Ruby Wedding

I am putting my feet against my head and my head against my feet in an 'O' and I can make an 'O' forwards too lying on my back putting my toes on my head. I learnt to do this at ballet in the summer. It is a good stretch and I have to point my toes. I learnt lots of new stretches and balances. Also we did some dances to Disney songs especially to "I Want To Be Like You" from The Jungle Book and "I've Got No Strings" from Pinocchio. I haven't seen Pinocchio but I have a pinocchio puppet in my room that is from Italy and I like making his arms and legs dance. I practise my stretches lots. Also I can put my toes behind my ears but I can't do it without showing my pants. Sometimes I put my toes behind my ears when I am sitting on a chair but it is easier to do lying down. Mummy cannot touch her toes very well but she can tickle mine.


Daddy and I are hiding on one another from Mummy because Mummy was taking pictures and we didn't want to have our picture taken. We kept popping our heads up to test if she was looking.
I was the best hider. We were having drinks because we had all arrived at the hotel for food before Grandma and Grandad and we had driven Great Uncle Leith there and made him join in singing songs in the car but he didn;t know all my favourite songs so we tried to teach him "There were rats, rats, big as blooming cats" whilst Daddy drove.


Grandma has just opened up her Ruby Wedding present and she likes it. I painted a picture of Grandma and Grandad dancing on a plate that Mummy gave me and Grandad has got trousers on and Grandma has got a dress on. He has got spiky hair and she has curly hair. They both have rings on their fingers and they love one another. They have their feet and hands touching because they are holding hands and holding feet. I painted a tie on Grandad and it took a long long time to dry. I painted one arm on each of them curvy like I do at ballet.


Daddy and me and Grandpa have all got our chins on our hands. We were pretending to be thoughtful so that Mummy could take our picture. We are waiting for our food near the Wrekin. The Wrekin is a mountain near Grandma and Grandad's house. I say 'Hiya Wrekin' when I see it when we are driving to their house. We were having a special lunch for Grandma and Grandad's Ruby Wedding Anniversary. Great Uncle Leith and Nanna were there too.

After the special lunch we went to a museum (typers note: It was the Blists Hill Victorian Town museum where the hotel that was used for the original reception is now a tearooms so we had afternoon tea there) where there were lots of people dressed up in old fashioned clothes. There were some strange smells and one man showed me how to use a printing machine without chopping off your fingers. He said I could be his apprentice because I like machines but I didn't want to be his apprentice so Mummy took me back to Grandma's house.

Grandma and I are watching Punch and Judy and it was really cool. We were all enjoying it, even all the children there that we didn't know. It was funny and my favourite puppets were Punch, Judy and the baby. I also liked the sausages and the crocodile beacuse Punch was trying to rescue the sausages and put his head into the crocodile and the clown pulled out him out safely.
Judy had the baby and sniffed his bottom and said 'he may be a bit smelly' and gave him to Punch to hold and they kept swapping the baby over as it needed a nappy change. She told Punch not to drop the baby down the steps and he threw the baby down the steps and said 'Walkie walkie, walkie'. We didn't get to see them fighting but we did get to see the devil. I liked the policeman too. I liked all of them except the dragon.

Punch took the stick off Judy and she told him to give it back and he didn't so she phoned for the policeman and we were supposed to call out for the policeman every time we saw Punch. But Punch hid and the policeman told us not to tease him. Judy, the policeman and the clown told us to call out when we saw him.

There were one day old piglets, they were born the day before Grandma and Grandad's anniversary. The piglets were tiny. The mummy pig smelt but the babies didn't although they were in the pigpen with the mummy.

There were chickens nearby some of which were Sussex Star chicks like my chicken Star. They were pecking at food and making nests in the pile of horse manure. Some of them had feathers over their toes. They seemed to like having homes in the dump.

We liked all the animals, even the smelly ones. I tried to stroke the ones that were loose but just watched the ones in special pens. There were some black pigs in another pen too. The chickens snuggled up in the hay.

I made Daddy go so so so low in the swing boats that he is scared of falling out but I wasn't scared at all except when my back faces the ground then I was really scared but we had ropes to hold. Then the man stoppped us as he was closing and I slid down the ropes and steps and hurt my back so Mummy and Daddy and everyone had to cheer me up whilst we ate scones and cream and jam.

I pulled on the ropes fiercely to make the swing boat swing and made Daddy slide off his seat. There wasn't time to go on the roundabout or to throw balls at coconuts. I like putting coconut in cakes.

The sunflowers at Grandma and Grandad's house were so big they were gigantic so they won the race to grow the biggest sunflower but mine now has buds by every leaf and is growing extra flowers so I win the competition for the most flowers.

So we have both won but my sunflower is still alive and theirs have died so they have lost and I am the champion. Mine has 12 flowers growing on it nad the dead head of the original flower. We are going to give the sunflower seeds to my chickens because they like eating things like that and corn on the cob. I don't like sunflower seeds but I do like corn on the cob even though it sometimes sticks in my teeth.

I took this photo of Grandma and Grandad chopping the cake up for us to eat. Nanna made the cake and used a really good red colour for the icing that made my tongue and fingers go red. It was a yummy cake. Daddy did a toast about the Wrekin and we all chinked glasses. I like saying cheers and chinking glasses with people.

I fell asleep when we were taking Great Uncle Leith home so I didn't see his Boxer dog.

New Friends and Animals

Whilst next door were on holiday we looked after their rabbits. I fed and stroked them and when they were hungry they took carrots out of my hands.

Next door have a trampoline and I bounced high on it whilst they were away. I can also bounce on Dominic's trampoline the other side.

Only Jordan is allowed to do forward rolls on the trampoline because she is bigger and stronger and has been to class. I can do forward rolls on bouncy things. At least I do forward rolls on Mummy & Daddy's bed. I like bouncing on Mummy & Daddy's bed especially in the morning to wake up Mummy.

Daddy & I went camping at a campsite a long way from home. We met some friends of Daddy's and Mummy's and their children. There were lots of children, five plus a baby. I played with the big ones, Josh, Issy and Bethan (called Beth) and there were two little ones George and Katie (she was the baby).

George got stung by a wasp and I have called one of my baby sock dolls George and the other one is called Bethan. Mummy made the baby sock dolls whilst Daddy & I were away and she gave them to me when I came home. When I first met the sock dolls I did not like Bethan at the beginning but did like George but now I like all of them even the Daddy who has blue hair.

We went to a woodland adventure playground. There was a really steep slide that made me feel sick because my tummy went ziiiiip up into my throat. I went on the slide twice. There were other slides that weren't so steep but one had a gigantic bat on the top of it, you could see the image of the bat above you as you slid down.

I was sitting up and tried to grab hold of the steep slide and I fell on my back and was spinning round and round in a circle. I went twice on a zip line because you were only allowed on two times. You sort of tipped to one side at the end so they said keep legs and hands really tight wrapped round it. At then end when it wasn't really high you could jump off and pull it to the man and say goodbye. It was sooo good fun. Soooo good fun. There were some houses and one of them we called school and zoomed in and went and had our lessons. once I was the teacher. We didn't actually like our second teacher even though she spoke in a very nice voice. We don't know what her name was.

Little people like me, not big people like Mike in this picture (Issy's Daddy) can swing on the rope bridges. There were some steps up to get to the rope bridge and you could get to it from two sides. I liked climbing on the cargo net bridge because I thought it was fun.

Mummy took this photo when I was packing for a holiday with Mummy and Daddy in a hotel and cuddled all my cuddlies that were going to go with us. We stayed one night in the hotel and Daddy fell asleep before I did.

We went to our wood after being at the hotel. All of the mums and dads talked until their ears were deaf about what wood they own, pets and stuff like that. There were fierce pouncing dogs that could jump over your head like Aslan but in a bad way whereas Aslan does it in a god way and they were so so scary. I thought about hiding in the car.

Whilst the grown ups were talking I played with Holly. She gave me piggy backs and we became friends when our mums and dads were chatting. I played football and tennis with Joe. There was a log swing with two logs tied together and I played on it and there was a big castle to climb up and I went in it to hide from the fierce dogs. (typers note. Paddy is aged 12 and just wants people to throw sticks for him, not really fierce at all. There was a labradoodle that wanted to have its tummy tickled and a terrier that was a little more aggressive and it was kept on a lead as soon as the owner realised that the younger children were wary. But Bethany clearly has a different view of the dogs!)

A lady a

t the wood, called Emily who works for Gwynedd Council, brought a bat in a box. (typers note. The label on the shoe box said VAMP) It was a Pipistrelle bat. I called that bat Issy. It was a grown up bat but it was sooo tiny it would have fitted in my hand.

It was rather cute and it cleaned its head with his wing like he was flying his wing or stroking it over his face. It also cleaned under its wing with its head. It was in a box because it had a broken wing.

You could only hold it if you had special gloves on. He crawled onto his blanket and Emily lifted it up in its blanket so we could see its face.

Bats go out at bedtime to eat and they eat flying insects but not owls. They live on bugs which they find using sound that is too high pitched for me to hear. You can hear bats with a special kind of walkie talkie called a bat detector. I heard the Pipstrelle bat on the computer and it went bu bu bu bu like horses shoes when they gallop.

Driving home from the wood we sang songs in the car. We sang Quartermasters Stores. I like it because it starts with "Rats, rats, as big as blooming cats". We sang "The bear necessities" that Baloo sings in "Jungle Book" and we sang "king of the swingers" from "Jungle Book" too.

At my holiday dance club Miss Sharon taught us a dance to "king of the swingers" which I really enjoyed doing. Mummy and Daddy couldn't remember the words so whilst Daddy was at archery Mummy and I watched the movie. I made tickets for us and we were going to have popcorn but we had chocolate spread sandwiches instead. At the other dance classes we learned a dance to "I've Got No Strings" from "Pinocchio" and I was Chip when we did "Be Our Guest" from "Beauty and the Beast". Chip was a cup not the Mummy teapot. We learned lots of moves and stretches like the splits and I balanced on Miss Sharon's feet when she was lying down with her legs up. On the last session we did a stretch that Mummy said makes me look like a circle because we lie on our tummies and push our heads back and touch them with our feet.

Auntie Kate showed me how to draw elephants and we gave her a felt purple elephant puppet to take to Africa with her. She has gone to Botswana with Uncle Simon to look for elephants. She was on television because she is an elephant expert and other people are hippopotamus experts and the people on the television were listening to Auntie Kate.

We were at The Almanack and we played Jenga and then built a tall tower. Nick said I could stand on the table next to our Jenga tower (Daddy, Uncle Simon and I built it together and I put the very top piece on the top). I had to take my wellies off to stand on the table because we were going to eat our food there too.
We made the Jenga tower fall down and Uncle Simon did a cheesy grin. It was quite noisy when they all fell down and Uncle Simon tried to catch it but bash it fell down. I had some help to pick up the pieces and caught some of them in my skirt and some in my hands before putting them in the box. I helped Uncle Simon eat his pudding because it was donuts with runny chocolate to dip them in and they had little sprinkles on. It was messy to eat but fun.

Foster Chicken

I drew this picture of Aslan the talking lion in Narnia. When we play at being in Narnia I am Lucy and Mummy is Susan and Daddy is High King Peter and my invisible friends are Edmund. We are children who are brothers and sisters. When in character (which means having imagination of the people you are being and trying to look like them) I go in a wardrobe (on the landing or at nursery) and go to Narnia. There I have tea with the faun Mr Tumnus and when I tell Susan about it she does not believe me but then we all go in the wardrobe and get cold bottoms and are in Narnia and I drew this map to help us find the Stone Table and the grey dot is Mr Beaver with his long tail going all the way round to the start of the map. I like being Lucy and listening to the stories of adventures in Narnia and acting out bits with Mummy and Daddy and my invisible friends the Tulips and the Lavendars.

Last week we got a new chicken because she was broken as she was pecked all over, even under her belly, and chased, and her feathers taken by the other chicken in their beaks. As she was being bullied we are looking after her to grow some feathers and get better. She has started sprouting some new feathers. She is called Saia but I think she should be called GingerBlack because she has a ginger neck and a black body.

At first she slept in a cat box that Mummy used to bring her home and now she sleeps in the bushes where she has made a nest. She lays her eggs in the Eglu and they are creamy white and they are bigger than the eggs that my other chickens lay. Spot and Star are hiding their eggs in the Bog Garden where it is prickly so I can't get them.

My chickens chase Saia around the garden and bully her a little so when I am in the garden I herd my chickens into the hedge so that Saia can go in the garden. She is good at hiding from them now she knows her way round the garden. She was very scared of all of us at first but now she goes into the eagle position so I can stroke her. We are giving her back to nursery next week because we are going to the wood and if she is still being bullied then we will foster her again.

In this picture I am Lorna a super hero from the X-Men. Joe says there is a pink X-girl but I don't think there is. Lorna is Magneto's daughter and has long hair so I wore a dress on my head to be Lorna's hair. I went to nursery with a dress being my hair and everyone asked what was on my head so I told them. I used the flower on my arm to make poison come out and bombs came out of the toilet roll or out of the middle of my bell. I aimed the poison by pointing my arm. Mummy was also an X-Girl called Rogue and she could touch people and take their power if she wasn't wearing gloves. She took my power three times.

We have been listening to The Amazing Maurice story and I have been Peaches and I wanted Mummy to be Tomato but she said she was DarkTan and became the leader of the rats after Ham-and-Pork died. It is funny when the rats widdle in the milk and Maurice tells them what to do. At bedtime we are reading The Jungle Book and have finished the Mowgli stories so are now reading about a seal whose Daddy fights other seals and is covered in bites. My Nanna and Grandpa are going to move to Kenilworth so that I can bicycle to their house and their new house has fish in the garden that are as big as sharks and one of the fish has teeth. I like the sofa at the house but Nanna and Grandpa have their own sofa that they are going to move but the lady might leave her fish. I am going to bed now because it is late and I am visiting Grandma and Grandad Birdie tomorrow whilst Daddy is at archery. I have packed my clothes and need my sleep. Nos Da.

Fudge

We went to Bristol for Uncle Ken's 80th birthday. At the restaurant we could see the river and there were loads of boats including a houseboat. I could see their kettle through the window. There was a potato hiding under a chair on the decking when I went to look at the boats. I ate asparagus in coats with a water (poached) duck egg to dunk them in. Mummy had to hold the coats because they were hot and I steered her hand to dunk the asparagus and eat it. It was also Hannah's birthday. She kept pulling funny faces at me whilst I ate my food and I pulled faces at her too. Hannah had some toys to play with and a roundabout and a seesaw and slide for the little people to play with on the floor. Fudge kept knocking it all over and Hannah did tell Fudge not to do it but she still did it.
Auntie Carolyn had a musical knife that played different songs when you pressed buttons on the singing knife. They used the singing knife to cut up the cake for Uncle Ken.
There I saw a lady dog, not a boy dog, called Fudge because she was fudge coloured. Fudge was at Auntie Carolyn's house in Bristol. She had tickly fur so at first every time she came near I jumped at Mummy so Fudge could get by. When I left in my pyjamas I kissed Fudge byebye. I have a dog called Fudge at home. Fudge is a real dog that sits in my hand and after meeting the other Fudge I decided that my Fudge was also a girl dog not a boy dog and my Fudge can do tricks too. I took Fudge in my pocket to nursery so I could show Laura all Fudge's tricks. She can spin, roll over, stay and hunt for her treat, also she can leap over my head and onto my arm.

At the Asparagus Festival on the Bank Holiday I saw a steam train that was little and the man had sooty hands because of the coal that he used to make the steam train work. Sometimes the steam train Dolly could go really well when it is windy but it wasn't windy so a boy and I were pumping the steam to make Dolly go. She didn't have enough wind to make the steam to go so I sat on the seat and tried the steering wheel and looked at the water tank and the fire. I liked the bit of steam coming out of her chimney.

There was a man dressed up like asparagus and he had a green face. I ate a big bowl of asparagus with a dipping sauce but it wasn't tomato ketchup because Mummy & Daddy said I couldn't have ketchup with asparagus. There was a wagon with two shire horses. Whenever the horse turned round I shot over to Mummy because I thought it would gobble up my hair so then I would have no hair on my head. I'd be bald. Daddy held my hand so that I could pat the horses legs. It had gigantic feet, as big as a plate of asparagus or Mummy's head.

Nanna and Grandpa were house hunting whilst we were at the asparagus festival and they took me home with them for a NannaGrandpa holiday. Nanna and I made shortbread and gingerbread teddy bear biscuits to take to the picnic. I went for a long walk with Nanna and Grandpa and we needed umbrellas. With Nanna and Grandpa I went to meet my cousins Russell, Tom and baby Edward. We had a picnic in the rain. It poured and poured with rain. I splashed in puddles in my muddy wellingtons and got wet feet because my wellies had holes in that Russell found for me. Mummy bought me new hedgehog wellingtons but it kept being sunny.

It was so sunny that at nursery we ate in the garden because it was hot inside. I went to nursery with Mummy as her assistant because she working there and Frankie told me to go in the garden and I played with the sandpit with my friends. They got the swimming pool out and Frankie was splashing everyone with the hosepipe when filling the pool. I took my swimming costume to nursery when I went for the whole day but it was not sunny enough anymore so I didn't get to wear it or to splash in the swimming pool.

At swimming I told Craig I didn't want any armbands and he didn't give me any so I had no armbands all swimming lesson. Grandpa looked after me on Wednesday but he was stuck in traffic, so he was late so Mummy took me to the toddler group she was working at and Grandpa met us there. This time I didn't help Mummy set up because there was a chained pirate boat to play with. Also they had pink sand with dinosaurs to play with so Mummy had to set everything up herself. The other days this week I helped squirt out paint for people and cleaned up the tiles for Mummy and played with the children and guarded the paints from the babies.

I am so strong now that I can pick up my chickens and cuddle them. Sometimes when they make an eagle shape I kiss them between their wings or cuddle them and put my head on their back between their wings. I love my chickens. Spot is being broody which means she sticks her tail feathers up and makes them big and she makes a funny beurking sound. We made our own bubble mixture and I tested it by blowing bubbles at my chickens.

Daddy was at an archery competition in Leamington at the weekend and he took me with him to set up his tent and his target had the number 2 on it. On the next day of the competition in the hot sun Mummy drove me to Leamington and I showed her where all the targets were but I couldn't find Daddy's tent as there were lots of tents and people and we had to be quiet to not disturb the archery people. We hid in Daddy's tent whilst he was checking his arrows and he was surprised to see us but he was happy because we had brought him a drink and some crisps. I let him have some of my Quavers so that he would let me have some of his crisps. We stayed to watch him but it was hot and we had things to do at home so Mummy said byebye but I wanted to play on the playground so I went on the boat and the climbing frame and got off the frame by swinging. I wanted to go on the slide and had to ask the big girls to let me go and then it was time to go home and we had icicles to eat in the garden and the chickens wanted to eat them too but we didn't let them. When I got up in the morning Daddy had two tropheys and a medal in a cupboard to show me. He didn't win but he did come second and his team won too and he had a medal for hitting the very middle of the target when it was furthest away because they moved the targets during the day. There was a target with children on and it was close to the archers and Daddy said that I could shoot at that one when I am old enough to do archery and go to competitions with him so I showed it to Mummy when we visited Daddy. I am going to do archery like Daddy and I will win lots of medals but at the moment i do not have a bow because I am not allowed to shoot in the garden because I might hit my chickens by mistake but Daddy doesn't hit them by mistake even when they sit under his target but I am not allowed to be in the garden when Daddy is shooting even though I am bigger than the chickens.

Whilst Daddy was away Mummy started reading "Jungle Book" to me. I like looking at pictures of Mowgli and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. I like Mowgli the man cub best of all and his friends the wolf cubs. At the weekend when Daddy was at archery Dominic asked me to play in his garden and I played on his trampoline and taught him to play Snow White and he killed me by poking swords into my chest and then I went onto the trampoline to be dead and he did a fingertip kiss to make me alive again.

We went for a walk at nursery to the Mere and we saw a heron sitting on the "No Fishing" sign even though he was waiting for fish,so he was fishing. He was breaking the law but Mummy told me that he couldn't read the sign so he wasn't breaking the law. There was a picture of the heron on the newspaper so he must have stayed on the sign a long time.