a party to go to in the afternoon, it was my bestest friend Lilly and Talia having a joint bash.  It was brilliant, music, games and a chocolate fountain no less!

We had another do to go to while she was there, Harriette's naming day.  What a great time we had, splashing in the mega paddling pool, bouncing on the trampoline, swingball and best of all fighting with her brother Josh, who was lapping it up:

It wasn't all rough and tumble though, i had time for a quiet cuddle with Milly:

I even managed to skim right across the pool on an inflatable bodyboard (after running across the garden before launching myself) thanks to some expert coaching from Josh and Harriette's uncle Matthew.

Auntie Chistine came to get me as they were still at the party.  That was cool, I got o go back to her house on my own and have a bath with Darcey.

While I got to make my way through an extended chocolate brownie binge, I even raised a piece as my offering for a toast!

Monday:

Our last day of the holidays with Auntie Christine.

We can't believe it, the holidays are almost over.

But in the meantime there was plenty of fun to be had.

Today's project was tie dyeing.  It was great fun, even if the end results had to be waited for.

Add a trip to the pub for lunch, a visit to the park on the way home...

...and an afternoon in the garden playing with Darcey and it all added up to a good day.

So, many thanks to Aunie Christine and her supporting cast (uncle Ian, Darcey and Laura) for all the cool stuff we did over the holidays, I know Mum and Dad appreciate it nearly as much as we both do.