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.

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.

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.

A Report from a Camping Virgin

It is NOISY in picturesque Dorset, most of the night with traffic noise and then early morning taken up by animals...cockerel, cow, peacock, dog...you name it. So for a good few nights, I couldn't sleep for the noise.

It rained most of time we were there.  The Purbeck Way looked like a permanent mud slide.

And the cow field we camped in...well, it smelt like cows! On the last night, a highland cattle wondered into our field, I think out of curiosity on her part. This was what she found in the Fire section. The dining shelters have already been packed up at this point.

We had a meal rotation where we dine with a different patrol every night. Before the trip, I worried most about this...I had some Immodium packed.  I shouldn't have...this turned out to be my favourite part of the trip.  The food was ok but I really enjoyed the conversations...the kids were A-MA-ZING! The highlight was when we talked about books and films, with amazing insight from the kids!!!

I opted for sleeping in a tent when the kids slept outdoors on survival night.  Come on, it was only my second night camping, I chickened out. We hiked for 3 days that went WET, DRYish and very WET. I was shattered at the end of the 3 days. I found out that even though I am not used to reading OS maps, I should have trusted my good sense of direction more.

We camped and played in the shadow of this castle. We played a "Lord of the Rings" epic wide game that went on till 3am. Doesn't it make a good Mordor ?

We are woken mostly at 7am (sometimes 6.45, sometimes 7.30) by the bugle and have to make our way into the next field for flag break. This was an exceptional photo though, taken on the last day when we were having a whole-of-troop photo session. Usually, it doesn't involve climbing all over the tree.

I found out that whilst I don't mind the early morning bugle, I don't like camp fires, especially as some goes on late into the night. This was our last campfire being lit, ready for a night of cabaret. This campfire is called the campfire of dreams but that's a story for another day.

What a journey of discovery. Watch out for some camping layouts.

School Trips

My boys never ask to go on school trips which is a blessing in some ways as they can be expensive but H came home last year clutching a form for the Classics' trip to Greece that he was so excited to go to.  Everyone is going so please can I go too ?

I let him go but on the condition...he must take at least 5 photos a day or he would have to contribute towards the cost of the trip. His photos weren't very representative so these are from the common album on the school site.

I did the first layout for a blog post of Sarah's Cards, Love Your Punches. I've recently rediscovered my square punch.

The next one was done for Sketchbook365. I have omitted some of the papers from the sketch and the flowers but I have stayed pretty much to it. I love the Heidi Swapp large lettering on the photo caption...I think you might be seeing more of those pretty soon. Come to think of it, I ought to try making my own loopy title!

He Has Red Hair

Ok, I've made the layout so it is official! 

H has red hair...not a lot but a few strands here and there are pure ginger!  He refuses to admit or believe us, much in the same way that he refuses to accept that he has freckles.  J used to tell his brother that when he turns 13, he is going to turn fully ginger.  The date has come and gone and H still has black hair with a few red.

This layout was made for Sarah's Cards Sketch Challenge for July with a sketch provided by Helen.  Why don't you join us for a chance to win £20 to spend on stash ?

A Tale from the Sports Field

It was Sports Day at school for H yesterday.  Also for the first time, they were competing in their new houses.  H's house came third overall which I thought wasn't bad out of eight houses. I am looking forward to more house competition!

How did he do himself ?  Everyone had to compete in at least one event and by the time H came to pick an event, the only ones left were 1500m and the high jump.  Guess what he picked ?  Yes, high jump. LOL, he said, "I wasn't planning on jumping". He didn't even clear a metre.  His excuse was, the girls were shouting when I was jumping and they put me off. As excuses go, that was pretty lame, wasn't it ?

I did this a few weeks ago to document H's athletic prowess or lack of it. Even though H is not very good at sports, he always come out of a race smiling...I am proud of that. I am playing around with using low contrast patterned paper and embellishment, this time from Crate Paper Pretty Party.

I had to include Olympic in the title so it became "Not an Olympic hopeful".  Are you looking forward to the sporting event of the year ?  No, not Wimbledon but isn't Murray doing well ?. The Olympic! The torch is coming to Cambridge this weekend with some festivities on Saturday night. It is leaving Trinity College early Sunday morning in a scene from Chariots of Fire. I am hoping to catch the torch leaving on a punt.