Wednesday

We finally finished the last story in my wishing chair book.  Which was brilliant, but also a bit rubbish really.  I've really enjoyed the stories and it's got me well and truly into proper chapter books.  I'm having a pirate one now that Ned got me for my birthday.

Thursday

We were all set for an Ellis free night....

Yeah, it was Amie's birthday party and then a sleepover.....or so we thought.  The party was certainly on, making pizza in Pizza Express.  But the sleepover wasn't until Friday night.  No wonder Amies mum looked puzzled when I turned up at the party with an overnight bag.

So after dance we had to still go and get her.

The party was great fun, we loved making pur pizza's and best of all eating them!!!!

Seeing as we were all together after tea, we made the best of it and had a bike ride to the city playground.

Friday

The real day of the sleepover.  I took my overnight bag to school which was all properly exciting.  We were going straight to Amie's from school, which turned out to be quite a walk!

So, what did I have lined up for an evening of Ellis free entertainment? Film night at school, but with a film Ellis would have loved, Frozen!  And not just that, a Frozen sing along!

I ended up getting a makeover from some of the girls:

They also gave me some rather lovely pink nails too.

Which started a bit of a trend with the boys........

I heard a rumour that Mum and Dad actually went out on their own while we were both otherwise engaged.

How dare they go and enjoy themselves!

Not that I was bothered, I was having a great time, we did make up and made our own hairbands before watching Gnomeo and Juliet and drifting off to sleep.

Saturday

Ellis free morning, free reign of the telly and the Ipad.

Yeah, like I ever cause him a problem with his entertainment.

I was still at Amies, I was pretty impressed with myself, I was a bit nervous in the build up it has to be said but it was great fun.

Having said that, I was still very pleased to see Mum and Ned when they came to pick me up.

In the afternoon it was time for rounders.

Yep, family and friends had been rounded up and we were meeting on the cricket field at Donnington for a picnic, with a bit of rounders thrown in too.

I had been super excited in the build up and couldn't wait to get started.  We had a batting practice session on the bank, Max certainly had his eye in.  I took a bit longer to get up to speed but was soon giving it a right old whack.

I played with Darcey in the park instead.  I got her going superfast on the roundabout which she loved.  Probably a good job auntie Christine didn't notice though......

We loosely arranged some teams and got going.  The disadvantage of suddenly being able to give the ball a bit of a whack is the possibility of getting caught out.  I fell fould of this more times than I care to remember.  I wasn't that bothered though, I enjoyed being a 'runner' for numerous members of the team that found it all to much (naming no names here).

I drifted in and out of the game, assisted by Mum, it was actually pretty fun. 

The main purpose of the day though was to have a get together and have some fun, which we certainly achieved.

Yeah, good effort everyone, same time next year then?

Sunday

After yesterdays exertions on the rounders field, we had a bit of a lazy morning.

We did, but then someone mentioned Hollycombe!

This induced unparalleled levels of excitement in the household.

Yep, genuine whoops of excitment.  We love Hollycombe.

It took a while to get there, so we had a power nap.

And as it doesn't open until lunchtime we had a lovely picnic in the grassy car park, next to the cute donkeys in their field.

Which was somewhat disturbed by a rather forceful peacock trying to help himself to my ham baugette.

It was hilarious.  He abandonned the baugette, shrieked and jumped on mum's lap (Ned, not the Peacock)

Dad shooed him off, he tried his luck at the next picnicking family.....

So, we headed straight for the Razzle Dazzle, even though it took a while for the bloke to get it wound up, it was soon spinning and tilting and squashing the adults on the outside.

At least this time I stayed on the seat!

There was no real waiting for rides of course, just hop on and have fun.

We loved the mirrors as well:

And the haunted house was great fun:

We had to go round several times.

We even got Dad on the big wheel, he claimed to enjoy it too!

We got the swingboats to go super high, despite a woman telling us we were doing it wrong....

Check the height lady, I think NOT!

The carousel was great, no seat belts, no having to sit with adults:

We drifted back to the car for a drink and a cookie.

It was lovely laying on the blanket, looking up at the clouds floating on by.

We couldn't find any amusing patterns in them though.

And then I got wrapped up in the blanket and put in the back of the car:

It was quite tricky wriggling free!

Feeling refreshed we went back in for a bit more action.

It was quite a tight fit in the little cars, but I loved them anyway:

We rounded the day off with a trip on the railway, sat right at the front so we could see what the driver was doing.

Monday

Whole school shuffle day!

This meant that the whole school bumped up a year to spend some time with their new teachers in their new class rooms!

We had to draw a picture of ourselves and list the things we liked for our new teacher Miss Stubbs.  I listed 'visiting the steam fair' as my number one.

I got to spend some time with Mrs Buxey, my new teacher, she seems great so far.

I also got my school report.  It started off like this:

Ellis is such a lively, fun and confident member of our class and it has been wonderful to watch her mature and develop this year.  She always manages to make the adults in the classroom smile.  

Before going on to the specific subjects, which were all equally encouraging. I was very pleased with it, so were Mum and Dad!

Tuesday

It was viewing week at gymnastics, obviously with netball for Ned, they didn't make it until the very last minute.

But at least we got there in time for a bit of it.

Wednesday

Strange events today, Mum picked us up from school.  Well, she picked me up anyway.

Not me, I decided to stay on and cheer on the football team who were playing against Falkland.

Which meant I got to play on the adventure playground for ages.

Thursday

We got told what part we had got in the end of year (indeed end of infants) school play of the Jungle Book.  I'm going to be one of the comedy Vultures.  We get sone great funny lines to say, i'm really pleased about it.  I wasted no time starting to learn my lines with Dad.

After school dance club has been focussing on our end of year production, which was good, especially if you like line dancing!

After tea we had a 'meet the teacher' gathering at the junior school.  My teacher next term will be Miss Stubbs!  

I went along too, even though I know all about juniors, just as well too, there were biscuits available!

We learnt a lot about whats in store for us in Junior school,and despite having a few minor concerns I am rather looking forward to it.

When we got home, quite late, we had baking to do for go-givers charity bake sale at school the next day.

Dad declared himself out of the running to help, he said it was too late and we ought to just buy some. He's also got a right bee in his bonnet about the fact that school send letters home instructing us to not have any sort of cakes or sweets in our packed lunches, only to encourage cake binges with these sort of events.

Anyway, the upshot was Mum would have to help instead.

This pleased Dad no end as she makes even more mess than we do!

The end result brownies were of course, exquisite.

Friday

It was go givers day at school so we proudly took our brownies in, to many admiring glances.

It meant we got to spend a good portion of the day with the year fives which is always fun.

I rounded the day out selling what leftover cakes we had to parents on pick uo duites with Louise, Robert and Corey.  Mrs. Tichband said I had been very enthusiastic all day, well, my two favourite things, cakes and finance!

We were under strict instructions from Mum to go and get haircuts after school.

Dad added further enticement by saying we could go by bike if we wanted?

Of course we did!

We loved riding into town and locking our bikes up.

The haircuts were swiftly done so we had ages until we had to pick mum up from work.

We decided we'd ride back home along the canal.

We carried on past our usual turn off for home until we got to a bridge and a lock.

We loved walking across the top of the lock gates.

We then noticed a path off to Speen Moors Walk.  We'd never been off that way before so decided an exploratory mission was a good idea.

It was ace, there were rivers and bridges,

Cows, cygnets and doggies on walks.

We went miles, but had to turn for home before we reached the end of the path, which we think was at Northcroft.

So thats a mission for another day.

Saturday

We had a day out with Alan and Hayley, Tankfest 2014!

They even had the pleasure of our company all the way to the tank museum at Bovington.

I wonder what Mum and Dad found to talk about all on their own?

We finally got there, with very little help from Alans sat nav, which is seemingly programmed to avoid the most direct or quickest route.

There were loads of tanks about!

There was indeed.

We made our way to the arena where there were tanks driving about and doing there thing.

The bridge builder one was pretty epic it must be said.

Alan was very excited about it all, he was like Mum in a cake shop, or Dad watching the Downhill racing.

Aside from the park, which although was busy, was brilliant, the best things were the mini tanks:

They were seriously cool, with two handles to steer and go, just like real tanks!

There were old tyres sprinkled around the place, running over them was brilliant, it made the whole thing tip up and then down again.

We kept managing to miss them, so the man running it threw some directly in our path.

We watched some more tanks in the arena, Alan maintained his high level of excitement throughout.

We strayed off for a bit, another go on the packed park and then the climbing wall which was ace:

We even skeaked out the back to the pits area:

We got to sit in a few of the armoured cars and stuff:

This one had a cool seatbelt, but I was told by Dad not to buckle myself up in case I never escaped:

We saw the only remaing operational Tiger tank (a german one) in the arena before we made our way back to the car.

I was not happy at having to miss the Mustang P51 flypast.

But as luck would have it, the plane appeared just as we were walking back along the road.

And even better than that, it did it's whole display right over our heads, swooping along the tree line before climbing up, stalling and then diving back down towards us.

Throw in a few loop the loops and barrel rolls for good measure and we were well happy.

We had a bit of a kip on the way home.

We needed to recharge our batteries, it was party night!

Yeah, Uncle Slim and Auntie Trace have been married for 25 years! 

That seems like, forever to us.

Anyway, a good excuse for a get together.

We loved it, especially starting off dancing with Darcey, and the later on with Mum and Laura in particular.

Even Dad and I got involved and threw a few shapes.

We hope they liked our messages in the guest book:

The party bags were seriously top end as well!

Sunday

Well after a late night last night, it understandably a bit of a lazy one on Sunday.

Yeah, mid morning bacon sandwiches for breakfast.

Followed by a short shopping trip to get Mum a bike helmet.

Where I had to tell Dad that there was no way on earth he needed a new bike.

But I managed to get myself some nice new cycling gloves.  It's about time really, i'm sill using a pair of Ned's old action man ones.

In the afternoon I rounded up Hugo and Ali, we went up to my room to play Fifa on the Xbox but ended up watching funny cat videos on youtube and laughing our heads off.

We rounded the day off watching catchphrase, my favourite programme.  I was allowed to stay up pretty late to see the end of it.

Monday

I had another Year 3 visit today, i'm getting well used to it all now and we still have plenty more visits scheduled.

We did Secret dancing after school, in preparation for the end of term performance.

I made good use of the quiet time at home doing my reading.  I'm currently into a new range of football books the school library has just got hold of.  I much prefer the fact based stuff to stories.

We did bike riding before tea.

Yeah, and got the ramps out.

I made it over them safely on my new bike.

And I kept pushing the landing ramp further away and further away to see if I could clear the gap.  I came in and got the tape measure to see just how big the gap was, it measured 1 metre.  A good start, but theres plenty more to come I reckon.....

Tuesday

We were both up early today, no particular reason for it.

Nope, none at all. I was happy my scab had dried up though and I wasn't stuck to my duvet or anything grim like that.

I had to do my reading test at school, we've all done an individual one, I didn't struggle with it really so I reckon i've done okay.

After school I told Dad I really didn't want to go to gymnastics on account of my scabby knee feeling a bit stiff.  He reluctantly relented, so I don't think he was too impressed when I skipped off to the adventure playground to play with my friends.......

We had a netball match against St Nicholas school, down at their place.  It was brilliant and we loved it, no doubt our 7-0 victory helped!

When we went to pick Ned up we bumped into Auntie Gail who was off to the dentist.  She had my birthday present in her car that she had been trying to deliver to us for ages (but kept missing us). Hope your appointment went well and thanks for the present.

We were a bit early to pick Mum up so we had a wander around town, i bought some football stickers.

And I got one of those animal rubbers from Temptations, a panda one, with some of my birthday money.

Wednesday

I woke up feeling a bit poorly.  Headache, sore throat, generally a bit meh.  I made it to school but by lunchtime I was feeling a lot worse ans school phoned Dad to come and get me.  He took his flipping time, but I suppose he was on the bike.  We spent the. Afternoon watching kids TV and snuggling up on the sofa.

While all this slacking off was going on, I had to redo my reading test at school.  My original attempt hadn't gone at all well, in fact I apparently got ablower score than when I did it last year....oh dear, obviously something wasn't right first time round.

After school I had my first session at Mr Gilhams football club, it was wicked.

Thursday

Well I was off again, which meant Mum in the morning then Dad in the afternoon.

Mufed me up well with one of her luxury cheese toasties for lunch.

For after school dance club we had Surfin' USA by the Beach Boys.  We were allowed to wear 'beach clothes' too.  I decided to ignore dads suggestion of wearing my wetsuit and plumped for a far more sensible swimming hat and goggles to go with my shorts and t-shirt.. I really went for it and loved every minute.

I knew a load of my classmates were headed down the park after school,so as soon as i'd got rid of my hat and goggles and picked up my bike I headed down there to see if they were still there...they were!  We stayed down there for ages, Louise, Dylan, Rebecca and Tilly were all there.  I ended up getting invited to Tilly's for tea with them all, we stopped off to tell Dad on the way past.

Which meant I got Ned's helping of sausage and mash at tea time!

Friday

Well after two days off school I was raring to get back! I convinced Mum I was good to go, even though she thought she'd be getting a phone call to come and get me by mid morning.  No chance, I stuck it out to the end of the day no problem!

We had an early tea, before Mum came home....

.....which we found most peculiar, even if it was for a good reason.

Yes, it was camping time!

A new venue as well, with Croyde being fully booked for a surfing festival and south Wales having zero waves forecast for the weekend we were off to Weymouth, Littlesea holiday park to be precise.

Indeed we were, I helped Dad load the car up, well a little bit, but I gave in to the lure of the telly pretty quick.

We went to get Mum from work, got her changed, then went to pick Andy up (he's very helpful when setting up the tent and all that) before we hit the road.

It's a good deal closer than Devon so we made good time and were very soon there, despite a rather lengthy and eventful toilet stop. (Big queue, no toilet roll, you get the picture).

We were like a well oiled machine setting all our kit up, well, we were once Dad had considered at some length exactly where tp pitch the tent on our pitch.

To be fair, he did a good job, not we'd ever let him know of course.

I made friends pretty much immediately with a girl a couple of pitches up, they had a caravan, and a dog.

It had been a long day, and the sleeping quarters were looking super cosy.....

Saturday

We were awoken by bright sunshine coming in to our bedroom, it was lovely and warm and quiet outside.

Until the sound of our bacon sizzling filled the air.

Once that was done it was time to hit the pool, the main reason we booked the campsite.

And as I was rather late getting dressed, Mum made me go in my onesie.

Although it wasn't quite as big as it looked on the internet, it was a rather lovely pool.

Indeed it was, Mum had made a picnic so we stayed until the afternoon, swimmng, lounging about then more swimming.

There was an indoor pool to explore too.

Andy decided he wanted a coffee, and offered hot chocolates...we can't refuse one of those, even in hot sunshine.

Sadly I had a nightmare with mine though.  Cup one I dropped trying to take the plastic cap off the top of the cup.  Cup two slipped out of my fingers halfway through the arcade.  It was third time lucky though and I managed to finally get a drink back to my sunlounger. 

Dad and I shot some hoops, my netball training certainly paid off, I whooped him:

Then we had a session on the Playground:

About mid afternoon we took a trip out, we made our way to the Isle of Portland and stopped at the top of the hill, overlooking Chesil beach:

It was where the sailing was held during the 2012 Olympics, hence the landmark:

Just over the road was Tout quarry, which we didn't know exisited:

It was pretty cool though, an old disused quarry from the 1700's thats been left to nature and the work of sculptors.

We had a great time wandering around, exploring and finding hidden sculptures in the stone:

Some of them were very interactive:

We carried on to Portland Bill lighthouse, right down on the point before making our way back to site.

Where I got re-aquainted with my friend.

I played shut the box.

And Dad sorted out the barbecue for tea.

Which culminated in a near riot over the Chorizo!!!!  Bring two next time Dad....

We had a few games of Jungle Speed alfresco before I turned in for the night.

While I stayed up a bit longer for a game of nommies, making the most of the longest day of the year.

Sunday

Another sun soaked wake up for us.

Yeah, but we had to get up and start packing up our stuff.

It didn't take too long, even though we had to unpack the tent again when we heard a trapped insect buzzing inside it....we thought it was a bee and it ought to be released, even if Dad didn't.

We said our goodbyes to our friends in the caravan and made our way back to the pool again.

We spent the morning there again before heading into Weymouth town centre for lunch.

We found a Pub and enjoyed a lovely meal before heading off to the seafront to see what was what.

We had to give pussing a miss as the food wait was an hour by the time we left.....not good.

It was brilliant, there was loads of lovely sand, loads of people about, and loads to do.

First off the swing boats:

And then the most excellent thing of all, donkey rides!  I was so excited about this, especially when Ellis and I got assigned the biggest beasts on the beach!

Oh yeah, it was brilliant, they were soooooo cute too:

There was a couple of sand sculptures that were seriously impressive.

And certainly inspiration for our Cornwall creations!

There was also a display of old military vehicles on the beach too, we loved them, especially the ones with massive guns mounted on them.

On our way back to the car we went back to the pub for a late pudding and a nice cold drink.

Which pleased me no end, cookie dough cheesecake!!!!

We made our way back to the car for a nice snooze on the way home......

Monday

After such a cool weekend we were a bit sleepy, but not too bad really.

Last thing in the afternoon we had an assembly by the year 6's on our Rhos y Gwaliau residential trip early next year.  It looks awesome, a whole week away doing cool outdoorsy sort of stuff, I can't wait!

I had dancing after school, but line dancing to achey breaky heart really didn't do it for me! 

Riding my bike home did though, still loving it, with my weepy scab just a small memeory.

I had a big old homework binge when I got home, Maths, literacy and even a bit of reading too, it felt good to have got it all out of the way afterwards thats for sure.

Tuesday

Here's some of my art, a portait of my skateboarding dog:

Wednesday

As usual we had a deep and meaninful conversation around the dinner table, we got onto Jesus.

Mum said one of 'friends dobbed him in'. I corrected her, pointing out he was actually 'Betrayed by a disciple'. Every now and then it is like i've swallowed a dictionary.

I'm still ploughing through the sweets I won at the school fete, it's a tough job.

I came home from school with a rather red and swollen bridge of my nose.  I was just about to score when one of my 'friends' pulled the goal post over, it came down and the crossbar hit me right across the face.  It hurt.  A lot.

Thursday

After school dance club was cancelled, so instead we went out for a bike ride with Dad.

We did, it was dead exciting as I got to take my new bike out on a proper ride for the first time:

We headed out towards the countryside from home, the poppies in the fields looked like a lovely red blanket:

We went miles, I got on really well with my new bike, even if the gears are still a bit of a mystery to me.

I've got to say it, she did really well.

Except for a brief brush with some stinging nettles.

We made it all the way out to the bridge over the A34.

The traffic thundered by underneath us.

We got plenty of toots and waves, especially from the lorry drivers!

We made our way back home in time to go and get mum from work.

After tea I did a little gardening with Mum, but got bored of it almost instantly, just like Dad does.  The new pegs mum had got were much more fun:

Finally the world cup started today, how exciting!  We got to watch the opening ceremony and a little bit of the first game at least.

Friday

Well it was yet another sunny day, we could get used to this.

Fired up by the world cup, we played football all afternoon at school, I was pretty hot and sweaty when I came home.

You would have though he would have been footballed out wouldn't you?  But no, it was Fifa on the Xbox as soon as he got in from school.  Still, at least that means I get the run of the telly.

We had tea (our new family favourite, Chorizo, chicken and potato bake) and the Mum declared it was far too nice an evening to do nothing.

So after a few suggestions we decided to ride down to the canal with some old bread we had hanging about to feed to the ducks.

Yes, what a brilliant idea.

Mum's bike is brilliant, it's got a big sturdy basket, we put the bread in it, a few drinks and a string of loom bands!

I was so happy I almost burst, i'd been wanting to go out for a family bike ride for years now.

We fed some hungry birds and some lovely little fluffy baby moorhens before moving on, up over the bridge to Northcroft.

We swerved the park though and headed for the top of the hill instead.

I wanted to zoom down again!

But we had a few laps of the weird track thing first.

I loved it, I could actually make it up and over the biggest of jumps with my new bike with ease.

We rode home through town which felt really exciting.

And made our way to the city playground for a bit of a play.

Yeah, it was prety cool, there's some new bits and bobs there.

The monkey bars which had me beat for years were really easy now!

Saturday

Quad kids competition time. 

I wasn't looking forward to being dragged along until Dad reminded me Ella would be there.

I certainly was looking forward to it, Robert was in the team this year too, brilliant:

My first event was the 600 metres. It's fair to say it isn't my favourite, but I was determined to put in a good performance.  I just about kept in with the main pack all the way until the last straight where i'd kep just enough back to put in an impressive sprint finish that no one really had an answer for and made up a load of places:

The 75m sprint was next, I did okay at that too.

I did really well at lounging around eating ice lollies in the sunshine!

Vortex next, my specialist subject, but like last year I didn't quite do as well as i'd hoped I would.  You get two measured throws, the first one was okay but nowhere near what i'd managed during training and the second one went outside the measuring area.  Whoops, there's always next year I suppose.

At this point I got to finally escape to go and play with my friend Amy at her house.  We had a great time, I stayed for tea and everything.

The last sporting event was the standing long jump which went pretty well.

Being a year 5 and 6 combined team event we were never going to bother the top spots (we had no year 6's taking part) but we did win loudest team of the day by a landslide: 

Once we were all home Ned took me down the shop to buy some sweets.

I am good to my sister you know.

I bought some bubblegum and finally managed to blow my first bubble!

I tried over and over again and just couldn't do it, despite lengthy coaching.  Not happy.

Sunday

Fathers day, and seeing as we ended up having a blazing row over who would give what present to Dad and then things going from bad to worse I think it's fair to say it wasn't quite the lovely day we'd envisaged for him.

No, it didn't go too well really, I think we'll leave it at that, but I will say that seeing as our planned trip out for the day was called off, he did actually get to do what he was no doubt happiest doing.  Watching the Mountain bike world cup downhill race live from Austria on the Ipad with his headphones in, ignoring our carping and whineing.

We took pity on Mum in the end who really wanted to go out for a bit.

So we had a walk at Donnington castle, a little game of hide and seek and some rope swing action in the woods nearby.  

Not bad then, really.

Monday

Having racked up the miles on my new bike last week you would have thought I had the measure of it really wouldn't you? Sadly not, I had a big off on the way home from after school dance club and did a rather good job of removing all the skin from my knee.  I was borderline hysterical by the time we got home, all the while Dad was telling me it wasn't that bad.  By the time he got to try and clean me up he had to concede that in actual fact, it wasn't that great after all.  His bedside manner isn't that good to be honest and after a few harsh swipes of the cleaning wipe we decided it was too big for any of our plasters, so he taped a dressing (badly) to my leg in a bid to catch the worst of the drips and ooze.  You can tell Mum is the trained first aider round here for sure.

We had a roast for tea, and after Mum's recent request for more varied veg, we had red cabbage with apple bits in it and leeks!  Well, what on earth is that all about? 

Exactly, it was a step too far for us and both items were roundly rejected!

I made my way to bed, hoping my oozy knee wouldn't stick to the bedclothes after it was uncovered to 'let the air get to it'.........