We had our junior school carol concert at a big church in town on Tuesday afternoon.  We were pretty much the last class to arrive (we had to walk all the way from school).  Mum and Dad had both turned up and hidden at the back, I reckon they must have known about the year three guitar recital and taken suitable evasive action.  Once it was done and dusted we had to walk all the way back to school.  I didn't mind, I got to walk with Mrs Douglas and we had a good old chat.

It was my last week of swimming, which meant fun week.

And the one week of the term I was jealous of Ellis' swimming lesson.

We had balls, hoops, big floating mats and also swimming teachers with a hose pipe.  Because it wasn't a proper lesson I could play with Neave as we.  Mum topped it off nicely by turning up to watch.

It was also my last dancing lesson on Wednesday.  The three youngest that took exams each got a special medal awarded to us and everyone who had passed their exam got a really smart looking certificate.  As if that wasn't enough we also got a little present as well.  We got to show the grown ups our small group dance we had to do for the exam as well, which was obviously a treat for them.

It was all rush rush rush after dancing.  We had to eat tea and get me to school for  six o'clock for the opening night of our school play, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

I wasn't allowed to go, so Owen came round to keep me company.  We had a cool time, well I did, not sure how he felt after i'd talked at him for nealy two hours non stop.

The play itself went very well.  My class all had a part of wedding guests (as well as general singers of course). 

I really got into character and enjoyed the dancing too:

Here we all are, 3HD enjoying our own little finale:

It really was great fun and we all did really well. It was also pretty cool because Mum and Dad sat right on the front row do I got to give them a cheeky wave or two.

Massive excitement on Thursday, we got letters from the actual real father christmas.

Yeah, he seemed to know a LOT, even our friends names?

I had another performance on Thursday night, I was pretty tired out by the end of it to be honest.

Friday night we finally went and got ourselves a christmas tree.

About time too, even my teacher thought it was too long to wait.  In fact my only requirement for this years tree was that it was to be taller than Mrs. Douglas.

I loved being greeted by the singing dancing Santa on the way in:

So we selected this one in about thirty seconds and then turned our attention to the man running trees through the bagging machine:

We put it into the back of the car bteween our seats and made for McDonalds, well, it was too late to start cooking.

We had to frop Dad off at the pub for his work Christmas party as well, we knew Saturday morning wasn't going to be action packed.

No it wasn't, we had a very  lazy day and watched Wall E, which was universally liked.

We headed over to Grandad and Anne's for tea as a late birthday party for him and an early christmas party for all of us.

It was rather good as well, we had party poppers and crackers.

I did loads of colouring with Dad.

And I drilled Alan for histoy facts.

Never ones to rush anything the Christmas tree went up on Sunday.

Everything went up very smoothly as well, no drama's with the tree falling over or anything:

The net from the tree made a rather good wedding veil/train when attached to my head with hair grips:

Even Poppy got caught up in the Christmas spirit:

Once we'd emptied the box of decorations onto the tree it was time for the cherub to take her place at the top:

I was made to go to the stupid park in the afternoon because of Ellis.

Sorry Ned but I really wanted to go, even if I did run Mum over on my bike and it may have been really freezing cold.

We helped Mum make some chocolate brownie, we didn't make any mess of course and it all ran really smoothly:

Once the bowl was well and truly empty, Ned let me finish licking duties:

We decided to pose for a seasonal shot with the cat as well:

 We had to finish of writing our cards too:

Monday was pretty cool at school, we had our visiting pantomime performance of Ali Baba. I loved it, even if it was only in the hall.  After that it was party time. I didn't think it much of a party though really, there was no dancing?  Just eating.  I was also told not to wear my party shoes outside by Mum on the morning but seeing as we had a fire alarm I had to make an exception.

We also had our paty today as well, I was much more happy with the school definition of a party.  The cakes that Dad bought me to take along went down a storm and I even helped the grown ups set the food up during lunchtime.

Well I got my swimming report back and i've passed level one with flying colours, roll on level 2 when I get a yellow swimming hat and go in the deep end of the swimming pool. 

Hmmm, yeah great, I get to resume my lessons as well after Christmas, deep joy. 

We'll both be in the pool at the same time as well, but in different pools.

I don't know how Dad will manage to watch us both.

Dancing was back on this week and Mrs Groves had bought us all a pair of tap dancing shoes to wear.  How exciting!  The noise levels were certainly up while we tried them all for size.  

I was glad to leave them to it and do reading in the car, even though it gets dark very early at the moment and we have to have the lights on in the car.

I'm making quit a swift exit from school most nights now so I can get a bit of a go on the skateboard before it gets too dark.  All my practice paid off when  managed to pull very first ollie last week (when you pop the board up into the air).

We went to the Anvil to see the Panto with the school on Thursday morning.  I sat with Tom on the coach and i'd made sure I had loads of sweets to take with me.  The show itself was really brilliant, especially when Peter Pan flew out over the audience dropping glittery bits on us all.  Even silly Jake couldn't put me off with his endless chair kicking from behind.

We did our nativity play last week, a practice on wednesday then a real show on Thursday and Friday mornings.  Mum and Dad came on Friday morning and sat on the wrong side of the hall, I told them where to sit and it made perfect sense to me?  Anyway, it didn't matter too much.  They loved it of course:

And here's my close up, Ellis the 'Binky' (Innkeeper):

 I broke ranks at the end to go and give Mum a cuddle before I had to go back to class.
We got put to work on friday afternoon after school, making pigs in blankets for christmas:

We got them all nicely rolled and tucked away in the freezer, we can't wait to eat them!
We had a lay in on Saturday morning, playing christmas snap in Mum and Dad's bed.
Once we'd finally surfaced we got dragged to the beach.  Reluctantly.
But of course, once we got there we loved it!
We had chips on the seafront at the Witterings:

Took in the fresh sea air:

And of course, collected some rock samples:

Does this remind you of anyone?

We had a trip to the surf shop too of course.
And then we headed home for Sue to come around and babysit.  She has also joined the club of not reading Harry Potter, but we'll forgive her as she'd come out in a bit of a rush and forgotten her reading glasses.
I had Milly's party on Sunday morning.  It was good, there was a bouncy castle and massive dance floor for me to perform my moves.  The catering wasn't to my liking though, hot dogs (yuck), Flump sweets (yuck) and birthday cake with jam in it (yuck).
I was quite happy to take the cake of her hands....
We went to Rich, Oli and Joshuas on Sunday afternoon for a bit of a gethering with all the gang.  It was great fun, Max and I made ourselves at home and tucked into the impressive spread.
And I played with the younger ones, the wooden railway was a particular favourite.  As well as nearly one years old Finley!
Back to school today and we're getting bucketloads of cards.
I had a rather interesting one from Tilly, which she chose to inform me that she hated me with. Nice I thought?  Anyway, it got intercepted by one of the teaching assistants so we'll see what happens there.  We do generally manage to wind each other up though....

I had my last week of school swimming lessons...yay!  It was fun week as well so I quite enjoyed it.  The bad news is that i have to go back to proper lessons, after school one evening as week.  Re-enrolment isn't for a little while though so i'll have a few weeks off.

I had my assesment week and quite honestly if I haven't passed with flying colours it will be the biggest shock of the year so far.

I was so glad the teachers were on strike on Wednesday, especially after Ellis had her day off for teacher training the other week.  I got to spend the day with Auntie Christine.  We went to Sainsbury's of course and I discovered the joys of the coin counting and changing machine, my new obsession!

I got to go to school as usual, but dancing wasn't on in the afternoon as the school that it's at was closed.  I was pretty disappointed about that.  Seeing as we'd made the effort to go all the way over to Thatcham, we thought we'd make the best of it and go through the car wash!  Great fun.

The advent calendars came out on Thursday...yay!

Yeah, it was all very exciting, of course there was also the fairy truck and penguin drawers for the little chocolate deposits.

I seem to have got this years crackpot calendar, the first door contained a rather odd looking mouse on ice skates.

We had a surprise trip to Reading on Friday afternoon to rescue Uncle Alan after the train network ground to a halt.

It was great actullay, we sang Frank Turner songs all the way there and then grilled Alan mercilessly all the way home again.

We had another low key weekend, which is suiting us just fine at the moment.

Saturdays main event was the Christmas fete at school.  This was the first time it had been on a Saturday so it was great that Mum could come along, even if she did volunteer to help out on the tombola stall:

It was the best stall at the fete by a mile.

It was so easy to win a big jar of sweets (and it wasn't just because mum let us cheat or anything either).

We made sure we gave her plenty of help, until we decided we ought to go and have a proper look around.

We did the outdoor treasure hunt which we loved.

I got to show Dad and Ned my classroom:

There was all sorts of fun and games in the queue to see Santa. Ned's friends Ella and Tilly thought it was hilarious that Charlie was my boyfriend. They said I should give him a kiss, so I did. We also got to meet Charlies Dad who was oblivious to the whole situation, I think Mum filled him in.

Anyway, after all that nonsesne we got to see Santa: 

I asked for a 3DS.

And I asked for some cars, which surprised everyone I think. If truth be told, it surprised me a little too. Then it was face painting time, Rudolph anyone?

When we got home we watched Pocahontas, this weeks DVD club offering.

For the first week ever, everyone stayed awake throught the whole thing, I don't know what that says about the film?
Sunday we had to go out for a walk.
As usual, we were in a frenzy of excitement to go out...NOT! I almost had to go naked as I refused to get dressed.
And as usual, we loved it as soon as we were there.
Especially as we took a route that billed itself as being super muddy....it was as well:

We found cool little bridges, great big sticks to wave about and super slurpy mud that got your feet stuck and tried to steal your wellies...great fun!

Swimming's getting a bit boring now really.  I'm starting to find it all a bit of chore and i'd rather muck about with my friend Neave who's in the next class up.  Having said that, i'm still really trying when it's the difficult bits, I like the challenge!
I've started taking my DS while Ellis is in the pool so she can have as many swimming lessons as she likes.
Mum upset me the other night, can't remember what it was about but it was obviously something majorly serious as i'm not onbe to over-react and flounce off in tears...no, of course i'm not, not at all.  Anyway, I was sent to my room so decided to let my feelings known.  You can see how angry I was by my scruffy handwriting:

That showed her!  Well, it did when she worked out what it was supposed to say and i'd corrected a few spelling mistakes.

Dancing on Wednesday was brilliant, now we dodn't have an exam to work towards we could have a lot more fun and indulge in all sorts of dancing.  We also got the results of our exams, our teacher Mrs Groves was really pleased with us.  So pleased in fact that she says that as a class we'd got the highest marks she'd ever had.  How cool is that?  Here's my report from the exam anyway:

Dad particularly likes the comment next to exercise number 6!

The christmas lights were being switched on in town on friday afternoon, we always like to go along to this.

Yeah, we do indeed.

So we waited in town patiently....

Until the lit up fairy stilt walkers came along, I really love them and quite fancy it as a job myself one day:

Then Santa came along on his horse drawn carriage, he gave us a wave so we followed him up the street:

The countdown actually worked this year, and when we reached one the lights really did come on!

They did, and they were rather nice too as it goes:

We bumped into my teacher Mrs Douglas and my old teacher Mirs Fright which was really cool.  We had a chat and she was shocked to see I wasn't wearing my coat...ha ha, I wish she'd get used to the idea that I don't wear coats!

The social whirlwind continued when we saw Slim and trace wandering accross the market place.

We got a sweet from the Mayor, but it was mega sticky, Mum got into a right mess with it.  Thanks for unwrapping them Mum..

It was deemed too late to go home and start cooking so Pizza Hut it was

Brilliant, no complaints from me thats for sure, well, only a small one.  I blindfolded myself with my coloured in Pizza Hut hat and asked mum to feed me my garlic bread with cheese.  She decided to feed me one of the chilies from her pizza instead, heavy with seeds!  I gave it a good old chew as well, before my mouth caught fire.  I saw the funny side straight away and had to cool down with ice cream factory.

I went to the school mum's bacon butty morning.  We did some cool arts and crafts sruff and I ate Mum's bacon butty before getting one of my own and eating that too.

Dad and I went up the woods on the mountainbikes.  We didn't find many jumps but it was lovely to be out in the countryside and the fresh air.

We watched the Princess and the frog in the afternoon, well, I did, everyone else had a snooze at various points.

Then it was saturday night and the biggest event of the year, Gosport BMX tclub presentation evening!  Time to see if my season long effort was going to pay off.

Even though I hadn't done any racing it was a great night out, there was a childrens magician on stage first.  He was pretty funny as it goes.

Once he was done, it was on with the main event..the trophies!!!!  I narrowly missed out on the overall first place by half a point after six races (the sores for another round that I had won had gone missing otherwise, I would have been the top dog).  Still, as it was Charlie who had won I didn't mind at all:

We also got a number plate to use next season, so I need to decide whether to have my number 2 plate or keep my Lightning Mcqueen inspired 95 and keep my new one to put up on the wall in my room.  One thing's for sure, the girls love you when you have a big old trophy to parade about with, even if it is only Ellis:

And Mum:

So here's first and second place together, looking very pleased with ourselves.  We can't wait until next year to do it all over again!

While all the trophy excitement the magician was still hanging about, making balloon models, the swords were a great hit and pretty soon the whole place was awash with duelling kids!  I got well stuck in with the boys but was really rather taken with my wrist mounted ladybird:

We headed home, and my trophy love affair began in earnest, it got cuddled all the way home and then taken to bed that night.  I may have mentioned once or twice how pleased I was with it.
We went to Auntie Christines early doors on Sunday, it couldn't come soon enough for me, i'd been counting down how many sleeps it was sonce wednesday!
Hmm, Mum and Dad always seem to have a day out at this time of year, I don't know what it is they find to do?
We had a lovely day of course, Auntie Trish turned up, as did Laura, Darcey, Owen, and Uncle Slim and Auntie Trace.
We stayed for tea and everything, which turned out to be a good money earner, eating brussel sprouts for money.
I quite liked them actually.
Dad was disgusted with us both.
I took my trophy and number plate to school on Monday, I enjoyed being a celeb for the day.  Everyone wanted a look at it and I even got to show it off in assembly to the whole school.  I'm still cuddling it a lot......

There was a rather amusing event at school last week, Corey managed to find a picture of a lady with her boobies out in one of the newspapers donated for art.  Caused quite a stir that did.

It was parents evening on Wednesday, which is good because Andy comes round for tea so we generally get something nice.

WIth a proper pudding and everything.

It was my first proper one since starting school.  My teacher, Miss Zimmerman says that i'm really keen to get stuck in and have made loads of new friends. 

I got a mostly positive report as well, I need to work on reading but my writing is going okay.  I'm good at science and maths and apparently Gifted at art!  Cool.

We had a sneaky trip to Tesco on friday after school, I had to get Neave a birthday present and card.

And I had some of my pocket money to spend, desperate for another Lego Ninjago figure.

We also got to pick ourselves our own tea as a treat.

I picked a poopy seed baugette to have with some tomato soup.

And I went for a sausage roll and Hello Kitty tinned pasta shapes.

I'm not sure Jamie Olive oil would approve.

Swimming at the Coral Reef on saturday morning, that was my idea.

Yeah, it was good fun actually.  I got to show off how well i've been doing on my school swimming lessons and have a really good session getting used to my goggles.

And I got to show Mum all my cool floating and what have you that i've been learning.

But best of all, both myself and Dad found a quid in a locker!  I invested mine straight away in Sainsbury's on the way back securing a Pokemon egg!

We got home for a late lunch and then watched Ratatouille on DVD.

Sunday was my first dancing exam, which seems weird as I think I might pack it in.  Anyway, had to have my hair tied up and everything:

I decided I wanted everyone to come along with me for moral support, even thoug I wasn't in the least bit worried about doing it.

I didn't mind going along with her, I sat and played my Transformers game on my DS:

I was really excited when we got there and met up with my dancing friends.  I couldn't wait to get my dancing shoes on for a warm up in the waiting room.  Our teacher took us into the hall for our dance, she even did it with us.  It was a shame that my posse of supporters weren't allowed in to watch.  I think I did really well but we'll find out on Wednesday when I go to dancing again.
It was really all about Ellis on Sunday, she had Neaves party in the afternoon as well!
Yeah, it was brilliant, I wore one of my princess dresses as well so I was looking super cool.  As well as my school friends a load of ly old friends from nursery were there too, it was brilliant.  There was a bouncy castle, games to play and loads of art and craft stuff to make and do.  To top it off there were even cheese rolls!
And what did Dad and I do while they were out?  Take the big wheeled mountain bikes out for a ride.  We stopped of at the local jumps for a bit and got ambushed by Hugo, Matice and their Dad who were out on manouvers while Luca was at Neaves party.  We carried on riding, bumping into them every now and again as we carried on riding right out through some lovely countryside to a cool farmers bridge over the A34.  The cars really zoomned underneath and we got a few waves and toots from some of the traffic.  Dad spiled it a bit by getting a puncture meaning a walk home for him.  I remarked to Dad how nice it was not to have Ellis chirpsing off all the time, but as soon as she came home it was hugs a plenty!!!
We had Max and Leo round after school on Monday.
Max and I went off to the park on our own on bikes, I was pretty chuffed about being able to do that!
Leo and I made a really cool train track with the wooden railway.
Then when we got rained on we came home and Max showed me some cool computer games on the internet.  Older friends are cool....

Swimming continues relentlessly. 

 I was really going for it this week and gave it 100% all the way through.  No silly running accross the pool just to be first to the other side or anything.

I'm still going with school so details of what I get up to are understandably scarce.  I did let slip that there has been a small amount of changing room related shenannigans though, ha ha.

On the way Dad made a shocking discovery, there is a radio station playing nothing but Christmas songs, ALREADY!

I loved it and wouldn't let him turn it over.

Mum was working late, late, late, so it was tea without her.  I ended up rounding out my meal with a lovely ciabatta doused in tomato sauce with the Prodigy playing on the radio...I proclaimed this largely perfect, exceptt Mum not being there of course.

Continuing with the food theme I decided I wanted a proper school dinner on Thursday, i'd finally had enough of cheese sandwiches.  So instead i had a jacket potato with tuna, I love tuna.  I also had a chocolate rice crispy cake for pudding.

I kept it real and had a marmite sandwich of course.

The skateboarding is still going well.  Dad bought it for me to ride home after multi sports on Thursday and our sports teacher Mr Gilham was pretty impressed with my skills.  He offered to show us a trick and popped a lovely Ollie on the playground.  It was pretty good actually, but I told him that my Dad could do them too.

I had a school dinner again on Friday, same again, potato with tuna but this time it was cookie for afters.

We had a bit of a lie in on Saturday before heading off to Marlborough to buy advent calendars. 

Yes it's that time of year again.

We stopped by in the toy shop and then a really cool place that sold skateboards as well.  I also spotted a cafe selling lovely looking sausage rolls.

We also went to a few nice shops that sold sparkly pretty stuff, not including the bra and pants shop, we found the window equally hilarious and disturbing.  What I really liked were the christmas decorations and present bows.

We eventually picked our calendars, mine was a nice glittery affair.

And I had a last minute change of heart from my super massive one to a much more modest effort.  Dad was pleased on two counts I think, firstly it wasn't nearly quite so expensive and secondly he won't have to re-organise the house to accomodate it.

Once we'd achieved our initial objective it was time to realise a second ambition of the day and secure one of those lovely looking sausage rolls.....

I used some of my hard saved pocket money for a Hello Kitty football.

It was such a lovely sunny day we couldn't bring ourselves to drive past the Wash Common park without stopping off for a play.

I was pretty keen to try out my new ball as well!

Although I was more than happy to play basketball with it, my scoring record was brilliant.

And I made some rather splendid catches from my lofty position on Dad's shoulders, I still couldn't get it through the hoop though.  What I could do though was shimmy straight up to the top of the super high climbing frame with no trouble at all.

Once we were all played out we headed home and watched Gullivers Travels on DVD, we loved it.

We did indeed, it was really very funny. 

In the evening we went to the fireworks at the farm near where we used to live.  We parked at Andy's and had to walk all the way there.

It was a long way, but I managed ot pass the time giving Andy a full run down of Gullivers Travels.

We met up with Kimi and Marney when we got there, they'd come in their car by all accounts?

We got right to the front to get the best possible view of the fireworks, they were brilliant as well!

They were indeed, I loved them too, they were really beautiful.

Afterwards we had a couple of goes on the fair.

I was mad keen to go on the mixer, so Mum, Ned and myself were soon wedged in and flying round and round in circles.

We all did no handers and everything.

Next up was a trip on the dodgems, I went with Andy.

And I went with Dad while Mum did the decent Mum thing and held the coats.

It was total carnage of course, we had loads of great crashes.

Dad didn't even interfere with my driving this time either and let me bash and crash everyone.

I had another session on the skateboard Sunday morning, i'm desperate to learn to ollie:

The afternoon saw a trip to the theatre in Reading to see Horrible Histories with Alan and Hayley as well.

This meant the back seats had to come out in the car, I love the back seat, it's so cool.
We were pretty late getting tickets so we were up in the balcony.
I thought this was a particularly cool place to sit.
We really enjoyed the show, even if the adults weren't quite so keen.
I really enjoyed the half time ice cream as well, even though I thought it was time to go at the interval.
My school dinner experiment ended on Monday and it was back to good old cheese sandwiches!
I didn't manage to get my school project done over the weekend so tonight we had a standig long jump competition in the front room (my project was on accurate measurements). I secured first place and beat Mum and Dad!  I was mighty pleased about that.

Nothing particulalry exciting to report prior to our half term holiday I don't think.  Ooops, I mentioned our half term holiday didn't I?

I think it's probably safe to start talking about it again now, I think Mum and Dad have calmed down a bit.

Yeah, we were a bit, ummm, lively on holiday.

A bit of a handfull perhaps?

Maybe a little trying on occasions maybe?

It's okay though, I think everyone has got over it and the strained vocal chords have settled back down again.

So then, we went on holiday for half term week and after much deliberation about where we should go we settled for Croyde in Devon where we usually go camping.

But this time we were staying in a lodge, or a 'modge' or indeed a 'splodge'

So as soon as my first ever Junior school disco was finished on Friday night we were off (the disco was brilliant by the way).

So it was very late when we finally arrived in Devon.  We'd invited Andy and Owen down for the weekend so they could catch a few waves but they'd been in the pub so long waiting for us that they appeared to have caught a rather severe bout of drunken-ness instead.

The lodge was lovely, and unlike the tent we didn't have to spend an hour setting it up in the dark. 

There was even a firendly local cat that I loved.  We didn't get time properly aquaint ourselves though as we were packed off to bed.

Next morning the weather was lovely and once the Tesco man had delivered our food and drink for the week, we got the wetsuits on and hit the beach:

Well, Ned did, I decided to go with my Peppa Pig sunsuit instead:

We had a good time on the beach, with digging, splashing, long jumping and all the usual other seaside stuff.
Which this time also included kite flying, or more accuratley trying to dive bomb people on the beach.  On one occasion that someone being me..thanks Owen. 
What with that and the aerial onslaught of the whistling bomb we were nervous wrecks by the time we retired back to the lodge.
The lodge was a great place for skateboarding:

And scooter riding (video at the end).
It was also a pretty good place to get your snuggle on:

Our two guests had to leave early on Sunday, which was a shame, we had loads of cool things left to eat and the sun was still out!
We went to the Big Sheep for the day, I was really excited about this one.
Yeah, me too, we took our seats just after we arrived for the duck show:

Only to find out we could actually participate and stand on the coolest gate that the sheep dog herded the ducks through:

There was a smart swing/roundabout type of thing, I had loads of goes, until it got too windy:

I got to feed a baby lamb, I was so excited, it had a super powerful suck though:

And while Ellis was doing that, Dad and I went to the Laser shooting thing.  It was brilliant, we got a gun and a sensor to wear on our heads and then headed out into the wilderness to shoot each other (and anyone else we found there too).  There was a huge area to explore, with parked up tanks, landed helicopter, look out posts, everything.  I totally loved it and could have spent days in there.

On a more sedate note there were ride on tractors:

One of those cool jumping pillow thingys:

Horse riding:

I LOVE horse riding:

Mums favourite was the piggy ride, shame she wasn't allowed to have a go on it:

It was pretty bumpy accross the field but great fun:

We stopped off at the pub for a meal on the way back in the evening, it was lovely too.  I had Garlic bread and chips.

And I had a monster spaghetti bolognese (which I finished off).

And in a major turn of events, no one spilt a drink over Mum.

Life in the lodge was very comfortable it has to be said, we had a lovely room each, a nice big telly to watch and a full range of cooking facilities so Dad could keep us fed and watered.

Here we are tucking into a delicious hot chocolate, well, I think it's a hot chocolate somewhere under all those marsh mallows:

We'd just got back from the swimming pool, it's only just accross the road in the main holiday park.  We love the pool there.

Even if Dad did accidentally 'slip' when he was getting sat down on the flume slide and chased down almost straight after me!

We went out for a walk in the sunshine.

I was desperate to go up in the dunes to see if we could look down on our lodge....we could:

As well as some extreme sand dune jumping:

My coolest picture ever I reckon?

We carried on, accross the beach and through the rockpools on the other side, Mum and I taking the most dangerous route I could possibly pick, before we headed back up to civilisation.

And an ice cream, with a view:

As if we hadn't done enough walking already, Dad insisted we carry on up to the top of baggy point at the far end of the beach.

I was pretty much up for it, it was cool when we got to the top:

We could see right over the beach to the road we come in on, the campsite, the swimming pool, everything.

The walk back down was pretty good too, except I had insisted on wearing my crocs which were pretty slippery on the mud and wet stone path:

The open fields at the bottom were much steeper than this picture makes them look, we steamed down in record time and it took Mum and Dad ages to catch up:

That evening we had a trip to the clubhouse on the main site, Mum and Dad wanted to play bingo for some reason?  Anyway, we didn't care about that as there was an arcade!
And a childrens entertainer and disco.  We had such a good night out it, silly games, dancing I loved it.
So did I, almost as much as the 2p falls machines in the arcades.  We did okay on them too, well I won a packet of parma violets that I managed to tip off...
....and I won a mouse keyring.  Dad reckons it only cost him about a fiver too!
We had a day trip to Ilfracoombe:

I went too:

We went to the aquarium, it looked quite small on the outside so we thought it might not be all that interesting....we were wrong.

It was brilliant, we had the place pretty much to ourselves and the young chap working there was well up for answering as many questions as I could throw at him, brilliant.  All the fish they had were local to Devon rivers, estuaries and the sea which made it all the more interesting.

We even got to see a weaver fish, who had stung Andy back in the summer in Cornwall.  We watched how they buried themsleves in the sand waiting for an unsuspecting foot to land on them.

They had spines all the way along their back but we learned that only the front few, which were coloured black, actually did the stinging.

Then it was onboard a boat for a trip up the coastline.  It was good, we made sure we sat up on the top, so it was bit blowy but a much better vantage point.

You could see all the way over to South Wales which we thought was pretty cool.  We chugged along the coastline and saw some really big cliffs...which had sheep half way up them, eating tuffets of grass, they must have been really hungry!

We also saw abandonned mine's from the olden days.

And a waterfall dropping into the sea.

But best of all I spotted a porpoise swimming along, I was really chuffed.

If I had known what a porpoise was, I may have seen it too?

On our last day we had another walk along the beach, this time right to the other end:

Rock pool exploration was once again on the agenda, but I took it to a whole new level of commitment this time:

We had an art session, drawing in the sand with sticks:

And that was pretty much that.

There's a few more photo's in the album here if you want to have a look:

Croyde 2011

Halloween was cancelled this year apparently?

When we were home we had Monday off too, with Dad.  No surprises then, it was trip to the pumptrack.

The bike riding was okay, the park next it was okay, but what was really brilliant was this cat who appeared.  He had a few laps of the track with me before a go on the climbing frame and then off through the woods for a bit.

Before he came back and had a nice lie down right on top of the first jump!  Pump track cat was pretty good fun actually!

Back to school on Wednesday then, boo.

I didn't mind, we had a visit from the fire brigade.  We got to sit up in the engine and have a look at all their stuff.

Once I was out of school I was straight back to practicing my new passion, skateboarding.  I love it, and i'm getting pretty good as well. 

Mr Jones made a bonfire for us at school on Friday, it was really good to watch.

As a warm up for tonights school firework display.  We gathered quite a gang of family and friends together to go, but sadly it was chucking it down with rain.

Yeah, it was brolly time for sure, which pleased me no end.

There was a lovely big fire to stand around, but it was a shame it was so dark and everyone was so well wrapped up you couldn't really recognise anyone.

The fireworks themselves were pretty good to a point, but by all accounts the three big finale ones were too soggy to light..shame.

We headed home for food, drink and sweets, leftover from the cancelled Halloween I think.

We had a rather unfortunate incident with my swimming hat, it ended up in the wash. It went all wrinkly and out of shape, there was no way I was going to get it on my head thats for sure.  Luckily Dad found this rather fetching pick hat and goggles set in the Tesco bargain bucket:

The weekend then, no plans...what were we going to do?

How about BMX racing?  Yeah, why not. 

Mum and I decided we'd rather go off down town and get me a haircut.

So we took Owen with us for a boys outing to the track.  I was dead excited on the way down and couldn't wait to get going.  Here I am looking cool, calm and collected in the pens before the first race:

As usual, I had to race up in the 8 year old category, so there was plenty of competition:

I came third in all three heats, Dad and Owen thought i'd done brilliantly but I was in all sorts of trouble, crying and everything.  I thought i'd done badly because everyone was getting so close to me.  They pointed out how well i'd done by pedalling hard and fighting for my results and I felt a little better about it all.  I just missed out in the final and came fourth, but everyone was still pleased, Dad reckons today was the first time i'd really raced and not just rode the track.  Having Owen along was really good too, we had plenty of fun and games and he had plenty of useful advice and opinions too.  It was also great during practice as I had him and Dad to race against.  I should also mention a young lad down there called Travis Wilson as well, he's only 8 but jumped the biggest double on the whole track, it was awesome.  Remember where you heard the name first when he's the next Maris Strombergs or Danny Hart.

By the time i'd havd my morning kip we didn't leave for town for ages.  We saw some nice girly things in some of the shops and then I had my hair done, cool.  Dad and Ned were back before we were so at least I didn't have to walk home as they came to pick us up.

We had a brief aborted trip to finally buy some curtains on Sunday morning.

Yeah, thanks Ellis, we'll have another shivering cold winter of meal times now because of you.

Still,  we watched the new(ish) Yogi bear film in the afternoon, we loved it.