And without further ado, here's our Cornwall video:

Tuesday

Mum had the rest of the week off, which meant we could keep doing cool stuff.

So today we went into town by bike with her.

I replenished my loom band stocks after visiting the entertainer and the works to make sure I got the best available deal.

And I spent some of my money on some Zooblies.

We got home in time for a visit from Auntie Christine and Darcey.

She loved my Zooblies.

Once they had gone we packed a picnic and went to pick Dad up from work.

We were heading straight for Legoland.

We hadn't been for a while as our tickets had run out ages ago.

Once we'd renewed our passes we were in, and we still had over three hours to enjoy there.

We went on the cars, the pirate boat, the brand new playground......

......the Atlantis submarine and the boating school:

It was good to be back:

Wednesday

We didn't have too much planned today, we had to be back in time for team Kennet.

We did however meet Dad in the park on his way home from work, we rode down again!

The real purpose of todays trip was to have a go on the boating lake.

Yeah, I wanted a kayak.

But I was really unsure, it looked quite tricky to me.  I was convinced by everyone else that it was a good idea though (well, they were right about the zip wire).

It was great fun, we got used to it pretty quick and were soon zooming across the lake.

We then fed the ducks and swans, there were plenty of them:

The afternoon sort of ran away with us a bit, we had to shovel our tea down as quickly as possible before Team Kennet.

I'm sure thats just the sort of regime Usain Bolt has too.

It was team competitions week still, and for the icing on the cake Ellis and I were on the same team.  

We loved that, though it would have been better to have Abi with us as well.

We came second this week, so no pin badge this time around.

I really want one of those...maybe next week!

Thursday

We couldn't decide on what film to go and watch at the cinema so we settled on getting the DVD of Rio 2.

And more importantly pick and mix from Tesco, which we are never allowed.

We loved the film.

We loved the sweets.

Then when Dad came home we went off to Avebury, to see the stones:

It was a pretty nice walk, the stones that were still left were massive:

We loved pondering their origins and what might have gone on here all those years ago.

The visitor centre had a rather cool connect four game outside.

And a daughts set, I gave Dad a right hiding at that.

We drove home via a couple of hillside white horses which was sort of cool too.

Friday

Trip into town, again by bike to get new shoes for the new school year.

The foot measuring thing was very sophisticated, like an Ipad gizmo thing.

I was a 12.5 F

And I was a 3.5 H.

We also had a visit to the new ice cream place in Parkway.

I'd been well excited about this for ages.

I was a cheap date, only having a scoop on a cone:

I wasn't, and went for the full on sundae:

Which I had to help him finish as his eyes were bigger than his belly.

Once Dad came home from work we loaded the beach things and headed for the seaside.

Well, we'd been back from Cornwall for 5 days and were starting to miss it a bit, so the Witterings seemed the next best thing.

We took the camping stove and a big packet of bacon:

It was delicious, pretty much my favourite meal, no doubt helped by the location.

There was a lengthy game of boules played.

Quite honestly, I played out of my skin and barely lost a game:

We couldn't possibly not go in the sea could we?

No way, the waves looked pretty good as well so we got the boards out too:

I was all over it, catching wave after wave after wave, I loved it.

I didn't do quite as well as Ned, but did enjoy a lovely warm cuddle from Mum once i'd wiggled out of my wetsuit.

We enjoyed a lovely sunset before heading home:

Saturday

After some careful internet research by Mum we came up with a bike ride for Saturday.

Yes, carefully picked to not be too far for my little legs.

So the Phoenix trail from Princes Risborough to Thame it was.

An old disused railway line like the Camel trail in Cornwall, so we should be pretty safe from any nasty hills.

We loved it, it was nice not to have to look out for traffic as we rode along.

And we saw plenty of cows, sheep, horses and pigs as we made our way.

But the fresh air made us hungry and pretty soon we'd found a suitable picnic stop:

Feeling refreshed we carried on, there were various interesting things along the way, like these railway signals you could flip up and down:

Obviously we were miles from any sort of toilets and I really needed a wee.  I was eventually convinced to make a pitstop down a bank in amongst some blackberry bushes.

We made good progress and had pretty soon got to the outskirts of Thame:

I did a spot of modelling for a possible bike catalogue:

When we reached the end of the trail we made our way towards town.

I had a pretty epic crash, and ended up bumping my head on the pavement (albeit quite lightly).  I was soon back on the bike though.

After a tip off from a local we found an ace park for a bit of a play and the second round of our picnic:

We had a quick look down Thame high street (looking for toilets) and then saddled up for the ride back.

Where we noticed people picking blackberries in the exact same spot I had my emergency wee!

It didn't take long to get back at all, we'd done 12 miles in total.

I was very pleased with myself.

Yeah, well done Ellis!

We had a well deserved saturday night slump in front of the telly.

Sunday

Well our good run of well cool activities had to come to an end, it was time for a shopping trip.

Yeah, but in all honesty it wasn't too bad.

No, we quite like Kingston, especially rhe big glass tunnel like bridge across the road, a great place to spot the odd Ferarri or Bentley.

I got myself a new school bag, fit for purpose at the junior school.

In the evening, Andy, Alan and Hayley came round.

We played Hayleys new game from the geeky game show we went earlier in the year, Agrocola.

It was pretty complicated by the looks of it, I helped dish out some cards and playing pieces and then decided i'd be better off going to bed.

It did look pretty difficult to get to grips with, so I got paired up with Dad, how's my luck eh?

Anyway, turns out he wasn't too bad at it, well, at least he was not as bad as everyone else appeared to be on our first ever go.  We won!  But it was a very long and drawn out affair, I didn't get to bed until 1:30am.

Monday

Meaning I had a 10 o'clock lie in.

I got up a bit earlier, Mum came down too, we had a lovely cuddle on the sofa until the boys appeared.

The day itself was wet outside.

Very wet indeed.  We stayed in all day.

We did some reading.

We played some Wii party.

And we stuffed our faces on our first roast dinner for what must be months.

We rounded out the day watching the magician Dynamo, one of my most favourite shows.

Tuesday 5th

We had a day off with Mum, awesome, lie in's!

We've been having a bit of a retro playing with cars session as well.

Yeah, all the old Lightning Mcqueen cars have come out, Dad's like super stressy about me clattering them together though.

After a bit of discussion we went to the pottery painting place.

Yeah, i'm finally calling in my treat for my excellent school report and parents evening.  I settled on a two part ice cream sundae, I thought it would make a great place to keep my stray hairbands:

Seeing as i'm such an old miser I thought i'd do myself another piggy bank:

The lady in there was a right old grumpy so and so.

But rather than spoil it, it just made us have even more of a laugh.

Dad turned up for a flying visit during his lunch hour too, which was really cool.

Once we were all painted out we had a look at the fish shop next door.

We got to feed the carp their lunch:

They were right greedy little devils as well!

We made a pitstop at sainsburys to buy some bacon for lunch.

And also bought ourselves a few more Neon Cars for our collection.

We had a lazy afternoon, Ipad.......

Snuggling, tv, before it was time for gymnastics.  Lucky we made the effort, it was badge week!  So i'm now the proud holder of a level 2 badge and certificate.

Everything went down hill though when Dad tried to poison us with tea...

Yeah, a pizza with ONION on it!

Wednesday 6th
So despite the fact we'd been hastling and hastling and hastling Mum to take us to the library, we couldn't really be bothered to get our butts off the sofa and actually go on Wednesday morning.
Mum even tried to encourage us by saying we could ride down if we liked....
But we did eventually get ourselves going and had a nice ride into town.
The library itself was heaving, it was some sort of toddler morning, there were buggies strewn everywhere.
Still, we managed to get ourselves some new books to keep the summer reading challenge going.
We were allowed lunch in town, rather unsurprisingly we couldn't agree on where to go.
I wanted a toasted panini from Costa, because i'm really rather posh.
I wanted a sausage roll from Greggs, because i'm really rather not (it's excellent value in there, I like that).
Mum came up with a compromise, a trip to weavers walk cafe.
They sell sausage rolls.
They sell toasted sandwiches.
Everyones a winner, we even got to sit at a cool table upstairs where we could look down into the kitchen.
We had a mooch around town before buying picnic stuff for tea.
It was a logistical nightmare to get it all home on our bikes, especially with all the library books too.
But between Mum's basket and our back packs we had it covered.
We went home to get the car and then picked Dad up from work.
We made our way to Hungerford for one of our river picnic's:

There was actually other people there this time, they were in our favoured spot too!
I suppose thats the price we pay for going on a genuinely nice, sunny day.
We had a paddle, a splash and a lovely picnic.
But also managed to wind Mum and Dad up a bit with a bit of low level nonsense.  
Well, it is the school holidays after all!
We made our way from there, straight to Team Kennet.
Yeah, summer holidays, no chance to kick back and take things easy!
I made my return this week, I was dead keen to get stuck in.

I had Abi to keep me company which I really liked.
As luck would have it, we got divided up into three teams and had a sort of mini team competition.
We did a load of events, long jump, vortex throwing, standing long jump, bean bag target throwing and the 400m, which was a very, very long way round.  I did have quite a sprint finish on me though.
I loved it, put in an excellent showing on my long jump, an epic couple of vortex throws and largely brilliant 400m, until the stitch kicked in.  I also made a friend, a new boy who was a bit of unsure of everything.
We ended up on the winning team and got a smart little pin badge each:

And something we haven't had for a while, how about a quick video?

Thursday 7th
Mum had to go back to work, much to her displeasure.
So we had another day with Auntie Christine.
A trip to the cinema to watch How to Train Your Dragon 2!
All three of us were super excited, even though we felt a bit sorry for Mum and Dad who would like to have seen it too.
Yeah, tough luck, Auntie Christine showed us the first one so it's fair enough and anyway, we couldn't possibly deprive her of the trip.

We loved it, there were a few surprises, some twists and a very sad bit.

It was brilliant, we raved about it afterwards to Dad, hope he didn't want it to be a surprise when he watched it.

We had a Costa's for lunch (so I got my way in the end, still no dodgy quality Greggs for Ned though) and then we went back to Auntie Christines house.

To set about some cake making, first up, some decorated cake pops, my rabbit was met with widespread approval:

And then a proper big chocolate sandwich type cake to take down to Cornwall for the family holiday.  I'm looking forward to it even more now!

Dad came to pick us up and we had a few jobs to do.

Fill the car with diesel, check the tyre pressures that sort of dull stuff and then the car wash!

Which seemed particularly noisy and fun today!

Friday 8th

Well we had a lovely ride in to Dragon club for the last time this summer holidays.

It was superhero day, I made myself a lovely mask and then started face painting the other kids.  I had quite a queue as well, my work went down very well with the other children and they loved my creations for them.

We were both made Super Dragon for the day as well, due to our general kind nature and our efforts to get involved in all the activities on offer.

That made our day pretty much.

Well, that and the epic game of hockey we played, I seriously loved that, and developed quite a few flair moves to outwit my opponents.

Dad came to pick us up and we headed home to load the car up ready for Cornwall.

Yep, how exciting.

Once Mum was home and changed we hit the road.

And with Dad having cooked us pizza and garlic bread, all carefully wrapped up in foil we didn't even need to stop on the way for tea.

Which was just as well as we were both pretty tired and used the time wisely for a decent kip.

Considering the time of year we had an record breaking trip down with no traffic hold ups at all.

We got there with just the last few rays of daylight left which was lovely.

Andy had gone earlier in the afternoon and was already there.

As were Abi, Faye, Nick and Carol.

We got our stuff unpacked and particularly liked putting all our books and things on the shelving in the bedroom.

Before settling down for a nice nights sleep.

Saturday 9th

Oh how we love to wake up in the caravan, with the sound of the waves crashing in.

And the wind, it was pretty blowy it has to be said.

With Tesco deliveries banned on site this year it was click and collect for Dad and Mum, we stayed in with Andy.

They were soon home with a truly magnificent bootfull of stuff, masses of it.

Mum did her usual magicians act by making it all disappear into the fridge.

Except the pork breakfast products, we decided we should really cook and eat a lot of those right away!

Everyone else must have smelt it cooking, as within half an hour of each other both Auntie Christine, Uncle Ian, Laura, Darcey and Auntie Trish turned up, closely followed by Kimi, Marney, Ben and Rach.

We wasted no time getting busy with the loom bands, Rach has got serious skills on the loom band front.

Once everyone was unpacked and sorted out we hit the beach.

Climbing to upset Auntie Christine of course!

Plenty of plundering the rock pools.

We netted some splendid specimens, from decent size fish to some cool looking stripey shrimps.

Unusually for August, there were waves, decent sized waves too.   I wasted no time getting out on the stand up board.  I got to grips with it again and stood up more times in one session than all my others put together.

Sunday 10th

Well hurricane Bertha was supposed to be coming through, and although it was a bit on the blowy side, it was certainly dry so we went on the Constantine loop walk.

We stopped off at the surf shop, they had some well cool looking buckets in the shape of a castle turret and section of wall.  Andy said it would never work for a sand castle......it was a challenge we couldn't possibly resist.

By the time that was done the sun was well and truly out, down the beach we went:

We explored, we created a sancastle village, the new bucket turned out perfectly!

We had a great time splashing in rhe waves and playing with Darcey:

John, Sarah, Mark and Amy appeared on the beach with Connie which was a lovely surprise.

We all met up for tea down at the youth hostel, we had our annual photograph at the request of Auntie Christine:

It was lovely all sitting together:

Taking in the view over the sea:

It got pretty chilly later on, so we headed inside with Auntie Christine and Uncle Ian for another drink when everyone else went back to their caravans:

We felt proper grown up.

We did eventually head back for a game of Dobble and a little game of Uno.

Monday 11th

We had pretty much a group outing to Bedruthan Steps.

Yeah, once we'd convinced the Aunties they'd make it down and more importantly back up again afterwards.

The advance party hit the beach after our long and steep descent:

Abi and I loved exploring the caves:

We slipped into our wetsuits and after a brief pose or two on the rocks it was time to get wet!

We had a great time splashing about with Abi and Faye.

We all took a picnic and sat around to eat it in the sunshine:

After lunch we scoured the beach for decent sized pebbles to make an extensive set of stepping stones:

They certainly proved popular, even strangers couldn't resist trotting accross them.

And I very carefully carved all of our names onto a nice flat stone inmybest handwriting to commemorate our day out:

Tuesday 12th

This far into the holidays the late nights had started to really kick in and lay in's were becoming the norm.

But when we did finally arise we made our way into Padstow with Nick and Faye in tow, it was speedboat day!

Except the tide was out, right out.

So far out that the boats weren't running until 3 hours time.

After a bit of hanging about we decided to come back later rather than wait around for ages.

It was a bit of a blessing in disguise though as I managed to snag myself a nice new bodyboard (black of course).

We stopped in St Merryn for a bakery visit and a trip to the park:

We did some good three at a time carves around the bowl on our scooters with Dad on his skateboard. 

We headed back to the caravan and I took my new board out for a trial run, it was brilliant.  So much better than my old one and I was whizzing right up on to the beach just like Ned does on his.

We made our way back to Padstow later in the afternoon, once the tide was back in.

It was a reasonable walk, especially as it was our second visit of the day:

Faye wanted to sit with me, Ned, Mum and Dad up front in the bumpy seats, meaning Nick and Andy were relegated to the back, in the splash zone.

We made our way out into the open water before the driver really opened it up, the front came high up out of the water and the big carving turns started.

Sending plumes of water all over Nick and Andy, much to our delight looking back at them.

It certainly blew any cobwebs away and we seemed to go much further than any of the trips we'd had before:

Wednesday 13th

Having been told we weren't going this year, it was a welcome surprise to us that it was Crealy day!

Yeah, we still love it there.

I'm not sure Auntie Christine particularly enjoyed the drive there though.  The more direct route involves a short stretch of very narrow road.  As luck would have it we encountered a car travelling the other way mid way along it.

Luckily for us, there were three of us in convoy so he had to to do the backing up.

Sadly he made a right hash of it and it looked like it ended up with him reversing into a drystone wall and us passing him on the wrong side of the road.

Auntie Christine was in meltdown by this point by all accounts and was going to have serious words with Dad for bringing us down such a narrow road..........

I don't know what she was so worried about, being a passenger in Laura's superbly driven monster truck!

Anyway, we got there in one piece and she calmed down eventually, once she'd asked if Ben and Rach could take her home the long way round.

Things got off to great start with Swampy's Enchanted Wood or whatever it was previously called having changed into a rather cool reptile house (the old enchanted woods were quite frankly terrifying).

The horse ride was of course brilliant:

It was that good that even Auntie Christine had a go.
It wasn't as good as the real thing though:

We still really love a pony ride:

We also like the kiddies rides with Darcey:

Especially the (little) big wheel, that Laura and I got to really rock all the way around, Darcey loved it!

Amazingly, the rollercoaster didn't break down:

And we had at least three goes in a row on the pirate boat:

And I finally got over my drop slide phobia, after a bit of coaching and some tough loving from Mum.
We had a great day, but there were a couple of disappointments to report.  Firstly the big bumpy slide was in desperate need of of some polish, we stopped way before the end.
Secondly the donuts.  Now we had got used to their lovely freshly cooked, deep fried sugar encrusted beauties over the year.  But this time?  None of that, just rubbishy little ones, pre cooked out of a packet, not warm, and not much sugar clinging to them. 
What a let down.
We headed back to camp and with the sun still shining we went down the beach with the Hardy's.  
The tide was stupidly high and crashing onto the steep bank at the top of the beach, giving people a right old pounding.
So we played in the dunes instead.
And did some pretty high dune-leaping, impressing a couple of teenage girls with my daring athleticism.
And after our tea we took to the lawn to have a game of kingball using a court I helped dad make with a ball of string we bought from Gary's shop:

Thursday 14th

Zipline Day!

Yep, high excitement indeed.

We stopped by Wadebridge to collect John and Sarah (and get myself some swim fins that John had long since grown out of, thanks, they are EPIC!)

I'd been up for this during the build up, but now, there were doubts starting to creep into my mind.

I on the other hand could not wait to throw myself off a cliff.

It didn't take that long to get there and we excitedly signed ourselves up and got trussed up in our harnesses and went up to the start.  

First up was myself and John, we didn't muck about, got clipped on and launched ourselves over the lake....it was epic!  

Next up was Sarah and Andy, they went for it and were soon flying accross the water.  Then, it was my turn, alongside Mum.  Because i'm so light and it was a pretty windy day I had to have a small water barrel attached to my harness to give me a bit more oomph.  Once I got to the edge and was about to be launched I lost my bottle and just didn't want to go.  The man tried, Mum tried and Dad tried to convince me but I wasn't having any of it.  I got unclipped and climbed down and waved Mum off on her own.  I hung around with Dad at the top and we had a chat about it, waiting for the others to make their way back up.  Dad gave me some pretty useful advice and said if I wasn't sure, I should try it first and then i'd know afterwards for sure if I really didn't like it.  With this pearl of wisdom I decided I would indeed give it a go.

So once we were all back at the top, we got ourselves another go to accompany Ellis, bonus, two goes for me!

I made my way up once again, with Ned alongside me, got my barrel attached:

And we were off with no hesitations or second thoughts.

Flying accross the lake, I loved it, it was awesome!

We were seriously buzzing afterwards.

Buzzing enough that despite the rain shower, we decided a lake swimming session was a great idea.

John and Sarah showed their hardy locals credentials by toughing it out without a wetsuit.

The water got seriously deep within a few metres of the shore, so it was a full on swim out to the floating pontoon in the middle.

It was great fun hauling ourselves up onto it and then jumping, diving, falling or cartwheeling off of it again!

All standing on side of it was cool too, it really made it lean over until one of us would invariably fall in...

...or run to the other side.

After that we got changed, and there was a full team effort to retrieve my football i'd kicked over into a bramble patch (thanks Andy).

Then it was off to Morisson's Cafe for lunch.

Which was huge fun with John and Sarah on board.  

The main topic of discussion being one chocolate bar vs another or whether Jaffa Cakes were actually cakes or biscuits.
They came back to the caravan with us as well, which was cool.

We had a trip down to the beach for a quick surf with Sarah and Owen who had just appeared after he came down late on Wednesday night.

Sadly though we missed Auntie Christine, Uncle Ian and Darcey going home.

And also Abi, Faye, Nick and Carol had also headed for home.

We headed back up to have some tea and watch the music channel for a bit on TV.

The highlight being Will I Am's Birthday song, especially the bit where he appeared to be born in a hospital room and just said 'Aiiiiiiiii'

Friday 15th

On one of trips into Padstow i'd noticed the hair braiding people on the harbourside.  I pestered and pestered mum and Dad ever since to have mine done.  They finally gave in, and we went in early morning.

Leaving me back at the caravan with Andy.  We were going to have an early surf and set up base camp on the beach.

We went to one of the chaps doing the braiding to ask about getting one done but he pulled a concerned looking face and asked Mum if my hair tended to get pulled out easily with brushing out knots or in hair bands.  We had to say yes of course.  He then said that he wouldn't really recommend I have one as it puts a lot of tension on your hair and it would most probably just pull a clump right out of mine.  I was devastated, but I really didn't want to end up with a clump of missing hair.  I got a ready made one on a hair grip instead, at least I can put it in and take it out when I feel like it I suppose.  I also got a cool glittery flower tattoo on my leg, this helped me get over the disappointment.

While all this was going on, Andy and I hit the beach in the morning sunshine.  We took the height of the tide, the wind direction and the sun into consideration before settling in the cove just under the youth hostel and occupied enough space for the others to join us later on.

We weren't far behind them though, we thought they'd done well and settled down for a day on the beach.

We were soon joined by Trish, Owen and Laura too.

We played cricket.

Ellis and I did a bit of squabbling.

We got my kite into a massive knot.

And we sampled the delights of the Pink Ice Cream van up on the hill.

It was a bit of a wait, and it was a bit chilly in the wind.

But there were blankets you could wrap yourself in and a lovely doggie with a couple of loom band collars.

It was well worth the wait, the fully topped hot chocolates were lovely.

As were the ice creams.

In the evening we decided it was high time we had a barbecue:

We stayed out for ages, but eventually had to admit defeat when the sun went down and it got a little bit chilly.

Yeah, and Auntie Trish's hands turned blue.

Once inside the caravan we had a few hands of Dobble and a game of nommies.

Although I preferred to spend my time drawing portraits of everyone instead.  I think they went down well, well they certainly caused plenty of laughs anyway!

Saturday 16th

The weather was okay so we went off down the beach.

We finally got some Kingball action in on a proper sand court. 

As the waves had calmed down a bit for the first time all week we too the dinghy out.

It was great fun out in the sea with it, it was surprisingly good at riding waves in too.

Unless it turned you over of course.

But it was even better as a place to sit and eat your lunch, bobbing around in a big old low tide pool.

We went off for an explore down the gap, it was super rocky down there.  Looks like the stormy winter has really stirred things up.

There were plenty of fish to catch and some little crabs.

That took quite a fancy to the fish...for their lunch! 

Owen, Laura and Auntie Trish also decided it was home time in the afternoon, so that only left us lot and Andy.

As the tide was very low, the swimming pool up in the rocks seemed a good idea.

We got kitted up with masks, snorkels, the dinghy and a couple of nets:

We made our ascent up the rocks, there were quite a few people up there, including, yes, this is true, a dog standing up on a surfboard being dragged across the water!

Ellis got in the boat and I paddled her across the water at very high speed using my flippers.

We went back up to the caravan for some Saturday night telly...Tumble!

Sunday 17th

Our last day, neither of us wanted to go home, we'd got used to our late nights, lay in's and hanging out with everyone.

We watched the recording of Great British Bake Off from earlier in the week.

By the time we'd finished that the weather had smartened itself up a bit so we headed out for a walk to Mother Iveys bay.

It was a pretty long, but very nice walk.

When we got down onto the beach we were pretty much the only ones there and the sea looked lovely.

So we were overjoyed when Dad produced our swimmers and a towel each from his backpack.

We were soon in the crashing waves for a lovely dip:

Then a bit of a sit on the beach, just taking in the view and enjoying just being there:

Try as we might, the fact that it was going home day couldn't be ignored.

We headed back to the caravan to pack, clean and tidy up.

We even helped, a bit.

Then it was off down to the Youth Hostel for an evening meal, overlooking the sea for one last time before we also headed off home:

We were quite late home, but it didn't really matter as Mum had all of the following week off.

Monday 18th

Well first day home after a late night and there wasn't much going on.

Nope, very much a slouch about day.

Except for Mum sorting out all the washing of course.

Although we did go and collect our painted pottery, which was surprisingly good it has to be said.

And pick up a few bits from Tesco's to keep us fed.

Once Dad was home we did go down the park for a bit as well.
So that's it for our first installment, stay tuned for part two which should see us back up to date.
And a video of the holiday at some point too!