After The Tempest, we drove to Katie’s instead of ours. There we stayed the night, for which I am very grateful. Mummy and I shared a lovely big bed which was really comfortable, and in the morning, I had a tasty breakfast of fruit loaf with creamy butter, and then I played with Maisie, their dog. She’s really cute and fluffy! I must be a good dog owner because I taught her how to go to her bed when it’s not in the normal place it would be. For instance, her bed was firstly behind a chair, but I moved it into the lounge. Then I said, “Maisie, bed!” and she tottered behind the armchair to lie down – but it wasn’t there. I said, “Maisie, this way! Maisie, bed – follow me, Maisie, this way! Maisie, bed!” and she followed me into the lounge. Then she lay down in her bed.
When she was back tottering round in the kitchen again, I said to the little dog, “Maisie, bed!” and she went behind the chair once more. She came back out again when she couldn’t see it. “No, Maisie, bed! Maisie, bed!” then she just seemed to remember, and went into the lounge and obediently lay down. I immediately praised her. She ran into the kitchen, and I said, “Maisie, bed!” This time she went into the lounge. I said it again and again, and she went to the lounge; Katie’s mum said it, and she went to the lounge; Mummy, Tilly and Katie said it, and she still went to the lounge. I had officially trained the dog!
We also had a hold of Katie’s guinea pigs!
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Later that day, we went to Belton House, a big stately home and gardens.
When we went inside the house, it had loads of old, precious clocks, talk and ornate, small and simple, but all of them were to me like a thousand pounds are to you!
They had so many posh rooms, one with a huge, looming bureau with fifty-four drawers in it, to be exact! Unfortunately they had to have some very long poles to hold up the open doors, or they might have fallen off their hinges, so they need £15,000 in order to repair it! They need to be really careful though, since it is such an old and ancient artefact. I must say, I suppose somebody will hurt it somehow – maybe the doors will simply swing off, or perhaps one of the fifty-four drawers will snap and crack until it has had its time. Maybe one of those ink pots in the top drawer will be dropped, smashed, and perhaps there shall be code on it that nobody shall be able to decipher once it’s demolished… well, who knows? There was also a blue cabinet made of lapis lazuli!
In the park, there was a two-seater sea-saw. It had a water squirt thing, activated by the sea-saw! Next to it was a tiny post with a spinning circle on top with an arrow on it, and in front of that, there were three giant wooden posts, three times the size of the length of a man, and on top of that were smaller metal tubes, angled in different directions; and when you pushed the sea-saw, and turned the arrow dial, water would spurt out from these tubes and you would get soaking! It was hilariously funny. There was also a big, big tower building, where we played It and Hide and Seek, and a little hole for a mole in the tree, with his little wooden boots and wooden bookshelf! It was really fun.
We bought some really old books, too, those little ones, the sort that went in those old houses’ libraries, with no title on the front surface (at least, that’s what I can describe)! Mummy got me one – Charles Dickens: A Child’s History of England – and Tilly got The Return of Sherlock Holmes (which was newer, but still quite old) and Hereward the Wake, a really old one too. I’m not sure how old that was, or Sherlock Holmes, but mine is over 100 years old! When I’m older I’m going to have a library like the one at Belton House!
We had a picnic there, too; Chris, Katie’s mum, made us some delicious tuna bread sandwiches, and we ate them accordingly, along with some salad and crisps and drinks and loads of other scrumptious stuff.
It was really great going on the sleepover, and seeing the house as well as Isaac’s. I would definitely like to go back there again – especially Belton House. It was wonderful!
