Tuesday

Play rehearsals have ramped up a notch, we had to do it in front of year five.  As dad pointed out there was no pont being nervous in front of them as we'd be doing it front of the whole school and then the parents soon enough.  With that sort of perspective on the matter I threw myself into it and really enjoyed myself.

It was watching week at gymnastics, shame I was doing floor drills again like last time.

Wednesday

Big news today, Mum had got herself a job.

And it looks very much like she'll be home in time to still pick us up from school, perfect!

It was also a big day on the sporting front, the Team Kennet club championships.

I was pretty nervous about it really, my first proper competition and all that.

I wasn't, although my 40 metre target in the vortex to secure a trip to Pizza Hut was playing on my mind.

We were doing a sprint, a middle distance run, long jump and of course Vortex throwing.

I was in the under nines.

And I was in the under thirteens.

We got there really early so set up on the grass bank at then end for a lovely picnic before signing in and attaching our numbers to our shirts.

We got into our groups and it was much like an ordinary week really and I really started to enjoy myself.

Me too, I had Ali and my other mates with me so it was good fun.

Dad took a few wafty pictures, but to be fair to him it is pretty difficult to get a good shot because of the layout of the track and the infield.

There were some better ones on the Team Kennet facebook page though:

So the results then.

I did pretty well, 4th in long jump and 2nd in the vortex.  A couple of average results on the running races put me in 6th overall, not too shabby.

I smashed my main target for the evening with a pretty epic 43.9 metre vortex throw.  I was so chuffed even though it was only good enough for second place in my caregory.  I too had fairly average runs and a long jump, but just like Ellis I claimed a sixth place overall.

Panda loved it too:

Thursday

Darcey had a visit to our school ahead of her starting in September and decided she would come and pay us a visit after tea.

Dad and I were just about to leave for a night on the bikes at Tidworth. I really fancied staying and playing....but the lure of the woods were too strong.

Never mind Ned, us girls had a lovely time, I hope she drops in more often once she starts school. We even got the cars out:

Tidworth was brilliant again. I'm loving it, and riding faster and jumping further every time I go.  I drew quite lot of glances from others up there as I flew down the track.

Friday

As if the club championships weren't enough this week it was school sports day!

And with Mum off, she could come for the whole thing.

My last one at junior school and it was business as usual with our house Craven, coming well and truly last.  I'm quite used to this by now.

I'm not, I didn't like it one bit.

Still, the events were a good mixed bag, netball shooting:

Full commitment standing long jump:

Obstacle course race:

A sweet victory in the hurdles:

Vortex throwing:

I enjoyed the netball shooting more than Ellis, bagging 14 of our teams 16 goals:

The parents event was an egg and spoon this year.

Mrs Watkins was on a mission to banish cheating too.

I got all my gang to cheer Mum on, we were very, very vocal:

She did okay as well, coming second or third or thereabouts.

As if that wasn't enough sport for one day the quadkids team spent all afternoon practicing for the upcoming regional compeition.  Then I went off to Roberts for tea and some football before going on to Louise's birthday disco......pretty tiring day then.

So we were Ned free for the evening, hot dogs for tea then a trip to my favourite shop, Pets At Home.  Where we saw Abi and Faye fetting Faye's birthday present.....a hamster!  I want one sooooooo bad.

Saturday

We had a bike ride planned, the Two Tunnels Greenway route down in Bath.

The highlight of the route (on a a disused railway line) was two tunnels, one of which was over a mile long!

We set off full of excitement....

.....welll, I was a bit more dubious in all honesty.

We passed through the first tunnel, it was pretty cool.

It was certainly pretty dark, although there was decent lighting in there.

It was a good warm up for the main event still to come.

It was a lovely day and we soon found somewhere nice for a picnic stop:

Just outside the long tunnel entrance:

Once we were refreshed we headed into the gloom:

It was brilliant, lovely smooth tarmac, just enough light to see who was coming the other way and a great oppurtunity to get the head down and spin a big gear.

There were lights playing short snatches of classical music half way along which were proper smart and also distracted you from just how coldit had got in there!

Yeah, it was freezing.

It kept going and going and going until we finally saw the light up ahead:

We burst out into the sunshine and it felt so hot outside it was like getting off the plane in Spain or something.

We carried on, over a high viaduct where things took a turn for the worse, Dads saddle bolt snapped.  

Oops, we stifled giggles as he tried to fix it with a temporary repair,in the process ruining his shorts with oil and grease.

Oh dear.

We carried on the trail until we got to the pub, where the silly man decided to wrap himself up in brambles, shredding the back of his ankle.  This also had the side affect of shoving his bike sufficiently strongly to once again dislodge his saddle.  He was not happy.

We locked the bikes up, found a nice table in the sunshine and had a lovely cold drink while dad tended to his wound.

Time for the return leg then, we knew what we in for this time so made sure we donned pur cardies before entering the long tunnel:

We had spotted a park on the way down so stopped there for a good old play before we made it back to the car to finish our trip, with poor old Dad standing up the whole way.

We had a bit of a slouch about at home until everyone was sufficiently hungry to claim my reward for the vortex throw, a trip to Pizza Hut:

It was well lush.
And I got a free, additional pizza as they bought me a ham one when we ordered pepperoni, thats tomorrows breakfast sorted then!

Sunday

Mum had booked us tickets for the Cinema for the morning, to see the film Home that we'd wanted to see for a while.
So we were a bit disappointed when the film started that it was in actual fact Two by Two instead.
Dad went to find out what was going on, turns out there were technical difficulties with Home so we got this instead.  Nice of them to tell us in advance?
Anyway, the film was good and we really rather enjoyed it.
I had a haircut afterwards.
And I crusied the Kennet Centre on my Heely's as I didn't fancy a haircut.
We spent the rest of the day in a homework nightmare, as usual we have been putting it off until the last minute.

In the evening it was the last ever episode of Top Gear, I loved it but was pretty sad it won't be on anymore....although the repeats on Dave will go on for all eternity i'm sure.

Monday

We're having international week at school.
To kick things off we were allowed to wear our holiday clothes to school.
 Which caused widespread panic as we weren't 100% certain that it was actually today and we might actually have to wear uniform after all.

We had a one off Quad kids practice after school, just for the team of year 5 and 6's that are going to the regional competion next week.  Mr Gilham has set us all the target of beating our scores from the last competition so we were out working hard at achieving that.  We were measuring and timing and everything.  There was still time to lark about with the girls though.....
After tea we went to Donnington castle for a bit of a walk and to see if the rope swings were still there.
Rubbish, I didn't want to go, booooooring.  I got accused of being a teenager.
He soon changed his tune though, a game of hide and seek and then a go on the swing changed his tune.
Yeah, it was pretty cool actually....

Tuesday
Well Gymnastics was a bit of an anti climax this week.  We were supposed to be doing the second part of our badge award.  We all got told that we weren't good enough for the grade we were going for so there was no point doing it.  It's the first time I think I think i've ever not passed a badge.....

Wednesday

We saw something truly epic on a tv show called 'All over the place' on CBBC before school. It's a museum in France that has a massive mechanical elephant.

It walks along and squirts water out of his trunk.

And best of all, you can ride along in him! We've started lobbying hard to go there and check it out.

Thursday
Rehearsals are continuing for the school play, I think it's going okay still.  We did some more read throughs at home after school before I tagged along with Dad for an evening bike ride at Tidworth Freeride.  It's pretty much my favourite bike riding place at the moment even if i'm still not keen on the massive and frankly unrideable root sections.  The bottom half of one of the tracks is a real treat though, drops berms and jumps aplenty.

While they were gone Mum and I had a trip to the park:

And did a few creative bits and bobs ahead of fathers day on Sunday.

We didn't het home until after nine, the evenings are so long at this time of year, it wasn't dark, even under the trees.

Friday
Bit of trouble at school today, involving another girl I seem to have an occasional 'difference of opinion' with.  The details are pretty murky and I don't want to talk about it much, but I had to visit Mrs. Watkins a number of times and have recieved a red card. Oh dear.

In the evening we had a trip to the Craven Arms, I wasn't looking forward to it that much as I knew the grown ups would just sit about being boring while I wanted to play football.
But we did have a very special guest, Nate:

He seemed to find me really funny!
In the end there were loads of kids over there, some I knew from school so we had a good old kickabout in the end, I needn't have worried!
 
Saturday
I had a lunchtime party for Charlotte's birthday, which put paid to any day-long activities.
So we had a lazy morning and I accompanied dad on a trip to Waitrose for a few bits.
The party was brilliant, we had pizza, ice creams and traditional games (I won some shopkins in a game of pass the parcel).
In the afternoon we rode to the city playground for some athletics practice.
I wanted some extra practice throwing the vortex.
So I gave her a few pointers...
....and I made good progress!  We also did some running.
And I nearly died of hayfever.....do not like!
We also finally made a return to roller skating, we haven't been for ages so I got to use my new bag for the first time.
It was great fun, there didn't seem to be many there this week.  Teagan and Lola were there though and we had a great time larking about.

Sunday
Fathers day, I was very excited to present my home made card and selection of artworks i'd produced for the occasion.
And I was quite keen to give him his presents so we could make a start on the wine gums, although I did find a really good card this year, based on toilet humour!
After a bit of discussion we decided on a trip to Legoland rather than a bike ride.
Well, it's not like we were supposed to do things Dad liked was it?
He loves Legoland, and anyway, we wanted to wear our Heely's and glide about the place.
Add to that the new Lego Friends bit now being open and we were well keen.
The new friends bit only really comprised a bit of re-theming and one new ride, Stephanies Riding school:

It was a pretty weird ride, you sat on a horse and then the restraint came up behind you with a reasonable amount of pressure, I was used to it as there's one similar at Paultons.

I hated it, I think it hit me when I had breathed out so was quite a squash when I tried to breath in again.  I wanted off, which took a while....

Dad and I stayed put, it was brilliant.  Even better was that there was hardly anyone around so we had another go.....and another go!

Dad talked me into having another try, and guess what?  It was a brilliant and I loved it!

There was also a new F\riends themed show, it was quite clear pretty much straight away that they were not going to be diving into the water at any point.

It was a singing and dancing sort of thing, it wasn't up to much really. 

We went on a few forgotten classics:

And then while we were waiting to get on the dragon rollercoaster, it broke down.
Which was a shame.
But by way of compensation we got given a queue jump ticket for any ride in the park.
Universal consensus was the boating school, famed for it's lengthy wait.
It was brilliant swanning up to the front of the queue in the Qbot entrance and then just hopping on while everyone else looked on, admiringly.
The boats themselves were carnage from Dad and I's boat, I took steering duties and decided to pull a series of doughnuts in the more open section out out the back, away from the glare of the ride operators.  We managed to make a good few other vessels swerve and take evasive action and then got caught in point blank range of the water squirting elephant.
Mum and I were waiting for them so long we thought they had sunk!

Monday
In a hasty arrangement I got Robert  round for tea.
So it was a good job I had after school dance to stay out of their way for a bit.
After we'd eaten we headed down the park, Dad had bought a 50 metre tape measure so he could actually measure my vortex throws as a trainign aid for the upcoming team Kennet club championships and my 40 metre pizza hut target.  I maxed out at about 37 metres, so I was still a little way short....
I had a standing long jump session under Mum's guidance and went from an average of 1 metre or so, to just over 1.50 metres consistently.

Tuesday

Finally i've got my three three times table award, it's taken a while but i've finally done it.

In other school related news Mum came in as a reading buddy today, how exciting.  She was pretty good at it by all accounts even though i'm not sure how many kids she got through as she was too interested in hearing what happened at the end of the stories or asking extra questions about the characters.

We had a fun event scheduled, MathOlympics.  Dad thought it sounded great fun....not. Turns out he was right, it wasn't that enjoyable...unless you llike being barked at by a rather abrupt maths teacher from St Barts.

It was badge week at gymnastics, now i'm working my way up the awards they are getting a bit tougher.  This week I think we started 'Gold Apparatus' but we have to finish off the assessment next week..... 

Wednesday
After school football ended in disaster.  Turns out Mr Gilham gets as hacked off with sone of the players attitudes as I do, he ended the session with a lecture and told us that that was it....no more football club this term!  I was pretty disappointed but I can completely understand why he did it.

When I got home my Heely's had arrived, I was super excited.  I had scoured the internet for a pair and chanced across a some that were reduced to half price, I do love a bargain.  I couldn't wait to get them on and start rolling.  Turns out Ellis had made it look easier than it actually was.  Having said that i'd got the hang of them by the time tea was ready.....albeit with a little less skin on my knees than when I had started off.

I went out to join him and we both flew along the pavements near school looking pretty damn graceful.

We had to take them of for Team Kennet sadly.....

Thursday

Mum came to school to do reading again, this time with Mr Percy's class.  I wish she could read with me! She says I can do that at home whenever I want, but come on, it's obviously not the same is it?

I went school uniform shopping after school, for Park House stuff.  Thought we'd beat the rush and all that.  First thing to do was try on a blazer.

It made him look like an old man!

Then it was a jumper, rugby shirt, polo shirt, shorts and sports socks.  All the sports stuff could be printed with initials too, on the outside in big white letters not just inside on the name tag, how cool is that?

Almost as cool as rolling around the super smooth marble floor of the Kennet Centre on our Heely's.

Yeah, while we were waiting for the initials to be printed we crossed the road for some serious gliding.

Bit of a split after tea, with Dad and I heading to the woods with our bikes.

While Mum and I took a walk to Wash Common park:

The woods were okay, but I prefer Tidworth or anywhere with proper, marked up official tracks.

Friday

Practice for our play moved onto learning the songs today. It went pretty well I think.

We had a game of Donkey and the Carrot after tea, still one of my favourites.

I gave it a miss and had a total geek out on the computer.  I even managed to win a game of Age of Empires!

Saturday

Quad kids today, my last one and I was quite looking forward to it.

I wasn't really, another long day hanging about.  Having said that there were loads of peolpe there I knew to hang out with.  We also dropped in on Uncle Den for a flying visit as he lives opposite.

As usual with Quad Kids the weather wasn't as good as you might hope for in June.  So it was a bit wet which affected the sport.  There were plenty of participants slipping over in the sprint.  The Vortex throwing was conducted without a run up and the standing long jump had it's fair share of slipping and falling. In spite of all this I did okay, even managing to win my 75 metre sprint heat.  We managed a third place team finish for year 5 and 6, not bad....but not quite good enough to win a place at the regional finals:

In the evening we paid a visit to Max and Leo's.

Hartley was brilliant fun, always up for a game.

And their new pool was great fun too, if a bit cold.

I took one graceful leap over the side to immerse myself.

Whereas I went for the more gradual approach.

We had a great night with plenty of laughs...

And we stayed very late!

Sunday

So we weren't in any real hurry to get out of bed this morning.

We did have a deadline of sorts as Anne and Mike were coming round for lunch.

It was nice to see them.

And then we had a visit from Nate too.

He's still seriously cute.

It was only a flying visit though as we had my birthday party to go to.

We had Auntie Trish and Andy along to help which was brilliant.

It was at the gymnastics club again, so an hour of bouncing, rolling and springing, all resulting in us getting very pink faces:

As well as a session being pushed round in the doughnut of course:

I certainly enjoyed it.

And I did too on the whole, except for what must have been the loudest rendition of happy birthday the world had ever heard!

I certainly enjoyed going through my sack load of presents at home:

I've got some very generous friends who seem to know me very well.

So thanks to them and thanks to Andy and Trish for helping out, it was lovely of you both, especially as you had the most important job of fetching the massive McDonalds order!

Monday

So with quad kids done and dusted I had no after school club on a monday night for the first time I can ever remember. News did filter back regarding the Quad Kids event though....it turns out I had done a lot better than I thought.  Upon examination of the final results sheet, I came 13th overall, not bad for all the year 5 & 6 school kids in West Berkshire.  The highlight result was probably my third place in the standing long jump although I was well up there with the throwing and the sprinting too. We also found out that we had actually qualified for a place representing West Berkshire at the summer school games regional competition.  Another day off hopefully.

I had dance after school, we danced to Reet Petite wnd got to chose our own partners to work with. I paired up with Lola and we loved it!

Tuesday

A good day on the sporting front, i've been picked for the Quadkids tournament again this year, and I was also awarded player of the day at tag Rugby club after school.  The Quad Kids thing was a bit of a relief as we were told places were in short supply this year.

I had tomorrows birthday announced at Gymnastics which was really cool.  On the way out I noticed the shop was selling club leotards in a new colour.....PURPLE!  I tried every sort of plea and beg I could muster but it was all to no avail....
While she was at gymnastics, we were involved in a not so secret mission.......
When I came home, tea was well under way, the pizza smelt especially good this week I commented.......
Yeah, thats because it was actually your birthday cake!  Once she had gone to bed we set about decorating it, Panda style:

Wednesday

Finally it was my birthday, 8 years old!  A rarity that it was on a school day as it usually falls during half term.  Which threw up a new problem, presents.  I wanted them as soon as I woke up, while Dad was still here before work, but with Ned asleep we knew he wouldn't be happy.  I didn't want to wait until after school and wait for Ned, especially as he had football club, that would be like hours and hours!  So we settled on a sort of compromise and I had a couple first thing.  One of which was my long, long wished for Heely's!
I got my 'I am 8' badge on and headed for school.  It was viola day and our teacher played me a lovely version of happy birthday too.

Football club was really annoying again.  Eveyone thinks they are the referee and any ssort of fair play goes out of the window as it degenerates into a popularity contest and little more than mob rule.....grrrrrrr!

I set about learning to Heely, they were really weird to begin with but after a while I was getting reasonably comfortable with them.  Mum took me down to the school where we could make the most of the lovely fresh, smooth tarmac in the new playground.  Thius helped no end and I was soon zooming along.
Once Ned was back from football I started on the rest of the presents:

The highlight of which was my purple leotard:

Then my 'surprise' cake:

Then it was Ellis' choice for tea, despite great efforts on my part to influence her decision she decided against Pizza Hut.

In favour of The Hatchet, well, Pizza Hut don't do hot dogs do they?

Thursday

We had an internet safety assembly at school.  I thought they were going to tell us not to use our Ipads sitting on the railway track, but apparently theres weirdoes and fibbers on the internet.  The upshot was that we shouldn't put anything on the internet that we wouldn't show our Grannies.  Well, I don't have one, so for the purpose of the exercise I decided i'd use Auntie Christine as my point of reference, even though she isn't old enough of course.

We had a wheels out the front session before tea, inspired by Ellis and her Heely's.....I really want some.  I dragged out the scooter, squeezed into Ellis' skates, one of our outgrown bikes and the skateboard.

I just stuck to gliding around on my Heely's.

After tea, in light of it being such a lovely evening we took to the bikes and headed for the park at Northcroft.

We did.  We rode along the canal and couldn't believe the amount of fish we could see in the canal, just below the surface, sunning themselves.

Yeah, they were just past the 'No Fishing' signs, Dad reckons they could read!

Some of them were huge as well.

There was a cyclocross race going on and there were loads of people zooming about on bikes.  Which was cool, but their course went right through the middle of the wafty pumptrack which was a little disappointing.

It didn't affect the park, I was happy!

Friday

High excitement, not only was it Friday, it was den building day and film night at school too!

So I was pretty devastated to start feeling poorly mid-morning, before we'd even finished our den.  Off home I went.

I got put in a group with Sasha and Ellie, we never get to work together so we were overjoyed. 

In the afternoon the adults were allowed to school early to see our creations, auntie Christine and Darcey turned up and as I was feeling a little better I tagged along to see how the den's had come on.

Here I am showing Darcey ours:

And I took a look at what my group Maisie, Rebecca and Dylan had managed to come up with:

The swing was a cool addition, they had done well!
I went back home and spent the rest of the afternoon asleep on the sofa and missed film night too.  My last ever one as well I reckon?
I went, the film was Big Hero Six.  I wore my best dress and sparkly heels.  Maybe a bit overdressed, but who cares.
I did more sleeping.  By the time Ellis was finished I felt a good bit better.

Which was good news as we were supposed to be heading down to Cornwall for the weekend with Andy, I really didn't want to misss that!

Neither did I, so we left pretty late, but slept pretty much the whole way there.....

Saturday

After a decent lay in we awoke to the distant sound of crashing waves, we were back in Cornwall and I was loving it.

And I felt a lot better, not quite 100% but well enough to get out in the sunshine and enjoy a lovely walk from Trevone Bay, along the coast path to Harlyn:

Once at Harlyn we stopped for some sweets (limited edition weird flavoured Haribo, revolting) and a lounge about in the sunshine:

Before walking back again.
We had an afternoon surf session, which was epic!
Yeah, we loved it, I felt much better now.

The sea was pretty rough and all sorts of things were getting washed up.
Like a massive jellyfish, getting in the way of my skim board.
It was the size of a dustbin lid and wobbled when I prodded it with one of Andy's swim fins like a massive jelly.

In the evening we played Jungle speed.
Which I loved, we haven't played it for ages!

Sunday

Another lovely lay in.
And the morning on the beach.
A bit of surfing.
A bit of digging....
.....until Dad snapped my new, emergency replacement £2 spade spade.  Can't believe he didn't bring our proper ones.

We went ot the Youth Hostel for lunch but when they said there was a TWO HOUR wait we decided to seek alternative arrangements.
So tried the snack van in the carpark, it was lush too!
Back to the beach after that for some cricket, but with Dad and his dodgy leg and Andy with a pulled muscle the fielding left a lot to be desired.
It was great fun though and I loved running after the ball after Mum had slugged it.
Sadly we had to think about getting packed up, cleared up and on the road home again as it was school tomorrow.

Which was a real shame....I can't wait until August so we can have a whole week here.

Monday

We had our last Quad Kids practice session prior to the competition.  It went well and i'm really rather looking forward to it.
We had an auntie Trish visit after tea.  She had my birthday present.  Well, it turned out to be like a christmas stocking of birthday epicness!

There was a dead cool dog programme on later.  

We spent pretty much an hour issuing ever more high pitched ahhh's at the cute dogs they were showing.

Sunday

Holiday time once again, it's a good job they were all booked and paid for before Mum chucked her job in.

Something a bit different this time, Bournemouth Airport which was a new one for us.

Yeah, there were some year 4's we knew having breakfast in the airport.

Fortunatley they were on a different flight to us though.

We were heading for Toulon, on the Cote D'Azur and we were flying on this rather splendid purple plane:

Note the lack of jet engines!

Yeah, propellers.  We were pretty interested in them and as the plane only had two seats on each side of the aisle, getting a window seat was easy.  We watched them start up and quickly become a blur.

It was only a two hour flight, so barely even time to make a small dent in the Ipad charge.

As we started our descent to land, the sea looked beautifully inviting, I really liked the look of France.

If we thought Bournemouth airport was small, Toulon was even smaller.  Apart from a sprinkling of posh looking private jets ours was the only plane there.

And with only one baggage carousel we soon had our things and made our way to the car hire depot.  We'd booked a DS3, but I don't think we've ever got the actual make and model we'd asked for before.

I really wanted the DS3, Mum and I think they are pretty cool.  This time though, we got exactly what we booked, I was well pleased:

And once Dad managed to get all our stuff in the boot okay, so was he.

We hit the road and made our way an hour or so up the toll road (8 euros) to our campsite, just outside of a town called Frejus.

We stumbled accross the place, despite it not quite being where Dad had been lead to believe that it was.

We got checked in and best of all it was only about 3pm. 

So with the sun out and the pool open what else was there to do but get stuck in!

The pool was really cool, even if you did have to wear proper swimming trunks and not board shorts.  The slides were epic and even faster in our enforced attire.

Yeah, the pool was indeed brilliant.

Then it was a bit of an explore to see what else was on offer.

The park was rather excellent too.

Especially the un-policed bouncy castle!

We paid a visit to the on site shop to buy an arm load of pizza's for supper, so a pretty good end to the day.

Made even better when we found out that these bad boys were doing laps of the site to give you a lift from to wherever you wanted to go on site:

So, so cool.

Monday

Mum's eagle eyes had seen that there was horse riding on site in the morning.

So we decided to forego breakfast and delay our supermarket trip until after we'd had a ride.

I was well up for it:

But I was a little uneasy with the very hilly nature of the route.

I loved it of course, the hills made it even better:

Once we'd finished we headed to the massive Carrefour hypermarket just down the road.

It was indeed, huge.

We tried to get it done and out of the way as quickly as possible, of course we paid due care and attention when selecting our ice cream, crisps and biscuits.

Once we were back and had finished our lunch we got ready to go to the pool again.

Getting a ride on the very back seats of the golf buggy, the back seats were the best as they faced backwards!

I was a little disappointed that there weren't many English kids to befriend, it was very much French and German.

We chilled out for a bit colouring in one of those felt pictures, one of kittens for me.

And some Dalmations for me, which Ned chose, thanks Ned!

We went to Frejus Marina for tea, Dad had found a restaurant on Trip Advisor that he wanted to try.

Sadly, it was shut on Mondays.  We ended up in McDonalds instead, so that was a bit of a comedown for him but a right result for us.

We went back and watched what was to become our new favourite programme 24 Hours in the Past on the Ipad.

They sent some celebrities back in time to live and work as Victorians.   It looked a very grim time to live to us.

We rounded the day off playing the Donkey card game (dad lost) and a game of sevens (Dad won).

Tuesday

We had a bit of a lay in.

When we did surface it looked a little bit gloomy, so we decided to take a drive to the Gorge Du Verdon, apparently Europe's answer to the grand canyon.

It was a very twisty turny drive up to the lake and I felt sufficiently sick to get a seat up front, relegating Mum to the back.

It was worth it though, the place was pretty stunning:

The sun shone and the water was an amazing shade of blue.

We found a nice spot by the shore and devoured our picnic in the sunshine.

We made a visit to some really rather clever eco toilets which proved to be quite intriguing.

Before we kitted up and hired ourselves a pedalo to venture into the canyon itself: 

It was lovely sitting on the front, dangling our feet in the water.

I was desperate for a swim, but mum and dad managed to convince me stay dry a bit longer as we had a two hour trip:

The gorge itself was pretty amazing, with soaring rock formations, trees clinging to the sheer sides and waterfalls:

It started off sunny:

But as we rounded a corner towards the end of the permitted range for hire craft it took a decidedly gloomy turn and even started to rain a bit.

We made a u-turn around the bouy markers and hit the pedals hard to outrun the rain.

With Dad and Ned pedalling hard we managed that pretty easily and even blew away an electric motor boat and left them bobbing in our wake.

When we got nearer to the lake the lure of the water got too strong and I had to have a plunge.  But for some reason I was pretty unsure of it all now.  Dad did his best by getting in and trying to coax me in.

But we left him behind and pedalled the boat back to shore without him, leaving him to swim for it: 

We did look out for him really:

We made our way back to base, and made it in time for a pool session.

Followed by a little spot of drawing.

Then we went down to the sports courts afterwards and had a game of basketball, Dad thought he was a right pro because he could slam dunk the ball until Mum pointed out that the basket was a lot lower than on the telly.

We moved onto volleyball, and in between the seemingly endless mis-hits and bungled efforts there were very occasional flashes of near competence.

It was a right laugh either way.

We had a barbecue for tea and enjoyed some tunes from the really rather decent Ipod dock in the caravan.

Before winding down proceedings with another episode of 24 Hours in the Past.

Wednesday

One of our favourite pastimes on these holidays is lizard spotting.

We were spoiled for choice on this one, they were quite brazen, sunning themselves on our deck.

Who could blame them, the view was lovely:

We did some work on my lines for the end of year play, how cultured we must have appeared, rehearsing Shakespeare on the deck.

We took another trip out, along the coast road to Agay Plage.

It's not like home, you can park, for free, right on the road next to the beach.

So we did.

Snorkelling, a picnic (including a packet of vile peanut flavour crisps, purchased in error) and a game of ball with Dad on the scorching sand, which was so hot under foot we had to scrape the top layer of sand off.  That was great until you dropped the ball and had to leave the relative safety of your cooler spot to retrieve the ball.

It wasn't much safer for Dad out at sea playing ball with me, I wellied the ball at him when he wasn't looking and it hit him like a bullet, right in the chest.  It hit with such force the noise raised concerned looks from everyone on the beach:

We carried on, along the coast road eastwards, the scenery was lovely and the sea looked so lovely.

We stopped at a lay by to get out and have a look round, it turned out to be an old military lookout point from the second world war:

It was a good explore:

With more lovely views:

And a seemingly plentiful supply of soiled toilet roll strewn across some of the marginally more secluded paths.  This led us to assume that public toilets are not qute as common as they might be.  

An assumption seemingly confirmed when further up the road, when we had pulled off to turn around we witnessed a bloke park up his moped and head off into the undergrowth witha purposeful look about him.  

We were in hysterics, speculaing about his intentions.

Once again we were back in time for an afternoon swim:

 And this time I managed to find an English boy to befriend.  Between us we worked out how to get really fast on the longer, twisty slide that we had previously struggled with.

We rode the slides over and over and over and over again....

There was a kids disco on in the evening but depsite repeated prompts that we ought to get our stuff together and go we slugged about so long that we only made it for the last ten minutes.  Which was rather unfortunate as they seemed to have decided to finish it ten minutes early.  I wasn't happy at all, but had no one to blame but myself.

Thursday

We kicked the day off with a bit of cooked breakfast, that I devoured with gusto.

And then the big one for me, a day trip to Monaco.  As soon as we arrived we saw two McLaren P1's roaring up the road.

We drove there and found a relly cool underground multi storey to park in.

The first two floors had residents cars parked in them which included a Ferrari F40 and an F50.  Neither of which looked like they'd been out for a while either.

We stumbled upon the Royal Palace just as a crowd seemed to be gathering.  Dad reckoned that he had read somewhere that the changing of the gaurd was scheduled for 11:55, about ten minutes time.

So we took ringside seats and waited while the square slowly filled right up.

A chime on the the clock set things off and then a marching band fired up:

Their uniforms were very, very white!

It was actually pretty cool.

We carried on in the direction of the aquarium and enjoyed the back streets, finding a lovely shady bench under a tree for lunch.

The bench seemed to be sprung somehow though and it was very wobbly, like having your picnic on a small boat in a rough sea!  

Proper funny it was.

We found the aquarium in a lovely grand old building and headed in:

The first tank looked epic from the uper level.

And it looked even better from down the stairs, it was massive and full of sharks and even a super cool looking turtle:

I liked the kissy fish:

And the glow in the dark jellyfish were mesmerising:

Along with the highest concentration of crowd pleasing Nemo fish we had ever seen:

There were so many fish to see, I loved it.

There was a surprise at the end as well, a shallow tank with sharks in it that you could stroke:

Well, you could if they dedcided to come close enough anyway.

And you had to be paying attention as they seemd to notice if you were looking away and made sure they came right to the surface for a swift flick of the tail to send a large splash out of the tank and over anyone stood in the vicinity.

As part of the deal for the aquarium tickets, we also had a ticket for the open top sightseeing bus.

We had to go the first stop or two inside downstairs, but we soon made it up on to the top deck before we hit the good bit of the route, the Grand Prix track famous bits, the starting grid, the first corner and up the (very steep) hill, the tunnel, the Lowes hairpin.  It was like being in a computer game, albeit at a much reduced bus driving speed.  As the race was only the previous weekend most of the grandstands still hadn't been taken down and the painted kerbs and armco was all still clearlyu visible.

We got off at the Casino Square and took a pitstop in the park for a drink and some skittles:

I was quite taken with the place and got busy with the camera:

Then it was on to the Casino itself, to see what was parked outside:

It wasn't bad, there were Rolls Royce's, Bentley's, Maserati's, a Tesla, a load of Porsche's and a Ferrari:

But I don't think it was quite as good as Rodeo Drive last year.  Although I did have a lot of respect for whoever had parked their prestigious Kia alongside as well:

We were quite surprised to see people actually draping themselves over some of the cars to have their photographs taken, I decided there and then that I wouldn't be parking my Lambo here in the future:

 I got into it too and captured this lovely shot:

The jewellery shops in the square had some seriously shiny things in the window, none of which had any price tags on them.....

We got back on the bus and waited for a bit:

Which was a result as two Ferarri 459's took off from a side street together looking like they were going for a lap of track and then a Lambo (with english plates) passed by:

So that was a few more to tick off my list.

We completed the rest of our circuit and ended up back at the palace, the views out over the marina were cool, there were some seriously big boats down there:

But the defences left a lot be desired, I don't reckon these canon balls would be much use:

We were even allowed a euro for the telescope, which is unheard of:

We took a short while to evaluate the tut on offer in the way of souvenirs.

And both went for some rather tasteful keyrings.

We made our way back to the car park and did a little window shopping on the way:

Even the door handles are cool in Monaco:

We got back to a square near where we'd started and Mum happened to spot a Spar shop, always an eye for value we picked up a four pack of Oreo ice creams and a drink each for under 10 euro's.

And even better, the Spar had it's own tables outside so we sat there watching the world go by.

We saw plenty more fast cars go by (including a Porsche 918 spyder) and watched a rather energetic football match between a load of local kids take place.

But the best thing, in all of Monaco was what must have been the cutest dog I have ever seen.  The shape and colouring of a husky, but in tiny, miniature form.  I could have melted with the cuteness on the spot.  I simply had to go and give him a stroke.  So, in a move that was quite bold for me I walked up and asked the young girl who was with him if I could give him some fuss.  She said yes, my day was made!

We finally tracked down the car park, there were concerns about just how much it might cost us when we put the ticket in the machine.  I think there was widespread relief when it was only 15 euros.

We were back on the road, our little DS3 amongst the fancy cars of Monte Carlo.

We were next to a Lamborghine Reventon at the first toll booth on the motorway.  It looked amazing and sounded epic as it blasted away from the barrier once it had risen up (although it looked low enough to go straight underneath anyway).  We saw it again at the next toll booth, stricken at the barrier, both doors up in the air, both passengers stood around looking a bit sheepish and one of the toll operatives wandering about lookng a bit lost.

Maybe they didn't have enough money for the toll?

Our little diesel roared away, leaving them in a cloud of our dust!

Sadly we were too late back for the swimming pool, Dad blamed the keyring shopping of course.

So we settled for another episode of 24 hours in the past.

And then bed.

Friday

Another lovely lay in.

With a bit of a snuggle up too:

Some quality time with the Ipad:

And a leisurley breakfast on the deck:

We could get quite used to this lifestyle.
The sun was out, it was hot already and there didn't seem to be many people about, only one sensible thing to do....get down the pool:

Plenty of sunbeds on offer too:

After lunch we headed out to Frejus, dad had done some research and found a place called Base Nature where there were cycle paths alonng the coast and parks and what have you.  We figured we'd hire a bike each and have a pootle.
Except the hire shops were all shut.
Scratch that then.
We had a walk instead.
Paddling in the warm waters of the med.

From the end of the harbour wall we could see a big wheel round in the next bay, St Raphael.

With that in mind and the prospect of going for a swim we went back to the car and took a drive further round the coast.

The big wheel looked epic, we couldn't wait to get on, especially when we realised the pods themselves would spin round like on the tea cups:

It was so high, we could see for miles:

Even Dad loved it.....ha ha:

Next to it was another one of those double decker merry-go-rounds.  So thats two we've seen in the last couple of months.

Taking the spinning teacup ride theme and running with it, we both opted for the tea cup rather than the horses or the vehicles on offer:

Ned got it going at an amazing speed and then regretted it as he felt sick pretty much instantly.  I didn't and did nothing to try and slow it down:

We staggered off and hit the beach:

It was lovely, after i'd done some swimwear modelling Dad and I did a spot of snorkelling:

We stayed for ages, just chilling out and enjoying the sunshine.

We went back to the camsite, had something to eat and then went to the Wii just Dance evening that was on.

At least we got there on time and didn't miss it!

It was great fun and we got stuck in:

After that hot work what we really needed was an ice cream.  So it was back down to the marina in Frejus to visit one of the ice cream parlours we'd spotted:

There were over 40 flavours to choose from....quite a task for someone as indecisive as myself.

Saturday

We went into Frejus town itself in the morning.

We'd seen an old Roman Amphitheatre on our drives through and thought we'd check it out.

It was a bit rubbish really, but then we had already been to the Collosseum I suppose.

This one had been repaired in a modern way and still hosts events though so that was pretty cool.

We carried on into town, it was market day and there were loads of cool things to look at:

There were some cool old narrow streets:

Postcard style window boxes:

And then this small square with brightly painted bollards all around it:

We loved it and took thousands and thousands of pictures of them all which we'll spare you of here.

We headed back and stayed at the pool until closing time, well it was our last day and we had to make the most of it didn't we?

I also finally got the hang of the twist slide, so made the most of my new found speed.

We got friendly with a couple of German lads and raced them up and down the slides.

But no one got friendly with a little French kid who Mum dubbed 'Le Savage' He was hilarious, he must have only been 3 but seemed to think he was in charge of the slides, making weaker willed kids wait at the bottom of the steps until he was at the top, pushing in left right and charlie.
It was really funny, we ended up waiting for him to come down the slide so we could race him back up the steps with our new found German friends.  We were all way faster than him and got to the top first.
But while we were lining up to go down the slide he just ran under our legs and got straight to the front.
It was quality entertainment.
Once the pool closed it was back to the caravan for our one last episode of 24 hours in the past.
Accompanied by a delicious banquet of all the food we had left (pizza, potato smiley faces, hot dogs and salad, so pretty good really).
But there was no pudding left!!!
Sacre Bleu!
So it was a quick mercy dash down to Carrefour for an ice cream and some baugettes for tomorrows picnic.

Sunday
So sadly it was time to go home.
We had to clear up and pack up.
Well, Mum and Dad did, we just hung about really, until we got sent down the park to get out of the way.
Result.
We drove back to the airport in good time and when we dropped the car off there was another one, exactly the same in the next parking space.
Like it's very own twin!
We left the beautiful, blazing warmth of the French sunshine and came back down thorugh the clouds to be greeted by a grey, soggy and windy Bournemouth.  It looked grim.  I seriously questionned Dad as to the possibility of us just going straight back to France.
But it wasn't really viable apparently so we made our way home.

We watched the final of Ninja Warrior UK.

Bit disappointing, no one completed the course.

And then had to get on with the homework we didn't want to do before holiday.....

Monday
Back to school then, panicking that I hadn't worked on my script for the play enough.
I was all hyped up on pre birthday excitement.
We had our last Quad Kids trainign seesion after school, the weather was horrible but I gave it my all and massivley improved my PB on the middle distance run.  I hope it's enough to get me into the team thats announced tomorrow.
I got an early birthday present when Andy came round to take Mum to the quiz, it was epic, thanks Andy!