Tuesday
Chaz was ona big night out so Mum and I went to feed her cat Chester. He was a fluffy little chap who enjoyed a bit of a game along with his evening meal.
Friday
Last day of term....yay.
We had a Football Tournament after school with three other schools. We didn't do that well really, getting beaten twice and a draw in the last game (where we played much better).
Saturday
Early start and off to Ebbsfleet international station, not as much fuss and bother as an airport and a free table football game overlooking the railway platform, great way to start our holiday:
We took our seats on the Eurostar to Paris, we even got a table to sit around which was a right result:
We sped across the conutryside before everything suddenly went dark as we entered the tunnel itself. It was a bit disappointng that it wasn't see through though.....
It didn't take long until we arrived in Central Paris on a lovely sunny morning. We sucessfully negotiated our way across the metro system (which interestingly ran on proper rubber tyres like a car) and popped up nice and near to our accomodation. We stumbled across a nice little park and decided to stop for picnic lunch:
Accomodation was easily located and we dropped our bags off and carried on towards this little known landmark:
Which had this cool carousel with weird wheeled horses on it:
And some pennyfarthings and unicycles next to it:
To help get our bearings,we took a river cruise up the Seine, sat on the top deck in the sunshine:
It was really good and we went all the way through Paris,picking up bits of the guided tour commentary as we went all the way past Notre Damn before turning round and maimg the return leg.
Once that was finished it was time to get into our accomodation for real. It was really cool and in a good location, a couple of streets back from the main thoroughfare so nice and quiet but still close enough to all the action and a very tempting looking selection of bakeries.
We aquainted ourselves with the place (see video tour at the bottom) and took a bit of a rest.
We hadn't taken any games with us, which was a bit of an oversight really (not as bad as only taking one phine charger though) so we took advantage of the game of Paris Pairs that was in the place already:
It was really good, covering all the landmarks and arcgitecture. Ned waltzed down from upstairs and gave us all a good whooping though.
It had been a reasonably long day so bedtime beckoned...
Sunday
So today we thought we'd take in a few of the main Paris sights.....we headed towards the Arc du Triomphe, stumbling across this rather splendid vantage point of that tower again.
It was a good place to secure a great deal on five mini tower keyrings (in a choice of attractive colours) for the bargain price of 1 euro.
We carried on towards our first target, made our way under the underpass and popped in the middle of the worlds biggest roundabout.
It was pretty cool though, we sat with a picnic watching Paris go by at about 90 miles an hour accompanied by frequent blasts of car horns. It was strangely calming though:
We wandered up the Champs-elysees, which was quite a jaunt actually.
There were a few high end shops along the way:
And an H and M to stock up on Halloween jewellery for me.
There was also a cool Adidas shop that had a basketball court and football pitch inside.
Next on our walk tour, the Place De La Concorde:
Before taking a rest in the Jardin des Tuileries, we enjoyed the sculptures even though some of them were a bit weird and we certainly appreciated the sunloungers arranged around a lake...how very civilised:
We made a brief refuelling stop.....Ned was declined his attempted order though:
Then we continued onward, over the bridge to the Ile De La Cite:
Where we eventually reached our end point for the day, Notre Dame Cathedral:
We went inside, and being a Sunday evening there was a service in full swing. There was a mist of incense hanging in the air and the powerful strains of the organ music conjured up quite an atmosphere. We made a contribution to 'roof fund' and I got to light a tea light which I loved (I love fire). It was all very calming and pleasant.
That was enough for one day, so it was time to head back.....the nearest metro station didn't have a ticket machine and we couldn't get in. Mum consulted the map and it appeared all the nearby ones were the same....so we walked.
All the way back.
Mum tried to lift our spirits by proclaiming 'at least it's not raining'
Of course within seconds it was belting it down.
We did get to enjoy the tower's illuminations on the hour though, very impressive too.
We got back to our apartment where I revived myself with a hot bath and a mug of hot chocolate.
Monday
So today was the big one, the Eiffel Tower. We'd admired it from almost every angle over the last couple of days so we were keen to make our ascent.
We had pre-booked tickets so got to waltz past a fair bit of queuing. Just being underneath it was cool, all the metalwork and it's repeating patterns was quite mesmerising actually.
Ned and I were keen to climb the stairs as far as we could go...Dad didn't take much convincing either. Mum went along with it, because she's good like that!
The ticket inspectors at the bottom of the stairs were a little bemused by our intention as we had full on lift tickets from bottom to top but wished us good luck.
It wasn't too bad though, and it gave us a real appreciation for the amount of work involved in this structure.
We took in the view from the first floor, it was already impressively high. There was also this rather cool glass floor section with direct views to the ground below:
After a bit of a breather we carried on to the second floor, a good chunk higher than the first. We enjoyed the views and the information boards before finally giving in and heading for the very top by lift (you aren't allowed to use the stairs, the spoilsports)
The lifts were very efficient at getting us up top (after a bit of wait to get in one) and we were soon at the top, taking it all in:
It was brilliant, if a bit cold and blowy. We stayed up for quite a while, surveying the city and picking out all the places we'd been over the last couple of days.
We headed down and back to our apartment for a nice relaxing lunch before heading out to the Louvre for the afternoon.
The big attraction being the Mona Lisa, which is the most famous painting in the world apparently...although no one really seems to know why?
Anyway, we found her, she was bigger than we thought she would be and actually it was pretty cool.
We wandered around some more, took in some more culture (Venus Di Milo is apparently a thing too?) although the highlight for us was the basement section where you could see the moat and footings of the original castle on the site:
We made a quick visit to the Egyptian section, where I had to correct Mum and Dad's identification of an ancient incense burner (that was in actual fact a paint pallet) and then made our way back.....for more Paris pairs game action.
Tuesday
We took a trip out of the city today, to the palace of Versailles. On a double decker train no less, obviously we sat up top and enjoyed watching Paris roll by the windows getting slowly more rural as we went.
It wasn't a very long journey and we disembarked and followed the hordes towards the palace.
There was a bit of queue going on, what with the coaches unloading thousands and thousands of Japanese tour groups. We dcided to take onthe gardens first, they were pretty nice as it goes. We walked, we talked, we consumed our illicit picnic.
There were a few highlights, this fountainshow set to music being one of them:
This sculpture being another, which we thought was beautiful shiny marble, until closer inspection revealed it was actually made of ice!
So yeah, pretty nice after the hustle and bustle of the city.
We made it inside the palace itself. It was just like an old stately home in all honesty, not especially fancy really, although the hall of mirrors was pretty good:
They certainly had skimped on the gold paint!
We headed back to the city to clear up our supplies and pack our things up......
Wednesday
As today we were on the move, not going home, but to Disneylad.
A quick trip on the metro followed by a proper train:
We arrived at the park at lunchtime pretty much, we made our way to our hotel and checked in, our room was already made up so we took our bags straight there, watched the worlds most annoying woman on the disney channel and ate our picnic.
Refuelled and rested up we hit the Studios Park, we went onthe new Ratatouille ride which was brilliant and really clever. We also went on the Dizzy Dog, the Cars ride thingy, the Tower of Terror (which I bailed out of in the queue last time) and Rock and Rollercoaster before taking in the stunt show which we loved.
A dip in the hotel pool was a good idea and a lot of fun on the slide with Ned.
Evening buffet meal in the hotel, very agreeable, Ned tried to get his moneysworth on the pudding front alone:
Then it was back into the Disnelyland park for the fireworks and lightshow. It was pretty good but I got a bit peeved off that I couldn't see everything, partly because i'm too short, but mostly because so many people were holding flipping phones up in the air!
Mickey waved us goodnight at the end of another pretty epic day:
Thursday
We didn't get up particulalry early and once we had taken an extensive breakfast in the hotel we made our way into the main park. First on the list......Autopia:
Massively noisy fun and a lot of bumping.....despite the no bumping rule!
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur to be honest, but I enjoyed the swiss family robinson treehouse:
None of us rated the Indiana Jones rollercoater, despite it's loop.
The pirates of the caribbean ride was a firm favourite among us all:
And it seemed to be something of a time machine, taking us back a few years allowing us to really enjoy the maze:
Before we got all grown up again taking on space mountain, which Mum and Dad were very dismissive of, saying it wasn't much cop.
Well that was wrong, it was brilliant:
Brilliant launch system, loops, corkscrews and all in the dark too, punctuated with star wars lasers and all the rest of it.
It was of course right next to Autopia....so another go was called for:
Another time-machine moment when the daily parade went past....it was fantastic and very inventive:
Back to the hotel for another assault on the buffet...lovely.
Then back to the park for a ride on big thunder mountain in the dark:
Another contender for favourite ride at the park. It was so cool to dip down under the lake before popping back up at the peak in the middle for a really long ride in the dark.
We took advantage of the less busy park to get a good few rides in (it's Small World being particularly worthy of a mention), managing yet one more trip on Autopia.....which we finished just as the fireworks ended, making for a very busy trip back to the hotel......
Friday
Our last day, so yet again, we weren't particularly quick in getting up and we certainly were not going to rush breakfast.
We had one major score to settle....Crush's Coaster.
Having traumatised both Ned and I on our previous visits we were all keen to enjoy it as a family. The only problem was the lengthy queue time....it actually went quite quickly though.
We savoured every moment of it though, it was really rather good and nothing like as scary as we remembered it!
There wasn't really anything else to go on so we thought we may as well make our way back to the Hotel for a swim. We hadn't really read the tickets though, our pool access ended when we checked out of the hotel at 11:30 according to the rules....Dad did a good blag with the reception desk (unaware of the restrictions) and they let us in for 40 minutes only. Well, within 10 minutes there was a shift change so we figured the new lifeguards would have no idea who we were so we stayed in for ages.
And then enjoyed the sauna and steam rooms for a good stint too.
A McDonalds before boarding the (delayed) train to Lille, again with a nice four seats around a table seat allocation before a hasty transfer to our connecting train back to Ebbsfleet. Nicely punctuated with a bit of excitement where Ned left our case in the security area whilst gathering up his stuff post scan. He and Dad managed to just reclaim it in time before the rather unsettled looking security chaps radio'd it in for a controlled explosion.
We were rather late home to bed......
Saturday
......which was fine for a lie in as it was only Dads birthday.
He'd already had his new bike as a present so it was cool to give him my home made card, and a massive box of wine gums as well as few more boring and far less edible treats.
We reasoned that we ought to make him a Cake really, but in all honesty we couldn't really be bothered. He virtually demanded Ned and I get in the kitchen by late afternoon. After a rocky start we got on very well and produced a top quality chocolate cake.
Auntie Trish came to look after us in the evening so Mum and Dad could go out for a bit of a birthday curry outing. Still being in holiday mode and the fact that the clocks were changing that night meant that a late night was certainly a good idea.
Sunday
My school friend Max had a big old Halloween party today, I got my outfit sorted:
Monday
Back to school today.....as always it's nice to be off, but it's nice to have a catch up too!
Tuesday
Athletics club is still running after school, Mum had a good old chat with coach Cheryl, hopefully she put in a good word for me regarding the upcoming sportshall competition.
Wednesday
I pestered dad to set me up a Youtube account. I like playing about with camera's and have beeninspired by Leo's channel. So i've been doing a bit of filming here and there, tinkering with the tripod and the laptop. I've not uploade anything yet, i'm still working on it. I shall be sure to post a link on here once i've uploadd something.
Thursday
Class assembly today, about or Maya topic. I had a panic last night that I hadn't learned my lines.....but I had and delivered them perfectly.
There was a meeting afterwards for the grown ups about the SATS that rapidly approaching.
Friday
We got our Sats revision books,which we are all actually very excited about for some reason.
Football after school was a lot of fun this week, which was really good as i've been a bit put off lately. I scored another brilliant goal as well.
School fireworks night, my last one as well, the family are not happy about that at all as we really love it. It's brilliant every year and this one was no exception of course. We got there nice and early and enjoyed the warmth of the fire before clearing off to the adventure playground with my friends. Luca was in top form, hitting the floor everytime there was a firework bang.
Saturday
Bit of a slow start today.
We did have evening activities lined up though with a trip to the racecourse fireworks with Dad's side of the family.
We met up at Auntie Christines, poor old Darcey wasn't very well so she stayed home with Laura. We walked down with the Aunties, Uncle Den and Jo, but when we got there the queue for tickets was immense. Luckily Mum had got ours in advance.......so we could go straight in. The others decided it was too long a queue to wait so went back home...oh no.
We madethe best of it, I managed to convince Dad to come on the fun house with me, he loved it almost as much as I did!
The fireworks themselves were pretty good but general consensus seemed to be that we preferred the school display last night.... Once we got back to Auntie Christines Darcey had recovered and the food was ready. They all seemed to be over the disappointment of missing out on the display and we had a right old laugh.
Sunday
In a very uncharacteristic turn of events I did all my homework inthe morning.....
We went swimming today, took Andy with us to Hampton Open Air Pool....the pool was lovely and warm with steam rising off it and evrything. Your head got a bit cold if you kept it up out of the water for too long and getting out to dive in was a very brave move indeed.
Monday
Sats revision carried on after tea, i'm still pretty keen.
I changed my school bag over, from my not very cool yet practical Smiggle bag to my much cooler but much less practical Hype bag. One good thing to come from this, I found my house vice captain badge that I lost within days of winning it.
Paris 2017 from Part Time on Vimeo.
