Tuesday

Gymnastics continues and i'm still wearing my old ballet leotard, despite endless pleas and requess for a nice new one.

Due to our busy schedule it was our nominated baking evening for the upcoming Comic Relief bake sale at school on Friday too.

We finished our homework very quickly so we could help Mum who had her baking head well and truly on.

Wednesday

Swimming with the school again.  We had some fun this week with a few races and despite giving my opponents half a length head start I still took the win doing front crawl.

We had to have a school council get together to think up some questions to ask the potential new executive head in part of their interview, it feels quite a privelige to be involved in such a big decision making process.

Thursday

Well another game of football in PE, another three goals! I think Mum and Dad are trying to work out if i'm genuinely any good or just lucky.  I'm pretty low key about it though.

Once tea was done and dusted we were on to cake decorating.

And with a large supply of various coloured royal icing and a whole load of sprinkles and icing pens we were good to go.

The theme was supposed to be funny faces, which we didn't really stick to completely.

Nah, we're too creative to be constrained by stuffy rules and regulations.

We made a hell of a mess, which I would imagine took quite some clearing up.

We would love to have helped but time was getting on and bed was calling...

Friday

Comic relief day, adorned in various items of red attire we were off to school taking along our handcrafted sweet treats.

I was on one of the stalls selling, we got to skip class in the afternoon to set the hall up ready.  This also had the added bonus of being able to get our buying done before the masses descended assuring us of the pick of the crop.

By the time I got there most of the really good ones had gone.

But there were still plenty left to choose from.  It was pretty frantic to be honest, especially when the doors opened and several hundred cake fanatics rushed into the hall.

I stayed on until the bitter end to make sure everything was sold and cleared up.

We had a quick mission into town to get a few last minute items for Mum related events.

I also added a load of Lego sets to my list while we managed a a quick trip to the entertainer as well.

The new exercise equipment in Victoria Park was sadly clogged up with 'Teenagers'

As Dad pointed out I will soon enough be one myself so I shouldn't have too much of a downer on them.

We had a rare but pleasant full family slump and cuddle session in front of the telly in the evening.

Saturday

Ellis and I were up taking the weekend morning shift as usual while Mum and Dad had a lay in.  Then Mum's phone beeped, a message.....I quickly saw from the front screen it was Alan and that our new cousin was on his way by all accounts.

I was seriously excited, in fact I don't know if i've ever actually been so excited before!

So, while we waited for more news we got on with our day.  I had a taster session for Team Kennet up at the track where we could try a couple of events prior to us moving up to the under 13's category.  I chose long jump first, which seemed to rather wind mum and dad up as i'd already done quite a bit of that.  Doing it for an hour in a small group with two coaches was really good though and I improved a lot. 

I sat in the car with the little table up doing my maths homework.  It was pretty cool actually.

For the second hour I did javelin, with a proper pointy javelin rather than the vortex we usually throw.  It was a great deal harder than it looked to get it to stick in the ground.  After initial success and subsequent failure, by the end of the hour I had really got to grips with it.  Mostly due to the efforts of the coaches who were really helpful and had great advice to give.

In the afternoon we went for haircuts.  Mum had decided she would dig deep in her purse and take us to her hairdressers instead.

It was pretty cool, each seat had a telly on the wall in front of it showing the music channel.

I loved it in there, she even did me a nice few curls once she had finished, they loced it when I posed for a picture:

Mine took ages, even longer than Ellis did.  

We did a bit of shopping afterwards, well, a bit of modelling anyway:

We picked up a few items to give our new cousin which we were really pleased with.

A fluffy and soft cuddly rabbit.

An Elmer night light.

And a couple of packs of teeny tiny socks.

No roller skating this week as we were going to have some food and boardgames.

Alan and Hayley obviously couldn't make it.

But Andy still came round.

Alan did really well keeping us up to date with developments throughout the day and finally sent the one we'd all been waiting for.

Baby Nate had arrived at 19:45, mother and baby well, Alan fainted.

This news prompted a legthy dancing and excited squealing from me.

Sunday

Mothers day today.
So we were itching to bestow gifts upon Mum.
Especially the Lindor's we knew she'd need 'help' with.
I helped Dad do breakfast.
And I helped use the Ipad's charge.
Then it was off to Legoland for the first time this year, it only opened this weekend.
Not much has really changed, but thats fine by us.
So a couple of standard pictures:

Hiding on the Duplo train:

It was a pretty cold day it has to be said, so we took shelter under the railway bridge for out picnic, we drew some strange glances.
We had the totally exciting propspect of dropping in on Nate on the way home if he was still in the hospital.  
It all managed to come together and we left a Legoland a little earlier than we usually do to make a special visit.
Until we were thwarted by the 'no children on the ward unless they were siblings' rule.
So, we waited outside the security door while Mum went in.  So near and yet so far.
I burst into tears.
Dad did his best to explain the reasons behind the rules when Mum and Alan appeared at the door, followed by Hayley and the little man himself, all wrapped up in his blanket!
Alan wasn't having any of it and ordered us in to meet our new cousin properly, so we crept in, dodging the nurses until we were safely in their room.  Then the serious business began, cuddle time:

He was soooooo cool, totally laid back:

With the coolest little fingers and finger nails i'd ever seen.  It was totally the best thing ever getting to see him and having a cuddle.
Alan and Hayley looked really well and on top of everything.
So we didn't outstay our welcome and left them to it. I can't wait to see him again.
Yeah, i'm sure we've got plenty of fun times ahead!
As it was still mothers day, it was her choice for tea....and as she is very classy, it was a pitstop at Calcot McDonalds.
Then home for a first try at her mothers day game gift, Camel up.
We loved it!  Yeah, even me.

Monday

One of our potential new executive Head Teachers took assembly today.  It was pretty boring......

I had the afternoon off to attend the league finals for Netball at St. Gabriels.  It was a soggy, wet, windy and cold afternoon.  Still waaaaay better than being at school though.  I got well and truly stuck in and gave it everything despite the conditions.  Dad and some of the other Dad's loved my all over the court, hustling action.  One of the umpires didn't seem quite so keen which was a shame.  We ended up fifth on the day out of the ten qualifying teams, from the original 26 teams that entered the competition.  So on the whole, pretty good I reckon, even though it didn't really feel like it at the time.  So thats pretty much it for my netball career as this was our last competitive match.  I think we might have the traditional game against last years year 6 team to come and thats that.

Because of this I didn't get picked up from dance on time, I got to hang out with Becky for a bit until Dad turned up and tell her all about Nate so that was no real hardship!

Another game of Camel up after tea too!

Tuesday

We just about got our costumes finished in time for explorer day at school.

So here we are, Jaqies Cousteau,

And Neil Armstrong.  I'm sure he wore oven gloves to the moon too.

We had a visitor for assembly, a real life explorer that had been to the top of Everest.

And very grim it sounded too, frozen lungs, altitude sickness, falling into ravines and climbing over frozen dead bodies on the way.

Not only that but it was miles to the nearest shop as well.

So if it was supposed to inspire us to aim for the highest heights, I reckon it may have backfired a little bit.  Other than that it was business as usual so we still went swimming, in costume!

I even kept my outfit on for breaktime, although it was a bit on the chilly side.

Wednesday

One of my friends Bella is leaving school.  Her Mum has a job somewhere else so she's moving on.  We made her a nice card as a goodbye.

We did football in PE, I scored 4 goals!  So not a bad game really, I was rather pleased with myself.

Thursday

Well it was book day, but as we had already dressed up for the explorer thing there was no dressing up.  I was a bit unhappy about this, i'd got a great idea togo dressed as a hamster from one of my recent bedtime stories.

I was quite happy not to have to bother, shame we still had to do the big write though.

I had rather rapidly developed a wobbly tooth, which I managed to get out in the evening after school.  I gave it a good old cleanbefore putting it under my pillow for the tooth fairy.

Friday

It was film night at school, we hadn't had one of these for a while.

I suggested a few outfits thta were deemed a bit over the top for film night by Mum and Dad.

I wore my shorts and shirt combo so looked effortlessly cool.

We watched Hop, although we had seen it before we did still enjoy it.

Saturday

It was the day of the netball tournament at long last.

It was an early start and up to Park House.

It was a lovely sunny day, even if it was a bit breezy and cold.  We had plenty of supporters which was nice.
I had my roller skates and an occasionally empty tennis court so I was all set too.
The tournament itself had it's ups and downs it has to be said.  But we played well and fought hard, especially in our semi-final against St Gabriels (who have won the competition for the last 300 years or something).  We eventually lost 5-4 but pushed them every step of the way and kept it going until the last dying seconds of the game.  They eventually went on to win the tournament, again.  We finished third, best placed of all the 'peasant' schools:

I hoped Auntie Christine and Auntie Trish enjoyed it, they were certainly vocal enough on the sidelines!
I had a double dose of roller skating as we went to Norhtcroft in the evening.
And then it was on to the Hatchet for somethign to eat.  I didn't like it, although it was quite early evening, it was still too busy and too noisy.  
The hot dog and chips was very nice though.
We stopped off at Sainsbury's on the way home for some pud and bumped into Auntie Christine again, she does shop at odd times!

Sunday
After saying last August that we ought to come back on a bright, cold winters day for a ride along the prom from Southbourne to Bournemouth, we finally got round to it.
Yeah, except it wasn't a bright day and it was pretty cold to be honest.  It didn't start well when I fell off and hurt my arm (there was a lot of sand blown up onto the path whcih made it slippery).
We tried to help her get over by sheltering between some beach huts for our picnic.
But it still hurt and I was quite whingey about it.....
Then when I 'apparently' cut up some bloke with a baby seat on the back of his bike, causing him to swerve several times (this was the last of several near misses i'd supposedly been involved in) Dad flipped his lid and ordered us back to the car to go home.  I tried pleading with him but that was that.
So we had a nice silent journey all the way home.
Oops.
So instead of being out and about we got to do more homework, deep joy!
Hugo did appear later on though and we played the hotel game which was cool.
 

Monday
Cross country club was pretty epic, especially the training where we doubled the sprint intervals each go.  It ended up with me and Jess determined not to be the first to give in.  I came home with a very red face.
We finally caught up with the second episode of the Bear Grylls survival programme after tea in a rare whole family sofa session.  We loved the bit when they had to drink their own wee.
The retchign noises were hilarious!

Tuesday

Swimming with the school was good today, we finished our lesson stuff early enough to have a go at diving for the rings.  I loved that.
When we got back to school we did our belated sponsored pancake flipping.  I managed 18 which I was sort of pleased with.
time for ring diving

Max visited school in some capacity from St. Barts, don't know why, I only saw him briefly.

It was watching week at gymnastics for the first time in the new gym.  My linked backwards rolls right across the floor were quite impressive according to Mum and Dad.
Mario Kart!!!!  It's still my favourde game after playing it at Butlins, i'm loving it.

Wednesday

Team Kennet night and it was almost light when we got dropped off which made dodging the puddles on the way in a lot easier.
One girl was sick in the sportshall though, that was a puddle we really wanted to dodge.

Friday

We did our class assembly on living together.  Which managed to blend bits on living in India and the Civil War.  Mum said I spoke my lines very well.
I also got my Bronze times tables certificate, a bit delayed but i was chuffed to bits with it.
After school I was off to Sasha's for tea.  We were both mad excited about it and there had been much squealing and excitement in the build up.
So, seeing as Ellis wasn't going to be about, I managed to get Robert round for Xbox and Pizza.  Forza Horizon 2 was the game of choice.  It's brilliant and i'm totally loving the barn finds.
Sasha's was so cool, we played we bounced on her trampoline, we had sausage and mash for tea and best of all we tended to her chickens in the garden!

Saturday

So we had to do some shopping today....urgggh.
Yeah, we ll we have explorer costumes to make so it was a trip to Reading for the hobbycraft shop.  I've decided on Neil Armstrong so we needed some space suit specific stuff.
I decided on Jaques Cousteau, being won over by the fact that wearing my swimming stuff to school, maybe my wetsuit, swimming hat, mask, snorkel, flippers, some old armbands and carrying a fishing net would be good for a laugh.  As an added bonus I wouldn't have to make anything either, giving me more Forza time.
We went to Toys R Us as well, I spent a little bit more of my Christmas money on a lovely big, soft, fluffy Panda.  He will in no way take over form my original panda, but he is a fabulous addition to the family.
And I bought a Lego Mclaren, rather cool it is too.
Mum put in an epic effort of cycling into town, getting me a white outfit to customise into a spacesuit and cycling back again in just over an hour. While I had to have endless fittings for a space helmet that dad was making.
It was finally roller skating time again after a two week lay off.
Yep, I couldn't wait.  The queue was massive this week but when we got in both Sasha and Evie were there.  They couldn't believe how fast I could go.
I spent a lot of time practicing my race starts.  It stood me in good stead and I managed a third place against some pretty stiff competition.  I was gutted to find out that only winners won a lolly this week though.

Sunday

We had a rather quiet morning, doing homework, watching telly....
....finding abandonned classic sports cars in barns in the south of France.
It was a lovely sunny morning and I did my home work outside in the garden for a while.
We decided we'd pay Alan, Hayley and the bump a visit in the afternoon, by bike.
I had a small tumble on the canal towpath, fortunatley I flopped the right way and didn't end up in the canal.
We had a quick play on the park at Northcroft and then climbed the hill to their house.
We heard all about Hayleys appointments and classes for the baby.
It sounds like Alan has taken them all very seriously......
And then just as we decided it was time to come home, it rained.....hard!
We had to wait on a bit until it eased up but it was still really wet on the ground.
So it was quite a soggy ride home.
Maybe I need some mudgaurds on my bike, I had a rather wet and muddy bum and back by the time I got home.
We watched Off Their Rockers before bed, Mum found it hilarious.
So did we!

Monday

We got an email today to confirm my place at Park House in September!
I've been a bit wobbly about it recently, I think it's hit home that pretty much all my friends will be going to St Barts.......

Tuesday

Another day with Auntie christine and Darcey.

A trip to the cinema to watch Peppa Pig.

Not our usual choice really, but we love going anywhere with Darcey.

It was rather good though.

Afterwards we saw the pancake races in the marketplace.

And then we walked back towards auntie Christines house via Burger King.

We carried on, re-fuelled for a play on stroud green park before eventually arriving back.

Under strict orders from Mum we did some baking.

We did, cup cakes with some 'surprise' fillings.

Gymnastics was still on, which was good, even if I was full of cng and cupcakes.

I left a bit of room for when we got home, it was pancake night after all.

Yeah, even i've come round to them this year, sugar and lemon, keeping it simple.

Dad kept a good production line going.

Wednesday

Now a couple of days with Mum.

First up a trip to Shaw House who were having a civil war day.  I've been doing this at school so it was a pretty topical idea.

It was really good, there was a trail to follow as well as some helmets to try on.

We stayed for lunch as Mum was amazed at how cheap it all was.

Yeah, even if the maltesers did turn out to be out of date.

We also got to make our own little soldiers:

We stopped off at Sainsbury to stock up on jelly for my layers of the earth school project homework.

And then it was Tilly's birthday disco.  I decided shorts and a nice shirt was a good look.  I though I looked just like Dad actually.

We had a great time:

I really enjoyed it:

Especially the chocolate fountain.  We tried all sorts, the most extreme being pickled onion monster munch dipped in chocolate.  Miss Knowles and I actually rather liked them.

I didn't have to go to Team Kennet, so enjoyed some Ned free time at home.

Thursday

Day two with Mum and the one thing on our wish list for the week was the Shaun the Sheep film.

So, off to the cinema again.

It was brilliant.

Then it was home for some Xbox.

Some Ipad. Some telly.

And some packing and fever pitch levels of excitement for tomorrow....

Friday

We hung about the house a bit on Friday as Mum had another day off.

Yeah, I added the final touches to my school project, adding the last few layers to my layers of the earth model, in jelly form.  What a genius idea.  We made it especially thick though so it won't be very good to eat I don't think.

Other than that we didn't do much really.

We watched Kung Fu Panda.

I packed my bag with a few essential items for our weekend away (feather boa) at Butlins.

We waited patiently for Dad to get home from work and we set off.

A bit earlier this year so that was good.

We got there in the daylight as well, cool.

We were staying in the same hotel as last year, and it was just as cool.  We had an elephant made out of towels on our bed this time.

We had tried to save a few quid and skimped on the premium for a room with a balcony and a partial sea view.

Yeah, the car park wasn't nearly so nice to look at.

Still, we weren't in the room long so it didn't really matter.

I helped mum and Dad unpack.

While I made a swift exit and headed for the computer games room.

Once we were all sorted we took our lovingly prepared (by Mum) picnic on the mezzanine over the hotel lobby.  The chairs were lovely and big, and spinny!

But it was rather warm....so after we finished we headed out into the cool night air for a walk around to see what was about.

Fortunately we stumbled upon the arcade:

We managed to make a few quid disappear.

We carried on and found some scooters to sit on:

And I found this Postman Pat ride, I thought his nose looked like a 'Sausage', ahem.....

We made our way back to the hotel and watched the Bear Grylls survivor programme on telly.

We survived more of it than Dad who fell asleep before it finished.

We eventually went to bed, but having our own tellys in our rooms we weren't ready for sleeping.

It was quite late by the time we finally nodded off.....

Saturday

Hence we weren't up that early in the morning.

There was no rush though, nothing opened until 10 anyway.

We had breakfast in our room (mini cereal multipacks, what luxury).

Then headed for the pool.  It was pretty busy so we didn't get on much in the way of the slides and what have you.

Although the pool itself was cool with all the waterfalls, small slides and wave machine.

Lunchtime refuelling was a room picnic with some nice fresh bread from the Spar then it was back out to the show bar.

For Mister Maker live! I was dead excited, I love Mister Maker even if we might be a little bit older than his usual fanbase.

There was singing, dancing, making...

.....and some grown ups on stage making silly animal noises.

We had a bit of a session on the fair next, the bumper cars were going this year and there were even a few new rides.

We hired pedal carts and bombed around the site on them, they even went down small flights of steps surprisingly well:

That gave us quite an appetite so the Beachcomber Inn was a welcome pitstop.

We got a cool booth for four to sit in and had a nice snuggle up waiting for the food to arrive:

It was a lovely meal, topped off with an epic pudding:

Yeah, grapes and apples, lush:

It was dark by now, the fair was open and the lights were flashing, it looked too good to ignore.

Even if it was seriously freezing cold.

We went on everything, several times over.

Although the bumper cars were a bit disappointing as a strict no bumping rule was being enforced for some reason.

Sunday

Another lovely lay in.

And hotel room breakfast.

With a quick trip to the games room for me.

While I hung out with Mum and Dad for a bit.

They made us go put for a walk along the beach.

Yeah, obviously we didn't want to go at all.

Of course we loved it when we got there.

Even if it was windy and rather cold.

The warmth beckoned and we wrung out our last few quid in the arcade in a mad last minute dash for prize tickets.

The 2p falls machine with a built in fruit machine type ticket winning add on was the clear winner for me.

I was less easily pleased and ended up spending my allowance and some supplimentary pocket money....those crane machines for cuddly toys are a right con, but I was surprisingly good at the basketball machine.

We eventually called time and settled on our winning tickets total before visiting the shop where you could cash them in.

After a reasonably quick decision process, aided by the lovely helpful people behind the counter I settled on a cute bear rubber, a keyring, a sticker and some sweets.

And I went for a polystyrene glider and a lot more sweets.

We'd worked up an appetite and went to the pizza place for buffet.

We got another cool booth style table to sit at, which just so happened to have a great view of the buffet tables.  Very handy for spotting when a freshly cooked pepperoni pizza had been put out.

I think both Ned and I ate more than Mum.

So we considered that we'd done very well out of the deal having to only pay kids rates compared to her full price adults tarrif.

We had a quick meeting to decide on what we wanted to do for the rest of the day.

We settled on swimming and dodgems.

So, with it raining pretty hard and still blowing we made our way accross the largely deserted fairground to the dodgems.

There wasn't a queue and we waited for the current session to end during which the young lad running the ride tried to catch me out with the old 'whats that on your jacket' routine as well as an attempt at telling me my laces were undone.  

He was great fun.

As we were at the front of the queue, I was desperate to get car number 7 which looked by far the fastest.  The ride operator agreed with me and I made sure I got first dibs by telling a blatant fib, telling him I was a Tottenham fan.  The deal was done and I got the car all to myself.

I bagsied Dad as my co-driver which left Mum to her own devices in a car of her own.

The ride operator man did a quick pre ride speech where he said there was to be no bumping...and then  laughed to himself before he flicked the on switch and quickly got himself into a spare car.

Then the carnage began.

It was total chaos, endless bumping, driving round the wrong the lot.  Every rule broken and everyone driving or riding in the cars loving every second of it.

The man running the ride was obviously a big target but he was lapping it up.

Mum was a complete nightmare, hunting us down and bumping us endlessly.

Yep, she was seemingly everywhere.

At the end of the ride we got asked if we wanted to stay on for another session, of course we did!

And another.

And another.

It was brilliant.  We only got off in the end when the entire fair got closed down because of the weather being so grim.

I think it was for the best, we'd laughed ourselves silly and the olds were worried about their backs and whiplash injuries.

So that left us with the final item on our agenda, swimming.

Yep, back to the pool for another dip.

And then back to the room to pack and have a bath before we left so we'd be sparkly and clean for school tomorrow.

Monday

Back to school then.

Yeah, it wasn't so bad though.

Nah, i'm riding my scooter in now, so its coo playing about on that before we go in to class.

We did a 'Strictly' themed routine at dance this week which was a lot of fun.

And I managed to return home from cross country remarkably mud free this week....

Tuesday

Gymnastics, badge week, I was a little nervous.  I didn't know what was next after my bronze floor award.  Turns out we were doing the gold fitness award this week.  Apparently the most impressive thing was doing a headstand against the wall and pushing yourself up into a handstand.  I found it quite easy though, badge and certificate for me!

Wednesday

And while we're on the subject of good news, Miss Stubbs anounced that viola lessons were cancelled.  The whole class might have cheered.  A little bit.

Thursday

Amie came round for tea, we did some dressing up, a bit of make up, the usual stuff.

Then she played Xbox with me.

Which I wasn't all that happy about really.  It all turned out okay though, especially when mum drove her home and we listened to radio 3 and sang opera all the way accross town.

Friday

Netball has got pretty serious since we qualified for the league finals.  Golden time has been cancelled for the team on friday afternoons so we can have extra training!
It was the last day at school for a week, what with it being half term and all that.

We did have a trip to Pizza Hut to look forward to as well!

Yep, obviously parents evening went well enough last week.  I so love pizza hut.

I loved it even more once the extremely noisy kids birthday party on the table next to us was finished.

I almost felt guilty when I ran the ice cream factory dry of ice cream.

Yeah, I had to wait ages for it to be replenished.

Saturday

A sneaky trip to the cinema on a wet and grey saturday morning.
We watched the Penguins of Madagascar.
And it was very enjoyable indeed.
We did some shopping for a new dress for Auntie Christines upcoming birthday party.
I love shopping, so that was okay.....

We did get handed a competition entry to win a diamond worth a thousand pounds though.
We're convinced we wer going to win, so the debate started as to what we would spend the money on.
I wanted a horse.
I wanted a dog.
A compromise was reached though, a fish or two each!
As well as a tank full of brightly coloured gravels, castles and god knows what else we could find to lob in there.

We got to Northcroft to find that roller skating wasn't on this week, or indeed next week.
How disappointing, Mum had come along to watch as well.

Sunday

So Ned chose pizza hut, I chose JJ's and after last time I went and claimed i'd gone form the highest drop slide, Dad bet me a £1 that I wouldn't do it as soon as we got there.
In the interest of fairness I got in on the deal too, even though i've been off it hundreds of times.
It was the easiest quid i'd ever made.  Straight down, no messing.
We stayed for ages, it was really cool.
Yeah, I loved it, especially doing gymnastics in the ball battle zone.
When we got home we played the Hotel game, I wiped the floor with them for a crushing victory.

Monday

First day of the holidays proper and it was time for Auntie Christine's.
With Darcey, how exciting.
The weather wasn't up to much  so we played plenty of silly games that she had aquired.
And did some cool creative stuff with little polystyrene chips that you could stick together if you get them a little bit wet.

 

Tuesday

It snowed, at last.

It looked pretty exciting when we got up too, it had settled at least.

Although it didn't look like it was going to hang around for long.

There was still plenty left at break time and lunchtime at school though.  We made some massive snowballs and rolled them accross the field.

I had to sneakily wear mums fluffy cuffed gloves.  I was worried I wouldn't be allowed out to play without any and id lost my own ones in Rhos.

Swimming was a massive inconvenience, i'd much rather have played in the snow some more.

We had a netball match scheduled away at Marlston house, a posh school.  It wasn't cancelled because of the snow so that was a result.  I only got to play for one quarter of the match though, which was a shame.  Having said that, we got beat 9 - 7.  The netball 'tea' after the game was quite spectacular, hot pasties, crisps, penguins, fruit......the grown ups got tea, coffe, freshly made sandwiches and cup cakes!.

I got well looked after too, even though we arrived after the match had finished.

It was really interesting talking to the girls on the other team, they had some cool stuff, like their own horses!

But some of them boarded there and their school days are a lot longer than ours and even include saturday classes.

We're doing a lot more on the trampoline at gymnastics at the moment, for which ypu need to wear socks.  This is of course deeply problematic for me as I hardly ever wear any.

Wednesday

I had my first after school Football club session this week after endless cancellations.  I loved it, even though it was a bit of a mad rush to get home in time to have tea and get ready for Team Kennet.

I mastered the tricky art of the triple jump this week!

And I 'enjoyed' Alistairs company for a second week.

Thursday

We had another 'away' netball match against Speenhamland.  This time I played three quarters of the match and we won by a rather convincing scoreline 18 - 4.  We were pretty awesome, in fact it caused a little bit of bad feeling with the opposition who decided to make some accusations about some of our team cheating.  What nonsense, as if we needed to do that?  Anyway, the upshot of our latest win was that we had qualified for the league finals to be played at St Gabriels in the near future.  On a monday afternoon, bonus, more school missed!

We got there in time to watch the most of the match too, I loved watching our school do so well, although the provisions after the game were a little disappointing after tuesdays efforts.

It was also parents evening......

Yeah, they seem to come around rather too quickly for my liking.

Mine went very well by all accounts and i'm getting on rather well it would seem.

Yeah, me too on the whole, although I could do better with my written work and reading. Standard stuff then.

Friday

We had a special Rhos assembly.  Mum came along which was rather nice.  I suspect she was lured with the promise of all the leftover tuck that would be on offer afterwards back at the classroom.

It was cool to see her in assembly, I gave her a nice wave.

As well as the Rhos stuff Mrs Watkins also proudly told the whole schoool about our Netball victory the previous day.

I chattered all the way out back to class and didn't give Mum any sort of acknowledgement as I left the hall.

I headed back to class and ate my own weight in biscuits.

And we headed out on a walk accross the fields with a school visitor who knew all about the Civil War and the battles thathappened on the fields near the school.  We all know Ned is the history buff but I was utterly captivated by it all too.  I lapped it up, especially the musket balls found in the mud.  I also got to wear my lovely new wellies which were proper nice.

Saturday

Up early today and off to London zoo.
Yeah, same arrangement as last time, drive to Turnham Green, load up on picnic supplies in the M&S and then head on into town on the underground.   There was no one about really so I had great fun using the rails in the train as monkey bars and climbing apparatus.
We eventually surfaced in Camnden Town, which was pretty weird.
Yeah, there were loads of stalls setting up and loads of shoe shops, most of them with massive, oversized trainers attached to the buildings above them which were pretty cool. 
It didn't look at all like an area that might have a zoo.  But after a short walk we were in much more zoo like surroundings:

We hadn't been to a zoo for ages so we were pretty up for it, despite it being a pretty cold and bleak day:

The gorilla's were awesome, especially the big male, he was very powerful looking and pretty scary when he walloped the glass and ran off at a rate.

The tigers were seriously cute, cuddling up with each other:

But every now and again they gave you a sublte reminder they were in fact scary beasts by having a little snarl and baring their teeth at us.

The reptile house was pretty epic.

And so was the Kimodo dragon, I hope he didn't mind us having our picnic in the relative warm of his viewing gallery.

It closed pretty early being winter and all that, so we had to rush visit the petting zoo.

Which was a shame as the goats were super cute and loved a fuss.

And we just about managed to squeeze in a visit to the aquarium, which turned out to be much bigger than we first thought.

We made our way back to the car on the underground.

Which was much busier than in the morning, but quite an eye opener. There were grown ups in cow print onesies and others with a full face paint on....

Sunday

A lazy day today after yestrerdays many miles of walking.

So what did we eventually get dragged out on.....a Walk!!!!!

We retraced some of the route of my school mapp reading jaunt and ended up down the river on Northcroft Marsh.

I almost ended up going in!

Luckily I saved him.

We did some skimmers and headed back home.

Through lots and lots of sloppy, muddy puddles.

Monday

Big news today, I finally passed my five times table at school.  I know, everyone kept telling me it was easy, but for some reason I seemed to struggle with this particular one.  I was super pleased to finally get it done!

Tuesday

Swimming again, it's pretty cool on the double decker coach, we even get to go on the fast road.

The new gym is still getting me hyped up and super excited for gymnastics every week.

Netball was back on, hooray.  Loved it of course even though it was pretty cold and the corner of our court is still lost to the building compound.  At least the daylight is lasting a bit longer in the evenings now though, we can play on until 4:30 and actually see what we're doing which is nice.

Wednesday

We're struggling to pad this weeks entry out really.  Everything has gone back to normal I suppose.  It's a grim time of year weather wise and there just isn't much going on.

Nope, we've been getting on with school work, doing home work....booooring.

At least Team Kennet was a fun distraction.

Alastair came this week after weeks of saying he was going to.  It was cool to have him there.

Thursday

Yeah, well, still nothing to report really.

Nope, nothing to see here, move along.

Friday

At least it was Friday.

Yeah, the end of the week.

And in a move sure to make your weekend go with a bang, we got given a SATS revision book on the subject of Maths, Grammar and Spelling.  Oh, deep joy!!! (i quite like the maths one though).

Saturday

We had a lazy morning, played a couple of games of Hotel Tycoon, neither of which ended in any form of argument which made a pleasant change.
Then Mum had the idea of going to the pub for lunch and seeing if she could round up any of the gang to come along too.
We ended up with quite a few of us in the end, Andy, Abi, Faye, Nick, Carol, Alan, Hayley and her bump.
Yeah, so we had to try and aquire tables as best we could as we hadn't booked.  I was so excited to see Hayley, i'm at fever pitch about the baby already.
It was really nice to see everyone and have a good old laugh.
We went home and watched some ridiculous game shows from the 80's on telly, Take Your Pick with some bloke called Des O'Connor and old Episodes of Catchphrase. 
Then we had another game of Hotel Tycoon with Andy, again, no strops!
Mum went out to a quiz and we snuggled up with Dad to watch a bit of The Voice and Take me out.

Sunday

Yet again, we had nothing to do really.  
We slouched about for a bit and then after lunch decided it looked windy enough to get my new kite out.
It was freezing out, but I made sure I did some excellent 'launching' for Ned.
Yeah, Ellis was awesome, I got it flying staraight away with no problems.  The winds was a bit gusty though, so the kite did fall out of the sky now and again.
I had a go too, and I could fly it as well!  I was made up, but still cold. 

Monday
Back to school then, ho hum.
Yeah, at least cross country was on, I did 9 consecutive full laps of the long course.
Dance was cool this week, Blame it on the Boogie, one of Mum's favourites.  Shame I got to dance to it and not her eh?