6 – 12 November
On Monday this week, we went to swimming lessons in the afternoon, as usual. We had a ‘Butterfly Stroke Day’, which everybody hates; last week we vowed to have hairdresser appointments when we heard what week it would be the next week, but of course we went. We practiced our dolphin stroke first, because butterfly is just dolphin but throwing your arms over when you need to breathe. When the lesson ended, we walked home and met Grace, Eve, and Anne there. Anne had to rush off to ballet, so Grace, Eve and I messed about chatting and keyboarding for a little while. (We’ve got a new keyboard and bench!) Then Grace had to run off to ballet as well, so Eve and I wrote a story together about a boy in the First World War. We’re still writing it and it’s taking a very long time just to plan! Then Eve also had to go to ballet because all three of them had a rehearsal, so we had a delicious dinner of vegetable Thai green curry with quinoa. We then went to Guides, where Tilly went to the kitchen to her BP and we did some activities.
Tuesday is one of the days where we don’t have any clubs, so we try to catch up on some hard-core learning. We decided to leave our Latin group. We found that we were so used to doing it by ourselves over the summer to catch up that we may as well just keep doing it by ourselves! We also didn’t really like having homework 😉 So today we did some Latin by ourselves (everyday we do Latin on a website called Memrise, but in addition to that we are working through the Cambridge Latin Course.
I haven’t really liked maths before, and I’ve never thought I was very good at it, and up until now I haven’t really done much but now Mummy got me a new online programme called Maths-Whizz where it gives you an assessment test and tells you your maths age – and guess what? I thought my Maths age would be rubbish but actually I was surprised to find that my maths age was age 12.13! And I’m 10.88! So actually I was quite pleased with myself. I also really like Maths Whizz and it’s really fun, so I’m glad now that I like
On Wednesday this week, Tilly went to nursery to volunteer 9 till 3 as usual and Mummy and I had a Mummy-and-Vinia Day. We made ‘flapjacks’ but actually Mummy left them in for longer than they were meant to be in for, and they came like a sort of tray of crisps. However, they were very delicious and cranberry-y and nutty, just a little bit crunchy. Mummy also sorted out my wardrobe and drawers, getting out all my winter things and putting away all my summer thing for next year – now I actually have a little more space to put things and I’m allowed to take things out the wardrobe by myself (I wasn’t before in case the rail fell down)! Mummy and I have also sorted out a new story we’re reading called ‘The Black Stallion’, which is really, amazingly, outstandingly, dumbfoundingly, supercallifragilisticexpiallidociasly brilliant!
On Thursday, because we’ve quit Latin class, we had a Free Day, where we Skype-video-called Grandad Mal and Nanny Trish in France! Grandad Mal is very nearly fluent in French and so we had a French lesson over Skype! We learnt some new verbs, words, and phrases. We now have some homework to do!
After lunch our friends Myrren and Jasper came round, and we went for a walk in the woods before coming back home to play ‘Catan’ for four hours! William got this game for his birthday from Grandad Mal and Nanny Trish, and as soon as he returned home from school he joined in too! It was so brilliant that even Myrren and Jasper didn’t want to go home until it had finished, even though that was two hours after they were meant to be going, and no one had any dinner! 😀 So thank you Grandad Mal and Nanny Trish, everyone in the world loves it! <3
On Friday this week, Little Matilda (or Seth and Arthur’s sister) came round in the morning for us to take to our drama club. Tilly was, sadly, feeling very ill with a sore throat and a bit of a tummy bug; so she didn’t come 🙁 I am going to write a sentence in this format for no reason. We went through the whole of Act 2 in our scripts, which was really fun! We have to have scripts down in two weeks, so we need to get some practicing done! When we got back, we dropped Matilda off and Tilly and I watched an anime which I think was called ‘Silent Voices’. It was very hard to understand and slightly greusome in some places, but I still liked it – maybe when I’m a bit older I’ll really like it!
On Saturday, we had our new Saturday drama in the morning, which Tilly could just about make – though her throat’s still very sore and she’s still a bit lergy-y! In this drama, you have three groups; Stage 1, Stage 2, and Stage 3. The age range in Stage 1 is something like 4-7, the range in Stage 2 is 8-12, and the one in Stage 3 is 13+ . In this session, we had to move buildings because the Scouts had taken over where we usually had the lesson; but this time we got a bigger, better place! Sadly our dance teacher, Tana, was poorly, so Richard, the director, Dani, our singing teacher, and Leanne, our drama teacher, made a big decision. They decided to split all the stages in half. They then took one half from Stage 1 and put it in a group with one half of Stage 2. They then got one half of Stage 2 and put it with Stage 3. They then got the other halves from each stage and put them together to create two stages of mixed groups. We did a ‘workshop’ that day.
Basically, while one Stage wrote a song with Dani, the other Stage made a sort of play-thing with Leanne. I was in a group with Bevan, Libby, Niamh and Isla from Stage 3, Sophie, Lydia, Sam, Alice and many others from Stage 2, and a few from Stage 1 whose names I didn’t know apart from Rose and Faith-Lynn. We wrote a song called ‘My Heart Will Reignite’, and made a little piece from the musical ‘Cats’. They were both really fun to do! We performed them at the end to the other group. The other group made a song called ‘I’m Free’ and did a piece from ‘The Lion King’. The chorus to their song went where the cool music was playing in the background and everyone was quiet apart from one person, who said, ‘Because I’m free,’ and then another said, ‘I’m free,’ and then another, ‘So free,’ and the music stopped and one of the people from Stage 3 said, ‘Back to reality,’ and the music resumed playing. It was really cool! Our chorus went,
But then I… saw a shining light
I know that I can win this fight
I know that I can carry on
And my heart will reignite
Which was also really cool! Our Cats and The Lion King pieces were awesome! In the afternoon Nanny came round, and we played some games, walked to the shop, and watched five-star film ‘Elf’! We also had a delicious dinner of chickpea and coconut curry!
On Sunday we had the Remembrance Parade since it was Remembrance Sunday. Tilly was so ill that unfortunately she wasn’t able to go to the parade, but I was okay and marched along with Guides. It was a little annoying because while the man was reading the names off the memorial and talking about the war, he didn’t bother to use the megaphone, so nobody could hear a thing that he said. We weren’t even sure if, when we were marching off, he’d read out the names or asked for the Two Minutes of Silence! At the end of the parade, we watched the little talk in the village hall and then walked home.
*By the way, you should be impressed, whoever-is-reading-this, because I wrote this summary almost entirely with my eyes closed – that’s how good I am at typing! And super quickly too!*