Happy Halloween! Día de Muertos!

To all of my readers (2 of you, or something like that!), Happy Halloween!
I hope you had a really fun, spooky day! I got loads of trick or treaters at my door, all of my favourite sweets are gone! Oh well, there's still lots of unwanted fudge bars for me to eat!

Just like last year, mom did my makeup as a Sugar Skull.
Sugar Skulls come from Mexico, where they don't celebrate Halloween, but "Day Of The Dead". Sugar Skulls can be seen everywhere in Mexico during "Day of the Dead", and that might sound a bit scary, but it's actually a beautiful festival. It's all about honouring the dead with food, flowers, candles, parades, decorative masks and dancing skeletons.
I would actually like to go to Mexico to see the festivals, join in with the parties, and I love dressing up!

Día de Muertos!



Even "River" loves Halloween!

4 hour pony club extravaganza!

You can never have too much Pony club! On Thursday, I went to a 4 hour, Halloween pony club trip! We learnt about the different types of feed, and how much to give the ponies and how to serve it to them.  I made a sheet of all the different foods, and even used some clear tape to stick samples of the food on to the sheet!

 Some feed, like sugarbeet, needs to be watered down first. When it gets wet, it expands a lot! If the pony ate it before you had watered it down, it would expand inside the ponies belly, which is really dangerous.


After that, we went out into the cold and got Tamara and Belle ready to be led. There was an assault course set up that we had to lead the ponies around. There was even a jump! It was so fun when I got Belle to trot,  it felt like I was going really, really fast!

Next, we got to do a bit of riding. We were split into two groups. My group took turns riding Cindy, and the other took turns riding Jeanie. When I was on Cindy, I could see her pretty, black mane flopping about as we were trotting! It was really cute!

Finally, it was time to go back inside. It was pitch black, I could barely see where I was going! It was time for us to recieve our rosettes. I got two, one for Feeding and one for coming 5th place out of 15-20 kids for leading the pony around the course! I also got a certificate for learning about the feed as well.

Overall, I had a really great day! I can't wait for Monday to see all of the ponies again!

 

 

Warriors!

For anyone who wants to read for pleasure, the Warriors series is great! They were written by Erin  Hunter, who is actually 6 people who all write the books together. This means they can produce them much faster than a single writer could. Sometimes there's a different feel for some of the books, since they've been written by a different person.  There's 5 series so far, and all of them consist of 6 books. They are beautifully written, and despite the characters being cats, they all have human traits such as loyalty, love, frustration, courage, envy, anger and compassion.

Erin Hunter (Cherith and Kate, the co-authors of the Warriors series) have always loved cats and writing fantasy stories. They are both interested in ancient forms of worship, such as astrology and stone circles. They use their knowledge to enhance their stories and the cats' own mythology.

Warriors is a thrilling tale of feral cats, surviving in the wilderness. They live by a noble warrior code, under the guidance of their leader and their starry ancestors. A lot of the cats are good role models, but among them are villains, just like real life. Warriors is full of mystery and secrets for the reader to figure out. However, it'll only make sense if you read the series in order. If you don't, they'll seem really confusing and not worth reading. All of the cats belong to different "clans". Each clan has its own talents, abilities and loyalties. This is just like human clans and cultures. Often humans fight because they can't agree on things like religion or race. The warriors fight about the exact same things, so the books make us think about cultural differences and prejudice, and eventually, overcome them so that they can all live in peace together.

Warriors isn't just about fighting, it's also about healing. Each clan has at least one medicine cat, who heals the clan, and also interprets prophecies given by the clans' ancestors. The books have taught me about the healing properties of herbs such as marigold, which stops infection, poppy seeds, which help pain, borage helps milk production in mothers (queens) and watermint helps headaches and fever.

Cats that have died aren't forgotten, because they live another life in the stars, watching over their friends and family. This is just like humans, when we lose someone we love, we often imagine that they have gone to a better place, but they have never really left us and are always watching over us.

Warriors does have quite a bit of violence and death and can also be scary and sad. Therefor I would recommend the books for children over 10 years old. Younger children might be upset, or struggle with their emotions.
If you love cats, fantasy and excitement, then Warriors is for you! Be warned though, you'll spend many hours just reading for pleasure!

See if you can beat my record of reading a whole warriors book in a night!

Egyptian Antics

The theme yesterday was Egyptian! Me and mom decided to try out a new home-ed group in King's Lynn. There were loads of people there, about 20 families! It's on once a month and every time there's a different theme. There were loads of things to do, and all of them were to do with Egyptians. You could make a canoe out of straws with rope and tape, decorate a picture with mosaic tiles, make a beautiful desert silhouette sunset picture out of tissue paper and black card, and quite a bit more!
I did my name in Hieroglyphics!

To make the Desert Silhouette picture, you had to get a blank piece of card and tear thin strips of coloured tissue paper and stick them on in coloured layers.You also get black card cut into shapes to stick on, making silhouettes. In the end it looks really nice!

The next thing I made was an Egyptian drawing of a person. When drawing Egyptians, you have to make sure that the body faces the front, but the face, arms and legs face to the side, but the eye always faces forwards! Isn't that weird?

I also made a mosaic! I only used a few tiles, just to decorate the picture a bit. I think it looked quite nice, especially with the patterns and buttons and beads!

Finally, I made a little Egyptian boat. I used straws (like the ones you drink with!), tape and some string. The Egyptians used Papyrus leaves to make their boats!
You need to line up 16 straws and tape them together in 3 different parts, at the end, in the middle and at the other end. Next, you need to cut some rope to tie the very ends of the straws together, this makes the ends curve into a boat shape! I can't wait to try it out!

 It was a great day even though I didn't get to do everything as there was so much. Next time the theme is Winter Wonderland!

The Final Resturant!

I'm really sorry how late this is! I've been really busy (and a bit lazy)!

Me, my mom and my dad finally found the perfect restaurant! It's called The Woodhouse Arms.


The Woodhouse Arms, Corby Glen.

From the outside, it's perched on a hill in a beautiful village. When you go inside, it's really homely and welcoming. The staff are friendly and the food is delicious! I had the beef. It was beautifully done, just pink enough to make it soft. The gravy was smooth and full of flavour and I even liked the veg! The Yorkshire pudding was gigantic! So big I had to share it with dad!

For value for money, I'd give it  4 stars. For atmosphere I'd give it a 5! I'd also give service a 5. The food was perfect, so it gets a 5! The overall score is 10 out of 10!

It's the first time I have ever eaten gravy!

Chocolate Fudge Cake. Delicious!!

P.S. It was so good, we've been back again! Still delicious!

Spooky Gamlingay!

It's that time of year again! Halloween!! Mom's frantically digging out last year's costume, ready for the parties! Let's hope it fits! I had my first party of 2015, but it didn't exactly go to plan. It was at Gamlingay. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a disaster at the beginning, but it got better. When we finally got there, the car park was still being redone, so we had to park miles away on the busy village street! Mom was stressed because we were already running late! After getting parked, I looked for my costume and my mask in the boot. Mom thought I had put it in there, and I thought she had put it in there! That was when I realised that not only had I forgotten my cool, hand painted mask, but I forgot to bring my dress as well! I had no costume whatsoever. I felt a bit weird when I saw everyone in a costume, but I got used to it eventually.

Pumpkin!

 

When I got there, the first thing I noticed was a huge bouncy castle! It was very suffocating inside, as there was no lights and lots of noisy kids bouncing all over my feet! I didn't stay in there for long! Then I spotted something else. Balloons!  I started playing with them! They're just so much fun! Next I spied the little cars. You didn't have to pedal them, so they were perfect for me! I waited and watched everyone like a hawk, waiting for someone to get off one. In the end, my waiting paid off and I got on one! It was so much fun, that I could have stayed on it forever. Unfortunately, I had to get off to have some lunch.

Near the end of the party, every kid was called to sit in a circle. Then I realised that it was the best costume competition! The only trouble is, I didn't have a costume! I stayed in it anyway. It wasn't surprising when I didn't win first place! I still got a few presents and chocolates though.

Cool costumes..but not for me!

Unfortunately, both of the parks were closed, so me and Tilly just played in the  big empty room until it was time to go home. Even though I forgot to dress up, I still had a great time!

Spinning a dream!

Yesterday I tried my hand at spinning wool! At Gamlingay, all the kids were making Dream Catchers. There was a woman there, Millie, teaching us how to make them, she even had a proper spinning wheel. Thankfully I didn't prick my finger on it! Making the dream catcher was quite difficult, so mom helped. I went with a fire theme, so I used red, orange and yellow wool. Of course, I didn't think of making it so that it would go with the theme of my bedroom!











Spinning the wool on the wheel was a lot easier than making the Dream Catcher.You have to keep pressing down a pedal, while holding on to the wool while the wheel is spinning! I spun some brown wool so that it would go with the fire theme of my dream catcher.

Teasing the wool!

Spinning!

After we had made our dream catchers  I got to work on making a bird feeder! You had to get a paper tube and coat it in a thick layer of peanut butter and then dip it into a box of bird seed then leave it to dry. The smell was delicious!

Unfortunately, the park was closed so we went to a different one. This park was just a field with a few benches and at first it didn't look that impressive. Then Grace showed us a little brook that you could splash in! It had some stepping stones but it was a lot more entertaining to run through the water! I promised I wouldn't get my new jeans wet but unfortunately, I had a bit too much fun and forgot!
Thankfully it was quite a nice day, so I didn't get too cold!

I'll definitely be going back to that park next time!