I had my first day of our school play proper on Tuesday.  It went pretty well, except Mum and Dad didn't come.  They had explained that they were coming on Wednesday to see the more polished and refined version. 

I'm not alltogether sure it was that polished really, seeing as I spent a large proportion of the show wiggling my brand new, super exciting wobbly tooth!  It was lovely to see them in the audience though, in great seats as usual, I gave thgem plenty of waves to make them feel welcome.  Asterwards we had our school christmas dinner which was brilliant fun, and a lovely dinner.
Speaking of wobbly teeth, my front ones is finally out, after what must be months of wobblyness.  It was helped out by Mum, well, when I say helped out, what I actually mean is wrenched out of my head by Mum.  I think we were all pretty relieved, if a bit shocked!
I had my trip to the panto on Thursday, unlike Ned we got to go to Basingstoke on the coach...cool!  It was great fun and really funny, especially thge silly Dwarves (it was Snow White and the seven dwarves).
We had our schools carol concert in the afternoon at the church in town. It was pretty rubbish really, we had to sit on the floor as so many old people had turned up to watch.  The musical element was probably even worse that last years guitars as well, recorders anyone?
We walked back to school and arrive just in time for our street dance lesson.  Christmas themed this weeks to the soothing Christmas tones of Justin Bieber of all people.  Still, we made the best of it and it was good fun.
Friday saw my last swimming lesson of the term, fun week!  It didn't start off as all that fun though, especially for the poor girl having to fish a poo out of the baby pool with a net.  Small pool shut then.  As level 3's, we were allowed ot have our fun week in the big pool instead, what a result.  I took Eva in and made sure she was okay (she's a bit shorter than me).  We had a great time, swimming about, jumping in and floating around on the big floating platforms.  I didn't want to get out!
I finally made my return to Team Kennet this week.  Was good to go back and get amongst it again.
Then, Mum and Dad went out and we got Aunti Trish to look after us.  We were so excited, especially as we got to show her our super mega awesome christmas tree.
This of course meant a brilliant late night and loads of in depth conversations about the world....love it!
Bit of a lay in on Saturday, didn't do much at all.
And then we headed off to the coast for a bit, to East Wittering.  Well, it has been a while.
The sea was pretty rough and we watched a few brave surfers paddle out.
I don't know where Dad's stuff was?  What a wuss.
We had a great time throwing stones into the water:

And chasing (or was it in fact being chased) by the waves up and down the beach as they came rolling in:

It was great fun, until I got a little bit caught out and ended up with a bit of a wet leg. My word, it wasn't half cold!
We bought a sprig of misltetoe which Mum and Dad terrorised us around the house with before setting down to watch Take Me Out.
Another lay in on sunday, Dad popped out to Tesco to get a few mor elights for the tree after Auntie Trish sabotaged them on friday night (well, thats what Dad reckons anyway).
Then we headed over to Anne's for lunch.
She gave us a brilliant job as soon as we arrived, decorate her christmas tree.
Not just any old tree though, one from her garden that Grandad had planted. How cool is that?
Monday was my school disco after school.  It was brilliant of course.  Mr Jones was DJ (is there no end to his talents?)  He was so cool, he even played Gangnam style when I asked him to!

Andy came to babysit for us on Tuesday night.  I think I heard it right when they said Mum was going to the Camp Hopson quiz, and Dad was going with her? 

Weird or what?Anyway, we had a cool time and a little bit of a later bedtime than we would usually have had on a tuesday, cheers Andy.

Wednesday we had our school trip to the Panto.  We didn't go to Basingstoke this year (I think mainly because many people didn't stump up the 'voluntary' contribution towards the coach and what have you last year).  Anyway, Newbury Corn Exhange it was, which meant a walk too.  I was quite happy with that though.

This meant I got to go to Ballet on my own, I got to sit on the front of the car and everything.  I loved it.  I also got the results back from my exam the other week, 87% no less and some very encouraginbg comments.  I was really pleased about that.

We were a bit later back than planned, Miss Walsh told Dad that a sing song had erupted at the railway bridge that lasted all the way back to school.

The show was a very worthy diversion from the main business of the afternoon, eating sweets.

I'm still getting loads of stick for my wobbly tooth collection, Mum's really on my case t get them wobbled out....but it hurts!

I had my re-scheduled and rather late parents evening on Thursday. I wasn't too worried about it even after my shaky start to the new school year. 

Cool thing was that as Mum had to leave work earlier than usual she got to see me at dance class, we did this cool spy themed one.

Turns out I was right not to be worried, well almost.  Apart from being a massive chatterbox i'm doing really well and Mrs. Khosla reckons i'm very bright.  I'll take that.

Then it was friday already, the weeks are flying by in the run up to Christmas.  It was Mr Gilhams last day at our school.

This is a real shame and i'm, sure that one day when i'm an Olympic champion or something i'll giove him a name check for setting me on my way.

We did more rehearsals for the school christmas play, I got commeneded on my super loud delivery of my lines.

I had swimming after school of course, and yet more good news for me this week, i've passed level 3 with flying colours!

And I decided to give Team Kennet a miss again this week so I could go to film club at school. I'm certainly going next week though, thats for sure.  The film was okay, messing about with Alastair and Ben was much better though.

While Ned was at film club we took Mum out for her work christmas do, on the way home we drove through town to get a good look at the christmas lights which I loved. 

Saturday didn't start all that well, there was a fair amount of squabbling and a few raised voices.

This set back plans to go and get the christmas tree somewhat.

But after a bout of prolonged better behaviour we were soon on our way to Yattendon.

We'd already decided we were going to get a monster tree that touched the roof!

It was busier than when we usually go (a wet, dark evening) but there were plenty of trees to choose from.

As usual we settled on one of the first ones we found.

Even if we were rather surprised we were actually allowed it.

We were soon home with the massive beast and we all had a turn at cutting a little bit from the bottom of the trunk before we wedged it into the busket and stod it in the front room:

Our mission statement was definatley realised, we had to chop the top off a bit too to stop it bending over!

Decorating was great fun.

Unless you happened to fall into the tree like I did.  I think I got away with it though.

Unlike most other years we could pretty much empty the entire decorations box onto it without it becoming overcrowded.

We srtood back and enjoyed our handiwork:

Even if the poor old cherub might well get altitude sickness:

Andy and Owen came round in the evening, we treated them to a very impressive dancing display before we went to bed.

Yeah, Gangnam style all the way!

Sunday we went to Auntie Christines for the day while Mum and Dad went shopping.

It was every bit as brilliant as we'd have expected of course, what with Auntie Trish, Darcey, Laura and Owen all playig their parts too.

There was of course baking, craft activities and other Christmas related goings on.

Including a top secret mission into town.

Which I walked into, and indeed back out of without a hint of going on anyones shoulders.

Thanks for a lovely day everyone.

Back to school today then, I made a lovely hat for my School Christmas lunch tomorow.  Well, I say a hat but due to some of my design features it has proved rather difficult to actually make into a hat.  I'm sure we'll come up with some modifications.

We also did a dress rehearsal for our nativity play, the lighting failed, I hope that's been sorted out before the real thing!

I got my silver times tables award at school last week, i've only got a few more to do.  Mum reckons I know them all well enough now, but we can only do one test a week.

He's practicing all the time thats for sure.  I like to chime in with an answer here and there, sometimes I try and get it right, sometimes i'm helpfully silly...ha ha.

I couldn't be doing with ballet this week, i'm putting it down to post

 exam burnout and my usual, trusty excuse of an achey leg.

So no sitting in the car reading for me, cheers Ellis!

In other news, I finally finished my chocolate factory chocolate from Spain this week, amid the intense glare of the rest of the family who have long since gobbled there's up!

Friday was swimming day again, the walk down to the pool was made a lot more interesting after we found some sticks to drag down the metal fence railings. 

They made a great noise!

Back on the subject of swiming, we must be getting near the end of term now?  Anyway, we were being marked again and I put in a very strong performance this week.

Edward and I spent our time wisely comparing progress on our Ipod games, i'll miss these sessions when swimming breaks up.

It was all change this week afterwards though, I decided to miss out on team Kennet to go into town to see the Christmas lights being switched on.  I worked on the basis that Team Kennet is every week, the lights are only once a year and I do love Christmas and everything to do with it!

So we found Auntie Christine in town and waited by the road for Santa.

First up was the ladies on stilts with lit up dresses though, I was so excited:

Once Santa had gone through we followed him into the market place.

Where the snow machine was working overtime.

There was 'snow' everywhere.

And there were loads and loads of people, it all felt really exciting.

There was a bit of a countdown and the lights were switched on, the market place looked really lovely!

But the real glamour was in park way, I don't think this photo does it justice really:

We spent a bit of tim ein the Entertainer toy shop as well, getting a few ideas of what we might put on our christmas lists.

It was the first day of advent on Saturday....I made sure we were up nice and early to get the calendars opened!

I wasn't quite so keen as Ned it has to be said and enjoyed a bit more of a lie in.

Dad threw us a real curve ball by cooking a Saturday roast....I struggled with that concept.

I wasn't bothered what day it was, I polished it off with gusto as usual.

It was the school christmas fete in the afternoon.

We were seriously excited about this one.

Add Auntie Christine, Auntie Trish and Darcey to the mix and we were seriously enjoying ourselves.

As usual we won shedloads of sweets.

Yep, even me as well this time.

We took Darcey to see Santa and everything, what a great afternoon.

Then we all went home for drink and to start on the sweet mountain.

Dad went off out for the night, he was going to see a band, apparently called Ned's Atomic Dustbin? 

Sounds like a great name for a band to me.  I put in a request for a t-shirt and hoped he'd remember.

We settled down with Mum for some serious saturday night tv action before heading off to bed.

Dad was still away on Sunday morning, after seeing to our advent duties we did a mosaic christmas picture each that we'd got from the school fete yesterday.

Yeah, they look really nice if I say so myself.

He got home just after lunch, and he managed to deliver on the t-shirt front, even if it was a little bit big:

I was well pleased with it, well done Dad.

I had Neave's party in the afternoon at Eddie Katz....NOISY TIME!  AFter a bit of a wobble before we went about being left on my own I had a great time and barely even noticed Mum, Dad and Ned leave.

We tended to a few odd jobs until it was time to pick Ellis up.  We turned up a bit early so I could have a bit of a play.  Hugo, Matice and Luca were there which was cool.  We had a rather rough game of rugby on the football court but we were all up for it and there were no tears.

Bit thin on centent this week i'm afraid.
Yeah well we can't sneak off for weekends away all the time I suppose.
Anyway, we've been doing a bit here and there, I helped Dad make the curry on tuesday night.  I made him write down what he was putting in and we took pictures to go with it.  I'm going to get him to write the recipe up so we can make it when he's dead and gone...ha ha!
I was at Mr Gilhams after school club again, I seemed to be well and truly over my weekend illness and back on it.
I had my last dancing lesson ahead of our exams on Wednesday, things went well enough.  I'm not at all phase about doing my exams, infact i'm really rather looking forward to it. 
We danced to Gangnam Style at street dance club on Thursday, how cool.  I've been throwing the moves down ever since.
Friday was our usual rush around session, school, then swimming for me, we were being marked too.
With Edward and myself comparing progress on our Ipod games, particulalry Wonder Zoo.
Then it was a quick stop off at the Pasty shop when we picked Mum up and then quickly home.
And get changed for Team Kennet.  The relay running was really good this week as it included a tunel to crawl through and a hurdle to jump at each end.  It was another quick change after that for the school disco.  I missed the first ten minutes or so but I didn't mind at all.
I did my homework project with Mum while Ned was out.  It was on nocturnal animals, I reeled off loads of them and then did a fantstic picture of a fox, complete with fluffy cotton wool feet.
I came home pretty tired it has to be said and after a minor tussle over bedtime arrangements ended up falling asleep fully clothed on top of my covers.
We went to the cinema on Saturday morning, to see The Lorax.
It was pretty blooming good too, we all loved it.
Unlike Nando's afterwards, which got the big thumbs down from us kids.
Even though most of John Rankin school seemed to be in there!
We went home and I retired to my room and decided to put some make up on.  I came downstairs and Dad said it looked like i'd been punched in the eye!  This made me cry, as truth be told I didn't like it either but had struggled to wash it off.  He apologised as he fuilt guilty, ha!
I had my dance exam on Sunday morning:

Here I am in my outfit, but without my hair done.  The whole hair do thing was pretty emotional it has to be said.  I had to have it in a bun, with no flappy bits hanging out.  Trouble is my hair is just a little bit too short so Mum did her best and put about 300 hair grips and half a can of hairspray on.  It didn't look to bad.  When we arrived at the hall though Mrs Groves obviously thought otherwise and recommended we borrowed one of her headbands......ahem.
I had a great time doing warm ups for my athletics outside and quite a lot of warm ups with Ellis inside, dancing about.  I think I sort of fancy having a crack at ballet on the sly if truth be told.
It's all a bit secret squirrel this dancing exam lark, so no one got to watch.  They had to take my word for it that things had gone okay.  I really wasn't phased by it at all.
We went home and gort dinner ready for Alan, Hayley and Anne to come round.
Well, when we say helped, we meant sat and played on the Ipad/Ipod.
Lunch was lovely if you asked me.
And disgusting if you asked me.
We both agreed pudding was pretty good though, especially the Baileys chocolate sauce!
Back to school on Monday, but after school dance club was......GANGNAM STYLE!  Brilliant, we loved it.

A quick catch up post with a video from Bonfire night.
We've also just sneaked one in at the bottom of last weeks update in case you missed it!

We did Parachute games with Mr Gilham on Tuesday, I loved it.

I've been working more on times tables than reading lately.  It's going well, Mum quizzes me all the time and she thionks i've got them all cracked now.

We did our ballet class in the proper hall that we use for exams on Wednesday, it's practice I suppose as our exams are coming up again soon.  I'm desperate to get another certificate and hopefully a medal.

We had to rush back for my parents evening.  I wasn't dreading it or anything as I thought i'd done pretty well so far this year.  Turns out I was right and Mrs Walsh agrees with me.

We had a cool time playing on the computers in the ICT suite and didn't really want to go home when they'd finished with Neds teacher.

Thursday was an exciting one at school, we went down to the Andover road to do a traffic survey. Most people recorded car colours, but I decided to go for manufacturers instead.  VW won the most popular make according to my research.  Even though i'd listed Aston Martin and Ferarri on my list, I sadly didn't get to tick any off.

We also had our school photo taken, we'll see what that looks like in due course I suspect.

It was also polling day for some election or another meaning the Juniors playground was closed for the day. The good news was that they came up to play with us in the infants at nreak times and lunchtimes.

It was lovely to play with Ellis for once at school.

I finished my day off at after school dancing club.  We had to do it in a classroom due to the election business which meant that the grown ups couldn't watch our final performance.  Shame they missed it, it was quite spectacular with the glowsticks and the curtains drawn.

And the weeks biggest news......my missing shoe was finally located and returned to me.  Hooray.  Jacob from down the road had it all along.

It was children in need day on Friday and to mark the occasion we were allowed to wear pyjamas to school.  I had been asking how many more sleeps it was going to be until pyjama day for about a week I was so excited about it.

Everyone looked really funny in their slippers and dressing gowns too.

I had to get changed a bit sharpish for swimming after school.  I wasn't quite as stellar as last week but gave a good enough account of myself.

This week at Team Kennet we did indoor shot put!  Cool or what eh?  Now a lot of people have dropped out we're getting a lot more proper coaching which I love.  We learned all about chaning a baton over during a relay.

And as soon as he was finished we hit the road for a weekend away.

Yes, we were off to Cambridge.

I think this was mostly because Dad promised me a trip to a hotel for a slouch on the bed, eating minstrels and watching telly after our Olympic night away turned out to be a bit of an ordeal.

Yeah, that and a visit to Duxford Imperial war museum (after hotel breakfast and a couple of games of Uno):

There was so much to see, so many cool planes crammed in it was pretty amazing:

Here I am on board a Concorde:

It must have been amazing to get to America in under three hours.

And this was the bomb doors of a Lancaster!

There was a cool silver Spitfire as well: 

You'll notice i'm being carried in the photo above.  I had a proper poorly one.  Headache, temperature, sore throat, achey neck.  I felt awful.  I did my best to get around for the sake of the boys, who, it has to be said were bordering on embarassingly geeky at times.

Yeah, yeah whatever Ellis, Vulcan bomb doors:

And the highlight of the trip (well, for Dad anyway) the SR71A Blackbird:

Even I thought this was cool, we decided it looked more like a spaceship than an aeroplane.

We wanted a go in it, at 2,400 miles an hour of course!

We ventured out for a Pizza Hut feed after we'd finally managed to drag Ned and Dad out of the museum.

And here we are indulging in the real reason we came away, bed slouching, Minstrels, Take me Out on TV and loads of cuddles!

We haven't talked about the hotel much have we?

Well, it was pretty good actually, the breakfast buffet was super cool.  Hash browns and chocolate chip muffins!!!!

And just outside was a pretty big park as well. After a very shaky start and a call to NHS direct on Sunday morning I was well enough to enjoy the sunshine and have a play:

I was also well enough for a trip into Cambridge.

Pretty much the first shop we came across was this mega sweet shop, I loved Cambridge straight away.

We loaded up on Popping Candy (candy floss flavour) and headed on into town.

There were bikes zooming everywhere so you had to be on your guard at all times.

We found some lovely shops with fancy stuff and general nic-nacs in them.

We love these sort of shops.

They were selling big wooden letters that you could either paint/cover in stickers/leave plain/hang on the wall/stand on a shelf.  I got a N, a E and a D which will help towards my room renovation (which still hasn't started).

We had a nice time and a nice explore.

And I let off a balloon we'd been given for Poppy to play with.

We came home late in the afternoon, I slept all the way back.

Then you had Monday off school while I still had to go.

I was still pretty poorly though Ned.  I spent the morning with Mum before she swapped over with Dad for the afternoon.

I had a good day at school though, we played dodgeball during break time and id basketball with Mr Gilham in PE.

And in another huge development, i've finally finished my sack of halloween sweets.  Very lovely they were too, thanks again everyone!

Blimey, we've got some catching up to do again.

Yes, we have, lets get on with it!

So going back to Tuesday before half term we had some top notch drama before Mr Gilhams after school club started when a small fire broke out in the fuse box in the schoool hall.  It was ace, we had to go outside and then the fire brigade turned up.  It was all dealt with very quickly though and we still managed to get half of our sports session in.

We had a good old go on the Wii after tea, we hadn't played Just Dance for ages and i'm starting to finally give twinkle toes Dad a run for his money.

Well, all my audition practice for the school play failed to pay off, as once again I have been given the part of.........Narrator.  AGAIN!  This must be the third year running?  Anyway, having seen the final script I think i've done alright, I get the best comedy lines I reckon and a lot less work than the bigger parts.

After school we went to the petshop to get Poppy a new bed as we've decided she deserves a little bit more luxury in her old age.

Dad reckoned she wouldn't sleep on it.  He was wrong, she loved it!

Thursday was the last day of term, yay!  And while I was at dancing....

Dad and I went to the park for a bit, lovely!

With it being so close to Halloween, we danced to thriller, it was cool doing all the zombie moves.

We kept on moving and grooving with another round of Just Dance on the Wii.

Before we helped Dad make a start in his lovely big tub of celebrations he'd had as a birthday present.

Mum was off with us Friday.

We played Monopoly, and no one had to pay the crying fine.

And we went to the little shop to buy pretty much most of their stock.

When Dad came home we gave him his birthday presents (yes, we know it was early but we were going on holiday and didn't want to take them with us).

The presents were okay I suppose.....a new sleeping bag for porkers, an Ipod of his own so he doesn't have to steal mine anymore and some frankly far too trendy trainers for a man of his age:

Her didn't get time to sit around enjoying his presents for long though, I still had swimming lessons to go to.

And I had my Team Kennet.  We got our running vests and club t-shirts this week, how exciting!

We had to get up seriously early on saturday morning.

We did, apparently it was 1 am?

We were off on our holidays, this time to Spain.

We drove down to Bristol Airport and arrived in the city centre during club closing time, there were a lot of drunk people about which was quite an eye opener.

When we got parked up and got out of the car it was freezing cold and still dark, it was a good job we were headed for sunnier climes.

This one was a serious group outing too, there was us four, Andy, Alan, Hayley, Trish, Slim, Trace, Ben, Rach, Kimi and Marney all going on the same plane (with Chris, Ian, Owen, Laura and Darcey following on a later flight).

We were soon on our way, it was still dark when we took off, but out of the window we could see the sun starting to come up, it was brilliant.

The flight itself was great fun, we all sat together and there was a lot of sillyness to keep us amused.

It didn't take long to get to Spain and we were soon landing.

The excitement kept coming with the fastest minibus ride of all time to the hire car depot.

The driver kept shouting 'Rapido' and 'Ferrnando Alonso' in between bouts of manic laughter.

We soon had our wheels, a Mercedes Vito no less.  It was considerably nicer than Andys Focus, and infinitley better than Kimi and Marney's Tata.....the less said about that the better I think.

We were soon at the villa, everyone was relieved that it really did exist and I think pretty pleased with what we found.

The pools were lovely, there was a tennis court, pool table, table tennis table, dartboard, piano's, disco room....plenty of scope for fun!

After we'd had a dip it was a quick mercy dash to the supermarket to pick up some provisions.

By the time we got back Slim and Andy had sampled the beer and the party pretty much started from there!

By the time the Flacks arrived we were well and truly on holiday:

It was along day though, we needed a bit of a siesta up on our balcony:

There was singing, dancing and merry-making late into the night..

I'm sure the video proof will surface eventually, we did a good job of helping Uncle Slim run the bar and he made sure our drinks were tastefully decorated with various cocktail adornments.

We spent the end of the evening back on the terrace stargazing with Mum.

With so many people around, this was going to be a different sort of holiday and as such we didn't do a whole lot really.

No, we just enjoyed everyones company, there was certainly never a dull moment thats for sure!

Having an indoor pool as well as an outdoor pool was certainly a very cool thing:

Of course Sunday was the big day, Dads actual birthday, 40 years old!

We had a chef bloke come in to cook us a meal for the evening.

I didn't like it much bit the grown ups seemed to.

We had a lovely evening though, sat outside on the terrace wating the hillsides twinkle with the lights of distant villages.

We were pretty tired it has to be said, I forced myself to stay awake until the birthday cake appeared:

I wish I hadn't bothered really, it was spoiled by a load of fruit lurking within it!

Anyway, happy birthday Dad!

The next day we had a trip to the nearest beach at Fuengirola.  It wasn't all that really.

The sandcastles were pretty impressive though:

As were the statues:

There was a bloke trying to take a nice picture of this one, every time his camera shutter clicked, I seemed to just pop up and ruin his shot!

The best thing though was the 'Scenic Land Train tour'  Not because of the fantastic sights on offer, but because of our crazy bunch of friends.

We decided the whole town needed livening up, the best way we could come up with was to issue a loud, friendly 'Hola' and a big wave to everyone we went past.

I think we made a big impact on the town that day, we cheered everyone up thats for sure.

We had a quick play on the park:

Then headed back to the villa to fill the others in on our exploits.

Tuesday was a very, very wet day indeed.

Our initial plan to go to Alhambra was quickly dropped in favour of a trip to Gibraltar instead.

Did we mention it was wet?

It was a decent drive there, we quite enjoy watching the scenery roll by and laughing at foreign signs that sound a bit rude to us.  You know the sort of thing.

I had a lovely long kip instead to catch up a bit.

We parked up, still on the Spanish side and made our way to the border control.

It's weird, but apparently Great Britain own Gibraltar, even though it's in Spain.  To get in we needed passports and everything.

As soon as we were through Mum had the amazingly good sense to book us all a private tour around the rock in a minibus taxi.

It was really good fun too, the driver lady told us loads of facts and history which was all really ace stuff about the militay and what have you.

Our first stop was supposed to be a lovely viewpoint out over the point where the Atlantic meets the Med, but it was so grim we couldn't really see anything much.

Except the building opposite the had a roof garden with some truly massive rocks on it...we wondered how they got there?

Our second stop was at St Micheals cave.  As the minibus came to a stop, we noticed we were not alone.

No, we most certainly were not.....there were loads of apes, circling, looking for mischief.

I was totally in my element, I loved them, they were cute and very cheeky indeed.  One walked right behind me giving me a little tap on the shoulder as he went.  I was thrilled.

I wasn't, I was a bit more nervous of them in fact.

They were much more interested in our minibus anyway. They removed the taxi sign, prised the wipers into the up position and their finale was to remove a good length of rubber sealing strip from the roof.

The driver was pretty angry about this, she'd only had the minibus a couple of weeks, it was pretty much brand new!

They got a whack with the rubber strip for efforts once she'd prized it back off them.

Anyway, after this hilarity we headed undergound into the caves, at least it was dry in there!

They really were very impressive though, well lit, good for exploring!

When we got out and went in the cafe, there were little eyes peering through the window:

And all the fridges in the cafe had to have special monkey proof latches to stop them from wandering in to help themselves!

We carried on up through the clouds for our next stop, a long cave with loads of little alcoves where cannons were stationed.  It was really cool.

And very dark in places.

After that it was back upwards again, still in the murky greyness.  I'm sure on a clear day the views would have been really amazing.

Never mind, we made the best of it. 

We were particulalry relieved that we had done the trip by Taxi when we saw the steps you would have to climb to get to the top......they were steep and even though we couldn't see the bottom through the clouds, it looked a long way down.

It would have been hard work for Andy with me on his shoulders thats for sure.

This last stop was also the main Ape hangout spot. There were loads of them around.

Once again they seemed drawn to the taxi and wanted to take themselves some souvenirs.  It was still hilarious to watch.

We wound our way back down the hill and got dropped off in the main street to make our own way back and find some lunch.

It's a pity we didn't ask our guide to recommend somewhere to eat, we ended up in what must have been the worst pub in Gibraltar I reckon.

At least there was entertainment though, with the Basil Fawlty/Manuel-esque set up between the woman behind the bar and the cook!

We wandered around town a bit, bought some high quality souvenirs and then headed back towards Spain.

But get this, to get back we had to walk accross the runway for the airport.  It was mad, just as we got accross the gates came down like a level crossing as a plane was going to land. 

All the cars queued up either side and everything.

When we finally got back to the car we were all pretty much soaked through, but at least it wasn't cold as well.

We soon dried off though and had some proper children time back at the villa:

Wednesday, Halloween no less!

We'd taken care of our outfits and packed them in our hand luggage.

Mum had done the business bringing over some brilliant Halloween decorations that were up in our room when we woke up.

And even Dad had got on board with things this time around by booking us a trip to a chocolate factory in the nearby village of Mijas.

A real chocolate factory too, albeit a very, very small one.

It was brilliant pretty much straight away when we were given loads of samples to taste.

Before we were taken through to the working kitchen to make our own chocolate bars:

I decided that a very stringent system of ongoing ingredients testing was required to make sure only tip top ingredients were used in our bars:

There were loads of fillings to choose from, fudge, sweets, nuts, white chocolate, various fruits and even crushed up sugar cones. 

We created our masterpieces (I had the genius idea of making just a plain bar) and then got to try some of the really posh expensive chocolates that they use.  It was lovely and had so many different tastes.  I also got to ask loads of questions about chocolate, where it comes from, it's by products and goodness knows what else.  The lady answered all of them with great enthusiasm, i'm sure this will all come in very useful during my chocolate project next term.

We had to leave it to cool and be wrapped up before we could take it away so we headed off for lunch to this cool restaurant on the side of the mountian, the views were brilliant:

We had a lovely lunch and then went back to pick up our goodies which had all been wrapped in lovely coloured foil and in a named bag, which was good, because a lot of the grown ups had done dark chocolate and I certainly didn't wany any of that!

Once back at the villa we decided to slip into something a little more appropriate:

And then the main event, the super Halloween mega sweet hunt!

Everyone had really pulled out all the stops for us thats for sure.  There were millions of sweets, pretty much everywhere we looked. 

So a massive thank you to everyone who used up so much of their baggage allowances to bring us sweets, they were really appreciated.

Thursday was a lovely sunny day, we spent it at the villa, using the facilities.

We swam, we played tennis, we sat on sun loungers, we ate sweets.

But best of all we spent time just hanging out with everyone, chatting, larking about and just enjoying ourselves.

Then it was Friday, our last day.

We took another trip into Mijas as we'd decided it was such a nice place we'd show Owen around.

That, and donkey riding!  We warmed up on this one first:

Before heading out on the real deal, we were so excited it was unbelievable:

We rode all round the town, through the traffic, up narrow lanes, all over the place:

All the other tourists stopped and gave us a wave as we made our way around, it was like being famous!

We also passed Auntie Christine and Uncle Ian as well as Ben, Rach, Kimi and Marney having a pony and trap ride, it was so cool.

Back at the villa we spent out last afternoon around the pool and in the sauna:

We managed to get a group photo too which was cool:

We also managed to squeeze in another mini disco bar session before it was time to turn in for the night.It was an early start to get back to the airport on Saturday.

But we were pretty good natured about it.

We were soon on our way, watching the sun come up over the sea.

And making sure that Ben and Rach were okay in their lovely Tata.....ahem.

We were soon back home and everyone went their separate ways, it was pretty sad really.

Never mind, there's always next time eh?

Thanks to everyone who came along, we had such a good time and I know Dad did too.

Being back at home seemed strangely lonely on Sunday, although it was nice to make a fuss over poppy.

We had to go food shopping of course.

Good, that meant we could have a proper dinner, a lovely roast.  Poppy went beserk for some chicken.

We were still off school on Monday, Mum was on duty again....cool.

We had a lazy morning before heading into town for back to school haircuts.  I really didn't want mine done, but it looks pretty cool now actually.

I did, of course I so love a haircut.

It was then on to the doctors for me.  I had a bad ear.  Diagnosed as an ear infection with a suspected cause being my massive amounts of swimming on holiday.  The doctor also said that I must have been very brave as it must have been pretty painful.  I don't like to cause a fuss though, you know how it is.  One bottle of that iffy banana medicine for me.

Back to school on Tuesday, I was actually really keen to go back as I seem to be over my 'I don't like school' wobble.  I was full of enthusiasm for my travels over the holidays and couldn't wait to show everyone my Donkey Themed Mijas Snow Globe......sadly I broke it before anyone could even see it in all it's glory.  I was very sad about it indeed.

Mine survived intact fortunatley.

We noticed Poppy didn't seem to well on Wednesday.

No, she didn't get out of bed all day.

We decided to keep an eye on her.

But on Thursday she was still no better and we decided we ought to take her to the vets.

The vet didn't have good news for us i'm afraid.  It looked like poor old Poppy was really quite unwell and we made the difficult decision to have her put to sleep.

We bid her a very tearful farewell before leaving Dad in with the vet to get the job done.

He said that it was all very peaceful, and she was purring away with her head pressed up against his hand at the end.

We sat in the car crying our eyes out and went home without her.

She was the coolest cat ever, but she was pretty old I suppose, we'll really miss her.

Then it was Friday, last day before the weekend!

Swimming lessons went well after all my practice in Spain.  I wasn't shy about telling evryone just how good i'd been either.

We had the school firework party in the evening.  Mr Jones had been busy most of the week collecting wood for the bonfire.

You could tell, he'd done a great job.  It was soon alight and roaring hot. 

We loved standing there in the warm.

We bought a load of glow sticks and then headed out onto the field for the fireworks.

After last years rather damp affair, this year was pretty spectacular actually.

Once they were finished we headed back to the fire, Mr Jones had moved the fence around it in a bit so we could still be lovely and warm.

We stood there for ages talking to Mr Jones and Miss Butt and by the time we turned round pretty much everyone had gone home.

We decided to hang around though and played on the adventure playground while Dad bought discount beer from the bar stall.

We did some baking saturday morning, small cake called coffee kisses from one of Dads new cookbooks.

We're quite a slick kitchen outfit these days you know.

They were lovely as well!

We had a trip to Marlborough for lunch and advent calendars.  Yes Christmas is certainly coming....yippeee!!!  We were even allowed to buy a few new christmas decorations too.

We got some proper lovely ones again of course.  I also got a couple of packets of christmas cards for my school friends as well.  I was well keen, I even wrote most of them when we got home.

More fireworks on saturday night, this time with Laura and Darcey as well at Henwick field.

We had sparklers on the way too...cool.

Darcey didn't seem to impressed:

Before the fireworks started we ha d alittle time on the fair, I decided I really wanted a go on the Waltzer which pleased Dad no end as he hadmn't been on one for years:

I loved it too and didn't stop laughing the whole time we were on it.

I decided that i'd try and win something instead:

And I did too, a cuddly snake no less!

Andy turned up fresh from football, just in time to see the fireworks as well.

If the school ones were good last night, these ones were mega.

They were, I was pretty much awestruck by them it has to be said.

Their bonfire on the other hand was a pretty wafty affair.  It was made of palletts which meant it collapsed very quickly.

And the roped off area around it was massive, you couldn't even feel the heat.  They should have got Mr Jones to sort it out for them.

After a couple of false starts and a few tears we got a go on the bumper cars too, we love the bumper cars.

We had a lazy Sunday morning.

And another lovely roast!

Before we were forced out of the house for a walk/bike ride for us kids.

Well, it really was a lovley sunny day.  We headed for the newish sculptures down the road as we wanted to have a good look at them:

They were pretty cool as well:

After that we headed over to the city playground, a great place to learn to do monkey bars according to Ned.  Although I decided I still needed a bit of help:

We were all over the non-slide slide thing:

Dad hated watching us on it, particulalry me, he thought I was going to fall off every time. 

And then it was back to school again.

I've lost one of my school shoes...which is a little bit inconvenient......

And we're still missing the cat.  I'm not allowed another one either apparently.

Anyway, thats about it for now, we've got about an hours worth of video to edit down and put together at some point in the future, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

I wouldn't hold your breath though, it might be a while!