Friday 24 August 2012

GCSE Results

The first installment of J's results came last Thursday and we heard about the rest yesterday.  It came in two batches because IGCSE results were published the same time as A Levels.  He scored 390/400 for Greek.  It is over 400 because they had 4 papers with 100 mark each. I am one proud mummy.


I made this layout, with a photo of him on the last day of school to celebrate.  The journalling is in the little brown envelope. I went a bit mad with all my old back-to-school supply. More details on how I made this will follow on IACW next week.

Are you ready for school ? My young man is going to be in the sixth form at school.  No more uniform for him and no sewing of name tapes for me...yay.  He went shopping for suits with his dad, I wonder what he looks like with a suit on ?  Watch this space.  Roll on 3rd September.

Monday 13 August 2012

We were there, at the Summer Games

Wow, what a fortnight it has been!  Did you enjoy it ?

We spent a couple of days in London last week.  The crowd was unbelieveable. 



We started at Hyde Park, watching the Brownlee brothers and Hayes at the head of the pack, cycling for the Triathlon.


Then we head up to Wembley for some football. We stopped off at our hotel to drop our bags before going to the stadium. At the hotel, we spotted the badminton contingent from Indonesia. 
 

We watched the soon to be Olympic champions, Mexico play Japan in the semi-final.  There were plenty of Mexicans and Japanese holding up signs asking to buy tickets and I was tempted!


The Mexicans won a convincing 3-1, as predicted by H early on in the match. Sadly our Oracle couldn't "see" any more outcomes after that match.

Early next morning, we made our way to Stratford. Yay, we've arrived!


The Stadium is impressive (though not as big as it appeared on tv! ) and you get a very good view of everything.



We saw Mo Farah ran and qualified for the 5000m.


After the morning session at the Stadium finished, we explored the park. I love the large mirrored letters in front of the Copperbox. The wildflower meadow was quite impressive but I won't and can't be persuaded  to have wildflower in my own garden.



We queued to shop at the Megastore, worked out our route to the Basketball arena, sat by the river bank , walked back to the Orbit and sat some more to kill time before our alloted time to go up the Orbit.



We went up the lift, 80m to the top of the Orbit.  Look at all those people! The park was absolutely heaving at this point as the Stadium evening session has not started.

We looked at some weird mirrors up in the viewing platform.


Then we walked down.


And walked very fast back to the Basketball Arena for a Handball quarter final match between the Scandinavians, Denmark and Sweden. I think a lot of neutral spectators were secretly rooting for Denmark but sadly, Sweden won.


When we got out, it was time to go home. 


They were announcing asking people to go to West Ham for the fastest route into Central London.  We were part of a very small group to take this advice. The tube might have been fast but what they didn't tell you was it is over 30 walk minutes away from the gate of the Olympic Park. Very sore and very tired, 3 hours later, we were home.

What an amazing experience.  I wonder how this small patch of East London will fare once the crowd has departed and the temporary stadiums and arena dismantled. It will be interesting to see how the woodland and meadows mature.  I wonder if we can visit next year ? If not, we can get a good view from Westfield.

Sunday 5 August 2012

Sian's Storytelling Sunday - We rode on Air


I have been going to Alton Towers for over 20 years. I started going when I was a sixth former at boarding school. Does anyone remember The Beast ?  I remember that ride, I used to ride it but never the Black Hole. Fast forward a few years...I went on Nemesis quite early on but then...never again. Thunder Looper was always being repaired when I visisted and when I managed to summon up enough courage to ride it, it promptly broke down.  No wonder they replaced it!

The kids arrived and we didn't go for a few years.  When we did, our own courage was seriously depleted.

Last autumn, H reached the permissible height to ride these big boys ride and he ended up going on Air alone. Last weekend, we went back on our annual visit. I said I will accompany H this time. Bravely, we went on Nemesis Sub-Terra ( psml...this is of the calibre of Haunted House at fairgrounds ), Nemesis which wasn't as scary as I remembered followed by Air which was truly enjoyable.

All those done, I wasn't brave enough to follow H on the ride to Oblivion.  Maybe next time!  Are you a roller coaster rider ?  Or don't you subscribe to these artificial adrenaline pumping moments ?

Are you storytelling with Sian ?  Come and read more stories here.