Well, there hasn't been much action here for a few weeks has there?  Sorry about that, lets see if we can get things up to date with a bit of an edited highlights type of update, i'll try to keep things as brief as possible......

26th January Thursday

Lilly came round after school, we played, we laughed, we had tea and best of all, her doggie bailey cam round with her mum to collect her.....Bailey is sooo cute.

27th Friday

It was our class assembly today, Mum came along, brilliant.  We were so up for it and I performed my many duties very well by all accounts.  The planet rap went down a storm.
After school football was a very cold affair.
In the evening we settled down to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks Roadchip.  Dad was on popcorn duty, but he let himself down a bit this time...it was burnt.....he blamed the hob.

28th Saturday

I went round Sasha's for the day, great fun and good to indulge in our favourite things, hair, make up, fashion designing and working out details of our play which is still in production.
In the evening we were Nate sitting, i'd been buzzing with excitement for ages about this one.  He only cried for a little bit when Alan and Hayley left and we soon got stuck in to the Duplo with him:

29th Sunday

Last Sportshall match of the season.

I had a stinking headcold, so didn't do quite as well as I normally would do.  Still, we did our best and enjoyed the competition, I put in a very strong performance in my running events though, which is something of a rarity.  We didn't finish particularly high up in the overall though....

1st February Wednesday
We are now a two car family, due to Dad's impending workplace move.  It's all very exciting:

2nd Thursday
Ned has got to choose his option subjects for his GCSE's very soon so Andy looked after me while everyone else went up the school for a load of boring talking and wandering about.  We had a much better time with the Lego.  When the others got back there was a brilliant wildlife programme on where monkeys were climbing up a tower and jumping off into small ornamental ponds...it was brilliant, they were proper daredevils.

3rd Friday
School Disco night, bit of a style change for me this time.  Out go my usual (some would say over the top) dress/shoes/makeup combo and in with dark ripped jeans and a hoodie. 

4th Saturday
We have a new favourite outsourced meal....KFC!  We both love popcorn chicken, it's nice to finally not argue about this one small thing at least.  So we enjoyed this very feast in a retail park in Swindon before visiting the Swindon Museum of computing...oh the glamour!
Although the museum was in a pretty tired looking arcade of shops it was actually really brilliant.  There were loads of vintage computers from when Mum and Dad were our age, Commodore 64's, Spectrums and BBC Micro's.  They even still worked....although loading games from something called a cassette was a right pain in the neck.  The more modern Atari ST had something called a floppy disk drive which was a marginal improvement:

There was another room full of consoles that to could play on, everything from Atari's through Nintendo and Mega drive and the original Xbox.  I loved Q-Bert on the Atari and played it for ages.

It has to be said though that my very most favourite thing was the mechanical typewriter:

It was just brilliant the way the pressed keys invoked the hammer to strike the ink ribbon, I loved the mechanism of it.  There was also a load of mechanical adding machines that were fascinating.  After we left I declared the place awesome.

We dropped in on the Outlet Village on the way home, it was pretty rubbish until we found the Lindor shop.....with a pick and mix section....ohhh lovely,. Outlet village Lindor shop

5th Sunday
I went Jess' party in the morning, it was at Claires accessories in Basingstoke, how cool was that!  It was great fun, and I came back with a lovely purple/blue accent to my hair and some earrings for pierced ears....even though I don't have any piercings....yet!
A drastic change of activity in the afternoon when I changed the rear light cluster on the car pretty much singlehandedly:

It had had a small hole in the old one for months so it was well overdue a repair, even though our temporary repair had held up well.

7th Tuesday
I made a subtle alteration to Mum's sandwiches, daubing I 'heart' U in butter:

10th Friday
It was the last day of term today, how excellent is that?

11th Saturday
First day of the holidays and we marked it with a total slouch day, neither Ned nor I got dressed all day!

12th Sunday
After a couple of false starts due to swimming Gala's taking place we finally made it to Guildford swimming pool....diving boards!
We too Andy along for the ride and he was dead keen to get stuck in, he did very well too!
So did I, when I finally jumped from the 5 metre platform.  Quite the milestone for me, I was very pleased with myself indeed.

13th Monday
Day off today with Mum and Darcey.  We played with my toys and because it was a nice day, went to Victoria Park for a play:

14th Tuesday
A day with Auntie Christine and Darcey, we went to 4 Kingdoms.  It was so awesome, we saw a sheep give birth to a lamb, it was so cute!

15th Wednesday
We went out for the day with Laura, Darcey, Jack Bailey from school, his younger bother and even Ned came along.  We went to Rock Up climbing centre and it was brilliant fun!

16th Thursday
The action kept on coming with a day trip with Anne and Mike to London Zoo.  We might have squabbled a little bit, maybe.....

17th Friday
A day off with Mum, we had a nice morning getting a few bits together and painting our nails.  I painted Mum's pink, proper pink.  It was most out of character for her.
The very most exciting thing though had to be out Butlins trip.  Id been excited to bursting point for weeks about this one.  When Alan and Hayley booked themselves in with Nate I went several notches higher on the excitement scale as you can imagine!  Later in the week Finlay and Millie also declared themselves on board and booked a room too, we were all going to be in the same hotel, how cool is that?
We took the small car just for the fun of it and because we didn't have much luggage (despite my best efforts during packing).  It was really nice and cosy in the back actually.  We were soon there and checked into the hotel, this year we were greeted by a towel crab: 

We dumped our bags off and got out to find the others who had been there since lunchtime and already  enjoyed the Mr Men show.....while we were stuck on the M3.
We hit the arcade obviously:

Before making our way back to the hotel, via the small donkeys out the back:

Oh, and a quick pit stop in the games room at the hotel of course:

There was time for a game of Celestia up in Alan and Hayley's room (Dad won AGAIN!), before we tucked ourselves into our bunk beds and both put our TV's on channel 4 to watch the last leg.  A bit adult in subject manner maybe, but we both found it hilarious so we were allowed to keep it on.

18th Saturday

Oh how Alan laughed when Mum said we were getting a balcony room, but it was well worth it as you can see here:

Breakfast in the morning sunshine, how lovely.
We were all a bit out of sync with the others to begin with, they had gone swimming early doors, so we took in a quick round of mini golf:

It was really good fun, gone are the days when it ends in a massive row (hopefully).  It was also a bit of a landmark event as Ned took the outright win.

Next up, a brief stint on the funfair:

We bumped into the others and because I was small enough I got to go with Nate on the little kids rides:

I loved it.

In the afternoon Ned did football and I just hung out, doing my own thing for a while which was pretty cool.
We all met up for an evening meal, all us kids sat on our own table which was fun.  Poor old Millie fell asleep before her dinner arrived:

We ventured into the arcade of course, I dropped a massive jackpot on one of the ticket machines and won hundreds of tickets!  I was soooooo pleased.

19th Sunday

Well it had all gone far too quickly and today was our last day.  We started things of with a full group trip to the pool.  It was great fun splashing about with everyone and us older ones (Including Alan and Chrissy) finished off with a go on the space bowl. 
Next up, Pizza Buffet....went a bit overboard on this one...but it was lovely.
And then straight after that it was off to the Sam and Mark show:

We got really good seats, all together and after a bit of seat swapping we all got a good view of the proceedings.  The show was great fun and it was really cool to see them doing stuff from their Friday CBBC show.
Once that was done and dusted it was time to move on to the arcade.....there were a few more tickets to be won and then it was time to cash in!  I had amassed over 800....and I was thrilled.  I was however less than thrilled when I lost my ticket receipt almost immediately.  But I'd really rather not talk about it.  Ned showed his true colours as a mostly brilliant big brother by letting me spend some of his....one of those felt colouring pictures of some cute doggies and a sprinkling of Maoam sweets certainly helped to ease the crushing blow.
We went back to the room for a bit, did some packing and watched some TV while we waited for the fair to open at 7....in the dark!
We headed straight for the bumper cars, and being pretty much the only ones there we had no trouble getting a car each:

The chap running them had no problem letting us stay on for at least 5 goes before anyone else joined the queue.  He even turned a blind eye to our reckless bumping amongst ourselves, it was brilliant.
We went on all the other stuff too, and managed to eek it out as long as we could before being forced, against our will to get in the car and come home, we had school tomorrow I suppose.

We were gutted that Alan, Hayley and Nate were staying until Monday though..... 

22nd Wednesday
I've sort of decided to give up Athletics club.  No one is very happy about it.....except me.  So I was told I'd have to go on Mum and Dad's walk that they usually do while we're there.  We went up to the little Sainsbury's and bought some sweets....I'm quite happy with that arrangement!

25th Saturday
With my long standing interest in Bugsy Malone (due to Mr Percy in year 4) Mum saw that there was a production of it happening at the Hexagon so thought we ought to go along.  We got pretty good seats right at the front of the balcony and got ready for the show.  It was entirely children playing the parts and I got quite into it all.  I'm not sure Mum and Dad were quite as impressed with it as Ned and I were though.

26th Sunday
I had Sasha round for the day.  We did loads of hair and make up, plenty of fashion designing and then got dad to make us a big bowl of fresh popcorn for us to eat while we watched a film...perfect!

28th Tuesday
Another peak excitement day on my calendar, pancake day. I love pancakes.  Hmmmm.....
I managed 30 flips at the pancake event at school but that was just a warm up for the main even at home where Dad had mixed up a bucketful of batter.
Mum was first to give up after just two pancakes, leaving me to fight the girls corner.  I was outclassed by Dad and ultimately Ned of course.  I did a decent job at flipping even if I had an unorthodox style with regards to swirling the batter around a hot pan....

1st March Wednesday
I won the player of the day award at after school Rugby club. I was thrilled with that, it couldn't have come at a better time either......

2nd Thursday
........as we had the schools tag rugby tournament...oops, no sorry, scratch that, tag rugby 'festival'
As in not competitive.  So non-competitive that there was a referee and a score keeper for each game....with a clipboard and everything.  Anyway, we were in a pool with five other schools, Welford and Wickham, St Josephs (featuring my old nursery mate Eva), Robert Sandilands...and some others I can't remember.  Anyway, we were magnificent, we won every game convincingly and I even scored a good try!  Mr. Toal seemed extremely pleased with us.

4th Saturday
We took a walk into town after lunch to get Sasha a birthday present, and stock up on a couple of new TY's for myself of course....
We got home in plenty of time for a Saturday Night Takeaway TV snuggle up....I love that show.

5th Sunday
Nate came round for Sunday lunch, complete with Alan and Hayley and of course the bump!
Nate loved my cardboard box house I'd made, but really didn't like our tiny rubber lizard that sticks to the window!!!

Right, that's about it for now, hopefully stay on top of updates now, until next time....

Pretty light on photographs and indeed content this week, must be down to the January, bleak weather, post Christmas comedown.

Thursday
I spent all night rehearsing a planet rap from a youtube video.  It's for an upcoming class assembly we're doing and I really want a part in the presentation.

Friday
Audition day for our planet section in assembly.  By the time I was up I wasn't even sure I wanted to do it....but I gave it my best shot and got given the part of Mercury.  I was so thrilled.  Friday night was very exciting, Nate was coming round for the night, Alan and Hayley were babysitting as Mum and Dad were off out for Auntie Trish's birthday party.  I also got my belated Christmas present from them, a towel....with a cartoon baby Panda on it and my actual name underneath the picture/  It's epic.  We had great fun with Nate who is even more than last time we saw him.

Saturday
We need a second car, so seeing as one isn't going to magically appear on the drive we have to go and look at some, but it's boring and involves a lot of driving.  We did have a nice car park picnic though.  We also went to a bike shop, there was some well nice stuff in it.....wasn't allowed any of it though.

Sunday
We went out for lunch with Kieran and Lydia which was great fun, well, except for the boys being well annoying of course.  We played pool and didn't rip the cloth which everyone agreed was a great success.  We even managed to engineer that Lydia and Kieran came round to ours afterwards.  Kieran was particularly pleased as he's on an Xbox ban at the moment due to a run of ill advised behaviour with Ned.  Ned has escaped an Xbox ban somehow though....Lydia and I had a great time, we managed not to get any bunchems in our hair but did manage to block the bathroom sink with Orbeez.

Monday
Rehearsals were in full swing for our class assembly which meant I was very much in demand and had to spread myself pretty thin between the planet rap, our normal class bit and also the PE thing that I'm involved in.....

Tuesday
Our class got our 100 marble reward today, we got to watch a film while the other year 5 class got a disco party.  Not entirely happy about that particular outcome.
Gymnastics is still going well on a Tuesday, it's nice to have Sasha, Abi and Lilly Newman going too.
We had a quick trip over to our old house tonight, i'm not sure what I expecting but it was a little underwhelming overall.

Wednesday

I almost passed my mixed tables with Mum this afternoon, we reckon i'll do it next time for sure.  Rugby after school when really well this week, I did really well in our passing and catching drills and I scored my first ever try.  All this added to my player of the week award...I was proper chuffed.  I also had to have a super quick hose down to get all the mud off my legs before Team Kennet where I put in another good showing with some impressive numbers in speed bounce and running good enough to even draw compliments from Mum. 

Thursday

It tried to snow today, it came down quite hard and we were faintly excited but sadly it didn't settle.

Friday

We were banned from throwing snow balls at school, despite there being hardly any snow hanging around to speak of.  Nevermind, it meant after school football was called off and I could go straight to Maddies for tea.  She has the cutest gerbils ever and I wanted to take them home.....she said I could as well.  Sadly it didn't happen.

Saturday

After a bit of discussion we settled on Adventure golf at the same place we played football golf at back in the summer holidays last year.  I wanted to play adventure golf then but football won out so I did eventually get my way. It was great fun, we didn't even end up having an argument either which was a pleasant surprise.  Ned beat me by one shot and Mum beat Dad by one shot.

The conditions were pretty challenging though, cold and a mid-round heavy rain shower didn't dampen our spirits.  We were very glad that Dad had made a flask of hot chocolate and bought a packet of choc chip muffins for afterwards.

Not much happened in the evening, just telly.....

Sunday

Ice skating today, a pretty early start for a change, much more like us.
It was a heck of a lot busier than last time we went, but we managed to find ourselves enough space to get going.  We did very well and loved being able to show of in front of Mum for the first time in a long time.

McDonalds for lunch afterwards, but as we were in the Wild West of Swindon they didn't even sell quarter pounders....what's that all about?
We indulged Dad in a trip to the camping shop afterwards, it was brilliant fun:

Although the bucket with a toilet seat was a grim prospect.
Ned managed to escape buying a proper winter coat for about the third winter running.  Not even a heavily reduced puffa jacket could tempt him to the warm side.
Next up we paid a visit to a car supermarket, this was quite good fun actually.  We enjoyed telling the salesman our list of requirements and think he soon realised we would be best left alone to browse the stock.

Monday

We were set a challenge at school to guess as close as we could to estimate one minute exactly, I got it exactly right.  When Mr Toal asked how i'd managed it I think he was hoping for some sort of repeatable science......but I told him the truth, I winged it and counted to 60, sometimes a bit fast and sometimes a bit slow.
I went to Eloise's for tea straight from school.  She had Heely's for Christmas so we got those on and rolled off to the park with Piipy, her lovely old doggie.  Pippy loved the park, climbing, balancing and generally scrabbling bout.

Tuesday 20th
We spent the day with Auntie Christine today, a visit to the Hexagon to see the panto starring Mr Tumble.  Auntie Christine was way more excited about this than we were of course.  Laura and Darcey came along too and it was really good fun.  We had Pizza Hut as well.....perfect!

Wednesday 21st
We had a day at home with Mum, we popped into town for haircuts (well Mum and I did anyway).  Ned and I then split up and went off to buy each other a Christmas present for each other.....I hope he likes the nerf gun/window crawling insect combo!
Mum and Dad were out for the evening at her work do so Nate came round to babysit us with Alan and Hayley.  We had a lovely evening and maybe stayed up a little bit late.....when Mum and Dad got back just before midnight we might have still been sat on the sofa watching the film Titanic.

Thursday 22nd
Off with Mum again today, Cinema visit to see the film Storks, which we loved.  When Dad got home we made a start on my Christmas day pudding, a meringue mountain.  We'd discussed it and planned it meticulously and it all went very much to plan with the exception of adding the icing sugar to the whipped egg whites.  Dad tried to add it in behind the hand mixer, but I kept moving it back just as he began to tip it in......directly into the flow of the cooling fan which blew sugar everywhere....we managed to do this a couple of times too!

Friday 23rd
Off with Mum again, we were all well and truly in holiday mode but Dad still had to go to work for his last day which was a bit rubbish, especially for him.  We took a trip to the trampoline park in Basingstoke, it was really good fun.

Dad had a bit of a work do as he finished at lunchtime.  I think it involved a bike ride from Hungerford and a large quantity of beer. He got home just in time for tea though so he did well on that front.  He was a bit drunk though......

Saturday 24th
Christmas eve, Dad was finished with work and the kitchen was in full swing cooking ham, sausage rolls and lovely homemade pizza for lunch.  Ned was his usual super excited self as he always is at Christmas, he really loves all the build up.  As is customary, we had a bit of a meet up at  the Craven Arms:

The weather was pretty good so it was nice to get outside for a bit.  The football pitch was certainly busy which kept the boys entertained.  It was a good turnout at the pub this year and it was really good to see everyone.

we had an evening trip round to Owen and Kirsty's, I got to have a go on his drum kit....he bought for himself...just before Christmas

It was a lot of fun, playing along to Frank Turner songs from his Ipod.

A very special occurrence here, our Easter eggs, that have resided in his cupboard under the stairs since, well, Easter were presented:

Better late than never eh?
We got home in time to put out the Santa stop sign and sprinkle the reindeer food:

Before we came back inside, set out the customary carrot for Rudolph and mince pie and accompanying drink for Santa (this year he had two offerings, Ned's apple and blackcurrant squash or the connoisseurs choice, Ribena.........)

Then it was upstairs for the bedtime stories, a real blast from the past with It's Santa followed up by me reading the Nativity book (lift up flap version, we still love it).

Sunday 25th
Christmas day, finally it was here and we were well up for it.  Stockings first:

We love the stockings, such a great starter before the main event:

The biggest resents were for Mum and Dad this year, what an outrage.  Anyway, the best things come in small packages so the saying goes.....here's my lovely new laptop with a detachable screen that you can use a tablet too:

Ned was also delighted with his Lindt giant chocolate Santa:

We loved opening the rest of our fabulous gifts that were under the tree, both from 'Santa' and our lovely friends and family......we say it every year but we are truly lucky kids, thanks everyone!
It's not all fun on Christmas day of course, there's a roast dinner to endure.  I decided I didn't want Turkey at all this year and campaigned endlessly for chicken instead.....it got me nowhere though and turkey it was.  Still, there were plenty of pigs in blankets and yorkies which we didn't have to share with any guests as it was only us four, every cloud has a silver lining.
Pudding however was a very different proposition, the fruits of Dad and I's labour was lovingly assembled and adorned with seasonal decorations.  May I present Ellis Christmas mountain meringue tower:

Ned had commissioned Dad to make him a chocolate brownie with strict instructions that it was to be cooked rare...very rare.  Super gooey in the middle so basically lightly warmed cake mix with the thinnest of baked crust.
We made the trip over to see Nate in the afternoon, he was on great form too:

He seemed to love our present of a balance bike, even thought it was marginally too big for his little legs he still straddled it as best he could and made his way up and down the lounge. 

Monday 26th
Boxing Day was of course a lazy, slow start.  Dad decided it was a good time to fully check out one of his presents (which accounted for the biggest parcel under the tree), an inflatable, two seater Kayak:

It was surprisingly easy and quick to inflate, we can't wait to go for a paddle once the weather gets a bit warmer!
It was a good time to sit about and go through our presents a bit more thoroughly before we escaped for some fresh air and went to Snelsmore common for a walk.  Well, Mum and Dad walked, Ned and I took our bikes.  There had been a lot of swing building going on up there, this one made for a great photo opportunity but was a rubbish swing:

This one however was a lot better, even though it doesn't do it justice on a photograph:

It went out miles on a big, circular motion and with Mum, Dad and Ned pushing I went super high and fast too!

We got home and consumed yet more leftovers and part baked bread.  Bit of a revelation this year, we liked, no loved Dad's home made sausage rolls that we have previously dismissed.  Not sure Mum and Dad were happy about having to share them with us though.

We rounded the evening out playing games, bounce off was a firm favourite as was 'guess the celebrity on my head'

Tuesday 27th
We needed some proper food so took a trip to Pizza Hurt as we thought a buffet would be just the job......sadly it was deemed a bank holiday today so there was no buffet on offer.  After a quick discussion we settled on a McDonalds instead and decided Pizza Hut could wait.

Wednesday 28th
It was a lovely sunny day so we took a trip to the very alpine sounding Ringwood Ski centre for a ski bob session:

An hours worth of this was great fun and the moving walkway back up the hill was most welcome to save our tired legs.

Yesterdays Pizza Hut debacle was put to rights when we found one for lunch buffet today.  It was delicious and well worth deferring to another day. 

Anne and Mike came round for tea, so that meant some late presents and a lot of laughing as we tucked into the Bean Boozle jelly beans they gave us.  Dad really enjoyed the vomit and rotten egg flavoured ones that had him retching over the food recycling bin!

Thursday 29th
Another trip out to, this time to JJ's with Nate, how totally exciting is that?  He hadn't been before so we loved showing him round.....and Alan, Alan loved it. 

We all enjoyed though, even Mum and Hayley had a few goes on the bumpy slide despite her reasonably prominent baby tummy.  I had hundreds of goes on the drop slide, straight from the highest one too, it was running really fast and we were almost getting right to the end of the run out area.  We had to cut our visit a bit short though as we were accompanying Auntie Christine to her works children's Christmas party.  It was aimed at younger children than us I think but we had a good time and it was nice to spend some time with Auntie Christine.

Friday 30th
A family gathering today, belated Christmas celebration at Auntie Christine's.  The main event was Auntie Christines 100 presents game, the one with all the crazy made up rules that changed form one round to the next.  It also meant another delivery of late presents from Owen and Kirsty which were certainly worth waiting for.

Saturday 31st
New Years eve, not much going on during the day, the weather was a bit grim so we decided to watch films, oh and ready the house for tonight's party!
Yeah we were having a new year party, it was seemingly our turn.  We got the music ready, we made some of our speciality parma ham and cheese straws, set up the TV in the conservatory for film duties and cranked up the portable radiator out there as we like to spoil our guests.
We had Abi and Faye, Kimi and Marny along with their respective adults, Andy and Nate turned up for a bit with his entourage too.  It was such a good night, we all got on so well, we played an Ipad based charades game called Heads up which was brilliant fun.  We danced, we larked about and we ate freshly made popcorn (only a little bit burnt by Dad) while we approached midnight watching Hotel Transylvania, while Ned and Kimi played Xbox.  We had midnight well and truly covered, the big countdown on TV and enough party poppers to start a civil war:

Happy new year everyone!
We set a new record for late nights too, it was at least 3:30 am before the last of the guests left and we went off to bed.

Sunday 1st
New Years day probably happened, but none of us really noticed...ahem.

Monday 2nd
McDonalds for breakfast went down very well indeed this morning, it's a rare treat.
It was a lovely bright sunny day and after a couple of day spent indoors we were chomping at the bit to get out for a bit of fresh air.  We made our way south to the Moors Valley Country Park and after a car picnic we took a walk around the play trail.  We hadn't been here for a while and some of our favourite old playgrounds have been removed.  There were some really good new ones though.


Tuesday 3rd
Dad had to go back to work today, a bit rubbish, especially for him.  We did meet up with him at the bowling alley in the afternoon though.  Bowling was great fun, if a bit hit and miss in terms of the machinery not always managing to rack up a full set of pins for each frame.  We all played really well in the first game too and racked up some pretty impressive scores.

Wednesday 4th
Back to school for us today, boooo.
Actually it wasn't too bad to see everyone and get a bit of direction back in out lives after the ever extending lay ins and chocolate binges over Christmas.
It was back to Team Kennet as well, I was well up for this as well.  I did really well at speed bounce and did well at the running too.  So well that even Mum and Dad commented on my speed and effort (they normally do not have entirely positive things to say about my running).

Thursday 5th
The second day back felt like more of a slog than the first....

Friday 6th
At least the end of the week came quickly.  We had a shopping trip to Tesco to firstly spend some of my Christmas money and secondly buy supplies for my upcoming but very much belated 9th birthday party.  Once that was done we had another batch of delicious home popped popcorn and played our favourite new Christmas game Celestia again.  We all love it, even if Dad does keep winning.....

Saturday 7th
All day excitement was building for my wobsticle party tonight.  What with one thing and another we managed to not quite manage to get around to having my birthday party back in June.  So we decided a 9.5 year old party was a good idea.  It was a good idea too, I had 19 guests (sadly Ned included ha ha) and we had a brilliant time.  The wobsticle was great fun and the lifegaurds also let us have free reign with the hosepipe that they had been squirting us with too.  Ned was actually not that annoying and neither Mum or Dad were particularly embarrassing.  They even got me a pretty brilliant cake: 

I came home to go through my mass of fantastic presents, my friends know me well and got me some genuinely great stuff:

It'll soon be birthday time again too, well, six months anyway!

Sunday 8th
I spent the morning doing artsy and craftsy things from my present haul before we went on a short shopping trip to Windsor.  We still love the small maze and the fountain in the park, which we got a view of from our table in the Spoons for a spot of lunch prior to hitting the shops in earnest.  I had some vouchers and some cash to spend, I tried on a mountain of clobber in H&M, only settling on a pair of ripped knee jeans and a hoodie.  I had to add to my TY collection too of course.  I also bought my controversial JoJo hair bow, which everyone else seemingly hated.....I don't care what anyone else thinks, I wanted one, so I got one and i'll wear it.

Monday 9th
Here's my bedtime TY collection (well part of it anyway):