Tuesday

I extracted another wobbly tooth in class, i might have a little bit of blood on my work as a consequence...oops.

We had netball after school of course, still loving it! My favourite sport ever.

I had gymnastics, all went pretty well, atill can't quite nail my cartwheels though.......

Wednesday

We had a friendly netball match against St Finians after school.  We played really well and had them well beat, 8 - 4.

Even more sport in the evening with Team Kennet.

Our last outdoor session of the summer, we've been so lucky with the weather this year and were treated to yet another glorious summer evening sunset over the common.

400 metres still seems a very long way around that track though.

My throwing is still improving and i'm getting a lot more consistant.

Thursday

It was the Park House open evening, as we'd already been the previous year Mum and Dad were keen to get there, watch the presentation and visit any areas we missed last time, which was at odds with my plan of doing as many experiments in the science labs and getting as many free samples as I could in the cooking department.  It turned out we did a bit of both so we were all happy.  It wasn't all good news though, the PE department confirmed that there wasn't really any boys netball.  I did however put in another storming rowing performance on their machine, even though I slid off the seat twice.
I stayed at home with Auntie Christine, we had a lovely evening and did lots of art stuff and drawing.

Friday
Well I got another badge to add to my collection at school, as i've been voted in as Vice House Captain.  Not too much of a surprise as there were only two of us that put ourselves forward.
I spent all day being excited at the prospect of our weekend camping trip, i'd been making a case for going for ages and it finally seemed like a good weekend to go.
So after school we packed up, called for Andy and headed west to Croyde.
It was well and truly dark by the time we got there, so even though it was a bit more difficult to pitch the tent it was brilliant as I pointed out that when you wake up it's a bit of a surprise where you are.
We helped for a bit but then got in the car and made camps using a blanket draped over the seats.
Which included an 'accidental' blast of the car horn at about 11pm.

Saturday

We slept in pretty late then slowly came round to bacon rolls outside in our camp chairs, how lovely.
With the sound of the waves crashing in as a backdrop, it was like being on holiday.
We had to take Andy's car for a spin to recharge the battery after he flattend it using the headlights to help during setting up camp.
It was a nice drive round, we got to check out the waves at the other beaches Puttsborough and Saunton Sands.
Next up it was the swimming pool, my highlight of the weekend.
Yeah, it was great fun in there as always, especially when Dad noticed the woggle had a hole right through the middle that would fill up with water.......
.....and if you blew into it hard enough it sent a jet right up into the air!
We loved zooming round the lazy river, firing our water cannon.

Then it was back for lunch and a quick trip to the arcade for us kids.
We were only interested in the 2p drop machines, but as we got there the man was replenishing the goodies on the machine so it wasn't running.
He didn't like to see us disappointed so gave us a couple of keyrings and stickers without even having to play the game:

Then in the afternoon we hit the beach.
The surf was brilliant and we went mad for it.
We did indeed, i've really got into it since Cornwall, although I do feel the cold a bit more than the others and got out for a waterside cuddle with Dad for a bit.
I had to be dragged out........
Instead of our usual barbecue for tea we thought we'd go to Croyde village and have a pub meal for tea.
This involved a pretty long (for me) walk through the campsite, behind the dunes and up through the farmers fields.
There was a well smart park on the way though.
And the cows in the farmers field were the cutest i'd ever seen.

Even though the pub was seriously busy we got a table pretty much straight away in the conservatory out the back and had a well deserved slump.
The food arrived pretty quickly and we refuelled ourselves with a massive jacket potato, more grated chees than i've ever seen before in one place and a salad.
While I had an adults portion cheeseburger and chips.  Lovely.
The puddings were equally well recieved, chocolate brownie and ice cream.
We then had the walk back, but this time in the dark.
We were experts at torch handling of course, ensuring the path before us was illuminated at all times....ahem.

Sunday

After another lie in and bacon roll session some bright spark decided we should walk up the really big hill that overlooks the campsite and bay.
It was very steep and there was a lot of sheep poo.
But the view from the top was worth it in the end.

It was serioulsy hot though, I only had a jumper on, so decided to take it off for the decent:

That little speck in the distance is me, I decided to run down, like only a 10 year old can without sustaining serious injury.
Mum made up a picnic and we headed for the beach again.
We had a game of boules.
We did some sand art.
And as the waves were as good as yesterday we did some more surfing!
And it was brilliant again, there should be a video at the end too.
The shower block back up in the camping field now has radio, we loved having a sing song listening to the top 40 while we washed the salt and sand from our hair.

All that was left to do was pack up and go home.
The camping field was pretty much empty by the time we left.
And thats it for this year I suppose, still, three camping trips isn't too bad is it?

Monday

I had a brilliant day at school, Becky pulled dad aside after dance and said that during the day in class i'd really been putting in the effort (2 house points awarded) and after school had the best dance session i've ever had.  I was very, very happy with myself.
In addition to that i've finally nailed a consistant cartwheel (yeah, I know i've been going to gymnastics for years), proper good day!

But you still had to spend most of the evening doing homework like I did......pah.

newbury show 2014 from Part Time on Vimeo.

Tuesday

I had a much better day at school, things are on the up.

After school I had another lengthy session on the adventure playground.

We had netball, there's a match next week so it was serios(ish) practicing.

Then it was off the gymnastics.

And as if that wasn't enough it was our meet the teacher night to set out what we'd be learning over the year and a presentation on our trip to Rhos-Y-Gwalia.  The most exciting and epic thing ever, a whole week away in North Wales.  It apparently isn't all fun and games though, we have a chores rota and have to actually make our own packed lunches!

I played on the adventure playground again, I love the adventure playground in case you hadn't noticed......

In a fairly standard turn of events for us, it was the deadline day for covering our project books and we hadn't done it.  There was a frenzied flurry of activity to get it done, Dad excelled himself with the sticky backed plastic covering.  He normally wrinkles it up and gets air bubbles and all sorts in it, but this time it was perfect!

Wednesday

So once again I decided to put myself for school council representative elections.  I put together a spur of the moment presentation which seemed to do the trick.  A lot of people I asked afterwards seemed to have voted for me so fingers crossed for Monday when the winners are announced.

I got a glowing report in my book for my maths efforts in class as well.  Apparently I did twice as much as I had to and got it all right!

And we had our first Viola lessons in class.  It was so exciting, even opening their plush cases was a lovely experience.  They were lined with soft lovely velvet and fitted the instruments so perfectly.  I also enjoyed getting to play them a bit too, i'm sure we made aome beautiful sounds.

We watched the start of the football match against Parsonds Down, 

I wasn't in the team so thought i'd hang around in a supporter capacity with Robert. Once we'd gone 3 - 0 down though it all seemed a bit of a lost cause and we went home.

Thursday

We played football at school, I scored a wonder goal, as verified by Dylan to Dad after school.

We had a few more takers for rugby this week which was a good thing.

Friday

We had a school trip to Chiltern Open Air Museum.  It was briiliant, there were loads of different houses there from the iron age (they had no chimneys to let the smoke out from their fires), right through to the Victorian one, which had an authentic victorian toilet.  In addition to that we made butter and bread (I got commended on my excellent mixing technique, honed at home slaving over brownie mixture).

We had our friday spelling test and I got a rather i pressive six out of six!

In the evening we went to Abi and Faye's.

We had an awesome game of hide and seek.

Watched a dvd.

And I got to play board games with the grown up's!

Saturday

Well after last nights late one, nothing much happened ithe morning.

Well, until Ali and Hugo came round to call for me, I was still in my pyjama's.  I got changed pretty quickly and we headed off put to see if Dylan was about too.  There was also another massive event, Minecraft was finally available for the Xbox one!  I was very excited indeed, it's been a long wait for this one.  I left Dad to download it for me......

I got Mum and Dad to myself, we went to the shop for some sweets and then to the park for a bit.

Once it was only Ali and left we came home to check on Minecraft progress, it was ready to play!!  We got stuck in on two player mode, ate bacon sandwiches and cheesey balls...perfect!

Auntie Trish came round in the evening, we were taking her to Pewsey carnival!

She hadn't been before, we hoped it was going to be a good year as we'd also rounded up Andy and Owen and Kirsty.

Turns out we had nothing to worry about, it was great:

This was one of the early push along floats, the ones on the backs of lorries were brilliant.

And there were plenty of them too, with loud music and plenty of targets to throw coins at!

The little candles over the river afterwards were so amazing, we were blown away:

Sunday

So after another late night after the carnival, we were in lay in mode again.

When we did get ourselves up though, we were pretty keen to get going.

Yeah, Newbury show day!

We do like Newbury Show, even though there is a lot of walking.

We loved making a thorough inspection of the tank on display:

Being an agricultural show, we also enjoyed a tractor or two:

We loved getting in the parade ring to fuss the packs of hounds.

Especially the youngest ones.

They were seriously cute, I made a particular friend who stood up on his hind legs, leaning against me for a fuss for ages.

The sports zone was a big hit again of course.

We got involved in all sorts, tennis, athletics, bike riding.....

And skiing!

We had a quick lesson, and after a shaky start we got on very well.

Yeah, it was seriously weird having these great big planks on your feet to begin with!

We made smoothies on a bike:

 

And did a spot of rugby.

They even had a rugby ball bucking bronco which was huge fun.

And it turns out we both seemingly have a talent for rowing of all things.

Yeah, there was a digital rowing machine you could have a go at.  It measured how far you could get in 2 minutes.  I managed 450 metres.

And I racked up just over 300 metres.

There was a score board they were putting peoples names on, I was well ahead for my age group and actually second over all to a 13 year old.

The food tent was of course a big attraction.

Dad and I sampled some black cheese (yes, it really was black).

There was also a stand giving samples of chorizo and various types of salami.  We loved that and stuffed ourselves.

The fudge stall was every bit as good as last year.  In fact it was better, being late on sunday afternoon the man was dishing out loads of samples as he didn't want to take any home with him.  

I told him I didn't like fudge.  He was mortified.

I didn't, I bought a big slab of chocolate flavoured stuff, it was delish!

And I found myself a marshmallow kebab, covered in chocolate from a chocolate fountain:

  

I did however try a bit of the fudge, and it turned out to actuially be lovely.  I went back to the fudge man and told him i'd changed my mind, I think he was pleased about that.

We watched the cattle parade around the showring, there were some lovely cows and bulls.

Some very clean looking sheep.

And a pig that was driven around in a trailer, lazy thing!

Then it was the freestyle motocross display.

This was very cool indeed, they set up their ramps and we were in the perfect viewing spot.

They did loads of tricks and talked on radio mikes all the way through, very impressive.

I was certainly impressed, I do love a motorbike.......

The show was winding up so we made our way back to the car, which we found easily in the sprawling carpark, despite not taking any real notice of where it was when we left it!

Monday

Bit of a struggle to get up for school it has to be said.

But we did okay.

And it was well worth it, I got to go up in assembly to accept the role of School Councillor!  Yes, i've finally managed it after all these years.  I got a certificate and a badge to wear (a smart yellow shield shape).  Even better was that because we sit at the back in assembly it was a very long walk to the stage to pick it up, which I certainly made the most of.

After school dance was cool, we got to form small groups of our own choosing. So Lilly, Harry and I managed to get in a group with Ben, Joe and Ned, all our big brothers!

Yeah, it was surprisingly good fun actually.

I spent all night beaming with happiness with my school councillor election victory.

newbury show 2014 from Part Time on Vimeo.

Tuesday

We've certainly been making the most of the late summer by hanging around on the adventure playground most nights after school.

I was back to netball club, which I was very enthusiastic about.

I'd kept my sandwich crusts back as an after school snack, which confused Dad as he thought I said crisps!

Once that was all done it was time for gymnastics, the later time is pretty cool.

Mum came home with my new coat, so Auntie Christine can stop worrying about me getting wet or cold in my old, holey one.

Wednesday

We had a first aid course at school today, to tell the truth I wasn't much looking forward to it, i'm still a bit squeamish about blood and guts and injuries.  It was okay in the end though, and turned out to be the least of my worries.  My teacher came out to see Dad when school chucked out for the day.  She told him that since we'd been back from summer holidays I hadn't really settled very well.  Being a bit disruptive, a bit chopsy and quite angry a lot of the time.  So, that wasn't great, especially as Dad gave the silent treatment for some time before moving on to tell how disappointed he was with me.

Still, at least we could go and run off our frustrations at Team Kennet.  Mum went in to school to a meet the teacher. Evening so it was just Dad with us.

It was yet another glorious evening up at the track, we've been so luxky this year so far....

I think Mum must have got on okay with my teacher, I certainly didn't hear anything to cause me concern but I think it was more of an oversight on what we would be learning.

Thursday

After school rugby club started today, shame it was only Dylan and I who realised.  Mr Gilham said he was happy to do it with just us two, it turned out to be great fun.

I hung about on the playground again, still loving it.

Friday

I've managed to become one of the toast helpers in the mornings, serving the whole junior school their tasty mid morning snack.  I am super chuffed about that, especially because now I get free toast!

Another position of responsibility for me and Hugo is unlocking the doors into school in the morning, straight from breakfast club.

In the evening we had a family viewing of wednesdays episode of the great British bake off.

We're still watching Mary Berry, even after the disappointment at mum's work.

Saturday

Bit of a lay in and then a trip out to Porchester Castle.

It looked pretty cool from the outside, even though the moat didn't look like it would keep many attackers at bay, it was just a dry slightly muddy ditch.

We went through an arch in the wall and found a lovely big grass field.

Yeah, big enough for a proper cricket pitch, and a chuch.

All inside the castle walls!

We sat and ate a lovely picnic, watching wedding guests arrive at the church.

Then we headed into the castle proper, there was lads to explore.

The old garderobe tower provided much entertainment.

We loved the steep and twisting spiral stair case to the roof:

The view was brilliant, over the sea to navy base, the dockyard cranes and the Spinnaker tower.

As well as a birds eye view of the wedding guests leaving the church for the photographs.

We posed for a few potential calendar photo's:

And had a game of tag with a friend we made.

We carried on exploring outside the castle walls:

It went straight out to the sea, how cool.

It was a pretty warm afternoonand the sea looked too inviting to ignore:

We finished off with an ice cream.

And on the way back to the car we noticed the moat was now full of deep water! I think if I were ever going to attempt to attack this castle i'd do so at low tide......

We got home in time for the final of tumble, and to make things even better Bobby Lockwood won, he was my favourite by a mile!

Even if he had hurt his knee and was rubbish in the final.

Sunday

We did some homework in the morning.

And then Anne came round for lunch.

We hadn't seen her for a while so it was nice to catch up.

We had a lovely dinner, dad had done well, especially with the yorkshire puddings.

And Mum had made a bakewell tart for pudding, again, she excelled herself, it was lush.

We went for a walk up at Greenham Common in the afternoon.  Apparently there had been some pictures on the internet showing the Millenium Falcon and a couple of X-Wings parked up by the missile silo's as they are currently filming the new Star Wars films up there.

You couldn't really see anything though, a load of blue screens had been hung up on the fences blocking the view in.

It was a nice walk though, we loved doing skimmers over some of the ponds.

Monday

I had good things to report from school, i'd had a much better day and was really feeling that things are back on track now.

I found out that I am in Craven house at school, the same as Ned!

Poor Ellis, Craven are rubbish, we never win the house competitions.

After school dance club was cool, we got to work in the same group (with all the other year 6 boys).

Yeah, we did a chinese themed hand dance thing, was pretty cool too.

We both did homework after tea without too much complaining, a remarkable occurence!

Tuesday

The last day of the holidays was finally upon us.

As is now traditional, Dad had the day off with us.

We hatched a plan to hit the Freespace BMX track and skatepark.

This shot was taken prior to me getting a bit over confident and pulling a wall of death style move right near the top.  It ended pretty badly when I stalled and found myself heading down at a pretty quick rate, headed right for a puddle.  I got pretty wet and the handlebars rammed me in the stomach.  Ouch.

I kept it low on the scooter and managed to stay upright.

The BMX track was in a pretty poor state sadly.

It used to be brilliant, gently downhill from top to bottom with nice big berms.

But now it was pretty overgrown and the surface had been worn away leaving quite a rocky track.

It was a lot more suited to my mountain bike.

I wasn't so keen on Ned's old BMX, it's pretty twitchy and hard to ride at the best of times:

We decided Knightwood, just up the road would be a much better bet:

And the sun came out:

I decide to give photography a go:

As well as riding a few more laps:

I gave Dad a good thrashing of course:

I did a few laps of the pump track without a helmet or gloves, to feel the breeze:

Dad wasn't happy with me for that one, but it's only what he used to do when he was my age!

I was soon kitted back up again for the big track though, it's a lot faster on there:

We rode ourselves pretty much to a standstill:

And spotted the biggest thistle we had ever seen:

Our tummies were telling us it was time for lunch, so while Dad was packing the bikes away we played on the park for a bit before heading for the Asda cafe.

Pepperoni pizza and chips for me.

Massive ham and cheese panini with a side salad for me, perfect!

Followed by a bit of choloate fudge cake that was so big I couldn't manage it all.

And a lovely slighty more fancy than normal chocolate eclair for me:

So once lunch was done and dusted we had to decide what to do for the rest of the day.
Time was getting on so our options were a bit limited but we settled on going back to the park in Marlborough.
Yeah, the one with the really high monkey bars that defeated us a couple of years back.
We nailed it this time round though, after a few false starts and complaints of slippery hands.
The rest of the park is good fun over there too, it was a nice way to while away a late summer afternoon before we made a stop at the garage on the way home for an ice cream.
I still had gymnastics to go to, but as i've gone up to the year three timings I didn't have to go until 5:15.  So that was good, even though we did go straight there from our day trip.  I was pleased to see a few of my friends had also moved up as well as Abi who already goes to the later class.
When we got home the realisation hit that we were back to school tomorrow and hadn't learnt any of our 20 spellings over the holidays.
Speak for yourself, Ii'd learned at least half of mine.
But my policy of leaving it to the last minute really didn't sit well with me now, there were tears....

Wednesday

Back to school day then.

Yep, me into year six, my last year at John Rankin.

And me up to year three, my first year in Juniors, complete with proper shirt and tie combo:

We got eased back in pretty nicely, my new teacher Mrs Buxey seems really nice, she was very impressed with my history knowledge.

And I have Miss Stubbs.  Our main topic of the day was the ancient Egyptians which was brilliant as I already knew a bit about that from Ned!

But what was most cool was being able to see each other at playtimes and that.  We really enjoyed it.  I even gave her a little cuddle when the bell rang and we had to go back to class.

So after a tiring first day back it would have been nice to have a quiet evening and maybe an early night.

No chance, it was Team Kennet.  We're on to the last few weeks of outside training now but the weather has been lovely.  All Sunny evenings with beautiful sunsets over the common, very pleasant indeed.

Thursday/Friday

Not sure what really happened at the end of last week, it's all a bit of a blur of back to school and sleepy evenings really.

We have been really enjoying Robson Green's Extreme Fishing programme of an evening though.

Saturday

Mary Berry was siging books in Mum's shop!

How very exciting.

We took a bike ride into town to see if we could get one.

We bumped into Slim and Trace and Den and Gail having a natter near the market place, so an impromptu family gathering of sorts.  

Yeah, was nice to see them all.

Then we saw the queue outside Mum's shop, it was massive, we decided not to bother waiting.

So went into the shop to see if we could catch a glimpse, this is as close as we could get:

It was lunchtime, we were hungry and I thought i'd chance my arm by suggesting Pizza Express for lunch.....and recieved universal agreement!

Yeah, nice one Ned.

Lovely lovely garlic dough balls and an enquiry about the possibility of having a make your own pizza birthday party for me there next year.

We made our way home and somehow managed to get the grown ups to sort us out an afternoon with Marny and Kimi.

Yeah, I went round theirs to play Skylanders and Minecraft.

And Marny came to us for some arts and crafts stuff:

A bit of mucking about in the pop up tent in the garden and a trip to the park.
We ended up all round theres for tea and a game of hide and seek.
And cat bothering, they have three cats.  This became quite apparent by my red puffy eyes and struggle to breathe...oh dear.

Sunday
We awoke pretty late, the picnic was already in the bag, Legoland day! 
Once we'd had our breakfast we set off, but we didn't get there until midday really.
Luckily though, the place was deserted!
Yeah, there were no real queues for anything so we filled our boots and went on stuff over and over again.
As well as a few things we hadn't been on for years.
But what I really wanted to do was play in the water park.
It was a nice sunny and warm day so why not?

It was great fun, sliding, splashing and all that, but snuggling?  That was even better!

We got dried off and changed, despite being terrorised by the spiders in the changing rooms and carried on around the park until closing time.
And I also got to have a photo with none other than Emmet:

There wasn't even any traffic to contend with coming home, how lovely.

Monday
Well the start of our first full week back.
Which meant clubs are starting up again.
Yeah, so now we both go to the same same Dance class session after school.
Which makes it much harder for Dad to watch us both at the same time, in opposite corners of the hall.
We went for a walk after tea, just down the park.
I managed to climb up the park sign for the first time ever.
And we really enjoyed seeing large groups of birds flying over in well smart V shaped patterns.


backtoschool14 from Part Time on Vimeo.

Tuesday

A day with Auntie Christine and Darcey.

We all know that means a trip to 4 Kingdoms

Not that we're complaining, we love it.

Us girls had face paints:

And it was also pirate day, which meant I got to sword fight a pirate:

It was gymnastics day as well, Dad came to pick us up.

But I managed to avoid it and stayed with Darcey and Auntie Christine until well after it had finished, what a result.

Gymnastics was good though, hardly anyone there again which meant we got plenty of coaching.

Wednesday

We had a rather quiet day with Auntie Christine today.

Which suited us just fine.

We went out for a little walk and a bit of blackberry picking, which is something i'm really in to at the moment:

I also did a bit of drawing and colouring.

And I enjoyed playing with the set of giant dominoes she'd just aquired form somewhere.

We also had to be guinea pigs for a different cake recipe she'd tried out.

Oh, what hardship!  I thought it was very nice, even if the general consensus wasn't as favourable.

So Dad comes to collect us, and we get a trip to the dentist!
He really knows how to entertain us kids in the holidays doesn't he?
It was okay though, the dentist said that I had very clean, nice teeth.
But I had to brush mine a little more carefully apparently.
We had half an hour to kill in town, so decided a soon-back-to-school haircut was a good idea!
We still love haircut time.
I nattered away to the lady doing mine the whole time I was sat there.
And the lady cutting mine stopped halfway through and turned to Dad to tell him how beautiful she thought I was!
It was a very quick pitstop for tea before heading off to Team Kennet.
No Abi this week, which was a shame.
It was the last of the badge week competitions too.
Sadly, I was in the team that came second AGAIN!  So, still no badge for me.

Thursday

Mum had the day off today, so we could have a bit of a lie in and what have you.

Although I got a knock on the door, it was Ali, he was giving Mrs Watkins' dog a walk and wanted to know if I wanted to go with him.  Seemed like a good idea.  It was hilarious watching him trying to keep hold of the somewhat urgent dog at times.

We picked Dad up from work at lunchtime and made our way to Bournemouth to check out the air festival.

Well, you say Bournemouth, we actually ended up in Southbourne, quite a way from Bournemouth.  The plan was to catch the land train into Bournemouth, which seemed like a good idea.

Except the land train wasn't running because of the air festival.

So we set about walking.  It was a very, very long way.

We made it as far as Boscombe pier in time for the red arrows display.

We set out the blanket and cracked out the Digestives to take in the show:

It was utterly brilliant, completely captivating.

I played in the sand mostly, although the heart they drew in the sky was pretty good.

We carried on our epic stroll and as we got closer to Bournemouth there were more and more things going on.

Like a load of fairground rides that we weren't allowed a go on.

And then even better a load of (free) army stuff that we were!

There was a well cool boat with two massive engines in it:

There was a Royal Engineers section where you could have a go at metal detecting in the sand.  I found all of mine:

But I missed one, so could have been blown up if it was a mine:

There was also a section for the Royal Artillery.  They had loads of cool tanks that you could get in, the best one was an anti aircraft gun thingy, it had a turret that you put your head up into, it span round and had built in binoculars that you could see miles and miles through.  No doubt very useful for seeing distant aircraft to shoot at.

There was a battle of Britain fly past as well.

A lancaster, a Hurricane and a Spitfire too.  The Spitfire sounded really epic looping and diving during it's solo display.

So four and a half miles or so later we reached Bournemouth.

But it was getting pretty late so we thought we had to head back ro the car really.

We decided a bus would be a good idea, but the road we found with bus stops on it was closed. 

Because of the air show!

So we had to walk further inland until we found a bus driver to ask, he pointed us in the right direction and we were soon on the bus, heading back in the vague direction of the car.

We got off at what the driver assured us was as close as we were going to get to our car and started walking.

It was another long old stroll it has to be said.

But eventually we made it back.

We'd done very well, walked a hell of a long way with very little whingeing at all.

Tired and hungry we headed for home....

Stopping off at a Harvester for something to refuel us.

Turned out to be a good call, it was very quick, pretty cheap (which pleased Mum) and pretty nice food too.

We had a right old laugh sat around the table, probably because we were so delirious from all our walking.

I think my face sums our mood up quite well here:

Friday

Today we were lucky enough to have a day out with Laura and Darcey.

We were so excited.

We went to the Butterfly place near Swindon, Studley Grange Farm.

We loved it, even though it did take ages for me to tempt a butterfly to land on me:

I had no such trouble, in fact I could hardly move for butterflies:

They loved me:

And we all loved the baby meerkats.

One of which ended up actually in the food bowl.

We loved the cafe, you could see the butterflies.

And we loved the ice creams, and Darcey of course:

Saturday

Well we were in no hurry to get up this morning. 

The lure of a swimming trip to the Oasis got us moving though, we hadn't been to the pool for ages.

It wasn't even that busy there either, which was a result.

As we were late going, it made lunch quite a late affair.

But we're pretty adaptable.

We had an afternoon trip to Sainsburys for a slush puppie in the afternoon:

Then it was home again, I was pretty keen to watch the new series of the X Factor.

None of the rest of us were.....

Sunday

We were up bright and early on Sunday morning for a bike race Dad had found out about.

This was a cross country mountainbike race, so a new one for all of us.

The race was in Checkendon, sort of Between Reading and Oxford so it took a while to get there.

When we got there Mum signed us opin while Dad sorted our bikes out.

We got given our race numbers and had time for a little practice ride.

Our inexperience showed though and Dad sent us off around the adults three mile loop by mistake for a little warm up ride.

Which might have been okay if our races weren't due to start in 10 minutes!

A course marshall spotted is though after Mum spoke to the race controller, he guided us back to the start area just in time.

Yeah, so I lined up for my first ever bike race, puffed out and with no idea where the track I would be racing actually went or what it was like.

I was seriously impressed Ellis.

I managed the first lap of three, but quite honestly I found it all a bit much so decided i'd stop there.

I was up next, there were some serious looking competitors, club logo racing kits and clip in pedals:

We were doing four laps and although the course wasn't that difficult the first lap was ridden at a pretty high pace.  I managed a mid pack fourth place which I was very pleased with.

We both really enjoyed ourselves and our keen to have another go next month, I might even try to finish the race next time:

Even better than the bike riding though was this massive hammock that was slung between a couple of trees:

It was brilliant fun, swinging back and forth and trying to climb to the top.

We had a picnic out in the field, surrounded by lovely trees and enjoying the sunshine.

We played Logo Billionaire when we got home, I got accused of witchcraft when I cut the cards three times in a row for Mum, and the first one was a 'Bust' card.  I think she thought I was cheating somehow.

Anyway, while all that was going on I stormed in for the win!

Monday:

Our last day with Auntie Christine and Darcey of the summer holidays.

With the added bonus of Auntie Trish along too, awesome.

So then, Four Kingdoms?  Bit rude not to really I think.

We had a great time of course, not withstanding melting my coat using it to gain extra speed on the bumpy slide...oops.

Dad looked up when my gymnastics class would be on now i'm going into year 3, he found a picture of me on the club website:

Fame on the KD Gymnastics website!

I was very pleased indeed about this as you can imagine!!!