Tuesday

I managed to aquire a single Match Attax card at school. By the end of the day, due to shrewd trades and swapsies I had 10! Dad reckons I could win the apprentice easily.

We ordered some last minute holiday essentials at the weekend which arrived today.

Yeah, flip flops, new hat:

I also got myself a cool new umbrella after I decided a Peppa Pig just wasn't becoming of a junior.  Hopefully I won't need it on holiday....

Wednesday

Holiday? Did someone say holiday? I was approaching fever pitch.

Team Kennet was cool, we got to stand up and acknowledge a round of applause for coming second at last weekends competition.

Thursday

I came home with the Egyptian headress I had made as part of our topic this term, I was really pleased with it:

It was of course the last day of term, but we still had rugby practice.  This soon dissolved though as the school team were also playing a football matchwe wanted to watch and shout encouragement.

Dad whisked us quickly into town for haircuts.

And then when Mum had finished work we had a quick blast around town to get me a new Halloween costume.

We had our last proper good feed before holiday....sausages!

And a massive, enormous, gigantic pile of mash!
Dad's birthday was going to be while we were away, we'd got him a present too big to take with us so we made the executive decision to let him have it early. 
We'd got him a diabolo, and quite amazingly he could do it, even a lame little jump trick too!

We then attempted an early night as we were going to have to leave very early indeed in the morning.....

Friday

It was certainly an early start.

In fact it was barely even Friday at all when we got out of bed, got dressed and headed over to Kimi and Marny's house to wait for Andy.

We headed for Gatwick airport, there wasn't much on the roads and we were soon there, despite Dad missing the junction on the motorway.

We dropped the car off and headed into the terminal, no annoying bus ride this time, bonus!

We got checked in easily enough, and had time for a McDonalds breakfast before we boarded the plane and took off at 5:35am.

It was still dark outside so we didn't see much out of the window.

But there was a heck of a lot of Minecraft going on, including other random kids on the plane who popped up in our worlds and then came down the cabin for a chat.

I had a rather nice kip, snuggled up with Dad.

We landed soon enough at Arrecife airport, Lanzarote, which was a shame really as the Ipad still had plenty of charge and there was still plenty of Minecraft left to play.

Ned spotted the car seats appear on the outsize baggage carousel and we got our other luggage quickly.

Next stop, pick up the hire car.  After the debacle of the shockingly uncool pope mobile last year, Dad and I had picked something a bit less lame this year.  The website offered an Astra 'Sportstourer' which sounded a lot better.

In reality we got this Cadillac thing, it was an automatic too!

Mum and Andy whinged about not having a pope mobile but Dad and I were happy with our choice, especially as it had a 'sport' button on the dashboard.

The drive to the villa was lovely, taking in the scenery, the sea and the sunshine.

Rather amazingly we went straight there and didn't get lost.

We were met at the villa in Playa Blanca by the manager bloke, Daniel. Lets not beat about the bush here, he was pretty crazy.

But did give us a thorough tour of the place and explained how everything worked which was nice.

But what we really wanted was for him to clear off so we could get in the pool!

We waved him off the premises when he had finished.

And then the mad scramble to get changed and get in was on!

And all this before midday!

My goodness the weather was hot it has to be said.

After we'd cooled down sufficiently it was time for one of the things I most look forward to on a foreign holiday....the supermarket trip!  I love seeing what we can get, the bread, the ice creams and best of all, as this was Spain, Chorizo!  The long day did catch up with me though...yawn!

Back at the villa we enjoyed a few games of air hockey and pool.

Before rounding things off with a dip in the hot tub, here I am living the dream:

Saturday
We needed a quiet one really after yesterdays long old day so we spent the vast majority of the day bobbing around in the pool, the hot tub, playing on the playground.
Pool, air hockey and.......MINECRAFT!
It was lovely to sit and eat outside on the terrace, it was pretty high up and you could see right out over the sea to Fuerteventura in the distance.
By late afternoon we felt like getting out a bit, so we headed in the direction of Marina Rubicon.
Andy went for a swim while we enjoyed a scramble over the rocks.
They really seem to go in for these rock pile sculptures things in the Canary Islands, I thought they were great:

In the marina itself there were loads of pretty big fish swimming about. so clearly visible, we thought they were brilliant.
We had a meal in a waterfront restaurant, all 9 of us around a big round table, it was great fun.
Topped off nicely when the waiter came to clear our tables, asking us if we wanted to go with him with a plateful of our leftovers....we wondered what on earth he was going on about.
But once we looked down into the water and saw a few thousand expectant, hungry looking fish we knew exactly what he was getting at!
They went mad for it, it was so cool, who knew fish liked pizza?

Sunday
Feeling fully recharged we decided a proper trip out was called for.
And with Andy getting twitchy we thought it best to take him to the beach at Papagayo.
It was in a nature reserve that you could only reach by driving along a pretty rough old unsurfaced road.  We made our way along it pretty cautiously, the locals however had other ideas and were overtaking left, right and Charlie! 
Eventually we arrived at the car park and made our way over the brow of the hill to be greeted with this:

It was pretty much perfect, warm, sunny, calm seas.
It got even better better, the sea wasn't even cold and best of all there were loads of fish to spot with our snorkel sets.
Especially on this side of the beach that no one else seemed that bothered about:

We even got Kimi and Marny in on the act, they loved it.
It really was epic!
We got creative in the sand of course, we made a big fish, a turtle and a roast chicken!
After lunch we took a drive up the mountains to a little village called Femes, it was lovely.
There were sleepy cats and lovely flowers, everything painted bright white.
But best of all was the view out over to Playa Blanca and the sea beyond:

Monday
Another trip out was called for, we were up and about early to visit Timanfaya National park.
It's an area that was completely covered in lave during a volcanic eruption back in the 1730's.
Driving there was certainly weird, the road dipped and climbed in a dead straigfht line through the weird, martian landscape for ages.
We arrived pretty much as it opened and made our way further up Timanfaya itself to the carpark at the top.  From there it was on to a coach for a tour around the area, it's the only way you can see it all.  Cars are not allowed and neither is walking to pretect the delicate landscape and vegetation that just about grows there.
The coach trip was like a roller coaster, up, down, round tight bends and through narrow gaps in the lava stacks.
Some of it was also perched pretty high up on the edge of a high mountain pass......exciting or what!
When we returned it was on to the proper good stuff.
Yeah, the visitor centre being on top of a still active volcano was pretty hot.  We didn't realise quite how hot until one of the park rangers handed us a handful of gravel from the floor.......it was shockingly warm, so warm in fact that I dropped it!
They also poured buckets of water into specail tubes that went into the ground....they heated up and BOOM!  A jet of steam flew high into the air:

They also pushed a bunch of old dried undergrowth into a 6 foot deep pit dug into the ground, after a few seconds.....WOOF!  It burst into flames from the heat of the ground alone:

As you can see, it was hot!
There was a restaurant up there too, but rather than use an oven they had what must be the worlds best barbecue pit to cook their chickens on:

The heat coming up from the ground was amazing, and the chicken looked lovely and juicy!

As we headed off we realised things had got seriously busy, there was queue a mile long for the coach trips.

That was nothing compared to the amount of people lined up in their hot cars waiting to be allowed into the park, there must have been hundreds.

I'm so glad we got our act together and went early.

We headed to a place called El Golfo for a lunch picnic stop.

Fortunatley it wasn't anything to do with golf itself.

Nah, it was a beach, with black sand that formed inside a partially sea eroded volcano. 

It also had a bright green lagoon at the back, rich in concentrated salt and algae apparently.

I wouldn't have wanted to swim in it, but it looked pretty cool:

We had a walk along the prom in the evening, looking for somewhere to eat.
I was delighted when we ended up in Burger King.
It did have a beautiful sea view in it's defence I suppose.
And the ice cream parlour we found on the wander back was lovely.
We sat on the sea wall, enjoying the last few rays of daylight.

Tuesday

Today was Dad's birthday, we gave him his cards and a small, easily transportable gift (socks) while he was still in bed and then let him cook us some bacon for breakfast.
It was waterpark day, and as it was only just down the road we got their nice and early!
It has to be said, it was one of the smaller ones we'd been to but it was still great fun.
The tipping bucket certainly had a decent capacity:

The ice creams were very acceptable:

And the lazy river was a good way to while away some time.

The main slides down the other end were good though, some with tubes to ride on, some with double tubes.
In total darkness with a screaming Mum, no thanks!
At several hundred miles an hour with Dad's additional bulk, yes please!
Watching Mum and Dad nearly kill themselves such was their speed of entry....LOLZ!
There was also one of those space bowl things which was rather cool too.

I had the most fun with Kimi and Marny on the smaller slides and climbing stuff though, we amused ourselves on that for ages!

Being Dad's birthday we thought we better take him out for tea:

It was a pretty cool place we ended up in, good music, nice sea view...

.....and a lovely little white doggie sat on a bar stool, we loved making a fuss of him.

The puddings were epic:

Yep, they certainly were:

We rounded out the evening by watching a man take his dog and his goat for a walk along the prom, yeah, I did actually say goat.
Collar, lead the lot!

Wednesday
Well the weather had turned marginally cooler and a little bit overcast so it was decided now would be a good time to tackle Montana Roja.
We'd been eyeing it up all week, watching the tine figures in the distance make their ascent.
It didn't take as long as we thought it would to make it to the top:

You could see the side on both sides of the peninsular from the top:

It was rather spectacular up there:

We could right over Play Blanca, as far as the Papagayo beaches one way and over to the Timanfaya lava fields the other:

As an old volcano, you could walk all the way aroud the rim:

But we cut down through the middle, through the crater where hundreds of people had spelt out there names using rocks.

I decided it was a good place for a bit of high altitude sprint training:

Although we set off in cooler, cloudier conditions, by the time we were back down it was another scorcher so the pool was certainly beckoning:

We decided that today would be a good day for Halloween to take place (we flew home on the real Halloween).

So we donned our outfits and got contained in a room while the sweets were hidden and the decorations were put out.
We were released into the villa and the grown ups had excelled themselves this year, there were sweets stashed everywhere you looked!

We had a great time:

And my idea of Donut Bobbing went doan a treat:

Mum certainly did very well managing to find some suitable ring donuts:

Thursday

Well it was our last full day.
Yep, what a shame.
We'd got rather used to it all.
After a bit of a breakfast meeting we discussed what everyone would most like to do.
The clear winner was a return trip to the beach at Papagayo.
It was as sunny as before but the sea was bit more wavey than last time.
So snorkelling wasn't quite as easy as it had been.
Although playing in the waves was just as good.

The sand was rather good for some sculpting work, here I am in mermaid mode:

We had a picnic on the beach before making our way back up to the ice cream hut at the top, perfect!
We had an afternoon around the pool before setting off for Dorada Beach for a banana boat ride.  I wasn't too sure about it all really, but as Dad had told me a while back, give it a try and if I don't like it, don't do it again!
I couldn't wait to have a go.
We put our names down and had to wait a while. Luckily some people were leaving the sunbeds they had paid for so said we might as well use them fo rthe rest of the day, lovely!
We had a swim, and noticed a pontoon floating about 100 metres offshore.  After a bit of discussion I decided I could swin to it, I really wanted to dive off it.  It was certainly the furthest i'd ever swum in open water but made it surprisingly easily.  Even Dad and Andy managed it.  I was the youngest one out there and was really proud of myself.  Sitting on it was so cool, there was a gap in the middle and you could see the fish swimming underneath and everything.  A couple of dives later and we made our way back to shore.
It still wasn't time to go out on the boat, me and Mum had a lovely time, laying on our sunbeds.
Eventually we got called over, got our bouyancy jackets on and then had to swim out to the banana boat which was moored about 10 metres out to sea.
It was great fun with our jackets on.
The man hooked up his jet ski and asked us to climb aboard, which was harder said than done for the grown ups.
Ned very kindly volunteered to sit at the front and I got Dad behind me for a reassuring cuddle:

We made our way slowly away from the beach:

And once we got into the open water he really opened it up.
It was FAST!!!!!
He was soon zig-zagging about so we jumped over his wake, water splashing everywhere and I loved it!
We went right over the Marina area, he put in a hard turn and the three people from another family that were sat on the back got pinged off into the sea.
How we managed to stay on is a mystery to me!
They re-mounted and we were off again.
The next time he took a sharp one we had no chance of staying on, we were over and in the sea too, it was brilliant.
We couldn't stop laughing as we bobbed about in the water and he circled round to pick us up again.
We did some more high speed turns and jumps before heading back towards the beach.
He slowed right down as we got closer to the shore, only to suddenly speed up and zoom off to the side up-ending the boat again.
And we were back in the sea to end our ride, it was so cool!
We headed back to the villa to enjoy the last of our pool time:

And enjoyed a bit of a jumping contest:

Before having a family hot tub session, complete with dad's ipod blaring some cool tunes out of Ned's speaker while everyone else was packing (good old Mum sneaked our packing in earlier):

Friday

So, it was going home day.  We had a visit from the still crazy Daniel and then set off for the airport.
Our flight was pretty much at midday, so we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then boarded the plane for the trip home.  I sat with Marny.
And I sat with Kimi, Minecraft o'clock!
And a spot the difference book for us girls, with a little Minecraft thrown in too.
The flight seemd to pass really quickly and we were soon landing, it felt cold and because the clocks had changed while we were away it got dark pretty early too.
The journey home took a while, what with it being friday night rush hour......

Saturday
Well, rather disappointingly Mum had to go to work!
How rubbish for her.
Well it was bright and sunny, even if it wasn't as warm as we'd been used to.
We decided a bike ride was in order so headed for Greenham Common.
We had a good old explore:

We gave a freindly doggie some loving, we looked at some very cute calves and enjoyed the aroma wafting from the premises of the English Provinder Company. 
As well as getting pretty wet and muddy in the process, very un-Lanzarote like!
Then went home for lunch and a quiet afternoon.
Until Hugo called for me and I went out for a bit.

Sunday

So Mum went to work AGAIN! 
Shocking.  Dad was on the ball though and had booked cinema tickets to see Planes 2.
We took the remnants of our Halloween sweets and made our way into town.
The film was most enjoyable it has to be said.
Then we went into town to see what was on offer at the food market.
Chorizo!  lovely, lovely Chorizo!

Oh yes it was delish.  We took two home for lunch with fresh baugette, perfect.
We slumped for the afternoon and ended up watching a film, Waterloo, about the battle which I loved.
Then it was homework time, mine had to be about forces.  So between Dad and I we came up with the idea of making a parachute for one of my little teddies.  Gravity, air resistance, perfect!  Supported by some words and a lovely diagram, spot on.
I had a load of stuff to do, even my maths was a chore this time....oh dear.
We ended up watching a third film of the day, which must be a record of some sort?
Yeah, the Simpsons Movie, it was really funny.

Monday
Dad went back to work today as well.
Yeah, so it was a day with Auntie Christine...
And Darcey! 
So after we'd had a massive cuddle session and got re-aquainted with each other after their recent holiday (they too had been to Lanzarote, the week before us) we went to.......you guessed it.......Four Kingdoms!
We had a great time then came home and made some cake and cookies which were of course delicious.

Tuesday

I've been put into a group to do extra maths at school, because i'm good at it, not bad before anyone gets the wrong idea.  It's brilliant, theres only a few of us and we have a new specialist maths teacher.  Even though we did it instead of PE it was still brilliant, apparently we won't always miss PE so hopefully next time it's a subject I don't like and the it will be epic!

Netball was cancelled sue to the rain though, we couldn't go in the hall all it's currently being painted which was a shame.

Gymnastics was on and really good again this week.

Wednesday

Well it was no pen wednesday, which meant we were supposed to be concentrating on our verbal communication instead.

It made art pretty had too, as the pen ban covered pencils, crayons, paint the lot.  I ended up using a clever system of creases to guide my cutting during construction of some lage wings.

I loved the idea of no writing, especially in maths when we played shut the box.

Getting into and indeed out of team Kennet on Wednesday night was a very wet affair indeed, it was chucking it down.

Thursday

A pretty major part of me being so keen on being school councillor was the trip to the town hall to meet the mayor that they alwats get to do.  It was brilliant, the mayors gold chain is made from 18 carat gold and is seriously heavy.  It also lives in a truly epic safe that has number combinations as well as a voice   recognition sytem.  We also learned that the Mayor is the only one in the country that has two mace's for some reason.  I loved it, history and bling.

We had rugby after school, I got to wear my new boots for the first time, they are very bright neon yellow and totally awesome.

And then it was parents evening, I was trying not to let on of course, but I was a bit worried about how it would go.

I wasn't, however misguided that might have been. 

Mine went pretty well, although Mum thinks we didn't get much in the way of detailed feedback.  I'm on target for the standards I should be reaching but sometimes like a chat. No surprises there then.

Mine went pretty well, I still take a while to settle now and again and sometimes i'm still a distraction to others on.  But having said all that, i'm still above my targets and doing well.

I also stayed on as a volunteer to greet the parents arriving at the front door and show them to the classrooms, I loved doing that.

Friday

The biggest news of the week, in my daily report book I got a glowing comment from Mrs Wright.  This is quite monumental news as i've managed to get on the wrong side of her fairly often in the past.

This no doubt helped sway Mum and Dad, on top of the good things said at parents evening into taking us to Pizza Hut for tea. Epic.

Yeah, we love a surprise of this nature, we even got to sit at one of the round tables too, perfect.

We stuffed ourselves silly and saw our dance teacher Becky with her not so little anymore baby.

We also tried some pretty dodgy drinks from the self service drinks fountain, strawberry or lime tinged tango anyone?

When we got home there was a programme on BBC3 about people having their first babies.

They got the husbands or boyfriends to do all sorts of silly tasks to prepare them for the babies arrival.

After a bit of discussion we were allowed to stay up and watch the babies being born so we did get to see them.

Saturday

Mum went off to a meeting meaning we got to stay home with Dad.

But seeing as it was raining pretty heavily his usual default entertainment for us, a bike ride was off the agenda.

We slumped for a while, watching CBBC shows on the Iplayer, until he suggested we might make some brownies???

What a great idea, even if we did have to dash to the shops on our scooters for more self raising flour.

We made a very good job of it of course, they were delicious!

Once mum was done we went to town to pick up Mum's new glasses, we went via the park in all it's autmunal glory:

I hadn't seen Mum's new glasses, but I knew I wasn't going to like them.  I don't know why she can't just keep her old ones, I like those.

A bit later on I rounded up Hugo and Dylan and we came home to have a bit of a Nerf war.

Yeah, it was pretty cool, I was even allowed to play.

It was great fun, until a chair accidentally sort of fell down the stairs a bit.....ooops.  
No damage was done but I felt really bad about it.  We wound the game up pretty quickly and had a game of Fifa on the Xbox.

We had a quiet evening watching strictly and stuffing our Ipods full of new content ready for holiday.

And I came round to mum's new glasses, I quite liked them actually.

Sunday

Bit of a lay in and the off to Eton no less for the first round of the Sportshall Athletics league for team Kennet at the Thames Valley Athletic Centre.

It was a massive big sports hall, but sadly there was no room for me to do any roller skating or indeed gymnastics.

I signed myself up with the team, met up with my mates and then got bumped up to the A team (4 per team, under 11 boys).  Our first event was the obstacle course relay.  In a shock turn events (most of all for him I think) Dad was enlisted to be a judge and had to mark down any penalties incurred on his lane.  And guess who he got on his first race? Me!  I knew he wasn't going to cut me any slack so I had to be on the case.  I only did 4 sidejumps before I set off, realised what i'd done an returned for my regulation fifth in a flash.  Next up was the standing long jump with a new PB I think at 1.83, followed by some agility events and target throwing:

I got pretty bored it has to be said, so Mum and I went out for a wander.  Dad had google earthed the place so knew there was a river near by and bought along a bag of old bread to feed the ducks with.  We eventually found it, after scrambling down a big grass bank and almost ending up in the water along with the ducks.  Sadly for the ducks though, the fresh air gave me a bit of appetite and I ate most of the bread myself.

We finished up with the team relay running race, which was a very noisy and well supported affair.

Once the events had started winding down there was a lot more free space to indulge in some gymnastics practice, there were even wall bars and climbing ropes too.

The scores were soon added up and read out in reverse order, our team didn't get called out until we were declared to be in joint second place, we were well chuffed with ourselves!

Monday

We've been doing electric circuits in science, I love it, it's the best thing ever.

It was Halloween week for after school dance, the timewarp.

Yeah, I really got into it this week, great fun.

When we got home I did some more rollerskating and then carried on with my Egyptian project, a piece about the work of a scribe.

And I went down the park to meet up with Dylan, Ella and Rebecca.

This one seems to have gone unpublished somehow?

Tuesday

It was school photo day, and for the first time since our nursery days we had our picture taken together.
Yeah, it's probably my last Primary school photo as well, so just in time really.  I think I may have ruined it by having my eyes shut or something though.
Netball was conducted during a few rain showers, we ducked for cover duting the worst of the downpours though.

No such problems at gymnastics, being all nicely indoors.  Mum came to pick me up, which gave me the perfect oppurtunity to convice dad that I hadn't passed my Level 1 badge.  He fell for it completely and was unusually sympathetic, which just made tricking him even better!!!

I watched a programme with Dick and Dom about computer games which led me to resurrect the old DS.  It didn't work.  But after a good charge and Dad giving the contacts a clean with a toothbrush it sprung into life.  I'd forgotten just how cool it was.

Wednesday
Well theres been a ban on playing on the adventure playground, apparently due to peoples little brothers and sisters hurting themselves.  How is that fair?  Rubbish.
I was quite pleased to go straight home, i'd slipped over playing Kingball and had jone an excellent job of skimming the top layer or so from most of my knee.  It was a bit of a mess it must be said.
Yeah, it didn't look great......
I had alovely big pad thing taped to it, which did a good job of soaking up the oozy, gooey sludge.  I decided I was okay for Team Kennet though and kept the pad firmly in place.
Yeah, team Kennet was cool indooors again.
It was.
We were allowed to stay up and watch the final of the Great British bake off afterwards.
How cool, even though we couldn't believe Richard didn;t win?

Thursday
I still had a gooey knee.

Friday
We came home and got straight on with our homework, well, for a little while anyway.
Yeah, the lure of the telly is strong, epsecially on a Friday afternoon.
We did get very good comments for last weeks homework efforts though.

Saturday
We went to the Cinema on Saturday morning, despite a load of carping and moaning.
But the film we watched, Earth to Echo was brilliant, well worth going to see.
Then it was on to Waitrose where we annoyed a grumoy old man by standing and talking to Alan and Hayley who we happened to bump into.
I went out on the bike to see if anyone was about in the afternoon. They weren't.

We ended up playing a few board games with Mum while dad popped out on his bike.

I then did some art work, i'm realy into my art at the moment.

Alan and Hayley came round for tea, we were dead excited to have them round.  
I loved showing them my latest moves (no handed backwards roll off the sofa and running forward flip onto the sofa).
And I got to play Agricola again.  I played on my own this time rather than with Dad, although I didn't win, I did do very well indeed.

Sunday
Well, we had a bit of a lie in.  I bust out a few moves with my magic UFO:

And then decided we'd ride into town and have lunch at the pub.
Yeah, a great idea, met by universal approval as well for once.
I had a ham and cheese panini with salad.
I had an adults cheeseburger and chips.
And then we both had a chocolate brownie ice cream sundae.....lovely!
We had a quick play on Victoria Park and then rode home again.
We settled down to watch the Gymnastics World Championships on telly...i've got a looooooong way to go.

I also started a new piece of art:

The Egyptian God Anubis, i've been quite captivated with our current school project as you can see.  Dad had to go to the airport to pick up Auntie Christine and Auntie Trish who had been allowed to go away for the weekend to a wedding.
So while he was gone I made Ellis her tea.
We had a nice bath and a bedtime story.
And I stayed up quite late watching that Guy Martin documentary where he restored a crashed Spitfire.

Monday
What a wet old day, we still went out at breaktime though, made our toast club toast go all soggy!
Our class was a bit emptier than usual, loads of them went off to St Barts for the open morning, more on this later......

It was street dance week at dance club which was good fun.

Ned Even if I did manage to catch one of Ellis' friends with my foot mid way through a cartwheel.

I'm sure she'll get over it.
Going back to the subject of secondary schools, Mum finally managed to get my application through on the wafty website.  So i'm all signed up for Park House, we find out if I have a place next March.  We've all thought long and hard about it and we're all happy with our decision.  It really helped going to the open evenings last year and again this year.  All three were brilliant it has to be said but I think we all felt i'd be happer at Park House, even if the vast majority of my friends are going to St Barts.......

Tuesday

Yep, still loving netball, making the most of it before I go to secondary school.

I enjoyed gymnastics this week too, I got involved in a bit of a dispute last week with another girl which wasn't so good but this week it was all fine.

Wednesday

What with summer now done and dusted we took to the sports hall at Park House for team Kennet.  I got dropped off at Abi's house and went with her this week.

Yeah because we were going to the St. Bartholomews school open evening.  The last one of the school visits before we have to submit my application at the end of the month.  It was good, I was very impressed with it in fact.  I also saw loads of my current school friends there.......I had a lot to take in so didn't get involved in quite as many science experiments as I might have liked.  I really shone in the history department though, I went through the entire quiz on the whiteboard where you had to date historic costumes without any mistakes.  Then I moved onto photo's of significant events of the 20th century, I also got pretty much all of them right, from Hitler, through the Berlin wall, the Twin Towers, Martin Luther King and Margaret Thatcher.  Everyone was amazed, especially Dad.

Team Kennet was ace indoors and it was cool to go with Abi, although it was a bit weird without Ned there.

Thursday

My daily school reports are generally making good reading, there are a few blips of course....

And I got a red card for having a bit of a set two with another girl in my class.  Oops.

I also got three house points from Miss Knowles today for my good sporting behaviour playing dodgeball with some of the younger kids, I threw underarm giving them a chance rather than my usual Ned rocket arm style.

Rugby club numbers after school were up again this week, brilliant!

After tea we had a bit of a shopping trip.

I needed some new football boots.  They had none in my size though.

And I had to get a couple of presents for a couple of friends upcoming parties.

We also had to get some stuff for the school harvest festival....
But no baked beans, as the food bank are apparently over run with them!

Of course, Dad and I found it hilarious to keep trying to buy beans.....

Friday

We struggled in with a carrier bag full of stuff each for harvest festival.

Yeah, we got a bit carried away with the shopping.

We watched the semi final of Great British bake off after tea.  

Dad put the kiss of death on Chetna, saying she might win......she went out!

Saturday

I had the first of my parties at the bowling alley for Adrija.  It was great fun, I scored 115 and came second. I was pretty pleased with that.

While she was having a great time I had to go into town with Mum and Dad, how joyous.  It was a condtructive trip though, we helped Mum finally pick a new pair of glasses.  We also went to Weavers Walk cafe for lunch and the had a fresh doughnut from the doughnut man outside mum's work, they were lush.

We got quite a group of us school mates out on saturday afternoon for a trip down the park, even some of the girls came out too which was cool.

I stayed in and my pestering finally paid off to Mum, it was time for Bubble painting at long last:

It was every bit as fun as i'd hoped it would be, thanks Mum.

I also did some home gymnastics practice, trying to touch my feet on the back of my head:

 

I've still got a little way to go it seems.

Auntie Trish came round in the evening to babysit, awesome!! 

We enjoyed strictly and a little bit of cuddle time:

We even got to watch Through the Keyhole, the worlds funniest programme.

 

Sunday

Bit of a lay in and the we loaded up the bikes and headed for Dinton Pastures.

Via M&S to get some picnic and torment Dad by using the self service checkout.

We didn't actually ride very far, but we did climb some trees:

We had a lovely picnic by the lake.

And I got to remark about how cute every doggie that was out for a walk in the autumn sunshine.

Then of course there was the park.

It was without a doubt the most epic park we've ever been to.

Yeah, it was pretty good it has to be said:

By the time we got home the demo version of Forza Horizons 2 had finally finished downloading.  It was worth the wait, it's brilliant, the full version will certainly be on my christmas list.

Monday

Well I had to dance class after school without Ellis.

Yeah, I was off to my second party, this time for Maddie at Pizza Hut.  We got to top our own pizzas, so I obviously went in heavy with the cheese and then topped that with salami, my new favourite thing after the Newbury Show free samples.

I struggled through dance just fine without Ellis, and then went home to find my new football boots had been delivered.  I was very pleased with them but didn't wear them around the house out of respect for the carpet.

Tuesday

I extracted another wobbly tooth in class, i might have a little bit of blood on my work as a consequence...oops.

We had netball after school of course, still loving it! My favourite sport ever.

I had gymnastics, all went pretty well, atill can't quite nail my cartwheels though.......

Wednesday

We had a friendly netball match against St Finians after school.  We played really well and had them well beat, 8 - 4.

Even more sport in the evening with Team Kennet.

Our last outdoor session of the summer, we've been so lucky with the weather this year and were treated to yet another glorious summer evening sunset over the common.

400 metres still seems a very long way around that track though.

My throwing is still improving and i'm getting a lot more consistant.

Thursday

It was the Park House open evening, as we'd already been the previous year Mum and Dad were keen to get there, watch the presentation and visit any areas we missed last time, which was at odds with my plan of doing as many experiments in the science labs and getting as many free samples as I could in the cooking department.  It turned out we did a bit of both so we were all happy.  It wasn't all good news though, the PE department confirmed that there wasn't really any boys netball.  I did however put in another storming rowing performance on their machine, even though I slid off the seat twice.
I stayed at home with Auntie Christine, we had a lovely evening and did lots of art stuff and drawing.

Friday
Well I got another badge to add to my collection at school, as i've been voted in as Vice House Captain.  Not too much of a surprise as there were only two of us that put ourselves forward.
I spent all day being excited at the prospect of our weekend camping trip, i'd been making a case for going for ages and it finally seemed like a good weekend to go.
So after school we packed up, called for Andy and headed west to Croyde.
It was well and truly dark by the time we got there, so even though it was a bit more difficult to pitch the tent it was brilliant as I pointed out that when you wake up it's a bit of a surprise where you are.
We helped for a bit but then got in the car and made camps using a blanket draped over the seats.
Which included an 'accidental' blast of the car horn at about 11pm.

Saturday

We slept in pretty late then slowly came round to bacon rolls outside in our camp chairs, how lovely.
With the sound of the waves crashing in as a backdrop, it was like being on holiday.
We had to take Andy's car for a spin to recharge the battery after he flattend it using the headlights to help during setting up camp.
It was a nice drive round, we got to check out the waves at the other beaches Puttsborough and Saunton Sands.
Next up it was the swimming pool, my highlight of the weekend.
Yeah, it was great fun in there as always, especially when Dad noticed the woggle had a hole right through the middle that would fill up with water.......
.....and if you blew into it hard enough it sent a jet right up into the air!
We loved zooming round the lazy river, firing our water cannon.

Then it was back for lunch and a quick trip to the arcade for us kids.
We were only interested in the 2p drop machines, but as we got there the man was replenishing the goodies on the machine so it wasn't running.
He didn't like to see us disappointed so gave us a couple of keyrings and stickers without even having to play the game:

Then in the afternoon we hit the beach.
The surf was brilliant and we went mad for it.
We did indeed, i've really got into it since Cornwall, although I do feel the cold a bit more than the others and got out for a waterside cuddle with Dad for a bit.
I had to be dragged out........
Instead of our usual barbecue for tea we thought we'd go to Croyde village and have a pub meal for tea.
This involved a pretty long (for me) walk through the campsite, behind the dunes and up through the farmers fields.
There was a well smart park on the way though.
And the cows in the farmers field were the cutest i'd ever seen.

Even though the pub was seriously busy we got a table pretty much straight away in the conservatory out the back and had a well deserved slump.
The food arrived pretty quickly and we refuelled ourselves with a massive jacket potato, more grated chees than i've ever seen before in one place and a salad.
While I had an adults portion cheeseburger and chips.  Lovely.
The puddings were equally well recieved, chocolate brownie and ice cream.
We then had the walk back, but this time in the dark.
We were experts at torch handling of course, ensuring the path before us was illuminated at all times....ahem.

Sunday

After another lie in and bacon roll session some bright spark decided we should walk up the really big hill that overlooks the campsite and bay.
It was very steep and there was a lot of sheep poo.
But the view from the top was worth it in the end.

It was serioulsy hot though, I only had a jumper on, so decided to take it off for the decent:

That little speck in the distance is me, I decided to run down, like only a 10 year old can without sustaining serious injury.
Mum made up a picnic and we headed for the beach again.
We had a game of boules.
We did some sand art.
And as the waves were as good as yesterday we did some more surfing!
And it was brilliant again, there should be a video at the end too.
The shower block back up in the camping field now has radio, we loved having a sing song listening to the top 40 while we washed the salt and sand from our hair.

All that was left to do was pack up and go home.
The camping field was pretty much empty by the time we left.
And thats it for this year I suppose, still, three camping trips isn't too bad is it?

Monday

I had a brilliant day at school, Becky pulled dad aside after dance and said that during the day in class i'd really been putting in the effort (2 house points awarded) and after school had the best dance session i've ever had.  I was very, very happy with myself.
In addition to that i've finally nailed a consistant cartwheel (yeah, I know i've been going to gymnastics for years), proper good day!

But you still had to spend most of the evening doing homework like I did......pah.

newbury show 2014 from Part Time on Vimeo.