News

Well my 3 taster sessions / lessons in tennis are over. I have had great fun, now got my own raquet, and am going to carry on after the summer holidays. As it was the last lesson there was a competition for the longest rally. I didn't think I would do very well as I have only been going for 3 weeks and everyone else has been going for at least 8. However much to my amazement I won the T-shirt for the longest rally, 11 shots!

Here I am with my raquet and my winners T-shirt.

Loads in the answer. Especially if they are delivered flat packed and you can make stuff out of them.

Eco friendly too! The best bit is I can draw / decorate them any way I like.

I won my first ever race. I was in the boys under 8's sprint and won!!

I also ran in the spinning round race, and the crab race!

I came joint second with Harry Baines in the running backwards race.

The 4 legged race was a bit complicated. It all started well

Then went rapidly down hill.

I couldn't even drag my team mates over the finish line!

In the summer holidays my school is going to be demolished. We are going to move into a temporary school for a term while my new school is being built. Here are some pictures I took.

This is my kindergarden.

This is George. I think he is 13 and in the Secondary class. He is coming to the Isle of Wight Festival next year and we are going to meet up and go on the rides together.

This is Claire my teacher. She didn't want me to take a picture of her putting out the rubbish, oops!

This is the book corner.

This is the primary class. I used to go to this class on a Friday.

This is my other teacher Ali doing the washing up!

Sorry there are no pictures, the court was the furthest away from the bar (I mean seating area)! Jake enjoyed it, coming back telling us everything he did in his lesson. He was asked who his favourite tennis player was... and came up with Andy Murray. This is a real turn up, he's been going to school since he was 3 and can never remember what he did during the day!

Anyway back to the seating area, highly recommended. Very relaxing, sat outside watching the tennis with a gin and tonic!

No. I just haven't been putting it on the web site. So here is a brief summary of what has been going on over the past few months.

June

Badgers Bottom.
We had a great weekend in Somerset staying with old friends. We hadn't seen them for 13 years!! Jake had a great time with two teenage girls who made a complete fuss of him. They did a sterling job keeping him entertained. I am now considering advertising for one for the summer holidays! We had a picnic by the river, went fishing, had a boat ride, played rounders, and generally relaxed.

Isle of Wight Festival.
Our annual pilgrimage to the festival was once again blessed with fine weather. We had a great time on the beaches in the morning and at the festival in the afternoon / evenings. Jake enjoyed the music again adding Stereophonics, Razorlight, Pendulum, White Lies, Maximo Park, Simple Minds and Ultravox (to name but a few) to his ever growing list of live bands. Ultravox stole the weekend for me they were truely excellent. Jake now being 7 decided he was old enough to go on more adventurous fairground rides. Oh joy! I was subjected to roller coasters, jumping frogs, cyclone twists and various other fast spinning rides. I have another year to recover and prepare myself for the next onslaught.

May

Cornwall.
We had a week away in Cornwall. We stayed in Porthmeor, an area we had never explored before. It was beautiful. Walking, beaches, sunsets..... Oh I want to go back.

Geevor Mine. Panning for Gold.

More kittens.
Four this time. Arrived while we were in Cornwall. Not sure our neighbours are going to trust us to go away again!

April

Vegetable Garden.
Continuing with our inspiration from Jamie Oliver Jake decided to grow more of his own vegetables this year. So we lifted some of the patio and built a raised vegetable garden. We have planted: courgettes, dwarf beans, various types of lettuce and salad leaves, carrots, raddish, peas, basil, chives, corriander and parsley.

Birthday.
Jake had his 7th Birthday at Paultons park with some of his school friends. Much fun was had with Jake and Chloe enjoying all the scary rides!

Jake has been quite interested in the TV program "Who do you think you are" so we have been busy tracing his family tree. We have been looking back on Leanne's side of the family to start with and have got back as far as Jake's Great Great Great Grandparents, Jonathan (1849 - 1925) and Fanny (1847 - 1928) Gurney. We have managed to find out that Jonathan was a Rural Postman.

We decided to try and find where his Great Grandparents, Richard and Elizabeth Leggett, used to live and then see if we could find their grave.

So off we went on the train to Carpenders Park near Watford.

We stopped en route and found the street where they used to live.

After much walking (mostly in the wrong direction!) we found their grave in Carpenders Park Lawn Cemetary. We had been heading for Carpenders Park Cemetary (hence walking so far in the wrong direction).

Richard Leggett joined the Kings Royal Rifles in February 1916 and in the following year was drafted to France where he took part in many engagements including those of Arras, Vimy Ridge, Messines, Ypres, Lens, and Cambrai, and was wounded during the retreat in 1918 and invalided home. He was discharged as medically unfit for further service in May 1918 and holds the General Service and Victory medals.

After a good days hunting we all had a slap up meal at McDonalds, Leicester Square.

The day ended with a walk back to Waterloo station stopping off at Trafalgar Square.

I can't remember a time without shops. However, your Great Great Aunt Beattie used to make her own marmalade. This recipie has been handed down over the years.

So if this tastes OK there will be no prizes for guessing what you'll all be getting for Christmas this year!

No, it's tree pollen.

Is this what happened to Jake today? Two hours on a chilly beach.

Making a Ben 10 base for Wildmutt.

Then madness happens and you want to go in the sea!

Well house domination at least. Late last year Jake asked if his bedroom could be decorated. We offered to move him to a the larger bedroom, but no he liked his small one. So we decorated, in his choice of colours, dark blue! This week Jake asked if he could move into the larger bedroom! So we decorated, in his choice of colours, dark blue!

I think by the end of this year we will probably have decorated the entire house..... dark blue!

Last week after our swimming lesson we bought a pair of goggles, to help Jake when his teacher asks him to go under water. So in the bath this morning we had a practice ready for tomorrow. All went well and Jake managed to hold his breath for 15 seconds with his face underwater. The quietest he's been for ages!

"Now Daddy, all I need is nose goggles to stop the water going up my nose"!

But no this is something new... something Jake made at school... and it wasn't another space ship made from recycled boxes and toilet roll! No, it was supper, homemade, well schoolmade pizza for dinner tonight. Very nice it was too.

Oh and Dad I made this space ship too!!

I had an important part to play in Mass today, I had to carry a Chalice. Granddad did the readings, and Dad, Grandma and Ronnie brought the rest of the gifts to the front of the church. After mass we went to a Hotel for lunch.

Auntie Ronnie has come to stay with us. She is going to be Mum's sponsor tomorrow when she will be received into the Catholic Church. To celebrate we went out in the evening to an Italian restaurant.

I may have accidentally wished for more snow. Honestly I did not pray for it!

"The laws of God and Man forbid the eating of children but if I catch one of them actually praying for snow this week so help me....."

Honestly I didn't pray for snow.

I made a snow angel.

Then a snowman.

This was all because there was so much snow my school was closed.

A plea to all parents. Please stop taking your empty boxes, toilet rolls, plastic containers to school. All that happens is they are "recycled" into space ships and inventions and end up in our house!

I guess if it's out of your house and turned into something else then technically it's recycling!

We had great fun playing on the stones and throwing them in the sea. I didn't eat all my sandwiches and fed the Seagulls with the rest. I was throwing my crusts in to the air and they were catching it in mid air. The bits that landed on the ground were pinched by a pair of Wagtails. When we got home I made these two to remind me.

Obviously Jake wanted a go! We don't have any ice skates. No problem, Jake invented Ice shoeing. You just run on the ice and slide. "Come on Mum & Dad it's easy".

"Um we're OK Jake, it doesn't look as frozen as yesterday."

Absolutely cold this morning, -5 deg C. I nearly had a frozen body. The Forest was nearly all extremely white.

My first day in Primary class was exciting. I couldn't believe it. We didn't have any lessons at all in Kindy. We did science in the morning and drama in the afternoon. In science we learnt that some things are alive and some things are not. We also learnt that it is difficult to drink upside down. In drama we had great fun saying funny words. The first drama lesson was we had to hold hands in a circle and breath in and out. When you breath in the circle has to close in and I got squashed.
I am going to do Fridays in Primary class and the other two days in Kindy.

I had fun but it wasn't quite as I expected. Daddy got me there 20 minutes early and I was ready to go but had to wait. I had to go under the water blowing bubbles, that was the funniest thing I ever heard. I didn't wear my arm bands at all in my lesson. I had a floating sausage for some of it and I swam a length with no float but my teacher holding on to me.

Today we went for a walk in the New Forest. It was a bit cold. We went to Bolderwood Arboretum. Sometimes we see a few deer in the distance, but today we were in for a real treat.

We walked for about an hour but it was getting really cold.

We thought we would go to Hatchett Pond near Beaulieu. When we got there the pond was frozen. Someone had broken the ice along the edges and made a hole a bit further out for the ducks to swim.

The ducks were not the only hungry ones!

Today we went to Auntie Mary's. It was her 90th Birthday and we took her out for lunch. When we arrived to pick her up this fox was enjoying the sunshine in her front garden. While we watched a second arrived but didn't stay long enough to get a picture.

Sorry about the poor quality. Dad took it on his mobile phone from the car.