New Year Catch-up!

Swimming with the fish in Skegness!!

As you can see, I haven't posted for quite a few months now. This is because I have been very, very busy! I have been studying for exams, riding ponies and learning about important events in History. In this post I'll tell you everything exciting that has happened since my last post in December, so here we go!

The Assosiation of British Riding Schools (ABRSM) has a set of tests that you an take that are rated A-E, with A being the beginner test and E being the most in-depth and complicated. A few months ago, I entered for the A test at my Pony Club and last week, I got my results. I passed every question with flying colours! I probably could have passed the C test easily, but unfortunately you can't skip a test out and just jump straight to the test you want to take.



Speaking of tests and exams, I've been studying for my IGCSE in ICT for the past few months now. I'm booked in for the exam which is in May so I have been doing lots of practice papers and excercises. I'm aiming for an A* since mom has bribed me with money and said that if I get an A*, she'll give me £250! I really don't believe that she'll give me that much money, but there's only one way to find out.











In a few months time, I'll also have to do my Grade 4 piano exam and my first ever piano (Grade 5!!) theory exam! To prepare for the theory exam, I've joined a small group of three other girls to see my piano teacher once a week for an hour long theory lesson. We compose music, answer questions on music, rewrite music, etc. It's a lot of fun! It's  helping with actually playing the piano as well.

Last week, me and mom took a trip to the Holocaust Centre and Museum for a Home-Ed meet up. For those who don't know what the Holocaust was, it was the time when Hitler and the Nazis were persecuting Jews and other minorities. Over 6 million Jewish men, women and children were systematically murdered.
There was a 93-year-old Jewish man called Bernard who grew up in Germany around this time and he gave a talk at the Museum. He was telling all of the parents and children about how lucky he was to not have been sent to any of the concentration camps. He also told us about his family and what it must have been like for them in the camps. Bernard was only fifteen when his mother, father and sister were murdered in the concentration camps. He was only saved because he was put on the kinder-transport and sent to live in England. His father jumped on the train to give him a last hug goodbye, and that was the last time Bernard saw any of his family.
 Only very recently Bernard found out how the rest of his family were taken to camps where they suffered terribly and they too were murdered. All these years later he was still very traumatised by the events of the Holocaust. Despite being 93, he had an incredible memory! Bernard spends his time talking to groups and schools in England and Germany about his experiences to educate them and so that people never forget.

We had a tour of the memorial gardens. There were lots of white roses planted. Each rose was dedicated to the people who died during the Holocaust. At the edge of the garden there was a stone trough filled with round pebbles. Each person that visits the centre I asked to take a pebble, hold it in their hand and take a minute to think about all the people who lost their lives. Next, you are asked to place the pebble on a platform in remembrance. As you can see, the pebbles have formed a hill, like a monument to the people who suffered and died.


After the talk, me and mom split off from the main Home-Ed group and wandered around the museum-like part of the centre ourselves. There was so much there that we didn't get a chance to see most of it. We'll definitely be returning for another visit soon!

Christmas party time.

This year there was a change to the Christmas Party at Gamlingay; there was no buffet and no Santa! Instead we all watched a pantomime.

 I've never really like pantomimes and I still don't like them! It might not have been so bad if I'd had a chair to sit on but all of the "kids" had to sit on the floor which was OK at first. However, the pantomime seemed to go on forever and the floor was so uncomfortable, my legs were going into a cramp! I managed to join in with a couple of songs though.

There was no food, but lots of chocolate coins and mince pies. It wasn't the best party I've been to, but it was nice to see Tilly again.

In other news, we finally decorated our Ginger-Bread house!

Happy Birthday Me!

The joys of being a teenager have finally come! On the 18th, I became a teenager. It didn't feel much different from being twelve, but it was exciting nonetheless!
 





The day before my birthday, I went up to Newcastle with dad to see my brothers and the rest of my family. I saw my grandad first and dad had a chat with him about boring football for a couple of hours until it was time to meet up with my brothers.
Me, dad and my two brothers (Ian and Stephen) met up in a Thai restaurant in the gigantic Metro Centre for a late lunch. Me and dad weren't really looking forward to the meal as we aren't massive fans of Thai food. We were pleasantly surprised when we tried our food and realised how tasty it actually was! I had beautifully grilled pork with sticky rice. I wasn't a fan of the sticky rice, but the pork was fantastic!
After our meal, we had a walk around all of the shops. For a week and a day before Christmas, the shops were surprisingly empty. It seems most people do their shopping online now.

We spent the rest of the day at Eileen's AKA Stephen and Ian's mom's house. We all chatted for an hour or so before me and dad had to leave to go back home. After the 3 hour journey back home, I was absolutely shattered!




I didn't have any time to rest the day after my expedition to Newcastle, though, as it was my birthday! I had a veryyy busy day opening presents and lying around enjoying them all!

 I got some brilliant smelling bath bombs, a miniature stationary set, a beautiful bracelet, some band and YouTuber merchandise, lots of chocolates and Pokémon Sun! I've always loved Pokémon games and Pokémon Sun is probably the best Pokemon game I've ever played. It's brilliant!

Cadbury's Flake Cake!

I wonder what teenage dramas I'll have to endure in the future? I'll keep you updated on them!

Pony Club Games!

Despite the bleak weather, I still had a fantastic time at Pony Club yesterday! We played gymkhana games bareback. We had to do things like get a ring off a pole at one end of the school then ride down to the other end of the school and put the ring on the pole at that end then run back. It was a lot of fun! I really enjoy riding bareback since it's very comfortable and warm compared to sitting on a leather saddle.

At the end of the day, we lined up and posed for the camera!

Sitting sidesaddle!

Sitting backwards!

Christmas Catch-up!

Who would have thought separating beans and peas would be so exciting!

At Gamlingay, we travelled back in time to the Medieval times to learn all about how people in that era lived.

To get an idea of how difficult it was to earn money back then, our Medieval Instructor split all of the children into teams. In those teams, we harvested crops, sheared sheep and stacked hay. Of course, we didn't use actual crops, sheep or hay. Instead we used beans and peas for the crops, small printed pictures of sheep for our animals, and cut up pieces of  drinking straws for hay. It might sound like quite a silly game but it was very intense and serious.We had to earn as much money as possible and it wasn't easy! Occasionally, one of your teammates had to leave the game since the King had called them to work for him. My team only barely had enough money to survive!

After the incredibly tense game of Medevial life, we all got to do something a lot more calming; drawing with a quill. It might not sound much fun, but I actually really enjoyed it.


 Everyone had a sheet of thick paper to write on, a pot of black ink and a guide on how to draw every letter with a quill. When using the quill, you can't drag it up!

All of the pen strokes have to go either down, left or right. Because of this, a lot of letters have to be changed to be able to write them with a quill.

For my first time writing with a quill, I think I did pretty good!




When I heard that the next activity was going to be outside, I was not very impressed. It was absolutely freezing outside! Either way, I went out with Tilly to see what was going on. There was archery and jousting going on but I couldn't say it was very interesting. Tilly and I stood and stared at it for a while before deciding it wasn't worth freezing for!

It was freezing!

Just chilling out

In other news, it's almost Christmas! Mom, dad and I have been very busy putting up all of the Christmas decorations and getting the house as festive as possible. Everything was put up around a week early this year apart from the Gingerbread house. A gingerbread house is one of the most important parts of Christmas and we still haven't made it yet! Hopefully we'll have the gingerbread
ready in time for Christmas.

Getting ready for Christmas!

Update on my Wii!

In my last post, I mentioned that I was going to try to convert a Wii game so I could play it on my laptop. I spent my entire Thursday evening desperately trying to make it work but I just couldn't do it. I figured out that to do it, I needed to pay £6.00 for a SD card. I definitely don't think the SD card was worth £6.00, but I was determined to succeed so I bought it anyway!
I tried again with the SD card and it actually worked. I could hardly believe it! The instructions on how to actually convert the Wii game were very complicated so I don't think I'd be able to explain them. If you want to know how to do it, you can read the tutorial by clicking here!

Catch-up Post!

I've done a lot of things since my last blog post and I just couldn't find the time to post about them all!

Lately, I've been making a lot of progress at Pony Club so Lora decided that it was time that Lily and I got to learn to canter! I always expected cantering to be really smooth. I was so surprised at how rocky it was when the horse started cantering that I almost fell off! When I cantered a second time, I was much more prepared and it was a lot of fun. I felt like I was going really fast! When the horse was cantering, I felt like I was on a very rocky speedboat going over massive waves in the ocean.

Me and mom went back up to the Guild Hall in Grantham to see a beautiful ballet of Romeo And Juliet. Even though ballets aren't really my thing, I thought it was quite good.



I've recently discovered that Manga books are quite expensive. Manga are like Japanese comic books. The word manga, pronounced Mahn-ga, with a hard G, is Japanese for "random or whimsical pictures".  Mom and dad weren't very pleased when I told them I wanted to spend around £65 on a bunch of books. They gave in eventually, though, so now I own 7 novels of the manga series Servamp. It's amazing how much of the Japanese language I am learning! The rest of the series isn't released yet but I'll definitely buy it once it comes out.

The other day I had a massive clear out of all of my old games and dvds and I found a copy of my favourite game Okami. The game was meant for the Wii but I really wanted to play it on my laptop so I found a (very complicated) way to convert game so I can play it on my laptop. I doubt it'll actually work but I'm still going to try it anyway. I'll tell you if it works in the next post!