Tuesday

The rescheduled Netball trials took place this week, I enjoyed it, we did mostly throwing and catching rather than full games this time.  It was a quick turn around to get me off to gymnastics in time.  At lwast there was a nice big hearty roast dinner ready for me when I got home.

Wednesday

It was raining like mad so we decided to give Team Kennet a miss.  We stayed at home and played Wii party instead, well, I say play Wii party, it was merely the excuse to allow is to argue like crazy, and fight and issue abuse to each other.

Friday

So to temper any end of week excitement I was forced to go along to a flipping rugby tournament that Ned was playing in.  I really did not want to go, not at all.  Having said that, it was a much better in the spring warmth than the more usual rugby weather of cold, howling wind with rain.

They did well actually, and came second!  There were also hotdogs on offer that were surprisingly good.

Saturday

Lilly Yeoman was having her birthday party at the ceramic painting place today.  I picked a princess to paint which raised a few eyebrows.  It was however, the best thing to paint, plenty of oppurtunity for colour variation over something like a horse thats all one colour.  I really went to town on it a d cant wait to see it fired.  We had a jolly good feed and got the biggest party bags ever¡

Mum, Dad and Ned came to pick me up and we headed straight to Reading for a spot of shopping.  It took sges to find somewhere to park which was a bit of a pain, but apparently par for the course in Reading.

We actually quite enjoyed ourselves, comedy glasses anyone?:

We all got a little something to top up our summer wardrobes before heading home, too late for roller skating sadly.

Sunday

Up early and off  , how exciting.  I couldnt wait to go on Dragons Fury again, especially as Dad missed it ladt time.  The weather was certainky better than last time!

We kicked things off on the Vampire, then made our way through Bubbleworks (probably our favourite),working our way around the surprisingly quiet park:

It was brilliant going on Dragons Fury with all of us, Mum and Dad sat the same side which certainly made for a spinnier ride!  It was brilliant.

I also went on the cobra for the first time and loved that too.  I tried really hard to be 140cm tall for the Rameses Revenge but came up a little bit short.....gutted.  I really want to go on that with the boys.  We rckon if we come back in October i'll be okay....

We went on the dodgems, the chair-o-planes and the laser shooter ride which was also surprisngly good fun.

Of course we stayed until closing time before heading home.  Stopping off at fleet services for a McDonalds and enjoying the foitbridge over the M3, we got a couple of waves from the cars speeding below.

Monday

I found out that i'd made the school netball squad, yay!  So thats Tuesday after schools taken care of for the foreseeable future.  It i going to be a tight schedule with gymnastics though.....

I did sone rather tense maths homework with Mum.  We don't see eye to eye about this subject really and I need to get some serious focus together to bother to so anything!

Tuesday

Netball trials were cancelled this week due to heavy rain.  Shame, I was quite up for it.  I went back to Sashas straight after scool to play before going to gymnastics.

We've made up after our minor disagreement so thats good.

Wednesday

In a recurring theme, Team kennet was cancelled due to rain as well as netball yesterday.  Summer is here!   Did rain a lot though....the playground was completely flooded at one point.

Thursday

Well the rain eased enough for us to participate in a six a side girls football tournament up at the rugby club:

We were in high spirits, despite me having to go in goal for the first game, not a position ive played before, having said that we haven't really done much practice at all:

I managed to keep a clean sheet for the first game as we drew 0-0.

That was to be the theme of our tournament, we drew a further three games 0-0 and eventually lost our last game 4-1.  So we hadnt done enough to qualify for the semi finals sadly.  

When I got home the garage had been re-roofed, the timber they used smelt lovely, going in there smelt like a giant rabbbit hutch!

Friday

I got home from school to smell my favourite meal cooking, yes we having ribs for tea!

A full rack, with corn on the cob and potato wedges...lovely.

We went down the park after tea dor some athletics training but had to abandon that due to some squabbling issues between Ned and I.  Oh dear.

Saturday

I was a late recruit to the quad kids team, despite not having attended any of the training sessions the Innov-8 coaches put me forward.  Everyone at home was really pleased as Ned has a long history of particiating in this event.  So theres four events, standing long jump, 400 metre run, 50 metre sprint and the vortex throw.

We started off with the standing longjump.  I put in a decent effort on this one, its certainly one of my favoured events.  Next up was my 400 metre run, my least favourite event.  Our team made a pact to not allow ourselves to come last.  I was delighted to come comfortably mid pack in my heat:

Next up was the sprint, which I normally struggle to make a good start on.  This time though I was away like a bullet and finished my heat in second place, I was very pleased with that.

Leaving the final event, the vortex, my favourite.  The feedback from Mum and Dad wasnt that positive for my throwing efforts....I thought i'd done okay though, and they couldn't see properly from where they were watching from.

We had a great day, the weather was perfect as well for once as we normally get at least a bit of rain.  There was a bit of time to kill as the results were collated:

Our school didn't win any of the overall prizes or individuals for that matter.  I have since found out though that I finished 15th overall (out of 120), and even better, I won the girls vortex throw overall.  I am so mega pleased about this.

In the evening we made a trip out to the Craven Arms with Alan and Nate.  Now Nates getting a bit bigger he can have a go on the swings:

And drink Capri Sun's:

We even got to take him home with us afterwards to watch the Eurovision song contest (which was pretty rubbish):

Sunday

We walked up to Park House late morning, there was a rynning event on and a few school bits and bobs too.  Ned couldnt get enough of the sumo wrestling set up:

He was pretty good actually.

I favoured the bouncy slide/castle/obstacle course:

And the archery was pretty good too:

The highlight of the day was the Dog Show though.  Talia was showing her dog, Rolo so that was an added bonus. There were various categories, including best trick and best six legs (meaning the owner and the dog trotting across rhe ring in unison). The best trick was a dog that howled along to its owner playing a harmonica.  And the six legs category provided the most comedic moment when Talia unintentionally dragged her other dog across the ring by its lead as it was having a lie down to enjoy the sunshine!

We had a burger from the barbecue and then an ice cream from the van.....a double cornet too!  

We walked back home, had a quiet afternoon, played Wii party and had a crack at some homework.

Monday

It was today that the Quad Kids results were posted, so that induced high levels of excitement as i've already mentioned.  I got two lots of words to remember for our class assembly on Friday so thats good.  And also found my school shoes (they had been missing for about a week) and about 58 drinks bottles i'd lost over the last couple of weeks (one of which was Ned's so thats calmed him down a bit).

Tuesday

In light of recent selection for the school football team, we took a trip to the sports shop after gymnastics.....I needed some football boots.  Great, another excuse for yet more footwear! 

Wednesday

I'm not a morning sort of person, sometimes, well it's a real struggle:

I had perked up enough by the time I got home form school to get my new boots on and go for some football practice down the park.  Ned came along too and was actually a really good coach and we didn't even end up having a fight!  I even had enough energy to put in a decent effort at Team Kennet in the evening too, it's a good job I keep something back in the mornings I reckon.

Thursday

More football practice down the park after school, this time though a load of the lads from my class were playing so I joined in with them instead.

Friday

Mum had seen an advert for a free dance show taking place in the market place so we rtook a walk in to town on a reasonably nice evening to see what was going on.  It all looked rather promising it has to be said, there was a carousel set up in the middle with benches all set up around it so we got a seat and waited for the forst of the acts to start.  It was a juggling act and it wasn't anywhere near where we had sat!  Having made the effort to go and have a look we were a little bit on the disappointed side with the act.  We were hoping the Dance performance was going to be better..It was, I loved it!  The show was called Carousel, it featured some amazing dancing and acrobatics as wll as a scary witch character.  I was really into it and danced all the way home....
Street theatre dance show

Saturday

We were up reasonably early for another of Ned's driving lessons at the showground.
In the adjoining field were a load of lorries parked up to let a load of racing pigeons go.  I was seriously intrigued by this and when one of the smaller lorries let their pigeons go it looked amazing as hundreds of them flew off, their wings catching the sun as they banked and weave before setting off for their home.
We watched Ned pull away again very expertly and then he sort of disappeared off into the far reaches of the road system at the show ground.
We had a kick about on the field (I had taken my boots of course) and before any time at all he was back!!!  Apparently he got up to 4th gear this time so was mighty pleased with himself.

We went home, got the bikes out and rode into town for lunch with Nate, Alan, Hayley, Anne and Mike.  Anne seems to have recovered from her horse riding incident so thats good.  We went to the 'Spoons so that was a good start to things, we still love it in there!
Once we'd done lunch we went for a wander around town with Nate, Alan and Hayley before deciding on going back to our house for a game of Yeti, a play with Nate (who took a few steps unaided) and some tea.
We rounded the day off watching Britains Got Talent.  Brilliant. 

Sunday

We woke up to a hot and sunny summers day!  Ned and I started off by cracking out the waterpistols for a waterfight and after a bit of uncalled for grumpiness from Dad the waterslide came out too, brilliant, we loooove the waterslide (video clip at end of post).
we decided a picnic at the river in Hungerford was a good idea, sadly so did a few other people so we couldn't get our usual spot on the far bank.

We went for a good old explore paddle:

Here I am in full Bear Grylls mode:

We stayed until just before the shops shut so we could get ice lollies on the way home.

We're starting on Greek mythology at school so I spent the evening starting on my Minotaur homework.

Sunny mid May 2016 from Part Time on Vimeo.

Tuesday

Weird weather day, sunshine, rain and epic hail:

I couldn't resist going out in it before I went off to gymnastics.

Wednesday

At least the hail had stopped today, a good thing seeing as Team Kennet is outside for the summer.

It was cold though....really cold.

Thursday

I got picked for the school team for an upcoming football tournament, im so excited!

It was baking night at home, I made some of my signature cheese and ham straws and made mum a couple of jam tarts.  Ned did a chocolate cake when he finally bothered to come home from school.

Friday

With a long weekend looming, it was only right and proper that we packed  up and set off for Cornwall. The car got loaded up, we had tea and then got on the road, I was so excited.

We got as far as Exeter before I needed a 'comfort break' so that was pretty good going. We weren't that late getting there really.....although I really do not enjoy the journey.  The ends certainly justifies the means though.  We were soon tucked up in bed, listening to the sound of the waves crashing in the distance.

Saturday

We had a reasonable lie in then took a leisurley breakfast, we slip into Cornwall mode very easily.  We ventured down to Gary's shop for some supplies, some jokes and to check out the surf.  The waves were better than the jokes, so we suited up and got in the sea.  Ned had his new board so I got to use his old one which is better than my falling apart one.

It was lovely too, sunny and everything, there should be a video attached at some point. Getting changed afterwards was a real pleasure, so much so that we got the blanket out on the grass and did some basking:

We certainly enjoyed the sunshine in the afternoon:

So a pretty perfect Cornwall day rounded off with some Camel Cup and Britains Got Talent on telly.

Sunday

Andy had arrived overnight, so that was a most welcome addition.  He'd bought some pretty grim weather with him though...it was grey and very wet.  In light of this we had a cooked breakfast and waited to see if things would brighten up.....they didn't.  We had a game of Camel Cup, tucked into the home baking and waited some more.....still grey and wet!

There was supposed to be the English national surfing championships at Watetgate Bay so we got in the car and went to have a look.  There wasn't much doing, with the greyness and drizzle we would have been surprised if the judges could have actually seen anything.  The boys decided to go for a surf, the mad fools.  We waited for them to get changed in the rainy car park before going for a wander around the shops there and then out onto the deserted beach:

It was pretty wet it has to be said.  In fact, I reckon we were wetter than the surfers when they came back.  Watching them get changed in the car park didn't look much fun thats for sure...

We headed back to the van to dry out and warm up.

We played a couple of games of sevens which 'The Shadow' won (Dad, what an embarrassment he is) before moving on to Mum's new game Yeti (very good).

Monday

Bit gloomy first thing but we had a visit to Padstow lined up to see the May Day event, a parade of the Obby Oss.  It sounded pretty weird to me, a bloke in a horse outfit prancing around the narrow streets?  We parked up and walked into town, it looked noticeably different to normal as there was loads and loads of bunting, flags and tree branches attached to all the buildings and across the streets:

We made our way into the town centre and it was getting busier and busier.  Then we could hear some music and some singing....we'd found the Blue Oss!

It was swirling and prancing about, wafting his skirt around.....weird!

Everyone seemed to love it though.  It wandered off through the town, accompanied by its band of drummers and accordian players and we made our way to the maypole:

It looked really lovely all decked out with the spring flowers.

Ned got on the internet and found out that the Red Oss was due to appear at 11:00, outside the Golden Lion Inn so we headed there.  There was already a pretty sizeable crown gathering outside and we hung about for a bit until 11.  First off loads of accordian players came out of the pub, there were loads of them and they lined the streets before being joined by the drummers and the singing began in earnest.  There was quite a lot of people by this point and there was a bit of a mild crush going on which i wasn't that keen on.  I left Ned right next to the deafening accordian players and went back to the safety of Mum and Dad.  They hoisted me up and I got to see the Oss do his thing as he emerged from the pub.  He soon pranced off up the street and the crowds started to dissolve.

I really wasn't sure what to make of it all!

We headed back to camp and the others decided they would go in the sea.  Id din't much fancy ot so went over to see Andy's Mum and Dad.  I did some drawing, ate some crisps and then Connie arrived so that was epic!

We went to the Youth Hostel for lunch as the sun broke through.

Just as we were finishing we spotted the rest of the Shepherd family wandering past with Connie on her walk.....so we tagged along and wandered over to Constantine Bay with them.  It was a lovely afternoon, Connie loved jumping into the rock pool to fetch her ball and as usual we had a questions (us) and answers (John) session with John:

We hung it out as long as we could but we couldn't deny it was time to pack up and go home.....but there was just time to play one last game of Yeti....

And heres the hastily cobbled together video, Ned did the slo-mo Obby Oss bit, it doesn't seem to like it very much with the weird coloured bars going on?

Cornwall may 2016 from Part Time on Vimeo.

Tuesday

Feeling very creative at the moment, here we have a Blu-Tac mermaid I rustled up before school:

Wednesday

We did cross country in PE at school, which is a shame for a couple of reasons...one I dont like it and two it made my ankles and feet hurt before Team Kennet in the evening.  I'm loving it at the moment as Eloise is there every week.  We gave her a lift home so her Mum didn't have to stay up there, Mum and Dad dont mind hanging about seemingly?

Friday

Had Sasha round for tea after school, her mum said she doesn't usually eat much but she certainly put it away!  We made some perfume concoctions, fussed my soft toy collection and just enjoyed hanging out before film night at school.
We got dressed up for it of course:

We may have overdone it a little with the body glitter.....and used it in my hair....quite a lot of it.  I was certainly sparkly!!!
The film was Hotel Transylvannia 2, brilliant, I hadn't seen it!

Saturday

We rode into town to get a few bits (Ned bought himself a selfie stick that i'm very jealous of).  We had lunch by the canal before riding home again.  My bike riding is coming on really nicely now, i'm a lot less wobbly and more confident in traffic.
I had to pack my stuff for Sasha's, it was her birthday party (cake decorating at her house) and then I was staying for a sleepover.  I also took my roller skates as we were going to try and fit that in too. The party was really good, we made lots of lovely cakes and had a great time.  We did manage roller skating too which was good.  The sleepover was really good too, we were asleep by 11 which is apparently quite early for such an event.  We both do like our sleep though....

Sunday

We had Bacon sandwiches for breakfast.....lovely!  Then it was back home as Sasha's brother was at a restaurant rugby tournament.

I had a very pleasant surprise when I got home as everyone had decided to go to Hollycombe Steam Fair and drag Nate and Alan along.

I bagsied sitting next to Nate in the car, best journey ever....he's so fun at the moment.

We had a picnic when we arrived, the donkeys in the field were very interested in it:

They desperatley wanted to tuck into the picnic, but when they couldnt reach that, they tried to eat Alans coat!  Nate loved them but did insist on trying to poke his finger up their nostrils.

Once inside we took him on the carousel:

Which he loved, until the organ music starting booming out!

Mum and I went on the Razzle Dazzle, its still brutal but really fun.

He loved waving at me and Alan and Mum and Ned on the big wheel:

Dad was relieved he didnt have to go on it anyway.

Ned almost got himself stuck on the childrens roundabout:

We had a go on the swing boats, and for the first time ever I was actually tall enough to go on the bigger grownup ones.  Ned and I went together at first, so obviously we argued like hell.  We decided to swap around with Mum joining Ned and I went in with Dad.  We were soon so high we were scraping the nearby tree tops.

Ned thenhad a go with Alan and almost went into orbit!

We had to take the little man on the train of course:

After that it was in to the cafe for a hot chocolate (it was a really cold day) and then home.

Ned sat next to Nate who promptly fell asleep....as did I!

Monday

Back to school after a packed weekend.

We took Ned kayaking again and headed off down the park again.  We got dressed in more appropriate clothing this week as it was pretty cold.  Ned certainly looked a bit chilly when we saw him, he was soaked and had quite obviously been right in the canal!

Tuesday

Ned's birthday celebrations stared a day early with a trip to Pizza Hut.  Sadly Anne had a horse riding fall and was in a lot of pain so she couldnt make it.  Nate did though, along with Alan and Hayley of course:

We really enjoyed it, Ned shared a cookie dough with Hayley and was well pleased as she didnt each of it as Mum usually does when they share one:

I loved taking Nate for a walk around the salad bar.  It was quite a late night in the end.

Wednesday

So today was Neds actual birthday, 12 years old!

He was up early for a present and a cuddle up with Mum and Dad in bed before Dad went to work.

He wasn't exactly thrilled that for the first time ever he had to go to school.  The Easter holidays have been really early this year which has rather ruined it for him.

I think he had a pretty good day at school all the same but couldn't wait to get home and get on with the main event, his presents!

He had some genuinely good stuff too, especially the Now 93 cd I want to borrow.

Dad and I sloped off to add the finishing touches to his birthday cake, well, I say cake but we decided against a cake this year.  His baking is so good it would be like making Mary Berry a birthday cake.  We stuck to what we know best, a chocolate brownie cut into 12 pieces floated on a mxture of whipped cream, ice cream, crushed oreo's, maltesers and chocolate sauce...

Once we'd made ourselves feel quite sick we thought a trip to the pub was an appropriate way to celebrate a 12 year olds birthday.  To be fair we wanted to have a kick about with Neds new champions league football but it rained so hard we had to take refuge indoors. We had a game of pool:

And a game of darts:

Thursday

Well we've been making the most of the start of the light evenings by going down the park after tea.  Mum and I played with the velcro ball catcher hand attachment thingys.  We loved it but Ned had to get us involved in his football.  Obviously we weren't up to his Premier League standards so that didn't end well.

Friday

Ned went off to one of his mates for a sleepover so we had a most pleasant evening.  We walked up to the Sainsbury's for some Tic Tacs while Dad's homemade lasagne bubbled away in the oven.  I thought id give it another go for tea and it was actually pretty nice.....

Saturday

We had a lazy one today.  Didn't get out of bed that early and then after lunch we went for a walk around The Chase.  Ned had come home from his sleep over but spent the entire day asleep on the sofa, no doubt sleeping off the affects of the £30 midnight feast binge.

The chase was very muddy indeed, 

I was safer taking the high ground:

It was a lovely walk:

We had to wake sleeping beauty up to go roller skating.

We picked Abi up and took her with is this week and met up with Kimi and Marney when we got there.  As usual I got put into a really hard race, in with Ned this time....at least he won.

Sunday

A day trip to London.  We left quite early and got parked up (for free on a Sunday which appealed to Ned).  We got on the underground and headed east.  Our destination was Westminster, so of course the pavements were rammed with tourists taking pictures of Big Ben, having said that it did look rather good in the morning sunshine.

We made our way over the bridge to the Sea Life centre aquarium, a freebie on our Merlin passes.

It was really good too, the glass floor over the sharks on the way in was epic but the highlight had to be the octopus talk and feeding.  It was so cool, we never knew an octopus was so playful and clever.

The rays were great fun as they always are:

And the shark tank really was impressive.

We had a picnic for lunch and debated our afternoon activities.

We settled on the Shrek Adventure, right next to the aquarium and again, covered by the Merlin passes.  It was a weird one for sure, a bit of a pantomime almost, with proper actors filling the roles.  We ended up as a group on an adventure with a story linked between lots of rooms and characters. The highlights were the 4d bus ride which was utterly superb, the maze of mirrors and the surprise in the dungeon.

There were plenty of photo oppurtunities once we'd saved the day and escaped:

And even photo with the main man himself:

We loved it, were absolutely captivated by it and thought it was really clever.

We caught the underground back to the car, I love the underground.  You could see from one end of the train all the way through the carriages to the other end.  The join between carriages was really cool in the way it moved and if you looked out if the window in the dark bits you could see big old sparks lighting up the underside of the trains:

We were home in plenty of time to watch Britains Got Talent on catchup.

Monday
Back to school then, only just in Ned's case as he left it very late ndeed to get up.

We had a check up at the dentist after school, so some proper good brushing required before we left.

Everything was in good order though so thats a relief.

We had a quick turnaround to get tea eaten and get Ned back to the Waterside centre in time for his kayaking course.  We just about made it and went down to Victoria Park for a bit before going back to the canal to see how he was getting on.  He did okay actually but it looked hard work going back upstream.  

The best bit was when he fell in to the canal trying to get out of his boat!

And in a very timely manner, here's the Cornwall video:

Cornwall Easter 16 from Part Time on Vimeo.

Tuesday

Mum off with us today as the holidays continue.  We didnt have the car though as it was in having its broken spring repaired.  We didn't get up to much.

Wednesday

Mum was off working from home, so we got to veg out in front of the telly without getting aany hassle at all.  

Auntie Christine took pity on us and took us to the cinema to see Zotopolis.  We loved it, it was brilliant.

Afterwards we went and did a little bit of shopping for Mum's birthday, Ned was a bit difficult to please as he didn't agree with many of our ideas......

Thursday

Mums birthday had arrived.  We gave her cards early on but had to wait until after work to give her the presents.

We spent the day at dragon club.  Tom was back so that was good.  We did loads of cool stuff, the best being making Oreo milkshakes in the blender with proper ice cream.

Once we were home we gave Mum her gifts, she loved them all of course.  Then we put the candles in her cake (not as many as she actually should have done):

The it was off to the Hatchet for a very good value meal...lovely stuff.

Friday

Another day at Dragon club, cool!

More milkshake making too.  Mum and Dad arrived far too early than we'd have liked to collect us so we sent them off down the town to kill some time.

Saturday

We had a trip out with the Halfords today, to Monkey world.  It poured it down as we arrived in the carpark which wasnt the best of starts to the day.

It soon stopped though and we had a great day put:

With plenty of laughs, and digestive biscuits:

The Lemurs were brilliant, once they actually showed up:

We had a few orher visitors going by referring to them as Llama's on purpose....lol

It wasn't the camping trip that we had hoped for (due to the weather) but it was a lot of fun!

We had a visit from Nate (and Hayley and Alan) in the evening to give mum her birthday stuff.  Nate was on great form, plenty of crawling around and his seemngly favourite trick of flopping down face first onto a pillow.

Sunday

It was a Nothing much day today, that suits us fine now and again.

Monday

Bit of an out of character excursion for us today, Chessington with Mum as we had an inset day, and fresh new Merlin passes.

We had a great day even though it did tip it down pretty much all day.  We went on plenty of rides, the highlight being me going othe Dragons Fury, one I thought was way too scary last time we went.  I loved it and would go on it again no problem.  It's a shame i'm stilljust a bit too short for Rameses Revenge....